I've already shared my progress for this month, but I've grabbed an updated group photo, and it's time to check in on our other participants, and this time we actually started playing a few games with our little armies!
First off, here's my happy family pic of everything I've done so far, including my cheeky bonus grudge pony.
Next up we have Hamish, who is starting to accumulate a few units, but I think is lagging behind a bit in terms of the points target. He has now started work on 35 Dwarfs, which apparently are going to be painted in a single batch. Because he hates himself, I assume.
The crossbowmen, ogres and hero we've seen before. The bolt thrower and wizard are new additions.
Nick has not yet caught up on his shortfall in the first month, but he is starting to close the gap.
The ghorgon and hounds (weird looking dogs, hey) are new additions, with the hounds being a catch-up unit.
Tim has kind of exploded into action this month, and went from a couple of units up to 1000 points in a flurry of activity. I think some of the units might technically still be a work in progress, but they're all based and have colour all over them, so it's still a massive step forward. They look pretty done on the table.
That's 2 units of knights, a unit of pegasus knights, some archers, a couple of characters and there's a trebuchet hiding back there too...
Pete has been ahead of the game during the whole challenge, finding it remarkably easy to make each month's goals. This month it was a varghulf, bats and some dogs for his 250 points. This is how things currently look:
1000 points of vampiric goodness/badness (depends on your perspective).
I don't really have any updates for the others. I think they've stalled. We'll see if they get moving again, or if we need to shift our focus to heaping shame upon their miserable heads...
The First Battle
It's common in a "slow grow" challenge like this to actually play games between the armies - that's kind of the point of working to a legal list each month. We hadn't really gotten around to that side of things yet, given COVID disruptions and the like, but now that we had 1000 points, it made sense to rectify this.
I set about making a list from the stuff that I had painted, although I had to leave out a couple of extra elements I had sneaked in like the 3rd Engineer and the grudge pony. Otherwise I felt obliged to pretty much use everything I could - it felt in keeping with the challenge. But it meant that my army was led by a basically naked Thane, I had a total of 10 points of runes in the army, and in my heart I knew it was not the best balanced force.
Pete used almost exactly what you can see in the picture above, and his vampire was properly equipped with a 4+ ward save and Always Strikes First with an additional hand weapon, because he'd actually thought about such things when he was planning his monthly targets.
Given this was only a small game and it wasn't especially great, I'm not going to bother with a proper battle report. However, I did take plenty of photos, so I can at least walk you through what happened.
The two armies line up across a little 4'x4' battlefield. Felt plenty large enough, really.
So many crypt horrors, with the sneaky bats taking cover from my noble shooting.
The varghulf and doggies had the flank, but there was a building there to anchor my line. So I liked to think I wasn't worried.
The horrible, actually adequately equipped vampire, who was doing his best to represent a low level Strigoi, even though there was no such thing rules-wise in the 8th edition book.
The heroic Dwarfs do their best to exploit the big hill that was dominating their deployment zone. That bolt thrower had flaming and an engineer to help aim it.
My thane floated in the middle of my lines, unsure how to contribute given my lack of real combat blocks, and his own alarming lack of gear (Rune of Stone and a great weapon). My second bolt thrower and organ gun set up using the forest for moral support, given it wasn't much good for anything else in terms of protection from the enemy.
I got first turn and moved up a bit, because I clearly don't know how to play Dwarfs properly. My shooting accounted for the doggies, but given the thunderers had been out of range, that was about the best I could hope for.
Poor not-Ungrim, all on his own. Pete had no ranged attacks, so at least that wasn't a problem.
So lonely...
Pete advanced to what felt like a sufficiently threatening range without the real danger of being embarrassed by Dwarfs out-charging him.
I mean... it was theoretically possible... But it would be faster than any Dwarf had ever gone before.
My shooting concentrated on the crypt horrors approaching the hill, once the flaming bolt thrower had knocked off their regeneration. If the organ gun had been good for more than about 4 shots, I might really had made some progress. The miners moved to flank any survivors in case they made it to the hill.
The rest of my lines were trying to work out how to shield my war machines from the approaching speedy foes.
