3000 points vs Dwarfs

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Galdor
Posts: 112
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:32 pm
Location: London, UK

3000 points vs Dwarfs

#1 Post by Galdor »

My friend’s Elf-hating Dwarf army came over seeking revenge for Dwarven blood shed at the hands of the Elves in previous encounters. This is my first report so apologies if it’s not great. I should have taken more photos!

I decided to try a shooty/infantry list with Swordmasters and White Lions as my main combat blocks. I also wanted to try out an Anointed of Asuryan on foot. This was my list:

Cerendor: Anointed of Asuryan, Giant Blade, Enchanted Shield, Luckstone, Potion of Foolhardiness (went in the SMs)
Galdor: Lvl 4 Shadow Archmage, Power stone, Talisman of Preservation (went with the Archers)
Aerendyl, Lvl 2 High Mage, Channelling Staff (went with the SMs)
Tarathiel: Noble, BSB, Sword of Might, Golden Crown, Shield of Merwyrm, Ironcurse Icon (went with the WLs)
20x Archers, FC
3 units of 5x Reavers with musicians
2 units of 5x Silver Helms, shields, musicians
26 x Swordmasters, FC, Banner of Swiftness
33 x White Lions, FC, Standard of Discipline
4 xRBT
2 units of 9x Sister of Avelorn

I wasn’t sure what Dwarf army I was going to be up against but it wasn’t likely to be a gunline as my friend tends to use more unusual lists. Still, I was worried about the potential havoc Gyrocopters could wreak with their nasty steam guns, and he was likely to have some other long range units that could be devastating to my expensive T3 elite infantry. I hoped that by putting the Anointed in with my Swordmasters, along with a high mage, I could at least give them some protection with a ward save. I also put faith in my RBTs and Sisters to shoot down approaching Gyros and I took Shadow magic to combine well with my shooting. I also thought that spells like Miasma and Enfeebling Foe would be helpful by reducing my infantry losses in close combat. I took a big unit of White Lions with Standard of Discipline and a BSB to hopefully make a solid anvil unit, whilst my Swordmasters would be a brutal hammer, in theory!

My friend brought roughly the following:

Thane, BSB; the banner gave a 5++ against shooting to all Dwarfs within 6, I think.
Josef Bugman
1 or 2 Runesmiths.
30x Longbeards, FC
2 units of 20 Rangers, one of which was Bugman’s.
20x quarrelers
30ish Slayers with some sort of Slayer character.
3x Gyros

I ended up with the following spells: Miasma, Enfeebling Foe, Withering, Pit of Shades on my Lvl 4, and Soul Quench and Arcane Unforging on my Lvl 2: a fairly nasty combo.

We got Dawn Attack as the scenario. Fittingly, the Dwarfs got army-wide hatred against my poor Elves.
I went first in the deployment and most of my army ended up in the centre. I was quite lucky here as my combat blocks got the centre and my cavalry and RBTs mostly ended up on the flanks. Nice and organised. The Dwarfs having gotten completely drunk the night before, turned up late, disorganised, and ended up completely split across the field with the Slayers on his right flank and the Longbeards on the left flank. The dice were unkind to my opponent and this had a major influence on the battle. We both thought that this scenario is particularly harsh for Dwarfs in this situation because of their slow movement. However, my friend had two units of Rangers that could at least deploy where they wanted. After scouts were down I vanguarded up one unit of Reavers on my left flank, with the aim of redirecting the Slayers. My other vanguards were blocked by his Rangers (sneaky Rangers!). Also, most of his units vanguarded up the field thanks to the Strollaz rune; I've never known Dwarfs this fast before! The photo below shows the situation at the start of Turn 1. The black thing is a sinister structure from which the Longbeards and Quarrelers, being within 6, had to endure D6 S4 hits on a roll of 1-3. I think this killed a few during the course of the battle.

Image

Turn 1: I got the first turn. My Reavers moved up the field to block and re-direct the Slayers and one of the Ranger units. I thought I had a good chance of keeping the Slayers pretty much out of the game over on the left, whilst my Lions and Swordmasters would try to combine forces to destroy his juicy big unit of Longbeards, as well as Josef Bugman himself! One unit of Reavers provided cover from crossbow shots for my Swordmasters. I hesitated with my SHs because of the sinister structure. The magic phase resulted in the use of both of his dispel scrolls and I managed to get off Soul Quench, thereby boosting the Swordmasters' ward save. My shooting was pretty bad: I couldn’t shoot down a single Gyro, but did kill a couple of Rangers on my left flank. On his turn, the Slayers charged the Reavers who fled. The Longbeards advanced. Bugman’s Rangers shot down a unit of Reavers (better them than my precious infantry). Gyros moved in and killed 6 of 9 Sisters. Some Silver Helms were shot down.

