Dwarfs versus Wood Elfs pre-game nonsense

What a day. I have been looking forward to this game since last month's devastation of Josh's Orcs at the hands of my heroic and gorgeous Wood Elf shooting army of doom.  The humiliation of waiting 14 years to play a Wardancer unit only to see them routed by a crap unit notwithstanding, the game was a lot of fun. Warhammer usually is. Plus, with the new lights Rick installed and the felt he and I covered the tables with, it should look spectacular.

So I have been painting like mad and spent a good deal of time making sure there would be competitive armies for the Goblins, a couple Dwarf armies, a Wood Elf army, a fun and competitive Vampire count army. So I got the lists all together, gathered up all the stuff and set out to pick up Chad. 

Then I returned home to pick up the army lists. And headed off to pick up Chad.

Then returned home to pick up the army I forgot to bring. Then headed off to pick up Chad.

Then turned back to get the new scenery I had purchased. 

AAAAAAAAAggggggggghhhhhhhhhh! Not a good start.

Well, knew we would be having pizza, so did not eat breakfast. Well, got there late, things were a bit discombobulated. Never did get anything ordered. No big deal...except when all was said and done I would go from 2:30 yesterday afternoon until 9:00 tonight without eating. D'oh!

Well, anyway, we started off with a good game of Heroscape. Got some nice pictures, hopefully will get my camera issues resolved soon and get them up.

Unfortunately, the one thing I did not get resolved was table space issues. So we matched up Kenneth and his Dark Elf army against Josh and the Goblins, Phillip and his lizardmen against Rick and the Dwarf army (with Chad studying the game under Rick) and Kevin's new Ogre Kingdom army against Chris and the Vampire Counts. That left me without a game.

Now, to be fair Rick offered to sit out but I could not bring myself to play when someone else was sitting out so I was just going to take pictures and notes of all the games.

Oh, remember the numerous things I forgot to bring with me this morning? Well...I also forgot to recharge my camera batteries after Friday's Blazer game so I essentially had no batteries left. Just not meant to be my day.

I mostly watched Kevin and Chris. I explained the way I built the Vampire army to work; the Cairn Wraiths working as a protective screen to allow the Skeletons and Grave Guard to get into close combat without taking a lot of damage, plus carry Mannfred the Acolyte with them and let his Sword of Unholy Power do its work.

Unfortunately, he did not quite get what I was saying and put his screening unit off on the left, leaving his Grave Guard w/Mannfred unit exposed to the Leadbelchers of Kevin. With only 1000 point armies, this was a great risk; should the leadbelchers do enough damage to cause a break test and the test fail, he conceivably could lose almost half his army to the opening volley, a totally unnecessary risk.

That is why these learning games are good, because I could freely mention the strategy upgrade and reasoning behind it.

Meanwhile, Kevin had a pretty good set-up and won the first turn. His Leadbelchers and Gut-dudes all rumbled forward. Unfortunately for him, the Leadbelchers were about 1/4" out of range and his magic phase saw either failure to cast or else dispelled by Chris.

Then Chris was able to correct his set-up. He got the Ethereal Cairn Wraiths in front of his units so they would be the only target for the Leadbelchers. That was essentially the game as it turned out.

The next turn for Kev was more maneuvering and failed Magic. Then Chris charged his Cairn Wraiths into the Leadbelchers. Open up with the Banshee Ghostly Howl and soon the Leadbelchers were gone without ever getting to fire their guns. 

That was the way the game went; Kevin had nothing that could hurt the Cairn Wraiths who rampaged through every unit he had. Ultimately, one unit of Zombies Chris managed to raise was slain by one of Kevin's units, giving him 50 points, the total he ended with. At the end of the game he had fleeing Gnoblars and 1 character (75 point character) on the table while Chris lost a total of 4 skeletons. Brutal.

Lesson: Always, always, always have some way of dealing with ethereal creatures. That one unit did ALL the damage, 925 points. 

