League BR Game: Twins of Khorne vs Dwarfs

I got in my first Warhammer league game against a great guy with a Dwarf army.

My army list was as follows:
Exalted Hero of Khorne on Chaos steed w/shield, Gaze of Gods, Sword of Might, General
Exalted Hero of Khorne on Chaos steed w/shield, Great Fang (no armor saves)

4 x 5 Khorne Knights w/standard, musician.
(1 had Banner of Fury and the #2 hero)
4 x 5 Marauder Horsemen w/Flails, Throw axes, mus
2 x 6 Centigors w/Spear, LA, Shield, Throw axes, mus
2 x 5 Dogs of War fast cav with Bows, shields, mus

His army was:
Dwarf Lord w/Shield bearers, grim armor, shield, Sword with swiftness and 2x fury runes
Thane BSB w/ Oathstone, grim armor, Rune of battle
Thane w/Oathstone, grim armor, shield, rune stone
Thane w/Oathstone, grim armor, shield, rune stone

17 Hammers w/Champ, standard, Rune of Battle, rune Stoicism
(Lord and BSB in here)
19 Longbeards #1: Std, champ, HA,sh, Rune Courage (thane in here)
19 Longbeards #2: Std, champ, HA,sh, Rune Courage, Rune Ancestor (thane in here)
10 Warriors w/HA, sh
10 Warriors w/HA, sh
20 Thunderers w/champ (champ has pistols)
4x Bolt throwers with Engineers 1 with rune of Immolation
Organ Gun

Here is a picture of the Dwarf deployment:



As you can see we only rolled 4 pieces of terrain. This would work in the Dwarfs favor. 1 Woods, 1 broken terrain, which we used as a graveyard that provided soft cover and a defended obstacle if you were on the walls. An old ruin, that we considered hard cover and defended obstacle and finally a chasm (big hole in the ground). Represented by the black hole on the far end of the pic.

Here is my setup and the first ever picture of my fully assembled army in one place:



As you can see I am still playing the ghost brigade. But I do have my fist unit I'm working on.

Here is a graphical shot of the battlefield from my side of the board:



On my side, the Brown knights are the chaos knights.
The blue horses are the Marauder horsemen.
The Brown arrows are the centigors.
The Pink units are my Dogs of War fast cav.
The 2 red guys are my exalted heroes. The general has the yellow star on him.

On his side, on the left are his warriors.
The white guys are the long beards.
The Blue ones on the right next to the long beards are the hammerers with Lord and BSB.
The unit next to them are the Thunderers in their 5x4 block with Archery school.
And finally the warmachines are pretty easy to tell.

Due to limited terrain on Lorenz I had to make due with what they had.
woods = woods.
Pyramid with a skull = graveyard/broken ground.
2 walls = The ruins with walls.
The swamp = chasm.

I was looking for stuff that was closer to the right size more than anything else.

My opponent does use his Archery school on the Dwarf Thunderers. I use my Stable on my far left hand chaos knights, so they now move 8 instead of 7.

We roll and draw objectives. It is a pitched battle.
His objective, kill my general. My objective, prevent him from getting in my deployment zone. (We screw this up badly later, I will explain.)

We roll for first turn, we each roll a 2. So with his +1 he wins and goes first. I would have let him anyway.

Strategy: I decided the Hammerers and Lord with tons of ruins was probably more than I wanted to deal with. While 20 thunderers was nasty, I wasn't too worried about them. (should have been more.) But I figured, I'll plow through everything else and get the minor win.

Turn 1a: Dwarfs: He moves up the Long beards and hammerers on the right. He moves his warriors and longbeards in the middle back, which confused me a bit. And then fired his 4 bolt throwers killed a couple of marauder horsemen.

Setup at the end of turn 1a:



Turn 1b: Chaos: All of my units sprint forward. I had to get to these missile troops quick and take them out. I couldn't screw around with the bolt throwers and let them get flank shots on my knight units.
My Marauders throw their axes while the right side DoW shoot their bows at the far right Long beards killing one.
My 2nd DoW on the left shoots at the Organ gun crew, hitting 2, but only killing 1.

Here is the setup going into turn 2:



Turn 2a: Dwarfs: Longbeards and Hammerers charge the Marauder horsemen. I flee. End up running through my DoW cav, but make the panic test.
That is all for movement, as the 20 Thunderers can draw a very slim LOS to my far right hand Chaos knights, but with 20 shots, they only kill 1. Whoohoo.
The Organ gun, the blasts out 10 shots and wipes out the entire unit that is with the general, leaving only the general.
Bolt throwers kill a couple (I only show 1 missing but it should be 2 dead) from the unit with the hero #2. This is my knights with the banner of rage.
And I think one of the center centigors bites it to a bolt thrower as well.

Setup after turn 2a:



Turn 2b: Chaos: Time to charge. The centigors in the woods go frenzy and charge the left bolt thrower. The other centigors and general charge the organ gun.
The 2 marauder units in front of the graveyard charge the other 3 bolt throwers.

the fleeing marauders rally, run right back to where they were and threw their axes again. Combined with the DoW bows, we kill another long beard. Sweet.

Everyone else moves around a bit.
Here is the setup after the charges but before combat:



In combat the Centigors wipe out the bolt thrower crew, who then have the Immolation rune go off killing one centigor. I then overrun into the dwarf warriors on the left.
The General wipes out the 2 organ gun crew and overruns into the warriors. The centigors choose not to overrun into the longbeards.
I win both combats with the 3 bolt throwers in the graveyard, but he holds with all of them.

Setup at the end of turn 2:



At this point in the game, everything is going as planned. If things continue on this path, the game should be mine.

Turn 3a: Dwarfs: The longbeards charge the centigors who flee.
The hammerers charge the marauder horsemen again who flee.
The Longbeards squeeze up between the hammerers and the chasm. Thats it.

In shooting, the 20 thunderers take aim at my chaos knights. All 4 dead, OUCH!!

In combat, the centigors are no longer frenzy, but still manage to kill 3 dwarfs and win combat. The dwarfs hold.
My general with his strength 6 sword, kill 4 dwarfs, win and again they hold.
Both Marauders vs bolt thrower crews combats I win, but thanks to the BSB he is holding with all of them.

Setup at the end of turn 3a:



Turn 3b: Chaos: My far right Chaos knights charge into the flank of the warriors. My chaos knights with hero charge into the long beards. The fleeing marauders rally and run up to the flank of the hammerers. The centigors also rally.

Shooting sees another Longbeard fall to a DoW bow. ;)

Here is the setup after the charges:



In combat, I do the far left combat first. The knights and centigors kill all but a couple of warriors who then flee. Both units pursue. The centigors hit my general and stop, while the knights hit the warriors fighting my general.

I then do my generals combat. If I win and he flees, my general can pursue into the flank of the longbeards. That would be cool. But in some impressive dice rolling, I wipe out the entire unit and all my units are just stuck there. Ugghh!!

So I do my heroes attacks next. With 5 no armor save strength 5 attacks, my hero wipes out 4 of the stunties. My knights account for a couple more. His thane and champion attack back and kill 1 knight. I win combat and the Long beards roll a 12 for their break test and are promptly run down.
In the graveyard, I'm slimming down his crews, but he is refusing to budge.

End of turn 3:



At this point in the game I am really feeling good. I've taken out over half his army and still have most of mine left. If I take out the thunderers, it should be all over. Or at least I thought it should.

With 3 turns left, what could possibly go wrong?

Find out next time in Part 2 and the exciting conclusion...