Turn 2: My Swordmasters and White Lions re-positioned themselves. I rolled double 1 for the winds of magic. My shooting failed to do much other than kill some more Rangers. I got a Gyro down to one wound. On his turn the Gyros killed about 7 or 8 Swordmasters. A couple of White Lions were shot down. The Reavers continued to distract the Slayers over on my left flank.

Turn 3: The Swordmasters charged the Longbeards: I needed to get them into combat before the Gyros reduced them down even more. The White Lions were blocked from charging the Longbeards’ flank by 2 Gyros and so they charged the closest. Magic was decent. I got off Miasma, Enfeebling Foe and Arcane Unforging on the Longbeards and BSB. Arcane Unforging wounded his BSB but failed to destroy his magic banner (I only needed a 2+!). Shooting was a bit better and I managed to kill a Gyro (finally!) I also killed a load more Rangers. My left flank was turning into a shoot-off between them and the Archers/RBTs! The latter were winning. The Swordmasters showed the rest of my army how it’s done and slaughtered a lot of Longbeards. Cerendor, my Anointed, was also great and finished off their BSB in combat. The Dwarfs killed just a few in return (the magic buffs helped a lot here) and were stubborn. My rolling for ward saves was amazing this turn and I was lucky that more weren’t killed. White Lions killed the Gyro and overran into the next one. On his turn, Bugman had had enough and charged my White Lions along with his Rangers! The Slayers charged a bolt thrower on my left flank. Quarrelers moved up into position to charge my Swordmasters next turn. In combat, the Swordmasters continued to slaughter the Longbeards but suffered heavier casualties. The stubborn Dwarfs continued to hold. The White Lions killed the last Gyro and killed off a lot of Bugman’s Rangers. The Rangers also killed a lot of White Lions in response. Josef at least got to remove a couple of elven heads! The combat was a draw.

Image

Turn 4-5: I continued to use Enfeebling Foe, Miasma and Withering to help my infantry out in combat. The remaining Silver Helms got involved in the fight against the Longbeards who were eventually reduced down to 2 guys and a Runesmith and finally broke. The Quarrelers charged the Swordmaster’s flank but it was too late. The White Lions killed Josef Bugman and cut down the rest of his Rangers. They then reformed and prepared themselves to help out the Swordmasters. The bolt throwers shot down the remaining Longbeards and the Archers killed off the Rangers on my left flank. The Slayers destroyed a bolt thrower and advanced towards my Archers. They re-considered, however, when they realised the rest of the Dwarfs and poor old Josef himself had been cut down by their hated old enemy. They would have to wait for another day to get their revenge.

I had lost: 2 bolt throwers, 1 unit of Sisters, 3 units of Reavers, a unit of 5x Silver Helms.
My friend had lost: Josef Bugman, Bugman’s Rangers, a unit of 20x Rangers, the 30x Longbeards. BSB, 3x Gyros.

My friend and I felt that this battle would have been very different if the Dawn Attack scenario hadn’t messed up his deployment. I was also luckier than him with my rolls in general (particularly in combat). However, my Reavers did a great job keeping his Slayers out of the game, and my shooting was ok in the end. I was also very happy with the Swordmasters’ performance and found that the Anointed and High Mage helped to make them a bit more durable in addition to dealing a lot of damage. I still find it hard to deal with Gyros though and my shooting was not good enough to stop them being a real pain. Does anyone have any advice for this?

We also both think that High Elves are a tough matchup for Dwarfs in general, mainly due to our decent magic (incidentally I completely forgot about the Power Stone) and ASF etc. I thought my list would be softer than some, without units/items such as Phoenix Guard, Banner of The World Dragon, Book of Hoeth, Frostheart Phoenix or a Prince in Silver Helm bus, but that it would still be capable of packing a punch. However, it proved difficult for him to deal with my magic, even without BoH, once he’d used his dispel items (I didn’t use Pit of Shades but maybe the threat of it made him let other spells through) and my infantry were brutal in combat despite taking quite heavy losses. He did use quite a soft list though and whether or not this list would do well in other matchups, or against a tougher Dwarf list, I'm not sure. My next battle will be against Warriors of Chaos using a similar list. So we'll see.
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Charles Rampant
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Re: 3000 points vs Dwarfs

#2 Post by Charles Rampant »

Thanks for the report! It is fun to see two infantry armies go at each other, even if the gyros were ruining your day. I'm also interested to see the structure of your army, and how it does, since I am very keen on going for something similar - bricks of Swordies and Phoenix Guard, along with massed pewpew.
"They won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchres – not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men’s minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action.”
- Pericles’ Funeral Oration, 431BC.
Galdor
Posts: 112
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:32 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: 3000 points vs Dwarfs

#3 Post by Galdor »

Thanks for reading and commenting Charles! Yes, I do love our infantry, especially Swordmasters who are just awesome. I was a little disappointed with my shooting in this battle, although early on my opponent kept a couple of the Gyros within range of the banner which gave them a 5+ ward save. This made them harder to take down with repeater shots and the Sisters.
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Swordmaster of Hoeth
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Re: 3000 points vs Dwarfs

#4 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Galdor,

It is great to see that you decided to test your ideas discussed in the tactics subforum on the field of battle. There is no better test than playing the game! It is even better when you write a report from that game. It provides good feedback for the ongoing discussion, helps you to be a better player and gives other forum members something interesting to read about.

