Indeed! The all-heroes lists came about from my idea of playing The Seven Knights scenario, taken from Warhammer Fantasy, based on the tale of The Seven Samurai (of which I was reminded by the film Ironclad recently, which has Seven Knights defend a castle with a handful of it's household guard). Just thought it would be interesting.
So my first game was To the Death! with Ste and I wanted to test out my new Elendil and Isildur, then thought I'd try to keep thematic and chose Legolas and Thranduil from the models I had with me (I figured they MAY have been alive when they were. I don't know, I'm not hugely clued up on LotR
) and the guys convinced me to forgo the last bit of theme and take the new Balin profile as it was all I had points left for. The elves died pretty dang swiftly after Elendil burnt all his Might in a silly display of desperation. Poorly built list and well played by Ste, making use of swarming me (especially since Isildur was running around invisible!).
Second game was another attempt at the scenario, but testing out a more familiar force (Dwarf characters only!) and being a little wiser with building it (still thematic due to the Dwarfs used, but mostly coincidental). Ste changed to use some Fell Warg Riders and such, but the combination Balin, Dain, Gimli, Dwarf King and King's Champion proved FAR too much - especially since we CHOSE Lords of Battle due to movement limitations and it being the only scenario we hadn't really played in the group: Ste then decided to play long edge against long edge (as opposed to short against short, like in the book) because of my movement. I think the fact my list was all heroes (in a game that favours heroes) and the close distance, plus lack of bows (he had two which died first) meant it was a victory for me. Although, I was secretly happy when he killed the Dwarf King (unpainted model: shame on me
).
Against Thermo in game 3, Ste chose for us to play The High Ground. My list was a bit more practical and I decided to test out Murin and Drar (very good guys to have) and the Khazad Gaurd. Considering my shield-Dwarfs were Iron Hills Veterans and I HATE HATE HATE two-handed weapons, it meant the Khazad Guard were kind of obsolete (an extra point, without the option of shielding...). The win here was more of luck than anything else, but my tactic did work (even if my shooting largely didn't!): started as usual with a warband on the hill and one countering the enemy, then just fell back as Thermo stood at the edge of range sniping my non-archers whilst my archers couldn't retaliate. Then one turn of Gusting Winds and he surged forwards. Then things started to die on both sides. Very fun game and it did feel like the game cheated us out of a proper finish, despite a fair and square, planned, but slightly lucky win, so we carried on. Even so, I reaped a fairly decent toll on the riders in the process of my demise.
Learning points:
All hero list might be a good choice for dwarfs when not worrying about capturing several objectives.
Focus less on damage prevention and more on attaining objectives.
Murin and Drar with Iron Hills Veterans upgrades are extremely good.
Khazad Guard aren't worth it in SBG for me - more than before due to the IHV.
Start considering a thematic allied cavalry or including the Grey Company for a rank of spears and bows behind my shield-Dwarfs wall.
Extremely fun day though!