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This was me trying out my tournament list that I'll be using for a tournament end of January. It's more or less a gunline with one big choppy block of troops.

Runelord, Anvil, 3x Ro Spellbreaking
Master Engineer, Brace of Pistols
Thane BSB, 2x Ro Iron, Ro Stone, MRo Challenge, Ro The Furnace
10x Quarrelers
10x Thunderers, shields
10x Thunderers, shields
18x hammerers with Command
Bolt Thrower, Ro Penetrating, Engineer
Bolt Thrower, Ro Burning, Engineer
Cannon, Ro Forging, Ro Burning
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

His List:
Plague Priest on Plague Furnace in a big block of Plague Monks (Unbreakable, Frenzy)
Verminlord (don't know items)
Warlock with doomrocket
Warlock (some item gave him an extra dice if he rolled right for it)
Hell Pit Abomination
27x clanrats, spears (may have had spears, don't know) with a warpfire thrower
20x Giant rats
20x slaves
20x slaves
20x slaves

So clearly, his whole list is predicated on getting into combat, and my whole list is predicated on keeping him out. We have played at 1000 points before, and agreed that this time we'd call the stormbanner one use only (once it burns out, it's done) since last time he mopped the floor with me by not being able to shoot all game.

There's a hill in about the middle of each DZ, and two forests about a foot from either edge in the middle of no-man's land.

all directions are from my perspective

He checkerboards an M formation in the middle of the board 3x slaves in front and the clanrats and plague monks behind them on the points of the M. His abomination
is on the far right, his verminlord (a really cool converted model that I can't wait to see painted) and one warlock are just behind the giant rats on the far left. The other warlock hangs out with the clanrats.

I deploy with the organ gun and gyrocopter on my left, opposite his two heroes and giant rats. Then there's a unit of thunderers, and then the obligatory shooting hill, which has two bolt throwers, a 2-deep block of quarrelers (the fact that I put a shieldless unit on the hill is going to be important) and then the cannon. After that, my choppy hammerers with BSB followed by the final unit of thunderers. The anvil is behind the hill, miners of the board.

He wins first turn, I discover to my chagrin that he's got 11 power dice in that rig. He fails to get a couple spells off, but does manage to put 2 wounds on my gyrocopter with a well-placed warp lightning, leaving it with one wound. In movement, everything goes straight forward as far as it can, with the crucial exception of the verminlord, which stops a bit short to avoid being in steam cannon range.

At the beginning of my turn he pops the storm banner. Awesome. Anything that auto-hits (organ gun, cannon) needs a 4+ to shoot at all, and everything else in my army needs sixes to hit (storm banner gives -2, and the thunderers get +1 but were over half range). The organ gun and the thunderers on the left somehow combine to pop his verminlord THROUGH all of that with some truly epic rolling (the organ gun only rolled for two hits, but wounded on both). My burning bolt thrower's engineer then earned his pay by putting two unsaveable wounds on the icky abomination, and I also wrath and ruined him with the anvil for good measure. The cannon decided to take a turn off due to the stormbanner, and the crossbows on the hill stupidly shot at the plague furnace instead of the monks... of course, the two that managed to hit it couldn't hurt its toughness six. Gyrocopter is stuck because if it can't fly, it can't move.

His turn two, he rolls for the stormbanner, with a 50% chance for it to stay on. It burns out, and he wonders out loud what he did to piss off the horned rat THIS week. His luck was really awful the whole game. The skies clear, the dwarves wring out their beards and get ready for a seriously epic round of shooting. His wrath and ruined abomination creeps forward 4.5 inches at half-speed, his main line moves its 10" forward, and the giant rats run right past the gyrocopter to get ready to charge the organ gun. His warlock, which was on the far side of the forest, moves to the near side to position for spells. I now had more dispell dice than he had power dice with the loss of his verminlord, so I dealt with his magic phase without trouble (he miscasted but rolled a six, so I got to cast a spell I didn't have... whoop de do).

My turn, I shockingly declare no charges. My miners show up and I put them on my table edge, ready to countercharge the giant rats if the organ gun manages to hold them. I make a great guess with the cannon, roll perfectly, and the abomination learns the hard way that a cannon ball is not hard candy and you shouldn't try to catch it with your teeth. He suffers two wounds, leaving him with two more. The thunderers finish him off with another spectacular display of luck (only one of them missed, and the beastie couldn't roll a single regen save out of two tries). It now becomes clear that he has to bet the farm on the plague furnace, which can still cause serious mayhem if it gets in cc with my units. With this in mind, I shoot it with two bolt throwers, dealing two wounds. The quarrelers fail AGAIN (they were the goat this match) to even kill so much as a single monk. I have a choice to make now: will my thunderers shoot at the furnace, or will they shoot at the unit of clanrats that's facing them this turn? I elect to shoot the clanrats with the thunderers, killing 7. His first stroke of luck of the game is that they won't panic, so they can charge next turn. The Organ Gun takes aim at the giant rats and manages to muster two shots for no wounds. Apparently Grungni was tired that day from his efforts with the thunderers on the far side of the battle. I wrath and ruin the furnace this time, but don't manage to wound it.

