In this battle report my friend and I took co-command of the Dwarfen Mountain Holds as we attempted to resist the forces of the Kingdom of Bretonnia. We played 1,500 point and in a shocker to all actually finished all six turns! It helps the Dwarves have limited action in the movement phase, no magic, and at this point value only limited shooting, while the Bretonnians also had limited shooting and only one mage. Anyway, on to the report!

The starting deployment. I couldn’t resist the hill and so stacked up on it. It ended up not being the best choice but to a Dwarf player defending a hill is part of our DNA!

The Bretonnians started the game praying so the Dwarves automatically got the first round. It was a lackluster round one as the Bretonnians were all out of range for the Thunderers and the canon misfired! The canon misfiring was a real shame with all those nice deep units of knights!

On turn one the Bretonnians advanced towards their enemy and in a flurry of spells and long range shooting managed to kill the entire slayer unit! Note to self: make another list without slayers.

Eager to avenge the slayers and knock out a few Grail Knights the canon opens fire, and again misfires. This time the crew isn’t so lucky and one of them was killed in the back blast! T

While probably wondering why the Dwarves didn’t start shooting at them the Bretonianns launched their charges on the Dwarven blocks. The Pegasus Knights and a wedge of Knights of the Realm struck the Longbeards while the other wedge of Knights of the Realm just barely missed their charge on the King in the unit of Dwarf Warriors! The Longbeards could not withstand the combined charge but managed to fall back in good order. Due to the position of the Thunderers they almost had to leave the board. Maybe I should have advanced away from the edge when I had the chance…. Meanwhile the knights overran into the cannon. Looks like faulty powder is the least of the crews worries at this point!

Seeing an opportunity that doesn’t happen often the Dwarven king declared a charge on the Knight wedge with his Iron Breakers in support. In combat the Knights put the canon crew out of their misery and charged the equally ineffective Thunderers. Meanwhile the Knights were cut down by the combined dwarf units to one and fled! The Dwarfs short legs saved the banner bearer from capture, and saved the Pegasus Knights the ignominy of being charged by Dwarfs! Meanwhile the Ironbreakers restrained from their pursuit and reformed to attempt to help the Thunderers.

In the Bretonnian turn the Pegasus Knights flew into the gap between the Knights engaged against the Thunderers to protect their flank from the Ironbreakers. The cream of Bretonnian chivalry did their best to kill the Thunderers but the doughty dwarfs refused to flee rolling snake eyes on their break test!

The Ironbreakers charged the screen of Pegasus Knights while the Dwarf King realigned his warriors for a future charge into large wedge of knights. The Ironbreakers couldn’t break the Pegasus Knights and were unable to save the remaining Thunderers which were killed to the Dwarf. This allowed the wedge to charge the Longbeards on the hill who were able to survive the Bretonnian charge and only give ground! Fortunately, the Runesmith was pushed out of the unit to save him from the charge. That Dwarf champion will be in for a stern talking to after the battle if they both survive! (At least that’s the story I’m telling. My co-player moved the Runesmith from the unit to prevent him from being charged in the Dwarf turn.) Meanwhile the remainder of the Bretonnian army was jockeying for a future charge.

In the start of their turn the Dwarves started to spring their trap after surrounding the Bretonnians! (Dwarves charging knights? Surrounding them and springing a trap? What in the Old World is this?!?!) The King and his unit of warriors charged the flank of the large wedge, and shockingly, even after “blunting the lance” the king and his unit were able to make contact. Since it was the Dwarf turn I went with the Ironbreakers before the main combat. They were able to break the Pegasus Knights and add their weight to the main combat. With the weight of three Dwarf units the wedge couldn’t hold and fled off the board!

Looking for a measure of revenge the Bretonnian lord charged the Runesmith on the hill as he surveyed the field of battle and the Grail Knights finally got into combat and charged the victorious Longbeards. The Lord was clearly distraught at the loss of the flower of Bretonnian chivalry and failed to kill the Runesmith! Some lucky armor re-rolls helped to be certain, but I like to think the lord was whipping tears away from his eyes! The Grail Knights vented their pent up rage on the Longbeards who fell back in good order, but being so close to the edge of the board were pushed off to tell their tale of glory to all would hear. The Grail Knights unable to contain their vengeance pursued the Dwarf Warriors off the board and would play no further part in the action.

On the last turn of the game the Bretonnian lord was able to kill the defiant Runesmith just as the Ironbreakers mounted the crest of the hill to aid their smith and the Grail Knights cantered back on the battlefield too late to swing the tide. Victory to the Dwarves!

This was a hard fought game. My opponent had the misfortune of facing well armored Dwarves and a wall of good armor saves. I will definitely make sure I remove the slayers from the list before the next game, and rethink the cannon. In two games it killed a total of two chaos knights. Not even chosen knights at that! I’ll try to not default to defending a hill but as a Dwarf I doubt that is a promise to myself I’ll be able to make! I do need to rebase my dwarves, or at least get bigger movement trays. We had some discussion about how this would have affected the game. At a minimum the Longbeards would probably have been pushed off the board a little earlier. My opponents knights were all on the right sizes bases, and while his Pegasus Knights were not we tried to account for the new base size.

Thanks for reading, I had a great time playing this battle, I hope you enjoyed the read!

-Wachtmeister