1,000 points vs. Warriors of Chaos

my army:

[font="Times New Roman"]Thane, GW, Shield, r Stone[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]10 Quarreler Rangers, shields[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]20 Warriors , Musician, SB, Shields[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]10 Longbeards , Musician, Shields[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]14 Ironbreakers, FC Thane goes here[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]Cannon, r. Forging, Engineer[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]Organ Gun[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]His army: (approx)[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]Wizard of Nurgle, level 2 general: Had buboes and something else that was never used[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]Kohrne Hero on Juggernaught (went with c. knights), some equipment[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]5 Chaos Knights nurgle - enscorceled weapons[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]6 Maurader Horsemen nurgle[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]5 Maurader Horsemen nurgle[/font]

[font="Times New Roman"]Chaos Spawn - nurgle[/font]

Well, the game was played, and let's just say it wasn't a good day for this particular clan of Dwarfs. We had decided in advance that we wanted to try one of the scenarios in the v.6 rulebook just for kicks. We settled on the 3[sup]rd[/sup] one, called "meeting engagement" - basically it is played normally but the deployment is different. You have to write down the order of deployment before the game starts and before you know anything about what your opponent had. All I knew was that he was playing Warriors of Chaos. Your 1[sup]st[/sup] unit deployed goes in the middle area, and each subsequently deployed unit must be further to the edge than the last one, so it ends up being kind of like a long line. I think the idea of the scenario is that 2 armies are on the march in a long column and then they get close and notice each other and decide to fight it out. Not great for the Dawi because it's almost impossible to castle up. In addition to that, I didn't really know what I was doing (neither did he) in how to best write down deployment so some positioning was bad.

We put out random terrain. I won choice and chose a side with some woods on my left and a small hill on my right. He had a ruin at the back of the board which did nothing and some woods on my left (so 2 woods on the left 2 quadrants from my perspective). Did I mention that we were playing on a smaller table? everything was 75% of normal size.

So in the deployment I also went 1[sup]st[/sup] and put down a unit of Ironbreakers in my "middle." It looked like this, left to right: Ironbreakers, warriors, Longbeards, Organ gun, cannon. Rangers deployed in my deployment zone since there was no scouty place I could put them but in the middle of the wood on my half, where they would have to spend the 1[sup]st[/sup] whole turn moving to see anything, so they just ended up standing with 2 guys in the woods and the rest out of it. The bad guys were, L to R (my perspective): 5 horsemen w/magician (lvl 2, Nurgle, general), 6 horsemen, spawn, 5 c. knights w/juggernaught. Everyone but the Kohrne hero had mark of nurgle.

Turn 1: He won turn choice and let me go first. In the first round I did nothing. Cannon came up ¼ inch short of the juggernaught's unit, the organ gun rolled 6 hits on the same unit but only 2 wounded and those 2 were saved by armor, the rangers hit one horseman who wasn't wounded. Wow, that stunk. In his turn everything moved up and I dispelled the buboes trying to kill my Ironbeard.

Turn 2: Cannon kills one chaos knight (yea!), so now with fewer than 5 rank-and-file helpers, the juggernaught can't claim "look out, Sir!" - OG rolls 8 hits on him and he is pasted with wounds to spare! (yea!) chaos knights fail their panic test on the 1[sup]st[/sup] try, but they get to re-roll failed panic (boo) and pass on the 2[sup]nd[/sup] try (boo again). Rangers kill one horseman. I'm thinking things are looking much better now. In his turn 2 the c. knights charge the longbeards. I have to think for a long time about if I should flee or not (in hindsight, yes, I should have) but decide to hold. Everyone else creeps up. The buboes kills my Ironbeard (he had a familiar that gave him an extra power dice. I rolled all 4 to dispell but no such luck). In combat the longbeards take 3 causalties and lose combat by 2, fail their break test by ONE, run off the table but the c. knights pursue and also run off the table.

