Kings of June Game 1 - Pillage! vs Abyssal Dwarfs

The resolute men of Westhaven clash with the Legion of Desolation

I drew Tim N & his Abyssal Dwarfs for Game 1, playing Pillage with 6 tokens. Tim is a regular in the Canberra KoW scene, and usually finishes at or close to the top of tournaments when playing his Abyssal Dwarfs.

My List:

Discussed here.

His List:

Horde Blacksouls
Regiment Immortal Guard with Diadem of Dragon-kind
Regiment of Decimators with Heart-seeking Chant
Horde Lesser Obsidian Golems with Brew of Courage
Regiment of Abyssal Halfbreeds with Maccwar's.
Horde of Abyssal Grotesques with Blessing of the Gods
2 x G'rog Mortars
Dragon Fire-team
Overmaster on Great Abyssal Dragon with Medallion of Life
Slavedriver with Healing Charm
Abyssal Halfbreed Champion
Supreme Iron-caster on Great Winged Halfbreed with Surge (10) and The Fog
Greater Obsidian Golem

This was his 'softer' list, for more casual games. Usually he runs three heavy mortars and two dragons.

Deployment:

Deployment

He chose sides, and deployed his units in a modified version of his infamous 'Cube of Despair' formation. The large amount of blocking terrain made things difficult for me to find firing lanes, but otherwise I thought I did ok. I had 6 extra drops, putting down my tank, knights, general and shield wall horde after he was all out.

Turn 1

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 1

He moved his cube slowly forward, and his mortars landed 5 wounds on one of my knight regiments.

Westhaven Turn 1

My shooting didn't do much, a wound here or there. I moved forward, hoping to secure better position to flank his cube as it moved forward. My hero rode off hoping to get into the war machines or Decimators maybe.

Turn 2

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 2

His Cube held in the centre, his flanks advanced, and his shooters put a few wounds on my right-flank spearmen, as well as my wizard. His halfbreeds routed my halberds on my left, but his champion was only able to wound the other troop. His dragon only managed to waver my mounted scouts on the charge, but we was able to move out of my horde's charge arc, the diagram is slightly wrong. The charge on my scouts suprised me, for some reason I thought he'd either charge my shield wall horde or back off.

Westhaven Turn 2

I continued to advance on the cube, shooting heavily at his Abyssal Grotesques. I double charged his Abyssal Halfbreed Champion on my left, hoping to overrun him and get my general to charge into the halfbreed regiment. Alas we were only able to waver the blasted thing. I pivoted my shield wall on my right, setting up a rear charge on his dragon. At this point I thought that I'd definitely be able to get into his flanks.

Turn 3

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 3

This turn I really got to see some innovative maneuvering. On my left he backed his wavered halfbreed champion out of the way, and then charged my General with his Halfbreed Regiment, landing 4 wounds on me. In the centre his blacksouls continued to advance, as did his Greater Golem. His wavered Grotesques gummed up the works though. But on my right he really surprised me. I was expecting him to charge my wavered scouts, kill them, and then reform to face my shield wall horde. Instead he pivoted and backed up, landing beside my shield wall (well out of charge arc). Then he used his breath attack to finish off my scouts.

Westhaven Turn 3

My shooting went pretty well and I managed to take off his grotesques. It really was death by a thousand cuts, my rifle troops just kept peppering away at it, and I think my cannon managed to hit it for 4-5 wounds as well. His healing was very unlucky, I think he healed 1 wound out of 9 rolls.

On my left my General and halberds troop did a few wounds to the halfbreeds, but not enough to waver them. I sent my mounted ASB over there to start healing up my General.

On my right my shield wall pivoted, setting up a flank attack on the dragon. This time, surely. My spears charged his Greater Obsidian Golem, and I think they did one wound.

In the centre I decided to engage his blacksouls. I knew this was probably a mistake, but I felt that with the grotesques gone, I might have a chance. I did 15 wounds to his blacksouls, but they held steady thanks to an inspiring re-roll.

