Topic: Fluff 'n Fun Battle Log. The Expedition - Battle #4 (HE)

[Calisson]

Battle Log: The expedition of the Burgmeisters of AverHeim (initial post)
« on: August 27, 2009, 04:29:00 AM »

Fluff in purple - comments in black following the fluffy part.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

<<drumroll>>
To the attention of the brave citizens of AverHeim!

In an effort to enhance the glory and the beauty of our beloved city, we, your Burgmeisters, are mounting an expedition, which goal is to get some impressive monuments and decorate with them the HauptMarktPlatz.

In the forthcoming year, the public announcer will entertain you with the progress of the expedition. The expedition will investigate the Black Mountains and the Grey Mountains, searching for awesome monoliths.

The AverHeim College of Wizards will provide wise experts in the ancient & forgotten cultures, in order to determine what is worth taking back to AverHeim as glorious monuments for the future generations of visitors to admire.
The AverHeim Guild of Engineers will provide the workforce and the gunpowder to cut off from the savage mountains the majestic rocks which are hidden there.
The transportation is organized by the Chapterhouse of the Order of the Black Bear.

Some legendary stones can be found there, abandoned for us to recover, left over from the forgotten times when these lands were occupied only by long gone High Elves. Hopefully the explosions will not bother anyone, the mountains are said to be uninhabited save for a few Dwarfs and some Goblin pest, as reported by a few superstitious Bretonnian pilgrims.

<<drumroll>>
The bard group "Guns N' Horses" will chant the exploits of this Knights & Powder Expedition and entertain you during the incoming year.

[Calisson]

Real world explanation:
This thread is going to be my battle log for the next 12 months.
Just for you to enjoy, hopefully.

Foes:
My usual foes are Bretonnians, Dwarfs, Goblins and High Elves. Our playing style puts usually stronger emphasis on shooting and magic rather than melee. That's how it is, most attempts to get more melee-heavy did not bring sucesses so far.

My army:
My army is essentially made of the units I like in the Empire, i.e. essentially knights and warmachines, complemented by pistoliers and handgunners, along with an engineer and magic-users.
The list can be found there:
hyperlink => Knights and Powder, casual 2,250 pt
also with a presentation of planned tactics.

The units I don't take, and why.
I used to have more a gunline army with fewer knights, however I increased recently my knights component, as I appreciate its efficiency and find it more fun to play than a gunline. Now I have more knights instead of crossbows & bows, IC knights instead of outriders and a Grand Master instead of more engineers or magic users.
Hopefully by taking two helstorm, the most random warmachine, plus a pigeon engineer, plus fancy magic, the army will be more fun to play (with and against) than a pure gunline.

I don’t like Empire infantry. It relies too much on Static Combat Resolution and detachment’s countercharge to compensate from expected heavy kills. I’d rather get the best technology for my men, to allow them to kill safely at distance or to provide them with the best protection in melee, rather than having them killed in hordes.

I don’t like the fanatic spirit of priests and flagellants.
I’m not found of monsters in an Empire army.
I don’t want Mercenary regiments either (mostly because that would be at the expense of special/rare slots which I need badly for the warmachines), nor do I take anymore the primitive technologies of bow and crossbow.
Tanks are too rare to field them fluffwise, however I could field one sometimes.

My fluff:
I settled down in Averheim because it’s fluff is compatible with the army I want. It is a city, able to support engineers and wizards, rich enough to buy expensive warmachines, close to Nuln but also to Tilea where some of the most creative engineers come from. Averland has a tradition in horse breeding going perfectly along with the heavy knight presence. Away from the capital city, it is independent from the Cult of Sigmar and not influenced by the Imperial Zoo. I know, I didn’t take the renowned Greatswords of Averland, nor mercenaries, nor crossbows, nor pikes, there is a part of the fluff not integrated in my army.
In addition, there is some more interesting fluff: Averland was blessed with Marius Leitdorf, the most fluffy count, an engineer and a poet as well as a fierce combatant; his death was a tragic loss but having no head of state at present opens many opportunities. Besides that, a good surprise was the description of the secular Order of the Black Bear, which fluff is hilarious.

[RoX]

Sounds like a good start so far whens your first game?

[cisse]

Looks promising, I'll be checking this for updates! A very nice start!

[Calisson]

Battle schedule:
I play against my two sons. We have no set planning.
Usually we try to play either WHFB or WH40k on weekends, and not necessarily all WE.
Furthermore, I have another army, DE, which I may play for a change sometimes.

Overall, I expect to play with the Empire something like once a month or possibly a little bit more.

The first game could well happen next WE but could also wait for a couple of weeks, who knows?
Also, I'd like to finish mounting & painting the 8 knights and 1 HelStorm I've just got. I hate to play with unfinished models, proxies, or barely painted models.


Language difficulties.
I'm new to Warhammer-Empire, and my rulebook and army book are in French.
I may translate wrongly some words.
Please forgive and let me know.
Thanks.

[RoX]

no problem and look forward to it!

[Fandir Nightshade]

You will do great! and if you need any help just ask.

[Swan-of-War]

Looking forward to this thread - great stuff so far!

[GamesPoet]

I like the creativity that you have, and welcome to W-E!

[Calisson]

Army list (or kind of - it's about names and fluff, and humour, too)


<<lots of dust while the convoy moves across the HauptMarktPlatz>>
<<drumroll>>
To the attention of the brave citizens of AverHeim!

Brave citizens of AverHeim, please applause the members of the Expedition while they leave our beloved city for the dangers that lay outside. As you can see while they move in front of you, even though the goal of the peaceful expedition is purely scientific and artistic, the Expedition is fully able to defend itself and will make indeed a fierce opponent if they come under harassment.

Leading the Expedition is the Grand Master of the Order of the Black Bear himself.
Rumours are that he wants to pick up the most impressive stone for an impressive ornament in front of the chapterhouse.
The Grand Master Otto Ritter, riding Woltet, wields his cutting sword Ar Gummend.
He is so quick-tempered that Bretonnians fear even his name. It was indeed a Bretonnian who gave the sword that typical far-western Lyonesse name.

Behind him come four squads of the order of the Black Bear.

Immediately behind the Grand Master are his Inner Circle knights. These are the most formidable knights that can be found in the Empire.
Leading them is the knight Konrad Lehrwadeck, who has Bretonnian origins (Le Roadec). Squared outfit for the Inner Circle, he is a hand of steel in a glove of iron. He is so dumb that even the other knights did notice, but at least he is fearless in melee and if he cannot count himself, he can be counted upon.

The next squad of imposing strength is led by the knight Boris Nichtgut. The Bawler knight, moaner and brainless has inspired Bretonnian legends (“Le Chevalier Braillard, Râleur et sans Caboche”). Devoured with ambition, always eager to go too far, he is known to be utterly single-minded: he wants to become the Grand Master in the place of the Grand Master. That is his all-time motto, his dream, his permanent plot... and his failure so far.

The last two smaller squads are led by the knights Loreli and Den Haardi. The tall Loreli dreams naively about unbelievable feats. The fat Den Haardi abused too much of beer to be able to accomplish any. However, together, they are often able to knock over pretty much anything on the battlefield, sometimes clumsily.

The future of the knights is there: every would-be knight starts with a duty as pistolier.
Leading a group of 6 (Sechs) Pistols is the famous Lüki Lüke. Ace shooter, he shoots faster than his shadow!

Today, you will not see the Black Bears' Battle Standard, as the expedition is not offensive in its spirit. The Standard bearer is Captain Matt Üvüe, the Bawdy Knight, stuffing his face and smelling beer. Today he keeps safe the chapterhouse, its galley and its cellar.



The two wise men riding elegant horses coming next are the two wizards of the Expedition.

The Mage Istral, a brilliant and merry fellow, knows many jests and his extraordinary fireworks are unforgettable.

