Introductory Confrontation Battle Report

We thought that a good way to introduce Confrontation to people was to run a battle report between small Dirz and Wolfen forces.

Dirz vs Wolfen 300pts

Basic Pitched Battle on a 3'x3' table.

ARMIES:

TABLE SETUP:

Dirz won the setup roll and took advantage of the nice hill supplied to them and used the Halberdiers as a wall in front of the hills to protect the archers from a frontal assault.

Wolfen attempted to counter by placing the crossbows on his own hills and using the forest cover (and created cover for onyx with the Wolfen Warriors.

TURN 1:

The Wolfen win the approach roll thanks to a rerolled 6 for onyx.

MOVEMENT:

The first few draws all activate Ysis and Dirz Crossbowmen who stand still and prepare to fire on the Wolfen. Tired of doing nothing, the Wolfen Warriors rush forward in hopes of cutting a path through to the archers. Onyx follows and, sensing the threat, the Halberdiers close on Warrior 1 and both Keratis Warriors charge Warrior 2.

Finally, The Wolfen Crossbows advance to get a closer shot and hopefully get within charge range for turn 2, and the Predators make their way around the forest trying to salvage as much cover as possible.

SHOOTING:

Ysis opens up the shooting with her Hexalid Crossbow and since the shot is a simple one, she chooses to roll an extra die toward the wound. The first Wolfen with Crossbow suffers a serious wound and as a result, misses his own shot. The other Wolfen Crossbow takes aim at Ysis and manages a Killing wound roll leaving the Dirz player squirming in his shoes. The final shooting from the Dirz Crossbowmen manage to increase the first Wolfen Crossbow to Critical, but only manage to stun him rather than earning the killing blow.

COMBAT:

The Halberdiers prove to be largely useless against the first Wolfen Warrior only managing a Light Wound and a Stunned result on 6 attack dice. Thanks to his Born Killer talent, the Wolfen fights back and manages to critically wound one of the halberdiers and kill the other outright.

The Keratis Warriors make short work of the other Wolfen Warrior scoring an impressive seven hits, five of which wound and kill the Warrior (and then chop him to bits, and chop the bits into smaller bits, and well you get the idea)

The second pair of Keratis manage to stop mutilating the Wolfen Warrior long enough to realize that they can try to mutilate onyx as well and they decide to try their luck at Pursuit. (The first pair of Keratis were out of range for pursuit) They prove not to be lucky at all as between the two, only one hit is scored and onyx easily deflects it. Needless to say, he's not very happy about his brothers being killed and about being left out of the initial fight and he takes it out on the Keratis. One is killed outright and the other suffers a critical wound, which only goes to show, if you're going to pursue and put all of your dice in attack MAKE SURE YOU HIT.

TURN 2

Dirz win the Tactical Roll.

MOVEMENT: The Crossbow wolves each activate early and charge head first into three Dirz crossbowmen each on the hill. Wolfen Warrior 1 is still in combat with two Halberdiers.Onyx is charged by the remaining Keratis Warriors who are in turn each charged by a Predator.

SHOOTING: No shooting

COMBAT: The main mess is separated into 1 on 1 battles each between a wolfen and a keratis warrior.

The Dirz player starts by trying to finish off the Warrior with his two Halberdiers. Placing all dice in attack, he rolls miserably, but manages three light wounds, which when added to the Warrior's initial light wound mean he succumbs to the bleeding and finally dies.

Onyx once again tries to demolish his opponent and only manages to bring him to the serious level of injury. Fortunately, the Predators have a better idea of how to fight. The First Predator finishes off the Keratis onyx had wounded in the previous turn, and then moves on to help the other Predator via pursuit. If the Warrior in turn 1 was chopped to bits, the two predators diced the Keratis in this round. Unfortunately, since onyx had already fought, neither could help out in that fight nor could they reach the crossbow combat to lend support there.

The wounded Wolfen Crossbow falls to 6 hits and a double 6 on the wound roll quickly makes his death official. The Dirz can't reach the other combat and therefore stay where they're standing. The other set of Dirz hesitate and allow the other Wolfen Crossbow to inflict two light wounds and a critical one before inflicting a light wound in return.

The Dirz still have the numeric advantage, but the Wolfen realize victory is within their reach.

TURN 3

Dirz win tactical roll.

MOVEMENT: In a moment of complete stupidity, the Dirz player (who is also the author of this battle report) decides to completely overwhelm the Wolfen Crossbow that remains and brings the other set of Dirz Crossbows in via a charge for a total of 6 Dirz vs 1 Wolfen. Onyx is still in his combat and the Predators each charge a remaining Halberdier.

SHOOTING: No shooting.Why? Because I'M AN IDIOT!!! (see summary)

COMBAT:

The Dirz Crossbows make short work of the Wolfen Crossbow (and why wouldn't they, it was a 6 on 1 battle and he was already wounded) They stay on the hill since they're too far away to pursue into anything useful.

Once again, the Predators rip their opponents to shreds. The first Pred kills his Halberdier with three wounds and then moves on to assist in the killing of the last Halberdier with the other Pred. This second Pred then moves on to assist onyx in finishing off the pesky Dirz that is giving him problems.

TURN 4

Wolfen Win Tactical

MOVEMENT:

Be it bad luck for the Dirz or good luck for the Wolfen, the game ends with the three Wolfen cards being drawn before either of the Dirz. As a result, each Wolfen charges two Dirz before they have a chance to fire.

SHOOTING:Only myself in the foot.

COMBAT:

All the combats can be summarized by ONYX. He rips through his first two Dirz, then assists in ripping apart two more, and finally kills one of the remaining two and leaves the last for the Preds so they don't feel left out.

RESULT:
Wolfen Win in Four Turns

AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:

So I'm still a bit new with the Dirz. I haven't gotten used to waiting for the enemy to come to me yet, and I'm definitely not used to shooting into combat. Both would have served me well in this game. I think everyone knew that when I charged all of my Crossbows at the same Wolfen in Turn 3 that I was going to lose. I mean, if I'm going to do something THAT stupid, I deserve to lose, right. And the dice gods agreed. From there on, I think I rolled more 1's than I had in the rest of the game and the previous game (for which there isn't a battle report.) Born Killer definitely gave the Wolfen an edge in combat as did their high Movement rates, which actually helped more during pursuit than the movement phase.

Hopefully those of you getting into the game might find this helpful in seeing how other people play things. I realize at times it's more of a guide to what NOT to do if you're playing Dirz, but hopefully that will change as I get used to the army. Each report will hopefully get progressively more complex as I add in the additional rules for Incantation, Divination, and Incarnation. Wait and see.

And feel free to email with comments, questions, and general remarks as to the stupidity of the author CK

cjrickard1978@earthlink.net