Well, after playing Hold the Line with the Harad trying to cross the board, this time we swapped and it was the dwarves turn to try and get across.
The dwarves split into three squads to force the Haradrim to split their forces!
Brynmor led the shielded dwarves up one flank, the archers stayed in the middle to try and snipe horses and Rocky, Boggle, Etako and Freya headed off near the beach.
The Fang shoots and hits Etako, fortunately his fate saves the wound! Rocky is not so fortunate and The Pincer shoots him down.
Freya then takes out The Hawk in melee, dwarven sword and axe out performing the charging horseman and his warspear.
Archie manages to shoot down The Fox!
Turn 3, the Haradrim get priority and the Haradrim spur their horses to attack the dwarves. Freya wins the fight against The Falcon and scores a wound, but fate saves it for the lieutenant of The Falcon's Honour. Etako parries to win his fight and kills The Fang!
In Turn 4, the Haradrim get priority again! They attempt a charge against the shielded dwarves. Diva takes out The Serpent with help from Brynmor while Hilda Trollslayer with backup from Kara's spear wound The Talon twice, fate saves one wound but the other gets through.
Freya uses a throwing axe to take out Sunstone.
Rhoda the elf takes out The Falcon's horse! He falls flat on his face! For the most part all of the shooting (including the throwing axes) has been pretty poor! Every round I would hit but then roll a 1 or 2 for the wound!
In turn 5 the parties all reposition, all shooting misses and there are no combats. As you can see, the Harad have not fared well. Their usual tactics do not involve taking on dwarves in 1-1 combat, but the scenario this time works well in favour of the dwarves.
In round 6 the dwarves finally get priority, mostly they charge forward towards the other end of the board. The Talon charges in and knocks down Mighty Monty spearing the dwarf and taking him out of the match.
The Pincer shoots Boggle (shooting into combat, hitting the dwarf in the back, rerolling thanks to poison and wounding him - though it is saved by fate). Taking similar risks, The Wolf shoots as well, but the arrow flashes past the dwarf and wounds The Falcon!
Boggle, arrow in his back, smashes down The Falcon with help from Etako.
In round 7 the priority is returned to the Haradrim (who have had priority 5 times so far). Brynmor calls a heroic move to charge The Talon, who uses two points of might to win the fight but fails to wound the high defence dwarves.
Etako parries and takes out The Sparrow while Boggle kills Black Cloak after both a parry and using his blademaster skill! Freya loses her fight, but is not wounded.
In the final rounds the dwarves mop up the surviving Haradrim. Kara Longspear kills The Talon.
Freya's charging axe throw removes The Tiger from the match while Boggle and Etako take out The Wolf...
Before finally dismissing The Pincer and his double shot poison elf bow of nastiness!
At the end of the match, only two dwarves were removed and all the Haradrim were sent home!
We commented many times about how this match-up was a really hard one for the Harad force. They usually like to use their horses and archers to focus on dwarves, but because I sent a squad in each direction they had to split their forces and to top it all off they kept getting priority, which hampers the cavalry as I can counter charge to swarm them.
In other words, the dwarves FINALLY won a game! In fact, when I told my son that my brother was coming over he said "Oh, is he coming over to beat you again?"
With the bazillion xp the dwarves got, Etako got an extra attack, Brynmor got parry, Boggle got an extra point of strength, Freya the iron guard is now a hero in the making (and easily dwarf of the match) and I've saved up enough influence over the last three games to guarantee that I got another vault warden team to cap off my squad at 15 troops.
Unfortunately after that mission, The Falcon, The Tiger and The Wolf will be sitting out the next game! Potentially worse, The Fang got an arm wound, which means he can't shoot his bow! The Fang upgraded to a Keen Eye and The Pincer is now a Master of Poisons.
