I am playing a narrative campaign with a few Dwarf players (friends) and so far we have had two battles. This is a brief description of the 2nd battle.

The campaign is described here (always available from the top menu too): Khardon Island

March 13th: A bridge too far

King Belagor chose to go North West. Here his scouts soon reported that a single bridge was the only thing connecting the small island on which the army had landed, with the main island of Khardon. The scouts further reporter that gigantic bats were seen approaching the bridge from North East. Not scared by this, Belagor decided to try and take the bridge. What Belagor failed to appreciate was that the incarnate evil, a demon necromancer abiding the name of Bhürzhüm stood on the other side of the bridge ready to face the Dwarves.

Gottri hammerfist shook as he put his helmet on his head and went out to inspect the troops the general had sent him. How had he ever imagined that he would occupy anything at all with the strange composition of troops. They were not at all suitable for the task !!! Blasted! I have to get the best out of it and just survive the day and hope most of the troops will do the same, he thought to himself.

Again we played a 2000 points battle to decide the outcome of this particular little bit of our map campaign. Belagor’s forces were composed of a mixture of slayers and normal Dwarves backed up by a good amount of shooting warmachines.

Bhürzhüm’s army of Darkness had a good deal of Skeletons with spears or bows as well as a few catapults and chariots. (Bhürzhüm had the rules for Heinrich Kemmler, but a 40 mm base instedd of 20 mm). In addition to the “normal” units the Undead were allowed to field a regiment of Skeleton Ogres (Ushabti, with Crumble in addition to their normal rules).

Army lists:

Dwarves

Undead

Deployment was straight forward, as the bridge was the main objective. Both sides concentrated their infantry to go into the funnel of death.

The battle commenced and as predicted the fight for the bridge was on from turn 1. The Undead managed to move the chariots on the bridge and got ready to smash the Hammerers awaiting at the other end. Bhürzhüm had been quite unlucky with his spells and not gotten any real summon spells… meaning that what he had, was what he had.

Impressively the Hammerers stood their ground after the chariot charge and quickly dispatched the warmachines in the following combat round. This allowed the Skeleton Warrior regiment to charge in led by a Wraith.

The stout Dwarves were eventually killed and the job of defending the bridge was taken over by the Iron Breakers. They held it rather firmly and their Commander Gottri Hammerfist quickly chopped the hood of the Wraith cape with his magical axe.

Bhürzüm, being a baby-eating and extremely evil demon, had all but forgotten to protect his Skull Catapult batteries. They soon found themselves engulfed in steaming hot steam, fired by the Dwarven gyrocopter death engines, and assisted by Dwarven miners who had dug under the river.

Without the Wraith the Skeletons stood no chance of even denting the Iron Breakers. Eventually Bhürzüm himself tried charging into to budge the Slayers from the bridge, but to little avail. He had been foiled by the mischievous Dwarves into spending too much time on artillery and cavalry sideshows, forgetting the true meaning of the battle.

End of game VP: Undead 330 – Dwarves 759

The Dwarves won a minor victory (over 10% = 200 pts difference, but less than 50% =1000 pts)

Exhaisted from battle, Gottri hammerfist stood looking at the battlefield. He could hardly believe his eyes. The bridge had been taken and the Skeleton army had been sent on the run. And the price had not even been high. A message was immediately sent to King Belagor on the triumph of the day: The road to the rest of the island was now open.

Note worthy events:

The 12 Skeleton Bowmen shot 7 times (Vanhel’s helped) for a total of 72 shots at the Dwarf Miners wounding 4 in total.

The Carrion flew high in turn 1 – and then stayed up there until turn 5…. Bhürzhüm was a forgetful demon.