The Grudge of Drong

Following on from the battle of Grudge Pass the building tension between the Elves of Tor Eldroth and the Dwarves of Kazzad Thrund spills over into yet another armed clash.

Having won over Queen Helgar with a show of wealth and generosity (unheard of in a dwarf!) Drong had succeeded in securing the Queen's hand in marriage and all seemed well. The Dwarfs were happy, new trade routes were opened and the Elves breathed a sigh of relief. Drong lifted the taxes on goods travelling through drudge pass and all started to prosper again. Elsewhere however storm clouds grew. As tensions between elves and dwarves throughout the old world heightened and clashes became more frequent.

A Rune Smith by the name of Grung arrived in Krag Bryn. He claimed to have been driven from his ancestral lands by the Elves and he bore a deep seated drudge. He attended Drong's hall and as the evening progressed his stories became increasingly spiteful toward the Elves whilst extolling the dwarven virtues of pride and valour. He then cried out to all of the dwarfs present "Is it fitting for a Dwarf such as DRONG the hard to Elves rich?" Drong was shamed and his pride was hurt. He began plotting with the Runesmith to launch a grudge war against the Elves of Tor Eldroth.

Queen Helgar was not impressed with this. she was snubbed by the Runesmith who failed to show her the correct respect due to her noble lineage. She secretly despatched messages to her Elven allies warning them of the treacherous Runesmith.

And so it was that the Elves ambushed Grung whilst he and his followers were traversing the narrow and treacherous High Road through the mountains.

And so the Scene is set for Scenario 2 'The Ambush'.

Again we tweaked the armies slightly by setting a points limit of 1000pts for The Old World but otherwise we stuck fairly closely to the historical armies and we followed the limits imposed by the Battle Scrolls.

Initial set up. The Dwarfs can set up no more than 12" from their table edge and no closer than 12" to either short edge. Their long table edge is 'The Chasm of Doom" and is signified by a line of stones here. The Road is 12" from the Chasm and runs the entire length of the battlefield. areas of stones indicate areas of difficult terrain. Drong must be 24" from the short table edges. 

Sword Masters, Spearmen, the Mage Tethan and two great Eagles formed the main Elf battle line opposite Drong and his BSB with a unit of Quarellers. (The dwarfs have to deploy in marching column no more than 3 wide)

The rear of the dwarf column is made up of a unit of Slayers. Behind them were the shadow warriors and near the trees was the final Great Eagle.

As Grung's column reached the mid point in the pass the Elves sprung their ambush. With a great cry the Two Eagles with Tethan sped across the battlefield and crashed into the flank of the Dwarf Quarrellers. (This was my first mistake! I completely forgot about the whole Fighting rank rule! 🤦)

The rest of the Elven army advanced toward the Dwarves while the third Eagle swiftly soared behind the Slayers.

The Shadow Warriors took aim at the Slayers in front of them and loosed a volley of arrows which struck down 5 of the naked loonies!

As the Eagles struck the Dwarf column Grung and his BSB barrelled their way to the flank to face the opponents. The Eagles fair poorly against the dwarfs struggling to penetrate their armour. Gwailin launches all of her attacks against the Dwarven thane carrying the Battle standard and engulfs him in her razor sharp beak. as she bites down however the dwarfs armour holds and she can't penetrate it. Before she can react the dwarf brings up his hammer and smashes her in the face killing the noble bird. Similarly Grung quickly despatches Eryr in a flurry of blows. The noble Eagle did manage to bite off the head of one of Grungs escorts before he died however. 

With a triumphant shout the dwarves surged forwards (now here we were a bit stuck. the rules as written said that the dwarves had to overrun "directly forwards, without pivoting" so that meant the dwarves ran 3" along the road rather than toward the Elven lines 🤷)

The victorious Quarrellers then reformed their formation going from marching column into firing line. (again we got the rules wrong here as the movement rules state "Regardless of the manoeuvre performed, no model can move more than twice its Movement characteristic" and we missed this so the dwarfs were able to reform into a very long thin line) The slayers cautiously advanced toward the Elves main battle line.

