Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I usually don't post battle reports, and this is my first time posting on a big forum. If you're looking for tactical genius, look elsewhere. If you're looking to not make the same mistakes I did, then read on .

I went to DakkaCon’s “Lowhammer” event with a few friends from the Shambling Horde up in Albany NY. The comp restrictions were very strict (no power 6 spells, lots of banned items, etc.) It also gave a free Gorgon to Beastmen, 6 Yhetees to Ogres, a free Treeman to Wood Elves (the “Freeman”) and a free Green Knight to Bretts. These cost nothing and gave no points when they were killed.

I’ve been mostly using dwarves since 8th came out, so I brought a throng with me. I figured there would be some extra big monsters floating around, so I took a cannon and two grudge throwers. In retrospect, it didn’t help much…

My list was comprised of:

Thane, Rune of Stone, 2+ Ward vs Flaming, Immune to killing blow and poison, Flaming Great Weapon, and Rune of Challenge to induce charges
BSB with rerollable 1+ armor save, Immune to KB and poison, +1 WS
Dragon Slayer, +2 I and Flaming weapon
Rune smith with Master rune o’ Balance, dispel
29 Longbeards with shields, full command
30 Rangers, fc
29 Hammerers, fc
11 Slayers
Cannon, Flaming
Grudge Thrower, Accuracy
Grudge Thrower, Accuracy, Flaming
Gyrocopter

I’m not going to go into the reasons for taking some of the stuff I did, mostly because they were bad ideas to start with . My goal for the weekend was to end with a winning record and have a good time.

GAME ONE – ALEX SCHMIDT – Warriors of Chaos

Alex is a member of the US ETC team, and he won last year’s Crossroads Challenge. So my first game was going to be against an excellent player. He had a “chess” themed WoC army, all black and white, with old wizard familiar models for chaos warriors. Left to right, he deployed: 2 Chariots, 10 Slaanesh warriors with great weapons and a Lvl 4 on Slaanesh magic, 5 knights, a BSB, 20 Slaanesh warriors with GW, Throgg and 4 trolls and a Hellcannon. I setup my rangers in the woods on the left….unsupported…did I mention I put them in the woods? Where they wouldn’t be steadfast…facing two chariots? I then had my LBs, Hammerers, Slayers and the gyro. My plan was to target the chariots with my war machines, pull his knights out with the Rune of Challenge on the hammerers and use the LBs and Rangers to kill his mage in the bunker. If I killed one chariot, I would either goad him into charging into dangerous terrain or just come out of the woods.



I went first, advanced the gyro up to slow up his warriors, and kept the rangers in the woods. Big mistake? I then rolled two misfires with my GTs, blowing one up, and rolled a 1 to wound with my cannon to wound the chariot. So yeah, things are going according to plan…



During his first turn, he advanced up a little and charged my gyro with his warriors. I fled 10” and escaped. However, this put me right in front of my hammerers.

My turn 2, I once again use my war machines to target the chariots, and only cause one wound to one of them. And I left the rangers in the woods…Sigh. I rallied the gyro and forgot that it can move immediately after it rallies, and I left it in front of the hammerers. His turn 2, I used the Rune of Challenge on his knights, and he combo charged my slayers with the warrior block and the trolls, and slammed both chariots into the rangers…who weren’t steadfast because I had left them in the woods.



I slaughter the knights, he killed all but two of the slayers, and he ran down the rangers with both his chariots (who now have one wound left on each).

My turn 3, I charge the warrior bunker with my Longbeards, move the gyro out of the way, and move my hammerers up (I couldn’t charge in because the gyro was in the way). I should have reformed them to face the warriors instead of moving up. My LBs, with their hand weapons, lose to the 10 warriors, but I stayed steadfast, but didn’t expand my frontage to get more attacks. He wiped out the remaining slayers and reformed both the warriors and trolls to face the hammerers. His Turn 3, he slams into the Hammerers but doesn’t break me. He beats the LBs who flee. 10 Warriors > 30 LBs.



My turn 4, I shoot up one of the chariots with my cannon, he kills the rest of the hammerers, and that’s about it. In the end, I gave 2475, got 760, making for a 0-20. And we’re off to a good start…

I think my plan to isolate the mage’s bunker was a good one, and if I had great weapons on the LBs I would have gotten those points. I also would have been able to get my hammerers against his big warrior block and maybe get those points as well if I had remembered to move the gyro when I rallied. And lastly, if I had moved the rangers out of the woods they would have been steadfast against the chariots and turned the flank. I have no excuse for leaving the rangers in the woods. I was just relying on my war machines to make up for bad tactics.

