I recently had a 4k game against regular Wood/High Elf opponent. We're both old 4th/5th edition players with High Elf and Dwarf armies who have got back into WHFB in the last year or so. We've both recently purchesed new armies, Wood Elves and Tomb Kings, and decided to have a go at an allied game. This is a write up of the match, Tomb Kings and Dwarfs vs High and Wood Elves.

Some notes on the setup: I've recently moved house and am currently doing a lot of work on it. I don't have a gaming table set up, or any terrain, so this was played out on the floor with paper terrain. The 'board' was 4 foot by about 8 foot. We tried out a new terrain placement whereby we select a number of terrain features then take turns to place them on the board in the following way: the table is divided into 6 segments. For each feature, we roll a dice to select a segment of board to place it in. The feature is then scattered using the artillery dice. We agreed on using relatively little terrain after a previous match up where we over did it.

We had one small hill, a deep lake (impassible), a large wood, and two hedgerows. In the deployment picture the hill is in the bottom right, with the wood opposite, and a hedgerow in between. Bottom middle is the large lake, with the other hedgerow opposite, and the Woodies free wood out left of centre. It does look sparse, but we decided to keep it and see what happened.

Apologies for the colour resolution in the photos - the light changed during the game and I didn't realise my camera wasn't compensating well!

Lists:

Dwarfs (1999)
Lord (256), GW, Shield brearers, MR Steel, R resistance, R stone
BSB (160), MR Spite, R stone, R cleaving
Master Engineer (120), MR Gromril, R resistance
Runesmith (131), GW, shield, R stone, 2*spellbreaker

210 Warriors (290), shields
19 Longbeards (303), cmd, shields, MR grungni
15 Hammerers (219), champion, standard, shields
15 slayers (165)

Stone thrower (135), R accuracy, R penetrating, R burning
Bolt Thrower (90), engineer, R penetrating, R burning
2Organ Gun (2120)

Tomb Kings (1998)
King (318), charriot of fire, scorpion armour, spear of antarhak
Priest (165) hierophant, cloak of the dunes, hieratic jar
Priest (160) on casket, golden ankhra
Priest (168) steed, staff of ravening

20 Warriors (160) bows, standard, banner of the undying legion
5 Light horsemen (70)
23 charriots (2120)
2 Tomb swarms (90)
2Tomb scorpions (285)
3 Carrion (72)
Giant (220)
Casket of souls (165)

Wood Elves (1986)
Treeman Ancient (375), Annoyance of Netlings, Cluster of Radients
Noble (158), Light Armour, Shield, Great Weapon, Hail of Doom Arrow, Helm of the Hunt, Alter kindred
Spellsinger (175), Level 2, Dispel Scroll*2
Spellsinger (175), Level 2, Dispel Scroll, Calingor?s Stave

48 Dryads (95)
210 Glade Guard (120)
5 Glade Riders (129), Musician
6 Wardancers (108)
6 Wild Riders (192), Full Command
Great Eagle (50)

High Elves (2008)
Archmage (315), Level 4, Ring of Fury, Jewel of the Dusk
Dragonmage (420), Level 2, Silver Wand, Guardian Pheonix
Noble (220), Great Weapon, Barded Elven Steed, BSB, Dragon Armour, Battle Banner

10 Archers (110)
25 Spearelves (275), Full Command, Lion Standard
6 White Lions (90)
6 Silverhelms (178), Full Command, Shields
5 Dragon Princes (250), Full Command, Banner of Sorcery

1 Great Eagle (50)
1 Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)

The Plan:
I had gone combat and warmachine heavy with the dwarfs, and movement heavy with the tomb kings. The plan was to castle up around the warmachines wherever terrain allowed, then use the charriots and giant (with the majority of magic support) to roll up the flank. Scorpions and swarms would most likely burrow and assasinate mages and bolt throwers. I was very happy with the terrain, giving me the hill in the corner to castle up around, and the lake to protect their flank.

Deployment:

Elves, left to right (as pictured) - Fire dragon with mage, eagle, heavy cav, light cav, dragon princes with HE archers and archmage behind, dryads with WE archers behind, light cav with spearmen behaind, eagle, alter nobel, dryads with WE archers and 2 mages behind, war dancers, white lions, dryads, repeater bolt thrower on the right board edge. The treeman ancient is behind the wood on the right

Left flank

Tomb Kings & Dwarfs
left flank left to right - charriots and charriots with king, with light horse containing liche, carrion, and hierophant on foot behind; bone giant; dwarf warriors by the lake.

