Hi everyone, there's nothing particular about this battle report, it was my second ever game with Dwarfs on thursday and having been slaughtered in my 1st I managed a draw against a fairly nasty VC army with a deathstar black knight unit. I'm quite proud of myself so I thought I'd let you all know how it happened

My list:

Dwarf Lord: shieldbearers, great weapon, Runes: stone, resistance, spite, challenge (useless against VC but I forgot to swap it out!)
BSB: Runes: Gromril, resistance
Runsmith: shield, Runes: balance, scroll
Engineer: great weapon, rune of stone

25 longbeards: shields, command, stoicism, battle
18 hammerers: command, battle
10 warriors: shields, great weapons
10 quarrellers: shields
10 quarrellers: shields
10 thunderers: shields

bolt thrower: burning, penetration
organ gun

VC list (off the top of my head):

Vampire Lord: ring with macabre bound spell, S6, ward save, red fury (something like that)
Vampire: with grave guard, not particularly tooled up
Vampire: with item that allows scouting and item that gives M9
White BSB: regen banner

10 black knights: command (Lord and BSB here)
3 units of 20-30 zombies
30ish graveguard: full command

All explanations of deployment etc I give are from my perspective.

Battlefield was as follows. In my deployment zone I have a small wood on the left then a stretch of flat ground with a hill near the right board edge. There was a wood to the left of the VC deployment zone directly opposite my wood with a house, then a hedge which played little part as he advance, behind the hedge to the right of centre there was also a hill. He also had a hill in the far right of his deployment but again it played little part as he advanced on me.

I deployed my bolt thrower + master engineer in the wood on the left side of my zone 4 inches or so behind the front of my zone. The hammerers accompanied by the Lord and runesmith deployed directly next to the wood with their left flank protected and the longbeards accompanied by the BSB directly next to them. A screen of quarrellers deplored in line (1 rank) directly in front of both units. There was a reasonable sized gap between the right flank of the longbeards and the hill in my deployment which was occupied by the small warrior unit, slightly forwards of the quarreller screen and the organ gun (entrenched) a bit further back at the foot of the hill. My remaining quarreller unit and the thunderers deployed on the hill angled towards the centre to create a killing ground in front of the hill.

The VC zombie blocks and graveguard deployed more or less directly opposite my hammerers and longbeards in a square with 2 zombie blocks at the front and the 3rd block + graveguard directly behind. The black knights deployed to their right opposite my hill and organ gun. He then scouted his remaining vampire behind the house in front and to the right of my bolt thrower out of sight.

TURN 1
I won the roll off for first turn and took it to get in an extra round of crossbow and bolt thrower shooting. The quarrellers on the hill fired at the black knights but didn't roll well and failed to get through the armour save followed by regen. The other quarrellers and bolt thrower fired at the zombie block in front of the grave guard and killed 6 or 7.

The VC army began their relentless advance. The infantry blocks advanced directly forwards and the black knights more or less kept pace, moving slightly further. His magic was nullified.

TURN 2
I advanced my small warrior unit and angled them in such a way that they were out of charge range of any zombies and if the black knights charged they would fail and expose their flank to the longbeards - the quarrellers in front of them advanced and lost a rank to facilitate this (I made a slight deployment error deploying them in front of my combat blocks as they lost that turn of shooting but you live and you learn!). In the shooting phase the quarrellers and thunderers on the hill and the organ fired at the black knights killing 4 (the OG only rolled a 4). The bolt thrower fired at the grave guard which it could now see past the zombies, killing 3. This was another deployment error I made. I deployed my warmachines after he had deployed his entire army and should have entrenched it on the hill opposite the black knights (since it was the only flaming weapon in my army) where it could have potentially killed at least 2 a turn. I could then have put my OG in the wood and unloaded into the grave guard every turn, it would have killed more of them over the course of the battle and potentially reduced them to below half strength. This battle taught me a lot about the importance of the deployment phase with Dwarfs.

No charges for the VC army. His scouting vampire did not risk a bolt shot and remained behind the the house, everthing else advanced directly towards me, his black knights swinging round in front of the hill presenting their flank towards the quarrellers and thunderers on it. In the magic phase he managed to raise a black knight back plus a few zombies but nothing else.

TURN 3
My small warrior unit had now succeeded in their mission statement of slowing everyone down a bit but were exposed where they were. I could have left them standing their which may have been the better idea but I wanted to try and do a bit of damage so I charged into the zombies directly in front of them. The longbeards advanced slightly and angled towards the black knights (who were still a way off) my quarrellers on the hill advanced a bit to place themselves in such a way that the black knights could not wheel past them and if they charged the angle would take them away from my combat blocks but they would pass between my OG and thunderers (I hope that makes sense!). My thunderers and OG then unloaded in the black knights again killing a couple more (I think by now he had a frontage of 6 including lord and BSB with only one left in the back rank). The bolt thrower killed a couple more graveguard. In the combat phase the warriors slightly fluffed their attacks but still managed to kill a couple, then auto-broked from the fear causing enemy ending up just behind my battle line.

