Static Guns, Short Legs, and Lessons Learned: Dwarfs vs Infernal Dwarfs
Battle report from our table
This one was a fairly quiet game on paper, but one that gave us a lot to talk about afterwards. We had a match between Dwarfs and Infernal Dwarfs, and even if it did not turn into a dramatic bloodbath, it definitely delivered a useful post-game debrief.
Right at the start, there was also a classic hobby moment: the army was apparently labelled wrong in the table and, well, it stayed that way. Sometimes that is just how battle reports are born.
What happened on the battlefield
The big takeaway was simple: the Dwarfs played too statically.
Instead of pressing the advantage, chasing down weakened enemies, and generally getting stuck in where needed, they spent too much time standing back and shooting. In theory that sounds safe. In practice? Not so much. The conclusion after the game was brutal and honest: if both sides kept going that way, it might have taken something like ten rounds to shoot each other off the table.
That says a lot about how the game flowed. It became a very static engagement, with not enough movement and not enough pressure from the Dwarf side.
One specific regret stood out: the Dwarfs really should have finished off a fleeing Infernal unit when they had the chance. Letting that slip was one of those moments that sticks in your head after the game, because it feels obvious once the dice are packed away.
Objectives might have changed everything
After the game, we ended up talking less about dice and more about scenario design. A good point came up: if we had played with objectives, the battle could have been much more interesting.
That would probably have forced action across more of the board, especially on the western side of the map, where not much seems to have happened. In a straight-up static firefight, both armies could settle into their habits. With objectives in play, there would have been more reason to commit, reposition, and take risks.
Of course, there was the immediate counterpoint: with their famously short legs, the Dwarfs might have spent half the game just trying to reach the objective.
Which, honestly, is also very on-brand.
But the tools are there
That said, we also know this is not really an excuse. There are ways for Dwarfs to play the mission better, and one of the obvious answers mentioned after the game was gyrocopters.
Cheap, strong, useful, and exactly the kind of unit that can help solve the mobility problem.
The real issue was not that the tools did not exist. It was that they need more table time. As we summed it up afterwards: it would be a good idea to actually learn how to use them properly.
And that is probably the most relatable part of the whole report. Sometimes a game is less about winning or losing, and more about discovering that a unit everyone knows is good still needs practice before it starts doing real work.
Final thoughts
So this was not a wild, cinematic clash. It was something a little more familiar: a game where one side played too cautiously, the shooting plan did not really get the job done, and the post-game discussion ended up being more valuable than the result itself.
The Dwarfs will hopefully be wiser next time:
- be less static,
- punish fleeing enemies when the chance appears,
- think harder about objectives,
- and maybe finally give those gyrocopters the attention they deserve.
That is the kind of battle report we always enjoy in its own way — not because everything worked, but because the next game already feels better.