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The young miner looked up in surprise as an old dwarf plopped himself down at the table, trapping him against the drinking hall wall. He began to voice his protest, but the words caught in his throat, choked short by the odor of unwashed horrible-ness that billowed forth. The elder dwarf smiled a smile distinctly lacking teeth, hygiene, or really any appealing characteristics whatsoever.

"So son, you want to hear about Hroddr Zaki and his escapades in the swamps of Hews-Town?"
"Erm, not really, I--"
"Well since you ask, I'll do my best to remember the tale. But I warn you- much time has passed. Eons it seems. Some would forget the details, but my memory never fails."

A long silence ensued. It was, at least on one side, very awkward.

"Wot?!"
"Uhm. You were going to tell a story?"
"I was?"


So Bayou Battles has come and gone. Some time ago.

Mostly because I didn't want to play with an identical list, and somewhat because I wanted to bring some models I haven't pulled out in a while, I brought this list:

Runelord Hroddr Zakie Ottarson (Red Zeke): 2+ save, steal a power die, 2 spellbreakers, a 6th sense for diving into units for protection, then dying anyway
BSB: 1+ re-rollable save, immune to poison & killing blow, 2+ ward vs. flaming, flaming attacks, kitchen sink with spare parts
Thane: MR of Challenge rune, 3+ save, great weapon, mating call for Immune to Psych armies & units
30 warriors with great weapons, full command, "heavy" armor
34 warriors, shields, musician, standard
5 ironbreakers, musician
20 rangers, crossbows, musician
29 hammerers, full command, 5+ ward to shooting banner
Cannon, rune of forging, rune of burning, engineer
Grudgethrower, rune of burning (doing its best impression of a screaming skull catapult)
Bolt thrower, engineer
Organ gun
Gyrocopter,

For game 1, I had drawn Mark C., who took 2nd General at Lonewolf this year, and at Alamo last year (and probably many other fabulous awards elsewhere that I'm unaware of). Skaven was the foe, which isn't something I've practiced a whole lot against, but weren't totally unfamiliar either. We had a more or less standard game setup with the scenario adding patches of fire ants that swarmed around causing difficult terrain checks. They may have eaten some slaves, but didn't cause a whole lot of problems otherwise.

The list:

Warlord on warlitter, w/shield, 4+ ward, sword of anti-heroes, dragonhelm, the other trickster's shard
Grey Seer, skalm
Chieftan BSB, World's Edge armor, shield
Warlock, MR 3
Plaguepriest, Flail, dispel scroll
32 Clanrats, shields, full command
2 x 29 Clanrats, shields, banner, musician
3 x 5 Giant rats, packmaster
3 x 41 slaves, musician
36 plague monks, banner, musician, plague banner
3 x 6 gutter runners, poison, slings
Hell Pit
Warp Lightning Cannon

I loved all the drops that this list had, and I'm desperately jealous of the ability to take those rat darts with 6 wounds and move 6 at only 23 points a pop. The big obvious threats were the plague monks and the hell pit, with magic and the warp lightning cannon providing some shooty punch. The warlord could be a problem, but was lower priority. Unfortunately, with all those drops, I couldn't know what was going where until it was too late, so I picked a plan and went with it. Kind of.

I was either experimenting with new deployments or ran myself out of space, but somehow ended up with the organ gun and bolt thrower out on the flank. Either way, things were a bit awkward. Gutter runners were dropped on both flanks and in the middle to try to poison war machines before they did too much damage.



Historians have never quite understood the widely spread deployment of Hroddr Zaki's forces at the Battle of Rat Run

Fortunately, I got the first turn....

Given the time that has passed, this can't really be a blow-by-blow, so I'll hit some of the highlights.

Early game:

I have a strong opening volley, with the gyro steaming and panicking the gutters on the left, the organ gun dropping five in the middle, and the ironbreakers locking up, then chasing of the gutters on the right. The hell pit took a couple turns of cannon, crossbows, bolt thrower and (maybe) eventually organ gun to down, but it was dead by turn two. The grudgethrower had a misfire party on turn one, trying to get another flaming rock on the hell pit. The warp lightning cannon was invited, and acted cool for a little bit, shooting some skaven slaves, but then blew up my organ gun instead.



Tip for aspiring batrep writers: When including only two pictures in a report, be sure to make the second one only marginally different than the first. Readers love this, and its a great use of bandwith and time.

