Riotville part 2 – Beastmen vs Dwarves

Following on from my last post, this one cover the first of the two battles played during Riotville 2019.

I will say that when we played the game I made barely any notes and forgot to take some photos towards the end. As such, excuse any mistakes (such as what happened on which turn) as failures in memory or just down to poetic licence as I attempted to fill in gaps. The photos are also slightly dark as the lighting was spotlights and I completely forgot to adjust the brightness on my phone!

I’ve covered my list in the previous post but I’ve recapped it again below.

The Herd of Bashor the Bloody

Bashor (General) – Beastlord – The Brass Cleaver, Charmed Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Potion of Strength, Heavy Armour, Razorgor Chariot – 396pts

Zhurock the Mighty (BSB) – Wargor – Heavy Armour, Shield, Gnarled Hide, Beast Banner – 206pts

Wazzock the Lame – Bray Shaman, Level 2 Lore of Beasts, Dispel Scroll, Additional hand weapon – 142pts

38 Gor – FC, Additional hand weapon – 329pts

Tuskgor Chariot – 80pts

Tuskgor Chariot – 80pts

30 Bestigor – FC, Banner of Eternal Flame – 400pts

5 Harpies – 55pts

Razorgor – 55pts

Razorgor – 55pts

Total – 1798pts

Sedge’s Dwarves

Thane (general) – great weapon, Fiery Ring of Thori, Master Rune of Gromril – 136

Daemonslayer – Master Rune of Swiftness, Rune of Might, Rune of Parrying – 215

20 Longbeards, shields, full command, Strollaz’ Rune, 1 x Rune of Sanctuary – 340

10 Thunderers – 120

20 Slayers, full command (i.e. 1 is a Giant Slayer), Strollaz’ Rune – 307

Gyrocopter, vanguard – 100

Cannon, Rune of Forging – 145

20 Rangers, full command – 310

Gyrobomber – 125

Total 1798 points.

Prematch rolls

When we played the game I made barely any notes and forgot to take some photos towards the end. As such, excuse any mistakes (such as what happened on which turn) as failures in memory or just down to poetic licence as I attempted to fill in gaps.

The dwarven Ancestral Grudge was the best/worst result possible (depending on your side) with just General vs General hatred.

Wazzock ended up with the following spells from the Lore of Beasts: Amber Spear and Wyssans Wildform.

Terrain

The tables had already been pre-populated with terrain, so we just left that where it was. The terrain was excellent and some had even been customised, with one of the buildings on the table having had part of it’s roof removed and had a rocket and launch rails coming out of it!

We then proceeded to roll Battle for the Pass and I think Sedge won the roll to choose ends.

Deployment

The Slayers, Gyrocoptor and Longbeards all vanguarded and the Scouts went behind my lines

The Dwarves then also won the roll to go first.

 

Dwarves Turn 1

The Bestigor watched a bit confused as the orange haired slayers quickly moved towards them, ignoring the blood forest that surrounded them. Something obviously wasn’t right with the stunted ones as most foe tried to get out of their way rather than making a beeline for them. To their right, the Bomber moved up in support of the frothing lunatics (ensuring it stayed out of the beastmen charge range).

Over to their left, the longbeards and Gyrocoptor also advanced toward them.

With the emergence of Rangers to their rear, they were feeling somewhat surrounded and let out a bray of anger as two of their number were felled by crossbow bolts.

The Dwarf artillery opened fire with an angry roar hit the Razorgor that had strayed to the far side of the house. A swath of blood up the side of the house was all that remained of the monster after the shot had been fired. The rest of the beasts, unaware of its fate due to the impeding building, were unperturbed.

Beastmen Turn 1

Determined not to lose face in front of Bashor, the Bestigor charged into the slayers. The nearby Razorgor was caught up in the momentum and swiftly followed them in. The death cult may have smelt fearless but the elite beasts could tell it was an act as they whiffed most of their attacks. Their amusement at this blunted their fury and they then proceeded to do the same.

Wazzock looked at the rapidly approaching dwarven flying machine and then showed why he earnt the moniker ‘the lame’ by failing to cast a boosted amber spear.

Still concerned by the block of Rangers threatening the rear of his lines, a short command sent the harpies winging their way over to threaten the flank of the dwarven scouts.

Bashor then moved the remaining forces up, with the Gor and chariots keeping a solid battle line and the great beast himself following behind them.

Dwarves Turn 2

With the herd forces moving out of range of the Dwarf crossbowmen and their flank looking exposed, the Rangers marched up to get closer to the rapidly receding beastmen units. The Gyrocoptor moved up and dropped its payload onto the flying women, the explosives tearing 4 apart and the final one ran from the field in flight. Never-the-less they had done their task and distracted the enemy forces.

The other flying machine flew over the Gor and promptly missed the largest unit on the table with its payload (thus continuing Sedge’s long standing lack of success with the machine). As an aside, the Bomber did railroad the Bashor’s chariot (intentionally or not), which annoyingly would prevent him joining the slayer combat in the next turn.

The dwarven sharp shooters showed great composure in ignoring the sea of beastmen directly ahead of them and took a wound off one of the chariots. The cannon then stepped up and displayed exactly why dwarf artillery is the best in the world. In a shot worthy of the greatest billiard player (if that player had the chance to redo the shot and avoid his cue blowing up, thanks to a rune of forging), the cannon ball arced over the Gor and ricocheted between the 2 chariots, destroying both with ease.

With the warm up round over and they fury well and truly roused, the Bestigor really started to get stuck in, their great axes hewing heads and limbs from bodies and granting 11 of the dishonoured dwarves peace at last. Things didn’t just go their own way and the dwarves took out a rank in return and the Razorgor was left hanging onto life by a slim thread.