I must admit that I like 3000 point format a lot, even if I don't have many chances to play it myself. It seems that the usual problem of not being able to fit all you want in a single army is not that big in this case!

Dawn Attack is an interesting scenario. I find it a good test of the ability of a player to adapt to less than ideal circumstances. Sometimes your deployment is not affected much, sometimes it is drastically different. No wonder that many players don't feel comfortable when they have to use it.

Both armies did what they could to create a cohesive battle line. Your army indeed turned up quite ok. I presume that bolt thrower next to the right hill could not be positioned on top of it as it was in the "right flank" area while it had to be placed in the center? I am asking because it seems it is initially blocked for the purpose of shooting.

Dwarves did well with both rangers units as they filled the gaps in the battle line and while Slayers ended up on the opposite flank of the main forces it does not look like they are that out of the place. What is more, Strollaz did the job and I am sure you felt some pressure building up here!

Just a question about Gyros and their performance Turn 1. It seems that they were still quite far away from your units so I wonder if they still managed to fly 10" and be already close enough to Sisters to hit so many of them? I am just trying to confirm you didn't make a mistake and allow them to shoot after "march move".

Also, was it possible for the survivors from Silver Helms to charge any of the gyrocopters in your turn 2? Or any of the reavers for that matter. Gyros are tough to wound but they are not that great in combat either so there is a chance to pin them down with fast troops.

It was great to see infantry blocks hacking each other. Swordmasters did their job and the support of magic was fantastic too. It might not have been subtle but this time Elves won the war of attrition in the situation where units were fighting one on one.

I think your friend showed some impatience. It is great to have Strollaz but I think he would have benefited more from some shooting before he reached combat. Your shooting, provided it was not focused on a single target, was not strong enough to destroy any of his units fast enough. Apart from gyros but sometimes they too prove very hard to kill.

I also think he could have used leftmost rangers (from your point of view) better and deploy them on the extreme right flank and play refused flank scenario with Slayers as a distraction. He had tools for the job, i.e. put up a decent fight against your Elves. The best thing after a game with ready report to read is to focus on what could have been done better. Was deployment the best under the circumstances? Were the vanguard moves used to fullest of potential? How did the units cooperate with each other? Maybe decisions on dispelling spells should have been changed (e.g. let one spell go to have more dispel dice to dispel another).

These are just general questions but I prefer to ask them before I simply jump to the conclusion that it might have been bad match up. You are not going to get perfect one often anyway and fighting in the less than favorite circumstances will harden your skills better. What is more, in particular in a tournament, getting more points from difficult game may be what you need to get better place overall as every point matters.

I hope both of you had a great time anyway and that your friend is not discouraged. If anything, he has new passage to add to his personal Book of Grudges!

I am glad you were happy with the performance of your elite infantry and I keep fingers crossed for your success against Warriors! Just don't forget about the pictures :)

Last but not least, congratulations on well deserved victory and keep up the good work with battle reports!

Cheers!
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Rabidnid wrote:Are you seriously asking someone called Swordmaster of Hoeth why he has more swordmasters than white lions? Really?
Galdor
Posts: 112
Joined: Sun Sep 22, 2013 3:32 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: 3000 points vs Dwarfs

#5 Post by Galdor »

Hi Swordmaster,

Thanks a lot for reading and for the detailed comments.

We used to play 2500 point battles but have found that 3000 pts doesn't take that much longer and, as you said, you can fit a lot of stuff in.

Yes, the last bolt thrower ended up in a slightly awkward position because it had to go in the centre area and I'd already deployed a lot of units. So I had to put it behind another unit and then move them out of the way during the first turn. I might have been better off deploying the bolt throwers earlier on, before most of my other units.

I think my friend used the Gyros correctly i.e move 10 and shoot rather than march and shoot. I was writing this from my bad memory so I might have made a mistake and it could have been Turn 2 in which he killed those Sisters. I should try and make some notes next time to help me when I come to write about it. I think it might have been possible to charge one of the Gyros with my SHs if I'd positioned them better. I definitely could have made better use of the SHs during the battle.

The other thing is that my list actually had two units of 5x Silver Helms but I completely forgot to bring one of them! So that's something obvious I can improve on next time!
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