Back on Winning Form

Well, I'm still running behind on my write-ups, so this goes back a more than a week once again. But my Dwarfs proved their worth against the might of the Empire.

I was expecting a very shooty army, and a lot of cavalry; not sure why, but that was the impression I had of what an Empire force would be. With that in mind, and with a view to trying a different slant on the two previous forays with my army, I assembled a 2000point force roughly along these lines:

Two 13 strong Thunderer units with no command

Two 15 strong Warrior units with full command

A 14 strong Longbeard unit to protect my Runesmith

A 13 strong Hammerers unit to go with my Lord and Battle Standard

A Catapult

A Cannon

A unit of 10 Dwarf Miners with no command

A unit of 6 Mercenary light cavalry with no command

My opponent duly turned up with a very shooty army, as I recall:

Three units of handguns

Two cannon

A Hellblaster volleygun

A Rocketlauncher

25 Spearmen

Two units of 12 militia

10 Greatswords

12 Swordsmen

8 Knights and some characters

Here is a shot from the end of turn one, before things reall got stuck in; aside from my Cavalry I would characterise both deployments as conventional.

Fortunately for me all his shooting was to prove fairly ineffective, much of it spending too much time moving to really make itself felt; also his master engineer spent his time killing his friends with hopelessly ineffective Pigeon bombs, which helped me out no end.

It wasn't quite a static gun line battle for the Dwarfs either. In the centre his knights charged my line, but in doing so exposed their flank to on unit of warriors, this fight consumed the rest of the game, and cost me the Hammerers and my Leader. But in the end I routed him and cleared the table quarter for myself.

Elsewhere the Miners turned up just in time to capture the Imperial artillery battery. Whilst my own artillery withered his spearmen to nothing, then blasted his militia with grapeshot.
The real stars for me though were the Mercenary cavalry. They ran rings around his flank, keeping two or three units busy every turn before finally charging first his Rocket battery and then his Swordsmen - breaking both.

At the end of the game, I held more ground, though both sides had suffered huge losses; 50% or higher. In another almost magic-free battle I'd been able to withstand (thanks to at least some luck) all the enemy could throw at me, and learnt a few more tactics to help my static little Dwarfs out.

Elsewhere that day, there was the usual assembly of 40K and Warhammer games; but also the club's historical gamers were present with a late 17th Century game (somewhere in the Balkans I think) and the usual (and still unappealing to me) Flames of War WW2.

Some snaps of those to enjoy, Particularly liked these Orks, though the bases only look half finished.