Short report vs a true gunline, an interesting match that taught me a lot. Prior to this game I had played corner-hammer to see if the bus could create openings vs Dwarfs. Long story short, it`s not likely to happen. The match will usually be 11-9 to DW when played like this I believe, and going beyond 12-8 favouring DW or 11-9 favoring HE takes a lot. Strange was ahead by 140 points in our game, which was a 10-10. This time, I was determined to see if a push would be viable...
.::. Battle Report - 2400 vs Dwarfs (ETC comp) .::. My list:
Prince on Star Dragon: Dragonhelm, Star Lance, Crown of Atrazar, The Other Trickster`s Shard, Shield = 598
Noble BSB on Barded Steed, Banner of the World Dragon, Dragon armour, Shield, Lance = 178
Noble on Barded Steed, Enchanted Shield, Heavy Armour, Ogre Blade = 134
Mage L2 on Steed, Scroll = 155
Mage L2 on Steed = 130
Characters = 1195
16 Silver Helms, Full Command & Shields = 398
5 Reavers = 80
5 Reavers, bows (swap) = 85
5 Reavers, champ = 90
Core = 653
3 RBT = 210
Frostheart = 240
2 Eagles = 100
Rare = 550
Army total = 2398
His list:
Dwarf Lord, general, Shieldbearers, shield, Master Rune of Adamant, Rune of Might - 313
Runesmith, shield, Rune of Stone, 2x Rune of Spellbreaking - 113
Runesmith, shield, Master Rune of Balance, Rune of Spellbreaking - 138
Thane, BSB, shield, Master Rune of Groth One-Eye - 168
25 Longbeards, FCG, Shields, Great Weapons, 3x Rune of Sanctuary - 450
10 Quarrelers, veteran, great weapons - 150
Cannon, Rune of Forging - 145
Cannon, Rune of Forging, Rune of Burning - 150
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Forging, Rune of Accuracy - 130
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Forging, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating - 170
Gyrocopter - 80
Gyrocopter - 80
20 Irondrakes, musician - 310
Totalt: 2397
I got double Soul Quench, Arcane Unforging and Apotheosis.
The following pictures show deployment and turns 1 + 2:





So here`s what happened: with my 5 chaff drops he was completely commited by the time I deployed anything relevant. I got the RBTs in a corner where their job was to thin Longbeards to the best of their ability with both monsters hidden from the WMs by a big hill (his side had 2 hills like this). I was lucky and grabbed turn 1. The bus moved up big with everything behind. I took care to screen monsters from WMs and managed to get Irondrakes in vision for the Frostheart. My magic phase saw him try and destroy arcane unforging but he failed.
In his turn he tried to counteract my aggression but to be honest, it`s very hard with him not being able to deal with my heavy hitters. The lord went into Irondrakes to prevent Frostheart from engaging. He got lucky and landed an indirect shot on the Frostheart but I warded it.
T2 I positioned the Dragon similar to the Frostheart: barely seeing the Longbeards (I didn`t have enough movement for this T1) alongside the bus, with the Frostheart still threatening his Irondrakes. Reavers moved up as well as Eagles to go super-blocky T3. His response was to simply back off a bit and this is where the pictures end: After this I landed bus + SD into Longbeards, killing off everything and unforging his stubborn banner (he spent his second scroll in the previous turn stopping unforging). I killed all the Longbeards and overran into WMs with the Prince reforming for options with the Frostheart. His Irondrakes were blocked by 5 units: 2 Eagles, 2 Reavers and 1 of his own gyros. It was impossible for him to do anything. The lord charged out on a blocked and I double-fled. The Lord was stranded on his own so the Dragon + Frostheart tore into the Drakes. The carnage was great. In the last turns of the game the Dragon + Frostheart combo-charged the T10 W5 Dwarf Lord and actually managed to kill him in the very last combat phase of the game.
20-0 victory to the High Elves!// Evaluation //I need to evaluate the ETC maps for this year a bit closer. This game was played on map 4 (pictures of the map will come in a dedicated post soon) which basically has 2 hills outside the same deployment zone. I chose the opposite side, which forced Strange into cornering behind a hill (or taking the middle and allowing me 2 hills to approach behind). This is huge because consider it like this: when I can advance like this it`s impossible for Dwarfs to win, barring insane luck on the indirect shots and/or panic tests. Let`s say it`s a 16-17 point win on average. If he gets the "empty" side, i.e. the one without LoS-blocking terrain, I can counter-corner him and go 10-10. What on paper seems to be a bad matchup then is actually heavily in my favour.
Interestingly, what a Dwarf player seeks to accomplish under this situation is to force an enemy to commit before he can deploy the juicy stuff out of LoS from the WMs. The infamous Danish ETC list with 7 (!!) copters suddenly make a lot more sense to me (although I was impressed earlier by the non-committing drops and redirectors, I didn`t realize until today how important this can be).
This situation rings true for a lot of matchups where I`m facing cannons. Some rules of thumb are worth noting down, first among them the fact that I need to know my maps prior to a game so I know my viable approaches. Another such rule of thumb is that impassable terrain is your best friend vs a Steam Tank. Although I`ve just had 3 games with the new Dragonlord-list, I feel I`ve learned a lot very quickly. Hopefully I`ll continue to do so.
Despite being short I hope you enjoyed the report and its learning points. Please add your comments, should you have any
