A few guys from my club got together to have a 3v3 game yesterday. The initial plan was for a doubles tournament, but one of the guys couldn't make the whole day. So we decided to throw everything together into one big fight, 1250pts each. Some of the guys are fairly new to WHFB (only Empire's 2nd game!) or are mainly 40k players.

The teams looked (roughly) like this...

Forces of order -
Dwarfs:
runesmith
34 Hammerers
35 GW warriors (RS)
stone thrower
organ gun

Empire:
Mounted combat hero
lvl2 wizard (light)
10 handgunners
20 great swords
30 halbarders (lvl2) w. 15 swordsmen det.
6 knights
mortar
cannon

Ogres:
Tyrant
6 bulls
6 ironguts (T)
50 gnoblars
2 scraplaunchers
Gorger

Forces of Chaos -
Skaven:
Warlord
BSB
2*engineers
39 clanrats w. poison globe launchers (bsb)
39 clanrats w. poison globe launchers (WL)
20 slaves
8 giant rats
WLC

Dark elves(1):
lvl4 (death - all spells but 1)
8 CoK
2*RBT
20 repeater crossbows (lvl4)
32 spearmen

Dark Elves(2):
Dreadlord
20 repeater crossbows
5 CoK
20 Black Guard (DL)
20 corsairs

To keep things simple we used the rules for suspicious allies all round.

We went for a straight up pitched battle, using a 12'*4' table. Forests were magical, rocks were impassable, and hills were normal. We had 2 bits of special terrain - arcane ruins at one end of the table, and a sourcerous portal in the centre - which caused some laughs!

Order started deployment first. The main plan to try and place the hammerers opposite the big CoK unit - I thought this was our best chance to prevent them rolling up the flank. We dropped WM's early, and with equal drops managed to drop the hammerers after the CoKs.

I tried to take some photos, but my phone ran out of battery, so I'm afraid you just get turn 1. Chaos went first, and after movement the table looked like this:

Table 1. Empire Liam eyes up his cannon targets, while the chaos team comes to terms with facing 3 pie flingers.

Order, bottom to top:
Hammerers, handgunners, bulls, scraplauncher, great swords, mortar, GW warriors

Chaos, bottom to top:
Cok, 2*RBTs, clanrats (WL), WLC, repeater crossbows (lvl4)

Table 2. Dai Ironside prepares to hand over his Ogres to the worst Ogre general in the history of this battle - me.

Order, bottom to top:
Knights, Ironguts, OG, swordsmen and halberdiers with stone thrower behind, scrap launcher, gnoblars, cannon

Chaos, bottom to top:
Cok, repeater crossbows, engineer, blackguard, corsairs, clanrats (BSB), engineer cowering behind rock, slaves with DE spearmen behind.

On our right flank, the skaven engineer hid behind the arcane ruins for most of the game trying to channel dice, until he wandered out into the open and was blasted apart by the OG. The CoK and empire knights had a dance off, before the CoKs got the charge, but not unit the stone thrower had squashed 2 Coks and the poison mortar downed a couple of knights. The two sets of cav then spent the rest of the game locked in combat, with the knights eventually winning. The repeaters sat back and took down a couple of ironguts before walking out infront of the last 3 knights in the last turn, but they held their ground and survived.

After felling the CoK, the thrower then promptly rolled missfire, 1, 1 and blew up! The scrap launcher did better, flattening half of the blackguard and corsairs. The state troops held the black guard for a couple of turns before being broken and cut down when the corsairs arrived. This also spelled the and of the wizard (ha ha!), and so the dwarfs took control of our dispelling (good thing too)! The Ironguts then piled into the free BG, crushing all but the dreadlord who challenged the Tyrant. The two battled it out for several rounds (damn broken pendant), before finishing in dramatic style and felling each other with their final blows!

The OG was (for once) showing why it is feared - it took down both skaven engineers, kept the CoK back, took out 5 corsairs and some black guard, before misfiring and putting itself out of action for the final turns. It was irritating the chaos team so much that the skaven player pulled a sneaky skitterleap+brass orb combo to take it out, only to miss and be basted into tiny pieces in return.

To keep the OG on the roll, by preventing the skaven and corsair charge, and to trap the 2nd engineer in the open, the scrap launcer charged into the flank of the skaven colum. This left the engineer with nowhere to run to be blasted by the OG, and trapped the remaining corsairs in an awkward position between the ogre/BG combat and the skaven colum. Eventually they joined the Ogre/BG combat (afer loosing more to the OG), only to be crushed. The skaven, meanwhile, beat the scraplauncher, reformed, broke it, and it fled off the board on the last turn. The last Ironguts charged the poison mortar and overran into the rats, but were destroyed for their efforts.

