After a long hiatus from the hobby, I got back into Fantasy and it proved to be quite a change from the last edition.

My first game was an eye opener. I had a unit of thunderers, an organ gun and a unit of Dwarf warriors with shields commandered by a combat thane.

My Dark Elf opponent had a unit of DE xbows a couple of sorcereress, and two Dark Riders.

I was quite rusty with the rules but my opponent was gracious enough to help me with the new rules. Needless to say, I was also rusty with my tactics as well. First turns were quite painful. I had no way to dispel the flame spells the sorcereress flung into my units. I thought I was able to dispel them easily as dwarves go, but with no runesmith to counter the spells, my units were fried. My dwarf warriors suffered from fireball attacks and the fulminating flame cage easilly whittled them down. The unit of thunderers were wiped out the dark riders who managed to shoot them away from my firing arcs. In the last turns, the warrior unit stood their ground but the constant barrage of arrows and spells took them out quite handily. There weren't even any combat to begin with. My opponent played his DE strengths to my dwarf's weakness and as a result, I lost. It was a learning experience indeed.

In the second game, I wised up a bit and freshened up on the rules and updated my list.

2 unit of corsairs, a hydra, and two sorceress.

Dwarfs

2 units of GW warriors

a bolt thrower with rune of fire and rune of skewering

cannon with rune of reloading and engineer upgrade

Grudgethrower with rune of penetrating and fire.

1 runesmith with rune of balance and spell breaking.

Knowing that I'll most likely be flanked by fast units, I deployed my units in the corner except for the bolt thrower which was placed on the far end of the board overlooking the hydra. The corsairs were arrayed facing my unit of warriors.

The DE player had first turn and moved forward to my warriors. The sorceresses (?) attampted to cast fire spells but were dispelled. I then arranged my units to face the corsairs. The bolt thrower and grudge thrower killed off the hydra's handlers and wounded it. The hydra rolled for something in the DE book and was made immobile. The cannon then managed to take out several charging corsairs. ( I was surprised that warmachines in this edition are much more reliable and I was glad I had the foresight to save my old edition warmachines rather than trading them all for bolt throwers!)

The middle turns proved to be the decisive time for the battle. It swung in my favor as the spells were handily dispelled. Frustrated, the sorceress made a charge into the bolt thrower crew but was dispatched by deadly bolt shot. The grudge thrower and cannon (placed all the way in back) focused their fire on one corsair unit and essentially whittling them down to one rank. They had frenzy, but by the time they hit the cannon crew, they were hit by grapeshot wiping them out. The grudgethrower then focused its fire on the last remaining corsair unit.

By the last turns, it was a foregone conclusion. The remaining corsair unit charged into my dwarf unit which held up. They were then flanked by the other dwarf unit and were run down. The hydra was consequently run down and flanked by GW wielding warriors. The sorceress, by the last turn was hit by cannon fire and was dispatched.

Eventhough this was my first game in the new edition, I have no illusions that are more difficult games ahead. Still with the new rules, dwarfs can stand reasonably on their own against different armies out there.

I hope.