In the end, Alex gave me a good game, and was a great opponent. You can see why he’s on the ETC team. His play was tight, and he executed his plan very well. Hopefully I’ll get paired against him again in the first round of a future tourney, and I can give him a better game.

GAME TWO – TIM O’BRIEN – Ogres

Tim was fielding an Ogre army, so he had the free unit of 6 yhetees. He also had a balanced build that would have given me some trouble. He had, from left to right: 3 Leadbelchers, 50 gnoblars, Scrap launcher, 7 bulls with a Slaughtermaster, 6 Ironguts with his Tyrant and his BSB, 3 Leadbelchers, and his free Yhetees. I deployed the gyro and slayers out wide left, and put my Longbeards, Hammerers and Slayers all together on the right.



Turn 1 he advanced, and his scrap launcher kills a few Hammerers. My turn 1, my rangers fail a charge against the yhetees. I move the hammerers up, with the longbeards 7 inchaes behind so they can give a supporting charge in future turns. I move the gyro up the left flank to cause some trouble on the gnoblars. I also roll two more misfires and another “1” to wound. Not that I’m keeping count.



Turn 2, he charges the yhetees into the rangers, and the lead belchers and ironguts into the hammerers, moving the bulls up to support. I break the yhetees and pursue them.



In the main event, he fluffs his impacts and misses a lot of his attacks. Because the hammerers and ironguts both have great weapons, we strike at the same time, and I kill off all the leadbelchers, the BSB and two ironguts. He breaks, I catch him, and the bulls with the slaughtermaster fail their panic check and flee, right in front of the gyro.



My turn 2 I charge the bulls with the gyro, running them down. I also kill the scrap launcher with the cannon.

His turn 3 he rallies the yhetees and charges my slayers with the left lead belchers. He bounces, breaks and the gnoblars panic and flee. He concedes.



Tim had brutal luck, between fluffing his impacts to failing every leadership check he needed to make. I think if he had combo charged the yhetees and leadbelchers into the rangers, he would have rolled my right flank, but with so few blocks he didn’t have a lot of options. Tim was a great opponent, and took his bad luck really well. It’s a shame the game ended that way, but as he said, it’s a dice game, and that stuff happens. If we were doing sports scores I would have rated him my best opponent of the weekend. I look forward to seeing him again at Crossroads.

Comments are welcome. More battles to come...

Orzabal

I was wondering when some DakkaCon reports were going to be posted! This is awesome... will give these a good read-through this weekend and post up some thoughts . The pics are great

Great! Thanks for the reports, and I'm looking forward to more to come.

Sounds like there was a bit of bad luck with the war machines, and some rust that needed to get knocked off in that first game. As for the second: I was thinking 6 free yheti seemed kind of extreme, but the fluffing of attacks appeared to be pretty spectacular. Nice work on punching those Ogres in the gut!

I faced ogres in round 1 (a different list, though) and the 6 free yhetees just evaporated. However, it wasn't so against the "Freeman" . It was a fun idea for the tourney, though, and I was happy to see wood elves on top for once!

I really wish I could have gone to that tourney. Stupid Disney World! Thanks for posting the bat reps. I love seeing the dwarfs in action, especially with units I never see anymore. (Slayers, gyros) Keep 'em coming!

First Army is just horrible, the modeling i am talking about. While maybe cool....so that chess piece is what again??

Agreed with above. I would have asked for an opponent who brought a real army.

RedZ, I wish it were rust, but really I just didn't play well at this tourney (you'll see in the next report). Since I had my daughter a few years ago, my playing time has gone way down, and it shows in my play . And war machine fail was one of the themes of the weekend.

As for the Chess Set army, I really had no problem with what units were what, and it actually looked pretty good on the table. I would have had a problem if there was some confusion, but everything was pretty clear.

Orzabal

GAME THREE – ED MAUL – Orcs ‘n Goblins

Ed is an excellent player, who is a strong presence in the Northeast tourney scene. At least I’m getting paired against some talented players. He was fielding an OnG list that I was very unfamiliar with. In addition, since I’ve been playing mostly dwarves in this edition, I’m pretty unfamiliar with the nuances of how some troop types work (fast cavalry, for instance). He also took a special character (Gorbad), that allowed him to take multiple units of Big’uns and mitigated some of the affects of animosity. In this scenario, we each had to choose one of our opponent’s units. If we destroyed the target unit, we would get additional scenario points.