Turn 4

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 4

He shot my spears to pieces on my right, hitting them with his dragon fire team, the diadem of dragonkind from his Immortal Guard, and lightning bolt. I had moved my spears out of inspiring range and they popped. This allowed his Greater Golem to get a flank charge on my Steam Tank ._.

His dragon continued to play funny buggers with my shield wall horde, again flying just out of charge arc and this time fire breathing on my wizard. My wizard is a tough little dude though and he only took a couple of wounds so sucked in dragon.

In the centre his golems charged my greatswords and crunched them, his blacksouls charged my knights and did a couple of wounds, disordering them. His halfbreed regiment routed my halberds troop on my left, and his champion slapped a couple more wounds on my General, wavering him. Things were getting dicey.

Westhaven Turn 4

I continued to chase his dragon with my shield wall. I was parked on an objective, so I didn't think it was a ~total~ waste of time. My General was wavered on my left, so I pivoted and backed him up, out of arc of the halfbreed regiment at least. In the centre I double charged his golems with my greatswords and a knights regiment, while I triple charged his blacksouls with the other knights, my spears, and a steam tank in the flank. That was wasteful overkill, I should have sent the tank into his immortal guards.

I took the blacksouls off, but the golems held. Def 6+ is tough hey.

Turn 5

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 5

Things just started to get ugly now. His halfbreed champion routed my wavered General. His Halfbreed Regiment took out one of my rifle troops, and pivoted to face the rear of my units. His golems crushed my greatswords, his shooters finally routed the wounded knights, his greater golem took out my silly steam tank, and his dragon decided it wanted some of the action too and flanked my spears.

I was expecting Tim's counter, I really was. I did ~not~ expect to lose damn near a third of my army in a single round though.

Westhaven Turn 5

I did what I could. I charged his Immortal Guards, but couldn't pop them in one go. My Shield Wall did their favourite thing and pivoted and sat on an objective.

In a pleasing turn of events my cannon managed to hit his halfbreed regiment for 6 more wounds and they popped so take that.

Turn 6

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 6

He just mopped up from here. We went to turn seven, by the end all I had left was one standard bearer with 4 wounds, my wizard with 5 wounds, and my shield wall with 6 wounds. 

Result

He held 3 objectives to my contested half of one, 17-3 to him. I never expected to beat Tim, even with his softer list. The dude plays his Dwarfs like a fiddle. But I had hoped to make a better showing of myself. I should have placed my shield wall in the centre, and left the flanks to my more mobile spear regiments. I should have made him engage with his blacksouls instead of charging them. I should have backed the halberds troops on my left with something more substantial than a single General on a Winged Beast.

I did notice how patient he is. He could have moved his cube forward quicker (for dorfs lol), but he calmly waited for me to make mistakes. He did the critical damage to me in Turn 5, instead of trying to get in earlier. I could probably learn from that.

My shooting did pretty well, the 4 troops of rifles are a lot more effective than the single horde.

Any suggestions on how I could have won this game (other than 'roll better') would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading, Game 2 should be up later this week.

Kings of June Tournament Review

My local FLGS Three D6 runs Kings of War tournaments every two months. I've been attending since I got into KoW in February this year. They are on the small & casual end of the spectrum, and a great introduction to more competitive gaming for players who are used to just playing with friends. Most participants are Canberra locals, but we usually have one or two blokes drive down from Sydney as well.

Game 1 vs Tim's Abyssal Dwarfs

Game 2 vs Tony's Goblins with Orc Allies

Game 3 vs Mark's Elves

Yesterday was a 3 game 2.5k tournament with chess clocks, and we had ~8 players. I ran an MSU Kingdoms of Men list, won best painted (thanks lads) and came dead last. I'll write up reports of each of my 3 matches later, will probably take me a week or so.

