Hi all fellow Dawi (and traiterous other races!)
So last night i played out the 3rd of my clashes with my friends (unofficial) Norse army. He's an excellent painter, and his models really are starting to look the part, with a snow-themed base. They have quite a wide variety of troops available to them, although they're light on shooting, they have good light & heavy infantry, fast cavalry, monstrous infantry and monsters (He has one ENORMOUS giant that looks stunning - sadly not part of this list!)
Anyway - the battle!
My list can be found here: http://www.bugmansbr...-norse-2000pts/
The plan was simple - hold the line with 4 solid combat blocks covered by my BSB, with slayers on my one flank, and Ironbreakers on my other.
My opponent went for a 'pincer' movement, with his trolls on my left flank, and an awesome-looking unit of half-giants on my right flank, and a solitary Trebuchet on my far-right. His rabble of Bondsmen contained a Skald and a Jarl. His Lord was riding a wolf in the middle of his trolls.
What we did get, is a roll of 6 on the terrain table, so the field did look a little more full than usual, which did make manoeuvring a little tight, but i think it looked awesome! Here's the deployment:
Now a view of my line... left-to-right: Slayers, GW Warriors + BSB, Lord on shieldbearers, Hammerers, Ironbreakers:
(Yes i know those ironbreakers look suspiciously like shield warriors, but I don't have a painted unit of Ironbreakers!)
I took the roll for first turn, and we were away! Not much happened - i marched up in a solid line holding formation. I'd positioned my lord in such a way as to be able to move around and support whatever part of the line was struggling to hold.
My Ironbreakers flank was protected by a building.
He took his turn, and moved up his half-giants (my right flank) and his trolls (my left). The rest of his troops took up a defensible position behind the walls near his deployment zone.
His Trebuchet rolled a misfire and played no further part in the game!
Here's how the board looked after round1:
Round 2 was similar, I moved up a little further, moved my lord next to my Ironbreakers and the rest of my forces forward. He moved both his flanking units forward.
Round3 was where the action happened! After being so disciplined holding a strict line, I found my force around 11" away from about 3 of his units on my right flank. I had to decide... do I rigidly keep my discipline and hold the line, retaining our composure and maintaining a rigid structure?
CHARRGGGGEEEE!!!!
I charged my GW Warriors at his Marauders, my Lord & Hammerers at his Bondsmen, and my Ironbreakers at his half-giants. In true Dwarf fashion... despite needing a relatively attainable 8 on 2D6, only one charge succeeded - my Lord! I ended up putting 1 wound on his Jarl in his rabble, losing combat but holding because of my Groth bubble.
In his turn, he charged his trolls at my Slayers, and hit my Ironbreakers in the flank.... my opponent must have thought 'here we go, i'll smash him', but not a problem, i knew, because I had a Thane on an Oath Stone giving them flank parry-saves using their Shieldwall of Gromril rule, plus being covered by Groth, they weren't going to move anywhere!
Surprisingly, his centre Marauder unit held in place in the middle.
Here's how the board looked after his charges, just before the combat phase:
Combat was a fun and frantic affair, with his trolls rolling 42 dice at my slayers! His Lord challenged my dragon slayer, and slew him, taking 1 wound for his trouble. I lost 11 other slayers, but held due to being unbreakable! (Slayers on the flank are awesome). The slayers chose a 2nd hand weapon (As he had no armour) and took 3 trolls out with a combination of their normal attacks, and their deathblow attacks! Here's how they looked after combat:
My lord finished off his Jarl (Hero level), taking a wound back for his trouble. My Ironbreakers lost 5 men, losing combat, but holding because of Groth and generals inspiring presence.
Here's how combat on my right flank looked:
Turn 4 and we have a breakthrough!
My ironbreakers managed to put about 4 wounds onto his half giants, felling two of them when combined with wounds from the previous round. He then hit back and managed 20 hits.... he needed 4's to wound, and rolled.... 2 wounds!! Terrible bad luck for my mate and I actually won the combat by 1! With leadership 8, he needed 7's and under... he rolled... a 9! His half giants then were cut-down by my triumphant Ironbreakers. A great (if somewhat fortunate) victory on my right flank.
In the center, my hammerers successfully charged his rabble, and my GW Warriors charged his unit of Marauders hiding behind the wall.
On my left flank, my slayers had a total of 12 models remaining by this point... i knew that there was a chance he could wipe out the unit in one fell swoop with some decent dice and move to flank my warriors. He rolled and killed.... 10 slayers!!
They downed another 3 trolls and put another wound on his lord courtesy of him challenging my giant slayer who happened to have a rune of fire on his axe and had stripped regen off his trolls last turn. So with just 2 men remaining... they held!
The final two turns, between my lord and my hammerers we broke his bondsmen unit (Which also contained his BSB) and my lord chased them off the table, then redirected his charge onto his Marauder unit... which failed.
My GW Warrior horde broke his Marauder unit behind the wall, but failed to catch them. The final 2 slayers were chopped down by the troll unit, but it was too little too late - my mate conceded without taking his 6th turn, and it was a solid victory for the Dwarf Throng! Here's how the final table looked:
My learnings from this, are that this is a very effective list, particularly against a shooting-light list. Slayers are great if you can keep them alive long enough to make it into combat... I'd not take them against anything like High Elves put it that way!
My Lord did 'ok' - great tank, but again struggled to get him to be 'killy'. Didn't really take much damage, but didn't deal much out either.
Overall, a great game and very satisfying!
Edited by thorpyuk, 06 August 2022 - 10:38 AM.