His setup, left to right was as follows: 19 Wolf Riders with Gorbad, Goblin chariot, 50 goblins with nets and two fanatics, 25 savage Big’uns with Lvl 2 Orc shaman, a Rock Lobber, a Mangler, A Doom Diver, 25 Big-Uns with flaming banner and another Lvl 2 shaman (This was my target unit), Pump wagon, Goblin Chariot and 3 Spear Chukkas. I placed my rangers 12” away from the wolf riders, stopping them from making a vanguard move, and putting pressure on Gorbad. I was under the impression that the Wolf Riders would lose fast cav for the entire turn because Gorbad started his turn in the unit. Anyway, setup looked like this:



I went first, and moved the rangers up to put pressure on Gorbad’s unit. I cannoned off his pump wagon and destroyed his chariot on the right flank, leaving that side exposed, and allowing me to make a run for the target unit. His first turn, he detached Gorbad from the unit and just ran around the rangers, and the wolf riders, now that they didn’t have Gorbad in the unit, just used their fast cav ability to run around me as well. So I was wrong with how that worked, and now my rangers were completely out of position. He did fail animosity with his Big-un block, and squabbled with the savages, making them both stand still for the first turn. His mangler ran forward, and I had run my slayer hero up to deal with it. Once again, I made a mistake, thinking that I needed to charge into the mangler.



My turn 2, I attempted to charge the mangler, but was told that I actually needed to “move” over it, essentially making my slayer hero too slow to reach it. I reformed the hammerers to get a clear shot on the mangler with both of my grudge throwers. I misfired with one, blowing it up, and rolled another “1” to wound. On the left, my gyro charged his chariot, and released the fanatics from the goblin unit. The gyro lived (barely), and tied the chariot in combat. My Longbeards moved up to fight the goblin block while the hammerers and slayers move forward to kill the target unit.

His turn 2, he charged the wolf riders into the cannon and stuck on it. His fanatic roared back through the gyro and chariot, killing them both. I pulled the goblins forward into the Longbeards using the rune of challenge, but between the nets and my hand weapons, I only ended up winning by 1. So, once again, 330 pts of LBs < 150 pts in Goblins. He used Hand of Gork in the magic phase to move his savage orcs close to my rangers. And lastly, his Wolf Riders finished off my cannon.



My turn 3, I charge his Big’uns with my hammerers and he opts to flee. I end up catching him and running him down. Once again, my Longbeards were stuck in combat with the goblins. His turn 3, he charges Gorbad into the flank of that combat and broke them. He also charged his Savage Orcs into my rangers, and even with hatred and great weapons I only kill three of them. They ended up breaking and getting run down. He also charged my last grudge thrower with the wolf riders and killed that.



Turn 4, my solo slayer hero charged Gorbad and put a wound on him, and won by two, but he passed his break test and stayed…it was my last big hope for a moral victory. In the end, it was a major win for him, but I got all of the bonus points, for a score of 5-18.



Looking back on this game, I have to say that my lack of rules knowledge hurt, but even with that, Ed played a smart game, and fielded a strong list that nullified my units. Once again, Longbeards with shields were just worthless. I think if I had turtled up some more, and shot up his war machines with mine, I would have had more luck, but with such a wide frontage, I found I spent all my time trying to kill his “grenades” (mangler, chariots, etc) to defend my blocks. Small arms fire in this game would have been excellent, and could have helped me deal with the manglers, wolf riders, etc.

So, after Day 1 I had one big win and two big losses. I would have to do some real work on Day 2 to try to finish strong.


GAME FOUR – LINCOLN TIDWELL – Wood Elves

Lincoln won this year’s Throne of Skulls tournament, so once again I was paired against a very experienced player. His Wood Elf army was composed of a “death star” of 22 archers with the always stand and shoot banner, a Level 4 with the Rhymer’s Harp, and a BSB with the Razor standard. For this tourney, it was ruled that the razor standard worked on ranged attacks, so this unit was going to be very hard to come to grips with. In this scenario, our armies were “hung over” giving your small arms fire -1 to hit for the first two turns, and war machines would only shoot on a 1-4. This was a godsend for me, as I would gladly trade a few war machine shots for -1 to hit from his archers. His list, from left to right, was: Treeman, 19 Dryads, 10 archers, 6 Treekin, 20 Dryads, the archer block, a Great Eagle and his Freeman. I deployed my Longbeards on the left, then the hammerers, slayers, and rangers, then the gyro. My intent was to put pressure on the archer block, break it, and grab 1,100 points.



