Tenth Battle: Beasts of a Different Color
[Game situation: 6-turn pitched battle. The Grinding Grumblers, on the top spot of the challenge board, received a challenge from Chris Easterling’s Beasts of Chaos one tier below. It would be the Grumblers’ first title defense; the winner would be #1. We agreed on 1200 point armies. The dwarves brought to the table a unit of 16 clan warriors, another of 10 clan warriors, 12 Miners, 10 Thunderer handgunners, 15 elite Ironbreakers, 1 cannon, 1 stone thrower, and a Runesmith general equipped with anti-magic runes who fought with the Ironbreakers.]

Log entry:
“Our army was on its way back from the Empire after our successful campaign with our allies against the invading Chaos horde. We were met on the road by a small unit of dwarf Warriors sent from Robinson’s Rock to join us — and also to give warning that yet more Beasts of Chaos had been seen in the area. By Grimnir but those foul creatures must grow on trees! Soon as we kill ‘em, more just seem to pop up or drop down or burst forth or whatever they do to multiply.

Anyway, alerted now we proceeded along the road more cautiously. After several miles of marching we approached a thicket of woods behind which our scouts thought they saw suspicious movements. Quickly but quietly our Runesmith leader ordered our artillery crews to drag their weapons atop a nearby hill, and the Thunderers went with them. From there they could see trouble indeed: a grand army of ugly goat-headed Gors and Ungors, flanked on the left by Centigor cavalry and on the right by a huge and utterly loathsome demon of some kind. Our larger regiment of Warriors showed courage simply by lining up across from the terrifying demon as they set themselves to the right of the hill; the rest of our forces took positions to the left, including the Miners, who hung well back from the others.

The beasts seem not to have noticed us, as we were mostly shielded from view by the intervening woods and the darkening skies. But as soon as our cannon opened up they sure perked up! Our first shot put a cannon ball right into the massive demon spawn that seemed to hurt it (it trailed a greenish ooze thereafter) but failed to kill it. As the enemy masses gave a shout and lurched into a run toward us, our stone thrower crew misfired their initial shot. A near miss with their second shot caused light casualties at best, as did the cannon’s second salvo. Our Thunderers got into the action eventually, though firing at such long range they were unable to cause much damage to the irregular enemy formations.

The enemy returned fire, but with magic rather than arrows or balls. The initial round of spells seemed to fizzle rather pathetically – our natural dwarf resistance at work, I imagine. Soon, however, their madly gesticulating shamans (3 of them!) got themselves warmed up and began to tax our Runesmith severely. The trouble really started when a deep and bloody wound of ghastly appearance suddenly manifested itself on the neck of our leader, causing him to cry out in agony. He sensed another such attack on the way, and had to invoke his one-use Rune of Spellbreaking to prevent that one from striking him dead where he stood! While he was thus distracted, a magical missile crashed into our stone thrower crew, killing two of the three lads. It was clear that the enemy had brought many powerful magics with him and was determined to use them to maximum effect.

Also disturbing was the unusual movement pattern of the enemy. When the multitudinous Gors and Ungors reached the woods, rather than plunge through them at full speed and keep coming at us (as we’ve known them to do in the past), they entered the thicket — and just stopped. Similarly, on the far left flank the Centigors rapidly approached our Miners (who had broken cover and advanced to join our lines) and threatened a charge, but then did not follow through. At first our boys didn’t think much of these actions. “Probably just working up their courage,” the infantry told each other. And our gunners were too busy firing to think much about it. Concentrating on the large demon-creature, which stood out clearly as it shambled toward the woods, our cannon put another shot into it, and the Thunderers joined in as well, and together they succeeded in shooting it so full of holes that it collapsed dead into a putrescent pile of goo.

