Battle Report: Dwarfs vs Skaven Part III

When I left off it was the top of turn 5. The glorious skaven forces had neutralized most of the stubborn dwarf shooting, but had yet to kill anything of any significance. On the other hand, The evil stunties had yet to kill anything of great signifacance to the Great and Good Skaven except some scouts, their swarms and a ratling gun.

Here is where we left off:


So the Skaven slaves #1 charge into the flank of the crossbowmen.
The giant rats charge into the flank of the clansmen.
And the Plague Censor bearers charge into the 2nd clansmen.

Slaves #2 rally, but slaves #3 with still a LD of 8, fail again and run off the board. The Plague monks needing a 7, rally.

The depleted clanrats #1 back up and allow the warlord and his clanrat unit to push forward to face the slayers. It was time to kill them off.
Clanrats #3 move to threaten the flank of the longbeards.
In magic I get a glorious 13 and kill 5 of the Longbeards, wiping out a rank. And shooting the ratling gun gets double 1's and jams.

But now I'm in a great setup. If my giant rats break the clansmen, then I overrun and hit the flank of the unit the PCBs are in combat with. This should totally collapse the dwarven line and give me the game.

We each do a wound and I win by 3 and he needs a 6 not to break. He makes it. Uggghhh!!! This runes my plans.
On to the PCB battle. I kill 1 each with the fog. So only 6 attacks I hit 5 times. Needing 3's to wound, I get only 3. Needing 5's to save he rolls 3 6's. He kills one back and thats it. We break and run. We get away, but the PCBs will never rally and lose the standard they had captured from the miners. This was huge.
Luckily the Plague monks make their panic test.

NOTE: The monks should not have had to make one since the PCBs were down to US 4 at this point.

On the hill no wounds are done in the cannon crew combat, so I win with unit strength. But, the dwarf makes his Ld 9 break test.
Finally the slaves kill the lone dwarf they are in combat with, break them and run them down.

Here is the beginning of the bottom of turn 5:


The slayers charge into my warlords unit. The clansmen charge the plague monks and we slide to maximize combat.
The longbeards try and charge my clanrats. They look out of ranges, so I stand and shoot. I misfire but fail to wound myself with my warlocks pistol. It is a failed charge.
In shooting the anvil gets the longbeards to charge again and this time easily in range the clanrats flee. But it gets the longbeards flank out of my charge arc.

In combat, the night runners kill a cannon dwarf the others hold.
The clansmen and plague monks fight, I kill a couple with my Priest flail. I win combat but he holds.
Then the giant rats do one wound and he makes his save. Then in 4 attacks needing 3's and 4's. He does 3 wounds. Now with US and a standard he has 5 CR. I have 2 ranks and flank so I lose by 2. Needing a 5 not to break, I flee. This also panics the globadiers and they flee as well.

In the combat with the slayers, they use extra hand weapons and do no wounds to my clanrats but do a 2nd wound to my general. I manage to kill off 2 slayers. Still win combat and expand to get more clanrats fighting.

Here is the setup at the beginning of turn 6:



So much changed in this last turn and almost none of it good for the Glorious Skaven.
The slaves charge the last crossbowmen, and he flees. Unable to redirect into the flank of the long beards, the slaves continue forward. I want to hit the anvil and tie it up to prevent its use on turn 6 but fall about an inch short.

The clanrats charge the goblin hewer as do the slaves.
The PCB's fail to rally and off the board.
The globadiers fail to rally and off.
The giant rats fail to rally and continue to flee.
The clanrats #4 with their warlock do rally.
(This led to a tactical situation I screwed up. It will be the tactics of the week, coming tomorrow.)

In magic the warlock gets off the warp lightning only to have eat up the last spell breaker rune.
In shooting the ratling gun shoots into combat and kills a couple more slayers.
By the time the clanrats finish attacking there is only 3 slayers left. The warlord gets 4 attacks and hits 4 times. Needing 2's to wound, he only kills 2. Leaving 1 slayer left for turn 6b. Ugghhhh!!
In combat the plague monks and clansmen fight to a dead draw and both units have musicians as he makes 2 armor saves.

The night runners kill the 2nd crewman, leaving only 1 cannon crewman left.
The clanrats fighting the slayer hero do 1 wound to him. Then 2 slaves get to attack. Needing 5's to hit and 5's to wound, I hit once and kill him off. I destroy the machine and overrun with the clanrats.
I only go 5". I think I've hit one of the crew of the anvil. Measurement and close eye balling, I thought I had it. My opponent didn't. It was very, very close.

I let it go, it wasn't that big a deal.

Here we were at the bottom of turn 6:


With no charges the dwarfs move the clansmen up to charge the clanrats and the longbeards turn to face the slaves#4 in front of the anvil.

He then tries a master move. Needing a 4, he rolls a 3. If he rolls a 1 for the misfire I win. He rolls another 3. Oh well, you can't just hope for your opponent to have bad luck.

What he should have done was just done the low level and gone after the clanrats and warlock. If he can break them thats 400 vp waiting for him. Instead he gets nothing because he was hoping to also get 44 vp for a slave unit?? Got too greedy and got nothing.

In combat I kill off the last of the cannon crew.
The Monks and clansmen fight to a draw again.

Finally, on the slayer. I get two attacks. Needing 4's and 5's. I hit 1 time and roll a 4 to wound. He gets 2 attacks on my warlord and hits both times and wounds both times!!! I fail my armor saves and down goes the warlord. Ugghhh!!!!
Not to mention that the slayer lives robbing me of an extra 110 vp. While I lose 202 vp for losing the Warlord. So if my warlord only fails to wound once the previous turn instead of twice I make 312 vp right there.

Here was the final situation at the end of the game:


The dwarf player thought it was a definite loss for him but I knew better. When we added it up at the end it was much closer:

Dwarf Vp: 919 + 200 bonus = 1119 vp; bonus from 1 standard, general
Skaven vp: 852 + 200 bonus = 1052 vp; bonus from 2 table quarters

So a Draw to a great and epic battle.

It could have gone differently on so many levels. A lot of dice rolls determined the outcome of this game.

A review and breakdown will be coming soon.

I hope you enjoyed it.