This is a picture from a recent battle I fought against the Empire, at 2500 points. I was using the early version of my tournament list, and it was going to be interesting to see how my flying monster would fare against cannons. Two of them, in fact, as my opponent had brought a Great Cannon alongside a Steamtank with its own cannon, two Mortars and a Rocket Battery. In charge of the Empire army was an Archlector, leading a unit of Greatswords, with a Wizard Lord of Life was providing the magic from a unit of Swordsmen and their medium sized Halberdier detachment. There was also a small unit of Crossbowmen, a unit of Handgunners with a Hochland Rifle, a Master Engineerer to direct the artillery, a large warband of Flagellants and several tiny units of Archers lurking in the forests.
Things of note:
- Trolls - The Warboss landed his Wyvern behind the Trolls to take cover from enemy cannons, but that did not stop the Empire from at least trying to land a shot at him. Undaunted by the prospect of hitting Trolls instead, he kept guessing 6-8" ahead of the Wyvern and ended up hitting the brutes instead. One or two went down, but the cannonball never once made it through the entire mob of Trolls. Finally, the Trolls got into combat with the Great Swords, who had already been decimated by a Foot of Gork, and beat them down. However, they failed to realize that against the Armor of Meteoric Iron, it's better to vomit than to punch, and so they failed to take out the Arch Lector (although they did eat the Wizard and the Captain with the Battle Standard). With the Priest standing firm, it set the Flagellants up for a flank charge that took out the Trolls. They had done their work though.
- Warboss on Wyvern - After finally seeing the Trolls into battle, the Warboss risked a round out in the open, catching a cannonball on his Charmed Shield while the Wyvern was flying with a single wound remaining. To punish the cowards who were firing at him, the beasty charged into a Mortar and destroyed it, then overran into Archers, followed by more Archers, followed by the Rocket Battery, followed by the Cannon, completely rolling up the flank of the Empire and taking back his point cost and more - I was really pleased with his performance, surviving the initial rounds of shooting and actually surviving the entire battle.
- Black Orcs - Joined early by their Black Orc Big Boss, carrying the Battle Standard, they had to suffer through quite a lot of shooting but thanks to their shields and the Ironcurse Icon, they could take quite a lot of punishment and eventually got into battle, first with the Halberdiers, stomping them and sending them running, then the Swordsmen who had first taken three Wolf Chariots to the face, leaving only a handful left standing before being chopped down.
In the end, they had cleared out one side of the field with some help from the Wyvern, leaving only a Mortar, the Handgunners, half a Steamtank and a barely scratched band of Flagellants alive. There was no way I'd be going up against either of them (well, perhaps the Mortar if I could reach it) and sadly the Savage Orcs had been forced to avoid combat against the Steamtank in the early rounds, which left them out of the fight completely. Still, I ended up winning the game by about 300-400 points, despite both my Shieldgobbos and the Arrer Boyz fleeing the field, I had most of my points invested in characters who were still alive and two solid mobs that weren't going anywhere.
