I acted as 'Impartial Judge/Bystander' to a friendly little casual game tonight between two of my associates.

Scenario: Battle for the Pass
Game Size: 2500 points
Armies: Dwarfs versus Empire.

Deployment:

From left to right: Cannon, Gyrocopter, Hammerers (on River Crossing), Horde of Warrior (on the Bridge), Grudgethrower, Longbeards, Iron Breakers, another Cannon.

The building on the upper-left was an Acropolis of Heroes, the river was a Raging Torrent, upper right was a Mistwraith Swamp, next to the cannon on the right was a Banestone.


Empire Deployment from left to right: 50 Spearmen with two detachments (25 Hellberds on the left flank and 10 crossbowmen), next to that we have 6 greatweapon-knights behind which sits a Great Cannon, infront of the Hill is a 50-unit of Swordsmen with two detachments (25 Hellberds, and 10 crossbowmen on the hill), on the hill also one more Great Cannon and a Rocket Battery, infront of the hill also 20 Greatswords with a detachment of 9 Free Company, and finally on the right flank 6 Greatsword Knights and a Captain on Pegasus.


Close-up of the right flank of the Empire Army. The guy riding the Pegasus is a Captain even though he appears to be a wizard modelwise.. We also get a better view of the Warmachines on the hill, not to mention my Daemons eerily peering down on the table from the shadowed shelves beyond the battlefield(!).


The Dwarven general in the Longbeards unit, we also see the red-bearded visage of a Runesmith on the corner of the IronBreaker unit to the right.


The drunkard Gyrocopter deployed next to a whole bunch of unpainted Dwarves that I will help my buddy get some color on as soon as I am done with my current little Daemon unit.. ;)


Turn One: The knights on the Empire's right flank tries to march over the Walls right infront of them, taking two casualties from Dangerous Terrain and failing(!) their panic test. This is a ridiculing picture of their subsequent flight-move.


Beginning of the 3rd Turn: The armies are getting ready to smash into each other. While the three Warmachines of the Empire kept misfiring we see that the Dwarven Warmachines have taken chunks out of the Greatsword units (as well as killing two knights in the middle), while the Gyrocopter has flown up behind the Swordsmen and blasted them with its template. The consistant streak of 'bad luck' continued for the Empire - by the end of the game the two cannons had both blown up without as much as hitting a single enemy model (!). There was also almost no magic what-so-ever in this game: The magic phase was just a bunch of priests trying to cast prayers that were dispelled in due course by the Dwarven 'magic wall'.


The 6 GreatweaponKnights in the middle got themselves positioned so that both the Hammerers and the IronBreakers could charge them. The single Knight that survived fled (toward the bottom of the picture), and since my friend's yet again failed to be certain of how the rules for Over-running work in 8th Edition nobody persued this fleeing Knight. At the bottom of the picture we see that the Warriors have connected with the (steadfast) Swordsmen as well [Next Picture!].


The [Dwarf] Warrior Horde had one fat bastard on a Stone, and we also see the (deep green) BSB in this picture. The OathStone-Dwarf started challenging, and killed the champ in the first round of combat. The Dwarves won the combat but the Swordsmen were steadfast. The 25 Hellbardiers who accompanied the Swordsmen fled however, despite being Steadfast.


The 50 Spearmen ended up fighting the Ironbreakers, and this picture shows them being routed (despite being Steadfast) and fleeing over the [Impassable] board-edge. The detachment of 25 Hellbardiers are doing a little better in this picture, as they have charged the Dwarf cannon by the BaneStone and destroyed it.


The IronBreakers proceed by charging the 25 Hellbardiers and exacts a gruesome vengeance on them for destroying that cannon(!). Getting +1 ToWound from that Banestone made the Dwarves kill stuff like never before..


In the center this is how the battle ended: The Dwarves are just about to totally murder the remaining Swordsmen - who did indeed flee and die horribly. In this picture we also see that coward detachment of Hellbardiers who managed to fail their break-test on Steadfast with re-roll in a previous turn. Also, what little is left of the Greatsword unit is making its way toward the thick of the battle. These Greatsword had actually beaten down a unit of Dwarves (helped by the Rocket Battery actually scoring two direct hits toward the end of the game).

Also, in case you wondered what happened to the 'Captasus': It flew up and got itself grapeshot by a cannon, but despite this leaving it with only 1 wound left it managed to kill a cannon and the Grudgethrower.

The Gyrocopter got killed by the 10 Crossbowmen on the hill, right after it had blasted those Swordsmen in turn 2. This was also rather amazing, statistically speaking.

What's also not in the pics at all are the 10 Miners that came from the rear of the Empire, and in the last played turn of the game they managed to charge and destroy the remaining Rocket Battery (both the cannons had blown up, remember).

Over-all, it was a very friendly game where we didn't even bother to calculate the Victory points - even though it seems obvious that the Dwarves won. It was above all a very "low-fantasy" game, having basically no wizards at all except monks. No big monsters either. Almost a 'realistic' Warhammer-battle, if you will.

I find it really hard to concentrate when games this size feature no Daemons - hehe - but these are the pictures I managed to take and I hope it was an entertaining read regardless.

Entertaining indeed! Poor cowardly Empire.

Yeah our fellow Empire player has the kind of 'luck' that's just.. not.

Let's see..
In this game he managed to roll up 'Misfire' for his warmachines at least 50% of the shots fired. The few cannon-shots that did even fire correctly stopped on the first bounce(!) and eventually both cannons blew up from Misfiring.
He also failed two Steadfast breaktests on General's LD with re-roll.
And a panic test on those Knights at the very beginning.

The Rocket Battery scored two 'perfect' hits throughout the game however. Before being eaten by those Miners.

Hehe, nowI'm invisioning a group of Dwarven miners stripping down and devouring the Rocket Battery. Apparently Dwarves are like goats, ad warmachines are like tin cans.