Chaos Dwarfs Versus Vampire Counts

Game 3: 1000 points of Chaos Dwarfs.

Took a Slavemaster with the hailfire gun, 25 Dwarf Warriors with Full Command, banner to give them Magic Resistance, and an Eruption Gun, 10 Annihilators, and 3 Inferno Golems including the Face of hashut and an Eruption Gun upgrade. He won the first turn.


Vampire Count Turn 1
General advance. Could not stop his Corpse Cart giving Miasma. Could not stop his Wind of undeath, but only took one casualty. He put the spirit host in front of the Warriors about 7".

Chaos Dwarf Turn 1
Basically, moved the Warriors forward (and would have been short had I charged), no other moves. I had some shots with my Eruption Guns so I took them. The one on the Golems promptly mis-fired and put a wound on the Golem. The other one rolled 2 shots, did no wounds.

Vampire Count Turn 2
Charged Spirit Host into the Warriors, marched everything else forward. Varghulf circled behind my Golems. Magic was not so good this time as Wind failed, nothing else of note. He did no wounds with his Spirit Host, it died to Combat Resolution. Decision time.

If I over-ran 6-8", it would let me flank charge his zombies when my Golems charged. Less and I would be in bad shape, more and I would have no LOS. I chose not to...and failed my restrain roll. Fortunately, I advanced about 7".

Chaos Dwarf Turn 2
Charge! With the Golems in the front and the Warriors in the side, my hope was simple; do enough casualties to force the entire combat to melt to combat resolution. If I failed, he would then flank my Warriors with his Grave Guard and rear-charge the Golems with his Varghulf.

(By the way, this is the type of play I prefer to make, as opposed to the plays I made in the "power-gaming" embarrassment. High-risk, high reward. If it works, I am in good shape for a marginal win, if it fails I am at risk of a huge loss).

Shooting was good as the Blunderbusses showed their over-powered potential, hitting about 2/3rds of a unit and slaying I think 9 of them. (I should note it also showed their limitation, as this would be the only time they fired in the game, doing a total of 9 casualties through shooting).

The Eruption Gun I fired at a Corpse Cart, again rolling 2 shots and doing no damage. *Sigh*. I know they are better than that.

The Close Combat did not go all that well. His Miasma meant he hit first. No big deal, I think he only wounded one, and I saved that.

But I could not do much either. My General could not even hit, the rest of the Warriors did one or two casualties, the Golems did maybe one more? I won the combat, but only by like 10 despite having his flank and ranks and outnumbering.

I know 10 sounds like a lot...but I should have won by about 15 which would have been enough to wipe out the unit and get me away from the inevitable.

Vampire Count Turn 3
Charge! Mannfred led the Grave Guard in. His zombie screen charged the Annihilators whose stand and shoot did not one casualty.

His bound spell Dust hand or something like that was introduced to the Magic Resistance of the Banner. Yes, it paid off!

He did a couple casualties, again my General could not even wound a zombie, the Varghulf (who also charged) did a couple wounds to a Golem, the Warriors broke, the Golems (being Stubborn) stayed.

Meanwhile, the Annihilators proved decent in hand to hand (they should, having a stat line equal to the Warriors) and did 3 wounds, the rest of the Zombies crumbling to combat resolution. I needed to pursue about 4-5" but went 10"! Grr.

Chaos Dwarf Turn 3
The Annihilators had no shot due to the over-run so reformed. The Eruption Gun did not move, the Warriors Rallied, but only because of the +1 the Musician gave them. Rolled a 10. Did a wound to the Varghulf with the Golems.

Vampire Count Turn 4
His Grave Guard charged the Warriors. His Corpse Cart charged the Golems.

Typical combats; somehow the Corpse Cart did not damage and I destroyed it, took a wound from the Varghulf. Warriors and General did no casualties, lost combat by 4. Somehow did not flee.

Chaos Dwarf Turn 4
Charged into his Grave Guard for no apparent reason. Did another wound to Varghulf, but lost another Golem. Did maybe one casualty to his Grave Guard, took a couple wounds. Passed break test.


Vampire Count Turn 5
The Varghulf and Golems continued their long-running duel, though this time it was the Varghulf taking the break test 9and passing). He was down to 1 wound after this round.

The Warriors and Grave guard did a couple casualties apiece and the Warriors passed their break test again.
Curse of years cast successfully.

Chaos Dwarf Turn 5
More combat, not much accomplished. Failed to dispel curse of years.

Vampire Count Turn 6
The game hung in the balance. At this point, I had lost over half the Golems, less than half of the Warriors and not much else. He had lost a Corpse Cart, a unit of Zombies, and half wounds on the Varghulf.

Now it started to swing. On the verge of putting his Varghulf down, instead it was the Golem who finally fell. He again broke the Warriors but, with the Eruption Gun holding him in the combat, could not pursue.

The Curse of years, however, proceeded to do about 11 casualties, taking the Warriors well under half strength, thus giving him points for them and, if I rolled an 11 or 12, full points for them and the General! Suddenly things were swinging.

Chaos Dwarf Turn 6
The Warriors rallied. So that saved me about 300+ points between half points for them and for my general. My Eruption Gun finally fled, but I was okay with that. I dispelled Curse of Years. game.

Conclusion:
Surprisingly, I ended up with a few more points...because I captured a standard of his but he did not get one of mine. His loss of the Corpse Cart was devastating.

Fortunately, the points difference was less than a hundred, and that is a clear draw.


This was a much better game. Both players got stuff done, the outcome was in doubt a few times, and that was cool.

I think the 12" range of the blunderbusses is a pretty good limitation on them. The Eruption Guns have been a marked disappointment, as the BS3 combined with the pedestrian strength make them pretty iffy.

On the other hand, the Warriors were surprisingly good. I lean somewhat towards starting to play the Dwarfs as opposed to the Warriors of Chaos. They are capable without being crushingly dominant the way the WoC are against all but one army in our group. We will see.