Humbert the seer (a.k.a. "HumBert, devin, ce que l’on tire, il faut le Voir") has been known to be so drunk that he couldn’t recall what his magic ring could achieve. But his delirium happens to be extremely useful, as he often describes what will happen in the near future and his spasmodic dancing walk is said to manage sometimes to trigger rain and lightning.



Finally, here come the ones who could be described as the cleverest people of our time.
The engineer Wolfi, widely respected as one of the greatest Techs Averheimer, is presently riding one of its creations, the mechanical horse he calls Krack Boum Hüe. He has always demonstrated – often exaggeratedly – an unbridled enthusiasm for any novelty. Thanks to him, we will receive news of the Expedition faster than what any horse could achieve: he carries large cages with domestic pigeons, which will deliver messages back home in no time. Applause him!

Several teams of powder experts are following on heavy chariots.
The first two teams are engaged in an endless competition. Rott Röhner and Weili Kohyodtt always squabble about who is going to shoot his cannon first, or who will be the most accurate. This time, they dispute about what they will bring back to our city.
On the next chariot, the one loaded with lots of powder and strange rockets made by the Averlandisher Kaboom Munizionen Erzatz, you can see Josse Mitsam and Davy Tuck. These two guys spend their lives (and risk them as well) experimenting fancy explosives and getting the most of them. No rock will resist them. Possibly they will erase the mountains in the process.

Coming last, the main workforce is led by one of our best shooter, Helmer Fudt. This man is awesome with a gun, even though he is very slow to aim at his target and you could expect him to be the last one to shoot.



<<drumroll>>
Brave citizen of Averheim, please hail the expedition as they leave our beloved city.
Who knows when they will come back home?
Who knows what extraordinary treasures they will bring back to us?

[Calisson]

Notes:

The Grand Master’s name, if you translate into French, sounds like:
“Le Grand Maître autoritaire survolté manie son argument tranchant”.
It means: the tall authoritarian teacher, wrought up, wields his cutting argument. Freightening indeed!
"Ar", in the Breton language, means “the”, hence the allusion to Lyonesse, which is the counterpart of Real World Bretagne.

Le Roadec sounds like a typical Breton family name, although the meaning in French is "Le Roi des C…" i.e. "the King of Fools".

Boris Nichtgut is a translation into German of "Iznogoud", i.e. "Is No Good", who is the hero of a famous comic in French. This ill tempered hero wants to become caliph in the place of the caliph, and keeps failing miserably.
The allusion to a legend is a parody of:
« Le chevalier Bayard, sans Peur et Sans Reproche ».
Bayard was a very famous knight in the late medieval times, and this was his motto.

Laurel and Hardy need no introduction.

Lucky Luke is another French cartoon hero, a friendly cowboy whose address at shooting is unbelievable. They say he shoots faster than his shadow.
They are 7 in his squad, so the remaining group is 6 pistoliers. 6 in German is Sechs, the allusion to the rock group was inescapable.

M’as-tu-vu means show-off, swank. Appropriate for the Black Bear!
“The Bawdy Knight, stuffing his face and smelling beer” is another parody of
« Le chevalier Bayard, sans Peur et Sans Reproche ».
Translated into French, it would become:
« Le chevalier Paillard, s’empiffre et sent la bière. »

« Magistral »
This just means brilliant. "Istral" has no meaning, although it sounds like "Mistral", the wind of Provence.
He owns the ring of fire.

« HumBert, devin, ce que l’on tire, il faut le Voir. »
Here, a substitution must be made, in order to read:
« Un verre de vin, ce que l’on tire, il faut le boire. »
Allusion at the saying: when the wine is poured, it must be drunk.
He owns the random ring and usually, gets the Heavens Lore.



Wolfie of Tex Avery needs no presentation. I couldn’t resist to use a name so similar to Averheim.
Crac Boum Hue comes from a popular song by a French author Jacques Dutronc. The sounds go well with the mech horse.

Staying with toons, everybody could recognize easily Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote, Yosemite Sam (the German “J” is pronounced “Y”) and Daffy Duck. Not forgetting their material coming from the ACME Company.
Elmer Fudd concludes the allusion to Loony Toons heroes.


You may wonder if I customize the models to resemble their names. Unfortunately, I lack both the talent and the time to achieve that. If ever anyone wants to borrow that idea, please go ahead. If I wanted my ideas not to be used by anyone else, I wouldn’t post them on the Internet, would I?


Thanks all of you for the warm encouragements, appreciate.

[Calisson]

Battle #1 report (Goblins)


Liebe Matt Üwüe,

The transit to the first site of excavation has been crippled by the incompetence of several members of the expedition.

Our young pistoliers must learn how to scout properly. Lüki Luke may claim to have the fastest horses and the heaviest pistol fusillade, it did not prevent us to fall in a classic ambush. And not a subtle one! It was a tribe of goblins… Pitiful.

The goblins were waiting for us just behind a curve of the track around a wooded hill infested by spiders. We barely had any time to set ourselves and shoot once when some wolves, with a unnatural rage for blood providing them with an unbelievable speed, were able to charge immediately the cannon which was inspected by our engineer Wolfi, and you know that these guys are not meant for battle, so it came to no surprise that not only they did not resist the slightest but also the hel-whatever servants behind them escaped quickly the battle and ran for hell or whatever. No big loss, they were unable to aim properly at anything anyhow, I feel more secure when they don’t even try.

The goblins had set some strange kind of war machines, two ballistae, one catapult and, believe it if you can, they were sending scouts in the air! Fortunately, these flyers are unable to land safely and make their report; what is very annoying is that when they eventually land, they can deal terrible damage to us.
Stranger more, it seems that three of their leaders, dressed in fancy costumes that could best be described as comic, were able to trigger some kind of magic. Our mage Istral told me it was not magic, at least nothing he could recognize from any civilized magic order, but man, it hurts, as no armour could protect our knights from the damage it was dealing sometimes.
Besides that, there were four stone trolls and a couple of herds of strange walking balloons with big teeth making some noise sounding like skwik or squigg, nothing to worry much about except that the music of the shepherd’s bagpipe is really awful. The goblins themselves only hope (rightfully) that they are way too numerous to be squashed down. There is an exception for a very few of them, which strength seems unlimited as they wield incredibly large flails which crushes our knights more easily than would a giant. Probably another goblin magic, and these fanatics never seem to get tired of it.

So when we charged massively a large unit of goblins, believing that it would destroy their leaders (it turned out that they just had escaped to another regiment without me paying enough notice), the squad of poor Boris Nichtgut was practically reduced to nothing because of these damn fanatics, so him and Istral became no match for a goblin counter charge. Boris must learn better if he ever wants to succeed me, as I know he is secretly plotting.
Meanwhile around me, Konrad’s Inner Circle, which had fewer losses by these fanatics, was charged and neutralized by all kind of monsters, skwiks and trolls (again, seeming to be pushed forwards by some strange magic) and I found myself quite lonely for a while until Den Haardi rescued me finally.
Before the battle ended, I felt the nasty magic once more and felt a great comfort feeling my shroud keeping its influence at bay. Too bad Den Haardi was later charged by several quick mounted goblin units and couldn’t resist them.

Lüki’s pistoliers, feeling guilty to have let us fall inside the ambush, thought wrongfully that they were ready to become knights and charged some spiders, only to find themselves s’quickly dispersed by these strange squicks. They must understand once for all that if they don’t have our solid armour, it’s because they have a job to do so they better learn to do it properly.

Only nine of us were standing up and valid when the goblin ceased their attack and went away with loud shouts to celebrate their large victory. We need to find more efficient ways to resist their sneaky magic and their small troops, both their quick light mounted troops and their individual fanatics.

Unfortunately I cannot count on the stinking walking powder specialists. As could be expected, their intellectual concepts did not achieve anything, except one lucky shot of cannon from Rött Röhner wiping a whole unit of wolves (he hates wolves). The only feat accomplished by any rocket was to blast a fanatic… surrounded by goblins. And it made these goblins laugh! I cannot stand this sound.


