AAR: Empire vs. Dwarfs (WHFB, 1999 pts)

In a word, I got shellacked.

Wrong army, bad deployment, and lousy die rolling.   Top it off with some bad generalship in the form of forgetting to move/fire units, and I deserved to lose.  Thinking I was going up against Tomb Kings, I took a pretty infantry-heavy army: spearmen, swordsmen, and halberdiers, most with free company back-ups.  Two knight units.  Two small units of archers, a unit of huntsmen (whom I promptly forgot when they got into the forest) and a mortar.  Captain, BSB, and a level 2 wizard as heroes.

My opponent and arch-rival Vince?  Shooty Dwarfs.  Two units of thunderers, four bolt throwers and a flame cannon.  Warriors, longbeards, and hammers as the hard center.

At best, the battle was a duel of war machines: my mortar pounded away at his three infantry units while his flame cannon panicked my two halberdier units almost off the table.  Neither rallied in time to get back into the action.  Then it was a turkey shoot for his thunderers until my S3 units got to his firing line and were unable to punch through.  One of my knight units was actually wiped out attacking a bolt-thrower crew (ugh).

Vince graciously offered to start over about halfway through when it seemed like we were heading for a rout. It actually wasn't as bad as it looked: while I had some heavy losses--a lot of units were still on the table, just not where I wanted them because of panicking.  On the other hand, I had hardly dented his army at all, so there is no doubt about who won.  I declined his offer, having limited time to play this month, but at least I got a game in, one I plan on learning from.

I also decided to go old school in my post-game activities.  I've been reading the reprint of Featherstone's Solo Wargaming and he dedicates a chapter to keeping a gaming journal.  This was obviously in the pre-internet era where blogs allow people to record gaming exploits (like this one), but I still found the idea of a written tome that I could go back to on my own appealing.  As it turns out Staples had a "red and black" notebook on clearance (A4 sized, oddly enough) for $1.50.  I jokingly call it my "book of grudges" since my first entry will be a brutal loss, but I'm hoping it'll inspire me to get to a table a little more often.

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