The results:

Tied for first were Tim N Abyssal Dwarfs & Rowan K - Undead
Dave C - Brotherhood
Tom N - Twilight Kin
Tony W - Goblins w Orc allies
Matt C - Forces of Nature
Mark W - Elves
Tas S - Kingdoms of Men

Not particularly surprising to see Tim, Roland, and Dave at the top.

My List:

The Grand Company of Westhaven

2500 - Kingdoms of Men - The Grand Company of Westhaven

Infantry

• Shield Wall Horde 
• Foot Guard Regiment (with two-handed weapons)
• Spear Phalanx Regiment x 2
• Pole-Arms Block Troops x 2
• Arquebusiers Troop x 4

Cavalry

• Knights Regiment x 2
• Mounted Scouts Troop with carbines 

Artillery

• Cannon
• Siege Engine 

Support 

• Army Standard Bearer, Mounted, with Healing Charm
• Army Standard Bearer, with The Boomstick
• General on a Winged Beast
• Hero, Mounted, with Blade of Slashing
• Wizard, with Lightning Bolt and Bane Chant, and Inspiring Talisman 
• Beast of War with Light Ballista

While I had a fun day and all none of my games were close in the end, so that's a bit concerning. I'm not sure whether the main problem is my list or my generalship. I really hope it's my generalship because painting in my literally freezing garage of an evening sucks right now.

Anyway, actual battle reports to come.

Battle Report - 2k Pillage! League of Rhordia vs Abyssal Dwarfs

I played Christo again this week, this time at 2k.

The Men of Westhaven face off against the Abyssal Dwarfs

Lesser Obsidian Golems.

Abyssal Halfbreeds. My photos don't do them justice.

My List: League of Rhordia

This is my current 2k tournament list that I'm looking to take to the Sydney Game Championships at the end of July. It's as MSU as I can reasonably make it.

2 x City Militia Troops
4 x Musket Block Troops
2 x City Militia Spears Regiments
1 x House Guard Regiment
2 x Household Knights Regiments
1 x Halfling Iron Beast
1 x Baron, mounted with Mace of Crushing
1 x Duke on an Ancient Winged Aralez
1 x Army Standard Bearer, mounted with Healing Charm
1 x Halfling Sorcerer with Inspiring Talisman

His List: Abyssal Dwarfs

As you'd expect, his 2k list was quite different to his 2.5k list. He dropped the Iron Caster and Mortars, and brought in some Abyssal Halfbreed Champions.

4 x Immortal Guard Regiments
2 x Slave Orc Regiments
2 x Lesser Obsidian Golem Hordes
2 x Abyssal Halfbreed Regiments
2 x Abyssal Halfbreed Champions
2 x Slave Drivers

A lot of Def 5 & 6 units. The Golems are a helluva anvil, and the Halfbreed Regiments and Champions would be tough to avoid. No shooting or flying though. Also his anvils are slow af.

We rolled Pillage! with 6 objectives. I won the roll for deployment and chose the south edge.

Deployment

 I only had 2 extra drops on him, stacking my two Knight Regiments on my right flank. My plan was to desperately hold the one objective on my left, and take the three on my right.

Turn 1

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 1

Dwarfs won the roll for first turn and elected to go first. He moving up, taking control of 3 tokens and making a strong claim on a 4th. His army had no shooting so nothing going there.

League of Rhordia Turn 1

On my left flank I moved up to take control of the objective, and prepared myself for an assault. I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with the golems if they charged in. I shifted my Duke around preparing to bring him over for a flank maybe. My leftmost rifle troop managed a couple of wounds on his Immortal Guards. On my right flank I rearranged my forces, positioning them to take the anticipated charge from the two halfbreed regiments and the champion. My two rifle troops put 8 wounds on his Slave Orcs and wavered them, while my Sorcerer managed to windblast the other Halfbreed Champion back into the forest. I didn't realise this at the time but this was a critical success, delaying the charge of that Champion by a turn.

Turn 2

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 2

On my left he took firm control of the two objectives. In the centre he took another two, covering them with hard-to-shift Immortal Guard units. On my right he charged. One of his Halfbreed Regiments wiped my militia troop, the other combo charged my Iron Beast with one of his Champions. They put an impressive 11 wounds on the Def 6+ Iron Beast, but it held steady.