Liebe Matt, while you keep running the affairs in the chapterhouse, take some time to check how the pistolier trainees are educated.


Otto Ritter
G.M.O.B.B.

[Calisson]

Battle #2 (Dwarfs)



Study and discovery report.

Author:
Wolfi, 1st echelon graduate engineer, former student from Maesto Pié.

Location:
Black mountains, at approx 330 Imperial Miles South of AverHeim, in Wissenland near Kroppenleben, east of the road to Karak Hirn in a steep valley (average 17% steep) with a north western orientation and with three woodlooger houses, two of them oriented parallel to the valley, the last one perpendicular.

Environment:
Early afternoon, sky slightly cloudy (three on a scale of eight), gentle South East breeze with gusts of approximatively 27 knots.

Circumstances:
As soon as the Expedition arrived in the Black Mountains, large amounts of rocks were blast off in order to establish a flat place for the camp.
Shortly after, a small group of Dwarfs arrived and did not even try to make contact with us, but instead showed clearly some intentions to oblige us to cease our work.
I had to leave prematurely the field during the encounter, however I have been able to take precious notes for the improvement of the imperial knowledge.

Lesson learned #1
If you blast mountains off, it irritates Dwarfs.

Lesson learned #2
Dwarfs seem not to be many but they are more of them. They come from below the ground, from forests or from the closest tavern.
The Dwarfs arrived initially in small numbers, just war machines and range weapons. Only when we had finished to prepare for the battle did one large unit of warriors appear on the edge of the battlefield. Later on, another such unit emerged from a wood close to our machines, and, after the battle had begun, more dwarfs would come in, seemingly emerging from below.

Lesson learned #3
Like us, Dwarfs bring too many war machines in case they explode. Example: the anvil. It’s a shame it did not explode much later instead, for we had no time to study its effects.

Lesson learned #4
After a long journey, our war machines need a comprehensive overhaul, otherwise they are severely prone to fail. Or is it the moisture in the powder?
Fortunately, even if the propellant powder of several rockets seems to have lost any efficiency, at least the head's explosive power resisted much better.

Lesson learned #5
Pigeons are disoriented in mountains. The first two of these poor and sensitive birds failed to understand where to go, and worse, that they had to move at all before dropping their charge. What remained inside the pigeon cage was not able to fly anymore.

Lesson learned #5 bis
BBQ’ed pigeons are tasty.

Lesson learned #6
Cannonballs are harmful for the delicate devices of my mechanical steed. I hope I will be able to repair mine with the rudimentary tools available during the Expedition.

Lesson learned #7
War machines accuracy can be heavily improved by the use of engineers, as my dwarf colleagues superbly demonstrated. I wish we could do the same with our Hel-machine family.

Lesson learned #8
Short-range pistols and hurled axes are both deadly.
When both units agree on this fact, the quickest one runs away.

Lesson learned #9
Our knight’s heavy armour does not resist large amounts of heavy ammunition, be it thrown axes or Organ Gun bullet. War machines FTW!

Lesson learned #10
Even a very small target such as a lone dwarf general can be shot efficiently by competent hand gunners, while, in order to achieve the same result and kill that general, magic needs an irresistible snipe-spell. Bullets FTW!

Lesson learned #11
Magic does not hurt dwarfs. Especially when cast by a drunk wizard, who can’t even recall to use his sst-taff of pppower during the inexistent dwarf magic phase. Anyway, when he realizes that, the staff achieves nothing because we’re in a dwarf’s land inapt at any magic.
Even a magic ward save seems not to work in this country.
Fortunately, the wizards' ring was less drunk than its owner, and was able to cast a spell which went through. Actually, the most difficult spell has been cast by the ring, not by the wizards...

Lesson learned #12
Successive waves of knights achieve nothing but to present themselves as time-spaced targets.
According to my statistics, a unit of 8 can be reduced to 2 by a single blast of a marvelous organ machine, and a unit of 5 can be reduced to 2 as well in a single blast.
Two seems to be the constant that the machine is bound to leave intact.
I need more statistics to establish a law, hopefully there will be more such encounters.

Lesson learned #13
Smaller numbers of knights (three, two, one and zero were observed) are much easier to slide between bullets and are disdained by dwarven warmachines. They can reach a target with relative ease. However, next lesson learned is valid whatever the size of the unit.

Lesson learned #14
The wood of which the lances are made reacts in a very interesting way to the humidity of the mountains: it becomes flexible and easily bent. There are quite a few promising inventions that spring to mind when thinking about this highly exciting and unexpected property.
Meanwhile, if the knights cannot count on their lances, they just need to use their own mass and combine front-charges with side-charges instead of charging mindlessly straight ahead independently as they did. These lobotomized tin cans obviously don’t know anything about tactics.

Lesson learned #15
Dwarfs hate horses, probably because they are too short to mount them. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that there was not a single horseman remaining mounted at the end of the encounter.

Lesson learned #16
Dwarfs are much more efficient that we are
- in destruction of the enemy
- in self-destruction.
They did not claim to have massacred us only because we had more war machines on working state than they had at the end of the encounter.
A good point for the excellent training our warmachine servants receive in our schools: the theoritical lessons give them a sufficient polyvalence to serve a cannon or a Helstorm alike, and their bootcamp initial training gives them the stamina to run from the wreckedge of a cannon to a deserted Helstorm.


Conclusion.
This first day in the mountains proved to be extremely interesting, with so many promising properties to study.
As the knights are going to need some time to recover, I could be at relative ease to experiment to my content, if only I had taken all my laboratory material.

[Calisson]

Notes about the first two battles.

I played last Saturday against my two sons. Both won a major victory against me.
Well, my performance was not good. Sure, I can blame the dice, but only because they did not compensate for my shortfalls.

I have not played with my Empire army for the last 13 months (coincidentally, didn't GW release a new army book on July 31st, 2008?).
During those 13 months, both my sons made progresses and fine-tuned their respective army lists, with an uphill struggle as they had a lot of trouble to overcome my ... er... other army.

Now it is my turn to have the hill in front of me.
And I chose to do it with a very specific Empire army, with no mass of infantry to absorb shots and spells, although we usually play rather shooty & magic. Worse, I selected an engineer for fluff reasons although I knew a 3rd wizard or a priest would have been much more efficient. But I love engineers… At least I took no more than a single one.
It was deliberate that I took a good – but uncertain – magic phase and some very random Helstorm rockets & pigeons, in order to have fun with unexpected achievements – or disasters – rather than to get as much power and reliability as I could.

That is the army I run now, I’d like not to change it (well, it’s still possible to modify some magic items).

What I want now is to learn how to run that army. After the first try, I imagine it will take some time.

I have to overcome lesser Ld, less reliable first round of melee, weaker magic, limited magic objects, inaccurate shooting, range guessing, close-shooting fast cavalry, lack of cheap core flyers… and I must learn how to better use excellent armour, cheap shooting, potent warmachines, and… tactics of combining charges and anticipating what comes next.


The battle against the goblins.
My elder son is very good at tactics.
His goblin army is well tuned, with many warmachines, heavy magic, some hard hitters, and plenty of fast cavalry. And he knows how to use them; he is very good to anticipate my reactions.

A unit of wolves charging in his turn 1 was surprising but possible: moving 6” for greenskin impetus, charge at 18”, well done. Anyway, Gork’s hand could have pushed that unit for a charge as well. Too bad my engineer was in that cannon, and I just forgot to stand & shoot.
This is something I need to worry about in future encounters against goblins.

