This is directly related to this thread. After that battle, my friend with dwarfs played against someone else in our gaming group. Yesterday he fought Flesh Eater Court, and he was tabled hard. And by hard i mean that in the end he just killed 3 models, being wiped out. With this premise, we played the 2nd game of seraphon vs dwarfs. 1500 pts. As said in the linked thread, i decided to play an army that would favor the natural dwarfs' resiliency. Skinks. We rolled the first scenario form the general's handbook, the ones with just one objective on each side of the battlefield (the big dices), and you must conquer the enemy's objective in five turns, putting some of your models within 6", but with no enemy's models nearby. The perfect scenario for a defending army, which was cool, since he's slow and desn't have anything that can move to take objectives. Set-Up: SERAPHON (from left to right) 40 x skinks 1 x Stegadon 1 x skink chief 1 x skink starpriest 3 x Razordons (sallies models) 20 x skinks 6 x kroxygor DWARFS (from left to right): 20 x warriors 30 x thunderers 1 x flame cannon 1 x cannon 1 x engineer 1 x runelord 1 x warden king 10 x longbeards
First round. Dwarfs cannot shoot, 'cause I'm out of range. I move forward with all, exploiting the cover granted by the tower, and my bow from the stegadon kills a couple of dwarfs' warriors (the only models that will be killed by the bow in the entire game) Second round Dwarfs cannon kills one kroxy, the thunderers and the flame cannon blast away 12 skinks of my main group. Goodbye bonus for being more than 30... the survived 28 skinks rush in the wooded hill on the left and shoot some thunderer, the stegadon advance but its shooting sucks, the right skinks enter the tower and shoot the thunderers but they're still more than 20 (re-rollable save and no rend from me help their defence!); the razordon move in safe postion and the kroxi cherge the longbeards, wiping them away. Dwarfs are now worried by the pincer manoveur, I'm pressing their whole line of defence. Third round I go first. My Whole right wing advances. Skinks leave the tower and shoot the general, inflicting 1 wound), the razordons enter the tower and shoot the runelord (inflicting 4 wound), the kroxy charge the thunderers, killing 6 of them (other 2 run away). On the left, the skinks in the woods kill just one warrior, and the stagadon fail the charge. Dwarfs set the warriors on a defesive line, the cannon kills some of the right skinks, the thunderers, the flame cannon and the Lord concentrate on the kroxy, and only the moonhammer survives. Fourth round Dwarfs' shooting kills the last kroxy and inflicts 6 wounds to the stegadon; the lord charges the right skinks but with some luck it kills just a few. They disengages In my turn the left skinks diminish the warriors and the left ones fail to kill the runelord. The razordons kill the crew of the flame cannon, and the stegadon charges the warriors, but it's wounded and doesn't break through and receives another wound. Dwarfs are strenuously defending their objective... The last turn will be decisive, especially to see who will win the roll to go first!
fifth round! Dwarfs win the roll. the shooting kills the stegadon and decimates the right skinks; the survived warriors fall back in defence. My left skinks advance and pincushion the cannon's crew; the engineer is killed by razordons' shooting and 3 warriors are killed by a missile from the starpriest. the three remaining right skinks rush behind enemy's line and take the objective! Razordons and handlers charge, inflicting further losses to the warriors and the thunderers... ...but two dwarfs models are still within 6" from their objective, and so I cannot claim it. It's a tie!!!
THE AFTERMATH my friend was obviously satisfied, and I was happy too. I picked an army that was competitive, but that was also an "easy prey" for a dwarfs list as this one, that can play defensively and exploit all its racial advantages, as the wall of shields for re-rolling saves, and the good armor while I've got no rend. Obviously, my list could have been far worse (just 3 sallies instead of 3 razordons would have been enough), and even so, I cold have concentrated the fire on one unit each time, or I could have killed the warmachines' crews 1 or 2 turns before. But that wasn't my objective. I wanted to give a real fun match to the guy, and I didn't wanted to beat him again, so... mission accomplished!