FBVW Mk. IV: Round 3 - Match 29: andre v. Arklite

[Spector]

Map = 7. Chaos Wastes

First Turn = andre

Kai-Zlat's Unforgiving Jungle

Kai-Zlat
Saurus Oldblood - 262
- Great weapon
- Light armour
- Charm of the jaguar warrior
- shield
- Aura of Quetzl
- Blessed spawnings of Tepok, Sotek and Quetzl

Saurus Scar-veteran - 141
- Cold one
- Spear
- Light armour
- shield
- Blessed spawnings of Itzl and tepok

Saurus Scar-veteran - 141
- Cold one
- Spear
- Light armour
- shield
- Blessed spawnings of Itzl and tepok

Skink priest - 115
- 2 dispel scrolls

12 skinks
- javelins and shields

13 skinks
- blowpipes
- scouts

13 skinks
- javelins and shields
- scouts

8 Saurus cavalry - 355
- full command
- war banner

6 saurus cavalry

4 terradons - 150
- brave

4 kroxigor

3 salamanders

3 salamanders

Charm of the jaguar warrior – Movement becomes 9

Aura of Quetzl – Attacks above str 5, model gains a 4+ ward

Blessed spawnings of Tepok, - +1 dispel dice

Sotek - +1 Attack when charging

Quetzl - +1 armour save

Itzl – May ride cold one or carnosaur

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kazzad Dolvir's March of Vengeance

Glorel Delsten (Dwarf Lord)
Great weapon
Shield bearers
Rune of stone
Rune of resistance
Master rune of challenge
231 points

Urkral Dollyr (Thane)
BSB
Strollaz rune
Marvelous hat (rune of guarding)
175 points

Cohag Redforge (runesmith)
Shield
Rune of stone
Master rune of balance
127

Yurbir Durgak (runesmith)
Shield
Rune of stone
Spell breaker rune
102

Redforge clan Dwarf warriors [24] (Cohad's unit)
Full command
Shields
241 points

Durgak clan Dwarf warriors [24] (Yurbir's unit)
Full command
Shields
241 points

The Valbek Regulars Long beards [19] (Falent's unit)
Full command
Great weapons
Shields
Master rune of grungi
341 points

Durrak Clan Dwarf Rangers [10]
Great weapons
Shields
Throwing axes
Champion
Musician
145 points

The Bazdukr Brotherhood Hammerers [18]
Full command
Shields
264 points

Big Brunhilda
grudge thrower
rune of accuracy
rune of burning
110 points

The wicked sisters

bolt thrower
rune of burning
engineer
65 points

bolt thrower
engineer
60 points

the Grungbad special
flame cannon

total models in army 115 (4 of which are warmachines, 12 warmachine crew and 4 characters)
power pool – 2
dispel pool – 7 with 1 dice removed from the enemy power pool and 1 scroll.

shield bearers - +2 to armour, model becomes US3, 2 extra WS 5 S4 attacks. (note that shield bearers are not a true mount and the lord gains +2 strength as normal from his great weapon)

rune of stone - +1 to armour, a single rune of stone may be placed on any number of characters in the dwarf army. (case in point, runesmiths)

rune of resistance – re-roll failed armour saves.

Strollaz rune – all dwarf units within 12” may make a free move before the game starts, units count as moving in the first turn in regards to missile fire.

Rune of guarding – 5+ ward save

Master rune of balance - -1 from enemy power pool, +1 to dispel pool

Rune of spell breaking - dispel scroll

Master rune of grungi – 5+ ward save against shooting and magic missile attacks for all dwarf units within 6” of the standard.

Rune of accuracy – re-roll the scatter dice (5/9 chance of direct hit)

Rune of burning – warmachine causes flaming damage

Engineers – bolt throwers may use the engineers BS

Royal blood – hammerers joined by a dwarf lord are immune to fear and terror

[Arklite]

Right, now this is an interesting round. The irresistible force against the immovable object. Now when we consider normal science we can assume that the irresistible force will eventually wear down the object. However in this case there is a significant difference. The immovable object is fighting back with big hammers and axes!


This game will come down to combat, plain and simple and as such my battle plan will be geared towards making sure that when it happens, it happens my way and to my advantage. This all comes down to 1 thing. Flanks. The lizardmen will have horrendous trouble breaking through the dwarven lines unless they can negate the static combat resolution generated. The lizardmen can’t afford to be pulled into a meat grinder combat due to their lack of staying power, which is what I’m going to force!

With this in mind I’ll be deploying on the right hand side of the table to maximize flank security. With the river providing no protection thanks to the general tide of aquatic units (buggers they all are) I’ll be making use of the pillar of chaos as a “breaker” to force the lizard men to spend several turns moving around it (something I can easily reposition to counter) or take me head on (which will be significantly safer once I explain my ranged plan). This focused deployment will allow me to maximize my strength in this game which will be the key to winning.

As this game will be very combat centric in my opinion its only fair I explain why. Both armies feature fairly large ranged elements but both are countered by features in the other army.

The skinks and sallies lack the strength to significantly damage the dwarf combat units between their above average T, armour and the 5+ ward save. S3/4 is just simply not enough, the javelins put them selves at risk of dwarven retaliation with their short range and the blow darts lack the punch to seriously impact the dwarves. The sallies sport a large number of shots, true, but also suffer significantly to dwarven toughness, armour and the ward save. On the other hand the lizard men’s skinks block much of my line of sight in the early turns, limiting my own ranged punch as most of this is contained in the warmachines.

I do however have several key advantages in this phase. The most significant of these is the ever monsterous flame cannon!