Mid game:

With the left pretty squared away, the gyro made a break for the right to try to redirect the plague monks away from my lines. I felt that if I didn't have to fight them, I'd be able to pick up the win by knocking out enough of the rest, considering my head start on gutter runners and the hell pit. The shield warriors took a hit from the warp lightning cannon, which reduced their ability to block charge lanes as I ranked them up tighter rather than wider. I made a mistake in positioning and let slaves charge through to the gyro and clanrats into my bolt thrower. On the right, I charged a rat dart with my great weapons, not noticing that a flee would force a fight too early with the plague monks. I salvaged a little by placing the ironbreakers in the skaven pursuit path to pull them away while I tried to find a solution.

Hammerers beat up lots of slaves in the middle, while shield warriors had a standoff with clan rats. Our artillery traded fire, but 1s to wound abounded, until slaves overran the gyro and stormed into my cannon (killing it too!).

Late game:

The bolt thrower held out just long enough to let the rangers hit the flank of the grey seer's clan rats, who broke and fled off the table, putting me back in the lead. This was short lived, however, as a perfect warplightning cannon shot decimated the unit and killed the runelord who failed his look out sir. On the plus side, the ironbreaker sacrifice paid off when the plague monks, (with reduced ranks after combat) failed their swift reform and couldn't get back to the middle where the skaven warlord and BSB had entered the fray with my hammerers.

I had a brief chance at escaping with the hammerers by breaking through, but the skaven command unit held on its re-roll. Hope returned when the plague monks failed their 11" charge, rolling only a 5 to close the gap. In the final combat of the game, the skaven broke, rolling a measly 5 to flee. Matched with my pursuit of 6, it looked like a last minute victory- until you remember that skaven flee an extra inch, and dwarfs pursue one less. Foiled!

The final count came in at 1305 for the Dwarfs, and 1445 for the Skaven. A really great game where the upper hand swung precariously back and forth over the course of the entire game, and victory literally came down to the last dice roll. Including some minor objectives, this was something like a 7-18 loss. I came extremely close here, but ultimately the mistake with getting the gyro caught and committing the great weapons forward to clear off a rat dart were mistakes that were too costly to recover from, and Mark got the well deserved win.

As a side note, I never pulled the trigger on the Master Rune of Challenge, which might have bought me a little extra room to maneuver on the right. And the experiment with the slimmed down grudgethrower-lite was off to a lackluster start- 0 kills, wrecked by slaves in combat...




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, I meant to add this- Mark wrote up our game too. Any inconsistencies are probably mine!

Great stuff so far RZ, happy to hear from you. I feel you on needing to keep it loose with GT reporting, especially as the event recedes into the vagaries of the past ...

Waiting for more

- Salvage

Woo, Relentless! The series that always makes me want to play WFB more than anything.

So far in four out of four GTs, I've managed to tank either the first or second game of the tournament. Always comforting is that I will be playing someone else who lost as well. In this case, it would be one of the crew that had come down from Central Arkansas.

Due to an unfortunate morning, Bryan didn't have any extra copies of his list, so this is from memory, but it was a wee bit like:

Daemons. No greater daemon. Lots of speed.

That's about all I remember. No, actually, I remember a bit more.

40 Bloodletters, full command
Herald (general?) with armor of khorne

36 Daemonettes, full command
Herald, siren song

10 Horrors
Herald, BSB, loremaster of shadow

5-8 Furies
10 Seekers of Slaanesh, full command, siren standard
Herald, siren song

6 Flamers
2 x 3 Fiends

Frankly, I was a little alarmed- I'd much rather take on a greater daemon- a much better target for my war machines which were something of a liability against all that chaff, especially with a double siren song. The daemonettes would be nasty if shadow magic got involved too- and I didn't like any unit one on one with the bloodletters.

Deployment was a little ugly- I picked my defensible spot, then realized the hill was actually big enough to block LOS, which limited my options for shooting. I tried to cover up the war machines, but basically acknowledged that with siren song and all those fast movers, I'd have a very hard time protecting it all.

On the plus side, I picked up first turn, despite dropping scouts- and we were off...



I'll restrict the pictures to areas of the battlefield that look good...

Early game:

The gyro zips forward but faces backward to avoid siren song. With the ironbreakers and challenge thane, I have a set of models that should be able to keep the bloodletters off my back while I try to deal with the rest. Still not used to a larger ranger unit, I put it aggressively far forward, forgetting that I shouldn't really count it as expendable. Shooting manages to whittle down the seekers enough that I can cannon out the herald- one siren song down. Between crossbows and combat, the rangers go a little crazy for me and kill a block of fiends and finish off the seekers. The gyro actually march blocks the blood letters, and starts spraying them down with fire while it waits for its turn to nobly sacrifice in the name of preserving the rest of the army. You would think I'd stop getting volunteers to fly the thing...



