Spring break was filled with battle galore. I have a breif description of my first game here but I'll let the captioned pictures tell the rest.

I went to a 4-player game and one guy had to drop out at the last minute; so I had to make a 2.5K Empire army and got a little overwhelmed. I didn't get pictures, which is a shame because Jared's Chaos army is magnificent, and Erin's painted VCs made my new/plain models look boring. With the advantage of Trusted Allies and being allowed to hire an Ogre unit to fill in the points, the good guys got a crushing victory against the forces of Chaos and VCounts. I tried to keep it random and had the other guys roll on descisions like, "Do I take warrior priests and captains, or do I bring a Wizard?" But, being able to create both halves gave me an advantage. My Dawi list was artillery light, but the Empire brought three mortars and two cannon. I look forward to a more even match in the future.

EXPERIMENTAL LIST:
Runesmiths x 3 One with MR Balance, One with Spelleater, one with Spellbreaker and soem combat buffs.
Miners (25) X 3 Each RSmith had brotherhood and accompanied a unit of 25 miners.
Longbeard-Rangers (40) They had the Rune of Courage on their banner to eliminate psychology fail.
Ironbreakers (25) With Grungi.

VCs had:
Three Vamps, one casty one combat and one mixed.
Mortis Engine
Zombie Bus
Fear Bomb (skeletal horde with retest banner) x 40
Black Knights x 10
Crypt Horrors (Super regenerative with MEngine)

Deployment:

The deployment rules were the random scenario, which hurt Mike's VCs. My experiment was to play without any war machines of any kind. Taking a few casualties to a spell we held fast for reinforcements to arrive.

Round two saw only one unit (luckily the MRofBalance) enter the field. The undead, unable to march posed little threat.

Round three had the enemy outmaneuvered but forced his hand into an allout charge.

This charge was my demise .... and the fact that I COMPLETELY forgot about steadfast! Those Crypt Horrors are worse than ogres! They can really do a number on our troops if not weakened by shooting. Their regeneration in combination with the Mortis Engine is 4+.

Not forgetting about steadfast would have helped me greatly, but we were fairly certain I rolled ten on the miner's first break test. The experimental list was a fail and I, the undefeated Wendersnaven, ate my first Dawi slice of Humble Pie and declared a route. The miners did paste the mortis engine with minimal casualties until we rolled some combat to check the new Crypt Horrors' capabilities. Those things are, well, horrible.

THREE MAN BATTLE ROYALE:
With the arrival on our Ogre friend Brad we devised a three way battle. Here you can see how we cut the board into three equal slices, and simply made sure borders were set 24" apart from eachother. Dispel dice would be halved (rounded up) for each of the two dispelling players, but channeling and other bonus proceeded as usual in the magic phase. This was a loooong game! So much happens when you have three phases per turn.

The forests were poison and blood, and there were two sorcerous portals on the board. (The round things.) Thank goodness I brought my magic cards to set their spells out for each magic phase, as they cast random spells on the closest unit. The grey hill was an Anvil of Vaul- granting magical flaming attacks to all within 6". Mike picked that side to avoid my artillery and shooting becomming super deadly. There was a sucking bog between the huntingpack and me.

My side had the Dwarven Brewery. It was very easy to bunker down in, but deployment made LOS difficult. (I intend to invest in a laser pointer.)

Round one saw a charge by the cats and hunter who were quickly put down. The rest of the Ogres surged forward!

Artillery, shooting, and magic were not kind to the vamps. The Ogres landed a Great Maw directly on their general's zombie bus, and I tried to eliminate the Crypt Horrors with my dual GTs, flaming then higher strength cut the unit in half. The VC's crawled forward due to the lack of vampires marching them. In the second round my Warhorde went after the unit of Ogres in range while the Ogres fell upon the undead.

This is when we found out Mike's general was a combat Vampire. S7 WS7 A5 and blood fury had him dishing out 7-10 attacks per turn. The infamous Technicolor Cheese Slicer of Doom! did it's magic weapon work on the Ogres. The giant Mungo died and fell perfectly onto the zombie bus. Combat was not kind to the Ogres and the battle haze cleared, revealing a lot of units off the table.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch my Dawi laughed and drank not knowing that their warriors rolled snake eyes to stay in a loosing combat with the Ogres. The Ironguts moved in for the kill but also fell to the one man Vampire army. After the Ogres killed my horde of warriors my Organ Gun reduced them to a single wound which fled off the table. The portals continued to cast random spells, and it looked like the speed of light on the Ogre general was going to save the day.

When all was said and done, only the vampire and a very wounded Crypt Horror stood. The Vampire Lord skirmished into the Leadbelchers and ate them as an after battle snack. This Vampire was also tooled with the magic item that gives a 2+ save VS flaming attacks, making it too difficult for my cannon in the woods to snipe him. I kept rolling ones to wound anyway. (Crypthorrors= twice Vamp=once Scraplauncher=twice) But in the end, the Firebelly got his breath weapon and spells through, finishing off the Vampire Lord. It was a tense and exciting phase as the FBelly and a single Scraplauncher were all the Ogres had left. (Sorry about the Magic players in the background; they overran the Hobby Shop since it was a Friday.)

Back at the ~~RANCH~~ Brewery, the undead advanced with a balanced Vampire and a level 4 Warlock. We continued to block their spells but a small vortex snuck through and hit most of my artillery. My luck was with me and I only lost a single crewman from each machine. A few hammerers had gone down, but they were more or less incapacitated from the alcohol.

With General Flint Ironstag, surrounded by his bodyguard, inspiring immunity to the Fear-Bomb we engaged the undead in round four. The Quarrelers failed their charge on the flank of the skeletons, but joined in when we moved on to the ghouls. This was happening before the Vampire Lord was destroyed, so the army had yet to crumble.

Both units clashed with the ghouls and reminded them of death once again. Poof! and the field was clear but for a single scraplauncher and a crippled unit of Black Knights (headed by a Wight) that deservedly charged my cannon that kep rolling ones and slew the crew in the last round of close combat. With my combat reformed units, we gazed on the field of crushing victory and emptied that Brewery!

Sitting back in the unbreakable zone and shooting was a little boring but I did venture into CC early then halfway through the game- so I don't feel too bad. My list was not shy on artillery. It was meant to win, and I only took a single Runesmith with the MRofBalance as a magic defense. The OG and cannon did more psychological damage than actual; but the GTs and their Master Engineer were the MVPs as usual. After my first defeat prior to this game, it was satisfying to get a crushing victory.