Meanwhile, the Lizardmen/Dwarf battle was almost as bad. A major tactical error saw 2 of the 3 cannons covered up by Thunderer units; the army he decided to use had 2 10 man Thunderer units (150 points each), 3 cannons (90 points each), a Master Engineer, and a 17 man Warrior regiment meant to surround the Thane. In theory, nobody in the entire army would move until the Warriors charged late in the game. However, he missed that part of the design and planned to move his Thunderers out of the way of the Cannons. However, an all-shooting army that sees 33% of its shooters unable to shoot (Move or Fire) is going to struggle. 

Phillip put a skirmishing screen of skinks all the way across the front. Perfect. Moved forward, fired. Rinse, repeat, and roll to a massacre victory which was only helped when 2 of the cannons blew up in the same turn. *Sigh*. Poor Rick. No luck paired with sub-optimal starting position meant disaster.

And in the third game, Josh also missed part of the army design. I tried to explain that he needed to put his Spider Riders spread 10 wide, then his Archers 20 wide, then all his hand to hand units, meant to move forward, firing as they went, and allow him to numerically overwhelm the badly outnumbered Dark Elf army. Instead he bunched the Spider Riders on one wing 5 wide, the archers about 10 wide, and spread his hand-to-hand units all across the table. Worse yet, he put his general off on his right wing.

This allowed Kenneth to charge his best unit into the unsupported, unready for close combat Spider riders, shoot one of his 40 spearmen units to ribbons on their way across the field, and never outnumber the Dark Elf army. Even with a 200 point advantage, that set-up meant he was way behind. 

I almost cried on the turn he charged his remaining spearmen into the Dark Elf quarrelers and instead of flanking them with his stone troll, instead charged the stone troll solo into a unit of Dark Elf Corsairs. 

Kenneth and Josh thought it was luck that the Stone Troll died in turn one; nope. Not even close. There were 3+ ranks of Corsairs. He had a +2 for that, +1 for outnumbering, +1 for Standard bearer. Before it even started he had a +4 to his combat resolution. He only had 3 attacks. Even if he killed with all 3 of them and took no return wounds, he would have to take a break test on Leadership 4 (out of range of the general) with a -1. The troll was dying that turn. 

This is not taking anything from Kenneth. He set up his army better and moved them better. Josh was in deep trouble from the word go. 

Overall, looked like everyone had fun, so that is a good thing. Shortly will post report on my battle with Chad.

Wood Elves Verse Orcs

Josh wanted to stick with the Goblin/Orc army. We bounced the point totals up to 2250 per army, this would allow Lord-level characters. The battles would be as follows:

Drew & Wood Elves versus Josh and the Orcs (proxying goblin figures for Orcs). We matched the points pretty well...2118 for the Orcs, 2112 for the Wood Elves!

Kenneth & the Dark Elves versus Rick and the Dwarfs. Using every Dwarf figure I have, we got the total for the Dwarfs up to 2188.

Phillip and the Lizardmen versus Chris/Kevin and the Vampire Counts. The Vampire Count army is interesting looking; We loaded them with Vlad Von Carstein, Isabella, Konrad, and Mannfred the Acolyte; the latter three are mere Hero level. Plus, we gave them Varghulf. All of them are Vampires which means at the minimum level one Wizards...though Mannfred the Acolyte is a level 2 and Vlad is a level 3. That means they had at worst a whopping 9 power dice! Magic ahoy. 

 Pictured from front right to back right: Vlad Von Karstein, Isabella Von Carstein, Konrad, Mannfred the Acolyte, 12 Crypt Guard (?), 15 skeletons, 15 skeletons, then on the left Varghulf, 24 Grave Guard, 25 Grave Guard.

Not that the Lizardmen were slouches in that department. Phillip had a 2nd generation Slann and 2 Skink Shamans. However, with somewhere around a million skinks, he also had plenty of firepower and with Temple Guard, a large Saurus unit, and 3 Kroxigor (I know, one cleverly disguised as a Minotaur...but whatcha gonna do, right?) he also seemed like a powerhous in every phase...shooting, close combat, magic.

