6mm Fantastic Battles: Dark Elves v Dwarves

 Friend Chris and I met up today for our first game of Fantastic Battles using our recently painted 6mm armies. The figures are nearly all from the Irregular Miniatures 6mm Fantasy Range, a wonderful selection of all sorts of fantasy (of which Chris has far too many!) 

After our usual pre-game chat and banter we set up on my home made 6mm sized mat with Chris (Dwarves) as the defender and me (Dark Elves) as the attacker.  We are using 25mm square bases and inches (25.4mm) for measurements. 

Initial deployment, dwarves on the left, Dark Elves on the right.

Mishaps did not do too much damage, just a few points of 'Resolve' lost here and there. 

Looking across the dwarven army, small but tough as I found out. 

To add variety to the number of troop types Chris has used some of the Dark Dwarf range as well as the usual Dwarf figures. He had 19 companies in total. 

The Dark Elf army pose for their team photo, 17 companies in total. 

The dwarves employed some centaur allies: note how Chris has cut the strips up to create a better skirmish formation. 

The two forces close upon each other.

Welcome to the battle! The Dark Elf Dragon and Lizard riders charge into the centaurs and scatter them for the loss of just three resolve.  

The dwarf artillery, top left played havoc with my Dark Elf skirmish units which were supposed to wipe them out. The artillery also shot and killed my giant lizard. 

Whack! A huge melee starts in the centre where I found out how horrible it is to fight Doughty Dwarves in Shieldwall. But then the dwarves did not like my Furious Charge and use of Poison. On the right of the main melee the Dark Elf Magic User 'Blinks' a whole unit of Dark Elf warriors into the melee so that I now outnumber the dwarves. The dragon now charged into some dwarf crossbow troops.

This was a tense really hard fought melee over two or three turns. 

Great to see two tough but completely different armies fighting it out. 

End of turn 5 and the Dark Elf Lizard Riders at the left of the melee scatter the Dwarf Warriors in front of them and my Dark Elf Wizard 'Blinked' some Dwarf Crossbow troops on the right out of the fight. Top right and the Dwarf Artillery and Dark Elf skirmish troops manage to scatter each other.  

Sadly we had to finish here so I could get home before the horrendous tea-time rush hour traffic. With the score at... Dark Elves have lost 4 out of 17 companies and the Dwarves have lost 7 out of 19 companies. So with the Dark Elves slightly ahead and looking how things stood, it looked almost certain that the Dwarves would lose another 3 companies in the next turn if we had chance to play it, thus reaching their breakpoint. The Dark Elves would also probably have lost 3 or 4 more companies next turn taking them perilously close to their breakpoint. A really tight game and showed that Fantastic Battles is just as much fun in 6mm as it is in larger scales. You can tell I enjoyed myself as I am currently planning which units to paint next and what new army/armies to buy in 6mm.