League of Rhordia Turn 2

I held steady on my left flank. I wasn't going to be able to get my muskets in a better position to shoot his Golems, and the muskets were all I had to counter them. I charged his lefthand Halfbreed Regiment with my Orange Knights, while my Iron Beast and Baron counter-charged the other Regiment. I thought about throwing the Duke into the fray as well, but I thought I'd set up a flank instead. He healed a couple of wounds on the Iron Beast.

My Muskets destroyed the wavered slave orcs, and it turns out I wouldn't need the flank from my Duke, as my Knights routed the halfbreed regiment in one turn. The Baron and Iron Beast did 6 wounds then stepped back.

Turn 3

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 3

He held steady on my left, happy with the two objectives he was holding there. He continued to move forward in the centre, securing another objective and trying to get his Golems in the fray. On my right his Halfbreed Regiment counter-charged my Iron Beast and destroyed it, and then pivoted to face my other Knight Regiment. His Halfbreed Champions both charged, one going into my Duke, the other getting the jump on my purple Knights critically disordering them.

League of Rhordia Turn 3

The standoff on my left continued. I was slowly chipping away at the Immortal Guards on my far left, but they had cover so I was only putting on 0-2 wounds a turn. My halfling sorcerer windblasted the Golems into the forest, while my two musket troops started to put some serious hurt on his Immortal Guards in the centre.

I combo charged his remaining halfbreed regiment with my baron, orange knights, and Duke. They routed the halfbreeds and reformed to face the incoming Golems. My purple Knights countercharged the Halfbreed Champion, but without TC had a hard time getting through the Champion's armour.

At this point the Dwarfs were holding four objectives quite firmly. I only had three guaranteed turns left to wrest at least one from his control.

Turn 4

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 4

He continued to hold on my left flank. His Immortal Guard units on my right sat on their objectives. His golems shambled forward. His two Halfbreed Champions charged my two knights regiments. I stuffed the diagram up here. In reality the orange knights routed while the purple ones were only wavered (but they have fury, so NBD).

League of Rhordia Turn 4

My left flank continued to hold. My muskets continued to pepper his Immortal Guards. My Duke managed to just get over the golems and set up a rear charge on them, while avoiding the charge arcs of his Guards regiments. My spears charged the Golems in the front, hoping to pin them so the Golems could not avoid the rear charge from the Duke next turn.

Turn 5

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 5

He continued to hold on my left. By now I was convinced this was a mistake, but his army couldn't have really gotten anywhere in the 2 guaranteed  turns he had left. His golems countercharged my spears and crushed them handily. He tried to move forward out of my Duke's charge arc, but missed it by an inch or two. His Immortal Guards in the centre started to move forward, hoping to avoid a flank by my duke maybe, or perhaps set up a charge into my troublesome muskets.

League of Rhordia Turn 5

I finally decided to change the dynamics of the situation on my left flank. I moved one musket troop into the forest, so I'd now have two musket troops plinking away at the covered Immortal Guards instead of just one. My right flank muskets wavered this Immortal Guards in the centre.

My Duke charged the rear of the Golems, supported by my Baron in the side and a hindered charge from my knights into the front (my diagram's been a bit off, IRL my purple knights were in the southern forest). Critically and surprisingly to us both, this was enough to rout the golems. My units reformed to face the two Immortal Guard units.

At this point the Dwarfs were still in a winning position, but I was confident I'd at least snatch the draw in turn 6.

Turn 6

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 6

Forgive my pants diagram. There wasn't much he could do in turn six. His Guards in the centre were wavered, the one on my right was holding an objective, and his units on my left flank were too far from anything now to make a difference.