Of course, the Vampire units were...well..wimpy. Other than causing Fear they pretty much blow chunks. Low ws, low strength, low toughness. Cheap, of course...but horrifically bad. As near as I can tell, their best use is protection and numerical support for getting the hand to hand monsters like Conrad and Vlad into close combat. Experimentation might prove that wrong, but it looked to me like throwing Vlad in with the 25 Crypt Guard, having him enter challenges and letting his overkill give huge cmbat resolution bonuses could really do some damage. Then again, I thought charging Wardancers into close combat was a good use of them...uh, no. So maybe (read "probably") I have no clue how to run the Vampire army.

Of course, one could argue I don't know how to run any army. This day would prove that further. The Goose and I went to Taken last night (review to be posted shortly) with Liam Neeson. Good flick, but I had planned that time to finish painting and gluing. Instead, I was trying to do that this morning. 

As a result, I was a bit rushed getting prepped for the Warhammer and later Texas Hold 'Em games and forgot some stuff...like, a pen to keep notes. So we will see how memory serves.

We were going with Victory Points and a different terrain set-up:minimum 4 pieces, alternate placement by rolling on the 1995 Battle Book terrain chart, then after everything placed, roll scatter dice and 3d6 to see where it moved before rolling for sides.

Josh initially ran the river all the way across the board, but that would have meant I could concentrate all my archers on the 2 fords which means the battle would be over before it began, so we agreed to change it to the alignment seen below where it entered and left the same table edge. 

He deployed his Orc Board Riders (which to the untrained eye might bear a suspicious resemblance to Goblin Spider Riders...), Black Orcs with their Special Character...Grimgor? the one that rocks the Black Orcs, giving them Hatred and so forth..., Orc Arrer Boys, Orc Big Uns and Black Orcs (?) if memory serves. He planted his shaman behind the bowmen and his Stone Troll over on his right flank.

It worked well for me as I was outside 12" and was able to put my scouts behind the ziggurat. This would be great for me. I also took advantage of the Waywatcher ability to plant in the open to guard the ford with some great shooting troops. As if "Wood Elf" is not the definition of "great shooting troops".

Meanwhile, I put 20 Glade Guard in the Forest more or less at the edge of the River with my 6 Wardancers behind them, my 10 man unit of Glade Guard on the Hill with the Dryad s behind them and my Wild Riders of Kuornos ready to back up the Waywatchers with some mobile shooting.

My plan was simple; shoot the Orcs as they advanced, retreat before they could charge me, shoot some more, shoot some more, and then, when I had shot as much as possible...shoot some more.

Of course, locking myself behind the river seriously reduced my mobility. D'oh!

WOOD ELF TURN 1

We had to roll 4 times to determine who would go first because we kept tying. Finally I won. Kenneth had pointed out that Fast Cavalry can march and still shoot so I got the Wild Riders up front in a hurry, getting them into range to fire on turn one. Meanwhile, my Scouts climbed the Ziggurat and unleashed a hail of arrows while my other 10 man Glade Guard got ready to fire. 

When you shoot 47 arrows, something is bound to go down and Orcs were dying in droves. It was mostly his Black Orcs taking damage.  

He was out of range of Magic so my first turn consisted of lots of shooting and lots of "Okay, your turn."

+

ORC TURN 1 

March forward except the Arrer boys so they could fire. He elected to ignore the small unit of scouts that shot at him. I probably would have sent the 12 Big 'Uns after them...but eh, whatever. I certainly can't fault him trying to get into my battle line as quick as possible. It is no secret Orcs rock at close combat while Wood Elves are not so good at it. If he could break my Glade Guard, I would be taking a LOT of Panic tests.

In his magic phase he rolled like a 15 for Gaze or Gork. I used a Dispel scroll rather than rolling against such a high score. Magic is pretty much worthless so far...

WOOD ELF TURN 2

Stop me if you have heard this one before; Not much movement, just minor tweaking to maximize my firing. Then shooting, shooting some more, and closing out by shooting...oh, and watching my Magic get dispelled...

But this time the shooting was much less effective as he saved virtually every wound. I think out of 47 shots I did like 1 casualty? Maybe even none. It was brutal. Especially after the Orc turn...

