WHFB:Dwarfs vs. Warriors of Chaos

Dwarf rangers reporting a spawn of chaos roaming the vicinity of the karak brought the dwarfs in a discussion on going out to battle the group of chaos warriors accompanying it. The dwarfs in Karak Grzzak were not a big society and only just started mining in this desolate part of the mountains. Hopes of a good vein got a small group of fortune seekers towards the far mountins.

After a lot of grumbling the dwarfs of Karak Grzzak took to war against a deamon host of Chaos warriors. This dwarf army very much represents the starting dwarf society of Karak Grzzak. Small groups of different kind of troop types got together since they are not that big yet in the karak.

A game of WHFB it is then: dwarfs vs. warriors of chaos and 1250 points. I’m still trying out a lot with my dwarfs and painting up different types of troops. These are ideal games to try out stuff with my dwarfs and 8th edition WHFB.

My opponent now put in a magic user, that was a first time in our WHFB games so far. I got around not putting in a runesmith with anti magic runes since it takes a lot of points and in these amounts of points it is not worth the points. SO magic against me en no heavy anti magic back, how would this work out? Is my theory correct? At the end of the battle it was. 2 spells against me, not too bad each turn, 1 I could dispel almost any time and the other while it was in play, I could dispel my next turn. No worries there.

The ragtag dwarf army I field was the following:
16 Dwarf Warriors with GW
10 IronBreakers
8 Hammerers Full command
10 Miners Full command
13 Thunderers Full command
5 dwarf slayers
1 Dwarf Lord
1 Dwarf cannon
1 gyrocopter

The lord went with the hammerers in order to have a big attack block. I pumped up the lord with enough runes to give him extra attacks, no return armours save etc. A real killy unit icw the hammerers.

The Chaos army consisted of:
1 lvl 2 Chaos Sorcerer, Mark of Nurgle
15 Warriors of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
6 Ogres of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
Chaos Warshrine
Chaos Spawn
Marauder Horseman
In retrospect it would have been so much smarter to use a unmarked Sorcerer, which would have been cheaper and could have used a new 8th edition magic lore. Oh well...

We played a scenario where the break point was calculated with the amount of banners in your army. When this comes below 1 in our case, you lose the battle. This was not known up front so I was lucky to field a lot of banners :)
I fielded the Warriors and Ironbreakers with the cannon on one side of the field and the other side got the rest. The battlefield was riddled with swamps rivers and a forest leaving the mid section occupied with all sorts of evil doing, my dwarfs did not want to entry. The Warriors of Chaos were bold as ever and entered the swamp, direcly losing one of its evil beasts. The forest proved not so lucky for the group of six Ogres. First they took a hit of the cannon killing two. On top of that my 5 slayers entered and killed some right off!



The magic of the Chaos section was not spectacular and each turn a dispell was easy (even without a runesmith or runes of spellbinding). In fact, the wizard killed more followers of Chaos than Dwarfs when a spell casted with total power resulted in a dimensional cascade that caused major damage among the chaos warriors!

The warriors of chaos were quick to move to my hammerers and thunderers. The thunders loosed some voleys bellowing the black clouds of smoke. They even mentioned to kill one or two warriors! Then the Hammerers joined close combat with my Dwarf lord and a massive onslaught followed! At the end of the battle The Hammerers and lord were victorious! The Chaos general and warriors left to a small clumb of warriors easily wiped out. All other chaos virmin was taken care of with the gyro and the cannon (a group of warhounds and a chaos sponge!)


Last hope for Chaos: A desperate all out attack on the left flank! The Ogres already down to two (Slayers and Cannon), the Warriors thinned out mostly by the Gyrocopter and a wounded Spawn. This assault failed definitely after the last remaining warriors were broken....

What a massacre and what an onslaught....for Chaos that is. My group of Dwarf warriors and ironbreakers were only running around the field to get to some hand2hand but not reaching any. The rest of the dwarfs were enough to take care of things. Even the miners after entering in turn 2 did not see any action!. Just luck in all or was it the best of tactics? Only more battles will point out what has won me this battle!

And a few last words from the losing side :-)
The battle started out not that bad: The ogres made a feint move to the right before joining the major attack on the left flank. The marauder horsemen managed to threaten the cannon, only to be blown to pieces by a grapeshot. The downfall started with the cannon hitting the ogres in the flank, killing two and wounding one. Next came the shrine, failing a 'march test' I positioned it into the swamp to stay out of reach of two blocks of dwarfs, only to be taken by the Fimir(!). On top of this all was my miserable general.. He managed to kill a dwarf or two before taking down two ranks of chaos warriors by miscasting.. Like I said before:"Oh well..."