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!