ORC TURN 2

Stop me if you have heard this one before...pass animosity except where it was beneficial, his Troll would not fail Stupidity all game, he did "fail" aniomosity with a unit he wanted to move forward quickly. 

Boom, the Close Combat is looming too soon as he moved forward rapidly.

At this point he looked to be charging my Waywatchers the next turn and my Glade Guard the following turn. THe Orc army was working well. This time I Dispelled his Gaze of Gork by rolling.

His shooting was pretty pointless, fortunately for me. 

WOOD ELF TURN 3

What to do? Oh, I know...back off my Waywatchers to get one more turn of Shooting. Magic? Ha, he dispelled both attempts. I shot and shot and shot with decent success. He lost rank bonuses with two separate units. 

Key was my pesky Scout unit, plinking away from the back at his exposed units.

ORC TURN 3

Ah, animosity, how I despise thee. His Black Orcs's Waaghed their way into charge range. I decided to flee my Waywatchers. He did not follow very far. My flee and shoot routine was working beautifully. The river was slowing him down, too.

Meanwhile, his Troll charged my Dryads unsupported. His troll suffered a wound for his audacity (after failing all 3 saves but Regenerating 2 of the 3).

Gaze was Dispelled again. See a pattern? Actually, late in the game my Spellweaver...a level 4 Wizard taken at the expense of being led by a Lord, a decision that would be disastrous when my Wardancers rolled one under the number needed on their break test...a test they would have passed if only I had the Lord general...my Spellweaver did get 1 (ONE) spell successfully cast after the Shaman died. And did kill 1 (ONE) Orc, about 12 points. SO I essentially spent 600+ points to kill a 12 point model. Magic is as good as the Orcs.

Wood Elf Turn 4

For the first time in several games, Magic mattered as I got irresistible force and struck down a few Black Orcs.

Shooting was also great as my pesky Scouts shot down his Shaman which he had left alone behind the lines. I also took out a few more Black Orcs.

 And then it happened

Ah, joy of joy...I FINALLY, after over a decade of wanting to, I finally, finally, FINALLY got to send in the Wardancers. WS 6, 2 attacks apiece, +1 thanks to the Shadow dance, S4 for charging...I was going to open a can of whoop-tushy on their candy smurfs. 

So yeah, 19 attacks unleashed. No wounds. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing. I did, however, manage to lose a couple and the break test, fleeing.

Yup, that above is my beloved, anxiously awaited Wardancers dancing back through their just-reformed Waywatchers. *Sigh*. That was...uh...not really worth the wait? I think that is a fair assessment.

Fortunately, the Dryads restored some fun as they crushed the Troll by causing another wound (he once again failed 3 Scaly Skin saves only to save 2 of  3 with his Ward save). This time he broke, I overran and charged into his much-reduced Boar Boys, forgetting to force a Panic Test since my Dryads cause Fear. No worries. I had shot 5 of the 10 dead with Glade Guard.

 

ORC TURN 4

His Black Orcs finally charged. Using Aenach, I decided to Stand & Shoot, taking out a couple more, including reducing his Rank bonus.

He also kept the pressure on my right flank, advancing across the river.

And just passing through to go after my Waywatchers.

Close combat, as you might expect between the Orcs and Wood Elves...uh..went the Wood Elf way as his Boar Boyz fled

After chasing them down, a turn or so later I turned my Dryads on his hapless Arrer boyz...good shooters, bad in close combat. Of his 7 remaining guys, I slew 5. Josh said, "no problem, the last two will each kill one." Which, needing 5s to hit and wound, they did. I, needing 5s to save, rolled 4s. So he went 2 for 2. But he still ran.

On his fifth turn, his last remaining unit chose to charge the Glade Guard. They, unsurprisingly, elected to stand and shoot. They shot down 4 of the 16 charging Orcs, just enough to force a break test, which...they failed. 

See the Orcs.

See the Orcs run.

 Dragon model not included...

His turn 6 he rallied which kept me from winning that table quarter, but that ended the game. 

