Night Battle at Namly Pass

I had my first 8th edition game on sat night. We rolled 3 for the mission but as we did not have the rulebook, we chose to play pitch battle instead. (I roll for it anyway coz i m curious). Anyway mission 3 is supposed to be a battle for the pass. Since we played a pitch battle deployment, I suppose the pass is rather wide. As we started only at 10 pm, I shall call it the Night Battle at Namly Pass.

Victor's list is as follows

Dreadlord on Coldone (equipment unknown)
Supreme Sorc on foot with focus familiar and inverse ward save
BSB with banner of murder on steed

40 spears
2 x 10 Rxbmen with shields
5 Dark Riders
5 or 6 knights
2 x 5 shades with extra hw
15 blackguard
2 rbts
1 hydra.

I rather like this list as it has a good composition with horses, men and beasts of war. Rather balance and tend to have a "historical" feel in it (you can easily translate each unit into a historical equivalent). It is a pity that I tend to have specialised armies and the only non-specialist army in my collection are Dark Elves also. Thus I will almost never use a balanced army against this one.

I played my Dwarves. I am happy that they are mostly done. I originally want to focus on finishing my warmachine crew but my hammerers ARE SO OBVIOUSLY UNPAINTED that I think I will work on them after my byzantine cataphracts and bolt thrower crew are completed.

My list is as follows

Dwarf Lord (Rognar Fireforge) [i changed the name slightly...this is the finalised one]
Thane BSB (Josef Bugmen)
Runesmith (Hegar Lorekeeper)
Runesmith (Master Engineer Flint Thunderbeard posing as one. Hegar has given him some last min advice on the runes before the battle)

20 Warriors (Skullpass warriors)
30 Warriors (Orphan Legion)
10 Quarrellers (Rangers Wannabes led by Feros Thunderbeard)
10 Thunderers (no nickname)
10 Longbeard Rangers (led by Orthan Treefeller. The unit is nicknamed as Sons of Ordu from now onwards)
20 Hammerers (Prince Rognar's bodyguards)
6 Miners
1 Bolt Thrower
1 Cannon
1 Organ Gun

I cannot remember all the details so I will simply mention the highlights. For me, I killed the hydra in turn 1, the sons of Ordu killed 1 darkrider each turn and panicked them off the board in turn 2. Rognar, Josef and the hammerers charged the 40 spearmen phalanx. It was supposed to be a combined charge but i rolled badly for the Orphan Legion and thus the hammerers went in themselves. We lost badly in the first round but as the effects of hatred wear off in the second, my troops prevailed, broke the spears and ran them down...bringing a brief relief to my forces. Another highlight is that my organ gun exploded in turn 1 after trying to fire at Vic's shades. This exposed my cannon to his shades who swiftly took it out and ensuring that he got overwhelming shooting for the rest of the game.

For Victor, his highlights are the general and cok who failed stupidity by rolling 12 twice and had no contributions to the game with the exception of destroying the bolt thrower. His sorc miscastd twice. Fnally his blackguard slaughtered the skullpass warriors and the champion killed BOTH Hegar Lorekeeper and Flint Thunderbeard in close combat. The dude was the only one that survived in the last round, thus keeping his 200+ VP. Having kill 300 points worth of characters and gained 100 points of bonus from the challenges...the guy is worth 600 VP. If Flint had not rolled a 1 to wound it will be a draw.

That said, I deserved to lose. I had been rather rusty with my dwarves and my deployment was not tight enough. I deployed the Orphan legion in the forest and could barely get them out. If Victor had charge them, I would lose my steadfast bonus! I also make the mistake of deploying my line too wide. I orginally plan to deploy my longbeard rangers on my left hoping to use the terrain to my advantage and bombard the Blackguard with throwing axes. But Victor deployed his knights there and my longbeards had to avoid them by deploying to my extreme right. As a result my left is extremely fragile since all 3 infantry blocks will be advancing in midgame. To make the matter worse, the sons of Ordu are placed in the far right, in front of Victor's darkriders but far from my big guns and from cover. Thus when my organ gun exploded, Victor's shades had the free rein and tied up my shooting for quite sometime. Thanks to some advice from some frens (my allies in disguise?) Victor made the mistake of charging my GW wielding crossbowmen and got chopped into bits.

Despite my mistakes and some horrendously bad dice rolls for almost everything. I lost by 350. It will be a draw game if we were using the 7th ed scoring system as i managed to reduce victor's BG to half strength.

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Rognar tried to fight his way through but the enemy were too vicious, too tricksy and too many. The spear warriors had tied him and his elite guards for too long and when he finally broke through, the Elven witch and her standard bearer simply ran away! It was at this point of frustration when he saw an elven unit captain taking out Flint with a halberd, with Hegar's unconcious body only a couple of feet away!

"To me my warriors. We must protect the keepers of our traditions from harm!" The hammerers ran towards the two fallen Dwarven heroes as fast as they could. Forming a shieldwall to block off the elven crossbow bolts, the stunted folks executed a fighting withdrawal. In the distance, Feros led his men to provide covering fire while his brother was being saved.

With tears in his eyes, Rognar quitted the battlefield. It is of umost importance to save his friends, but that does not meant that the day's defeat will be forgotten!!!