Warhammer 6th edition, the clubs first game in far too long! (an AAR on the game)

 

Dwarves to deploy on the right, Greenskins on the left, the sticks show the deployment zones

So, it has been quite a while since we last played Warhammer but like riding a bike it all came back to us once we got started (the good and the bad) It was a classic match up Dwarf vs Greenskin. In this case the two Greenskin armies were aligned but not combined. Each was commanded by their own hero. One army was entirely made up of Orcs, while the other was all Goblin save for a single giant. At the start of the game the two Greenskin commanders fought a duel to see who would be the overall commander, the Orc chieftain was victorious knocking the Goblin leader even more senseless.

The armies were pretty basic, no lords only heroes and only 2nd level wizards for the Greenskins. The Dwarves had four leaders one of who was a Rune smith. No magic items or special banners, I figured we should just try a simple army battle with limited big hero intervention. The scenario was from one of the annuals, a three player variant, which also included some rules governing the selection of the war chief. 

The Dwarves defended the center of one long table edge while the attackers came in from the opposite side of the table, but from the corners, their center area was unoccupied. 

The Dwarves anchor their left flank to the old tower.

The Dwarven right flank terminates on the rocky outcrop.

The massed Goblin hoard

The Orc army

 

The opposing armies arrayed for action.

Everything was set up as per the instructions for the scenario, the forces were deployed, loins were girded and battle come down. The Greenskins were the attackers and tried to race forward to engage the stunties. However animosity did impact these plans. At first it had limited impact, round one went by smoothly. But, subsequent rounds, especially for the Orcs saw animosity create some serious traffic jams. For the Orcs the only truly successful units were the cavalry and the chariot. These two unit were able to attack the flank of the Dwarf army and in fact the cavalry were the only Orc unit to engage the Dwarves in melee. The Orcs did have plenty of success with their archers, driving back a Dwarven Thunderer unit, and the mage did become a nuisance too. 

By turn 3 the Orcs have contacted the Dwarven left flank

Meanwhile on the Dwarf right flank, the Goblins have leapt forward with their chariots and wolf riders in the van. They attempt to weaken the dwarf defenders with volleys from their rock lobber and doom glider. While the Goblins were remarkable adept at estimating the range, fate often intervened to weaken the actual impact. 

The dwarf crossbow men did inflict many casualties on the wolf rider but could not halt them and the chariots crashed into the Dwarfs inflict grievous damage. The canons seemed to be manned by drunks as they missed, a lot!

 

The Greybeards hold the far right of the Dwarf line take a lot of damage from the impact of the chariots
 

Crossbows and Greybeards were pushed back, but the rough cliff face slowed down any pursuit. Strong leadership kept them in the battle. The followup by the Wolfriders brought them into contact with the Iron Breakers while the second chariot slammed into the spear armed Dwarves..

 

Note the wolf chariot in the background fled into contact with the giant

 

 The spear Dwarves felt the impact of the chariot and 'fled' as only Dwarves can, very very slowly. Somehow, the chariot failed to overtake them in pursuit, must have been too much ground Dwarf gumming up the wheels.

The chariot was able to rally and prepared to attack once more.

The Orcs succeeded in their charge smashing through the clan troops. The threat caused the Dwarves to break up their battle line in an attempt to respond to the greater threat. The Orcs continued to suffer from traffic jams as a result of animosity and were also bothered by the persistent buzzing of the Dwarf gyrocopter. The copter focused it's attention on the Orc arrer boyz on the plain almost slaying the Orc wizard who was attached to the unit.

The rear areas of the Goblin army saw some action. The Dwarves had a ranger unit that had been hiding in the woods. This unit came out to threaten the rock lobber which forced the Goblin player to redirect a wolf cavalry unit to turn and attack the ambushing Dwarves. 

The battle did not go well for the Goblins. One rider was slain by throwing axes while seven more were hacked apart by the heavy two handed axes wielded by the rangers.

All that remained of the wolf boyz was, amazingly, able to rally!

 

By the way, you might wonder where the doom catapult is. Well it did not make it past the second turn! Unfortunately for the Goblins it suffered a critical and flipped over!

 

The game went well, but time was the greater enemy and we had to call it a day after turn 4. It was great to get together again and play a fun, simple game. It was nice to see three good size armies fight it out, but really the best thing was the chance to talk and joke and have some fun.

 

One note, not all who attended were caught up by the excitement, some just seemed to take a very relax view of the entire thing...