This was a complete and total rout. He eliminated my 9 man Waywatchers and my 6 man Wardancers, which gave him their points + we gave him captured standards for them even though neither unit had Standard Bearers. That gave him about 600 victory points, give or take a handful of points.

Meanwhile, I killed almost 2000 points of his, slew the general, controlled 3 table quarters, captured several unit standards...I won by over 2400 points.

At this point, I am pretty much giving up on the Orcs and Goblins. They are worthless. They cannot win even when they have stronger, tougher warriors against poor (theoretically) hand to hand warriors. My Glade Guard held off and then defeated his toughest, strongest close combat unit. 

Face it, the Orcs stink badly. I really don't know what else Josh could have done. I suppose his trailing 12 Big Uns could have charged my Scouts on the Ziggurat and prevented a few casualties. Maybe. But that would not have turned the battle. I really thought the turn he charged all his hand to hand units in would be the end of the Wood Elf army but instead it crushed the Orcs.

I recommend that when the High Elf army Rick purchased arrive Josh either switch to the Dwarf army or to the Wood Elf army in which case I will go Dwarf. Goblins and Orcs? Done.

Warhammer Game 2, December 13th, 2008

Just as in the first game, we rolled for teams; 2 lowest rolls would be Dwarfs, 3 High rolls would be Goblins. I rolled a 2 and was looking forward to another shot at using the Thunderers. Rick and Kevin also rolled 2s. But Phillip and Josh, seeing those super-high numbers knew it was not going to be worth rolling so they both threw down 1s. A more pathetic roll I hardly hope to ever see. Awesomely hilarious.

They set up first which was perfect. The cannon went in the middle of the field but way forward. I thought that was a tactical error. The field was small enough the cannon could reach the entire table. The center was correct but I believed it should have been set up as close to the table edge as possible.

We responded by putting out our 20 man Night Goblin Archer unit 20 wide to cover massive frontage. The plan was simple. Advance them 4" per turn, fire, and move everything else behind them. We knew the Archers would all die but by that time, we should be close enough to get our Night Goblin Spear men, Spider Riders, and Slugdrool the Troll into close combat at or near full strength.

Plus, by keeping our General in the center, all our tests would be on a Leadership of 8 instead of 5 (and 4 for Slugdrool).

They next placed a unit of Thunderers to their left (our right) of the Cannon. We placed Night Goblin Spearmen behind the Archer screen. Then they made what I felt would turn out to be another tactical error. They placed the Warriors way out on their Right Flank (our left).

I knew what he was trying to do, which he later confirmed, was to flank us. Unfortunately, he had not played the Dwarfs before and underestimated how bad the 2" less movement per turn would hurt.

We placed our second Night Goblin Spear men on our left flank behind the Archer screen. The only remaining choice was where to place the Night Goblin Spider Riders. My plan was to put them between the Night Goblin Spear men units. Again, however, deploying second helped us.

Josh pushed his Miners up to the front line for deployment. Good choice in some respects; it would let them get into hand-to-hand as quickly as possible. However, by putting them only 12" from where we could deploy, it gave me an opportunity.

I changed my plan and put my Spider Riders to the right of a building, out of sight of the Cannon and Thunderers, but looking straight at his Miners. If we got the first turn, I would charge immediately and be able to get my Spider Riders into combat on the first turn, uninjured. Full strength, the Spider Riders might do some damage even with their pathetic Weapon Skill.

We placed our General with the Spear men on the right wing, our Shaman with the left wing Spear men, and Slugdrool in between.

We won the roll for Initiative and elected to go first.

GOBLIN TURN 1

I declared a charge with the Spider Riders. Our Archer screen advanced 4". Slugdrool passed his Stupidity test. Our army moved forward.

The Archers unleashed their hail of arrows. Rick rolled as many 6s as I have ever seen and 3 Thunderers fell in a hail of Arrows. Nazbad Wartfinger attempted Fiery Blast but it fizzled. Meanwhile, the Spider Riders slew 2 Miners. The Miners were unable to do any damage to the Spider Riders and, surprisingly, decided they did not feel like fighting!