I also made the mistake to charge with both 8 knight units into a tempting large unit (but cheap)… across 1 fanatic, who killed a few IC knights. The knights easily caught that unit which fled, but the full charge movement… brought the second, intact 8 knight unit close to the other large goblin unit, triggering more fanatics who killed 7 of them. If only I could have killed two shamans in the process, but I did not pay attention that said shamans were not anymore in that charged unit.
Meanwhile, the IC unit was charged by trolls… who failed their stupidity test, but were pushed by Gork. Simultaneously, some squiggs side-charged them. Result = Grand Master sole survivor.
Two units destroyed because I did not anticipate how far would my charge leave me, while my son had plotted all this deliberately.

Same happened for the pistoliers: their charge easily wiped off a unit of spiders, but left them with the choice between pursuing in a unit of squigs – and die -, or stay still – and be charged by the squiggs, and die. They made the right choice – and died. They should have shot rather than charge in the first place, and who cares about the weak bows of the spiders?

About the warmachines, they achieved nothing remarkable, except when a Helstorm rocket was aimed in the middle of numerous goblin units, and only managed to hit… the fanatic who was worrying my son because he was just in the middle of his troops. At least, that one was comic.

I was wondering, in order to trigger the fanatics, I may just send the two handgunner detatchments running in front, the knights waiting at a safe distance. Nothing glorious! But I’m sure my son would charge these detachments with his light fast cav and the problem would not be solved. Possibly I will have to sacrifice two vanilla knights units each time. That makes an expensive fanatic trigger.


The battle against the dwarfs.
My younger son is not so good at tactics, but he is good at making powerful lists – and over-powerful too, if he can.
He initially considered using Thorek, Gotrek & Felix and Joseph Bugman in the same list. He softened his list and took only Joseph Bugman as a named character (but an anvil anyway).

Joseph Bugman is used for the ranger’s ability to scout. Miners come in reserve, an arrive on any table border. That increases his mobility.
20 shooters, the anvil and 4 warmachines make a formidable shooting phase. I was extremely lucky to see the anvil blast itself bye-bye in turn 1.

But on my side, I had my first two pigeons blasting my engineer and the cannon he had joined, plus a total of 5 warmachine failure (including one cannon self-blast and one rocket falling back, killing all crew - the cannon crew then managed to reach and serve the Helblaster at the end of turn 6). Worse, I had left the said cannon and engineer aligned for a dwarf cannon to shoot in a single bullet.
I was not lucky with the organ gun, which got twice 8 bullets, killing 3 knights once and 6 knights once. But what was my fault was to delay the progression of one of my unit so that I left him two turns for shooting.

On one flank, I avoided to charge frontally his main über-unit and charged a weaker unit next to them, but a delayed win plus a clever sacrifice from the servants of the cannon that I just had destroyed prevented my knight unit to get anywhere, and they went side-charged by that über-unit. Knights charged by dwarfs… Not a cost-effective use of the knights.
In the meantime, the other unit of knights, which I should have left in reserve, had tried to charge a unit of shooters, but was shot in the process and what remained did not achieve much during the next 5 turns of melee and finally decided to flee.

Finally, the hurled axes are deadly. My pistoliers did not kill any dwarf but half of them were killed by the return shot.
The other use of these axes was against my already diminished GM. He did not like that.

Magic was inefficient, even after the anvil blasted itself. Level 2 just can’t cast a spell requiring 12. And the other spell went easily dispelled.
I realized only in turn 5 that I should have used my staff to transform unused DD into PD.

The rubber lance is a well known syndrome. I must learn to compensate for that with combined charges. I have 4 knight units, one of them must be set apart for a supporting side charge.

Last thing I could do better: the use of terrain.
We are playing terrain setting by the rules.
My list having no scouts, with LOS-requiring warmachines and knights who hates any terrain, obviously I place only 1 piece of terrain. But I could choose better: I should take a monument. It blocks less LOS and path than other terrains, and I should be able to contest it quickly and for a long period.

One good thing against dwarfs is that I need not to protect the warmachines. They are a target for his own warmachines, not really for his troops.


To my dear reader
Hopefully someone enjoyed the fluff of the reports. I like to share some laughs.
The notes are added for sharing the experience.
Talking about fluff, "Mastro Pié" sounds like the French "m'a estropié", which means "crippled me".

Let me know what you appreciate, I’m sensible to my public’s comments.
 

[jan_boruta]

Both reports made me chuckle continuously while progressing through the stories and "lessons learned". That's great stuff to read and I hope for more and soon! My closest neighbour and former classmate plays Dwarfs and I play with him a lot, so I totally understand your concerns.

[ieloks]

Nice I like the play on French words (or is it Brettonian), and your engineer is FTW!

[Calisson]

Battle report (against Bretonnians):
the Ballad of the Handgunners, in rythm and rhymes.
Warning: the report has a strong bias, viewed from the handgunners.
They boast somehow, but who wouldn't?

Speaker. 1. Introduction, title.
After a hard day's work, men gather round the fires.
Here they tell the youngsters about the past stories.
Tonight the handgunners are chanting, at the end:
the battle of the Knights against the Powder Men.
- Cheers in the crowd -  

Singer. 2. Description of the terrain, link with the ongoing campaign.
We had cleared out a glade, around a standing stone.
After excavation, we would bring it back home.
The intricate symbols carved on the monolith
were telling our wizards it was full of magic.

Chorus.
In the use of the powder, we are the true masters.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 3. Enemy's general.
A Bretonnian pilgrim, desperate with the sight,
cursed us and threatened us, telling that he would fight.
And, the very next day, came the Bretonnian force,
led by a Quest captain riding a flying horse.

Chorus.
Taking out our muskets, we prepare for the fuss,
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 4. Enemy's description.
The Bretonnian party had a few pegasus,
some knights with heavy swords staring cruelly at us,
Two more units of knights praying with two damsels,
as bowmen and peasants were raising a gallows.

Chorus.
Readying for the battle, we take our positions.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 5. Own disposition.
The four units of knights were making our front line,
leaving all the handguns and warmachines behind.
Larger units of knights and rockets on the sides,
cannons in the centre, behind the fewer knights.

Chorus.
When the battle begins, we are twenty of us.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 6. Own fast cavalry & magic during the whole battle.
Pistoliers rushed ahead, securing the big stone.
A shower of arrows forced them to go back home.
A lightning killed three knights, two more by burning head, 
burning iron sniped one, then our magic went dead.

Chorus.
In the midst of the blasts, we wait for good distance.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 7. Own warmachines during the whole battle.
A rocket killed a knight, that was all for the day:
one Helstorm quickly charged, another blown away.
Inaccurate cannons could only kill four knights,
when perceived as a threat, they were destroyed to tads.

Chorus.
When it comes to shooting, all are counting on us.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 8. Handgunner's first two rounds.
The marksman killed a knight at impressive distance,
but a magic whirlwind prevented more offence.
Detachments moved away, we shielded the cannons,
when the first of us fell, shot by some high arrows.

Chorus.
As the battle heats up, we are nineteen of us.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 9. IC knights & general against Peggies & general.
When all the flying horses engaged the inner knights,
They couldn’t wound any and bounced on the armours.
The Empire’s general, after wounding the mount,
threw the Bretonnian lord in pieces on the ground.

Chorus.
Relying on the powder, we do not want armours.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 10. Lost combats in the centre.
From the Bretonnian side rushed two cavalry blocks,
pushing out of their ways their two small counterparts.
A wizard came with us, for a desperate shot,
last hope before the shock, steel pot against clay pot.

Chorus.
Even facing his death, a handgunner still fires.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 11. Charge against handgunners.
The bullets killed two knights, but four of them remained.
The poor marksman challenged, but fell with two comrades.
At least, the only ones to panic at our loss
were not the cannon's crews, but one unit of knights!

Chorus.
The main unit is gone, but remain ten of us.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 12. The Green Knight long delayed but expected apprearance.
Suddenly from a wood came a ghostly spirit,
a green and frightening knight, next to the monolith.
No one being afraid, he did not try to fight,
vanished and reappeared in the woods on our right.

