Hello again,

Well, sorry, I never got around to doing maps for my last battle report. If there is demand I will try to do that.

Anyway, the other day we planned a bigger 2000 point game (all the games had been 1500 up to that point). We planned to have a Dwarf-High Elf match up. Anyway, when Alastair arrived, he had brought his daemons (had a last minute change of plan or something), and I did a last minute re-jig to my army. These were more-or-less the armies we ran:

Rune Lord, shield, RoSpellbreaking, MRoBalance, RoResistance, RoPReservation, RoStone
BSB, MRoGromril, RoResistance, RoPreservation
Dragon slayer, MRoSwiftness, RoSpeed (so as to re-roll misses against slower daemons, you see!)

20 LBs, full command, shields, RoCourage
30 Warriors, GWs, Full command
25 xbow rangers, full command
12 miners, full command
cannon, RoForging, engineer
2 organ guns

The daemons had
Great unclean one, with an exalted gift (he rolled well, and got an exalted and a free lesser gift)
herald of khorne, gift, BSB
39 bloodletters, FC, horde formation
3 nurglings
2 units of 5 flesh hounds
soul grinder

Alastair brought an unconventional list, so he said. I had never used a rune lord before, and I had just finished painting my dragon slayer, so I wanted to bring him along. In retrospect, I would have been better off with a normal rune smith, and beefing up the miners, but such is life...Alastair went very magic-light again (I was sure at 2000 points he must have a proper spell caster!). His exalted gift allowed him to teleport in his bloodletters - with 3/6 daemonic units arriving later, and with another unit scouting, it was rather difficult to decide how to deploy!

Ho hum...

Anyway, we played a random battle this time, with the battle in the pass as the scenario (i.e. deploying in the short ends of the table)

At my end there was a village, and at Alastair's end there was a series of forests. I got hypnotised by the defensive possibilities of houses, and didn't deploy too well this time either...

Anyway, for me, from my left to right: two organ guns and the cannon (opposite the GUC and SG - the only 2 daemon units deploying), and then with the warriors next to them. Then there was the greater mass of the village, with the LBs in the square,and the dragon slayer wandering around behind them (he should have gone behind the artillery in retrospect). The rangers occupied the tallest house, as that allowed them relatively good fields of fire.

The nurglings deployed in the suburbs of the village towards my right. The two daemon units actually deployed were on my far left (I placed my cannon right opposite them, obviously), with the great unclean one using the soul grinder as a shield.

I got the first turn. The first thing I did was to shoot my cannon at the soul grinder. I got a massive bounce which would have hit the smelly fat man at the back if I one-shotted the SG, but I roled a 1 to wound the daemon engine, and that was the end of that... The rangers shaved a wound or two off the nurglings.

On the daemonic turn, the nurglings rushed forwards towards the house with the rangers in, towards the LBs. The two big guys rumbled diagonally forward so the cannon could only hit one of them. They were (slowly...) heading towards the LBs in the centre.

In my 2nd turn, the miners popped up, and I brought the in behind the warriors/artillery park. The slayer jogged that way too, and the LBs charged the nurglings. In the shooting, the cannon shaved 4 wounds off the soul grinder, and the LBs wiped out the nurglings for no loss.

In the daemonic 2nd turn, both units of flesh hounds came in behind the artillery (I hadn't deployed the miners as well as I could have to block this, but one unit was forced to set up an attack on the miners rather than the artillery). The blood letter horde and herald popped into existence, but Alastair's scatter was way off, and they actually arrived further back than if they had deployed normally and walked. In the magic phase, Alastair rolled really well on the gods table, and 10 plague bearers popped into existence in the village, just outside the charge-ark of the slayer (funnily enough...)

In my 3rd turn, I wiggled the miners to take the charge of one unit of flesh hounds, and turned around the warriors to flank charge the unit which was going to get the artillery. The slayer jogged as fast as his stubby legs would take him to interpose himself between the newly arrived PBs and the rear of the miners unit. The cannon finished off the SG, but the organ guns fluffed it against the flesh hounds bearing down on them, one misfiring, the other rolling abysmally to wound, and only killing one, despite 8 hits (on the re-roll). The rangers did well, shooting 5-6 BLs.

In the daemon's 3rd turn, the fat man rumbled forward, now with the BLs in support. One unit of flesh hounds charged the miners, the other one organ gun and the cannon. I did the same stupid mistake I did in the last game whereby I lined up the guns so more than one could be charged at once. My artillery deployment is still really awful! The plague bearers charged the slayer. In the combat, the slayer inflicted 2 wounds, but both were saved, and he took a wound in return. The miners fluffed their fear check, but then the hounds fluffed their attacks, and the whole thing was a bit of a farce, the miners winning on static combat res, and thinning the hounds out. The other unit of hounds ate the organ gun crew, and 2 from the cannon, but the last 2 held on.

In my turn 4, the warriors charged the flesh hounds, and the LBs charged the great unclean one. I knew this opened their flank up to the blood letters, but I thought I had a fools hope of slaying the monster through instability etc, and thought it worth the go (death and glory, and all that). The rangers shot another 6 or so blood letters, who were proving very squishy. In the combats, the miners and hounds finally remembered how to fight, and tore great lumps out of each other, with the miners reduced to 2, but the hounds were wiped out. The warriors failed their fear test (doh...), and couldn't save the cannon (oh no...) but the hounds only finished off the cannon, lost by a lot on static combat res, and vanished with a bad instability roll, with the warriors reforming to help the miners out if need be later. The slayer killed one plague bearer, but was poisoned soon after. In the major combat, the RL challenged the smelly fat man, and did very well - he lost a wound (his armour saved 5 stomp attacks!), and the Great Unclean one lost combat by a lot, but rolled well on instability, and only lost three wounds (I won the combat by 5, I think, I was hoping for better really 🙁 ). There was a rules debate, I wanted to turn around the LBs (as I had won the combat, and wanted to present the front to the blood letters). We weren't sure whether you could turn in combat to show your flank to your existing combatant - we diced and I won - so no bloodletter flank charge!