But the zings and zaps of magical energy continued to arc their way towards our lines from within the woods all during this time. The turning point came when the enemy sorcerers managed to cause yet another gaping wound to appear mysteriously on our Runesmith, this time in his side: his horror-struck comrades could do nothing but watch him die a groaning death. With his knowledge of magic and defensive runes lost to us, the supernatural assaults redoubled in force. More blasts shook the hilltop, this time killing two of the three cannon crew. Our artillery pieces, decidedly undermanned at this point, were firing less frequently, only picking off the occasional goat-head lurking in or near the woods. Our Thunderers might have had a chance to shoot down more of the enemy had they not been victimized by a fusillade of energy bolts which killed three of them and also dropped a haze of murky, terrifying visions upon the survivors. Morale shattered, the unit fled halfway down the backside of the hill before the dwarfs remembered who they were and rallied.

By this time it had become apparent to all that the enemy were not going to charge our infantry (or anybody else for that matter) and that if we wanted to defeat them we would have to close on them ourselves. So forward marched our boys, brows furrowed in anger and heavy armor clinking. The Centigors on the left responded with drunken shouts and crashed straight into the approaching Miners, perhaps accidentally. After a brief melee the Miners killed one and had the rest fleeing away; our lads pursued as fast as they could and reached the woods. The two units of Warriors and the Ironbreakers also came up to the woods, but as they did the enemy slunk backward even further. Cowards! It was clear now that they had never had any intention of engaging our stalwart troopers in an honorable fight, but only wanted jump into the cover of the woods and watch their wizards zip and zap with their craven spells from there. We continued forward and flushed them from the woods en masse, but had no chance of catching the long-legged Beastmen. A final salvo from our stone-thrower killed a couple more Ungors, but the enemy had achieved what they came for and did not panic under fire. Their shaman-leaders, roaming freely around the field, continued to aim their evil magics toward our artillery and finally did succeed in slaying the last member of the cannon crew. As night fell, the spineless miscreants melted away into the dark, leaving us where we stood by the road to mourn the loss of our leader.”

-Snori Whitebeard

[Game result: a “Minor victory” for Chris’ Beasts of Chaos. He out pointed me by a relatively slim margin, 490 to 300, having killed my Runesmith general and the cannon, while I only managed to slay his demon monster. Territory control was even at the end. Thus the Beasts of Drakward topple the Grinding Grumblers and assume the top spot! My army will have to fight its way back up the ladder from the bottom tier.]

[Tactical analysis: The dwarves had defeated this same beast army twice before (see battle descriptions four and nine), and Chris responded here by trying a totally different strategy – which worked brilliantly! He piled up the spell-casters and power dice and kept most of his army out of the way of my infantry while out dueling my gunnery with magic. The key to the win came with his killing of my Runesmith via that nasty soul-draining spell, despite my best efforts to intervene. Once he was dead, my magical defenses were in a shambles and the shamans could kill or distract my shooters to the point that they managed to score no more victory points for the rest of the game. Lessons for the dwarves: loading up one Runesmith with lots of anti-magic and making him army general as the only character is not desirable, for two reasons: if he dies, I lose massive victory points and all additional magical defenses in one stroke; also, I won’t have any fighting characters to leave infantry formations and duel enemy spell casters who might wander around just out of the charge arcs of my units. Also, be quicker to advance the infantry on enemies who bring to the table lots of shooters or spell-casters. All the points for his magical ranged attacks meant their melee fighters were terribly out manned, and my infantry is far too good to allow to sit around. Marching at him earlier in this battle may not have forced close combat with his Gor herds – they’re too fast for that and could have run away – but it would have at least allowed me to contest control of his board quadrant.]

Battle 11: Sudsy Revenge
[Game situation: 6-turn pitched battle. The Grinding Grumblers began their climb back up the ladder by challenging Lenny DeMauro’s Mud Chewers, an Orcs & Goblins army. We agreed to 1000 pts each. The dwarves brought 15 Clan Warriors (with a Runesmith who fought among them), 11 elite Ironbreakers (with a Thane general to fight among them), 10 Miners, 10 Thunderer musketmen, 2 bolt throwers, and Malakai Makaisson’s Goblin Hewer, including engineer Malakai himself.]

