Well, this one was a mess. First of all no pictures, which was silly as it was a rally nice board. But never mind.

The game was at 2k points. It was friendly so I came in at 2001. Not to worry, my opponant arrived with 2005. A GW added to my Runesmith and we were set.

My List: (Trying to tweak my all comers list)

Lords: (296)

Lord: (296, <25% = Ok)
Shield Bearers
GW with MRoKragg, RoMight
Grom Armour with RoResistance, RoStone
Talisman with MRoSpite

Heroes: (446, <25% = Ok)

Joseph Bugman: (155)
As book

Thane: (140)
BSB
Gromril Armour with MRoGromril, RoResistance

Runesmith: (151)
MRoBalance, RoSpellbreaking
Shield
Great Weapon (added in)

Core: (535, >25% = Ok)

Bugmans Rangers: (235)
14 Longbeards
Full Command
Great Weapons, Throwing Axes, Shields.

Quarreller Rangers: (165)
10 Quarrellers
Full Command
Great Weapons, Shields

Quarrellers: (135)
10 Quarrellers
Musician
Great Weapons

Special: (588, <50% = ok)

Hammerers: (199)
13 Hammerers
Full Command
Shields

Ironbreakers: (264)
18 Ironbreakers
Full Command

Cannon: (125)
RoForging

Rare: (140, <25% = ok)

Gyrocopter (140)

TOTAL: 2005 (Ok)

His List:

Lvl4 Wizard: (Shadow) Deployed in Swordsmen
Stat Flip Speculum
Grey Wand (+1 to cast)
Melkoths Mystifying Miasma
Enfeebling Foe
The Withering
The Penumbral Pendulum

Lvl 2 Mage: Deployed in Spearmen
Stuff
Fireball
Firestorm

Warrior Priest:
Special Armour of some sort
Magic Ring of some sort

25 Swordsmen
25 Spearmen
10 Archers Skirmishing

20 Flagellents
20 Great Swords

2 x Units of 5 Kinghts
2 x Units of Pistoleer Cavalry

Great Cannon
Rocket Launcher thing

Terrain: 6 pieces:
Khemri Quicksand
Mist Wreathed Swamp
Mysterious Wood
A Watch Tower
Idol of Mork
A hill

The Board, from my left to right, roughly in the middle of the board, The mist wreathed swamp, then a gap about wide enough for a unit, then the watch tower. Then a gap, then the idol of mork and hill roughly dead centre of the board. To the right, the mysterious forest. The Khemri Quicksand ended up in my opponants deployment zone.

Start of Game:

Roll for Game, Dawn Attack
Roll for set up, the empire would be defending, the dwarves attacking.

Already a bad start, no control over deployment really for me then.

Deployment:

The empire player to set up first lucks out. One unit of knights to deploy on his right, his flagellants to deploy on his left, then the spearmen to his right, and a unit of pistoleers on his left.

His other pistoleers can set up as they choose and he places them centrally with his cannon, but near his left close to his flagellents and other pistoleers. The rest of the army scores central. Fairly normal deployment his side.

Mine? Rubbish. I put my characters in their desired units.

First Roll, Hammerers with BSB and Runesmith. Right Flank.

Second Roll. Lord and Ironbreakers. Left Flank.

Third Roll. Quarrelrs. Left Flank.

Fouth Roll. Cannon. Middle. What the hell. The cannon, left in front of his enitre army to hold the middle. By itself. Great.

Finally the Gyro. A spot of luck and I send it over to the right flank with the Hammerers to hunt his cannon.

Making the best of a bad job, I put the Ironbreakers and quarrelers next to each other in an approximation of a battle line near the tower, and tuck te cannon up close to them. The Hammerers take cover behind the wood.

The scouts can deploy as they please, so the quarreller rangers set up in the tower, and the longbeards set up in front of the pistoleers on my right.

I fail to steal the inititive and he starts.

Turn 1:

Empire:

Flagellents move toward the Longbeards, as do the pistoleers. The pistoleers in the middle sweep out opening the cannons line of site and coming up on bugmans flank.

The Knights, Archers, Great Swords, and Swordsmen in the centre press forwards.
One unit of Knights and the Swordsmen head for the watch tower and my impromptue defensive position. The Archers move for the idol of Mork, and the Great Swords move towards the hill. The second unit of Knights makes a bee line for my cannon.

The Spearmen on my left also advance towards the swamp and my lord.

