Engagement (12:00 - 7:30)
I was very, very wrong. I discovered the amazing all-terrain capabilities of the forest giant as Hors d'oeuve's giant came stomping over the ridge from the east side of the plateau, engaging my archers before my warriors could close with it. All eight of the archers in the squad were smacked into pulp. My infantry, with fire support from archers on the plain below, destroyed the giant with no further casualties, but losing half of my long-range missile troops so early was quite a blow.
Hors d'oeuve puts the smack down as my warriors pursue in vain; the cavalry arrives late
A little revenge was on the way, however. Hors d'oeuve's entire berserk contingent had charged at the same time as his forest giant, although they had to take a longer route. They came streaming around the south side of the ridge shortly after I had dispatched his giant. This was perhaps an attempt to encircle my forest giant, which was standing apart from my infantry, or maybe a gamble at catching my infantry in a disorganized state from behind. It was too late, however, and should have been aborted. My forest giant evaded the rush, and the enemy berserks ran more or less single file into a meat grinder of my own berserks, which eliminated them without sustaining a casualty.
At about the same time my other eastern scout was shot down by Hors d'oeuve's archers, but by now I had a pretty good idea where he was. I sent my warriors and the forest giant around the east side of the ridge to see if that way was clear. Hors d'oeuve had been closing with his warriors and archers, and reached a ledge overlooking that path before I came through, so my warriors immediately came under fire as they attempted to pass. I retreated them around to the west side of the plateau. I had seen that his warrior column was on the way, so I formed an "archer sandwich" with berserks to the north of my archer squad and warriors to the south, to protect against either attack route around the ridge. Far away, Hors d'oeuve set his SE archer squad in motion, bringing it up to cover the path I was taking toward the flag field.
I tried to bring my dwarfs into position to soften up the advancing warriors, but I had waited too long: two of Hors d'oeuve's warriors were marching far in advance of the main column, straight for my dwarfs. The dwarfs failed to get into position before they were chased away. The warriors caught up with the dwarfs in the plain below, where my forest giant made short work of them, but too late to save the dwarfs. Meanwhile Hors d'oeuve's main column had weathered my missile fire to get into close range and then split, part of it engaging my line of warriors, and part of it slipping past to attack my archers. They succeeded in killing one of my archers before I could pull them back and let my berserks join the fray, but after that it was another case of a line of enemy infantry attacking a wall of my infantry. Hors d'oeuve's warriors were destroyed, and none of my infantry were lost.
Hor d'oeuve sends the last of his infantry (on the right) to meet their maker