Chorus.
The duty is stronger than despair and terrors.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 13. The Green Knight unexpected quick disappearance.
The ghost attacked our knights, challenging the champion,
but had to quit because… of their resolution!
Our five man detachment did not survive a charge
of a Grail knight unit, which pursued in a rage.

Chorus.
The battle is ending, one detachment remains.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 14. Last shots and failed charges.
A damsel was wounded by the last five of us,
but all peasants managed to break out from our knights,
or saw a charge too short to succeed banning them.
Two of the handgunners were shot by the bowmen.

Chorus.
By the end of the battle remain just three of us.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 15. Fleeing without admitting it. Result of the battle.
Our duty was achieved, we could leave with honour.
The Bretonnian message couldn’t have been clearer:
for all who use powder, they are relentless foes,
but they spare all the knights and the mounted heroes.

Chorus.
The ending battle sees our final sacrifice.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners.

Singer. 16. Conclusion for the fun.
The only spared shooter has been the engineer.
Some people may wonder why our foes did not care?
Because he did not shoot! And his horse and pigeons,
together, made a mount... looking like Pegasus!
- Loud laughs in the assistance -

Chorus.
The battle is over, we will avenge our losses.
We come from AverHeim, we are the handgunners!
- Loud cheers in the crowd -  

[Calisson]

Notes about the 3rd battle.


1. In the title, the "Knights" are the Bretonnians.
The "Powder Men" are the Empire.
Obviously, the Handgunners consider the Empire's knight did not really participate to that battle, all the more that they suffered hardly any loss.


2. The goal of the expedition is to excavate curious stones from the Black Mountains and bring them back to AverHeim.
The terrain was set up according to BSB rules, and happened to be perfectly in light with the fluff:
one hill in the middle of the Bretonnian side
one wood on each side of the middle line of the no man's land, each at 12" from the centre
one magic stone on the left wood's edge (monument: + 1PD or +1DD for who controls it).


3-4.The Bretonnian army had:

general = quest knight (IT panic), sword of quest (AP), on Pegasus
4 Pegasus knights, FC

8 grail knights, FC, banner of ward save 4+ against S5+ missiles (damsel inside)
8 errant knights, FC, banner of S+1 when charging
7 knights, FC (damsel and BSB inside)
BSB with warbanner, virtue of no panic and shooter's hatred
2 level 2 damsels, Lores of Beast 1&4 and Life 4&6

15 Halberds, FC
16 bowmen, skirmishers, champion

Trebuchet (nicknamed "gallows", since it was sinister but did not hit anyone)

And... The Green Knight - who appeared only in turn 3, was banned in turn 5 and did not show up in turn 6 => I gained its VP!


5. Disposition

The Empire army was the same as previously:
GM, sword S+2, shroud MR2 ws5+. With IC. I keep forgetting about the MR2!
8 IC knights, FC, warbanner (GM in there)
8 knights, FC, banner of 1d3" on charge (metal wizard is there)
2 x 5 knights, MC

level 2, mount, Lore of Metal 1&3 & ring of fire & MR1. With 8 knights
level 2, mount, Lore of Heavens 1&4 & random ring Fire 4 & staff. With warmachines.
Engineer, mech horse, gun, pigeons

2 rockets
2 cannons
10 handgunners, HLR, M
2 * 5 handgunners detachments.


The disposition was as follows:

Halberds - bows - 8 knights - 7 kngt+BSB - (trebuchet on hill) - 8 Grail - 4+1 Pegasus

---(wood)(stone)--------------------------------------------------------------(wood)

-----pistoliers-- 8 knights & wizd --- 5 knights --- 5 knights ------ 8 IC & GM
------ rocket - eng - 5 hdgnr - cannon - 10 hdgnr - cannon & wizd - 5 hdgnr - rocket

The idea is to mitigate rocket's inaccuracy by hitting diagonally at very long distances = good idea.
The cannon are separated only by 10 handgunners. The first range guess serves as measurement for the second one = good idea.
The 4 warmachines are separated enough to avoid successive charges by same opponent = good idea, but handgunners are charged.
5 knights may choose to stand or to flee, hopefully providing a side charge from larger units = it did not work, the Brets are too mobile.

I lost the roll to start the game, but the Brets pray and concede the start...


6. Pistoliers rushed to get the stone magic bonus, hiding behind the stone in order to avoid a charge.
Too bad, they were in bows' range. They fled from 3 KIA from arrows and never rallied. Thereafter, the halberds went in the wood and kept control of the stone most of the time, too bad for my magic...

The advancing wizards unleashed their magic mostly in turn 1.
It turned out that most Brets had an extra MR. A fiasco in turn 2 ended prematurely my magic phase. With my staff wizard charged & fleeing after turn 3, I had close to no magic left. Most of my magic served to kill the one unit which had no MR, and after turn 2 it was just dispelled.


7. First rocket drifted too far, killed 1 knight. Second rocket killed its own crew.
Next turns, the remaining rocket launcher either drifted too far, or its hits were saved by ward save, or it failed to shoot, and was charged in turn 5.
2 fails in 6 attempts... 1 foe killed.

Cannons guesses were perfectly 10" off but the rolls were too short usually. It happens. Bullets killed 2 knights however.
In turn 4, both cannons had a last chance to shoot the template on 4 knights before getting charged. The first one got S10... but missed 3 of the knights. The second one got S2... and managed to wound only the BSB. Remained 1 knight from the initial unit of 7, the wounded BSB and a damsel. The BSB and the damsel charged a cannon each, while the lone survivor went away to get a hide and preserve half of the unit's VP. End of both cannons. 4 foes killed or wounded.


8. HLR managed to kill a grail knight (the only one KIA so no VP for that).
Then the Brets cast the wind preventing any hit of S<5 on most of their units, which I failed to dispel.


9. On my far right, I thought that on turn 2, the peggies would charge the warmachines and I positioned the IC to countercharge the grail knights in the centre. But the peggy general and the 4 peggies charged my IC's flank instead, on turn 2.
The generals challenged, the peggy wounded me once while his rider fluffed, I wounded twice the peggy. Rubber lance syndrome on the armours for everyone else. Result is a win thanks to my magic banner, and the 4 peggy flee, the general stays.
Next turn, the challenge was ongoing. I forgot to tell who I was hitting, so it must be the rider, not the mount. All my 4 attacks hit and it's a kill! Fortunate, because the opponent had a strike last killing blow sword... Lucky me it did not kill my general.
The peggy flew away, I charged in the just rallied peggies, killed 3, the last one fled, rallied later a second time and was still alive at the end of the battle despite a third charge on him.


10. In the meantime, in the centre, I tried to charge on my turn 2 with my banner +1d3". The Brets were at 15.5" and I rolled a +1 = failed charge... but I managed to hit one opposing knight's unit with magic & shooting and they panicked.
As a result, I had my 8 knights too much advanced to countercharge, and both my 5 knights facing the two Bret "lances" ("lance" is the name of the Bret's formation, 3 wide, deadly). Guess what... both were charged.
One lance killed 0 knights! The grail lance killed only 2! Both of my units failed their morale test, both escaped and rallied later. Actually no pursuit ever managed to catch anything during the game.
The two lances were in position to charge my handgunners, and the grail lance could also sidecharge my IC.
Fortunately, my IC pursued the peggy at that time and went out of the Grail's LOS.

My remaining 8 knight went forwards to finish off the 3 remaining knights (thanks to a 6 on the 1d3" dice).


11. In turn 3, Stand & shoot killed 2 knights. The ensuing melee killed only some handgunners, who failed the morale test and left the table, with the wizard who had joined them previously.
Luckily, among the units in vicinity of the destroyed unit, both cannons passed their panic test, so did a detachment. Only the 5 knights who had just rallied failed their test! They rushed towards the wood on my left, inside which they finished their course.
In the meantime, I moved my engineer around the left wood.


