Dash28 Map Campaign – Round 4: North vs South

Introduction

King Billiam’s forces retreated from the Basilean advance and made their way back to their temporary fort in Alrenn. Billiam barely had time to settle back in after a deadly battle before hearing the horns of war being blasted again. This time, more human interlopers from the east. 

“These men don’t learn! Ready the troops and prepare Toebiter for war!”

The Captain was high with the thrill of battle after his success in the South against The Hag. He wanted more, more territories, more glory. Who were these dwarves who followed King Billiam? He had heard of their defeat at the hands of the Basileans and thought they were ripe for the picking… 

With the US Masters coming up, Ashley and I both decided to try out some 2300 point lists that we’ve been kicking around. We randomly rolled a scenario (using the Dash28 scenario randomizer!) and got Pillage with 5 tokens. 

Billy’s List

I’ve been tinkering a lot with Free Dwarf lists lately. Primarily, they fit my fluff much better than the other list as well as my play style. My list is similar to what I have run in 2nd, but with a few of the 3rd edition tweaks added in. 

Army: Free Dwarfs

Points: 2300

Unit Strength: 22

220, Ironclad Horde

— Brew of Strength

210, Free Dwarf Brock Rider Regiment

— Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding

195, Free Dwarf Brock Rider Regiment

220, Earth Elemental Horde

200, Free Dwarf Ranger Regiment

— Hearneas’ Handpicked Rangers

185, Free Dwarf Ranger Regiment

230, Greater Earth Elemental

210, Sveri Egilax on Hellbrock

65, Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiment

110, Ironbelcher Cannon

110, Ironbelcher Cannon

110, Free Dwarf Stone Priest

— Bane Chant (2)

75, Dwarf Army Standard Bearer

— Lute of Insatiable Darkness

160, Berserker Lord

— Blade of the Beast Slayer

— Brock

Can I also just say that I’m loving goodarmylists.com. It’s nice to have an easy and mobile-friendly platform for quick list building. 

I really like the idea of cannons and I feel like they support the rangers’ shooting well. That shattering makes a big difference. A lot of the rest of the list includes models that I want to take as well as stuff that I feel is painted well, so I want to bring them for that reason also. I didn’t end up taking Martyr’s Prayer on my Stone Priest, but I’m thinking I might in future iterations of the list. I ended up not surging very often (in this game) and the extra ablative wounds would be nice. 

Ashley’s List

Horde Spear Phalanx – indomitable will, hammer of measured force, pikes

Horde Foot Guard – indomitable will, blessing of the gods

Reg Fanatics

Reg Bowmen – fire oil

Reg Knights – indomitable will, sir jesse’s boots of striding

Ballista

3 x Giants

General on Winged Beast – staying stone

2 x Hero on Pegasus -indomitable will, 1 w/ blade of slashing, 1 w/ mace of crushing

The Captain!  

Scenario

Pillage! 5 tokens

Ashley’s Placement

I set up with the thought to keep a strong core. Having a giant in the middle, along with the general to have some threat projection. I didn’t want to end up too spread out so I focused on the tokens on the left half of the board. I was hopefully to use my pegasus to shut down some shooting and the brocks.  

Billy’s Placement

Knowing that my forces are too slow to really stretch out too far, I tried to deploy the tokens fairly centrally in such a way that I could keep units near enough to them while the fighting was going on. I also definitely liked having fewer tokens because I fancy my chances of having some units alive at the end of the game. Normally, I try to keep a mastiff regiment in reserve for picking up objectives, but I didn’t have that option here since I had to drop one. 

Setup through Turn 1

I tried to set up my rangers to make sure that after their scout move, they’d have good lanes of fire while also being out of charge range of any of Ashley’s flyers. 

This is deployment post Captain’s redeployment and the rangers’ scout moves. The General on Winged Beast and the Pegasus on the left swapped places. 

King Billiam’s forces advanced conservatively to make sure that we were in position to hold objectives later on. The rangers and cannons shot at the Hero on Pegasus and the General, dealing 6 and 2 wounds respectively. With the Shattering from the cannon, the Pegasus was routed on a 5! 

Billy’s Turn 1

Some light shooting from the Archers on the left and the ballista did a handful of wounds to the leftmost Brock Riders and the Mastiff Pack. The Kingdom of Men also moved forward to start to threaten my center. 

Ashley’s Turn 1

With one pegasus dead to the blasted dwarf shooting, I tried to hide my general until I was ready to commit. I tried to position units on the left so things could not be combo charged. I am not sure if it was really the best position. I had the threat projection from the pegasus but Billy’s wild charge aura gave his brocks that little extra. 

Turn 2

On this turn, some lackluster shooting from the Dwarfs of New Gal’Durak only does a paltry few wounds to the Fanatics regiment. The Mastiffs ran straight forward to block up the phalanx and the giant. Ashley’s Pegasus Hero charge the wounded Brock Riders to hold them up. They only did 2 wounds, but this was enough to strip their Thunderous Charge and hold them up for a couple turns. Ashley’s Giant obviously killed the dogs with ease. 