Having reformed into their firing line the Quarrellers took aim at the Sword Masters and loose off a volley of over 30 bolts! luckily the complex manoeuvre had left the dwarves little time to take careful aim and only 2 sword masters were felled by their fail of bolts. Seeing the lack of success from shooting Grung called forth the powerful magics within the Fiery Ring of Thori (This is a special magic item created for the campaign. It's a bound spell that is automatically cast and creates a magically barrier of flame 6" in front of the dwarf unit that extends for the entire frontage of the unit. The flame lasts until the start of the dwarf players following turn. no model can cross the barrier or draw line of sight through it unless they are immune to fire. We used it exactly as described in the campaign pack even though it doesn't quite fit perfectly into the rules for bound spells in The Old World rules.)

End of turn 1 here you can see the long line of Dwarfs and the Nerf bullets indicate the fire wall. The Elven mage has moved out from the spearmen to try and get into range for his spells.

The Shadow Warriors remain in the rocks firing at the Slayers whilst Bwncath the last remaining Great Eagle positions himself in the Slayers rear.

With the raging wall of fire between them and Grung there is little the elves can do other than position themselves ready for when the wall dissipates. Bwncath charges the slayers rear whilst the Spearmen fail to charge the Slayers front. Bwncath tears apart one of the Slayers who in their shock at being taken in the rear fail to land any blows on the noble bird. the Slayers give ground but Bwncath follows up and keeps the pressure on the dwarfs.

As the fire wall fades the Quarrellers take aim at the Sword Masters and shower them with bolts killing 8! on the other side of the field Bwncath continues to take his revenge on the Slayers killing two more and forcing the dwarfs to once again give ground.

End of turn 2! the Sword Masters are woefully short of troops whilst the Spearmen have ended up in completely the wrong position (in hindsight I should have concentrated on killing the Slayers and ignored the crossbows once I lost the first two eagles. Instead the Elves end up attacking piecemeal)

In a desperate attempt to take down the troublesome Runesmith the Sword Masters charge the Quarrellers who take steady aim and stand and shoot taking down 3 of the brave Elves. The Spearmen charge the Slayers and the Shadow Warriors continue to advance to get into range of the quarrellers.

The Spearmen take down 2 slayers and Bwncath takes down another 2 (Again we got the rules wrong as we played the 8th Ed rules for Elven spearmen allowing them to fight in 3 ranks) . The Dragon Slayer kills the Elven Sentinel and the last remaining slayer on the rear rank finally manages to land a blow on Bwncath. The Eagle then stomps on the dwarfs killing another Slayer. In the main event the Sword masters desperately try to take down Grung directing all of their attacks at the Runesmith. Unfortunately the loss of all of their comrades has obviously shaken these elite Elves as not a single blow lands a telling wound. Grung hard pressed to defend himself is also unable to cause any wounds. His loyal standard bearer however is able to take advantage of the Elves preoccupation cutting them all down as they focus on attacking Grung.

With the Sword Masters now dead the Quarrellers now turn their attention to the Shadow Warriors and unleash another withering volley. These Elves are much harder to spot than their white clad cousins however and the Quarrellers fail to bring any of them down. Bwncath brings down another slayer while the Spearmen kill 5! The Dragon Slayer takes down two Elves in return.

(I forgot to take a photo here 🤦)

The Shadow Warriors finally in range of the Quarrellers took aim and loosed a volley at the troublesome Dwarfs killing 4 of the stunty warriors. Bwncath takes down another Slayer but takes a wound in return. The Spearmen finally take down the Dragon Slayer but lose an Elf in the process.

The Quarrellers again reform (again we got this wrong 🤦) and fired on the Shadow Warriors but again missed everything. Bwncath and the Spearmen finally finished off the last slayer.

As the sun started to dip behind the mountains Bwncath flew off toward his Eyrie leaving his Elven allies to count the cost. The Shadow Warriors determined to the last, fired another volley into the Quarrellers felling another 3 dwarfs. The Spearmen started the long trek back to Tor Eldroth the heads low mourning their lost comrades.

The Final picture as the Elves withdraw the Dwarfs in a final act of Spite spin on their heels take aim at Bwncath and finally bring down that most noble and brave of Avians.

