We had a good mix of armies show up, including two Empire armies, two Dwarf armies and a High Elf army on the side of Order (needless to say we were expecting our advance across the table to be painful from the 8+ cannons we anticipated showing up!) while on the side of Chaos we had Daemons of Nurgle, Chaos Warriors, Beastmen and some Orcs & Goblins and Ogres who came along for the fun of the fight :) While I would have preferred to insist on painted armies only (my own personal mantra) it would have drastically reduced the armies and players able to take part so it was not enforced.
Anyway, on to the battle! I set up a table using three mats laid out lengthwise so the battlefield was 18' long and 4' wide. At one end we had the town of Winkelhof (using buildings from the wonderful fellows at the Miniature Building Authority) with a standalone house in the center of the table at a crossroads surrounded by farm land (fields, walls and hedges). At the other end of the table was a low hill and several clumps of forest dotted the landscape. Here's a few pics of the initial table setup (ignore the armies at this point, we didn't have spare tables to lay them out pre-deployment so they are scattered around the battlefield).
Once the table was setup and table edges determined we set up simultaneously using blind deployment - we put up some large boards down the center of the table and set up on either side. Needless to say espionage was high as people tried to gauge who was setting up where based on the tops of their heads lol!
Turn one started with Order mostly staying in place although a unit of Empire Pistoliers did dash out to flush out the inevitable Goblin Fanatics who unfortunately didn't get very far before turning around and (as is their wont) plowing through their own parent unit before ending up dangerously close to my block of Bestigors that were right behind the Goblins....otherwise we were out of range of most handguns and pistols and cannon fire was mostly ineffective except for one nasty strike that took FIVE wounds off the Great Unclean One. In the Chaos turn everything that could pretty much took off for the enemy lines at maximum speed.
At the start of turn two my beastmen triggered their Chalice of Dark Rain, which forces an additional -1 to hit on all enemy shooting for that turn and anything that doesn't use BS (ie cannons!) can only shoot on a roll of 4+; this actually worked out extremely well and cannon fire was very much reduced as we continued to close the range. On my own flank, the 'ablative' unit of Night Goblins was forced to run by the Empire Halberdiers and refused to get out of the way of the Bestigors - poor deployment plans on our part I'm afraid. On the other flank it appeared that the Chaos Warriors and Ogres were doing a number on the High Elves and Dwarfs on that flank although I didn't actually get down there that often to find out (it was a long way away from the flank I was on!).
Turn three started much the same, we continued to close and they continued to shoot, although between Ogre Maneater infiltrators and beastmen ambushers several cannon crews had been eliminated. In the center the GUO was taken out by one of the Demigriff Knight units, while the Night Goblins were still struggling with the Halberdiers and refusing to get out of the way so the Bestigors could have a crack. My block of regular Gors completely trampled all over a unit of Dwarf Thunderers and pivoted to face another Empire block, this time of swordsmen I think, while a unit of 30 Gors entered along the enemy edge (again via Beastmen ambush) and threatened the center of the enemy army. Wasn't really concerned about how well they faired, just wanted to throw some panic into the enemy army!
By the time we reached turn 4 we were unfortunately running out of time at the store (as well as our own personal energy lol) so this ended up being the last turn. The ambushing Gor unit was scary enough to the enemy army that they turned around a whole block of Empire Halberdiers to face them, even with a block of Chaos Warriors closing in fast right in front of them - they were strongly relying on the dwarf unit alongside to hold them up long enough, something I'm not sure they would have been able to pull off.....
At this point we had to call it; on a completely impartial level (!) I think the forces of Chaos won the day; we had only taken minimal losses with the exception of the GUO, while the forces of Order had lost multiple guns and units and we were now in amongst them with our heavily melee oriented units. Both flanks had effectively collapsed and enemy units were in the backfield too; it's a real shame we weren't able to continue it to a proper conclusion. Still, a great day was had by all and the sheer spectacle of it had multiple customers at the store stop by to watch the battle unfold. This, to me, is why I play miniatures games - although it obviously would have been better have everything been fully painted, I think it inspired at least some of the participants to want to get busy with the brush once the game was done.
A smaller number of us (6-7 at last count) are planning on doing a similarly large game at the next con being put on by HMGS-South, which is Hurricon in Orlando (September 26th-29th). Perhaps a siege of some kind would be cool to do....or maybe an underground incursion of some sort (seeing as I think we will have up to THREE Dwarf armies taking part...). Time will tell, we still have five and a bit weeks to prepare at this point....
Bob
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