Wuxing v Dwarves

James and I threw down again and with Dwarves v Wuxing we were expecting a grindfest of epic proportions. It turned out nothing like expectations, and it was a very tense affair.

In this picture taken after the first turn you can see top down in the dwarven army you have axemen, spearmen, x-bowmen, two more axemen, and finally dwarven miners backed up by two Ballistae. A pretty Stand and Shooty build. Arrayed agin'em were, from top to bottom, Jun horse archers and a jade dragon then four salvaged with an imperial cav stepping out from their midst, and finally two rocket arrow battery's. James expected me to place my dragon on my left flank and that's where he put the miners with their seven strength. I put it on the other side and got a quick psychological edge. as he figured he was screwed.

A new piece of gaming accessory was tried this session with two enthusiastic thumbs up. It is the EXPO "CLICK" dry erase marker seen in the lower left of the foto. They have a decent tip and they click and retract like a ball point pen. When you retract them they seal up tight and last longer. If you leave one exposed and it dries out,  you can apparently just click it closed and leave it for a day and it will be good to go.

Also the dividers made their reappearance and showed good use.

Dang! Just beyond short range.

The Wuxing line is looking pretty sloppy after only the second turn. I realized after order writing was over that I should have capped the imperial cav at 3.5" instead of just 5" so it would stay with the rest of the line. On turn two I direct controlled them and had them hold their position and gave the salvaged on their right flank a movement mofifier that targeted the Spearmen right in fron tof the imperial cav. This allowed them to cut off the cav's advance and charge the spearmen. I thought this would bode ill as I recalled having the goblin fanatics surround my trolls and thet ended badly, but this worked out really well as will be seen. The left most rocket arrows wiped out the miners at extreme range in two turns, meanwhile the battery to the right, in spite of rolling 6 or 7 dice each turn did only one damage.

On the Wuxing right things get critical. The Horse Archers back out of FR range and the dragon moves ahead, but also is just out of FR range from the Spearmen as seen below.

The Wuxing commander is drinking imperial white tea and the dwarf commander has finished off a bottle of white wine that the Wuxing commander's wife has graciously provided, and is now pressing his engagement with the red. The salvaged are held just beyond FR range and the Dragon charges home. The Horse Archers end up pinching the following turn and finishing off the axemen, who ignore the dragon and take a last swing at the undamaged horse archers leaving them with just one box! In the picture below the horse archers have routed and the axemen have been eliminated.

The turn begins and I rally the Horse Archers and from the left to the right the salvaged charge the axemen, the imperial cav charge the x-bows, the jade dragon charges the spearmen and the horse archers move up to pinch following turn.

Taking a page from Marcus' play book, the dwarves fail a rune card enhanced fear check. The dragon attacks and gets 5 hits! Unfortunately, this was followed by damage dice that needed ones and twos, and only caused one wound, but wait! Fortune favors the bold, and the dragon re-rolls. Holy Crap, four ones and a two!!!

At this point the Dwarves have had enough and surrender. I think it might still have been possible for the dwarves to win, but their commander had had enough. Of course, what is't shown here is the two rocket arrow batteries that were still firing heavy from the Wuxing base camp, so maybe it would have been a vain dwarvish attempt.
Dwarven Heroes - Had to be the miners that went down in two turns but never broke.
Dwarven goats - The ballistae that never justified their points.
Wuxing Heroes - Every last one of 'em.
Wuxing goats - The right hand rocket arrows who merely justified their point cost, and which really paled v the left hand battery which was, verily, the hand of GOD.