Turn 3

I was starting to get PTSD from this turn as my cursed UB dice returned. My Brocks counter charged the Pegasus dealing a mere 4 wounds. I only hit 9 times out of 26. Still, not as bad as my last game. I did a bunch of crazy charges. The Berserker Lady and the Greater Earth Elemental went into the middle Giant. The Brocks popped their JBoots and went into the left Giant, and Sveri went into the Knights. Unfortunately, the dwarfs failed to kill anything in these charges, dealing a few wounds and locking up the center. I decided that I had to share one of these horrible dice fails so people know I’m not lying:

9 hits out of 26 attacks on 4’s, only 2 wounds. They were also Bane Chanted! 

Through a little more shooting, the Fanatics were taken out. 

In the inevitable counter attack, Ashley unleashed some serious pain on the forces of New Gal’Durak. The Foot guard flank the Greater Earth Elemental for 3 wounds, the right Giant goes into my Earth Elemental Horde for 7 wounds, the General goes into Herneas’s Rangers for 3 wounds. The middle Giant counter charged the Berserker Lady in the hopes of over running into my Brocks. The last Giant countered my Brocks that charged them as the Knights countered Sveri. Ultimately, nothing broke this turn. Most things took a decent amount of damage, but were unbroken. 

Turn 4

On this turn, obvious counters ensued. Since the giant failed to route my Earth Elemental Horde, the Ironclad swung around in its flank killing it. The Greater Earth Elemental then flanked the Giant that turned away from it, routing it as well. The Brocks yet again failed to do significant damage to the leftmost Giant even with the Berserker Lady helpling out. Sveri again failed to route the Knights, but the leftmost Brocks finally knocked out the Pegasus Hero. The Cannons rolled out of the box and did 8 wounds to the Phalanx horde!

Turn 5

I shot the Phalanx horde again, still not killing them. My Earth Elementals in the flank of the Foot Guard ended up doing 12 wounds and rolling a double one! Otherwise, the rest of my combats went well: Greater Elemental killed the Giant he was fighting, Lady and the Brocks killed the other Giant, Brocks ran over the Archers, and Sveri finally managed to kill off the Knights. 

Ashley charged her Phalanx Horde into the Ironclad that had turned to face them after killing the giant. She did a surprising amount of wounds and then nearly killed them with a roll of a 9, but alas, they stuck around. The Captain was able to take out my heavily wounded Brocks, however. 

Turn 6

On turn 6, I ended up counter charging with the Ironclad and rear charging the Phalanx Horde with a regiment of Rangers! 36 attacks with Crushing 1 and Thunderous Charge 1 from the hill! They did a total of 15 wounds, and the combined attack ended up wiping out the horde. The Ironclad shuffled sideways to be closer to the northernmost objective. The Elementals went back into the Foot Guard to try and kill them. I decided that the Lady needed to go into that unit to make sure they pop since they scored. King Billiam ran towards another objective and the Brocks charged the Captain. Unfortunately, the Captain lived, so he was able to see Billiam over the hill, charge him, and take him out. 

End of Game

The scenario ended with the Dwarfs of New Gal’Durak controlling 3 tokens to 0. 

Conclusion — Ashley

What a splendid opponent! This was a game where both Billy and I did serious damage, despite Billy’s slow start due to bad luck with dice. I dealt damage but couldn’t follow up with the nerve rolls. From a list perspective, I think I needed some bane chant or maybe some lightning bolt to clean up damaged units later. I feel like I could have played the middle smarter. I should have prevented Billy from getting initial charges, or at least fewer of them. I had hoped to smack some giants in to the flanks but alas, my hopes were crushed.

I am once again thrilled to have The Captain survive the game! He is yet to be taken down in battle, but I worry that that will make him a target in future games… eeek! 

Conclusion — Billy

Overall, I had an amazing time! After those first couple of dice fluffs, they normalized and I rolled pretty average the rest of the game, which is all you can ask for. I made a few mistakes that I probably should have seen: I should have positioned the Berserker Lord a little better to knock out that Pegasus earlier so my Brocks could be free to run around. My cannons didn’t have a lot of great firing lanes (which is a testament to the terrain randomizer!) and so they spent a turn or two not firing, which isn’t great. I probably should have forced the Rangers over the hill a little more to remove the cover penalty Ashley’s troops were getting from it. Overall I’m enjoying the list. I’m still playing with a lot of what I have painted from 2nd edition and trying to expand on the army and try out new units. 

As the last of the men were driven off of the southeastern borders of their lands, the Dwarfs of New Gal’Durak celebrated their victory…

But their victory was to be short lived. Reports of strange creatures and voices from the wood were pouring into town and an ominous cloud drifted over the city of Alrenn as the dwarfs mended their wounds and sharpened their axes.

The Captain returned to his base in Brigg’s Outpost, licking his wounds. He had been abroad too long and he and his troops required rest. They had had many casualties over the last few months… they needed new recruits!

But now, not long after arriving back to Brigg’s Outpost, he heard rumors of an army moving to the Southeast, into HIS lands!