ME campaign - Turn 6 - Empire vs everyone

Here's something you don't see everyday. The dwarfs wanted to press on against the empire to create some Lebensraum around their beloved mountain tile. But both the dark elves and the daemons also wanted a piece of the action. We decided to play it as a three-vs-one game, just to try it out. So the evil races (you'd have to assume that any dwarf that allies himself with... well, anyone really, is anything but a good dwarf) play 1000 points each, while the empire has 3000. That means that the humans can bring two lords while the enemy alliance will be void of such sophisticated leaders.

Deployment - Empire
So, what have we here? From the right: a cannon, some priest-led IC knights with outriders behind them, flagellants, an old school volley gun, an arch lector on a war altar, greatswords, swordsmen and an archer detachment.

Behind the hill two handgunner units are preparing to climb to a better position, then we have some crossbowmen, a second volley gun, a steam tank, more IC knights and a small unit of vanilla knights. The Grand master rides with the IC knights on this side while the BSB is leading the swordsmen. There is also a lvl 2 wizard somewhere on this flank.

Deployment - The others

On the right flank, screened by furies, are two small units of horrors, a herald-led unit of Khorne dogs, a gyrocopter and a dwarf cannon. Further back the dwarfs have deployed two bufffed-up bolt throwers. To the right in this picture is a block of longbeards and a dark elven bolt thrower. There is also a unit of six flamers of Tzeentch somewhere in this mess.

On the other side of the little cottage is another reaper bolt thrower, a block of hammerers, two units of repeater crossbowmen, harpies, cold one knights, a dwarf bolt thrower, a war hydra and some more cold one knights. The dark elves are really just here to mess around; their faction would actually prefer if the empire won this battle. We will see if they decide to fuck this up even further.

Turn 1

The IC knights rush forwards as fast as they can. Since the enemy on this flank is screened by furies the knights are not in any danger of getting charged anyway, so if they don't get shot up they should be able to get the charge off in the next turn. The flagellants and the war altar follow in their tracks.

On the right flank, the imperial forces march forwards. The cold ones are also screened so they can't charge the IC knights. The handgunners take position on the hill, while the crossbowmen just hang around, waiting for the knights and steam tank to get out of the way. Not much shooting is going on this turn.

Empire turn 2

There were no pictures of the "alliance's" turn 1, but as you can see, the gyrocopter hides behind the woods, the furies has disappeared somehow and a couple of knights have been shot down.

The empire turn 2 begins with the IC knights on the left flank failing their fear test trying to charge the flesh hounds. Bad bad news... The flagellants move up to catch the inevitable overrun, but the arch lector stays behind the forest. Not very smart, since he won't be able to countercharge the dogs when they run into the flagellants. The rest of the army advances. The IC knights on the right flank couldn't charge the cold ones, because five lousy crossbowmen have moved up to block the path slightly. Instead of attacking the Xbowmen and dwarfs in the center, the knights decide to turn and face the cold ones (probably hoping for a failed stupidity test or something).

Evildoers turn 2

Yes, the herald leads his dawgs in a charge against the IC knights (who should probably better have fled, now that I think about it). They will doubtlessly slaughter the knights and, their leader having Hatred, overrun into the unbreakable flagellants. Too bad the arch lector won't be able to countercharge through that small gap between the woods and the flagellants.

Oops, a bit of fast-forward, it seems. This is probably turn 3. The flesh hounds now have killed both the knights and the flagellants, and appearantly got the charge off against the war altar as well. Bad tactics on the imperial left flank. The greatswords in the center are slowly getting withered down while the swordsmen seem pretty intact.

The right flank is not doing any better. The cold ones have massacred the IC knights and the small unit of vanilla knights and got a nice overrun into the steam tank (which, by the way, tried to charge something but failed due to overheating). The handgunners on the hill have been almost wiped out by dark elves crossbows, killing a measly five in return. The gyrocopter is getting ready to boil the swordsmen while the hydra is hiding in the woods from the helblaster.

The greatswords are no more, marchblocked out in the open with flamers and reaper bolt throwers in front of them. The swordsmen have been severly decimated by steam guns and flamer fire, but decide to charge the hammerers and hope for a miracle. At least they won't get shot at. The manage to kill one dwarf, but then they are forced to retreat.

The steam tank is severly damaged at this point, but at S4, the cold ones can't really hurt it any further. Doesn't matter the slightest though. The game ends in a total massacre and the dwarfs' beloved mountain tile is now somewhat safe from human aggression.

Lots of stupid mistakes in this battle. It seemed a good idea to use the fact that all the dangerous enemies were screened and couldn't charge the knights. But it failed on all fronts due to stupid maneuvering and some bad luck. The ampire got outshot, outmaneuvered, outsmarted and out-everything. Disaster!

