My list unfortunately was binned after the battle due to some "autumn" cleaning. The gist of it was basically two solid 25 strong blocks of Skeleton warriors with shields handweapons and light armour plus a standard bearer and a Champion. A unit of 25 Tomb guard with standard and champ. A unit of 15 skeleton warrirors with bows and a unit of 14 skeleton archers with bows. 2 tomb swarms, 2 scorpion and unit of 5-6 carrion (look at deployment picture). A tomb prince with a great weapon and magic armour, A tomb prince with a great weapon magic amulet that gave a 4+ ward save and lightarmour and shield. A liche priest with the staff of ravening and a High Liche priest with the cloak of dunes, neffras plauges of mighty incantations and a hieratic jar.
I took this list because on the map there were no hills so I could have an effective screen against dwarven shooting in the form of my archers while having 3 solid fighting blocks to take down his cc units. The burrowed scorp was to take out warmachines as were carrion and swarms. The deployed scorpion was there to agument the fighting prowess of my skeleton warriors.
Rune Lord-388
AoD
2*Rune of Spellbreaking
Rune of Preservation
Rune of Stone
Shield
Dragon Slayer-175
MRoSwiftness
Master Engineer-80
Brace of Pistols
25 Warriors-240
Shields
Standard, Mus
25 Warriors-240
Shields
Standard, Mus
25 Warriors-240
Shields
Standard, Mus
25 Warriors-240
Shields
Standard, Mus
25 Warriors-240
Shields
Standard, Mus
Bolt Thrower-70
Rune of Penetrating
10 Slayer-110
7 Miners-77
The standard Dwarven horde. Slayers are there to give me a unit that will not run away, and the Miners are there to threaten any warmachines Tut might take. BT is there to take care of chariots, and the ME is there to entrench AoD and give the BT a sweet BS. The Rune Lord is pretty standard, just went for a little extra amour, for I knew those scorps would be coming after it, so protection from killing blow sounded good.
Deployment
Turn 1 Dwarves: SLOG IT FORWARD DWARVES! My battle line raged forwards, with the slayers being unsually crafty and going around a building, so as not to get shot to pieces. The BT, and AOd stayed stil. First blood went to the BT, knocking off 3 wounds from the land deployed scorpion. Only one wound left on that mean beastie
The AOD followed suit by causing the Carrion to walk next turn thanks to WRATH AND RUIN! It also managed to kill one, and wound another. Not bad for a first turn. Now I just have to survive the arrows!
Turn 1 Tomb Kings: My prayers were answered in the form of something I had never expected in all my games of playing Burro. A horde army! There was something intimidating in his blocks of warriors but I reconciled myself with the fact that they were just that. Core choice Warriors. Nothing nasty, no 2+ armour saves or shooty sillyness. Though I quickly saw what he placed next. A unit of slayers followed by a bolt thrower (which I learned later had the rune of penetrating= s7 bolts) and to cap it all of an Anvil of Doom.
On the first turn I basically held my ground my magic phase was spent moving my blocks into position and healing the shooting damage fully healing my scorp and patching up the carrion. However one of my favorite magic items the staff of ravening managed to kill one dwarf. It is expensive but is great at knocking of a dispel dice or two for dwarves. And if he lets it go it does 3d6 s2 hits. S2 may not seem all that impressive but ask any lizardmen skink horde player. It hurts. Even tougher infantry can be fazed by it. My shooting did nothing and I gave the turn to Burro.
Turn 2 Dwarves: Well, his magic phase was recovering from my shooting phase, so it was like turn 1 again, just a smaller distance between our battle lines. Movement saw the horde of beards going forwards, the Gingers wheeling to get perpendicular with the house, and then perhaps a AOD charge. Speaking of AOD charges, the miners showed up, and with a little help from a runelord, charged into the rear of the carrion. They killed 2 of the birds, to losing only one of their own, having the combat end with 3 boids left, compared to 5 miners.
Turn 2 Tomb Kings: Dwarves, are characteristically known for 2 things being slow and being good at combat. However when you get charged from behind by a unit of dirty pick wielding maniacs with candles on their heads you tend to redefine your definition. Miners are sneaky little devils and they ruined my plan for my carrion. However I got my revenge in the form of it came from below; the scorpion emerged and headed straight for the bolt thrower crew. The great thing about it came from below is the fact that on top of emerging behind enemy lines you get to charge! (However there is a chance of misfiring and there is an absolutely brutal misfire table). I spent the movement phase getting ready for combat by reforming my lines into fighting blocks.(Note: LorenzWHFB engine did not allow me to make two lines of 5 and one of 4 so there is an extra skeleton in the leftmost archer unit. However this did not impact the game at all). Then I healed my carrion yet again in prep for the face off against the miners. Shooting saw the death of 3 warriors and that was definitely not expected. In the close combat I killed a miner and he wounded a bird. I lost by 1 due to outnumbering therefore the bird with a wound already on it crumbled into dust. Hopefully to be reanimated in a later turn. The scorpion managed to land a wound on the Master Engineer. Combat was drawn and they passed their break test.I gritted my teeth and hoped for some mercy against his ld9 dwarves. Fear don’t fail me now!
