Warhammer Siege Campaign - Final Assault

Throndin Groznog pulled the ancient helm of Groznog down onto his head and hefted the great Groznog axe in his right hand.
The time had come for war.

The climax to our siege campaign! Despite some success at attacking the Orc war machines the Dwarfs have largely been on the back foot. Could I turn it round and throw back Ruglud’s forces as the prepared for a final assault (regular readers – thank you both – can probably guess the answer to that one)?

Steve and I settled on 4,000 points of defenders versus 2,000 of attackers. We toyed with 6k and 3k, but in the end decided it would interfere with our drink consumption too much to have to move all those soldiers.

 Gyrocopter's eye view of the (open) Dwarf gate

 Crossbows, followed by Ironbreakers, try chewin' through that!

Longbeards keep the Thunderers in line

As a result of my earlier success the greenskins would have to pay double for any war machines. However the gates of the Groznog hold were open and one of the walls was undermined!

Crikey there's a lot of 'em

Over on the Dwarf left a hulking spider deployed. The only sensible response was a cannon shot or two right between the (many) eyes.

On the right a pair of giants and a siege tower held sway whilst most of the remaining greenskins surged toward the gate and collapsing wall.

The greenskins lobbed more rocks at the damaged wall and soon a hole appeared large enough to break through.

The giants took crossbows and organ guns to the face, but still made it to the wall.

The Trolls made it to the gate, but the dwarf defenders stood prepared with a pot of molten nastiness. There then ensued a small debate about whether or not a huge pot of molten metal was “flaming” or not and thus prevented regeneration. Common sense triumphed over strict rules and the trolls were not coming back from their fiery bath.

Look up, lads

Throndin's hearthguard moved to cover the gate and slaughtered the remaining trolls. Meanwhile the Orc siege tower hit the wall and disgorged some angry greenskins into the crossbowmen.

 Waaaagh!

 Some support arrives

Right, let's be 'avin you!

The clansdwarfs moved to cover the gap in the wall, expecting a giant to come rampaging through, but instead some spiders failed their animosity test and scuttled over the ruined ramparts and into the warriors. The result was as expected, however the dwarfs pursued the fleeing spiders through the gap in the wall and out into the open.

Cut them down and stand fast! Oh.

A giant duly crashed into the dwarf unit, however the stout fellows stood strong and the giant was vanquished. His death fall saw two more dwarfs squished, but he also toppled into his fellow badly wounded giant. Sadly for both the dwarfs and comedy he failed to kill the other giant as he fell.

However the rash charge of the clan dwarfs had left the breach in the wall undefended. Frantically the Longbeards marched toward the ruins, grumbling all the way about "young 'uns abandoning things and leaving it for proper dwarfs to sort out and me with my bad foot..."

Up we go!

Meanwhile the Ironbreakers held the Orcs from the siege tower on the wall.

We could do this all day long..

From nowhere a unit of spiders ran over the wall and headed for the innards of the fortress. Frantically the dwarf cannon crew took aim…hit…but failed to kill the eight legged horror and with that the greenskins raced into the Groznog hold and claimed the victory.

Yikes, where did they come from!

This was great fun.
The armies and fortress looked splendid and for the most part the venerable Siege rules served us well. And when it didn't we made stuff up. Just like we usually do.

At the start of the battle I said out loud that I intended to kill a spider from each of the small units Steve had, as they had the best chance of quickly getting off the table and winning him the game. I then did that for all but one of the spider units. With inevitable consequences.
However, given the successes the Orcs had enjoyed in most of the previous battles the result seemed mostly to be fair and appropriate.

Throndin Groznog wiped the thick Troll blood from his axe and gazed in horror as greenskins poured through the gap in the fortress wall to begin the sack of the Groznog hold. As he watched centuries old Dwarf architecture began to be ripped apart as goblins, orcs and giants rushed deep into the internal corridors of the hold.
"Bugger. They're going to take some shifting" he sighed.