ME campaign - Turn 5 - End of turn

Dark elves pursue the daemon hordes back to their mommas, and claim one of their worthless swamps. In the meantime dark elven pioneers claim another tile nearby.

The daemons, seemingly unable to beat the dark elves, let off some steam by pillaging the countryside on their way back to their home portal in the mountains.

The dwarfs have finally stuck their flag on the highest mountain in the world, and a large booze orgy is held at the top.

The humans retreat to the lowlands and quickly build some defenses against further dwarf aggression.

ME campaign - Turn 5 - Empire vs Dwarfs

Deployment - Dwarfs
The dwarfs were not pleased to see the mountains fall into enemy hands, and when it became clear that the humans rush-built a castle in the tile with the Building boom event, they summoned a large throng to tear it down before the humans became too well-settled.

From the left we have an unpainted unit of thunderers, an organ gun, a unit of iron breakers led by two thanes, 15 slayers, two bolt throwers with the mandatory engineers armed with a brace of pistols...

















...their battle standard flaps in a small unit of warriors in the center of the dwarf line. After that we have a block of hammerers led by the dwarf lord standing on a shield. Surrounding that unit are two gyrocopters, two bolt throwres and a flame cannon. On the far right are some thunderers, and two units of crossbowmen have taken position on the hill. Lots of shooting and a couple of hard infantry blocks, in other words. Should be sufficient to wear the enemy down before they reach the dwarven lines. Oh, and in the forest to the right there are a unit of imperial huntsmen hiding.

















Deployment - Empire
Ooo, lots of knights and tanks to fire bolts at. From the right: A cannon, outriders, steam tank, a big block of IC knights led by a warrior priest, a smaller unit of vanilla knights with the army general in it, flagellants, a Lvl 2 Metal wizard joining a unit of crossbows, and the helstorm has been given one last chance to redeem itself.

















Behind that forest is another unit of crossbows with another lvl 2 metal wizard in it. Not the best firing position, I guess. Perhaps they can take cover in the woods. Between the crossbows we have a lvl 4 metal wizard lord. The empire has also been generous enough to provide the dwarfs with plenty of dead meat to cut through; two big blocks of spearmen and swordsmen. The BSB is leading the spearmen while the swordsmen don't have a characer at all. Further away is a second steam tank, some pistoliers and a cannon hiding behind them. So one flank consists of infantry and the other of cavalry. The two steam tanks are mostly there to draw attention from the knights and other more squishy stuff.

















Dwarf turn 1
The dwarf blocks march forwards, obviously eager to meet the enemy head on. The shooting phase starts with a big explosion as the flame cannon misfires. Too bad, it was neatly placed and could have brought a lot of pain to the large infantry blocks on the opposite side.

















On the other flank, the iron breakers and slayers advance while the bolt throwers concentrate their fire on the steam tank obscured behind that tower to the right in this picture. The tank is brought down to 2 wounds which was pretty ouch. One gyrocopter hides behind the woods while the other is advancing up the left flank.

















Empire turn 1
The huntmen take up firing positions in the woods while the rest of the flank marches forwards. The swordsmen have to slow down a bit to allow the steam tank to squeeze through. The cannon in the corner can't see shit from there, and the crew mutters something about bad tactics.

















The knights on the other side leave the smoking tank wreck behind and move into charge distance, and the flagellants try to keep up. The outriders prefer to keep back to... ahem, protect the rear of the knights rather than run up in plain sight of the organ gun and thunderers. Xbows and wizards enter the woods and will probably get into a neat position the next turn. But by then they might have nothing to shoot at... The wizards don't manage to kill anything, but at least they make the gyrocopter behind those woods malfunction for a turn. The cannon tries to snipe the organ gun but fails in one way or another.

















Dwarfs turn 2
Hey ho, hey ho! A unit of miners emerges behind the cannon on the empire's left flank. If they can withstand a grapeshot and the terror of beholding a wrecked steam tank, they will be able to do quite a bit of damage. On the other flank the bolt throwers focus on the other steam tank, hurting it somewhat. I think it is down to 7 wounds or something.

















I don't know who rolled this, but someone sure had a lot of luck today...

















Empire turn 2
Not the best pic to show what is going on, but anyway... the two knight units charge the iron breakers and the slayers, which you can almost see up to the left. The steam tank on the right flank manages to make a long charge on the hammerers, despite being damaged. It will probably get charged by the BSB unit as well, but now it isn't in the way of the infantry advance anymore. The cannon and the outriders shoot at the miners that just arrived, killing a few.

















Dwarfs turn 3
As we can see here, the IC knights didn't do very well against the iron breakers, despite having a warrior priest. They fled and the 'breakers pursuited into the flank of the general's vanilla knight unit that, of course, didn't manage to kill all the slayers. The miners charge the cannon.

