Log entry:
“Our fearless leader Buford Bugman had been boiling mad ever since he learned about the destruction of our Ironbreakers and Runesmith Orlaf by those ridiculous Goblin Fanatics. Itching to avenge the crime — officially recorded in the Robinson Rock Book of Grudges — he sent out Rangers hither and yon, trying to locate the home of the so-called Mud Chewer clan. He also invited old friend (well, more of an acquaintance, to speak truthfully) Malakai Makaisson to bring one of his famed Goblin Hewers to help us spill some greenskin blood.

Our scouts could not find the home of the orc clan, but did come across the camp of a few of them. Seizing the moment, two scouts volunteered to let themselves be captured and feed false intelligence to the unsophisticated brutes. Bravely fortifying themselves with much drink (to dull the pain of the inevitable torture, you see) they stumbled into the orc camp pretending to be Miners who lost their way. Under pressure they proceeded to babble about a “Beer Convoy” that would be passing close by in a few days. The remaining scouts reported back to the hold and Buford got ready an army to surprise the greenskins. Malakai Makaisson arrived with his bizarre axe-throwing contraption just in time to march out with our forces.

Moving along the road dragging some wagons with half-empty beer barrels (Buford declared it would be more realistic, you see, if there were at least some actual beer — and always managed to keep his own mug topped up) we soon caught sight of a large mass of the accursed greenies headed our way at top speed. If they were surprised when the “convoy” suddenly deployed itself as an army, they didn’t show it by slowing down any. Buford had time to put Malakai’s Hewer on a low rise to the right with one bolt thrower and spread out the rest of our forces to the left, except the Miners, who stayed hidden in some tunnels. The enemy brought a batch of five slimy River Trolls and had them approaching our left flank along with their Big Boss commander and some elite Black Orcs. Two large masses of Night Goblins approached in the middle, and a lone Boar Chariot raced up the right flank toward our apparently undefended artillery on the rise. A goblin Rock Lobber set itself up to the rear.

We began firing as soon as we could, and Malakai’s Goblin Hewer lived up to its name. With incredible speed, throwing axes came whooshing out of the chain-driven device and descended on one of the goblin regiments with deadly accuracy. Goblins fell in droves, and a bolt-thrower added to the carnage by taking out one file of the little devils on its own. The goblins endured the initial hits with surprising resilience, but as the firing continued and the casualties mounted they lost heart and fled away at top speed, never to rally. A cheer went up from our Ironbreakers as they watched dwarven vengeance being exacted. After the first unit of goblins was routed, Malakai turned the Hewer to the next one and had similar success, killing many of the devils and eventually forcing them to flee in panic. There would be none of those crazy Fanatics blazing a path of destruction through our army today!

There were many more of the enemy to fight, of course, but our shooting lads must have been blessed by Grugni on this day for they could hardly miss as they gunned down Black Orcs in large numbers as they closed in on our lines. By the time the Thunderers and bolt throwers were through there were less than half of the ugly orcies left, and our Warriors stepped up to take their charge without fear. After a few bouts of close combat, the few remaining orcs legged it mighty fast in the other direction.

That left the trolls on left and the chariot on the right. The chariot looked like it might trundle right up the low rise and take out our artillery — at least until the Miners made their typical unexpected appearance, this time right in front of the onrushing chariot. Taking the chariot’s charge upon themselves, they received some casualties but managed to damage the chariot and send it away fleeing, at least for a time. The trolls could have been real trouble, for they had mostly escaped the devastating fire of our shooters and were angling toward our Ironbreakers and Buford himself. But just as the gap closed, they, as their kind is wont, suddenly and stupidly halted. Picking their nose, playing Toss the Snotling, getting turned around and confused, for quite a while their progress was slowed to the point that our Thunderers and bolt throwers could turn their attention to them and let ‘em have it. A fusillade or two later the five trolls had become just two (despite their ability to regenerate some wounds). When they and the orc boss — one Gobbash, who, ridiculous as it seems, fancies himself a writer — finally charged Buford and the Ironbreakers, the dwarven infantry make quick work of them, turning them back and clouting them down from behind as they ran.

