KoW Ogres vs Dwarves

 Gordon’s Dwarves

Gordon used his tandard dwarf list again. 

• 2 regiments ironguard both with throwing dogs,
• 1 troop of mastiffs,
• 2  troops of brock riders
• 2 regiments of brock riders 1 with brew strength, 1 with brew sharpness,
• 2 troop sharp shooters,
• 1 regiment of rangers,
• 1 berserker lord on a brock.
• 1 lord on a beast with blade of the beast slayer,
• 2 ASB 1 with heal 3, 1 with bane chant 2.
• 1 hero or lord on a brock.

 My Ogres (2000 points)

A slight change to my list, replacing the giant with a regiment of chariots. Not 100% sure of the chariots but we will see how they perform. Will they succumb to the new unit curse or will they earn their keep?

• 1x goblin scout regiment
• 1x boomer horde
• 1x shooter horde
• 1x hunter horde- mead of madness
• 2x siege breaker hordes
• 1x chariot regiment- Jesse’s boots
• 1x sergeant with crossbow
• 2x boomer sergeants
• 1x Nomogarok  

 Mission: Plunder

 My aim was to try to slow the brocks down if possible and concentrate my firing to remove the brock troops as quickly as I could. I need to deal with the regiments but Gordon always protects them well as so the troops need to go first. I hoped to be able to avoid the ironclad regiments till later in the game.

Deployment. I won the roll off and chose the bottom of the table and also got the first turn. 

 Deployment

Trun 1. I advanced a bit, the shooters put 3 wounds on the sharpshoters but failed to kill them- the wounds were then healed by the standard bearer- which is a ttad annoying but a very nice combo.  

Gordon advances his Ironclad and brockriders. 

Turn 2:  The brocks advance. 

My boomers, Nom Nom and the boomer sergeant concentrate on the rangers in the wood who take a few wounds and retreat deeper into the woods. In the centre the other boomer sergeant advances to shoot at the brock troop- the shooters and sergeant concentrate on the same target. 

Bring it on! The boomer sergeant issues a challenge. Gordon in his previous turn had concentratred fire in the hunters causing quite a few wounds as they were in the hill and in the open  so I pulled the hunters back into the trees. 

A view from the dwarf side. 

Gordon turns one troop of brocks to face the boomers and siege breakers

Turn 3, the boomers advance onto the hill. The scouts turn to face the centre of the table. 

Charge! Gordon throws his brocks into the shooters and siege breakers. In the top of the picture, jsut above the magic item card is the brocklord who blocked the charge of one of the brock regiments ensuring that the brocks charge did not carry them into the woods and so was an unhindered charge-  a very cunning move!

This shot gives a better view of the brcks "clipping" the shooters, the shooters are destroyed in the melee. 

On the hill the brock troop charges the boomers

End of the turn the shooters are dead and the brocks advance to the chariots preventing them from charging due to the angles they are on- the chariot hasn't enough room to wheel into the flank of the brocks and can't attack the front of the unit as technically it is positioned on the flank. 

Gordon took out the boomer sergeant out with the mastiffs- I should have simply shot the mastiffs rather than charging, this allowed the rangers to also charge the flank of the boomer sergeant- bye bye sergeant.  

Turn 4: The boomers and siege breakers charged the brock troop on the hill- unfortuantley the siege breakers blocked the goblin scouts from making a flank charge into the brck rider regiment attacking my other siege breaker horde. 

The chariot had no choice but to back up... and wait for the charge of the brock lord- who had just finished off the hunters, and the regiment of brocks on the left. Ouch!

This will not end well for the chariot- which succumbed to the newly painted model curse of being destroyed before rolling a dice in anger.

Turn 5: The dwarves have crushed the ogres left flank and centre- things are looking grim for the ogres.

Ogres turn 6- I can't get back across to contest the objective and shoot the mastiffs so I am banking on a turn 7. The boomers do however do enough wounds to kill the mastiffs. The mastiffs take a load of wounds but I rolled a double 1 for nerve check and they shrug off the wounds. 

The brocks line up the siege breakers on the hill...

and charge.

In the very top of the screen the scouts have been fighting the sharpshooters for the past two turns and contest the objective. 

The mastiffs block the boomers from contesting the far objective if there is a turn 7.

Alas, no turn 7.

Result: 3-2 to the dwarves. 

The main moves

1. Hunters killed by lord on a  beast.

2. Shooters charged and killed by brock riders.

3. Siegebreakers killed by brock riders.

4. Brock troop killed by sigebreakers+ boomers

5. Boomer sergeant killed by mastiffs and rangers

6.  Rqngers killed by shooting from boomers

7. Sharpshooters killed by goblins. 

Thoughts

As usual Gordon played a very tough game and really gave me a lesson on using angles of various units to both block charges and ensure flanks. 

I made a couple of mistakes with cost including deployment. I usually have the siegebreakers together but this time had one on each side of the tower, this meant the one of the right really wasn’t able to get into the game and was unable to effectively support the other unit.

Charging the mastiffs with the boomer sergeant when I should have simply shot them instead was also a mistake. It enabled the rangers to charge the boomer sergeant and pushed me back off the objective which I was unable to reclaim. Gordon set the trap and I tok the bait. 

Brocks vs shooters. I thought I had it so that my shooters would need to be charged with a hindered charge but as it turned out Gordon used his dwarf lord on a brock to screen the lanes of charge so that the borcks charge counted as being in the open. Gordon had been discussing this move before but was interesting to see it on table. Lesson learned- ensure the unit it totally in the woods! This charge was the key to busting my defence wide open and the brocks literally smashed my centre from there. 

Advance after combat- Gordon used his brocks to advance after killing the shooters as that they all but touching the chariots. In my turn the chariots were unable to charge the flank of the brocks  which was a tad annoying but well within the rules, instead my only option was to back up and die the following turn thanks to a well executed multicharge.

 What went well?

Focusing fire of my various shooting units vs the rangers and brocks.

 Improvements

Lots- not happy with footprint of the chariot or how I used it and not sure I will continue with it i think i prefer the smaller footrint of a giant or mammoth. 

I needed to use the boomer sergeants and other units as a screen to slow the brocks down and failed to do so. 

Red Goblin scouts- they ended up getting me one of my two objectives but I am still not completely happy with them and before the game was tempted to use a regiment of beserker braves instead and think that they way be worth a crack in my next game as they will be a good chaff/blocking unit and still have a pretty god threat range due t wild charge.  

Facings, again Gordon showed great use of positioning of units and this is one element of the game I really do need to work on, I am far to lax and not really looking at all options, same goes with use of characters to block charges. 

 As usual Gordon played well and once he found his opening really did all he could to pile on the pressure. I was pretty confident of holding the brocks going into turn 3 but the charge that avoided the woods was very well executed and really busted the game open for Gordon. 

Thanks Gordon for another very enjoyable game.