In the middle, entertainment was provided by the gnoblars and sourcerous portal. The 50 gnoblars got a strength/toughness boost from the portal and quickly dispatched the slaves. They were ready to clobber the spearmen before a debate (started by those untrustworthy elves) kicked off. We expected the boost on the gnoblars to stay until our next magic phase. Our opponents argued that the rules said the spell only lasted until the casters next phase - since the portal cast every turn, they said, the boost effect would only last one turn. We let them have it their way, only to get WS10 I10 on the gnoblars the next turn! The DE player wasn't happy, and managed to get soulblight off on them as well (rubbish empire dispelling), and the gnoblars lost the combat and fled. For the following 2 turns they fled, keeping just out of range of the spearmen, but without leaving the board. On the 3rd after fleeing turn they rallied right on the board edge! The sharp stuff stand and shoot, with a million dice, failed to down a single elf, and the spearmen then crushed the cannon and broke the gnoblars off the board, before having a mortar shot land on their head turn 6 and flatten half of them!

Until that point the cannon had been doing what cannons do best. In T1 it missed the WLC, but took it out on turn 2. It then took out both RBTs in a race to beat the dwarfs to their points.

On the left flank, the lvl4 mage was looking very dangerous. He was frustrated by the dwarf ability to even out the cast/dispell dice, but had the edge with +4 to cast. He used some tricks to try and own the magic phase (casting to generate casting dice - though I now can't see such a spell?), and got off a couple of important spells. As the biggest target on their side, the GW warriors advanced toward it. The lvl4 cast Fate of Bjuna on my smith at 22', and declared that he was dead. I was very suspicious, and insisted on checking the spell, to find it only had a range of 12"! He then said he'd cast it at max power (not declared before casting, and no effect on spell), then that he meant to cast Caress of Laniph (the spell he did not know)! Needless to say I was keeping my eye on him after that.

The gorger came on behind the lvl4's unit in a bid to assasinate him. Some dubious movement (I had to step in several times to block illegal moves), and measuring saw the mage leave the unit and the repeater crossbows turn to shoot down the gorger in one go. However, the mortar, which had so far hit nothing managed a blind shot on the lvl4, landing right on his head and leaving just a crater and some smoking slippers.

The skaven on the left chewed up a charge from the ogre bulls, and spat one out toward the board edge. The scrap launcher, which had been failing to hit the lvl4's unit decided to have a go, and charged in hoping to kill the warlord. A positioning mistake from the skaven player led to a setup whereby the GW warriors could charge the giant rats, then overrun into the flank of the big clanrat block, bringing the dwarfs in a big U-turn. When it came to combats I was distracted, with the empire player telling me to start with the clanrat combat. As the die for impact hits left my hand I realised it had suddenly all gone wrong! I'd done combat in the wrong order and now the dwarfs weren't there for support!

The skaven killed the scraplauncher and overran, leaving them just out of the dwarf overrun path (typing this up I am sure the scrap launcher charged, so the skaven could not overrun - more sneaky tactics)! The dwarfs ploughed through the rats and reformed to begin a chase around the rocks. The long skaven block could not turn fast eoungh, and the dwarfs caught them in the exposed flank just before they reached the mortar. The skaven broke and fled off the board. The dwarfs reformed to face the crossbows that had moved up, and left them an 11" charge for turn 6 to bag their points. They fell short.

The greatswords played pincushion for the first few turns, soaking up RBT and crossbow fire, and poison globes. None made combat, but the BSB escaped and survived. The handgunners in the house eventually took out the stranded weapons team.

On the far left the hammerers and CoK faced off over the village. In a previous meeting the same CoKs had charged 30 LB rangers. In that fight the LB's had killed all but one knight, but lost combat, failed their Ld test, fled and been run down. For some reason the DE player was certain it would happen again. This time the CoKs charged, killed 6 hammerers and then vanished. Pop (or rather 'bop')!

The hammerers set off for the RBTs to allow the gorger to go after the lvl4, but the empire players cannon got their first, and they ended upsat having some beers in the village pub watching the last turn go by.

The forces of order had looked to take the game early on, but a swing back to the forces of chaos began when the ogre player left and put me in charge of his troops! He didn't leave a list, and I had no idea what was what, playing his ironguts as bulls! I severely over estimated the Ogres strengths and threw them all to their doom. Nevertheless, the game ended and we tallied up points killed (we hadn't been keeping track of banners etc.). The forces of order had killed ₂₆₇₀, whereas the forces of chaos had killed ₂₁₂₀ (with over 1k of the remaining points sat in the dwarf army). Victory to the forces of order!

The two remaining generals of the dwarfs and empire nodded to each other as the skaven BSB dropped his standard and fled the field with his verminous kin.
"Good fight old chap, we showed them eh?" Called the empire captain from his steed.
The runesmith just grunted. "Bloody careless to lose so many men", he thought.