And now it's going to start to sting. His magic does nothing except giving the giant rats death frenzy. His left unit of slaves and the clanrats behind them charge my thunderers on the left (the warlock uses a doomrocket first, which kills a total of five crewmen from two bolt throwers). I stand and shoot the clanrats (he foolishly declared their charge BEFORE the slaves), and manage to panic them into retreat with his warlock still there! They would never rally and eventually flee off the board. The slaves hit and accomplish nothing. (these guys are in range of the runelord's 9 leadership) His middle unit of slaves charge the quarrelers on the hill. His plague furnace charges... oh wait, it can only trundle forward 5". The unit of slaves on the right have been eating their wheaties, and decide they want to charge the hammerers with BSB. Thunderers get left alone.
In close combat, the thunderers on the left manage to kill a slave or two, lose combat, and hold. The quarrelers on the hill and that unit of slaves also end up staying put, continuing their fine tradition of nonviolence (wimps). On the right, the slaves lose combat by a mile, and explode! He kills: one Thunderer and one crewman from the cannon. The organ gun suffer zero casualties, but still lose combat by a mile. They hold on a 5. Again the horned rat turns his back on my opponent. Now the miners can ice that unit.

So now it's my turn again. I flank charge the giant rats with my miners. Since the only thing not in close combat is the plague furnace, my unengaged thunderers, my bolt throwers, and my cannon all take aim at it. I roll a 10 with the cannon, and adding in my 2-inch guess, manage to miss completely. I should have grapeshotted. I bring the furnace down to a single wound, and now all eyes will turn to see if it can charge next turn. I wrath and ruin it, of course; no wounds.
I forgot to move the gyrocopter, and missed a golden chance to steam the unit of plague monks. Bah.
In close combat, the thunderers hold, but the quarrelers break, flee, and get run down! They were directly in front of my anvil, and so his unit of slaves, having suffered practically no casualties, overruns right into the anvil, which basically takes it out of the game. That combat continues for the remaining two turns. The giant rats and their handlers kill two OG crew, leaving one lone guy. He holds. I kill a couple of rats with the miners, who also lose but also hold.

I breathe a huge sigh of relief on my turn when the plague furnace turns out to still be ONE inch out of charge range of my cannon. It trundles a bit closer, creaking ominously. All the combats stay put, as the anvil guards chop up a couple of slaves but can't beat them in combat, and the thunderers and the other unit of slaves play tag. Thunderers lose again and hold again. I've also moved my BSB-bearing unit of hammerers up as far as I can, hoping to get out of the charge arc of the furnace. It's not quite far enough.

On my turn, I turn my cannon on the big juicy furnace sitting right in front of it. Misfires, but no problem, I've got forging, so I'll re-roll... MISFIRE AGAIN. I roll a 4, meaning "can't shoot this turn," but with a big unit of plague monks (who aside from the wounds on the furnace itself are totally untouched) sitting right in front of it, that means it's never shooting again. My s7 bolt thrower comes to the rescue again and finally pops the plague furnace, which is 3" away from its goal of getting into cc.The other bolt thrower bounces off the first monk it hits, but I do manage to kill a few with shooting from the thunderers.
Anvil guards and runelord chop up some more slaves, lose combat again, still unbreakable. Thunderers finally take their first casualty from slave attrition, but they kill a few in return and hold AGAIN. My opponent is now very annoyed. I forgot to move the gyrocopter again.

On his final turn, he charges the plague monks at the cannon and wipes it out, but can't overrun through his own unit to hit the anvil. His unit of giant rats beats the miners and overruns into the flank of my unit of thunderers still locked up with the slave. Thanks to death frenzy, they're looking a bit thin by now, but their champ is still doing fine, and he chops 4 thunderers up into rat food. The slaves kill another one, and the rest finally flee. The giant rats, exulting in their victory, overrun a spectacular... two inches. The slaves do better and get into combat with the first bolt thrower.
The anvil guards and slaves trade more ineffective blows, and my very very expensive hammerers sit there on their shields, drink ale and watch, since they're pointed the wrong way, and no anvil moves to turn them with. the thunderers also stare off into space. I forgot to move the gyrocopter again.