The Spider Riders chased them but had to stop when they ran into Dragon Slayer Borri Graniteskin.

DWARF TURN 1

The Miners would turn around on a 9 or less. Josh rolled a 10. That hurt them badly. 5 Miners coming into the battle with Norri and the Spider Riders would have insured a Dwarf win in maybe one more turn.

The cannon belched fire towards the Archers. However, he overshot and the cannon ball landed on the Night Goblin Spear men, then careened through 2 more ranks, killing all 3. The Thunderers unleashed a hail of lead and killed 2 more Archers. Our screen was falling fast.




Meanwhile, on the flank, Norri killed a Spider Rider while taking no wounds himself. However, the Riders won due to having him outnumbered and their Standard. But Norri is Unbreakable. No break test...this was not going to go well for the Goblins. We needed the Spider Riders to somehow do a wound or else keep Norri occupied.


GOBLIN TURN 2

The Archer screen moved forward another 4". The entire army moved forward behind them again as Slugdrool kept his focus. The archers fired again, this time turning their attention to the Cannon, having seen it's fearsome potential. 2 Cannoneers went down under the hail of arrows. The last cannoneer had seen enough. He suddenly remembered he had left a tall, frosty mug of ale at the inn last night and got a head start on getting back to it.

At this point we were ecstatic. The archers were expected to absorb casualties, not deal them. We planned to win in hand-to-hand combat and lose the shooting phase. However, so far the score was 3 Thunderers and the Cannon for us, 5 Archers for them. I will make that trade every time. The Goblins were winning the shooting fight numerically and impact wise. Hilarious. Not for the Dwarfs, I suppose...

Meanwhile, Nazbad Wartfinger got distracted by a wart on his finger and failed to deal any Fiery Blast goodness once again. Goblin sorcery; HA! Worthless.

In close combat, Norri again slew a Spider Rider while taking no wounds yet again lost the battle to their superior numbers and Standard. Being unbreakable, unhittable, and unwoundable by the Spider Riders, he laughed it off, took a big drink from his hip flask, and settled in to deal more damage when his own turn arrived.

DWARF TURN 2

The Warriors on the left Goblin flank reformed, getting ready to charge the Night Goblin Spear men flank in another turn or 2.

The Thunderers once more fired, having great success as 5 Archers switched to a lead diet. Lead diets are seldom healthy, and even more rarely healthy when they are at the hands of Thunderers. They passed their Break Test again, though. Sweet!

Norri noticed he was not making much progress against the Spider Riders so doubled his output, putting down 2 of them. Only 5 left. But they were doing a phenomenal job of keeping him from getting into combat with the Spear men, so it was all good.

GOBLIN TURN 3

On the left flank, the Spear men started to charge, but then noticed it was Dwarf Warriors they would be facing. They started an impromptu Karaoke whistling contest which caused their charge to peter out about half way home.

Somehow inspired by the whistling, Nazbad again tried the Fiery Blast. Miracle of miracles, he rolled a 9! The Dwarfs laughed. Picking up just 3 Dispel dice, they rolled them out. 6...1...wow! All they have to get on the third die is a 2 to dispel it. And....they failed. They rolled a 1. The spell worked. 4 Dwarfs took wounds...and then Josh rolled 3 fives to keep three alive. Only 1 Warrior died.

The Archers, inspired by seeing their Shaman actually do some damage, killed 2 more Thunderers. The Thunderers were going to run but they were too busy reloading their guns so they elected to shoot them one more time at least before following the Cannoneers example.

Norri, meanwhile, was still having fun so he killed 2 more Spider Riders who passed their test.

DWARF TURN 3

On the left flank the Dwarf Warriors charged into the Spear men.

The Thunderers thought since they were only hanging around to shoot their guns they should do some damage. Blood spurted in fountains as 3 archers fell victim.

The Warriors slew 4 Spear men, who could only kill 1 Warrior in return. Somehow, though, they passed their test.

Norri then noticed the Dwarfs could use his assistance in the battle, so he got to work and slew the 3 remaining Spider Riders in one go.