Magic, average power from the dice, leaving me in charge with more dispell dice than he has power. He unleashes Firestorm with all 6 dice he has on my Lord and his Ironbreakers. My Runepriest snuffs this out with 8 dispell dice. No spells.

Shooting, the pistoleers on my right fire at the long beards and do precisely nothign. The cannon fires at the longbeards as well, and kills 3. The archers are out of range for now. The pistoleers on my left also out of range. The rocket launcher fires, and misses everything.

No hand to hand.

Dwarves:

My opponant got first go, so no restrictions on my scouts. Bugman declares the charge at the pistoleers on his flank who elect to flee rather than feel his wrath. Straight through the Greatswords, we are playing empire snooker. Unfortunately the greatswords seem unconcerned.

Seeing this, Bugman redirects his men, and they make for the flagellents, who hold their ground.

The lord advances around the tower, ending up in the gap between it and the swamp.

The hammerers press into the mysterious woods. They are Abyssal! Hammerers now cause fear!

The Quarrellers march to come between the knights and the cannon.

The gyrocopter pilot closes to just over 1" from the melee, so it can't be shot by the cannon. He can't choose to land the ball in the flagellents, and if he tries to land it on the gyro it would overshoot or misfire, you can't get a zero on the artillary dice.

Shooting phase, and it begins slowly. The Quarreller rangers in the tower shoot at the knights approaching them, doing nothing.
The Cannon fires over the heads of the quarrellers, and lands its shot amoung the knights closing on it killing one.

Hand to Hand Combat:

This is where it all went wrong, and post game my opponant apologised for his mistake. Unfortunately he didnt realise that as WS2, his flagellents needed 5's to hit my longbeards, even with hatred. This would actually have led to only about 3 hits. Unfortunately he didn't realise this error till next turn when the hammerers got involved.

Anyway as it was, Bugman dispatched 3 of his crazed maniacs, and martydom another 2 (not in the combat res) butassuming to hit on 4's, he ended up killing all 11 remaining longbeards. On 5's I would have lost around 3.

Bugman failed his leadership check, needing 1's but the speedy dwarf outpaced the lunatics behind him. Infortunately this left the gyrocopter exposed to shooting, and the longbeards unreasonably dead.

Turn 2:

Empire:

The flagellants were going to leave Bugman alone, as he is quite a well liked character up here and my opponant was feeling sentimental, until he decided to be sure of victory points he would charge bugman to finish the unit. Again the dwarf outpaced him, so he redirected on to the hammerers.

The Greatswords continue their advance over the hill.

Rather than charge the Quarrellers and risk their great weapons, the knights wheel around to line up behind the knights for a charge on the cannon next turn.

The other Knights and Spearmen close on my lord. The pistoleers that fled from bugman last turn rallied and stayed put in the centre of the field to react to what happened this turn.

The Swordsmen advanced on my quarrellers and cannon.

In the magic phase, another fairly average roll.

Again my opponant opts to throw 6 dice at a spell. He fires pendulum towards my cannon. He rolls high. Very high, but not IF. Not willing to risk it, my runesmith struck his spellbreaker and blocked the spell.

The cannon blew the gyrocopter from the sky in one shot.

Redemption! The rocket launcher again fires at the Ironbreakers, but it all goes wrong. The blast lands right on top of the closing spearmen, bright wizard and knights! The wizard passed his look out sir, and the knights save the one wound inflicted. The spearment however are not so lucky, suffering 21 hits and 17 dead! Of the original 25 + wizard, 8 + wizard remain.

Combat, and with the WS2 vs. WS5 problem revealed, my opponant apologises and we play on. The hammerers lay the smack down on the flagellents and kill all but 3 for no casualties in return. The unbreakable flagellents hold.

Dwarves:

The lord Charges the Spearmen who flee, and redirects on to the closer knights who also flee. The Lord and his Iron Breakers are left stranded.

Both units of Quarrellers intend to shoot, so stay still, and the hammerers are in combat. The only thing left to do is rally bugman, which is fine.

Shooting. Both units of quarrellers target the closing swordsmen, and fire, 6 hit, and 2 swordsmen die. The cannon though gets stuck in, and blasts the knights a mere 5" away with grape shot. I roll an 8 on the artillary dice, and then 6 hit. The knights are blown to pieces, to a man who flees, incapable of rallying.

The Flagellents manage to kill one Hammerer, and are then wiped out.

The game seems to have turned.

