Warriors of Chaos vs Dwarfs 2000 points

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Report summary:-

"I should have forced him to charge me ?!" (more a synopsis than a report, key lessons learnt)

source : bugmansbrewery.com

credit : redbeard

26-Dec-2008

So, I'm playing in this mini-campaign, with some odd rules. The big one is that you have to spend gold to have access to magic items (for heros - warmachines can have runes). However, since the end-of-campaign scores are based on your gold pool, I'm playing like a true dwarf and hording my gold, so my characters aren't upgraded...

I played against a Chaos Undivided army tonight, and made a couple of bad decisions that cost me the game. Here's what happened.

Dwarfs Army list

Runelord w/ Anvil (light blue)
BSB (also, light blue)

2x 10 Thunderers (brown)
15 quarreller-rangers (green)
Organ Gun (white)
2x Cannons (Orange) (both RoForging, 1 RoBurning)
2x Bolt Throwers (Yellow) (Engineers, 1x RoPenetrating)
15 Long Drong's Slayer Pirates (Red)
Dragon Slayer (with pirates, also Red)
15 Miners (Not pictured)

Warriors of Chaos Army List

Chariot (teal)
Chosen Knights (Blue)
Lord on Daemonic Mount (With Knights)
Aspiring Champion (With Knights)
Hellcannon (Red)
2x 15 Chaos Warriors (Light BLue)


We rolled for terrain placement - I placed two hills and a swamp (pond), he placed a building and a forest.



Here's what deployment looked like:



OOOOPS!

Mistake 1: I was preoccupied with the hills that I neglected to take lines of fire into enough account. Part of this is my background in [warhammertag1]40K[/warhammertag1], where I'm used to being able to shoot through quite a bit more forest. But, I didn't have nearly enough turns to hammer with the guns before the chosen knights became a serious threat.

In retrospect, I would have been in much better shape had I deployed on the right side of the field, giving up one of the hills, but having a lot more open space between the two of us. Still, this would have been [warhammertag100]OK[/warhammertag100], if not for mistake 2.

I don't have pictures for turn-by-turn stuff, because the turns weren't that interesting... Early shooting took out his chariot. My cannon missed his, his hit mine, then the miners showed up and killed off his cannon, but were pretty decimated in the process, and weren't a factor in the rest of the fight.

The rangers hung out, march blocking the knights, far enough in the woods that they couldn't be seen. Eventually, the chosen knights ended up an inch from the rangers. I had to decide, get charged next turn, or charge this turn. I figured, I have great weapons, I swing first... and charged. MISTAKE 2!

The rangers killed no one, lost 10, ran, and got cut down. His pursuit left him right in front of my slayer pirates. And then he got his turn, and charged them, and killed a bunch, and Long Drong, and my Dragon Slayer killed no one in return, but hung out, and then the next turn, he killed the rest of them, and then he got another charge against the organ gun crew, and essentially rolled through all my guys....

What went wrong here? I charged his knights, giving him the pursuit into my super-shooty pit with his knights getting a move before I would get a chance to shoot them. I should have forced him to charge me. The end result (dead rangers) wouldn't have been any different, but I would get a full turn to shoot his chosen, with the combined fire of 30 pistols, 20 thunderers, 2 bolt throwers, 1 organ gun and 1 cannon, and then another 30 pistols as a stand&shoot, if they survived...

Yup, I skillfully seized defeat from the jaws of victory.

Key lessons learned:
1) Don't give your opponent the opportunity to get extra movement on your turn.
2) An open line of fire is more important than sitting on a hill...