GOBLIN TURN 4

Big Boss Dagskar Earscrapper noticed the Spear men he was with were planning to charge the Thunderers. He figured they could take out the 5 remaining Thunderers without his help, so headed over to offer his leadership against the Warriors who were crushing his left flank.

Meanwhile, Slugdrool the Troll found a few maggots in the Dwarf body he had been carrying around for a few weeks. He decided they would make an excellent snack so he wandered straight ahead munching on them instead of charging the Warriors flank.

The Archers elected to reform so they could charge the Warriors flank.

The Spear men charged the Thunderers. They could not slay a single one and one of their own died. Still, with rank bonus, they won the combat but the Thunderers had no intention of fleeing. They knew if they could hold on a turn or two, Norri would come in and save them.

The Warriors did not plan to wait. They killed several Night Goblins who could do no return casualties. One of the rearward Goblins who could count noticed the bodies piling up and began a rapid retrograde movement. Most armies call that a "retreat". The Warriors overran the retrograde, eliminating the unit.

Things looked bad for the Goblins. The Thunderers and Norri would no doubt make short work of the Spear men and the Archers would be no match for the Warriors. Only a huge smurf-slap by Slugdrool could sway things at this point.

DWARF TURN 4

The Warriors found themselves out of position so they reformed in preparation for charging the Archers. Norri moved towards the Thunderers.

The Thunderers then went to work...only to see 4 of their number fall to the Spear men while doing just two casualties in return. The Thunderer Champion looked around to rally his troops and noticed he was all of his troops. He elected to flee.

GOBLIN TURN 5

Slugdrool thought about charging the Warriors but decided to wait and see if they were going to wander off towards someone else, letting him attack them without danger to himself.

The Thunderer could prove a threat and Norri had their flank, so the Spear men decided to charge. The Archers unleashed a hail of Arrows at the Warriors. The Warriors laughed at the incoming flight. Unfortunately, that meant their mouths were open. Had they not been laughing, they would have lived, but the arrows took them in the throat and 3 Warriors shockingly died.

DWARF TURN 5

Angered by the carnage wrought by the Archers, the Warriors charged into them as Norri headed towards the Spear men. The Warriors were deadly, slaying 3 Goblins, but one of their own also died. With their rank bonus, the Goblins stood firm.

GOBLIN TURN 6

The Spear men reformed to face the inevitable Norri onslaught.

Slugdrool and Dagskar both elected to charge into the flanks of the deadly Dwarf Warriors. Seeing the massive Troll approaching their flank, the Warriors decided they had urgent business elsewhere and started heading towards it, only to see Slugdrool overtake them and hack them down without mercy...including Thane Godri Thunderbrand.

DWARF TURN 6

Norri, the last remaining Dwarf on the field, charged into the Night Goblin Spear men. However, he had been tippling a bit too much. As a result, he rolled 3 1s in 4 dice, killing just 1.

GOBLIN TURN 7

Slugdrool and Dagskar charged in to attack Norri. Slugdrool wounded him. Roaring in anger and frustration, Norri slew another Night Goblin, but they responded by killing him.

Review

What a great battle! So many big events, big swings in momentum. The Miners leaving the field without doing any damage was a huge blow. Then, the Spider Riders kept Norri occupied for 3 full turns (5 combat sessions). Even though they did no damage, they kept him from running roughshod over the Spear men which allowed the Spear men to destroy the Thunderers before Norri could get to them.

Additionally, the Archers outperformed all expectations. If they had just survived 3 turns we would have been ecstatic as that would have let us get our Spear men into combat safely. Instead, they dealt massive amounts of death and destruction:

1) The Cannon

2) 5 Thunderers

3) 3 Warriors in shooting, 1 more in Hand to Hand!

Total: 12 Dwarfs which rendered the War Machine worthless after killing just 3 Night Goblins.

The Warriors were pretty devastating as well, though. Once they got into action they wiped out a 20 Goblin unit of Spear men and a Shaman, then got 3 of the Archers before running from Slugdrool.