League of Rhordia Turn 6

I charged his Immortal Guards in the centre with my knights and baron, and routed them, the knights reforming to face his remaining Guard unit. My Duke took the centre objective and healed up my knights a little. My muskets on my left continued to pepper his guards, who had about 6 wounds now. Consecutive 10's on a nerve check would be enough to rout them! What fun. My rightmost muskets moved forward to claim that objective. My sorcerer went for it, and windblasted his Guards off the objective. Despite a handy roll, they were still within 3 inches of it.

So at the end of turn 6 the game was a draw, each of us holding 3 objectives. We rolled, and went to turn 7.

Turn 7

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 7

He moved his Guards forward to sit over the objective.

League of Rhordia Turn 7

I moved my muskets forward to sit on that objective, and combo charged his Guards with my Knights and Baron. The charges were hindered so they did sweet FA damage, but they ended the game within 3" of the objective, and that's all that mattered.

Result:

The League of Rhordia held 3 objectives, the Abyssal Dwarfs held 2, and the final objective was contested. A narrow win to the League!

I was expecting a bigger push on my left flank. I deployed defensively, hoping to weather the storm. Didn't have a real answer if he had charged my House Guard with his Golems, my House Guard had CS (1), but that was it. Even if my spears got a flank on the golems naked attacks against Def 6 suck. Anyway, I hoped my healing could keep them up a bit. I should have moved my very leftmost Rifles into the forest earlier.

The right flank was a congested mess. Destroying his half-breeds in one charge from my knights was unexpected and lucky. His Golems popped quicker than they probably should have too.

He suffered from a lack of chaff. Getting the first charge in is so important with heavy cav. His half-breed champions were excellent, but I was able to delay the arrival of one with my windblast. That was critical.

My Rifles did well. His army had no shooting which really helped me. I could sit in place and dictate terms of engagement.

During the game I felt I wasn't getting the most out of my Sorcerer, but on review I can see that he was critical in disrupting the enemy offence. An extra few wounds from bane chant would have been less useful.

His Immortal Guard Regiments are good anvils, but without shooting or flying pressure I didn't have to engage them at all. Slow and lacking any CS, they aren't a huge threat.

Despite this, I got lucky. The lack of Pathfinder meant my knights were largely stripped of TC. If my Iron Beast had popped in one turn and his Golems or half-breeds had lasted one more, I would have lost. If we had rolled for fewer Pillage tokens I would have lost. If we had ended at turn 6 it would have been a draw.

I need to work on my Deployment and movement in the first couple of turns.

For Christo, I'd consider dropping a regiment of Immortal Guard for an Iron-Caster or a heavy mortar.

A fun game, looking forward to getting better at the movement phase. Thanks for reading.

Westhaven Grand Company Display Board WIP

Nearly finished! I need to do a bunch of small things before it's done, including:

• finish painting & basing the two spear regiments in the second rank.
• repair the army standard bearer in the front row (dropped him while testing the effectiveness of the base magnets)
• seal the flock on the display board
• give the bases of my knights and shield wall horde some love

But I ~should~ get that done by the 25th.

Army Templates for Battle Chronicler

I am hoping to use Battle Chronicler more often in my battle reports. It's a great little program, and does a lot of things automatically. However, what it doesn't have is much Kings of War specific data. For each army you face, you need to put in the details of all the units. 

So what I'm doing is making up army templates for each of the factions in KoW. Not sure how long it will take me. Each army takes about an hour I guess, but it's boring af so who knows when I will get around to it all. But this is where I'll store them, for you to download and use.

 KoW Elves Template for Battle Chronicler

KoW Forces of Basilea Template for Battle Chronicler

KoW Dwarf Armies Template for Battle Chronicler

KoW Kingdoms of Men Template for Battle Chronicler

KoW Forces of Nature Template for Battle Chronicler

KoW Abyssal Dwarfs Template for Battle Chronicler

Abyssal Dwarfs

Basilea

Dwarf Armies

Elves

Forces of Nature

Kingdoms of Men

Night Stalkers

Thoughts on MSU army design

Since jumping into the hobby and Kings of War in February, I've played a number of tournaments / competitive games at 2k & 2.5k. Inspired in part by Pawel's blog, and in part by my own experience, I wanted to give Multiple Small Units (MSU) a try.