Turn 3 Dwarves : Charges Charges Charges. That was my motto for the turn, and I was able to charge 3 times. Unfortunately, my movement phase charge was out of range, and then the two I got to make with an ancient power from the AOD failed their fear tests. Safe to say I was quite annoyed. The slayers kept slogging it, and I had a horrible feeling that they weren’t gonna do much this game. In CC my miners brought the carrion down to one wounded bird, but lost their ability to deny ranks, which was annoying. The BT crew was beaten and overrun as well.
Turn 3 Tomb Kings: As the sands before the anvil parted millions upon millions of insects poured out the swarms were making their way towards the Anvil of doom a la The Mummy. However unlike The Mummy it is a failed charge. I charge the units that failed their charges against me. Tomb Guard goes against one unit of warriors. A combi charge of 15 skeletons and a scorp against another unit of warriors. My other movements involved getting into position in case of a charge against the combat locked scorpion. The other scorpion turned towards the anvil and plodded along. Magic saw some movement but anything else was dispelled. In close combats the birds choked and the miners were looking hungrily at my liche. The tomb guard did absolutely nothing in close combat and crumble one, The other combat is locked too.
Turn 4 Dwarves: Things are getting interesting. Declaring charges, one of the units who failed their fear test in the previous turn did the same this one. Oh well. Miners got in against the liche, amongst other things. Was able to slow down those swarms some with wrath and ruin. Decided not to charge into a fearsome multi combat, because of fear that the counter charge would thoroughly screw me over. Damn that decision… Slayers kept marching. As for cc, Miners couldn’t do squat, but cause a wound through outnumbering. My first warrior block fell, the archers and scorpion destroying it with a 3d6 overrun. Things looked better at the start of my turn.
Turn 4 Tomb Kings: Charged AOD with scorp and flank charged the central warrior unit. Then came the miner problem. This was a extremely delicate procedure with my 2nd warrior block. It ended up with the prince on the end charging the miners (this was with magical aid of course). All my spells were funneled into that maneuver so I was then into CC. Tomb Prince and Liche kill the miners. Prince holds and Liche runs down miners. Archers and tomb guard make the warriors flee but tomb guard holds and archers fail to catch up to warriors. I kill his runelord after he fails several armour saves despite being immune to my killing blow (which I did roll).
Turn 5 Dwarves: Damage report; Runelord dead, so are the miners. The blocks are running from combat, and I couldn’t kill a stupid Liche. Looks like im in between a rock and a hard place with out my pick. (yes, I’m as bad as those guys in White Dwarf). With movement, I was able to get several successful charges of, and the Warriors who had failed to fear tests, finally passed one. Slayers barely made into contact with the Liche, but thankfully did. The one slayer in combat failed to kill the old bag of flesh, and in return the jerk had the veracity to kill him. Worst slayer ever. The fleeing block rallied, and prepared to hold some ground. The pair of Dwarf blocks fighting the archer block finally destroyed it, and the unit that charged overran quite nicely into the skelly block with Prince. What would have been nicer is if they both could have got into but the stupid undeadness screwed me over. The rightmost block of warriors were beaten, and when rolling for double 1’s, they got 5 and 6, and for fleeing got the double ones. Insult to injury.
Turn 5: Not much to say here. I basically charged as many units as I could get my grubby undead hands on. Destroyed a dwarf unit and Burro threw the game. Slightly disappointed at that but hastened the return to the campaign map.
Debriefing (Burro Boskov): I no longer believe in the dice gods anymore. It started out quite well with the anvil doing its part, but I know realize that I should have at least tired to dispel the healing spells that Tut got off early on. The miners would have chewed through the birds that much faster, and the Scorp would have been killed by combat res., and not gone on to chase down a warrior block and kill my Runelord. I thought I was going to outnumber him, but with his scorpions and characters killing ability really messed up my blocks. It’s the first time I’ve used a horde army, and I have to say, it wasn’t so much fun. KingTut played his part well, his Magic worked well for him, he chose his combats well, and the dice were on his side I have to say. Overall, learnt some lessons, and once I’m done licking my wounds, will be ready to stick to the undead!
Debriefing (KingTut): Well I don’t think its too selfish to say that I heartily enjoyed that battle. I almost never win against Burro when I use my Greenskins against him and I do that more often because they are all painted. Magic won the game for me this time. And the completely unexpected dwarf horde put Burro at a large disadvantage. I learned a great lesson about dwarf warriors. They aren’t so tough when against fear causers that load up on Static CR. This game reinforced the idea upon my mind that there is an extremely important phase that my army is good with. And that is movement. Especially when moved magically. Though I was very VERY lucky with the dice, not nessarily me personally but Burro had absolutely horrible luck. Another thing that I learned was that Lorenz is absolutely wonderful when it comes to trying new tactics and army lists. Definitely preferable to making real minis and then watching your well thought out strategy fall to pieces around you. A note to other players that might go up against Burro: Don’t expect to see a horde again!
Unit of the Battle: Tomb Guard (Surprised?)
Honorable Mention: Tomb Scorpion (the deployed one)