12. The Green knight in reserve could have appeared in turn 1. Luckily, he was delayed 2 turns.
He appeared inside the wood on my left. Nobody panicked from terror: 5 handguns, 1 engineer, 5 knights. I moved all of them away from the Green Knight's charging LOS. So, in turn 4, the Green Knight used his ability to move from one terrain to another one, and appeared inside the wood on my right, ready to charge my IC.
He did charge them in turn 5, in contact with the champion. I challenged, knowing that the champ could not wound the ethereal ghost, but at least he would kill only the champ. And the surprise was that he fluffed all his attacks! Not only the champion survived, but I had a SCR of +3, thanks to the warbanner. As a result, the ghost suffered 3 wounds... and vanished!
Now my champion can boast to have challenged a Green Knight... and win!!!
The Green Knight could have reappeared in turn 6, but did not, so I received all 275 VP!


13. The grail lance, which had not the IC in LOS, charged the 5 handgunners on the left. Missed stand & shoot, 5 KIA, pursuit in the rockets. But at least the grail would not do anything else.


14. In the centre, cannons were destroyed (see my #7).
In turn 6, the lone damsel was a nice target for my 5 remaining handgunners. I wounded her!

Meanwhile, my 5 knights in the left wood, joined by the engineer on mech horse, charged the peasants with halberds... who chose to flee. In the forest, I could not catch them... and they rallied in turn 6, contesting a 1/4 table.

In the meantime, my 8 knights tried to charge the bows, at 15.5", and their 1d3 banner rolled, again, +1. Missed charge, and the bows survived, and shot and panicked my last 5 handgunners, and contested a 1/4 table.


15. The result was a draw. I killed 1038 plus general, he killed 1000.
But he had 2 units and 2 characters with a single wound remaining, while I had only 1 unit in that case, so I clearly had a moral edge, without having to claim it.

The Green Knight did not kill or frighten anyone!

The warmachines were deceiving: the trebuchet had 1 incident and 5 sufficient deviations.
My warmachines had 1/3 incidents.



After 3 battles, the conclusion is that the Empire's knight armour is incredible, and allows them to resist a lot of attacks.

On the offence, the cannons are my best asset.
The handgunners in 10+5+5 are nice.
The rockets so far are nearly useless.
The magic is not efficient.

16. The worst unit is the Engineer, who didn't do anything for 3 battles, but is essential for the fluff.
This time, the two pigeons did not reach the targets. After that, the engineer moved (and couldn't send his piegons) but was always too far to shoot with pistols.



My first report was made as a knight, the next one as an engineer, this one as a poet...
Am I from the court of Marius Leitdorf in Averland, or what?

The report in verse is nearly as accurate and possibly as clear as the explanations which follow, but it takes much longer to write.

Hope you enjoyed this odd presentation.

[Calisson]

Battle report (against High Elves)
 
Customer feedback report.

Originator:
Weili Kohyodtt,
Techs Averheimer and cannon expert,
on behalf of The Expedition of AverHeim.

For Herr Direktor,
head of the customer department,
Averländisher Kaboom Munizionen Erzätsen
HauptMarktPlatz, AverHeim, Averland.

Via Air Mail (pigeon).





Liebe Herr Direktor,

Please find below a filled customer satisfaction report, concerning the material brought for the Expedition.

I regret to inform you that some of the equipment sold by your company did not functioned properly, despite a correct use strictly according to the manuals. The Circumstances are described thereafter, with the hope that it could speed up the improvement process.
On several instances, an upgrade would be highly appreciated in order to meet unusual conditions that have been met, as described below, which were not covered by the bidding specifications. A crash program would be required to deliver us some improved prototypes, which could be tested on the field in order to speed up your rigorous certification process.


Item #1: Cannon powder.
Difficulty encountered:  Cannonballs fall too short.
Circumstance: Shots from both cannons were aimed 10” short in front of the intended target, following the manual recommendations. The cannonballs fall farther than aimed for, indeed. But, most of the time, it remains too short. In one event, an incoming dragon barely managed to grab with its muzzle a shot which was intended to its body and very accurately shot 10” short of the proper centre of the body, by your exceedingly caring Weili Kohyodtt  and his team; luckily, with this unintended reflex move, the dragon was shot down. When “in front” results “in the front”, that's fine, otherwise “shortfall” is a nuisance.
Suggested improvement: Modify the manual in order to read: “aim at 6” in front of the intended target”.

Item #2: Rocket propellant.
Difficulty encountered: More powerful than expected.
Circumstance: In one instance, one rocket has been measured to fly as far as 68”. My colleague Josse Mitzam is proud to say it was his own Helstorm which reached this record, regrettably by flying largely over the intended target.
Suggested improvement: Modify manual with added recommendation to fire diagonally across rectangle battlefields, until said battlefields are selected wider.

Item #3: Rockets.
Difficulty encountered: Dispersion of fire.
Circumstance: All the time: two Helstorm together have hit their target only once in four battles during the short time when they still were in working condition. That single hit was a performance of Josse Mitzam again, as he likes to point at, taking as more important the lone hit than the many previous misses.
Suggested improvement: A passing engineer named Giuseppe Vissarionovi Giugasfili, loving the shape of the Helstorm (he said it was looking like his organ, in Kislev) suggested to fire all rockets at once, in the hope that one of them will hit something. He seems to have a good leadership for an engineer. Recommendation is to test the idea with him before he exports it to Kislev.

Item #4: Woods.
Difficulty encountered: Excellent imitation.
Circumstance: A unit of High Elf knights were able to charge Boris Nichtgutt’s unit of knights, despite of a wood which was covering the sides of the unit. The elves charged across the wood without being the slightest slowed down, proving that the wood was a phoney decoy. As a result, Istral, one of our two wizards, was found exposed and has been prematurely lost.
Suggested improvement: Could your research department develop some similar dummy woods, for our cavalry to be able to charge across at full speed in the same way as High Elves?

Item #5: Armours.
Difficulty encountered: Lacking heat isolation.
Circumstance: A high ranking dignitary in robes, who proved to be an experienced and unfriendly sorcerer, has been able to heat the armour of a whole elite Inner Circle unit, under command of Konrad Lehrwadeck, to the point that they became unable to fight anymore. The Grand Master Otto Ritter’s magic resistance was found not to suffice to evacuate the heat. Seven experienced knights (out of eight) have been forced to take off hastily their armours and therefore to quit the battlefield. The heat made them sweat so much that a whole barrel of beer barely sufficed to extinguish their thirst, and thereafter they were not anymore able to resume the battle.
Suggested improvement: This original pressure cooking looks promising if you replace men with sauerkraut.
However, for battle purpose, men are still required inside armours. Possibly new material could be used instead of metal. For example, stone could isolate quite well from heat. Dwarves are said to know useful stones, which could be investigated. They call it asbestos and seem willing to provide us large amounts of it.

Item #6: Horses.
Difficulty encountered: Easily frightened.
Circumstance: Seven pistoliers were hiding behind a wood, where a fire wizard on a dragon became offended with their presence. Four were magically burnt; the remaining ones held. Two more were dragon-breathed. The survivor, Lüki Lüke, held. However, the mere presence of the dragon did upset the last horse which, for an unknown reason, decided it had enough and jolly jumped away from the battlefield.
Suggested improvement: Have the horses accustomed to the presence of dragons. The Empire needs reliable troops.

Item #7: Rocket.
Difficulty encountered: Delayed blast for part of the charge.
Circumstance: In the only single event when the rocket did hit the intended target, its template covered half of a large unit of swordmasters and a high ranking dignitary in robes, who was gesticulating alone in vicinity. Three swordmasters were immediately knocked down from the blast, while the said dignitary, apparently directly hit by the rocket, disappeared in a cloud but reappeared shortly after, with more mocking gestures, looking as fine as if only magic attacks could hurt him. It seems that a part of the rocket has been buried just in the place where the said dignitary was standing, because when he resumed his gesticulations, he fumbled on it. A huge explosion happened, and he was hurled in the sky just like if a huge hand with claws had picked him away. Josse Mitzam was extremely happy with this result and counts the kill as his own, despite the delay. Well, he may be right.
Suggested improvement: Calibrate the explosion delay. Could be tactically useful for a nasty surprise.