The zombies who had just seen off the warriors charged the longbeards, the zombies in front of the graveguard charged the quarrellers who fled, stranding the zombies in front my my hammerers. The graveguard moved up in front of my bolt thrower, covered from being charged my the hammerers by the stranded zombies. The last zombie unit at the back pushed up at bit (march blocked the the quarrellers standing in front of the black knights) and the black knights just moved up and stopped right in front of the quarrellers unable to wheel past them. His scouting vampire finally ran out and stopped on the far side of the wood out of sight of the bolt thrower. He brought back 1 black knight then miscast with his Lord in the magic phase and took a wound having rolled a 7 (improbably considering his regen and ward save!), the magic phase ended. The zombies who had charged the longbeards did no damage and unsurprisingly crumbled so there were only 4 left (the longbeards had a SCR of 7 with the BSB and rune of battle and killed a few).

TURN 4
The hammerers charged the Zombies in front of them, the fleeing warriors and quarrellers rallied. The quarrellers sitting in the front of the black knights stayed exactly where they were! He still couldn't wheel past them and if he charged the subsequent overrun (due to the frenzy his lord had) would take him well away from my battle line at the expense of only 120pts to me. The OG, thunderers and quarrellers unloaded into the black knights, killing the 1 that had just stood back up (don't you just find VC armies a tad frustrating sometimes!?) The bolt thrower continued to whittle away at the grave guard right in front of them (I'm pretty sure it would have decimated the black knights if I had placed it on the other flank...dammit!). In the combat phase the longbeards crumbled the rest of the zombies in front of them, the hammerers + lord smashed up a few of the zombies in front of them but there were still some left.

The black knights still didn't charge the quarrellers, the tried to edge around them and succeeded in getting clear but the quarrellers were now sitting directly in their flank. The last unit of zombies walked forwards (still marched blocked) and stopped 4-5 inches short of the longbeards but also only 5 inches away from the hammerers who were still locked in combat. The grave guard slammed into the bolt thrower and the scouting vampire ran around behind the wood to threaten the rear of the longbeards and the small unit of warriors. Not a lot happened in the magic phase again, he managed to get a knight back again and that was about it. He tried to cast curse of years a couple of times, but failed. The grave guard carved up the bolt throwers crew and over ran through the wood chasing the remnants off the board. The hammerers smashed up some more zombies and crumbled the rest. He now only had the one unit of zombies left, but there were still at full strength.

TURN 5
The quarrellers threw caution to the winds and charged into the flank of the black knights in a heroically brave fashion (passed their fear check on a double 1!) The thunderers had little to shoot at so advanced down off the hill to make sure they were out of the overrun arc of the black knights. The hammerers charged the remaining zombie block, the warriors advanced to plug the gap between the OG and longbeards. The quarreller unit reformed to face the grave guard unit. The OG had no targets, everything else had moved or was in combat. In combat the quarrellers bounced off the black knights despite the flank charge (not really surprising!) and were run down, but this took the black knights up onto the hill and left them facing the wrong way. The hammerers waded through the zombies killing a few and crumbling some more.

The grave guard reformed to face the quarrellers (but were still out of charge range) the vampire had been blocked by the overrunning grave guard in the last turn but now moved in front of them (he should have joined the grave guard as you'll find out!). The black knights turned around and moved back over the hill to square off in front of the longbeards. They ignored the thunderers behind them who were facing the wrong way. In his magic phase he tried to give the Lord back a wound and failed, he also added some zombies onto the unit in combat with the Lord and hammerers. In the combat phase the hammerers killed and crumbled some more zombies but they remained around 22 strong (having started 30 or so strong).

TURN 6
The longbeards were now in a position of charge or be charged with the black knights, so they charged, supported by the warriors. This opened up a nice clear shot on the scouting vampire for the OG (who had an item which made him hard to hit with shooting...but OG's don't roll to hit ). The Thunderers turned around but could have no more bearing on the game. The quarrellers shot a couple of grave guard and the OG blew the vampire away. In the combat phase the hammerers ground away at the zombies. When the dice had finished rolling the Longbeards had won the combat by 1, no knights crumbled thanks to the BSB though.

In his turn the grave guard advanced up to the quarrellers. The zombies were boosted again in the magic phase. The knights sliced up some more longbeards but didnt take them below half strength, they lost by 2 this round but passed their check. And the hammerers killed some more zombies. That was it! He had 300ish victory points and I had 360ish, so the result was a draw!

I learnt a lot about deployment in this game, I also plan to swap one of the quarreller units for another war machine and boost the warrior unit up to a proper block for my next battle. Any other thoughts on army selection or anything about the battle? As a young 'un any observations from longbeards would be very helpful. I hope the report was clear but please ask me if you are unsure about anything! I may have remembered the odd thing slightly wrong as I just did it off the top of my head.

Cheers