Turn 3: I do an about-face with the warriors so they can face the c. knights when they come back on. Since he can't charge, I will get to and go first, maybe even cause a casualty? This was debatable in my mind, but it was a fully ranked block of troops with 5 static combat res, so, now is the best time I suppose. Cannon aims at the spawn, and gets a good 1[sup]st[/sup] roll. Bounce roll misfires, but AH [warhammertag54]HA[/warhammertag54]! I paid for the wonderful rune of forging! I re-roll the misfire and... misfire again. Stuck in the mud less than 2" in front of the target. Urgh! OG misfires and destroys itself. Rangers miss everything (blasted mark of Nurgle). Hmmm. Not so good. In his turn the c. knights come back on the table and stay right at the edge. The wizard comes out of his unit & charges the Ironbreakers in the front, one unit of maurader horsemen charge the rangers (stand and shoot does nothing) and during compulsory moves the spawn moves far enough to also charge the Ironbreakers in the front. In combat the Nurgle wizard challenges me, and the thane accepts (since the Ironbeard is dead, it was that or stand in the back row). Mr. Nurgle does one wound to him (phew! That was close!), and the thane hits back with 3 wounds, deadifying him. Ironbreakers take no wounds and give one to the spawn. Of course we win combat, but that thing is unbreakable so we just stand there. Oh by the way, the rangers die easily and are run down by pursing horsemen.

Turn 4: My warriors charge the c. knights in the front. In hindsight, it would have been better to let the cannon take one shot at them and allow the c. knights to charge me next turn, but I wasn't thinking. Cannon takes one last shot and I guessed just a couple inches short of the horsemen who will obviously charge them in the bottom of 4. The dwarf warriors vs. chaos knight look like this: 2-4 dwarfs die each turn and the c. knights lose none. We tie twice, I lose and hold once, and finally break and get run down in bottom of 5. In Ironbreakers vs. spawn, my Thane takes the one remaining wound and croaks, but I win due to SCR the spawn is still unbreakable (another bad decision, perhaps. I moved the Thane within the unit to touch the spawn, I would not have had to). In his half of the turn, the cannon gets charged by horsemen, no one dies, no one flees.

Turns 5 & 6. Like I said before, the c. knights eventually do-in the warriors in a battle of attrition. Ironbreakers kill the spawn. They overrun and maybe that wasn't such a good idea, I was thinking of staying out of the charge range of the c. knights. The cannon crew eventually dies. At the end, I see that I will undoubtedly lose, I spin the Ironbreakers around to face the c. knights making sure they can only charge me in the front. It was almost midnight, and I'm not really sure what I was thinking maybe a fun ending?. In the bottom of 6 I forgot that the horsemen who previously killed the rangers were still there and were able to charge the Ironbreakers in the flank. Oops. The c. knights also charge 'em in the front. I lose combat by 4 need a five on the break test to prevent total obliteration, and I get exactly 5. So while they survive, the 10 surviving Ironbreakers look around at the end and notice all other dwarfs are gone or dead.

What I think I should have done differently:

I should not have moved the Thane within the Ironbreakers after he already had one wound to fight the Spawn. He rolled for 7 attacks that turn, and, of course, one snuck thru. Gave up some easy points there.
If I had deployed better, the Longbeards could have fled the Chaos knights and set up the warriors for a flank charge on them.
Get better at guessing cannon ranges
Crossbows are mostly useless against chaos warriors.

Bottom line, sometimes you win or lose in deployment.

Grades for my units:

Quarreler Rangers: D- : one wound caused and then ran away.

Warriors: B: Did hold up to Chaos Knights, for a while...

Longbeards: C: They died right away, but... it was against chaos knights.

Ironbreakers: A: They never died!

Thane: B+: He killed the opposing general, and he dies mainly because of my mistake.

Cannon: F : Usually much better. Bad luck.

Organ Gun: B- : Did one good thing... then blew up. (fairly standard [warhammertag99]OG[/warhammertag99])

Your opinion please!