And so Grung was free to return to Krag Bryn telling tales of Elven treachery in the mountains. This Dwarven victory means that they have free reign when building Runic items, had they lost the Dwarfs would have been limited to a max spend of 150pts on runes for the entire army in the final battle. It also means they can take Grung in the final battle should they choose.

Again this battle very closely followed the 'historic' battle with Grung and his Quarrellers surviving while the Slayers died. I do think that the dwarfs were aided in this by our misunderstanding the reform rules but even more so by my poor decision making. 

With the benefit of hindsight charging Gwailin and Eryr into the flank of the Quarrellers was a poor choice. They would have been better deployed to the front and rear of the Quarrellers to prevent them from reforming whilst the Spearmen and Sword Masters should have marched directly at the Dwarfs to get within 6" and stop Grung from using his Fiery ring, this would have also prevented a stand and shoot reaction to a charge on turn 2. Bwncath did a great job holding up the Slayers and probably didn't need any help from the Spearmen. He could have been helped by the Shadow Warriors instead. Tethan was bloody useless in this battle and I do find that magic is far less useful in this edition of the game (or I'm struggling to work out how to use it.) Given his magic items I should have kept him in the Spearmen and then used him in H2H against the Quarrellers but by not engaging the Quarrellers in combat with the eagles in the first turn I could have also used him to cast Fiery Convocation on the Quarrellers which would have helped to reduce their numbers.

Overall it was another really enjoyable battle, although my spirits did dip a little when the Sword Masters were so decimated by dwarven crossbow fire. It's maintained my hobby boost and has given me the drive I need to finish painting more Elves.

The next battle will be the Brewery Bash so I need time to prepare all the necessary terrain as well as finish painting these Elves. 🤞for an Elven victory.

Hmmmm it's been a while!

Well it's been a while since I last posted! 

Not sure what happened but life got hectic and blogging stopped.

However hobbying didn't 😊 There's quite a lot to record on here but I thought I'd start with a battle report.

Originally I was going to play out the Idol of Gork campaign from 5ed Warhammer Fantasy Battles. However I got a massive painting block after trying to paint 20 Empire Crossbows in black and yellow! So that's on the back burner at present.

Recently my mate Tom suggested playing the Grudge of Drong campaign as he's got the necessary dwarfs all painted up so I could concentrate on painting up the High Elves. Now my High Elf army mainly consists of the minis from the 4ed boxed set and the Island of Blood boxed set (8ed I think) so it was missing some key units mainly Shadow warriors, giant eagles and some Sword Masters. I found some great sculpts on Thingiverse and set about printing them out. As always this proved to be far more difficult than anticipated as the printer hadn't been used for years so it took ages to get it dialled in effectively.

The 3d printed Shadow warriors certainly have a 4ed vibe about them. I struggled to get all the bows to print effectively so some more time fiddling with print settings and supports needed I think.

And the 'Giant' Eagles which are probably closer in size to the older Warhawks so again I bit of fiddling and a re-print necessary I think.

Now neither of those units were printed before the first battle so I had to proxy the Shadow warriors in the first battle🤦

The pictures aren't great as I didn't manage to finish painting all of the elves despite staying up into the wee small hours.

We decided to play the campaign out with The Old World rules just to see how it worked out. This required a little juggling especially with the Elves to make the forces equal points. In the end we played a 1300pt battle sticking as closely as possible to the "historic" armies listed in the campaign pack.

Below is the battle report.

"Krudd Mad-Mattock Master Engineer and kinsman to Drong the Hard called an extraordinary meeting of the Engineers and Miners guild... Soon the ravines that led to Krag Bryn resounded with revolutionary slogans: "Down with Queen Helgar!"... a motley throng of drunken and disgruntled dwarf rebels was marching on the Queens stronghold." and so starts the Tale of the Grudge of Drong a bitter feud between Elves and Dwarfs a taste of the vicious war of the beard that was yet to come.

The Dwarfs are met by an Elven Expeditionary force led by Fendar a High Elf noble of Tor Eldoth. Fendar meets the Dwarfs in the pass and draws a line in the sand stating that the dwarfs will be killed if they cross the line. The battle starts when the first drunken dwarf stumbles over the line.

