Fantasy
When we played
with these armies 25 years ago, the Dwarves were played more than any other,
partly because we had good figures and partly because one friend of mine,
Gordon, loved playing dwarves in RPGs and really took
the army under his wing. 4 out of the 5 games played involved dwarves, plus at
least one more that didn't involve me and perhaps others that I know friends
talked about but which I don't know if they came to fruition or not.
Our games
were... Dwarves vs Giants, Dwarves vs Lorien
Elves, Dwarves vs Orcs, Orcs vs Minas Tirith, Dwarves vs Minas Tirith
1) Dwarves vs Giants: this was really a
play-test rather than a true battle as I'd just written up rules for
bolt-throwers and giants, so I and a couple of friends just set up a sub-500pt
scenario of maximum dwarvish artillery facing pure
giants throwing rocks and stuff. There were no terrain and no real tactics and
the dwarves managed to down the giants just before they made contact. Very
artificial but it let me tweak my factors to ensure balance in the new rule
additions to Gush.
2) Dwarves vs Lorien
Elves: dwarves chose zilch terrain but the Elves had 2 large woods with a sort
of lane running down the centre, just wide enough for their cavalry. The left
hand wood ran up and down the table from the Elvish baseline to just short of the centre-line. The
other was the same size but turned through 90 degrees so the 'lane' led to an
open area behind the right hand wood. All the Elvish
infantry started just inside the trees, with only their cavalry in the open,
blocking the avenue.
The Elves
performed poorly, partly through poor management (by Jim, new to figure wargaming) and partly through bad luck. On the Elvish right flank, Jim tested the water with two units of
archers who emerged from the woods to take on some dwarven
skirmishers. Jim, perhaps wishing to concentrate his fire, had them change to
close order, which proved a mistake as Gordon's HI open order dwarves proceeded
to roll a plus to his minus and significantly outshoot the Elves, who after
just a single turn were pulled back in to the trees – not forced by morale, but
by orders from a jumpy general.
After a few
long-range crossbow shots had led Jim to pull his cavalry back in to cover as
well (ending their near-continuous charge threat), the 500 pt scenario ended
inconclusively for the obvious reason that the Elves refused to leave their
woods and the Dwarves certainly weren't about to go in after them.
3) Dwarves
vs Orcs of the
My tactics were
to keep the Giant away from Gordon's bolt thrower and use him to lob rocks
while the Orcs and Goblins screened the Trolls until
they were in a position to smash the Dwarf King's Guard. Gordon realised my
tactics early on and went on the defensive with a rolling retreat on to his
bolt thrower. My Giant attacked at one point due to too much enthusiasm but I
managed to rein it in, though not before it took a couple of shots from Gordon's
artillery.
We ran out of
time but I think I would have won eventually - one thing about dwarves, if they
lose, they'll take their time about it. (If I'd had just one unit of Wargs, I could have used charge threat to pin a flank and
open his defensive posture or attempt an over-run of his bolt thrower. Isn't
hindsight a wonderful thing?)
4) An epic battle of 2000pts a side and the only one without
Dwarves; Saruman's Orcs vs Minas Tirith: I umpired this
between two of my housemates; Eleanor, an ex-girlfriend, played the Orcs, and Jim played Gondor. It
ran from 5 or 6pm through to dawn; an amazing battle of manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre,
quite unlike WRG6.
It opened with
units of D-fanatic Wargs on each flank going
impetuous. One chased a unit of light cavalry off the table (neither ever came
back); the other attacked a bunch of archers who evaded, leaving the Wargs to charge home on HI spear-armed City Militia – ouch!
That dual
debacle coloured Eleanor's handling of her army thereafter, keeping her
remaining Warg unit intact behind her central
infantry to deter cavalry charges (she had learned this trick with Elephants in
her favourite Seleucid army), though she was a little more adventurous with the
ravaged Warg unit once she rallied it (her general
had to put in quite a chase, catching them right on the edge of the board).
Jim in turn was
always very wary of the remaining Wargs. At one point
he could have smashed through the Orcish centre with
his Knights of Dol Amroth
but he was afraid of the reserve Wargs, failing to
realise that 5 Wargs cannot protect more than one Orc regiment at a time.
