It has been a little while since I wrote up a battle report, having been bogged down with lots of other projects, so I felt the need to write up another tutorial battle using some of my recent acquisitions.

I had almost forgotten how dwarves function in the game of Dragon Dice and, having recently added a pair of Fire/Ivory hybrids to my draconine entourage, thought that this would be a good excuse to do a bit of revision and simultaneously add a few more worked examples to the ever growing resources on this site.

The Set Up

Upon recent receipt of two kickers of Coral Elves, I remembered why I enjoyed using them so much and therefore put together a test army without any magic units relying, as it does, on manoeuvre and missile actions only. I have taken such a liking to the Trebuchet and to the Heartseeker that I picked up almost accidentally on eBay, these were also must-haves in the army.

Having no magic units in the Selumari, I put together a Vagha army packed full of them, and included a Fire Dragonstaff to add a touch of spice to the proceedings. I also put in a Fire Dragonkin Champion, just to try to ensure even more Draconine action for the sake of creating as many new worked examples of rules as possible.

Below are the armies and summoning pools.

Setting up the battlefield proved not to be as easy as could be expected. The first roll of the horde armies gave a rather strange 2-2 draw, which I have not shown here. The re-roll, however, gave these results.

The Vagha Horde roll.
The Selumari Horde roll.

This time we have a hardly believable 12-12 draw. We need a 2nd re-roll to decide this one.

The Vagha win by 7 results to 2 and they get to take the first turn. The Selumari choose the Swampland Vortex as the Frontier terrain.

The terrain dice are rolled and things do not look good for the Blue and green team. The Highland is on face 3 – Magic action, the Coastland on face 6 – Melee action, the Swampland is on face 6 – Melee action.

Round 1

Dwarves

Dwarves 1st March

With two of the terrains on face 6, the race is on. The Vagha need to try to stop the Selumari Gryphons from taking the frontier, whilst trying to stop them taking their coastland home. It looks like a spot of earth magic may be useful here.

The Dwarf home army roll for manoeuvre to try to stop the Selumari horde army taking the highland terrain to missile range.

The Dwarves manage to produce 9 manoeuvres, but this is not enough to overpower the 11 results from the Selumari horde. The terrain remains on face 3 and they attempt to generate magic.

They produce 9 results

The worst fear for the Selumari is losing their ability to use Coastal Dodge to work as saves. The Transmute Rock to Mud spell does exactly that, effectively losing them up to 6 save results.

The home army stock up on saves and manoeuvres using the remaining 3 magic points to cast Summon Dragonkin.

Dwarves 2nd March

Without the earth element in the terrain, the Mountain Mastery ability can’t help the Dwarves, so they must make the most of this opportunity to both march forward and attack while the Transmute Rock to Mud spell is in effect.

They attempt to manoeuvre.

An easy win for the Vagha, by 7 results to 1, thanks to the minus 6 manoeuvres from the spell.

The terrain moves to its 7th face and the Dwarf horde attack hand to hand in melee combat.

The Vagha generate 10 melee damage.

The Selumari Gryphons manage to generate 8 saves, with no effect occurring due to the Transmute Rock to Mud. They still take 2 damage, however.

Two Bowmen become the first casualties.

Although the Elves have the opportunity to counter attack, the presence of the Skirmishers in the Vagha horde army make this a dangerous move, as they both have the ability to counter, giving up to a total of 8 damage to the attacker if no defensive spells are active. They therefore make no counter at this time.

All Vagha units remain where they are, as there is no opportunity to retreat without weakening their position.

The Selumari response can be found here:-

Dwarves v Coral Elves – Part 2