Beastmen Turn 2

 The Gor continued to advance toward the handgunners, Zhurrock salivating at what his horde would do to the measly unit of handgunners in front of him. Wazzock finally managed to conquer the winds of magic and skewered two of the gunners with the amber spear.

The combat almost drew to a close with the remaining rank and file slayers killed. However the Daemonslayer refused to die to such vermin, hanging on with a single wound remaining and cutting down two of the beasts in retribution for his fallen brethren.

Dwarves Turn 3

Seeing their chance, the Longbeards charge into the flank of the Razorgor, butchering the pig and then following up into the side of the Bestigor. The elite Beasts managed to kill 2 of the elder dwarves and the troublesome Slayer lord before their nerve finally broke and they fled, only to be run down.

The rangers moved into the nearby house to provide support where needed and the Gyrocopter moved up towards the centre of the board.

With much celebration, the dwarf Bomber finally managed to not only score a direct hit on the Beastlord but the roll for the centre hole hit Bashor and not the Chariot. The elation was swiftly muted as this charmed shield deflected the shot and the chariot was unharmed. The Bomber pilot took his frustration out on the Gor using his clatter gun to poor fire into the rear of the horde. The thunderers seeing their impending doom looming large, also targeted the horde, again helping increase the tally of dead Gor.

With no other suitable targets, the cannon attempted to remove a swathe of the Gor but the powder was faulty and a single beast was pulverised as he shoved Zhurrock out of harm’s way, sacrificing himself to save the mighty Wargor.

Beastmen Turn 3

The main horde of beasts finally got their chance to engage the dwarves and piled into the handgunners. Wazzock boosted them with wildform and with their muscles unnaturally enhanced they tore many of the dwarves limb from limb. This was too much for the remainder who fled but were hacked apart as they turned their backs. So swollen with power were the Gor that they overran the full distance, drastically pulling them out of position and almost off the battlefield!

Enraged by the loss of his bodyguard and with the Bomber when out of his reach, Bashor drove his chariot at the unit of Greybeards that had caused the insult. The Dwarf thane pushed himself to the front bellowing a challenge. Grinning as he paused only to swill back his potion, Bashor promptly cut down the dwarf leader, his increased strength allowing him to cleave through his opponents heavy armour with ease. Despite seeing their leader cut down, the dwarf musician frantically blew his horn to stiffen their resolve and to Bashors horror, the awful noise spooked the mightly Razorgor pulling his mount and squealing with fright, it turned and fled. Bashor wondered how this could be as an Axe embedded itself in his back and the lights went out.

Dwarves Turn 4

Seeing the mighty enemy lord vanquished, the Rangers gathered their courage and slinked out of the house they had been hiding in. The Longbeards reformed and started the long march towards the Gor. Both Gyro’s also moved up toward the Gor unit.

Beastmen Turn 4

The single remaining Beastmen unit on the board, swift reformed and then moved up. Wazzock attempted to cast spear at the Gyrocoptor but the attempt was shut down.

Dwarves Turn 5

The Gyrocoptor moved up but was unable to get into a position where it could cause damage to the Gor without risking a charge. It still choose to do this and managed to roast a few Gor.

The bomber returned to form and once failed to hit the largest unit on the board with the largest template in the game…

Beastmen Turn 5

The Gor charged the nearby Gyrocoptor, who predictably fled. Frustratingly, they failed to catch it stumbling a miserable few feet forward. Wazzock (just to break a trend) then cast a boosted Amber Spear at it. The magical feedback wounded the shaman but of course the unstoppable spear rolled a 1 to wound.

With no way of getting the Gor into combat and nothing bar that unit on the table, I choose to conced at that point. A first win of the day for Sedge!

Post battle thoughts

The words ‘screwed the pooch’ come to mind! I made a couple of blunders during the game. The biggest and first was during deployment. At the point when I only had characters left to deploy, I realised that Sedge had a unit of rangers left to place (even having seen his list way in advance on the EEFL site I somehow thought they were quarrellers), I proceeded to panic and put my Lord on chariot into the space directly behind my lines, to prevent the scouts going there. Classic blunder. This not only took all my troops out of his LD range, it meant that he was unable to keep up with them as chariots can’t march. I should have just ignored them as all my troops move faster than the rangers. I would have said that having the General out of LD range really impacted my ability to make primal fury rolls, but I consistently rolled a 10 or over most of the game, in order to fail them anyway. Still it was a terrible mistake and one I didn’t repeat in the next game.

My other two mistakes were: not flying my harpies straight at his cannon. Who knows what I was thinking moving them near his rangers as they wouldn’t have been able to do anything against that unit and their sole role was war machine hunting or chaff duty (the rangers really did their job and threw my ‘game plan’). The final mistake was aiming the Gor at his Thunderers. I know why I did it (because the bomber was basically blocking them early game) however I should have just swung them round and gone for one of the other units (backing up the Bestigor to allow the Gor at the slayers was probably the best thing).

The vanguarding dwarves looked like great fun to play and I definitely want to revisit that list again in future. I also forgot what a total tarpit the slayers are. They are just such a great unit. Sure they are susceptible to shooting but it wasn’t like I had any.

I’ll also add that I may complain about some of my terrible rolls during the game (and will) but Sedge had his own issues with regards to the slayers. His Daemonslayer couldn’t hit a barn door (even with rerolls to hit) and the slayers were following in his footsteps.

Hindsight is a great thing of course and I’m sure Sedge would have also changed a few things too. However despite the blunders and unlucky rolls (all the excuses are coming out), Sedge played a much better game and deserved to win.

It was great to finally meet another of the EEFL members and once again prove my wife wrong (I really am not sure why she consistently worries that these random strangers I meet on the net might turn out to be robbers/murderers!).

Next up Lee’s Bretonnians!