The forces: on the side of order, there were approximately 6,500pts of Dwarfs with about 2,500pts starting in the fortress while the remaining 4,000pts came on as the relief force, while on the side of Chaos we had 6,000pts of Beastmen (three hordes of Gors and Bestigors, five chariots including two Razorgor chariots, five shaman, a giant, ghorgon, cygor and jabberslythe, six Centigors including Ghorros, nine Minotaurs plus a flying Doombull and assorted Ungors, Warhounds etc) accompanied by 2,500-3,000pts of Orcs & Goblins (including Grimgor). For siege rules we ended up using a hodge-podge of rules beginning primarily with the rules used from an old White Dwarf (featuring a Dark Elf siege of a Bretonnian fortress) and augmented by select rules from Blood in the Badlands and the old 6E siege rules - they mostly worked well but were I to run another big siege game like this I would definitely have to iron out some of the kinks for a smoother game.
The set-up: The Orcs and Beastmen set up first, with the Beasts taking the left and the Orcs the right. We played on a double-wide battlefield (12' x 6') and there was STILL barely enough room to set everything up; several units were double parked until the first turn when we could maneuver them out into the open. We also had to be careful to consider the relief force which would come on via either one or both of the flanks (it should be just one flank 'realistically' but there were so many Dwarfs in the relief force we decided to let them split things up).
The initial dwarven garrison was fairly small and surprisingly without a massive amount of shooting; I think it had one cannon, one organ gun and maybe 2-3 units of shooty infantry (ironically the relief force on the other hand was loaded with war machines). The remainder was in rock hard melee units that waited in the courtyard for the attack to begin.
The lords of the fortress survey the forces arrayed against them, "Gandalf style".
Prior to turn one the attackers rolled 2d6 for each siege tower to see how far they would move (during the game itself siege towers moved as fast as the unit pushing them, but with no marching allowed) - sadly our rolling was pretty unspectacular with the Orc tower moving 6" and the two Beastmen towers moving 2" and 5" respectively!
The dwarfs began turn 1 with some fairly unremarkable shooting since most of the attackers were out of range, then the attacker's line surged forward, the units on the flanks maneuvering to screen out relieving elements as long as possible.
Turns 2 and 3 were much of the same, as the dwarfs failed to roll sufficiently to bring on the relief force but the defenders went unharmed for the most part due to the virtual complete lack of shooting on the attacking side besides the occasional boulder being flung by the Cygor (whose other abilities were wasted by the lack of wizards on the defending side but I had the model and it looked cool so what the hell lol). The dwarfs were also for the most part able to shut down the magic phase despite the attackers rolling extremely well for magic dice plus getting at least five extra dice a turn from the Beastmen's herdstone AND at least two channels a turn :(
Several things did go well for the defenders though as they were able to bring down the siege tower carrying Grimgor and his boys plus a unit of Dwarf miners managed to get to the battlefield ahead of the rest of the relief force and come right behind the block of minotaurs pushing the battering ram towards the front door - only a hastily redeployed group of Ungor Raiders were able to block their path and hold them up long enough for a nearby giant to intercept.
Turn 3 (iirc) did see a successful aerial assault on one of the towers by the Jabberslythe and the Flying Doombull which shook the defenders.
The attackers meanwhile continued to doggedly grind forwards as losses from shooting started to mount. The relief force was still out there lurking somewhere and eventually showed up on turn 4, being fairly evenly split between the two flanks with both flanks receiving a veritable feast of artillery. The ungors screening the minotaurs unsurprisingly couldn't stand against the dwarf miners and ran away, but they had done their job and the giant was able to take over the fight against the guys with the pickaxes.
As the relief force moved on, both flanks of the attacking force met fire with fire with multiple chariot charges as well as a very impressive showing from the Centigors being led by Ghorros Warhoof (whose eventual demise served to enrage the rest of the beastmen army and boost their leadership by 1 for primal fury tests). In the center the giant fell to the miner's pickaxes but was relieved by the Chorgon who had made his way over while the minotaurs fought around their battering ram against the stalwart defenders of the gate. Over on the left side the horde of gors finally reached the wall in their siege tower, lowered the ramp and charged in, slaughtering dwarfs and taking control of the wall section. The jabberslythe flew to the next tower and engaged the organ gun crew that had been occupying it. Amazingly Grimgor and his boys were repulsed from the wall but quickly recovered and climbed straight back up there to re-engage a turn or two later.
By this time we were all starting to flag a little; the battle for gate had reached a grindfest in the challenge between the gorebull and the dwarven character, both of whom had flailed away at each other for several turns without being able to cause any wounds, while the thane's unit had disintegrated away around him he was able to keep going in the challenge (next time I'll reject the challenge and just run over the little bugger with the entire minotaur unit lol). The Gors on the wall were counterattacked from the courtyard but were more than able to hold their own and were whittling down the defenders every round. The Ghorgon was able to finish off the miners but they had proven to be an effective diversion and had managed to kill the giant and a unit of ungor raiders in the process.
At this point we called it; there was still one turn to go and the battle still hung in the balance but we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a close draw. Things were looking very bad for the dwarfs, though, they had 17 models left in the entire fortress and the relief force was not even close to entering the castle themselves; the west wall was about to be overrun by the bestigors in their siege tower and the jabberslythe and flying doombull were both free to fly around the fortress and engage whoever they wanted to. Two areas were being held by a single dwarf!
Anyway, once the game was done we decided it had been a blast and a half and it's definitely something I would like to do again although preferably with more shooting from my own army lol. One of the reasons I like to do these games is the sheer spectacle and this definitely scored on this point; I like to just sit back sometimes and look at the situation on the table and let my imagination run riot! Thanks to Colin (Orcs), Trevor (Fortress Dwarfs) and Jon (Relieving Dwarfs) for putting this game on with me, let's do it again next year!
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