I went first and advanced with everyone. On the right, I moved my gyro up 16” away from his archers behind difficult terrain. My intent there was to charge the archers next turn, inducing a stand and shoot at -4. Once in, I figured I could stay a turn to tie up his shooting until the rangers came up. Two of my war machines could fire, and I once again misfired with one and only put a single wound on the Freeman. His turn, he declared a long charge on the gyro with the Freeman (he needed a 9), through the terrain, and made it in. He also moved his eagle up in front of my rangers, giving me his flank, but facing to the right.



Because of the 8th ed rules, I would have to turn completely 90 degrees to charge the eagle in the front, essentially stopping any meaningful overrun, because more of my models were in the eagle’s front arc. He advanced everything else forward, moving the dryads up oblique to cut off my slayers and hammerers from the main unit. The archers shot up the rangers. The Freeman failed to kill the gyro, and they remained locked in combat.

My turn 2, I charged the eagle and killed it, reforming my rangers to face the archers. I advanced everything else forward, and the war machines failed me again. The Freeman continued to wrestle with the gyro. His Turn 2, he charged the Dryads into the slayers, and charged the Treekin into the Longbeards, while the Treeman and the other Dryad block moved across the bridge to roar in next turn. The Longbeards lose combat, but hold. Once again, I was missing great weapons. The slayers stood their ground, and the Freeman finally killed off the gyro.



My turn 3, I charged the rangers into the archers, and charged my hammerers into the flank of the Dryads. My cannon finally found its range, and lit up the Treeman on the left flank, burning it to the ground.



The rangers lose combat, and flee. The hammerers kill off the Dryads, and turn to face the archers. His turn 3, I use the Rune of Challenge to force him to charge the hammerers with his archers, saving me from another round of devastating shooting. On the left flank, he charged his other Dryad block into the flank of the Longbeards, who once again stay on steadfast, but are getting really thin.



My Turn 4, I charge into the archers with hammerers, kill the mage and BSB, break the unit and run it down. On the left, the Longbeards finally break, having only killed one treekin during 4 rounds of combat.



During cleanup, he kills off the slayers with his Freeman, and the dryads and Treekin kill off my war machines, but he can’t kill my hammerers with my characters. In the end it’s a very hard fought tie. 1405-1430 or so. With modifiers for the scenario, I get 12 to his 11.

The Eagle maneuver was very cool, and I’ll remember to use it with my gyrocopter in future games. Once again, I think I misused the gyro. If I had been a few more inches back, I still could have charged the archers over the difficult terrain, and been safely out of charge range of the Freeman. However, if the Freeman didn’t take three turns to kill it, it would have ripped up my rangers, leaving the archers free to kill off my hammerers. The Longbeards with shields put up a good defense, but if I had great weapons, I would have been able to reduce the Treekin to half strength, bagging me about 200 points, and maybe hurt them a lot more before the dryads came into my flank. Lastly, the Freeman really gave the Wood Elves a big advantage, forcing me to allocate resources for essentially 0 VPs.

Final round and Final thoughts to be posted later,

Orzabal

That eagle trick's one of my favorite maneuvers with the gyro! Even better with an eagle that only costs 50 points. It's especially awesome if the blocked unit is frenzied, but I like it for holding off deathstars too. The gyro actually survives a surprising number of times as well.

Never met Ed Maule, but knew him from when I played 40K and he posted up a storm on here. Didn't know he was still playing Fantasy. I like the Gorbad maneuver early on with the fast cav.

I just noticed the comment in your last entry here about half points. The tournament gave points for units at half strength? Be interested in thoughts on that.

Really like the tables and terrain, in these pics. Where was this played? Mikhala's store?

You faced some Really strong players! I didn't have to play the chess-board army, but I played his teammate Corey (not sure on the spelling) who I think helps run Crossroads, and who was one of the top 3 at the end. He had an army similar to Lincoln's, wood elves heavy on forest spirits, and the minor loss I got in that game was I think my best played game of the event... even though he mandhandled me! Besides the "Freeman", not having Daemons around makes Forest Spirits quite viable.