And Norri was a maniac. He single-handed killed 10 Spider Riders, his presence occupied a unit of Spear men who desperately needed to be moving towards the Warriors, and only some poor rolling kept him from wiping out a unit of Spear men in the last turn.

After the second turn, things looked bleak for the Dwarfs. Their cannon was gone, their Thunderers were at half strength already, and the Miners were gone. They were in bad, bad trouble. However, things started to look up on turn three.

After the fourth turn, things looked great for the Dwarfs. The Archers were out of position and much weakened, the Warriors had just dispatched the Spear men, the Thunderers were holding strong, and Norri was about to make the fight between Thunderers and Night Goblin Spear men into a one-sided affair favoring the Dwarves. Slugdrool was wandering off the wrong direction, Nazbad was dead, and they were well set up.

In their 5th turn the Warriors would crash into the Archers and most likely destroy them in one turn. Norri would take 2 turns to get to the Thunderer battle, but they had survived the worst of it. So the Goblins had 2 turns left before being annihilated.

Unfortunately for the Dwarfs, the Goblins got a few good rolls in the 5th turn, first killing THREE Warriors in the shooting phase...in just 3 hits...and then the Archers not running when the Warriors charged. That extra turn let the Fear-causing Slugdrool to panic the Dwarfs. Had they not failed that test the Goblins probably run in turn 5 and the Dwarfs win.

It was a close-run thing and a lot of fun.

Heroscape, December 13th, 2008

We elected to play a "rising gas, Marvel heroes" game. We were to pick an army of 400 points or less. I initially took the Knights of Weston, Captain America, the Monks, and I think some Morro warriors or something insignificant. But then I remembered we were not using the "only 1 order per turn for heroes"rule and switched to just the Hulk.

 Rick took Thanos. Kevin went with Dr. Doom, a unit of Samurai, and some Omnicrons, slightly over the point total. Josh took Spiderman and a couple heroes whose names I don't know. Phillip went with Iron Man, the Ninjas, and Guilty McGreech.

The Hulk was gnarly. I leapt out of range of everyone since I forgot I had 3 moves before the gas came. *Sigh*. Kevin moved towards Josh who responded by Spiderman injuring Dr. Doom. The Ninjas moved to attack Thanos who battled them back, taking one out. 

My second move was to move Hulk over and attack Dr. Doom, doing a couple points. 

He moved his Samurai close to me and actually hit me twice. 2 attacks versus 6 and 7 defense. Ouch. Josh then tried to kill me with a roll of 17+, but missed. Another Ninja died at the hands of Thanos.

Hulk took his vengeance, slaying Dr. Doom. The third Ninja died at the hands of Thanos, the unit never once injuring him.

The gas rose, closing off layer 1. 

Meanwhile, Hulk was pinned by two of Joshes' guys and 2 Samurai. With his wounds growing, 

he killed a Samurai with ease. 

Meanwhile, Guilty moved up to face Thanos. He actually did some damage but was not with us for long as Thanos opened up a can of whoop-smurf on him.

Hulk finished off the Samurai, but not until a Samurai had slain one of Josh's minor heroes. That freed Hulk to go after his 1-shot kill wonder, which he did, doing mass damage. 

Iron Man wiped out a couple Omnicron.

Thanos flew to level one to attack Spider-man as both Rick and I though we were on turn 2 but we were on turn 3.  That cost him his last wound and he was gone. Hulk killed the deadly 1-hit character of Joshes. Iron Man finished off the last Omnicron, thus ending Kevin's night. 

Hulk attacked Spider-man, who swung away. Iron Man then demolished Hulk, leaving him just one wound.

Hulk super-jumped away from the fray, leaving Spider-man and Iron Man in one-on-one. 

Even with Spider-man's Web-swinging, the battle was all Iron Man, who only had taken one wound at this point. I knew the only way to defeat Iron Man was for Spidey and I to work together, which Josh agreed to so I jumped into combat with Iron Man. 

Then Josh changed his mind and Spider-man killed the Hulk, only to immediately fall to Iron Man, the last Hero standing.

Very fun, fast-paced, exciting game.