Right flank

Right flank left to right - skeleton archers in front; organ gun nearest the lake, hammerers with lord, bolt thrower, long beards with BSB and runesmith, slayers, dwarf worriors on the right board edge; on the hill I placed an organ gun, casket, and stone thrower with master engineer. I burrow my scorpions behind his mages, and the swarms by his bolt thrower.

In deployment, I castled everything up early in deployment, hoping to force out the majority of his forces to deply opposite, then place my charriots to flank. However, he had many more drops than me, and placed his dragon well after I'd finished in a position to threaten any movement of my charriots!

I win roll for first turn and decide to take it (in hindsight perhaps not the best option).

D&TK turn 1:
My charriots move up tentatively, keeping out of range of the dragon, and the carrion move up hoping to get behind the dragons LOS. My skeleton archer screen shuffles right to stop blocking the bolt thrower. Magic moves the carrion up (he fails his dispel roll), but is mostly blocked by too many dice. In shooting, my Stone thrower misfires after a spot on guess on the alter noble (I've learnt to fear him using the hail of doom arrow on turn 1 against the casket), fails the master engineer re-roll, and is out of the game for a turn. The bolt thrower misses and everything else is out of range.

Elf turn 1:
Everything moves up on the right, except for his wardancers which move to sit on a burried scorpion. On the left things stay put.

Magic takes down 2 charriots.

Hail of doom takes out one casket guard and a wound of the priest - I breath a sigh of relief that he hasn't died!

D&TK turn 2:

The righ flank at the top of turn 2.

The left flank at the top of turn 2.

I'm starting to worry I can't take the flank quickly due to the dragon, and that my all important stone thrower is going to miss it's chances to take out the treeman.

In movement a scorpion appears and charges his archmage unit. He flees, but not far enough; the scorpion earns it's points and brings the magic phase back to me. The swarms also appear and charge the bolt thrower. My king's charriots move to charge his centre whilst keeping out of range of his dragon. My single charriot moves back to get resurrected but keep threatening the dragon if it moves up. The carrion fly to march block his heavy cav. I move the hammerers forward to block charges on the BT, and my longbeards back to prevent the eagle charging my casket. My lord moves to the left OG to help disuade charges and soak up any shooting at it.

Magic resurrects a charriot, charges the bone giant into the dragon princes, and shoot the archers at alter noble, who takes a wound.

In shooting the archers finish off the alter noble and the OG on the hill kills the eagle. Things are looking good, and I debate not firing my 2nd OG to preserve it, but decide to shoot the light cav moving their way, and it blows up!

In combat the giant kills 1 dragon prince. I'm then told the unit has a standard AND the BSB with +D6 combat res banner (but neither model)! I'd been told about the dual banner at deployment, but had forgotten (now I see the arguement for WYSIWYG)! Luckilly he rolls low for the baner, and the giant only takes 1 wound. The swarm routs the bolt thrower crew off the board.

Elf turn 2:
Everything moves up. Dryads charge the scorpion in the centre, and more charge the swarms. The wardancers sit on the burrowed scorpion. The remaining eagle moves to redirect the kings charriots to expose a flank to his heavy cav, but he accidentally moves up his light cav into the overrun path. The dragon flies up hoping to toast the tomb king.

In the magic phase he casts firery sword on his dragon mage on about 13, and I keep my dice planning to dispell it in my next magic phase. He also casts regen on the treeman, but I let it go.

Shooting kills the 2nd casket guard.

In combat the swarms die to big combat res, and the scorpion only just. The giant kills 2 dragon princes, and again only loses 1 wound to combat res!

D&TK turn 3:

The right flank at the top of turn 3.

The left flank at the top of turn 3.

The kings charriots charge the eagle, which holds! The warriors charge the dragon princes to (hopefully) add to the giant's CR. Hammerers charge the light cav, which flee. The small charriots charge the dragon, hoping to assassinate the mage. The 2nd scorpion appears and scatters away from the wardancers, but not enough to escape combat. The priests on my left move back out of LOS of the dragon, but in range to support the charriots. My plan had been to resurrect the 3rd charriot and then charge them into the dragon in my magic phase, but I forgot about it when it came to declaring charges.

In other movements I move the longbeards back onto the hill to block shooting at the casket, and give it a chance to recover. The archers reform to take the charge of the white lions and treeman, the warriors on the right move up, and the slayers start moving across to help tie up the treeman. The carrion drop in front of the heavy cav to stop them getting to charge my king's charriots if something goes wrong. I moved the lord back into the hammerers.