My hammerers were in danger, and were charged by the combination of the of the crypt horrors and varghulf. They chose to flee from the latter, and the nothing managed to redirect successfully onto the war machines, so the hammerers had bought them a turn, at the expense of their dignity.
The miners didn't have to worry about charging the crypt horrors, as they were charged by them instead.
My shooting is still there, but my only combat unit is running away shamefully.
At this point I was running out of time to shoot the enemy to death, but the enemy was getting pretty close to charge range for my thunderers...
The miner combat went better than I expected, and gradually they would wear their way through the remaining crypt horror, who had to support to rescue him.
See, not a real Dwarf player. First I ran away with the hammerers, and now I charged with my missile troops. But I mean, it was a flank and Dwarfs are +1 Strength on the charge, so if not now, then when?
Unfortunately I had not done a good enough job of positioning my thane, and he couldn't see to assist the thunderers in their glorious charge. He was left to contemplate all the approaching enemies that he... really didn't want to fight. Maybe the bats. He could handle them.
The problem with flanking a vampire's unit is that he always wants to come and be involved. Not big on waiting on the sidelines and awaiting his fate.
My organ gun and bolt throwers did their best to whittle down the unengaged crypt horrors, but there were still enough left to dispose of a war machine.
The miners and crypt horror continued to take turns smacking each other over the head.
The thunderers did quite well in their charge, but the ghouls managed to reform, and then I'm pretty sure the vampire managed to cast Invocation of Nehek, undoing much of their good work.
Oh, that's bad. Both war machines engaged, and the engineer and rallied hammerers could only sit there and watch.
You can see there are more ghouls here than there were in the previous picture. That and the reform were costly. Oh, you can see not-Ungrim has found a friend, too.
He's not really a very nice friend. In fact, after Pete making all sorts of dubious noises about this combat, we had finally convinced him that the varghulf had it under control. We figured Thunderstomp would do the job. We were wrong, of course. Thunderstomp was not even required. It was over very quickly. I really needed an army general with better gear.
The swift demise of not-Ungrim was particularly disappointing when the varghulf overran into the thunderers and got to fight again... :(
Look, I would have run too. Things had turned against them. Hmm I'm sure that varghulf should not have pursued again after the overrun. Anyway, we got away because we are speedy Dwarfs. And look, the miners have finished off the crypt horror, and now they are blocked by their speedy fleeing friends. Hooray!
OK, this was very annoying. Both war machines survived, and both held their ground due to Stubborn. Which meant the hammerers could only sit and watch, instead of avenging or rescuing one of them.
And then the next turn, when the bolt thrower succumbed, they failed their panic test and fled from the field. I guess it was my fault they fled in the first place, but still. Come on, guys. Didn't have to take it so personally...
In the closing stages, the engineer here actually put up a good fight. He failed to save the bolt thrower, but set about avenging it instead.
On the other flank, my fleeing thunderers rallied, but with the vampire and varghulf there, there was little hope.
In fact, Pete figured it was so under control that the varghulf's services were not needed. He had business with my only remaining war machine.
Yeah, this will end well. Ready the ward saves!
Well that's not really sporting, is it?
So it looks like our saves were actually pretty good, but it didn't matter - the thunders broke, fled, got caught...
And the miners didn't even get to flank the ghouls because they pursued too far and we were left with a reform to face them. Boooo.
At about this point the engineer finally fell, but not before the bats had been disposed of. He did well, considering I bought him absolutely nothing!
The other guy decided to try to emulate the greatness of his comrade, charged the varghulf, and got swatted back where he came from. Oh well, one out of every two engineers is a hero.
At this point I conceded, given nothing good was likely to happen from this point on, and there were still a small number of Dwarf lives to be spared. We had lost comprehensively.
So all in all, even at 1000 points I felt the lack of a decent fighter as my general, any real combat blocks, no BSB and no magic defence. Fair to say that my army is a little flawed at this point. It's food for thought in future months.
Tim and Pete played another game after this one, and the Bretonnians overcame the Vampire Counts. So I had lost to the loser, making me the biggest loser of them all! Oh well, I hear it's lonely at the top. Maybe it's better down here. Underground. In my Dwarf hole...
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