Since picking up an iron hills chariot at warhammer fest I couldn't wait to get it painted up and to try it out in a game. Four weeks on I managed to arrange a game with my good friend Harfoot who had also recently painted up one of his Gundabad trolls. Therefore, we thought it would be worth playing a points match to try out our new 'toys'
We had such an enjoyable game I thought I'd share with you a few highlights. There were a few rule queries during the game that we weren't 100% sure on, more on those later...We played 700pts points match and rolled domination for the scenario. My army consisted of two warbands. The first contained a dwarf chariot with captain and iron hill dwarf warriors. The second contained more iron hill warriors led by dain on his boar. I deployed the chariot and a shieldwall of dwarves near the central objective. The other warband of dwarves, led by Dain, set up slightly further back to protect two other objectives.
My opponent had an Azogs legion army, also formed two warbands. The first (I dubbed the warband of death) included a Gundabad troll, two ogres and some orc berserkers led by azog mounted on the white warg. The second warband (I dubbed chariot fodder) consisted of a Gundabad orcs led by a captain. Both Azogs warbands were deployed near the two objectives in Harfoots half of the board:
Turn 1: the iron hill shield wall stood firm and defiant forgoing their movement. The Gundabad legions rushed forwards with azog and the berserkers leading the charge. The chariot got lucky managing to get 5 hits with the repeater crossbow. These were aimed at an unfortunate ogre who was slain by the deadly volley.
Turn 2: the Gundabad legion continued to march forward with relentless speed. The dwarves on the left flank made a tactical move backwards much to the annoyance of my opponent ('Ha! Brave dwarves, Dain wouldn't stand for that!'). The dwarves on the right flank edged closer to the oncoming Gundabad orc hoard. The chariot, not as lucky as in the first turn, managed to slay two orc berserkers running towards it.
Turn 3: evil won priority and two orc berserkers charged into the chariot (darn their 8" move). Azog and his trolls moved closer to the shield wall on the left. This time the dwarves moved forwards towards the danger, hoping to prevent the troll from charging the chariot... Dain ran towards the right flank (essentially away from azog) to lend his support against the on coming orcs. The crew of the chariot valiantly slew one of the berserkers* and a couple of orcs fell to the dwarves to the right flank.
Turn 4: the chariot surged forwards and drove down three berserkers before being stopped by a lone Gundabad orc spearman. The dwarf warriors on the left flank charged into the Gundabad troll and a lone warrior engaged Azog hoping to slow him down... Alas, wise to my plan, Azog declared a heroic fight making short work of the short warrior stood before him and charged the, now exposed, chariot. Armed with the stone flail, azog managed to slay most of the crew and inflict three wounds on the chariot itself**. The troll made short work of the dwarves in the shield wall on the left flank, killing three with a mighty slice with is scythe gauntlets.
The dwarves on the right flank managed to slay a few orcs between them, the shield wall stood firm. Dain charged into the Gundabad orc captain, bowling him to the ground and inflicting two wounds, but fate saved the captain to live.. for at least one more turn...
Turn 5: Seeing the chariot approaching, Dain thought better than to get in the way of his warmachine and instead called a heroic move to rally the right flank to charge into the remaining orcs, overwhelming them in number. The chariot also heroically moved forward to crush the remaining two orc berserkers, four Gundabad orc warriors and (sadly) the captain*** who was still lying on the ground recovering his fight against Dain in the previous turn. The troll smashed into the dwarf shield wall again hoping to take down more hated foes. The remaining ogre also charged in to support (assuming trolls need support!). Azog charged into the chariot for a second time. Calling another heroic fight he targeted the chariot and smashed it asunder his mighty stone flail. He then went on to kill a few lone dwarves on the right flank, edging ever closer to Dain. Dain and his warriors managed to slay a few more orcs but some of their brothers fell with them.
By this point Harfoot had been reduced to 25% and so the game ended. However, despite the amount of kills inflicted by my iron hills army, he held three objectives to my single objective in the centre of the board. Quite sneakily he had held two warriors back to cover two objectives...he had stuck to the game well and secured victory. This ment Harfoot won the game 9-6. However, it was an enjoyable game!
Yet... There were a few things we were unsure of which would be good to understand for our next game in relation to the chariot:
* it occurred to me if the chariot has a captain and calls a heroic fight, how would that work with the chariot? Can it charge again? If it can does would it follow the same rules for charging during the move phase?
** after the game I realised we may not have played azogs ruling correctly. He can of course wound heroes on a 3+ but how does this work for the chariot? It says in the entry that the captain makes the chariot a hero. Surely this doesn't mean azog can wound the chariot on a 3+? Does this mean he can only wound the driver on 3+ and the rest of the crew on a 4+? When attacking the chariot can you choose which crew to strike?
*** finally, the poor Gundabad captain got knocked over by Dain only to be eventually squished by the chariot in the next turn... However I wasn't sure if a prone model suffered double hits, we presumed not and just did the standard 3 S6 attacks as the rules don't mention the exception. But was this correct?
Hope you enjoyed. Our next game will hopefully feature alot more points
So would this mean it could 'trample' twice? I. E. Once in the movement phase, and once in the fight phase after calling a heroic fight? I presume this is the same as a mumakil?