With the casket hidden my opponent uses all his dice on my incantations and all I do is revive the priest on casket. And I forget to dispell the flaming sword!

In the shooting phase the stone thrower scatters off of the treeman, and the bolt thrower misses. To rub salt in, the 2nd organ gun blows up!

In combat, the giant and warriors loose by 1, after killing the dragon prince champion and standard. Having saved the giant from more crumble, the dwarf warriors promptly turn tail, run into the lake, and drown. The small charriots get wiped out by the dragon, but not before assassinating the mage. The kings charriots kill the eagle many times over and overrun into the flank of the light cav.

Elf turn 3:
On my left the heavy cav charge the carrion, and the dragon suffers from stupidity and lumbers forwards. Everything on my right moves up, except the white lions, which wait for treeman backup. The light cav, who fled from my hammerers, rally and move into poistion to charge behind the hammerers into the bolt thrower and casket.

The magic phase is pretty much shut down now with his 2 main mages dead.

Shooting did very little.

The scorpion wins combat and runs down the fleeing war dancers (and I'll completley forget about it for the next 2 turns)! The heavy cav on my left wipe out the carrion and hold. The elf BSB fails to wound the giant, and gets crushed in return. The charriots wipe out the light cav and overrun. I made a mistake here - I thought it was my turn and so overran, trying to get distance between me and the dryads, and perhaps contact the archers in the centre. As it was my turn next I should have probably held to charge the dryads in my turn, leaving my giant free to go after the dragon or heavy cav.

D&TK turn 4:

The right flank at the top of turn 4.

The left flank at the top of turn 4.

The kings charriots charge the archers, who flee and escape. The bone giant moves up to the small wood out of LOS of the dragon and heavy cav, but within charge range of the dryads. The hierophant flies up and hides behind it, ready to charge it into the dryads in the magic phase. The light cav with priest start runing around the dragon, keeping out of LOS and away from the heavy cav. My hammerers move back to block the light cav charge behind my lines. Slayers move into position behind warriors, and archers move back, all ready to tarpit the treeman if my shooting fails (I hate that thing - it never dies!). Longbeards move off the hill to give the casket LOS over the battlefield.

In the magic phase the kings charge is dispelled. Shooting by the light cav takes a wound off the dragon, and using the hieratic jar the giant charges the dryads. The priest on the casket revives a guard.

The stone thrower just misses the treeman base, and I fail to get the partial. However, the bolt thrower finaly hits and takes 4 wounds. The archers also take off a wound! Realising the kings charriots are probably within charge range of the dryads on the hedge I shoot their 3 bows and kill one.

In combat, the giants unstoppable assault is unstoppable, does 4 wounds, and breaks the dryads. They flee for the rest of the game.

Elf turn 4:

Right flank at the top of Elf turn 4.

Left flank at the top of Elf turn 4

The treeman charges the warriors, who flee, putting him right in front of the slayers. The white lions charge the archers.

On the left, the heavy cav line up to charge the hierophant, and the dragon flies to flame the light cav. On the right, the fleeing archers rally, the two rightmost units of dryads move to support the treeman and white lions, the spearmen move up to taunt the hammerers, the leftmost dryads set up to charge the hammerers in the flank, the light cav moves around behind the hammerers to charge the casket, and the non fleeing archers move forward to avoid being hit by the chariot charge.

Magic does nothing of note.

In the shooting phase, the dragon kills 4 light horsemen with the priest making his LOS roll, and archers kill 1 longbeard.

In combat, the white lions kill 5 archers, but only draw combat.

D&TK turn 5:
-It looks like I forgot to take a picture at this point, sorry!

Slayers charge the treeman. King charges out of his unit at the rallied archers (hoping that if they flee the remaining charriots can charge the archers containing the mages in the magic phase - they hold - so there is no room!). The warriors rally, and the priests on the left both move to keep out of LOS and march block.

Magic does not do much. Magic missiles fail to wound the heavy cav or dragon on the left, the remaining charriots join the king in charging the archers. Magic missiles from the casket against the light cav bearing down on it fail or are dispelled. Banner of the undying legion resurrects 1 archer.

The stone thrower finally choses it's moment to work, and hits the centre of the spearmen (I didn't fancy my chances guessing the range to the dragon!). Using the example from the rulebook it crushes 12! They panic and flee, causing the dryads neaby to flee as well. I think the bolt thrower missed the dragon.

