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.