The battle was basically over at this point, but greenskins being the nasty buggers that they are, they couldn’t lose without causing some final mayhem. An accurate shot from their rock lobber — the first of the entire battle! — landed right on top of Malakai’s Goblin Hewer, turning it into a very sophisticated pile of sticks. And the boar-drawn chariot, despite being under constant fire now from our shooters, managed to rally itself, charge our depleted Miners, and rout them from the field with great slaughter. But the rest of our army survived with very few casualties, and the march back to Robinson’s Rock was mostly a joyous one: a battle won, a grudge avenged. Upon arrival, all the beer barrels were well and truly empty.”

-Snori Whitebeard

[Game result: a “Massacre” for the dwarves, 1150 to 250 points, as most of the enemy was wiped out or driven off board and only the Goblin Hewer and Miners were lost. So the Grinding Grumblers move up to the second tier from the bottom and now look forward to a challenge from below.]

[Tactical analysis: Not much to analyze here, as I won thanks mostly to hot die rolling. As he crossed the board in the first few turns the Goblin Hewer wreaked havoc among the goblins as advertised, but more impressive were the bolt throwers, which rarely missed and when they hit they ripped right through the ranks for multiple kills. It’s hard to lose when you shoot like that, and hard to win when you get shot like that and then blow your “stupid” rolls (and attack rolls) for the trolls. Any lessons? Well, my weakened Miners (10, no standard) were enough to block the chariot once but could not survive repeated charges: better to have 12 with standard if they are going to have to defend as well as attack. The Goblin Hewer is indeed an awesome machine against deeply ranked foes, and it will draw fire for that reason.]

Battle 12: Dwarven Assault
[Game situation: 6-turn flank attack battle. Just for the fun of it, with no implications for rankings, Chris Walsh and I decided to fight a fairly large battle (1500 pts) and try one of the alternate scenarios in the back of the rulebook. We chose scenario #4, “flank attack,” in which one army defends a central hill and the other starts with 2/3rds of his forces on the board in front and gets the last third to arrive a few turns later on a board edge to the side or rear of the defender. Chris won the toss and decided to defend. The main dwarven army consisted of 10 Thunderers, 10 Crossbowmen, a Cannon, a Stone Thrower, a Gyrocopter, and 15 Ironbreakers with a Runesmith who fought with them. The flanking force consisted of 12 Miners and 15 Warriors, with whom came a Thane general.]

Log entry:
“One of the newly arrived heroes at Robinson’s Rock, Rory the Black, brought with him a legend he’d heard about enormous deposits of gold and gems practically jumping out of the rock beneath a far-off hill in lands long ago blasted by Chaos. Rory requested permission to take a strong force to reconnoiter the site, and was told by the Clan Elders that he could take anyone who wanted to go with him. With riches like that at stake there was no shortage of volunteers, and Rory soon had a large expedition assembled, including yours truly.

After many days of marching we approached a steep hill that fit the description in the legend. Pouring out from a recess in its midst of the rock was a foul stream of water that fed a sickly little creek running straight towards us, bisecting the plain. Making camp, Rory waited until the middle of the night to go off with the Miners and Warriors in a great arc to circle behind the rock without being detected by anyone who might already be there. The next morning the rest of us approached the hill from the front, our Runesmith in the lead. He was stunned to meet a delegation of High Elves! They haughtily informed us that they had secured the location and we could go now. There was also some babble about a curse and dark magic and the need to exorcise it from the rock, but we naturally didn’t believe them — they’re two-faced elves! Obviously they just wanted all the gold for themselves. So the Runesmith retorted that they had an hour to clear out before we came in. The beanpoles sniffed their annoyance and strode off on their spindly legs.

After an hour we began our advance, the Runesmith positioning the Ironbreakers and Crossbowmen to the left of the creek and the Thunderers, artillery, and gyrocopter to the right. Soon we came under fire, both magical and mundane. With the help of our Runesmith we shrugged off the magic without much bother. (We’re dwarves, after all.) The regular missiles (from a repeating bolt-thrower on top of the hill and archers at the base) had a bit more of an effect: a few crossbowmen fell, as did one or two soldiers from other units. Of more concern was the large group of elite Swordmasters sprinting toward us on the left and the heavily armored cavalry galloping in on the right. We halted our advance and fired at them — with devastating effect. Two shots in a row from our stone thrower landed smack in the middle of the Swordmasters, causing great slaughter and temporarily breaking their discipline. The Thunderers did much the same to the cavalry, aided by steam-gun fire from the gyrocopter hovering just off to their right.