Item #8: Rocket.
Difficulty encountered: Restriction to land targets.
Circumstance: High Elves present also a variety of flying targets: dragon, great eagle, fumbling high sorcerer. Based on experience, rockets have trouble to get after these very specific targets.
Suggested improvement: Take advantage of the rocket flying trajectory to develop an AA version of rockets.

Item #9: Armours.
Difficulty encountered: Real sieves.
Circumstance: In one instance, a single bolt was found to be able to get across three knights from Den Haardi’s unit before being stopped, to the relief of Den Haardi who was next on the row. Later on, two arrows have resulted in one more shot knight. Den Haardi remaining alone was forced to retreat and never returned.
In melees as well, our knight’s armour seems sturdier than the elves’ counterparts, but Boris Nichtgutt can testify that his knights’ armours let go through more hits than the elves. Possibly the reason could be that the elves lighter armours allow them to hit more often.
Finally, the Grand Master Otto Ritter himself was shot by a single bolt thrower and forced to cease fighting, to his great sorrow as he had not been able to get his extraordinary sword on any single foe that day and was shot precisely when about to charge that said bolt thrower.
Suggested improvement: Repair patches for the armours. Bandages for their owners.

Item #10: Pants.
Difficulty encountered: Getting wet.
Circumstance: It happened when Helmer Fudt’s handgunners and Rott Röhner’s cannon crew, along with the sorcerer Humbert, panicked from seeing a dragon in vicinity, and kept running despite said dragon being shot down by your most devoted Weili Kohyodtt’s remaining cannon.
Suggested improvement: Use resourcefully Averland’s colours for pant’s fabric: yellow in the front, black on the rear.

Item #11: Pigeons
Difficulty encountered: Aggressiveness.
Circumstance: After a first pigeon was used for the normal calibration process, the next two pigeons were sent towards a great eagle. Normally, a single pigeon should have hit, however this nest seems much more aggressive than the norm. Both of them harassed their giant cousin to the point that the eagle’s flight became low and clumsy. A single handgun bullet was subsequently found sufficient to shoot down the bird.
Suggested improvement: Selection carefully this aggressive breed of Henery Hawks. Pigeons willing to attack giant eagles – and able to nearly kill it – are priceless.

Item #12: Grapeshot template cannon shot.
Difficulty encountered: Too weak.
Circumstance: A dandy in robe, already wounded by handgunners (as a side note, it was the only target they managed to hit during the whole battle), approached at charging distance, threatening with a flaming sword. Said charging distance seemed appropriate for a pre-emptive grapeshot by your very faithful Weili Kohyodtt’s cannon, who had just proved his accuracy by shooting down the dragon the dandy was riding (which explains why that dandy was upset). Canon template did cover said dandy, who couldn't escape and did not escape. However, when grapeshot was discharged, its strength was evaluated at approx. “2”, which thereafter was found not to suffice to finish off said dandy.
Suggested improvement: Add paint in grapeshot powder in order to blind targets in case they are not killed.

Item #13: Barrels of cannon powder.
Difficulty encountered: Ignites too easily.
Circumstance: When an unfriendly fire sorcerer dressed like a dandy gets too close from cannon.
Suggested improvement: Provide panels with the inscription:
“Smoking strictly prohibited. No welding, brazing, grinding, casting Fire or Metal spells at less than 25”.”

Item #14: Beards and moustaches.
Difficulty encountered: Burnt.
Circumstance: The whole cannon crew of your wholeheartedly loyal Weili Kohyodtt was wrecked by magic fire, while Wolfi, the Master engineer, did not suffer at all, nor his metallic mount Krack Boum Hüe. On the next attempt, the Engineer’s clothes did catch fire and he was forced to withdraw, but all his equipment was still in working condition. Obviously metal does not burn as easily as flesh and hair.
Suggested improvement: Provide metallic wigs and bogus beards until the burn parts are grown back.

Item #15: Warmachines.
Difficulty encountered: Frailty.
Circumstance: None of the four warmachines reached intact the end of the battles – as it happens too often.
Suggested improvement: Adapt Helstorms to a steam tank, like cannons. As cannons are the most efficient weapon by far, especially mine, you could increase the size of the steam tank in order to get more cannons in it, possibly in group of 2, 3 or 4 put together in turrets. If the resulting warmachine is found too heavy for land transportation, develop a naval version. The armour concept associated with many cannons and AA rockets looks so powerful that the resulting warmachine would fear nothing. The first of a class could receive a name reflecting that, something like “No Worry” or “Nil Alarm” or “Fear Naught”, or “Dread Nothing”.

Item #16: Lances.
Difficulty encountered: Rubber syndrome aggravated by slow fighting.
Circumstance: Laureli’s unit charged mindlessly a unit of swordmasters with a bear hero inside.
Suggested improvement: Find more effective ways to save honour when the rest of the army is being massacred.

Item #17: Army.
Difficulty encountered: Loosing record.
Circumstance: Three battles out of four.
Suggested improvement: Dice exorcism.


With the hope that your research department will find in our testimonies some ways to improve furthermore the quality of your products, please receive, Herr Direktor, my deepest thanks along with my uttermost sincere salutations.


Signed: Weili Kohyodtt,
Techs Averheimer von der Expedizion

[Calisson]

Notes about the 4th battle:


This was a good example of the incidence of fluff on my army:
Fluff makes it weaker than the more WAACky armies against which I play routinely; but it is also the same fluff which helps me transform painful losses in fluffy and funny reports!

Fluff explanations:
Item #3: Rockets fired all at once make the principle of Stalin’s organ. Stalin’s real name was Jossip Vissarionovitch Djougachvili.
Item #5. Asbestos is a stone that isolates perfectly from extreme heat. Only recently have been discovered its cancer-causing properties.
Item #6: Jolly Jumper is the name of devoted horse of the comic strip hero Lucky Luke.
Item #11: Henery Hawk is a tiny chicken hawk from the Looney Tunes series, not afraid of the largest preys.
Item #15: the Dreadnought was the name of a class of ships before the Space Marines reused the name.
Other names were explained in the post about the departure of the Expedition.


Battle explanations:
This encounter was against High Elves. My son made a list tailored against my usual Empire list which he knows well. He hardly ever plays with HE, but he borrowed my other son's army, along with my other son's tactics. The list he designed had an awful lot of magic, balanced shooting and melee, and a dragon.

More precisely, he had:
a footed level 4 (Lore of Metal #1, #2, #5, #6) with immune-to-non-magic-attacks ring, general
a dragon fire sorcerer (Lore of Fire #1, #2 and #5) with magic missile ring, who gets one more PD when he casts,
a footed nobleman with ring of becoming a sorcerer and self casting transformation into a bear,
15 swordmasters with banner of 1D3 more powerdice,
15 spearmen (who did nothing)
6 dragon prince knights (very annoying with 2 attacks each + horse), banner of moving freely across woods
1 giant Eagle
1 chariot with horses (charges at 18”, 2 bows)
15 archers
2 Bolt Thowers

I had my usual, sub optimized but fluffy list:
Grand Master, MR2/WS5+ and magic sword (with IC), general
Level 2 (Metal #1, #4), MR1, ring of fire, mounted (with 8 knights),
Level 2 (Heavens #2, #3), staff, random ring (Fire #2...), mounted
Engineer, mech horse, pigeons, handgun
8 IC knights, FC, warbanner (GM in there)
8 knights, FC, banner of +1d3 charge (Metal sorc in there)
2 x 5 knights, muso & champ
7 pistoliers, champ & muso
10 handgunners HLR and 2 x 5 hangunners
2 cannons
2 Helstorm rockets



As usually, I selected to have little terrain. We had a wood and a hill with a big stone in the no man’s land. I won the first turn, which I kept despite all his fast units & chariot being hidden from both my cannons.