I reward the hard work of my rangers by using them to buy sacrificing them. I'm a cold hearted man, indeed.

Mid-game:

Some shooting into the daemonettes whittles them down slightly, which is good, because my shield warriors get sucked in with siren song. They also are escorting the runelord, so I close my eyes and hope mindrazor never goes off. This also exposes the war machines, and I can't quite keep them covered with my hammerers. The only Pit of Shades of the game scatters away and kills a handful of hammerers at this point, which I'll gladly take. Rather than charge off the rangers, the bloodletters swift reform to try to get past them, which sort of works. I can't block them up again, but I hang on to all the points for the rangers in exchange for almost as much slowing power.

The shield warriors do nicely early on- the runelord kills the herald and I consistently win combats, but with the BSB nearby, there's not much crumbling. That's ok! We can rely on the raw killing power of shield warriors to get the job done!

Late game:

Under pressure, I'm considering hitting the bloodletters in the front and flank with my great weapons and warriors. Unfortunately, that decision is taken out of my hands, when the gyro heroically crashes in front of the bloodletters to buy time. My BSB, who apparently hasn't been paying attention to the fact that this happens in virtually every game decides that it's all just too much, and valiantly leads the great weapons and the challenge thane off the board. That was about a 600 point failed double panic, which leaves everyone else without re-rolls.



Games in the hands of the shield warriors and rune lord's close combat ability. This how you win games, folks.

The ironbreakers jump on the fiends zipping through my backfield to try to save the last war machine, and at least manage to force a standoff. In the middle, some cleverly whiffed rounds of combat, courtesy of fear reduce my shield warriors enough that I can jump the remaining horrors with my hammerers and some sneaky rangers. I pop the lot at the top of 6, and with their BSB gone, reduce the daemonettes to a paltry 6. The bloodletters try to get revenge, but with only one round of combat to fight, I only have one (scarily non-rerollable) break test to pass there. The shield warriors manage to pop the last 6 daemonettes on the final roll of the game, picking up a cool 450 points...


...which was enough for a win! I don't recall the margin, but I do know that the turn 6 elimination of horrors, BSB, and daemonettes turned it from a definite loss to a win.

I was sure this was done once my thanes and great weapons panicked off the board, but somehow my powerhouse shield warriors endured long enough to kick those pesky daemonettes to bits! Bryan was a great sport, especially with that last turn. He did seem to still be new to the army, and perhaps 8th. I had to let him know that he did, in fact, get ward saves on his daemons when struck by magical attacks. (For shame, whoever's been letting the poor man play that way!)

Anyhow- onwards and upwards!


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Edit: Whoops- looks like this will be all one post. So here's a bigger line break:

Game 3

Well, on to a few tables over (didn't seem that they were ordered according to seed) and I ran up against Paul and his Lizardmen from Louisiana. Paul and I were well into our drink by now, though I believe he may have been farther than I at this point. To his credit, he was fresh off defeating one of the other Dwarf players out and about.

Paul was valiantly trying to prove a point- that success of some kind can be found with lists that defy Internet wisdom. He'd taken this to a much bolder extreme than I've ever tried with some craziness like this:

Oldblood (Carlos) on Carnosaur (Spicy Wiener)- Shield, Ogre blade, Other Trickster's Shard, 4+ ward
Level 2 Skink, Engine, Scroll, Dawnstone
Saurus Scar Vet, BSB, Armor of Destiny

2 x 20 Warriors, spears, full command
2 x 10 Skink skirmishers

Baby Steg
20 Temple Guard, full command (20 lb cojones instead of Slann)

2 Salamanders

Pretty much a dream draw for me. The ways this could go wrong- an IF comet crushed my machines, my war machines totally flubbed, the salamanders gutted my blocks, or I made a lot of big mistakes. Paul had a really tough matchup with these lists, I think, and would have to play his socks off to stay in it. I just planned to shoot the big stuff, then use my chaffto set up favorable fights against the infantry. MR of Challenge would be handy for messing with the salamanders.

