Brocon - battle report 2 vs Dark Elves

Here's the army list I took.

Battle 2: Vs the Dark Elves  

Scenario: 
Watch Tower
This one caused me trouble, I hadn't accounted properly for it in my list. If you can't occupy the tower as a dwarf in turn 1, it's either empty or your enemy has it. If it's empty, it takes you three turns to get into the watch tower. No other army will take as long, so you're fighting a losing battle to get them out of the tower.

Army:
From left to right in the above pic, Dave took:

• 40 Executioners - these nasties have killing blow and GWs. I believe they had a banner giving them always strike first. So striking first, rerolling, great weapon Str6 troops. Scary.
• 1 Repeater bolt thrower 
• 10 Crossbowmen 
• 1 Lvl 2 caster in with the Crossbowmen 
• 30 Corsairs 
• 20 Spearmen Cauldron of blood, with hag and another character if I remember correctly (the cauldron is directly behind the spearmen, but just out of camera shot) 
• 1 Lvl 4 caster (I think?) in with the Spearmen 
• 1 Hydra 
• 7 Shades 

Who went first?
The Dark Elves.

What Happened:
Shade scouts were deployed 12" away from my hammerers, and in their first turn they marched into range and repeater crossbowed a grudge thrower off the board. Some good shooting there. You can't even see the grudge thrower in the first picture above as it's already been removed, it was behind the hammerers.

On the left flank:
The cannon did some damage to the Hydra before it charged the hammerers. It then killed the bolt thrower.

The executioners advanced, I faced off my warriors and quarrellers backing each other up, increasing the charge distance the executioners would make and readying for a counter charge. I was expecting a charge from the executioners which never came!

My quarrellers pinged the 10 man unit of crossbows over two turns but having reformed into 5x6 (expecting a charge from the executioners) they never did enough damage in this formation to cause a panic test. I was hoped to panic them and have the lvl 2 caster flee with them. The executioners never charged, so kept hitting them, but the cauldron gave them a 5+ ward save.

I decided I was screwed unless I made an attempt at the tower, so in the warriors charged, while the quarrellers moved backwards increasing the charge distance the executioners would have to make.

I kept hitting the executioners with the grudge thrower, taking out a sizeable chunk more. Realising I was out of time, I also charged the quarrellers into the executioners. The quarrellers were winning, but it was already too late - turn 6 had arrived for this flank. The warriors were soundly beaten over two turns and fled the combat.

In the middle:
The hammerers moved forward to give the organ gun a clear shot at the shades. It killed 5 of them, they panicked and fled off the board over the next two turns. The next turn the organ gun decided to misfire and roll a 2, which means destroyed. Bye bye organ gun.

The remaining grudge thrower targetted the corsairs until they got in the tower, it then targetted the executioners on the left flank taking 10 of them away over two turns.

On the right flank:
The cannon on the left flank did some small damage to the hydra, which then charged the hammerers and was murderated by them.

The hammerers moved up with the idea that they'd either assault the building, or chase points behind the building via the lvl 4 caster general type in the spearman unit. They would have wiped the floor with them, and kept gunning into the cauldron. After killing the hydra, they marched forward in turn 3. It was turn 4 before they started to attempt charges on the spearman unit. Unfortunately, those charges would fail for the next 3 turns.

Result:
15-5 Loss
Because I didn't take the watchtower, the score started at 15-5.
I did enough damage to take it to 13-7, but adjusting for SCALE the Dark Elf army was a 0 and I was a 2, meaning it was back to 15-5.


What I would do differently: 
Ignore the building, or get into combat with it much faster.

What didn't work well:
The organ gun misfired and removed itself from the board. Sigh.
Assaulting a building with frenzied corsairs in it. They were putting out 23 attacks a turn.

What worked well:
Same as last time, I had spent a lot of points on anti magic and poor Dave had his magic phase shut down.

Missed Rules:
Buildings!

• When assaulting with 10 people, step up rule still applies. We played it that if the corsairs killed 7 warriors (they frequently killed more) then I only got 3 attacks. Wrong. Attackers always get 10 attacks assuming they still have 10 models. 
• When assaulting a building, even if you win CR your attacking unit is moved back an inch thereby not getting a followup round of combat in the occupying players turn. 
• If you win combat res, and the enemy fails it's Ld roll and flees, you can combat reform INTO the building. 
• I also didn't know that skirmishers could march and shoot. Barstewards.