Sporting the massive flame template the poor skinks are in real trouble if they should come into sight of this fire breathing warmachine. Between its large number of hits, S5 and panics after 1 wound they will suffer significantly. As such this warmachine will position its self on the open flank to cause maximum chaos and destruction.

With the skinks running here, there and everywhere the remaining warmachines will focus on punching holes in anything I deem dangerous enough at the time. While the terradon riders will eventually overwhelm the warmachines I doubt they would be elmininated fast enough to stop them knocking holes in the lizardmen army here and there.

As protection however the dwarf rangers will be nearby to guard the warmachines from enemy attack. With their heavy armour and shields they should be able to fend off the skinks at range long enough for the war machines to do their work (or take on the terradons after they get bogged down in the business of killing war machines.


With the shooting on both sides achieving little this game will be down to combat and as long as my flanks are secure I have the win. To achieve this there are several key facts in my advantage.

1: I have unit number superiority; with 4 large combat units against the lizardmen’s 3 I have the advantage of offering a wider line of battle. This will in turn mean that if the sarus cav want to charge my units with their full frontage (which is pretty likely) they will end up drawing extra dwarf units into the combat. Making things significantly more dangerous. In turn this means that there is a chance that the sarus cav could block their buddies from helping them out should combat rear its ugly head and turn against them. This means that the lizardmen would have to make sure that they arrive all at once, or risk a 4 units vs 2 units engagement (VERY bad).

2: I get to pick a fight; with my dwarf lords master rune of challenge I can pick an enemy unit and pull it into my single hardest unit on the table, the lord and hammerers. Between being stubborn AND immune to fear and terror this unit is pretty much assured to hold against the lizardmen attack. Regardless of what is thrown at it.

3: weapon skill; looking at the two armies it can be seen that the lizardmen are only able to match my weapon skill at the very best, and that’s against my rank and file. This is very important as it limits the over all attack potential of the “harder” lizardmen units. While they generate a mighty number of attacks, many of these will miss.

Taking the kroxigors as an example (as they are the hardest hitting unit from what I can see) they have 12 attacks with a 50% chance of hitting. From this we can (using the horribly flawed math hammer system) guess at around 5 dead dwarves. However this isn’t enough to break the dwarves. With 3 ranks, a standard and outnumbering this is at the very least a draw. In the event that the kroxies cause more wounds they would need to kill at the very least another 4 dwarves to assure them breaking (leadership 10 general, battle standard re-roll) needing them to test on ld6 before it’s in the danger zone. And while possible it’s unlikely. In response the runesmith in the front rank can throw his 2 S4 attacks at the kroxies, maybe causing a wound. The advantage however rests in the hands of the dwarf unit… as I have a musician >=]

On the other hand we have the saurus units. Sporting a huge tide of attacks and being pretty hard hitting I reckon I still have the advantage in these fights. Taking the larger of the two units as my example we can assume that 6 sarus cav can make combat against the 5 wide dwarf units. 13 S5 attacks (champion counted) and 6 S4 tends to work out as 4 wounds against the dwarf unit (after saves). Working against the static combat res we can see that the saurus cav have a minor victory In this match (approx 1). However once again thanks to my stupidly high leadership there is little chance of me breaking, what with having a battle standard nearby


This lizardmen army needs to break on the charge and I don’t think it can achieve that. Between the resolute dwarf units littered with characters, stacked with combat resolution and the prospect of being hammered in continuous rounds of combat (striking last with the kroxies and loosing the strength bonus with the saurus cav) they will be ground down over consecutive turns. And this is not considering that 4th dwarf unit OR considering an elite dwarf stat line (higher WS and S means that the elite dwarves can hit back just as hard, if not harder than the lizard men but with the added bonus of static res and beards).

It’s a case of the lizard men hitting the dwarf line, then fighting not to bounce off. Between my superior unit numbers, sizes and general combat skills I reckon my dwarves are going to be looting some temples tonight.

[Sammy the Squib]

Is it me or are there a lot of lizardmen lists?

Salamander less effective against dwarfs, as are terradons. Three real "punch" units, all of which can be silenced in a single turn from a good warmachine hit. Dwarfs being dwarfs, always look good to stand firm as well.

Dawi for me

[Ultramoose]

I gotta go with Dwarfs.

undefeatable defense.

[swntzu]

The lizardmen list is packed with hammer units. Unfortunately this means that they really to break on the charge and against dwarfs this simply doesn't happen often.

This is the reason that I must go for the dwarfs.

[DavidWC09]

Dwarfs. LM just can't hold out, especially after losing some to shooting. Those nasty LM offensive characters have to encounter nasty, defensive Dwarf characters that happen to be pretty stiff fighters, too.

[Phoenix]

Arkys large solid units should safely be able to hold their own in combat. Dwaves take this one.

[Von_Smallhousen]

Gotta go for the Lizzies here. With first turn, the Saurus Cav are going to hit home with a crunch. It's also going to be turn 2 charge for the Old Blood into the guns, which he will promptly smash to bits.

Another gun will be engaged by the Terradons. The Sali's if focussed will put some serious hurt on the dwarf units.

If played right, using speed and picking their fights the Lizzies can take this one.

[Brother Tiberius]

Im going to have to go for the Dwarves, most of the reasons i would of said hae been used in the previous posts. I can't see the there being much threat from the skinks and the hammer units that are deployed will just be soaked by the blocks.

[Spector]

Dwarves.

Their warmachines are going to do some solid damage early. After that its just a matter of wearing down the Lizards in close combat.