I also played Ed Maule (didn't realize there was an "e" on the end there, but what a cool name!). Hand of Gork is crazy, and it was a fun match since with Third Eye of Tzeentch I was able to use it, too . I really, really missed having a dispel scroll... as he scrolled my critical use of it, and I was unable to do the same to him. It doesn't look like it happened in your game, and didn't in mine, but he mentioned he thought the spell could be used to take a unit out of combat- but we looked it up before our game and it can't be (I think he said he hadn't done it before, anyway).

That Mangler squig killed a large portion of my army... I, too, wished I had some small arms fire to face him. He ended up getting a major victory off of me, too, and although I felt I had some bad luck with failing a re-rollable panic and the like, he killed most of my army without using his savage orc unit at all . A great player... and he was talking about how rusty he was! The funny thing was, someone had dropped out and I had been going to play a different opponent for the final round... I thought drawing O&G might've helped me, but it sure did not


As far as your army's performance, it looks to me like, as you point out a number of times, those Longbeards realllllllllllly need GWs. Seems like they were a huge liability... Also, I'm impressed that you were able to draw against wood elves, which were a tough matchup in this format with the Freeman- although having flaming warmachines definitely helps!

Looking forward to the last report

@RZ- You're right, this event did give points for units at half strength, and FULL points for a unit that was fleeing (the fleeing part really hurt me a few times but I liked the change... and it means I'll be putting MoS on my ogres from now on- no more panicking!)

It was played at Mikhaila's new store that he just moved into (same Granite Run Mall just south of Philly, but upstairs in a bigger space- he's got some pictures up in the DCM section but they're unfortunately at photobucket, not in the gallery). Here's one, it's a lot bigger than this pic shows, though, this is just the gaming space. Mike also mentioned for future GTs he'll have even better themed tables- he'd just moved into the space the weekend before!

Oh holy crap! I didn't realize Ed Maule went to Dakkacon!

I'd have loved to meet the guy.

Yay! You got to face the infamous Mauleed!

Wait- who is Mauleed? Ed Maule............. Maule Ed............ MauleEd... Mauleed!

It all makes sense! He was a fun opponent, btw and very good.

GAME FIVE – GREG GRUENWALD – High Elves

This last scenario was a straight Battle Line. Greg was a fielding a very old-skool high elf list, full of 5th ed plastic archers and spearmen. From left to right, he had: 10 Silver Helms, a Great Eagle, 20 Archers, Lion Chariot, 30 Spearmen with his BSB, Lion Chariot, 23 White Lions with an unkillable Lvl 4 Life Mage, another Great Eagle and an RBT. Greg had played my buddy Rob in the first round, and his tactic was to slam his White Lions into close combat and then regrow them with life magic. On the left, he placed his Sliver Helms in a woods to keep his entire army on the same side of the river. I placed my Rangers there to pin him, and my baseline was Cannon, Slayers, Gyro, Hammerers, Grudge Thrower, Longbeards and a Grudge Thrower.



He went first and advanced, placing one of his eagles in the way of the rangers. He was hoping that I would charge the eagle, and overrun, allowing him a flank charge with the Silver Helms.



In my first turn, the rangers charged the eagle, killed it, and reformed to face the Silver Helms. I moved my gyrocopter up the left flank to come behind his archers turn 2. In the middle, I moved my hammerers up and left my Longbeards back. I cannoned off his Lion Chariot on the left.



His turn 2, he charged the Silver Helms into the rangers, killing two on the way in from difficult terrain. In the center, he combo charged the hammerers with the Spearmen and the remaining Lion Chariot. On the left, he charged his eagle into the Grudge Thrower, and continued to advance his White Lions toward the Longbeards.



I shut down his magic phase, and his shooting didn’t do much. I broke the Silver Helms on the left, and pursued them. The Lion Chariot did a lot of damage, but the spearmen just couldn’t deal with T4 and heavy armor. I kill his BSB, and my Hammerers hold. My turn 2, I charge the slayers into the flank of the spearmen and move the Rangers to face the spearmen’s rear. I move the gyro up and steam gun the archers, killing 4. In the center, hammerers kill off the chariot, and the spearmen stay on a stubborn check.

His Turn 3, he charges the rear of the rangers with the Archers (I didn’t expect that). He also charged his White Lions into the Longbeards.



At this point, my camera ran out of juice, so you'll have to follow along with no visual support.