In my first turn, I galloped forwards in order to get charges on the bowmen.
My first turn of magic was easily dispelled; my first shots were desperately off targets (Item #1, #2 & #3).
I let the pistoliers hidden behind the forest, in a congo line, fearing (rightfully) the dragon breath.

My gallop forwards was a great mistake, as it became painfully apparent as soon as the HE first turn:
-   it allowed his prince dragon knights to charge me, across a wood (Item #4), and subsequently kill one of my wizard, and therefore get a cutting edge in magic;
-   it brought the IC knights in range of his level 4 with the horrible spell #6;
-   it let the dragon and eagle freely roam my side of the terrain, fearing only my shooting.

I was facing a very heavy magic party: Level 4 + self-PD-generating level 2 + ring + PD-generating banner + hero ring-transformed to level 1. Roughly 13 PD.
Even my general’s MR 2 failed to dispel a 4 dice 6-5-4-3, when I rolled a meagre 6-5-4-2 – I should have cast 5 dice… (Item #5).
One of my level 2 being KIA in that turn 1, the other level 2 terrorized never to rally in HE’s turn 3, I was hopelessly submerged by magic. Luckily, the opposing level 4 had a miscast in turn 2 and rolled 1-1 (Item #7), but the remaining level 2 was casting successfully 2 spells per turns (Fire #1 and #5) plus ring’s magic missile. I could only dispel the ring. The spell #5 did hurt badly; it is the ever-growing fire ball, which I could usually stop only at second attempt if not at 3rd.

The dragon was a pain, breath-killing and terrorizing my pistoliers first, followed by most of my shooters along with the surviving mage, with the help of his fire-happy wizard (Item #6).
My handgunners shot 1 wound to the sorcerer and fled from terror in my turn 3, never to rally (Item #10).
The dragon, missed by the rockets (Item #8) was shot by two cannon hits in my turn 2 and 3 (Item #1, again). Too bad its rider survived the grapeshot in my turn 4 (Item #12) and finished off the engineer and the last warmachine (Item #13 & #14).
In the meantime, the eagle did kill one rocket crew and got 2 wounds from two successive pigeons! (Item #11). That was the funniest part along with the miscast.
And when I got rid of the two most mobile units, then the prince dragon knights emerged again, after getting rid of one of my 9 knight unit (Item #9), and they had a free run to my remaining shooters and easily wiped them away (Item #15).
That was the bane of my shooty units.

The HE’s shooting included 15 archers who fluffed their shots and got charged & killed, 2 RBT who missed initially but later on killed 3 knights and my general, and the chariot with 2 bows who managed to kill one more knight.

My knights were defeated by:
-   Magic: Metal #6 killing all but 1 from 8 knights (Item #5, again)
-   Shooting: 1 lucky bolt on the side of 5 knights, killing 3, the last 2 did charge and killed the opposing 15 archers but then 2 shots from a chariot killed one and the last choose to flee.
-   Melee: charged by Dragon knights thanks to their banner of getting freely across woods, they have 3 attacks per model when I have 2 with lesser stats. In the long run, I lost.
-   Bad positioning: my last unit of 5 hesitated to charge the chariot because of the swordmasters right behind. As a result, I stupidly let the chariot escape and still could not manoeuvre to avoid the swordmasters, so I charged them (should have run away) and predictably lost, but I found out that I could not even hurt one of them (Item #16).
During all the game, the HE chariot did annoy me by threatening to charge, I always went out of charge but only to find myself in awkward positions or within reach of the Bolt Throwers. That chariot was a pain.

Finally, the only survivors were a detachment of 5 handgunners who were happily hiding inside a wood, claiming a ¼ table which did not suffice to avoid a massacre (Item #17).



The only efficient units were the cannons, by shooting the dragon.
The knights stood quite well the prince dragon knight’s charge but lacked support (who had vanished by Metal Lore).
Everything else served only as a practice target for the enemy’s magic, shooting and melee.
I should have stayed in the back, shooting at distance, threatening the dragon with my knights, concentrating against the three mobile units, preserving my sorcerers.






Finally, there is a last Item to fill, dear reader, and it is up to you to fill it and post it there below:
 
Your Customer feedback report.

Item: Fluff 'n Fun Battle Log.
Difficulty encountered, or other appreciation:
Circumstance:
Suggested improvement:

[dabber]

Response to customer feedback report.

Originator:
Ludwig von Hurtzburg
4th assistant sub director
customer disservice department,
Averländisher Kaboom Munizionen Erzätsen

For:
Weili Kohyodtt,
The Expedition of AverHeim.

Attachment:
from Luthor House
Priests R Us Sales and Service

Via courier


Dear Sir,
Available space limits me to responding in detail to all your points, so I will only hit the main ones.

Item #1:
Perhaps you are using an incorrect version of the manual.  The one inheritted from your father was obsoleted 14 years ago.  In the current manual, Pages 176C through 253 clearly indicate the range formulas for killing dragons.  Be sure to re-read all 117 pages immediately before firing and follow the instruction exactly.

Item #2, #3, and #8:
These are fundamentally the same misuse of the rocket.  Increase your rate of fire.  Continue firing.  More rocket fire will solve all your problems, and additional helstrum batteries are available for the small cost of a mere 1000 pts.

Item #5, #9:
Our armour products are not rated for use against Metal Mages nor bolt throwers.  The claimed product "failure" is nothing more than misuse of the product.  If you continue such unwanted complaints, will we have to seek a ruling from the witch hunters against you.

Item #17
See attachment.

Signed: Ludwig von Hurtzburg
4th assistant sub director
customer disservice department,
Averländisher Kaboom Munizionen Erzätsen


--------

Attachment:
from Luthor House
Priests R Us Sales and Service

Dear hoonourable noble, Grand Master of all he sureys, commande of the Averlnder Expdition, hih general of the great army, tactical genis know throughtou the land, and all around good guy,

It has come to my atention that you need additional military produts.  Priests R Us has the products you need!!  Our best seling product, now in mass production at hovels acrss the Empire, is the Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey.  More commonly called the "Popemobile".  Although the foce for evil kown as GW tries to spread the rumr only 1 of these mavelous devices exists, in fact amost all empire military armys now include 1 (or MORE!!).  Ludwig has given me your list of issues, so I will address them specifically.
Gunpowder and propellants are not a problem!  Neither is included.  Instead the Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey uses magic.  But not just any magic, only bound spells, which cannot miscast.
The Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey is not encased in heavy armour, so lack of heat protection is not an issue.  While equiped with some armour, not enough for those Metal Mages to horribly melt you inside.  Instead the Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey has a WARD save.
The Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey is unbreakable.  No concerns about cowardly horses, these horses never run.  Except towards the enemy!!
Frailty is rarely a prblem.  The Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey is widely known for bein quite tough.  While somewhat vulnerable to eney cannons, we cofident all cannons are now contrlled by appropriate representatives of the inquisition, so you safe.
No rubber lances.  The Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey has Hatred, so it never fails to hit (in the first round).   (no ability to actually hurt things is stated or implied)

While the Mark 16 Large Religious thingamawutsy with horses and wheels plus golden block of joy giver and source of all bravey is often valued by enemies at many hundreds of points, you can have one for the bargin basement price of 100 points!!!  (required upgrades and crew not included)

Contact your nearest Priests R Us store as soon as possible.  Now in business throughout the Empire!!

PS  Sory for any speling mistak, the sales deprtent has expanded tremendous in the last fw years, and as a new hyr, I have bearly learnd to right.

Signed: Luthor House
18th assistant pope
Priests R Us Sales and Service