Our scenario involved mysterious terrain- and the tower was a haunted mansion (D6 S1 no armor save hits to nearby units). I craftily deployed on that side (after faking the middle) to force his critters to walk past it or take a really long walk. Things were looking super after deployment.



The gyro- assault platform extraordinaire!

Early game:

After considering that I should be ok as long as I didn't make any crazy mistakes, I promptly rocketed my gyro right into the heart of the lizard infantry. Looking at the picture below, I think I was thinking I could bust through the skinks, maybe panic salamanders or other skinks, and at the very least, hold up the salamanders for a little bit, while I dealt with the rest. Plus I was excited that I could charge from behind the woods and not get poisoned, courtesy of soft cover, long range, and stand and shoot. Unfortunately, one of the little buggers poked me in the eye, and this plan fell decidedly short (in the realm of high risk, low reward).

In the middle, war machines pretty much laid waste to the dinosaur assault, knocking down the engine, and (with a little help from Casper, the not-so-friendly-anymore Ghost in the tower) knocked Spicy Wiener, the carnosaur out from under his general. The final wound was inflicted in a very cool stand-and-shoot from the rangers.



The alternate ending to Land Before Time VII was included on the latest DVD release, but it is not recommended for children's viewing.

Mid-game:

We took a break here while I bought us shots of tequila and beers from the hotel bar to toast Spicy Wiener's demise. This set me back about $3000 dollars. I *do* look forward to Alamo GT's fabled $2 Shiner. In revenge, the temple guard and Carlos (the oldblood) punched the rangers in their guts and stole their lunch money. I retaliated with a horde of great weapons, who steadily chopped up the remaining temple guard.

On the right the ironbreakers did a hilariously awesome job of delaying, redirecting, fleeing, and making a nuisance of themselves. The challenge thane also slipped over to that side of the battle line to make sure anyone who wandered through.

Late game:

Ended up mostly just a mop-up job. Paul was a real gentleman and I'd love to play him again with even odds on the match up. He didn't get any of the breaks he needed to win this one, but I definitely had a sense that he might have kicked my teeth in if he'd brought a harder list. I pulled a big win, with most, but not all of the objectives.

As a side note- really enjoyed the slight tweak from the mysterious terrain. Nothing complicated, but another aspect that you could consider to try to gain an edge.

So day 2 arrived a wee bit bleary for our crew. We had chosen to partake in some whiskey the night prior, and though I wasn’t the worst off- I was feeling a little creaky nonetheless. I also spent the first half hour wandering around trying to find my army- which had been moved overnight. It turned out this was for its own protection- only part of the hall was lockable, but it was a bit alarming!

At 2-1, I discovered I’d drawn another Austinite, though not a regular opponent of mine. Lex brought his Tomb Kings, newly returned from retirement for the new book. I’d played his warriors (and maybe Wood Elves?) before and knew I was going to be in for a challenging match. Lex is one of those players who doesn’t tend to “miss” things on the table- like a crucial overrun, and so it can be very hard to set traps.

His Tomb Kings looked like:

Tomb King- shield, armor of destiny, ogre blade, dragonbane gem
Liche High Priest- Dispel scroll opal amulet [Movement, 5+ ward, desiccation, something else?]
Tomb herald- talisman of preservation, charmed shield
Ramhotep the Visionary

2 x 5 Skeleton horse archers
20 Skeleton archers with musician
19 Skeleton archers with musician
47 Skeleton warriors, full command
6 Chariots, standard, musician, banner of eternal flame
8 Necropolis knights, standard, musician (and Ramhotep’s blessing!)
Screaming skull catapult
Casket of Souls

So there were three main points of concern- the most obvious being the Necropolis Knights. The chariots were kind of punchy and the huge mass of skeletons (with hatred, WS 6, and character support) could get hitty in a hurry with magic.

Our scenario here made things a little more challenging too- nothing mattered but capturing the women (objectives). You secretly recorded one to be your true objective, worth 3 to you, and the other two were worth 1 each. An objective stopped movement once picked up, and became contested if a unit was engaged in combat. They were also impassible for charges, fleeing, reforms, and vanguard. Given their location, this actually made for some really awkward charges.

I was relatively happy with deployment until I realized that the skeleton light cav were going to grab the women in the first turn, forcing me to rush forward before they simply fast cav’ed their way back into the corners for the easy win. All of a sudden, I was going to be sprinting right back at the Necro Knights….

I scouted the rangers on the far right on a mission so secret, even I didn’t know what it was. It may have had some wildly over-optimistic concept of running through the TK backfield, but as you may recall (and I apparently did not)- Dwarfs are move 3.



