6k of Elves vs 6k of Empire / Dogs of War

[forbes]

For the first time in ages we had a game of Warmaster (probably as Vos asked nicely / made puppy dog eyes, until we said yes!).

For a change we went with Elves vs Empire, 6k points a side. The Elves were two 3k armies, of fairly similar composition. The Empire side, was a 3k Empire army, with lots of knights, and a 3k Dogs of War army.

All the Elves were my figures, along with the Empire cavalry and artillery. Empire infantry was Vos's, and the Dogs of War are Mark's, and are mainly Kallistra figures.



Initial deployments, Elves on the left. My force nearest the camera, Steve's army away in the distance on the green grasslands. Empire at the right foreground, Dogs of War in the distance on the rights - with many banners flying on the hills.



Elven deployment


Empire Deployment  - just the 16 units of knights, the Pistolleers are standing in for knights, as I didn't have quite enough painted knights.


Dogs of War cavalry, and Tuskas - most of their infantry is beyond (or on) the hill

[forbes]

Turn 1

Elves were asked to take the first turn


Most of my troops stuttered with fairly small advances - the red and white brigade at the top of the photo, made its only move of the whole game, and advance towards the village.
My general was more successful and pushed a cavalry brigade up on to the hill, out of shot to the right.




Empire turn 1 was even less successful, two brigades of cavalry manage a single move each - resulting in this log jam.


View over to the far end of the table - Elves have pushed forward, DoW are in the midst of moving.

[forbes]

Turn 2



At the end of the Elven 2nd turn. A second cavalry brigade moved up, with the Silver Helms charging in to the red/white and blue/yellow knights on the end of the Empire line. The chariots and reavers were left on the hill.

One unit of Eagles had flown behind the Empire lines.

The cavalry on the top of the hill failed to move (and was just out of initiative range). Though the Reavers managed to confuse a unit of knights Panther (and possible take a stand off?)

The elven wizard managed to get off Light of Battle, and the hero on eagle joined the Silver Helms. They managed to smash the two units of knights, and one unit of Silver Helms then got in the flank of the halberdiers, and munched two units there. Finishing with 1 stand and the hero in between the two lines of Empire knights.


Elven Infantry defend a village


A view of the middle of the battlefield

Empire turn 2


The single stand of Silver Helms (with hero) was charged - and the attackers bounced!!
Two units of knights ordered separately turned, but both failed to charge the eagles.
Blue knights charged the Reavers on the top of the hill - stand and shoot caused enough damage to get a draw.
Green knights charged the Reavers closest the camera - and destroyed them for the loss of a stand.
Poor dice rolling by the general only saw the cannon grand battery shuffle forward. But this was enough to put them in range of a column of Phoneix guard, who disappeared in a red mist...


The middle of the battle - I have very little idea of what was happening over there!!

[forbes]

Turn 3


End of Elven movements - before shooting and combat

On initiative:
Eagles charged the rear of the halberdiers.
The single stand of Silver Helms stayed still - but the hero wisely left them!
Knights flank charged the single stand of knights panther on the hill

Chariots were ordered to charge the knights (rather rashly) and were butchered
The green knights nearest the camera were charged by knights, and bowmen, supported by spears into the flank.

Over in the middle the bridge of Phoenix Guard and archers, failed to move again - and stood there waiting to be shot again.


Bolt throwers shuffled forward far enough to finally be able to target something. They and the reavers shot off two stands of knights - but drove them back so far they couldn't be charged by the following up silver helms.
Then the reserve cavalry blundered, and came charging up alongside them!

The eagles killed the halberds and the crossbows in front of them. And then got a big redeploy roll, and managed to hop behind the knights again!!


The middle of the battle - elven cavalry crashes into the DoW cavalry. The elven infantry have managed to get behind the DoW cavalry - to apply the buttocks of doom.


In the Empire turn Vos again rolls 10 for his general.

But he managed to get two orders off to a unit of knights to kill off the eagles, and got charges into a unit of Silver Helms that had redeployed near the village.
One of the reserve 2 unit brigades of knights managed to move over to the fray too (earlier they had been Pistollieer models, but there had been enough casualties to swap them for knight figures).

[forbes]

Final Moves

Elven turn 4


The Silver Helms at the bottom right, managed two orders to get around the rough ground, and charge the yellow knights who were facing the wrong way - despite having 15 attacks vs 6 it was a draw. Mainly down to some very good armour saves by the yellow knights - this was annoying as I was expecting to kill the yellow knights and 1 unit of green knights - which would have tipped this flank in my favour.

In the middle the chariots and silver helms destroyed a unit of blue knights, backing them into the village.
The eagles moved into the village, but failed to move again to get a rear charge.

Bolt throwers moved forward 3 moves, but still had no target.


The middle of the battlefield - and a middle
The battle field is looking rather clear in the middle after much destruction of both sides.

We didn't play and Empire turn 4 as it was rather late.

The general feeling was that things were in the Empire / DoW favour, as although they had lost a lot of units, they could afford to loose more than the Elves.

I think I killed 9 units of knights, 3 halberdiers and 1 crossbows. From a break of 17 IIRC.
I lost about 10 units - 3 knights, 1 chariot, 3 reavers, 1 eagles, 2 spears - but would have lost some more if we had finished turn 4. This was from a break point of 15

As the 2nd last photo shows, I was still facing 5 units of knights in close proximity, with 2 in the distance, along with loads of infantry.

[Stormwind]

Wonderful battle report! And an absolutely terrifying number of Empire Knights O.O

[Edmund2011]

Great game!! 

Tuskas are Eureka, right? They look very nice in such big battlefield

[forbes]

Yes, the Tuskas are Eureaka, they are nice, and are very tall. I should have taken more photos of the DoW army as it is rather nice.

Table was only 8x4 so quite small for the armies used.

[jchaos79]

Great report and very nice painting there. It is a cavalry battle.

Thanks for sharing and a pleasure to read.

[Stuart Bleything]

Very cool , and a well narrative sets it out wonderfully .

Stuart

[David Wasilewski]

Thanks to Forbes for hosting - I really enjoyed the game as our group hasn't been playing Warmaster very much for a while now (we play KoW with our 10mm fantasy collections).

If only my infantry blocks and cannons had been able to advance in the centre... Grrr.....

Dave (aka "Vos") 

[forbes]

It was an enjoyable game. Knights still seem far too dominant.

I think tactically I was a bit naive, and used my good command to just push forward, which meant that the Empire forces always had reserves. If I had held back more, I could have used my shooting much more, and probably dealt with attacks more piecemeal, as the Empire forces would likely have been split up by poor command.

If we had played at Dave's there would have been more depth to the table, so my pushing on would probably worked as I could have got round him. But with lots of troops on a fairly small area, it was just a smash fest.