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| The battlefield and the regiments during deployment |
From my left to right, the Ogres had brought 3 Ironguts, 20 Gnoblars, 8 Ironguts joined by a Bruiser carrying the Tenderizer, 8 Ironguts led by the Tyrant with the Wizard Hat and the Bruiser Battle Standard wearing the Crown of Command. Finally, on my right flank he deployed 11 Bulls led by a Butcher, and 2 Leadbelchers. As mentioned earlier, Benjamin and I have been discussing Ogres for some time and I really liked what he brought to the table this time around. It was not going to be a cake-walk that was for sure. You can read my own list over here, with Pump Wagons and Rock Lobber replacing the Wolf Chariots and the Boar Boyz.
Things of note:
- Black Orcs - As the Ironguts with the Bruiser moved forward across the field, the Black Orcs roared and came charging out from the forest, joined by the Orc Boar Chariot for the combo-charge. I knew I'd be striking before they could, and I'd be hitting and wounding them on 3's so I opted to bring out my additional handweapons (since he would not be getting an armor save against their strikes anyway). The Great Shaman got through a spell of 'Ere We Go but the augment failed to reach the Black Orcs. A bad mistake on my part, placing the Shaman on the opposide side of the Savage Orcs, away from the Black Orcs. The Impact Hits caused only a single wound and the Black Orcs had an average combat. I really underrestimated the impact of the Bruiser, as the big guy was a lot harder to wound than the Ironguts I'd rather be swinging at. The Tenderizer made for a lot of casualties, bringing the combat close to a draw, with the Ogres easily passing their breaktest. The following turn the Black Orcs had a horrible combat, causing only a single wound, and were defeated and chased down while the Boar Chariot fled to relative safety. The Ironguts then proceeded to charge into the Night Goblin mob, who remained steadfast against their stomps and chops with the Warboss nearby, until only 2 gobbos were left standing and ran away.
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| The Black Orcs, joined by the Boar Chariot, charges the Ironguts led by a Bruiser |
- Savage Orc Big 'Uns - The Warboss on his Wyvern felt compelled to show everyone 'ow'z done, so he roared and charged into the flank of the Ironguts with the Tyrant and the Battle Standard. Meanwhile, the Leadbelchers had moved up in front of the Savage Orcs who charged into them, needing to roll a 9 to overrun into the Ironguts. An uncharacteristicly risky move by me, but I had already been failing several 12-14" charges that I went for, as failing them at the time didn't cause much damage to me. It's a tactic I've picked up from Niclas from the Warpstoned blog: if you keep trying those 12-14" charges when it won't cause much damage if you fail them, is it really just luck if you happen to make one of them every now and then? As you probably realize, the Savage Orcs did make their overrun when it counted, and joined the Warboss in battle. Together, they took out the unprotected Tyrant and eventually killed off the Battle Standard and wiped out the Irongut regiment.
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| The Savage Orcs and the Wyvern Warboss charges the Ironguts with a Tyrant and BSB. |
- Trolls - Finally, on the right flank the Trolls went up against the strange unit of Bulls ranked up in 4 ranks (an oddity for the fat ones). It wasn't really a good matchup for them, with the Bulls striking ahead of them and combined with some surprisingly poor regeneration rolls, the Trolls were losing out on members while the Ogres kept coming. Eventually, not even the barking of the Warboss could keep them in combat and they were chased off, with the Bulls overrun down towards my deployment zone, where my Rock Lobbers were poking their noses with nothing to fire at.
The final rounds saw the Savage Orcs, led by my Battle Standard and Great Shaman charge into the Bulls, while the rallied Boar Chariot saw an opportunity but elected to let the Savages fight it out on their own. It had already ruined it for the Black Orcs, causing so few impacts hits while taking up space so that some of the Orcs couldn't get into base contact, so I was not going to let it ruin things again.
However, I should have decided on that earlier so that the chariot could help out the Warboss. After sending the Night Goblins running, the Ironguts and the Bruiser reformed only to be charged by the Warboss and his Wyvern. He barked out a challenge and fought it out with the Bruiser, needing to cause 4 wounds on 7 attacks that would hit and wound on 3's (including the Wyvern's 3 poisoned stings). Sadly, they couldn't do it, and the Bruiser killed off the Wyvern for good measure, and so I failed to break the Ironguts, who were truly the heroes of this battle. The Boar Chariot would have helped a lot here, but instead the Warboss was cut down in the next round.
We wrapped up the game with some weird events, as the Night Goblins managed to rally on Insane Courage, saving me quite a lot of points. Similarly, the Bulls lost their combat to the Savage Orcs by lots and lots, but their stomp attacks managed to take out one Savage Orc too many, as that just rid me of my last rank bonus, while a one-wound Bull made up the last of his ranks, which caused him too be steadfast for the final break test of the match, which he passed.
After counting up the casualties, we realized this game had gone down to the wire and agreed on a draw, with only a couple of points separating us. It was a hard-fought, fun game where although I commited a lot of mistakes I did learn quite a lot from it. More thoughts on that later though.