Anyway, in the daemonic turn 5, the plague bearers charged the miners, and the blood letters charged the LBs. In the combats, the miners were overwhelmed. The horde of bloodletters didn't do as well as expected, and actually the combat was drawn (pity I didn't win to deny them frenzy, nevermind...). The brave old runeslord was finally stomped (crushed/smothered...) by the great unclean one, which cannot have been a good way to go. Another rules query! The blood letters wanted to reform - easy enough if they won, harder if they lost - but what in the case of a draw? Well, we diced, and the bloodletters were allowed to reform without penalty. There were only 22 or so left, so horde formation wasn't helpful any more - but ranks (to deny steadfast) would be. Anyway, they reformed into a 5 wide block.

In my turn 6, the warriors charged the plague bearers. In the combats, the warriors destroyed the plague bearers without loss. The LBs run of luck ran out (especially without an armoured character to soak up stomp attacks), and they lost quite badly. They broke, even with the BSB re-roll (they had to roll a 4 or something). They ran 9 (hurrah! I thought they might get away). The blood letters ran 9 too...ho hum.

In the final turn, the blood letters charged the rangers in the house. Another 5-6 were shot on the way in. They won the ensuing combat, but the rangers held on, and bundled them out of the house, and the game was over!

So, who won...

Well, I would have called it a draw. Alastair won on the 'official' VP system. He had 2 hugely expensive units at/under half strength (a herald of Khorne, about 12/39BLs, and a great unclean one with 3 wounds), whilst I had a still unscathed unit of warriors, 20/25 rangers and an organ gun left. If we had played 50%VP when a unit was 50% destroyed, I would have won. However, with the current VP system, Alastair won by a few hundred points, though we both agreed that had the game gone on to the death, I probably would have won.

So, what to take from this game:

Artillery was not very well chosen, again. A 2nd cannon would have helped, but I wouldn't want to run more than 3 artillery pieces at a game this size. A cannon, a GT and an OG might have been a better combo (or 2 cannons and an OG). The OGs only shot once each (and one of them was a misfire). At least the cannon got its points back!
The artillery was badly deployed, again. I should have deployed them so that only one could be charged by one unit at any one time. Also, my support units weren't well deployed. The slayer was useless in the village, and though holding up the appearing PBs was helpful, he would have been a much more useful speedbump behind the artillery. The miners might have been more intelligently used too.
The LBs unit was too small. Swordthain - you were right! If they had been a bit bigger, they would have kept steadfast and most likely survived the game. They were more than a match for bloodletters, and might even have won in their epic game deciding combat.
The rune lord was overkill. A rune smith and more LBs/miners would have been much more useful (though admittedly the RL did do better in the challenge monkey role - the RS only has 2 wounds, and couldn't have armour runes on top of his anti-magic stuff). Alastair didn't cast a spell all game, but with only one L1 spell caster that hardly was an achievement on the RL's part! The amount of anti-magic is a hard one to call however - Alastair could have run a L4 great unclean one, and that would have just run all over a normal rune smith. To be honest, this is one of the dwarves' key weaknesses. Dwarves really have to spend a chunk in anti-magic (I wouldn't gamble not to anyway), and armies who are so inclined can just give themselves a 200+ point advantage by not taking any wizards at all (like in our 2nd game last week - the RS was literally just a challenge monkey).
The slayer was fun (and a cool model), but didn't help much (esp. re. the bad deployment). The runes didn't help much either (he only killed one PB, and he probably would have done that anyway). Should have got more models...
I was seduced by the idea of putting my rangers in a house. Though this made them more resilient in the final melee, and gave them better fields of fire by giving them more height, it meant they were only shooting at reduced numbers (5 models per floor could shoot, meaning only 15 from a unit of 25 could - not the worst of penalties, but far from ideal). The bigger problem of this was that they could not support the LBs when that might have been really useful. If they had been fighting alongside the LBs when they were fighting, I don't think the blood letters would have won, and the active combat res won against the very squishy BLs would (maybe) have made the GUO disappear (Grimnir willing).

Anyway, that is enough rambling off for that! I am a but upset with all the mistakes I made - I really think I could have won that one, but I did enough silly things to really spoil my chances.

Normally we play 2 games back to back (I generally do better 2nd time around!), but this time, as the game was a bit bigger and went on a bit longer, we cracked out the 2nd edition 40K for a small 1000 point battle between Eldar (played by me) and Dark Angels (played by Alastair). That was an absolute blast (and I won quite comfortably, which always helps, but there were some epic moments which made it fun all round). Anyway, long story short, Alastair made the mistake of hunkering down on overwatch in hiding, whilst I snook forward, getting better positions (and achieving my objective), and my farseer hammered everything which moved in the marine army. There was an epic duel between my exarch and 4 (yes 4!) deathwing terminators over three rounds - he killed two, and held off the rest, but then the marine captain came in, and the plucky exarch got hacked up by a terminator with a chain fist. Still, it was cool - on the last turn of the game, our two commanders duelled, and the farseer killed the marine captain. 2nd ed 40k was a lot of fun!

Anyway, there we go.

No games this week I am afraid- we have to go to the Midlands to find a new house (my wife has got a job at Warwick university, which is great, and I should be finished in Scotland by Christmas, and can then go south, so there shouldn't be too much living apart). Anyway, unfortunately house hunting trumps gaming (in necessity, if not in entertainment terms).

Thanks to all those who got to this far, and best wishes,

David.