Turn 3:

Empire:

The pistoleers close to Bugman move towards the freshly rallied dwarf, intent on shooting him to pieces.

The greatswords move toward the cannon and my lines.

The other pistoleers close on my Ironbreakers. The Swordsmen reform and position for a flank charge next turn.

The fleeing Knights rally and reform to face my lord.
The fleeing Spearmen? They keep going, almost reaching the table edge.

Magic, and it goes crazy. Its a 12. This is bad. In the end, my opponant is on 11 dice, I am on 8. Can't do much about it, I block most of the magic phase but the withering gets through, -D3 to the toughness of my Ironbreakers and Lord. Ouch.

Shooting. The Pistoleers near Bugman let rip. 14 shot and they manage to do a sum total of 1 wound. The cannon speaks, but what appeared to be a certain fatal shot seems to be punched from the sky by the now somewhat irate ranger Thane. Over on the other flank, the pistoleers shoot at the newly squishy Ironbreakers, and although they are currently not that tough, the Ironbreakers armour is still formidable. Only two die. The archers fire at the Quarrellers, managing to kill 2.

The rocket launcher fires again, another shot, a misfire, though not serious problem, just an airburst.

The is no melee this turn, the Empire seem to be avoiding the fight.

Dwarves:

Bugman takes a long draught from his tankard and feeling refreshed (gets his wound back) bellows a warcry and charges the empire pistoleers, who dumbstruck and too stupid to flee stand and shoot.

Relying on their armour, and figuring to be safer in combat, the Ironbreakers charge the other pistoleers. (A mistake, I should have reformed and marched out of the swordsmens charge arc.) The stand and shoot kills one.

The Quarrellers marched forwards towards the rear of the empire swordsmen threatening a counter charge in the rear.

The Hammerers left the wood, and positioned themselves to charge the rear of the pistoleers engaged by bugman next turn.

Shooting,

The Quarreller rangers fired on the swordsmen. Where last turn 20 shots got 6 hits, this time 10 shots got 8 hits. 4 more Swordsmen die.

The Quarrelers had moved.

The cannon fires on the great swords killing 4.

Hand to Hand

Toughness be damned. The Lord goes first and cuts his way through three of the pistoleers. The two that are left attack back and do nothing, though thier horses kill one more Ironbreaker. The remaining Ironbreakers smash them in turn. The unit chooses not to over run, and decided to wait, confident it can hold next turn and that the quarrellers will counter charge.

The real star of this phase though was the newly invigorated Bugman. Picking the foulest curses he knew in the tongues of men, he roared a challenge to the human on horseback. With nowhere to hide, the human had little choice but to accept. No sooner had the manling agreed but he was smashed from his saddle in a viscious flurry of blows that would have felled an orc warlord, never mind a human marksman. Their confidence turned to terror under under this assault, and the humans fled. It did them little good however as Bugman irate at the loss of his men, and fueled by his brew ran the cavalry down.

Turn 4:

Empire:

Worried at the way things were going, the empire launched an all or nothing counter offensive. The knights and swordsmen charged the lords Ironbreakers. The Greatswords turned their attention from the cannon and swung across to hunt for bugman and the hammerers.

The spearmen managed to Rally just before they left the table.

Magic:

Again the winds blew stong (not good timing) and the Shadow Mage tried to unleash a flurry of hexes against the Lord and his Ironbreakes. Choosing to focus on toughness the Runesmith blocked the withering, but the enfeebled foe and the mystifying miasma got through reducing my strength by 2, and the WS of the unit by 1.

shooting, not a lot of choices for the empire here. The archers and rockets target the quarrellers. The archers do nothing, and the rockets miss.

The cannon fired again, this time at the hammerers but the shot fell short.

Hand to Hand:

This did not go well, the empire managed to kill 3 dwarves, not a lot but enough with the charge in the flank, plus their ranks to cause me to lose the combat by 4. So many hexes...
The Lord challenged, and the challenge was met by the lvl 4 wizard. Something was up.
Then the wizard unleashed his secret weapon, the speculum, taking my profile and giving me his. Unfortunately for him, my base S4 wasn't that great and he failed to wound (despite needing 3s). I unsrprisingly with the profile of a wizard hit back but didnt wound.
Then I unleashed my secret weapon. Shield bearers, though they couldnt overcome the T5 of the wizard. I should have attacked the unit of knights.

The Lords unit ran, and was run down.