Careful battleline about to be thrown into shabbles by reckless advancing. That’s how Relentless rolls.

Early game:

The fast cav each grab the objectives on the flanks very early on. The organ gun objects loudly to the left, but as predicted, I have to throw the great weapons forward to capture the right. Which as it turns out, is right in front of boosted Necro Knights. War machines deal some telling damage to the knights, dropping three, though they are clearly still a significant threat. The rangers try to tempt the knights away from the main line to buy me more war machine shots on them, but Lex isn’t biting. He is still worried about taking great weapons in the flank, but that seems like a lost cause to me, so we kind of dance around for a bit.

I also start to get my first taste of the Tomb King magic phase with the casket involved. I don’t much like it!

Mid game:

The gyro valiantly turns the skeleton horde so that it is facing 90 degrees the wrong way, and I can send the hammerers in to the flank to burn off Ramhotep’s hatred and frenzy while the unit doesn’t have any magic buffs or horde formation to swing back. My BSB does a valiant job of fending off the Tomb King, and great weapons manage to smash up the Herald after a couple rounds. The great weapons on the right drop to deep formation right before impact to hold for as long as possible. This turns out to be not all that long…

The shield warriors heroically use the woman on the left (my main objective) as a shield against the chariots, preventing them from striking home with more than two sets of impact hits. They go on to go absolutely crazy, and with the help of the challenge thane and runelord smash apart all 6 chariots over 2-3 combat phases. Unfortunately, their route to the central combat is blocked, courtesy of the same woman they’d used to protect themselves before. Apparently what goes around comes around.

Once the combat is committed, I’m so concerned with buffs going off in the middle that I let a particularly high casket roll slip through rather than using a stack of dice (or even a spellbreaker!), reasoning that the BSB should keep my stuff safe. Indeed, the cannon is unperturbed, but the bolt thrower, grudgethrower, and all the ironbreakers fail to head Indy’s advice and stare directly at the ark, melting into weird 1980’s special FX goo.



Gonna have to do something about that there casket…

Late game:

It becomes clear that Lex has his primary objective captured with the NecroKnights, and elects to pull back with them to make sure their objective isn’t contested or lost. This actually gives me a fighting chance, as by my reckoning, the center combat would certainly not hold if the serpents joined in. The rangers clear off skeleton archers on the right, and steal their fortification to pepper the rest of the field with crossbows and pretend like they’ll try to jump the Necro knights if I get a flank. (In other news, the cannon explodes the Casket and catapult for a little revenge).

In the middle, Ramhotep is smashed apart by hammers, and the Tomb King dies when I sneak burning strikes through from my BSB. My armor saves are really hot, but the TK gets the last laugh and curses my BSB right as he starts tap-dancing on the king’s corpse.

Headed into the last turn, my shield warriors, thane, and runelord are contesting my main objective on the left, with a handful of skeleton archers, while the neutral objective in the center is down to hammerers vs. skeleton warriors and liche priest.

If I can get my objective on the left, it’s a tie- if I can get the middle too, it’s a win.

The hammerers smash apart the liche priest- crumbling abounds! In the bottom of the 5th (and final) turn the last archer cracks apart and I snatch a draw. In the center, the skeletons crumble down to 11. The 10 remaining hammerers kill 5, crumble 5 more, and tragically- leave the champion to contest.

Result: Draw!

Great game, down to the last dice roll. It’s easy to think this would have been a win with just one more turn, but Lex probably would have turned around the knights with a little more time, so it really should stand as it was. I was pretty lucky to drop the Tomb King with my BSB at all, which is most of what kept the hammerers around long enough to give me a shot at the win.

I have an uncontrollable urge to buy that lizard player a drink as well. Not just slann-less lizards, but carnosaur lizards? Bless

Red_Zeke wrote:The alternate ending to Land Before Time VII was included on the latest DVD release, but it is not recommended for children's viewing.

Outstanding as always RZ, and a decent spread of armies faced thus far. One more to go, aye?

- Salvage

@ Boss: Last one, coming right up!


And now the final game- I was 2-1-1, so I was certain to at least end up .500 on the weekend, but obviously I was hoping to improve on that.

As it happened, my final round opponent was my good friend Aaron- probably one of my most frequent Warhammer opponents. He’s slowly refined his army into a very, very rock hard build. The last time I’d played against it, I’d netted exactly zero victory points in a very one-sided massacre.