In combat, the treeman makes all his ward saves against the slayers, but only kills 1 in return. He fails his stubborn roll and flees. The slayers give chase, but are short by an inch! They hit the dryads and the treeman escapes. The king and charriots crush the archers. At this point I make the decision to hold. I could overrun, and try to hit the treeman on my next turn, giving me chance to shoot the dragon with my war machines and potentially take out both, but I decide to hold and go after the archers and mages instead.

Elf turn 5:
The unengaged dryads on my right charge the flank of the slayers. The light cav charge the casket. The remaining archers move up, with the mages making a sprint for safety between my blocks, where they can't be seen except by war machines that have bigger trees to fry. The spearmen rally, and the fleeing dryads by the hammerers rally also. The heavy cav on the left saunters forwards, march blocked by the hierophant. The dragon moves to flame the mounted priest and his mate.

Magic does nothing.

The archers, now at short range, kill 3 longbeards.

Dryads only kill 2 slayers, and lose 3 in return. Dryads lose by 1 but both units hold. White lions kill 3 skeleton archers, loose by 1, but hold. I think the light cav put a wound on the priest on the casket, and the guard strikes back killing 2.

D&TK turn 6:

-I forgot to take a photo at the top of this turn (again!), so the pics are from the beginning of the shooting phase.

Turn 6 during the Dwarf/Tomb kings shooting phase

I position the king to charge the archers, and the charriots to charge the spearmen. The long beards move up to stop the arhers fleeing the charge from the king. The hammerers turn to face off with the unengaged dryads. The Giant moves toward the flank of the heavy cav on the left. The hierophant moves in range to give it the charge in my magic phase, while the mounted priest moves to hide from the dragon and shoot at the heavy cavalry.

My magic phase is stopped well: The king casts urgency onto the charriots so they can charge the spearmen, who flee sucessfully. The king is then stopped from charging the archers. The giant charge is also prevented. I think I probably resurected the wound on the casket priest. Smiting may have been a better option to try and kill off the remeining cav, but it worked out ok.

The catapult scattered off the treemen again, but the bolt thrower hit and took it down.

In combat a couple of slayers die and more skeletons fall. The casket combat ends in no wounds, but the cav outnumber, and the guard crumbles.

Elf turn 6:

Having pretty much conceeded at this point, my opponent sets up for some final combats around the hill. He charges the dryads into the hammerers, and in the magic phase gives them an extra attack and regeneration, despite me having the advantage on dice. However, with the lord and BSB in the front rank they only kill 1, losing combat by 8 and fleeing

The dryads fighting the slayers kill a few more, and the white lions kill 5 skeletons, winning combat by enough to crumble all but the standard bearer who stands defiant!

Finally, the priest makes a couple of ward saves and kills a horseman, loosing just one wound to combat res., and staying alive (well, as alive as a liche priest can be)!

Final positions

The aftermath:

The elves conceeded, so we didn't count up VP's.

It was a great game, and we both enjoyed it. Sam said mid way through that he'd probably lost the game over the positioning of his light cav and eagle on my left, allowing me to overrun and roll up his line. Some bad rolls on the +D6 combat res banner also prevented him crumbling the giant, saving his dragon princes, and possibly the flank. I also think that the dragon could have been used much more effectively, and that treesinging (his usual tactic) could have helped a lot in both covering troops and blocking charriots. I probably could have played certain things better too, but I'll let you point those out.

I was very pleased with how the game went. My plan worked out, despite the dragon threat on my charriots. At the very beginning my opponent commented on what he thought was a bad match up of dwarfs and tomb kings, due to the TK reliance on magic, and the dwarfs being unable to back that up with their own spells, allowing the elves to focus all their dispelling power on the tomb kings incantations. I hadn't thought of that, but luckily the scorpion charge on turn two changed that, and killing the dragon mage on turn 3 sealed it.

MVP goes to the scorpion for turning up on time and in position on turn 2. Yes, that was mainly luck, and my past results with scorpions are terrible. Other awards go to the casket priest for refusing to die and soaking up dispell scrolls and dice, the giant for being unstoppable, and the sacrificial dwarf warriors and charriots, which sold themselves to keep command of the left flank.

LVP goes to the organ guns. Despite how ferrocious these things should be they almost always fail me. They constituted a large portion of the points I lost, and that wasn't even due to enemy activity. The Master engineer comes in second. The only time his reroll was needed was to save a missfire, and it didn't.

Well done if you actually made it through all that - i realise now it could have been written up in a much better way, but I'm not going back to do it now. I hope it was interesting for some of you!