Dwarves:

All was not lost. Bugman was reaping a steady tally of empire bodies. His unit was gone, so he marched over to take command of the unit of hammerers containing the BSB and Runesmith as it marched towards the empire cannon.

The Quarrellers were now out of range of the rear of the swordsmen. They had failed their test to avoid over running and had run backwards towards the rocket launcher where the spearmen were reforming. They elected to shoot at the swordsmen again. The volly from the two quarreller units killed 4.

The cannon fired at the greatswords, but the shot fell short.

Turn 5:

Empire:

The Swordsmen turn round to face the watchtower. The greatswords continue on their march to the hammerers. They are getting close.

The knights reformed to face the tower.

Magic:
Little on the winds of magic this turn. The Brightwizard conjurs a firestorm around the watch tower but the Runesmith disipates it before it gets going.

Shooting:
The rocket fires, and misfires. Again. This thing is not having a good day. This time its serious and the thing blows up on the launcher, wounding the machine once.

The archers fire on the Quarrellers. Two wounds. Both saved.

The cannon fires on the hammerers and manages to hit the unit champion and kills him, and both dwarves behind.

Hand to hand:
None this turn.

Dwarves:

Little moving to be done. The qn was do I march on the cannon and hope to kill it next turn, risking being charged by the greatswords in the rear, or do I reform to face the new threat.

In the end I reformed and marched towards the greatswords.

The Quarreller Rangers fired again, this time on the rocket launcher, causing another wound. Just. One. More.
The Quarrellers fire on the bowmen, and miss.

The cannon fired on the archers, falling a bit short and only killing one.

Turn 6:

Empire:

The knights decided to see how combat and buildings worked so decalred a charge against the quarrellers in the tower. Stand and shoot kills one. The swordsmen and spearmen stay where they are, at long range to the crossbowmen in the tower.

The greatswords succomb to temptation and charge the hammerers.

Magic:

Again, a trickle of magic. The empire player tries a hex which is dispelled.

Shooting:
The rocket finally does something, and drops a blast on the quarrellers and kills all but one, who is cut down by the archers. No need to wonder what to do with them next turn.

Combat.
The knights assault the building, but are beaten back. Soundly. They reform to 1" away.

The greatswords kill 7 hammerers. The hammerers kill 4 great swords. Bugman gets into a challnge with a foolharder warrior priest, who he proceeds to batter, the warrior priests armour saves him however. The priest wounds bugman once.

The dwarves pass their break test as they are stubborn at 10.

Dwarves:

So, not a lot left to do. The Quarreller rangers decide to make a go of it, and charge the knights. The Hammerers are already in combat. Bugman drinks and gets his wound back.

The cannon fires on the archers killing two. 7 to go.

The Knights kill two rangers, and are then cut down. The Rangers over run into the wizards swordsman. 7 dwarves against around 18 swordsmen and a lvl 4 wizard. not good odds, but if the game were to go on, their generals head would be mine.

The Greatswords kill the remaining two hammerers. The hammerers and BSB and Runesmith first make sure to whittle down the greatswords. Only 12 left.

The duel between bugman and the warrior priest is a draw. The BSB keeps the no longer stubborn dwarves in combat. All that remains is a unit of the Runesmith, BSB and Bugman.

Game ends:

VPs:

Dwarves: 746
Empire: 1402

Bit of a shame, inflicted a lot more damage on him that it shows but wasn't able to wipe out the units. The constant fleeing of the fast cavalry was a real pain.

The empire magic didnt worry me, the lore of shadow was a pain with the hexes but didnt really swing combat that much, and no pit of shades was a relief. Even so, he only got off 2 spells in the game, besides the turn when he rolled a 12 for the power dice, and even then, only 2 spells got through. and of those, one of those spells was still unable to save him from having his pistoleers eaten alive. It cost me 3 dwarves, hardly a nightmare.

Also would have been a totally different game had opponant remembered his WS2 needed 5's to hit WS5 troops. I did tell him the LBs were WS5. Having them around, having won a combat right in front of his cannon... with my gyrocopter still alive... hammerers free to work with the LBs instead of holding a flank on their own. Ah well, ifs and buts.

Still, I liked the list. Need something to hunt mages though. Make them think twice.

I also have decided I don't like battles at 2k really in these rules. They somehow feel small.

I still need to give a gunline/anvi list a run.

And have a game where the gyro isnt cheated out of existance.

Still, hopefully the battle was of some use for folks to learn bits from.