In the magic phase, he cast Shield of Thorns on the spearmen, got it with Ultimate Force, which triggered a Dimensional Cascade that killed 14 White Lions and 12 Longbeards (good trade if you asked me). In his shooting phase, his RBT single shots the Gyro and blows it from the sky. My rangers break his archers, and his White Lions break the Longbeards. My Turn 3, I rally the Longbeards, wipe out the spearmen and reform my Hammerers to face the White Lions.

Turn 4, the Hammerers and White Lions fight, and eventually wear them down. It’s a Major Win to me, 21-3.

In the end he had lots of S3 attacks that couldn’t deal with T4 and heavy armor. Greg was a very nice guy, and I’d play him again in a heartbeat. We talked about the game afterward, and he said that I outdeployed him. It was a big mistake for him to deploy the Silver Helms in the woods, and I exploited it pretty well with my rangers (I learned my lesson from the first game). The big mistake I made in this game was not getting the runesmith out of the Longbeards before the White Lions slammed into them.

TOURNEY RECAP

So I ended up placing 10th. It was nice playing in a tourney with no Demons or unit deleting spells. However, giving free monsters that gave up no points to some armies was tough for me to deal with, especially in Game 4. I would have to devote a 300 point block to deal with it, for 0 VPs. To be honest, I didn’t play my best at this tourney, but it was a good warmup for the upcoming Crossroads Challenge. I think there are better ways to deal with overpriced core troops, maybe by giving free command to some army's core troops, or putting in some other types of bonuses for the "weaker" armies (tree spirit ward saves are real ward saves, eg.)

How did the army do? Well, it wasn’t a very optimized list. Stealing a page from Red Zeke, I’d rate my army units like so:

Thane C: I took a bad set of runes with the thane, and with only the hero stats he just couldn’t survive. The Rune of Challenge was useful in the WoC and WElf game. Besides that, he was pretty lackluster.

BSB A: Nice build, straight off the internet, and very survivable. I could drop the +1 WS for a 2+ ward vs. flaming and a flaming weapon. This is good because it has the possibility of putting regen down before the great weapons start swinging.

Slayer Hero D: I had problems getting him where he’d be most useful. M3 is just too slow to reposition him once the game gets started. I could have used him as a redirector, but that’s about it.

Rune Smith B: Given the heavy magic restrictions in the tourney, he was a superstar. The Rune of Balance really helped tone down the enemy’s magic phases. I’m still worried that he wouldn’t be as useful in a normal magical environment.

Rangers B: I misused these guys in games 1 and 3 and they didn’t do much against the WElves. My big problem was deploying them too aggressively, either unsupported or into bad matchups (Wolf Riders?) I did like setting them up last, and it really helped me in games 2 and 5. Essentially 30 points to setup a unit last is probably worth it.

Longbeards with shields F: These guys got beat in every game they got into combat. They lost to 10 Warriors of Chaos and a unit of goblins. They did tie up an entire Wood Elf flank, but if I have great weapons on them, I could have smashed up the Treekin. All in all, giving up S6 for a 6/6 just isn’t worth it. I could accomplish the same thing with just warriors with shields, saving 100 points.

Hammerers A: Smashed chaos knights, Ironguts, an archer deathstar and half a High Elf army. Just excellent, mostly due to stubborn.

Slayers D: they got run over by most things. Unbreakable is nice, but I can get more hammerers at the same cost to fulfill the same role more effectively. I had a hard time getting into useful matchups with them, and even when I did they underperformed.

Gyrocopter B: Despite misusing the rules in game 1, I found the gyro to be useful, when I deployed it correctly. In Game 2, it allowed me to run down a unit of bulls and a slaughtermaster, sealing up the win. In Game 4 I misplayed it, but it held up a Freeman for 4 combat phases. In Game 5, I had it well placed to deal with the archers. I like it and think it adds an extra dimension to the army, even with the weak template rules.

War Machines C: I think the dwarf army is supposed to use war machines to deal with stuff that infantry blocks just can’t, like regenerating monsters, enemy war machines, etc. I think my war machines underperformed this tourney. Game by game, I killed:

Game 1 – 1 troll, and three wounds on a chariot. 4 misfires and I blew up one GThrower.
Game 2 – Scraplauncher
Game 3 – Pump Wagon, Chariot, 3 misfires and I blew up a GThrower
Game 4 – Treeman and 2 wounds on the Freeman
Game 5 – Lion Chariot, 4 White Lions and an Eagle.

