Battle of the Caverns of Fulminax

Greetings!

Another battle went down between the aelves of Hammerhal and Anvilgard. As is the habit of the sinister Anvilgardians, the battle setup was an ambush, into which my army happily walked.

The aim of the game was to score Victory Points by destroying enemy units. Deceptively simple!

On with the story...


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With his son having been humiliated at the hands of Dreadlord Rinos Wildbringer, Lord Aenarel Dawnspur was full of righteous anger. After hearing the news he had rounded up all available troops in the landing site at the Coast of Ill Omen, putting together a sizeable legion which he marched off into the mountains in search of the deceitful foe.

They marched for days, making camp at sheltered valleys and hidden ravines amidst the mountains, but as they finally made camp at an old watchtower at the Caverns of Fulminax they were up for an unpleasant surprise...

Out of the dawn mists poured Anvilgardian Drakespawn Knights, backed up by Stormcast Eternals, a Hydra and a Black Dragon! With drilled efficiency Lord Aenarel drew his legion into a defensive formation, making good use of the small rise around which they had camped.

Archmage Aristeides Clearsight took a company of archers atop the tower, while levy spears and the Swordmasters lined up beside the Bolt Thrower.

The horizon was filled with bristling lances and growling beasts, the heavy cavalry of Anvilgard ruching towards them en masse. Behind the watchtower hill, unseen even by the trained aelven eye, a duardin band of local Anvilgard guerrillas slowly made their way towards the Hammerhal rear...

The battle was joined in a crash of steel and spray of gore, as the Stormcast cavalry slammed home into the aelven spearmen manning the hillside. Over half of the Hammerhalian phalanx collapsed under the razor-sharp beaks and claws of the Stormcast mounts, the rest nailed down by continuous stormbolt-fire.

Lord Rinos sweeped down onto the hill with his black dragon, which sprayed a cloud of noxious gas into the watchtower through an open arrowslit. Coughs and screams from the interior marked a handful of archers having suffocated to death. Then both Rinos and his monstrous mount fell upon the Swordmasters, taking down a handful of the elites but not coming out without a scratch; the nimble warrior-mystics managed to draw dragon's blood with their ornate greatblades.

Archmage Aristeides focused the surrounding Aqshyan aethyric energies into a powerfull spell that he wove around the Swordmasters, and their greatblades were suddenly on fire, blazing with the power of the Realm of Fire! The magically enhanced weapons were too much even for a black dragon, and Rinos was forced to pull out of the battle and into the clody heights to save his mount: the flaming blades had easilly penetrated the dragon's scaly hide, and it was bleeding heavily already.

With Lord Rinos out of the battle, Lord Aenarel urged his own dragon on, circling to meet the approaching Hydra. Flying over a squadron of Drakespawn cavalry, Aenarel's dragon engulfed them in a gout of fire before ploughing through their ranks with its claws, rendering the heavy cavalry into a pile of burnt corpses.

While the Swordmasters were driving off the enemy dragon, the archers in the tower and the bolt thrower on the hill rained death upon the rest of the Anvilgard cavalry. Stormcast Vanguard-Palladors fell under heavy ithilmar bolts, while several Drakespawn Knights were toppled from their saddles in a hail of white shafts.

The last Stormcast took down most of the remaining aelven spears before getting swarmed by the survivors, while Lord Aenarel swept down with his dragon to bear the Hydra to the ground, savaging it with tooth and claw until the cursed thing moved no more. So much for the war beasts of Anvilgard!

Yet for all the missile fire poured down from the hill and all the Hammerhal triumphs across the field, a squadron of Drakespawn Knights managed to sweep around the flank and attack the tower from the rear! House Dawnspur's newly-appointed banner-bearer Kenethiel tried to defend the oblivious archers but got run through by a jagged lance for his efforts.

While the rear-attack of the Anvilgard cavalry and the fall of Kenethiel the Banner-Bearer took everyone's attention, the Anvilgard guerrillas launched an attack of their own. A small band of grim-faced duardin charged up the hill and overwhelmed the bolt thrower crew, cutting the terrified aelves to bloody bits with practiced axe-strokes.

The archers became aware of the enemy at their rear only when lances and longswords began poking in through the doorframes and windows, skewering careless bowmen as they tried to get a good view on the new threat.

Lord Aenarel flew back up the hill, showering the duardin guerrillas with dragonfire before landing atop them in a bloodu crash, followed by a maelstrom of claw and blade that left no mountaindweller alive. A similar fate came upon the remnants of the Drakespawn Knights, who met their doom at the ends of the flaming greatblades of the Swordmasters.

With the enemy slain to a man and their general running for safety, the Hammerhalian forces under the command of Lord Aenarel Dawnspur stood victorious. They had avenged the humiliation of the Lord's son, and now it would be time to push the tide of war back towards the Anvilgard's landing site. Eastwards they marched, leaving only a token garrison behind to man the entrance to the Caverns until reinforcements could be sent for!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Major Victory for Hammerhal!