My final turn, we just resolve some close combats. The slaves keep winning combat with the anvil and it keeps not mattering, and the other slaves kill one bolt thrower and overrun into the second one too late to matter. I had a chance to charge the giant rats with my four remaining miners, but decided to save half their points. They really accomplished nothing at all this game, and I'm considering dropping them from my list.

We didn't tot up the points exactly, but it was solid victory leaning toward massacre. I only lost one block of troops and two war machines, while he only had his plague monks (with priest), one warlock, and three half-blocks of slaves, slaves, giant rats.

After the game, for fun, we did a simulated combat between his hellpit abomination and my hammerer block. That thing is seriously choppy. In two turns of combat, I managed to do two wounds to it and it killed THIRTEEN of my eighteen hammerers. They were stubborn and stayed put, but wow am I glad I shot that thing.

Things I learned:
1) Paint my gyrocopter blaze orange so I don't forget it's there.
2)I need another combat block. I think I'll drop the miners and try to squeeze in some ironbreakers (such lovely models)
3) I should have popped the MRo Challenge and made him charge my hammerers instead of the cannon. The frenzied attacks would have bounced off those guys, even without shields facing them.
4) The master engineer on the cannon was worth his weight in gold. Doubling the wounds a hit does is very important on a burning cannon if your targets are mainly monsters with regen saves or something.
5) 3 dispel scrolls might be too much.
6) I should have put a unit with shields on the hill, rather than quarrelers with no shields. If it had been something other than slaves that overran into the anvil, I could have been in real trouble.
7) You don't really need thorek to get great mileage out of an anvil.

Hope you enjoyed this, comments are welcome. And if you're in the Minneapolis area and you want to try your luck against this list, I'm up for it, drop me a PM!

Thanks for the report!

Sounds like a real tough break for the Skaven Player. Your targeting priorities were spot on...the Vermin Lord is an easy kill, and if you dont down a Hellpit Abom, it will make you its b1tch!

Shame we didnt get to see the Furnace in action. I have been using the Screaming Bell, and so far I am quite pleased with it...it is much tougher than it used to be, and there is only one really bad result on it....plus, if your opponent had brought it, your war engines may not have lasted more than one turn depending on what the "bell tolls!"

Well done!

Good battle report - I think it highlights some of the fallacies that some Skaven players have about big hordes marching straight forward to get into combat - they aren't the best when it comes to combat and usually rely on combat res to win. Those slaves tying up the runelord and not being able to anvil - probably best 40 points he ever spent!

Agree about the plague furnace - the more I play with it and the more I hear folks play with it, I really don't think it's that good. At least the screaming bell can do stuff outside of combat and isn't tied to a frenzied unit. Plus the bell has a ward save at least (1 or 2 cannons and the furnance is toast).
The Vermin Lord - way overpriced and doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the book in my opinion.
Your right - the abomination can be incredible in combat, but it's random attacks can be a pain.
He went suprising low on the number of models/core units (not counting slaves because they're pretty crappy in combat anyways) - for the same cost of the Vermin Lord, he could have gotten 2 units of 30 clanrats with shields and warpfire throwers.
A total lack of shooting really hurt him as well - at least if he had a warp lightning cannon or two he could have traded shots with you at long range and maybe taken out a unit and/or destroyed some war machines.
Big blocks of plague monks combined with the furnace seems to be a favored tactic of folks - pretty big point sink in my opinion for a frenzied unit that may or may not make it into combat (your gyrocopter would have been perfect for that).

You definately had a gunline list - suprised you took the hammerers without a Dwarflord, but the stubborn 9, combined with a BSB is pretty darn good as well. With so many burning runes though, I could see the list having problems with Dragon Princes, but still a good army though. It'll be a shame when they get ride of the autohit for organ guns in the new codex.

Cool batrep. Couple of things to point out:

The thunderers on the left already had a Ld of 9, no need to worry about the Runelord (one of the Dawis' strengths, minimum Ld 9 throughout the army).

The organ gun that lost combat didn't need to roll a 5, they needed a 9. Dwarf warmachine crews are stubborn as long as their weapon is still around.

Thanks for the replies.

@HiveFleet and Mattbranb, I thought that for the reasons you point out, his list was pretty problematic. Almost everything in it is built for the same function - blitz right into close combat and break some sh*t - but 1) his units (except the abom, and that's unreliable) are not really that speedy, and 2) you only really need one big meaty thing like that, or maybe two. If he had used a more magic-y character as his lord, he could have really given me trouble in that phase, possibly even cooking my hammerers with that 13th spell nonsense (anybody want some cheese?). As it was, he rolled poorly for magic, which disrupted his plans a bit as well.