Hey ho, hey ho! Another unit of miners ambushes the helsturm on the hill in the center. That piece of crap hasn't hit anything today either, so that serves them right.

















One gyrocopter prepares to bring the pain behind enemy lines. In the upper part of the picture you can see that the BSB indeed manage to get the charge off on the steam tank. Up in the woods, the huntsmen are having a pointless shoot-out with the thunderers. No real damage is done there.

















Empire turn 3
It seems the general's knight unit didn't fare very well against the combined might of the slayers and the iron breakers. They killed all the slayers except one, but then they fled through the woods, bringing panic to both a unit of crossbowmen (that had finally reached the fringe of the forest), AND the wizard lord. So it is a long train running for their lives there.

The big infantry blocks have been hit hard by all kinds of shooting, but charge up against the dwarfs anyway. The spearmen flank the dwarf BSB unit, but the swordsmen don't reach the hammerers. As you can see, the dwarfs have now flipped the steam tank over and kicked the wreck aside. The pistoliers fire a salvo at that gyrocopter, but it is made out of hard stuff.

















Dwarfs turn 4
On the other flank, the miners got a neat rear charge on the knights that just rallied. There are only a handful of miners left, though, so they better get lucky. Further up in the picture we see the iron breakers have pursuited into the flagellants.

















Empire turn 4
Here we can see that the dwarf BSB unit has killed the spearmen and taken their banners, while the dwarf lord and his remaining hammerers have run the swordsmen down. The empire general rallies the knight unit and the wizard lord, but that's a pretty bad position to be, really. The pistoliers continue to fail to wound the gyrocopter. Perhaps they should have tried to kill some hammerers instead.

















The miners was no match for the inner circle knights, who now threaten the iron breakers' flank should they be stupid enough not to turn around. The lvl 2 wizard fails to do any damage to the iron breakers.

















Dwarfs turn 5
The last remaining slayer shows us how to do things the dwarven way. Pussy!

















The wizard chuckles as he flees from the charging iron breakers. Now the dwarfs have left themselves open to a flank attack from the mighty knights of the inner circle...

















...who sadly appears to be fleeing from some very intense shooting.

















On the other side of the table, the dwarf general and his remaining hammerers charge the wizard lord, who flees and lets the dwarfs smash into the flank of the knights instead. Meanwhile the BSB unit is closing in to seal the deal. As a matter of fact I believe they charged the crossbowmen in the woods to get rid of them while closing the distance to the knights.

















Empire turn 5
The empire general moves into base contact with the dwarfs and slays the last of the hammerers, but get punched a few times in the face by the lord in return. The wizard lord rallies again and prepares himself to keep on just being completely useless. The huntsmen have given up shooting at the thunderers behind the woods, and are taking up position to shoot some not very lethal arrows at the dwarfs.

















The miners that ambushed the Helsturm don't show in this picture, but they finally crushed it after it sneaked away and hid behind the hill for a turn. The remaining IC knights have now rallied again and are on their way to get the beardy bastards. The crossbowmen that fled from the BSB unit fails to rally, and it seems the wizard also keeps running.

















Dwarfs turn 6
The BSB unit charges the knights, despite the wizard lord telling them not to. I don't remember if they actually manage to chase the knights off, but the game ends in a massacre win for the dwarfs anyway.

The dwarf army brought enough bolt throwers to deal with the steam tanks, while their blocks were strong enough to take a charge and push the enemy back. The empire really has a problem with getting in each other's way. And it just is not optimal to charge a lord with the laurels of victory into a block of unbreakable slayers.

ME campaign - Turn 5 - Daemons vs Dark elves

Deployment - Daemons
The daemons really wanted to beat the dark elves, and went as far as to choose the Diplomacy event to keep the dwarfs from attacking while the daemons challenged the elves once again.

Anyway, on their left flank the daemons have their lord, a Keeper of secrets, hiding behind a forest. Closer to the centre is a huge block of horrors protected by two units of plaguebearers. The battle standard bearer is in the horror unit.

















On the far right flank is a unit of flamers. So there are very few and very expensive daemon units.

















Deployment - Dark elves
The dark elf right flank is lightly guarded by a unit of dark riders and some crossbowmen. On the hill are two reaper bolt throwers, with a unit of cold one knights in front of them.

















In the center we have a large block of spearmen, black guard, a hydra, dark riders and cold one knights. There is also a master on a pegasus on the left flank. The daemons are severly outnumbered in other words.

















Dark elves turn 1
Everything moves forward as usual. Nothing cool going on. Shooting is mostly ineffective.

















