Dogs vs. Thugs

Many’s the time I’ve heard it said, by the less competitive type of gamer, that Warhammer is a much better game with all the gimmicks taken out.. Heck, I’ll subscribe to that argument; it’s one reason why I prefer (though get to play less) Warhammer Ancients. My match against James the other week benefited from an agreement that we would only use painted models, no problem for me, but it meant that the size of the game was restricted to his available troops, 1300 points of.

As a result the only monster on table was my Dogs of War Pegasus/winged lion mounting the Captain (General), the magic was limited to one wizard each, and the Chaos army I faced was a pretty straight affair, without fistfuls of overpowered types. Indeed, some of them were distinctly weak; so I thought.

The initial deployment suited me well; I was able to put the core, though rather brittle elements, of my army on a narrow frontage with covered flanks. The overall effect suited me more than James, who outnumbered me badly (surprisingly I’d say, but I know enough of GW army lists to be sure that his force would be cheaper per man than my not-officially-sanctioned list).

My magic, limited as it was, also helped frustrate him early by stopping one of his cavalry units moving; as it sat directly in front of his lines a traffic jam ensued. Meanwhile I kept his cavalry on the flanks at arms reach and manoeuvred my Captain, the only flying model round to his rear. My Pikes advanced and the crossbowmen covered them.

My high-water mark came with the swift destruction of all his cavalry, some was outfought by my powerful knights (Voland’s Venators – a Regiment of Renown that packs a decent punch and comes with its’ own hero), whilst others either were shot into rout or fell upon the bristling pikes of my infantry, which James quickly discovered was suicide.

However, I couldn’t make the same impact on the Chaos warriors and soon my flank was turning, it was all down to the arrival of the flanking forces. Whilst the surviving pikemen turned to face the Chaos warriors the Venators and my Captain charged another unit of thugs. Our only hope was breaking it and gutting the enemy formation.

Sadly, despite slaughtering them in masses, they held thanks to their enormous rank bonus and unit size. The chance to rescue the Pikes passed and all was lost.

The Rule of new units applied to this entertaining little game. I’m sure you know it, in my case the green pike were mutilated by the fighting power of the Chaos warriors, but curiously for a first outing the Dwarven crossbows suffered no casualties and stood the entire game. On James’ end some of his units were useless, mostly new ones, but his Chaos warriors (with the big brown cloaks and bigger axes) won him the day with a steamroller-esque performance.

A good looking game, and for future reference a good size of game too.