The Armies deploy. Fendar leads a unit of 9 Silver Helms. Elfanor the mage leads a unit of 30 Spearmen. There are 10 Shadow Warriors and then two units of Archers make up the flanks.

The Dwarfs have a unit of Thunderers 15 strong, 28 warriors, a unit of miners 32 strong led by Krudd and his BSB and 15 Ironbreakers make up the left flank.

The large areas of stones indicate difficult ground the two brown mounds with square holes in the top are abandoned mine shafts.

The Drunken dwarfs surged forwards with a roar of defiance their entire line staggering forward. the Thunderers take aim at the elven spearmen and let loose a volley but in their drunken state they only manage to take down one of the noble elves standing coolly waiting for the slaughter to commence.

The Elves then advance with the archers and Shadow warriors all advancing in to advantageous firing positions. the archers on the left flank open up on the Dwarven thunderers hitting 11 times but the tough dwarfs shrug most of the arrows off and only two fall to the Elven barrage. The Shadow Warriors also let loose on the thunderers bringing down another stout dwarf. The archers on the right flank fail to find their mark and completely miss the large unit of miners. Maybe it's not just the dwarfs who have been on the drink!

End of turn 1. Both sides have advanced slightly and casualties are starting to mount up.

The view from the Elven lines (I really need to get some tails on those Silver Helms!

The cunningly disguised Shadow Warriors posing as Bretonnian Squires!

The right flank expertly balanced on a handy box of dice!

Seeing their comrades fall to Elven bow fire filled the Dwarfs with a righteous vigour, which when fuelled with copious amounts of ale saw them again stumble drunkenly forwards toward the elven lines. they redressed the ranks in a few places to level up the battle line but continued their haphazard advance.

The Thunderers again fired at the Elven Archers on the hill to the High Elves left but again the effects of the strong Bugmans XXXXXXX meant they only took down 1 elf.

The Elven Centre advanced cautiously toward the Dwarfs, wanting to maximise the time for the archers to thin the ranks. The Archers on the left flank retaliate against the Thunderers killing two of the stoic little fellas. The Shadow Warriors shot at the Dwarf Warriors to their front taking down 1 and the Archers on the right flank fire on the miners taking down 3 making up for their poor showing with their first volley.

Dwarven lines at the end of turn 2 (forgot to take a picture of the elves! )

The dwarfs continued their drunken advance except the Iron breakers who had to stop to vomit as they'd imbibed far to liberally at the extraordinary meeting. This disrupted the dwarven battle line and the Elves could see an opening! the dwarfs continued to advance upon the Elven centre placing themselves dangerously close to the elven units. The thunderers fired upon the archers but continued with their appalling accuracy hitting a few trees and a crow, but completely missing the Elven unit in front of them.

Elfanor summoned to winds of magic and prepared to cast his spell Vaul's unmaking but the winds eluded him and he failed to cast it. With a yell of Triumph Fendar and his Silver Helms charged the Dwarven miners. resplendent in their glittering mail lances lowered. but as they thundered forwards the miners standard started to glow. The Elves hesitated, their charge faltered and they merely bumped into the miners their lances rendered useless by the cunning dwarven runes.

The Archers on the right flank fired at the Warriors hitting 10 but only one dwarf fell to the elven barrage. The Shadow warriors also fire on the warriors killing another 2. Finally the archers on the right flank also fire at the warriors taking down another stout hearted dwarf.

Fendar challenges Krudd mad-mattock to a noble duel and the boisterous dwarf full of alcohol fuelled confidence accepts. Fendars consummate elven skills combined with his blade of darting steel meant that hi hit Drong twice and wounded both times but the Dwarfs armour deflected both hits. in response Drongs drunken swings of his mattock  managed to hit Fendar twice but the fine Ithilmar armour turned both strikes. The noble elves still full of hesitation failed to land a single telling blow upon the dwarven miners.  In response the dwarfs smashed four silver helms to the floor. Facing such a vicious onslaught the Elves fell back in good order the dwarfs in their drunken state failed to keep up with the retreating elves.