Do you think he'd have done better if he'd lined up his slaves in thinner formations to block my ground-level shooting? It would cost them some LD, but they were all close enough to his general.

@Matt, I think with my armor-piercing infantry shooters, and also one non-burning bolt thrower, I can throw out enough damage to maim a block of DP's or two. Also, they're partly why i took the challenge rune on the BSB (also other beefy cav blocks such as cold one riders), so the hammerers can at least tarpit one group. Have yet to try it though.

@Ulric- thanks for the heads up on the Thunderers, I missed that.
As for the stubborn, I found in the book where it says they're immune to panic (Artilleryman's pride) but are you sure they're stubborn? Can you provide a page reference?

It's Gunner's Pride, page 38. This is from the 6.5E army book (the most recent one).

Ok found it. Thanks.

Thanks a lot for the report. I can't see any way around needing to shoot the Abomination to death. There can't be much of anything at all that can take it down in combat. It looks like it'll even paste a runed up Dwarf lord much of the time, and throws out so many attacks/hits that slayers would have a horrible time getting to even swing.

Good battle, but had a couple of questions and comments regarding the items learned:

Malleus wrote:
Things I learned:
2)I need another combat block. I think I'll drop the miners and try to squeeze in some ironbreakers (such lovely models)
3) I should have popped the MRo Challenge and made him charge my hammerers instead of the cannon. The frenzied attacks would have bounced off those guys, even without shields facing them.
4) The master engineer on the cannon was worth his weight in gold. Doubling the wounds a hit does is very important on a burning cannon if your targets are mainly monsters with regen saves or something.

2) I'd agree with this, but didn't see the miners in your initial list, so don't have an idea how many points are tied up. What size unit are you running?
3) Bear in mind that MR of Challenge can't be used on ItP. While Frenzied, troops are immune to panic, which means the MR of Challenge can't be used on them. I'm stringing that together based on memory, since I don't have my books with me, but believe it to be correct. That seems to be the main problem with the MR of Challenge. Most of the units you'd like to use it on are immune.
4) I suppose this is true when playing against something that *must* die to shooting. However, it always seemed to me to be an awful large chunk of points for what he does. Have you considered a flaming stone thrower? Same number of wounds inflicted, but won't cost you a hero slot and the price of a Master Engineer. Add a Rune of Accuracy and you've got a pretty decent hit ratio.

Thanks again for the report, and please keep posting!

RZ

Thanks for posting, Zeke.

Here's a thought: lose the master engineer entirely also the
MRo challenge (re: your point about ITP, it is useless against my most powerful foes), and throw in an additional
grudge thrower, but still keep the cannon.

The miners were 8 with prospector and steam drill
for a total of 123 pts. They didn't get their points back, and since I used them on my table edge, they were basically a very small unit of warriors that struck last
and didn't have shields. Ick.

I have since played against a skullapult-using tomb kings player, and I tried out the ironbreakers. They got charged by chariots, autobroke from fear (lost combat by only one!) and were run down. The success story was the gyrocopter, which tied up the skullapult the whole game. It made me think I don't really need miners so much.

I think the ironbreakers are too many points to invest in a non-stubborn unit. Current list has 20x hammerers and 20x warriors with the BSB in the hammerers. Might split the warriors into 2x10 as charge redirectors or something.

Unless you're trying for something very specific, you could probably throw the miners' points elsewhere, or at least trim them. I think the problem with the prospector and steam drill is that you're looking at about a 33% bump in the unit price to get them there closer to when you want... but is that worth it for 8 great weapon warriors? I've had some mixed success with a unit of 6 for table quarters, war machines and the like. Basically giving a chance at VPs that I'd otherwise have no shot at. 6 may be a little small, given they only need two casualties to take a panic test and drop below US 5.

The question becomes whether you can spare the special slot.

As far as ironbreakers, much as I hate to say it, it's hard to justify them over hammerers. For the same points, you pick up stubborn (which when combined with fear prevention banners or a Dwarf Lord is tremendous) and a great weapon (occasionally handy) while losing that one pip of armor save. It'd be one thing if hammerers were 0-1. I know there's folks who disagree with that sentiment, and your ironbreakers might have been ok if they'd had a Rune of Stoicism or Courage but I'd probably mostly take them for model, fluff, or variety reasons rather than because of any comparison (stat-wise) with hammerers.

RZ

P.S. I have a hard time saying for certain whether the MR of Challenge should go or not. When it's useful, it's really, really useful. It's just that often it's kind of dead weight when you really need it against those ItP deathstars.

My tournament results this weekend (see subsequent report) totally justified keeping the MRo Challenge. So I'll keep it at 2250.