Eventually, the
Tower Guard saw off the Uruk-Hai for a win for Gondor but either side could have won more than once as
both failed to put in the killing punch when needed, though in the confusion of
battle it was hardly their fault. IMO a brilliant game.
5) And from the sublime to the ridiculous; Dwarves vs Minas Tirith: not as large as
the previous but still around 1500pts a side. Thoroughly outscouted,
the Dwarves (under Gordon, of course) set up on a long low ridge facing a
village on their far right with ploughed fields counting as soft ground between
them and the Gondorians. (The Gondor
player was Richard [Jim from #4 was watching, though] an experienced wargamer, but daft, I've no idea what he thought he was
doing with such terrain.)
Richard deployed
his Rangers of Ithilien, 12 of them, at the near edge
of a field in close order. He then ordered them in to the field, found himself
disordered, opened his formation to open order, rallied to lose the disorder,
continued across the field, only to return to close order again on the other
side. This took some time as you can imagine.
Meanwhile, *all*
the rest of the Gondorian troops formed up in a huge
wedge formation, cavalry at the front, behind the village and facing obliquely
*away* from the Dwarves. Richard then proceeded to send them all around the
village to his far left flank, each at their best speed, presumably to take the
Dwarves in their right flank.
Of course, as
soon as he saw this weird formation Gordon frantically despatched new orders to
his dwarves to swing around from an east-west axis to north-south. At the time
he obviously felt desperate but actually he had plenty of time.
The Gondor army therefore hit the Dwarves unit by unit in order
of speed of movement, Riders of Rohan first. Due to
going impetuous at first sight and then having the unit they were aiming at
retreat *back* out of range of 2 charge moves (due to the realignment) they
arrived disordered. Naturally they ran slap in to a wall of dwarvish
armour and axes through a gauntlet of crossbows and received a sound thrashing.
Other units
arrived in dribs and drabs, none of them used effectively. Richard sent one
unit of knights off to annihilate a useless troop of allied slingers that had
got lost during the realignment and never regained position. Another chased the
lone allied cavalry regiment from the board, both
never to be seen again.
The M-class City
Militia, instead of standing off and pouring in arrows, were ordered straight
in to hand-to-hand combat with B fanatic line axe Dwarves supported by Dwarvish crossbows (which is what we had at the time) and
were dealt with as you'd expect.
When finally the
Rangers of Ithilien arrived from having crossed the
fields, they attempted a missile duel with the Dwarven
skirmishers, but 12 LI, half longbow/half spear, without any armour, in close
order, facing HI crossbows in open order, do not come off well. Since the Dwarves could move and shoot, unlike the longbowmen, the skirmishers closed and eventually charged the
Rangers; a sad end.
And that's where
the battle ended, with the EHI Tower Guard still barely in crossbow range. A
travesty, I'm afraid, but a travesty won hands down by the Dwarves. Jim, the Gondor player from battle #4, thought it the most
incompetent piece of generalship he'd ever seen and I'm inclined to agree (and
I've committed a few howlers myself). Handled properly, the Gondor
army should beat the Dwarves in a fight like this. The Dwarves should be pinned
down by charge threats and shot ragged by longbowmen
until finally the cavalry charge in to finish them off. Of course, this takes
time and a lot of patience.
That was the
last game I was involved in. I know that somewhere along the line, Gordon led
the Dwarves to a handsome victory over Saruman's Orcs (it may have been just before battle #3) but I didn't
see it so I can give no details.
Several people,
including John (the guy who owned most of the figures) wanted to recreate the
So, the Dwarves
are the most tested of all the armies and have certainly proved themselves.
OTOH, I'm not sure how they'd fare against a mixed cavalry/infantry force,
especially if it had real artillery (provided the general is not Richard).
However, I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun.
If you get to
play *any* of these lists, please let
me know. Better still, send a battle report in to the WRG15th/17thCenturies
list - especially if it involves the Hobbits, which I think could be a lot more
fun than it looks. :-)