First up, I have to declare that my list building philosophy is more influenced by the models that I have than some strategic ideal. I purchased 90% of my WHFB Empire models as a bulk lot. I've shelled out for the odd bit or piece, but I'm (trying) not to spend more on this project. So, while I like the idea of running three halfling volley guns or a horde of demigryphs, I ain't gunna.

Anyway, on to my post hoc list justifications.

Up until now, I've run as many hordes as I could. A horde of Foot Guard or Shield Wall, I was building another Spear Phalanx Horde too. The keystone of my offence was my Horde of Arquebusiers with Brew of Keen Eyeness. 20 shots hitting on 4s with piercing 2. It's a pretty intimidating unit to be sure.

But it's just too easy to deal with for experienced players. Individuals can disrupt it from Turn 1-3 (depending), and if those individuals are say vampires or pharaohs that's it for the game for my Horde.

With reload, Cavalry can wait till I move the Horde and get stuck in then. With about half the scenarios I can't afford to leave my most expensive unit static the whole game.

24" is an annoyingly short range, and can be worked around. With clever positioning a flyer can get into the flanks of a shooting Horde without once exposing itself to fire.

My Horde at best could delete one unit per Turn, and that's great until your opponent comes at you with a range of stuff.

And while 20 attacks is a lot, there were too many occasions where I would only end up applying <5 wounds due to poor rolling. I can't afford that. KoM are a hard army to play to begin with, can't afford to expose yourself so much to the odd fail roll.

It loses to bows in a shoot out. Elves especially can take them apart. Def 3 means they melt. The Dwarf version at least is Def 4 and has headstrong.

So I decided to split my rifle Horde into 4 troops. It's much more expensive (400 points for the troops compared to 270 for the Horde) but it's much more versatile, and gives the enemy harder choices. With my Horde, they had no choice. They had to deal with it.

And I decided that while I was at it I'd split up the rest of my stuff as much as possible. My spears Horde became two regiments, my halberds Regiment became two troops. I left my knights as Regiments because I'm not insane and I left my Greatswords as a Regiment because I couldn't bear to split the base up, I really like how it turned out.

So anyway.

Part of my intent is to create headaches for my opponent by giving them a heap of options, by making them choose and second guess themselves.

At the moment my obvious hammers are my 2 Knight Regiments, my Beast of War / Iron Beast, my Foot Guard / House Guard Regiment, and my General on a Winged Beast / Duke on an Ancient Aralez. But that's 5 targets. All worth about 200 points, but none critical. Then I've got two war machines and 4 shooter troops. That's a lot of targets worth roughly 100 points each.

So theoretically my opponent won't have any obvious targets. From experience they will go in hard on my Steam Tank in the early turns. People love shooting at that thing. Doesn't matter if I'm running it as an Iron Beast (Def 6) or a Beast of War (5). Arrow magnet.

Out deploy. I have 16 drops at 2k, and 21 at 2.5. I'm going to have 3-5 more drops than most of my opponents, which means I can drop my hammers last, after everything is down. Will I stack one flank or the other? Both? Will I hold them behind my infantry line? Who knows hey. But dropping 33 - 50% of my army by points value after my opponent has completely deployed should give me some advantage you'd think.

With so many units, it becomes extremely difficult for an enemy to engage in melee without giving up flanks or even rears.

The weaknesses. A lot of low nerve units means that I am extremely vulnerable to an enemy who has many sources of ranged damage. My troops can take 2 wounds before an average nerve roll will waver them.

I'm not worried about the Ogre shooter Horde, or heavy Artillery. I'm worried about the Ogre warlocks. The Goblin wizards. Elven bolt throwers. Night stalker mind flayers. Silverbreeze Cavalry. I can ameliorate this a little by making sure I have inspiring bubbles all over my units, but only a little. Unfortunately my local meta has a few armies that run these sorts of units, so I'm going to have to learn the hard way.