Daemons turn 1
The plague bearers move up a bit to better protect the horrors. The Keeper of secrets hides in the woods and the flamer spot the pegasus behind the statue in the pond and blast it to bits. The rider runs off to join the black guard later on. In the magic phase, the horrors cast Bolt of kill everything on the black guard, but since the Ring of Hotek happens to be nearby, they mistcast and knock themselves down a magic level.

















Dark elves turn 2
The elves continue onwards. I believe the Keeper of secrets suffers a wound or two to shooting.

















Both the plague bearer units are now within charge range of the black guard and the cold one knights to the left. The hydra doesn't want to get too close until the flamers have been dealt with by the cold ones and dark riders.

Umm, sadly, there are no more pictures but it all ended pretty quickly with the horrors charging the spearmen block, hoping their Banner of lots of automatic hits would be able to break the elves. That didn't happen and with both the plague bearer units being slowly cut down by the elite elves, the daemons gave up. The Keeper of secrets barely failed a flank charge on the cold one knights as well, and he was shot to deth by bolt throwers, dark riders and xbows.

The daemon army basically relied on the horrors casting Bolt of change enough times for the plague bearers and Keeper to mop up the remains, but one Bolt per turn propably wouldn't have cut it. And the Ring of miscast up your ass further dampened the effectiveness of that strategy.

ME campaign - Turn 4 - End of turn

The empire claims one of the valuable mountain tiles in the center after some serious ethnic cleansing. No one shorter than 150 cm who is also sporting a beard is let in.

The dwarfs chose the Land grab event, so they can claim a tile despite losing their battle. The marshlands bordering to the Empire looks like neat place to expand the dwarven kingdom, with the mountains occupied.

The Daemons once again went All or nothing, and since they lost their battle, they get no Empire points at all this turn.

The dark elves push their borders closer to the dwarven capital. They are in fact close enough to lay siege to it, but that might be to much of a hassle right now. There are still fresh lands avaliable to the north.

ME campaign - Turn 4 - Dwarfs vs Empire

Deployment - Dwarfs
On the dwarven left flank three infantry blocks have taken position: from the right we have warriors, iron breakers and longbeards, probably with a thane in each one. Behind those blocks are two bolt throwers, an organ gun and a unit of quarrelers.

















...ok, cut him some slack, he doesn't want his scrotum spread all over the internets. The dwarven right flank only has another unit of crossbowmen. So they pretty much went for a refused flank. Those crossbows were placed first to fool the empire player into engaging on that flank.

















Deployment - Empire
From the left we have some vanilla knights hiding behind the forest, a cannon, 20 greatswords with five archers as a detachment. Then there is a big block of swordsmen with the battle standard bearer in it (hint hint), 25 spearmen and some flagellants. On the hill we have a helstorm and another cannon. The empire left flank consists of a small unit of vanilla knights that has already begun moving when this shot was taken.

















Turn 1
Not much excitement this far. Both armies move forward and some greatswords are shot down. The dwarfs look a bit spread out in this pic, but the longbeards in the back will be able to flank stuff that charge into the iron breakers.

















Turn 2
The knights in the woods get challenged by the dwarfs' Rune of attack us or flee, and decide that attacking a full block of great weapon wielding dwarfs in the front is not the way to go. The greatswords are falling en masse to focussed dwarven shooting.

















The knights on the empire's left flank take a couple of casualties and fail their panic check. The flagellants move up to stop the longbeards flanking whatever unit that chooses to charge the iron breakers.

















Turn 3
Due to poor empire maneuovering, the spearmen got stuck between the swordsmen and the flagellants and wouldn't be able to charge anything if the swordsmen moved any further. So the swordsmen hold back and let themselves get charged by the iron breakers. The spearmen will get the flank if the combat lasts. I have no idea what the dwarf warriors are doing over there. They probably chose to flee from the charging greatswords (for some reason) and then rallied.

















The empire war machines haven't done very well this far. The helstorm has missed constantly and the cannons have killed a organ gun and an iron breaker or two. Now they are kind of doomed anyway with a unit of miners showing up behind them.

















Turn 4
The swordsmen don't have the Griffon banner after all, but they manage to hold long enough for the spearmen to flank the iron breakers. The greatswords prepare to get the other flank while the warriors out to the right try to get back into it. The flagellants charge the longbeards and slaughter half of them, but get smacked up badly in the dwarven turn.

















The helstorm sacrifices itself and moves a bit so that the miners won't be able to overrun into the cannon. This also opens up for a neat grapeshot or two.

















Turn 5
The iron breakers get totally surrounded and even though they only suffer a few casualties they flee and get run down. The warriors are not able to rescue them in time. Meanwhile, the longbeards cut down the last of the religious lunatics. Serves them just right!

















The knights on the empire right flank failed to rally and ran off the board if I remember correctly. On the left flank though, the remaining knights finally reach the crossbowmen and chase them off, securing a table quarter. All in all a minor win for the empire.