End of tunr 3 and things are looking decidedly dicey for the Elves. The Dwarven rune of hesitation has caused a massive problem for the Elves. 

Now is the time for decisive action, but still suffering from the effects of the dwarven rune the elves hesitate unsure of what to do next. 

As the dwarfs continue to stumble forwards under the influence of the alcohol one of the thunderers falls into an abandoned mine shaft. the miners then declare charge against the silver helms which the noble elves stand firm to receive. 

The Thunderers continue their archery duel with the archers on the hill killing another elven archer. In the challenge between Krudd and Fendar, Fendar takes a wound while Krudds armour saves him yet again turning away two of the elf's strikes. The silverhelms manage to hack down two of the miners and suffer no losses in return until the Dwarven Thane hoisting the Battle Standard swings his weapon and brings an elf low. The Silver Helms reluctantly give ground to the dwarven advance.

Now was the time for decisive action for the elves, the Archers on the right flank should have charged the miners in the flank, neutralising their rank bonus and magic banner but instead they continued with the original plan of shooting as many dwarfs as possible. The archers on the left flank shot the thunderers killing 1, the Shadow warriors also shot at the thunderers killing another dwarf and the Archers on the right flank fired on the warriors killing 1.

Krudd struck a mighty blow against Fendar smashing the noble elf to the ground. the miners strike down another 2 silver helms and the remaining elven knights flee from the battlefield in ignominy.

End of turn four and it's looking very bad for the Elves. Krudd is almost certainly going to break through and escape the Elves trap.

The battle wasn't done yet. The dwarven warriors and Iron breakers both charged the Elven spearmen but the Iron breakers, still under the influence of the Bugmans tripped over their feet and failed to make it into contact with the Elves. The Dwarven warriors having exerted themselves too much started vomiting as they crashed into the elven ranks. 

The thunderers finally starting to sober up fired at the Archers on the hill and took down 3 of the brave elves. in the battle in the centre the swift elves kill 2 dwarfs while the drunken dwarfs failed to take down any of the spearmen. The dwarfs reluctantly give ground to the superior Elven skills.

The Elves continue to pour arrows into the dwarfs killing three more thunderers although the archers on the right flank again miss the entire unit of miners.

The spearmen hack at the dwarven warriors cutting down another 2 the dwarfs manage to bring down 1 elf in return. under the influence of the alcohol the dwarfs see things far worse than they actually are and they break and flee. the triumphant elves run them down and wipe out the entire unit of warriors.

As the sun sets the remaining elves perform a fighting retreat, carrying the seriously injured body of the captain with them. The victorious Dwarfs crack open another barrel of ale and continue their advance upon Krag Bryn.

This was a close fought battle which closely followed the course of the 'historic' battle report in the campaign pack. The dwarfs rune of hesitation certainly played a key role in this victory, allowing the miners to withstand the charge of the silver helms. Without that rune it's quite likely that things would have gone much worse for the miners. The elves also failed to act decisively in the last two turns. if the archers had charged the miners in the flank then it may have been just enough for the Silverhelms to survive and turn the tide of the combat. We decided not to let the Shadow Warriors deploy with their special rules which also made things more difficult for the elves. Having a unit in the dwarven rear which could have charge the miners from behind whilst the Silver Helms charge the front may have also turned the tide.

The Dwarfs played very much as they had in the original game. Krudd is tough to kill and he's got some pretty solid units to depend upon. The rules for drunken dwarves are amusing and add a nice element to the game, they certainly make the dwarfs faster as most were stumbling forwards by 3" a turn before they marched. We did laugh at the drunken Thunderer falling into the abandoned mineshaft as well.

Overall converting the game to The Old World involved very little. we allowed the characters to take the same magic items as they have in the battle scrolls and they worked pretty well. The biggest difficulty is the magic phase as it's very different to 5ed and played no part at all in this battle. With a different spell it may have been more decisive. We were also learning how to play The Old World so no doubt we made some errors but on the whole it was a really fun game which lasted  3-4 hours.

The next battle is the Ambush on the Dwarf Road, where the elves ambush a Rune Lord and his retinue on the way to meet with Drong. We'll see how this one plays out in the next battle report.