I will also struggle against high def individuals. Most of my anti armour comes from shooting, and shooting at individuals sucks.

Other challenges:

I have a lot of infantry, and it is easy for them to get in the way and act as a reverse screen. Inspiring doesn't stop units from wavering. If I don't have my units in position to counter punch with flank attacks or at least multiple front charges I'm going to get absolutely pantsed.

Game play speed. With so many drops and sources of shooting, I'm going to really have to move quickly to finish games in a timely manner in a tournament environment. I'm not the slowest player in Canberra, but I'm up there hey. I need to train myself to make the correct decisions quickly. And making the correct decisions will be more critical with this army than usual.

I'll have an easier time in the pillage scenarios, I'll struggle with dominate, and who knows about the others.

Oh man I'm going to get slaughtered hey

Battle Report - vs Abyssal Dwarfs

Played a casual 2.5k game last night vs a chap called Christo. He's new to town, I hadn't played him before. He had a pretty impressively painted Abyssal Dwarfs army, another first for me. I played my MSU list, hoping to get some practice in before the tournament at the end of the month. 

I should have taken better notes, but his list consisted of a lot of Regiments of Dwarf infantry, a couple of hordes of Golems, two regiments of abyssal half-breeds, some slave orc Regiments, and a bunch of iron casters. Also three heavy mortars. No flying. We rolled loot, and deployed. I had 3 extra drops, so was able to deploy my knights and war beast after he was completely down.

This is my first time using Battle Chronicler for a batrep. It's pretty cool, but a bit of a learning curve. Hopefully I'll get quicker with practice because it took like as long to write this report up as it did to play the game.

I should have taken close ups of his golems hey

Deployment

This is pretty much how it looked. Terrain is a little off. The three skull icons are the loot tokens. Christo picked sides, and elected to move first.

I was pretty happy with my deployment. In hindsight I should have probably moved my cannon (Arse Kicker) up to the line, to get a clear LoS to targets. It ended up only getting off one clear shot. And the muskets I sat in front of my spears were fairly wasted, not getting many clear shots away.

Christo made a big error in sitting his golems on the far flanks, especially the ones on my left. His idea was to run them around the impassable terrain and come at me from the flank, but with a shambling horde I don't think that was a realistic prospect.

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 1

Kingdoms of Men Turn 1

We both moved in, pretty congested lines for both of us. With my superior speed (lol dorfs) I was able to set myself up for charges next turn, but out of his charge range this turn.

Abyssal Dwarfs Turn 2

He continued to press forward, his slave orcs picking up the token on my left, and his centre basically surrounding the centre token but not taking it. His flank on my right was congested by terrain and such, so just shifted about to take my charge. He landed still more wounds on my beast of war with his mortars. I needed an inspiring roll to save it.

Kingdoms of Men Turn 2

This was the critical turn for me. On my right I charged in and killed his golems, and tied up the rest of his units with melee. My scouts were able to grab the token, and with nimble they were turned about and off the board in the next couple of turns. In the centre I was heavily congested, my shield wall horde just generally being a pain. But I had a plan. My General flew behind his lines, setting up a bunch of rear charges.

The Rest of the Game

And this is where I got bored with Battle Chronicler / my notes got too sparse. Basically what happened is my Scouts ran off the the token on my right. In the centre he killed off my infantry and grabbed the token, but my knights charged in from their reserve positions, and killed his wounded stuff, and took the token. On my left, my House Guard and my General combined to take out his Immortals, and my militia wavered his slave orcs. His other Immortal regiment and his horde of golems were out of position, and generally not able to threaten anything. We called the game after turn 4, when it was clear that he could not stop me taking off my two tokens.

It was a really fun game, Christo was very chill, and his models looked sweet as. Check out the paintjob on his golems if you get the chance, excellent lava effects.

This was my second game with my MSU list, and I gotta say I'm loving it.