For the 310 I spent, I got an average of 190 points back per game. They also would misfire or failed me when I strategically needed them most. I may start taking engineers to allow me to reroll the artillery dice.

All in all it was a good tourney, and I’ll probably make the trek down there again for cheesesteaks and some games. The only criticism I can give is that some of the stuff listed on the website (best conversion, for example) didn't happen, but with the TO up to his eyeballs in openeing a new store, I can understand it. That being said, the group of players was pretty cool, the venue was fantastic (congratulations again on the new space!), and the food was great too.

Orzabal

Great reports man, thanks for posting them up on Dakka. Love the pics, insightful commentary, recap, etc, etc I didn't quite realize you played against Schmidt right off the bat, pity about the outcome.

For those wanting more DCon pics, I snapped a few army shots and such, which you can find in my album here

- Salvage

Great report. Good pics, and great commentary. Too bad the Slayer hero wasn't a winner for you. I was convinced early in 8th that I'd be taking him now that there weren't slots restricting his selection, but it hasn't held true. With step up and no 360 charge for single infantry characters, he's less survivable, and doesn't provide the maneuverability upgrade (especially with blocks able to swift reform).

I also ran 11-12 slayers for a while, but decided they probably needed to be a bit bigger (or possibly smaller) but at that size, they tended to evaporate. Occasionally, I'd get lucky and end up with one survivor, allowing a beefy countercharge, or line up a perfect target, like the flank of a steg, or a doomwheel.

As far as reliability, forging on the cannon is pretty indispensable. Currently, my greatest frustration with Dwarfs is the reliance on artillery for many matchups, where a slew of misfires or ones to wound end up spelling doom.

@Boss: I'll go take a gander at those pics now!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey Orzabal, is slide 10 in Salvage's show your army? Looks cool!

I don't think that was his, but I could be mistaken (that was the one that tied for best painted).

I feel slightly less awesome about my one win now... it was against the same army you got a major off on at the end! I did get a massacre, but you're right in that I think his army wasn't yet geared towards 8th ed. He said he knew it... obviously, Silver Helms aren't striking fear into anyone's heart these days.

Looks like you played really well in a number of games, and finishing 10th is good! I love seeing combat heavy dwarfs, and with differently tooled longbeards, I think your army could rock.

@Salvage- pics of DakkaCon not hosted on Dakka! I sense a disturbance in the force...

RiTides wrote:Silver Helms aren't striking fear into anyone's heart these days.

There's a part of me that wants to build a list around Silver Helms just to confound the prevailing (and correct) opinion that Silver Helms suck.

Jin wrote:

There's a part of me that wants to build a list around Silver Helms just to confound the prevailing (and correct) opinion that Silver Helms suck.

That's the spirit!

@RiTides- Cool to see a painted pic of the Throgg army!

Nope, mine was the OTHER dwarf army . RZ, the army in Boss's pics had tons of conversions, with plenty of green stuff to give each of the warriors fur cloaks, and lots of books everywhere. It was excellent. I got above average painting, which is about what I deserved.

I found the same thing with my slayers...too few. I've tried taking them in two little blocks of 6 each and use them like eagles (really slow, non maneuverable eagles), and it doesn't really work. And I agree with you that it's tough playing an army that relies on taking lots of war machines. They're pretty fragile, and just not reliable enuogh it seems. My new list has a master engineer in it, and with the new rules it does the same thing as the forging rune, but for any war machine in 3". I'm also switching the army around to have 28 hammerers, 16 hammerers, 20 quarrelers with great weapons, 30 rangers and a block of 20 warriors with shields. After Crossroads I'll probably be move on to another army that has more unit choices and can compete in the magic phase.

Thanks for the positive feedback, gents.

Orzabal

Hope to see some more reports from you (and Boss_Salvage, maybe?) after Crossroads! The tweaks to the army sound very smart to me... although 16 hammerers is a bit light.

@RZ- Thanks . I did all of that in 2 weeks (chronicled it in the DCM section) and am hoping to do it again before Battle for Blobs Park! To paint up some of the nastier units that I didn't bring this time (and I plan to do some bat reps, too). I have more pics here if you're interested, all done with washes over a grey primer.

I found a pic in Wehrkind's DakkaCon Gallery of Orzabal's army a bit closer up



Looks good!