Resuming their advance on the left, the Ironbreakers began to close on the distressed Swordmasters. Oddly, the enemy turned his formation around and faced the backwards. The reason why became clear in a moment as the Miners and Warriors marched in from behind the left side of the hill. The Swordmasters charged the Miners, but if they hoped to break them they were sorely mistaken. Hewing at the elves with their great picks, the Miners seized the elven battle standards from them and soon sent them scurrying away. They then crashed into the rear of the enemy bowmen. These light troops, already reeling from some accurate stone thrower fire, disintegrated almost immediately and were run down and slain by the Miners.

It seemed the dwarves had the battle securely won, but on the right side of the battle things began to go sour. The elvish leader, who rode on the back of a filthy great eagle, had swooped his way to our stone thrower on the far right and charged it. The crew fought valiantly but ultimately failed to hold out and was killed. Furthermore, the battered elvish cavalry managed to rally itself and charge into the teeth of our Thunderers — a brave move! They survived the defensive fire and fought a melee that raged inconclusively for quite some time. Eventually the multiple attacks and heavier armor of the mounted elves sufficed to rout and destroy the Thunderers, I am sad to say. The enemy general next turned on our cannon, and though his eagle steed received a wingful of grapeshot, master and beast kept coming and were successful in slaying the gun’s crew.

Fortunately for us, the rest of the battlefield remained firmly in our control. The gyrocopter had flown up to the top of the hill and had been hosing down the elvish bolt thrower and crew with steam gun fire for some time, and finally managed to destroy the device. On the far left our three infantry formations dominated the action, chasing off the individual enemy wizards and engaging the few remaining Swordmasters in battle. Rory challenged their champion to a duel, which proved inconclusive. His unit of Warriors clashed with the remaining Swordmasters of the enemy, but despite our superior numbers and ranks we couldn’t break the elven formation again. Ultimately a truce was reached and the elves were allowed to depart peacefully, escorted by a late-arriving regiment of elven spearmen. We had won the battle, but only just, and some of our units had paid a heavy price.

For several days we plumbed the depths of that unpleasant hill looking for the rumored gold. There were a few thin veins, but nothing like what Rory had been led to believe would be there. Some of the gold was successfully mined, and a few raw gemstones prised from the stone, but before long we all began to despise the stink of the air and the foulness of the water and wanted nothing more than to leave the sorry place. So we did, and were glad to be gone.

Maybe there was something to what the elves had said about evil magic after all.

-Snori Whitebeard

[Game result: a bare “Minor Victory” for the dwarves, roughly 620 to 460 pts. The elves actually slightly outpointed the dwarves in terms of casualties caused, thanks mostly to the destruction of our artillery by the elven general, but the two battle standards captured from the Swordmasters were just enough to give our side the victory.]

[Tactical analysis: Dwarves can indeed be effective attackers, at least when they get to bring some troops in behind the enemy via a special move. Early luck with my gunnery (and his bad luck with his spells) put him at a major disadvantage, but his eagle-mounted general showed why flyers can be such successful artillery-hunters! Thunderers can be mildly effective hand-to-hand combatants, but with no ranks or standard don’t expect them to win against tough foes. Early on Chris probably should have concentrated his fire on one target to try to put it out of action or cause panic, instead of plinking an Ironbreaker here, a crewman there, a crossbowmen over there, with little overall effect. The stone thrower HAS to be the most luck-dependent machine in all of Warhammer: with all the chances to scatter or misfire, it spends most turns of most games doing absolutely nothing for its army; but then once in a while it gets off utterly devastating shots, like it did 2-3 times here. Truly a gambler’s artillery piece!]