In the first game of the Month against Tom’s Warriors of Chaos it got used. I had my unit of Longbeards and the Lord in a formation of 3 ranks, 10 wide.
Wolfrik appeared with a unit of 40 Marauders with Shield, Light Armour and Flails directly behind my unit, add in a Mark of Khorne and the combat was going to interesting to say the least.
In front of my Longbeards was a unit of Marauder Horsemen with the Mark of Khorne. I had the option to charge the Horsemen, but with them being Fast Cav, and me not being sure if they would run away or stand and take it I decided against it.
Instead I reformed by Dwarves into a unit 5 wide, 6 deep. The aim was to give me Steadfast. In the following turn those Longbeards became the Jam in a Marauder Sandwich. As they charged by Dwarf Lord set the Oathstone… live or die those Dwarves did not intend to move.
Here is a shot of how the combat ended up looking like (apologies for the poor quality):
In the ensuing combat, Wolfrick Challenged the Dwarf Lord, and both of them flailed very ineffectually at each other. Wolfrick landing one wound, which I save, and me with two hits, managed to roll a double 1 for my wounds. During the pause in their Challenge they turned to watch the rest of the combat.
The Marauders in the front killed 2 Dwarves, as did the Horsemen in the back. So 4 Dwarves down, but because of the Oathstone, and the number of models I had, I still had 10 Attacks from the front two ranks, and 10 Attacks from the back two Ranks.
My 10 men on the back got to hit back and managed 8 hits, and 8 wounds! Of the 9 Horsemen that Charged me, only 1 Survived, giving me a huge boost to my combat resolution. My Dwarves on the front only managed to kill 4 Marauders (which is what I would expect from 11 attacks, hitting on 3’s and wounding on 3’s.)
Even adding in the Combat boost for Charging I won the combat by 4, which was enough to see Wolfrick fleet back off the board edge he came on, along with all of this Maruaders. The one remaining horsemen passed his test , and sat there waiting for the next turn.
My first chance to test out the combat prowess of the Dwarves and it succeeded admirably, however I also outpointed my opponent quite heavily.
I will be the first to admit, that I have had a lot of doubts as to how well I would do in combat against the Marauders, and the main reason I changed the formation was because of a load of Theory hammer I did comparing Ironbreakers to that unit of Marauders (minus Wolfrick). Turns out it was a good decision… this time.
Admittedly I rolled better than average, had I not done so then I would have only got 4 wounds on the Marauder Horsemen, and of them being saved would have resulted in me losing combat, which is why I went for Steadfast by changing my formation as I didn’t reckon the averages would do that well for me.
So now I have to figure out what I want to add to this list for 1250 points. Well you will get that post in another months time. Any hints and tips are more than welcome!
Comments