Can I train my Dogs?

I'd allowed myself to be talked into playing in a tournament for the first time in about 4 years, which would make it only my 4th ever. 

I considered which of my Warhammer armies to field for a fantasy tournament; Vampires would be the Strongest in general, but the painting of some of my models is shocking, so that was a no.  Dwarves would make for a pretty reliable gunline army, but yawningly, achingly dull.  So that was a no too.  Orcs and Goblins would be fun, but unreliable; deadly when they work, deadly to themselves when they don't. 

So that left the Dogs of War; a very pretty, but uncompetitive army.  I felt if I used them they would have no hope of winning a tournament, but I'd not be expecting too so, like a British tennis player, I could relax knowing my destiny would not be troubled by the spoils of victory!

Still it was providential to get a little practice in before hand.  I had some idea how to make the Dogs of war army passably competitive.  Their strengths are in some of the Regiments of Renown, featuring some amazing units, cheap heroes and spell casters, with the ability to stuff units with characters as a result and lastly, great skirmish and fast cavalry options.  Conversely, rank and file infantry are costly, missilery can be too fragile, the army is always small, and if it loses it's Paymaster, it's up sh*t creek!

 My first practice was against Al's Bretonnians.  It went reasonably well, but in no small part due to the lack of time to play out many rounds, and Al's lack of experience against this army.  He made charges against units ideally placed to defeat his knights (Pike and the Cursed Company) and suffered accordingly.

 In points terms the game probably ended as a draw.  But it was useful to me, I decided after that the Human crossbows were going to be better upgraded to Dwarves, even at the cost of a couple of magic items; elsewhere I could drop an extra hero, to allow the flexibility of the light troops to stay in the list.

My next practice saw a slightly tweaked force face James' Lizardmen.  The last time I played James I inflicted a heavy defeat on him with my Orcs.  This time we rolled for a random scenario and got the Dawn Attack.  It didn't affect me much at all, the random deployment, except that my Wizard lord was somewhat out of position on a flank.  For James it messed him up only a little, putting a unit of Saurus on one flank.

 James' was an army that lacked an effective response to my light cavalry, well to be fair, his Skinks could certainly have done the job, but they opted to attack my Mage, Knights and Skirmishers instead.

 Indeed most of the game went well for me.  Again the Cursed Company paid for themselves many fold, whilst my Pike did a good job, and the Knights fought on valiantly to were James Down.  In the end it was an admittedly narrow, but, very definite win for the Dogs!

So what did I learn?  Well, you won't get much advice on using the Dogs of War anymore on the Net;  they are after all about the oldest army in the game (and not even legal for many tourneys, they're so old).  But I can say; always field at least two mages, always field at least two units of bow armed light horse.

The Cursed Company are a must buy elite unit, Dwarves with crossbows can fight in combat, and Halflings make good shooters against low toughness enemies. 

Form a strong mutually supporting centre that can wait for the enemy to charge it; meanwhile compromise your enemies flexibility with vanguard attacks on the flanks and aggressive magic.

So how did I do in the tournament?  I tell you later in the week...