AoS Seraphon Vs Dwarfs_New Gettysburg!

[Killer Angel]

PREMISE TO THE GAME

In our gaming group, among the newbies there's a guy that wanted to start dwarfs.
He already played some games, however he was lacking an army and he was short of money (you know, students...).
Luckily for him, I've got many dwarves and i sold him (for a very reasonable price) a certain amount of them (mostly mantic).

I gave him these units (slightly more than 2000 pts):

1 Warden King
1 Ungrim Slayer King
1 Dwarf Lord w shieldbearers
1 Engineer
1 Runelord
20 x Dwarfs warriors
10 x Longbeards
20 x Hammerers
5 x Slayers
30 x Thunderers
2 x Cannon


Basically, I gave him a well-rounded army, with good CC, some decent shooting and a nice Rune magic / unbind. Playing at 1500, he will also have the possibility to do different lists, playing with the longbeards to use more command abilities from heroes.

Now, he obviously wanted to play its brand new army...
Firstly, I met him with Tomb Kings, and it didn't went good for him, so now it was Seraphons' turn.

 

[Killer Angel]

SET-UP

I wanted to give some fun to the guy.

Expecting a heavy shooting list, I prepare a list with no shooting and no teleport, basically I imagined a melee army, advancing under heavy fire toward the enemy's line. Gettysburg! Pickett's charge!

we played both with 1540 pts.

The battlefield was prepared with this idea: the dwarfs' army on Cemetery ridge, with the culp of trees at the center, and me advancing through the cornfields, the fences and the hedges.

I have (from left to rigth):

5 Sisters of the thorn
1 starpriest
20 x saurus guards
1 Sunblood
1 Eternity warden
5 x saurus warriors
6 x kroxigor
1 starpiest

Detail of the dwarf army (from left to right)

20 x thunderers (into the culp of trees)
10 x warriors
engineer (Grimm burlokkson)
1 cannon
a hero proxied as Belegar Ironhammer (behind the warriors)
Dwarf lord w shieldbearer
1 x runelord
10 x longbeards
20 x hammerers

Just one cannon... but with 2 heroes and the hammerers, there wasn't much room for many warmachines.

 

[Killer Angel]

BATTLE REPORT

first round:
i go first, and i move forward with all, simple and brutal, the only thing I do is to keep my Sisters out of his shooting range, putting my skink priests behind the house and a stonewall.
I give Shield of thorn to the 20 guards and Starlight to the kroxy, failing to mystic shield 'em.

Dwarfs shooting obliterates the Group of 5 guards and kills 2 kroxy


Second round:
in my turn, i cast mystic shield on the 20 guards (failing the shield of thorn) and starlight on the kroxygors, that charge the longbeards, annihilating them (so no more additional command ability from his dwarf lord); the pile in from the hammerers, leaves me with 2 kroxy

Dwarf turn.
his cannon kill 3 sisters, the 20 thunderers tickle my guards, his hammerers (backed by the runelord and the Lord) unleash their fury upon the remaining kroxies... after hammerers' routine, my kroxy with the moonhammer still stands, with 1 w remaining!!!

needless to say, before the killing blow from the Lord on shield, my kroxy delivers an impressive amount of attacks with his moonhammer, taking down 10 hammerers!
Will this be a turning point?

Third round:

Dwarfs go first. The cannon finishes the sisters, the thunderers manage to kill just one guard (that save on 2+), that are also charged by the lord on shield and by Belegar (which goes on the warden).
the warden suffers 6 wounds on 7, and another guard is killed. The remaining hammerers close in.

I counterattack, killing all the warriors and Belegar

In my round, i finish the Lord on shield i was still stuck with in melee.



Fourth round:

My guards are buffed with mystic shield, but the runelord unbinds the starlight.
I succesfully charge (12"!) the hammerers and the runelord...

...wiping them out

in Dwarfs' turn, Grimm fails in killing the Warden, so the thunderers concentrate fire on it. goodbye, Chakax.
The cannon shoots the guards at point blank, killing 8 of them!

Fifth round:

dwarfs win the roll! with some luck, they could stop the scaly tide...
the thunderers kill 2 guards, but the cannon, after 8 successful shots, misses.

With the 8 remaining guards, backed by the Sunblood and by the starpriests' spells, I charge both the cannon and the thunderers. End of the story.

 

[Killer Angel]

AFTERMATH

I have mixed feelings on this.
From a certain pov, I'm happy that i won, but from another one I would have liked a defeat: i know how frustrating can be to lose when you're a beginner... a victory would be a confidence boost.

Yeah, my opponent did some mistakes: the runelord was always too distant from the thunderers, and a shooting from 20 dwarfs with rend -2 would have been devastating for my guards, while the constant shooting at rend -1 was not scary at all.
Or he should have directed the shooting from thunderers upon my sisters, thus using the cannon on the guards since turn 2.

In the end, he was not totally unsatisfied... yeah, he was not happy of my immortal guards with mystic shield and save at 2+ (and luckily there weren't the sisters with shield of thorns!), but all in all he basically decimated my army, and he rightfully said that mine was a phyrric victory.



However, i feel that he needs to win a battle, so I must think to an army that seems strong on paper, but that can be defeated by those dwarfs...

 

[Bowser]

Tough call here, I would stick with Seraphon only. Build around a sunclaw starhost, keep the kroxigor, and let the saurus fight the dwarfs. His cannons are probably going straight for thise Krox this time around. The problem I find with dwarfs, is that while they have great synergy, they are expensive. From the way he plays it sounds like he would benefit from mainly fire slayers, with Dwarf support. But go with what you have. He also needs some Bugman's rangers I think.

 

[Killer Angel]

I also suggested to him Bugman's rangers (proxying the thunderers as quarrelers)... he admits the usefulness of rangers, but he's in love with the rend of thunderers.

Now I'm thinking to something skinks based, with a stegadon and some kroxy. He should concentrate on those, the only real threat, because skinks with skink chief are nice, but dwarfs' armor is good and my skinks will have a poor save.

I will be fast and i will pepper dwarfs with lot of light shooting, but I predict poor damage, and he should win in the end.

 

[Realjuan]

I wish I was such a nice guy. You hook a guy with an army he wants to play, gave him a decent price, and you made sure to make his first game was fun. If you had a friendly talk after the game on things he could improve, I do not think there could be a better scenario for a first game. For sure beats my experience.

Great sportsmanship. kudos.