Arch Lector, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Van Horstman’s, Sword of Fate, War Altar
Level 4 on Life (for healing Tanks and altars!), 4+ ward, some anti-magic probably
Level 1 on Fire (for burning gyrocopters), rod of power
BSB, 4+ ward, ironcurse icon
Warrior priest, barded warhorse, shield, biting blade
2 x master engineers
25-ish swordsmen (BSB & mages here)
9 Knights, full command
30 Flagellants, prophet
2 x Great cannon
1 x Mortar
1 x Rocket Battery
Steam Tank

So, not a lot on the table- but tough for my army to crack. It shot better than mine, so I couldn’t hang back, but running forward was difficult with the steam tank and arch lector for pinning units and the flagellants for annihilation. In previous outings, I’d tried to cripple the steam tank and rush forward, but decided this strategy was too likely to fail- it was easy to bounce shots off the tank, and if I didn’t hit it really hard, life magic (boosted by the rod) would heal wounds back on it.

One tool I had this time was the MR of Challenge, which was only going to be usable on the knights and the bunker, but both could provide an edge.

Another challenge was the battlefield, which had massive chunks of impassible, breaking up my battle line. On the other hand, if the tank got into my lines, it couldn’t easily turn and go after the rest.

Here’s deployment!



Behold! The finest in wargaming photodocumentation!

My plan was something like this- bait the knights forward, then hit them with the warriors, and use them for extra movement from pursuit/overrun. Hold back on the right to protect war machines with the 5+ ward bubble, then push to threaten enough on the left to make the steam tank choose which way to go, and try to break through the war machines.

I’d also try to sacrifice the ironbreakers to pull the flagellants sideways so I could hit them in the flank and burn their flail bonus nice and early.

So… how did it go?

Early game:

The rangers once again roll their eyes at my choice of deployment for them, shoot a couple knights out of the saddle, get charged, fail to kill any in combat and get run of the board by the knights. Erg.

I do manage to jump the knights when they come back on, and jump down the field a ways, though the warrior priest escapes with just enough knights left to stay above 25% and rally in the far corner to hold all their points.

On the left, the warded cannon proves its worth, and wrecks an Empire great Cannon. I get a big break and the other cannon misfires, blowing itself up despite the engineer! Fire superiority achieved!


Mid-game:
A cannon shot takes the lector off his altar and now that I’ve got the upper hand, Aaron commits forward with the flagellants and steam tank. The cannon takes one crack at the steam tank now that his cannons are down, but bounces off, while the bolt thrower skewers an engineer at extreme range.

In exchange the Empire manages to down the gyro when it tries to make its rush into the backfield.

With the arch lector dead, the war altar is kind of a weird unbreakable horse cart, and whacks into my warriors. The mage bunker strays to close to this combat though, and I manage to force them in with the Master Rune of Challenge. They could have fled, but a long roll might have bounced them off the table.

This begins a weird combat, where I try to kill all the characters out of the unit without breaking it, as I don’t want the mages to escape while I’m still pinned by the war altar (which I slowly drag wounds off of, but gets periodically healed back).

On the left, the great weapons flee from the steam tank to delay the amount of grind I must take. I don’t quite get the ironbreakers far enough forward and the flagellants will probably be able to overrun right into the hammerers. Although I’ll lose the unit, if at least one can surivive to keep me stubborn, my Runelord and BSB should be able to hold the line against strength 3 attacks for the rest of the game

Late game:

Unfortunately, right as the flagellants head into the ironbreakers, a perfect rocket shot decimates the hammerers, more or less ensuring their demise. And sure enough the flagellants storm in, martyr for max re-rolls and shred the hammerers from around the characters. It’s pretty much game over until I hit snake-eyes on the BSB re-roll, and suddenly the runelord and BSB are back to back, fighting a horde of hobos!

I’m back in it, and things are starting to look up. The cannon continues its rampage and smashes the rocket battery apart. The grudgethrower scores its only direct hit of the entire tournament, but fails to wound the warrior priest hiding in the corner with the knights and their tasty victory points.

I get a brief glimpse at success when I kill the Level 4 and Level 1 out of their unit, but whiff in the rest of the combat, lose by one, and break, giving 450 points right back! So close… but so far.

Result: Loss!

Looking at the game in retrospect, I kind of wish I’d strung the rangers wide left, and peppered the flagellants with crossbows early on to shred their numbers down. I think this might have given me a better shot at the victory in the end. It would have required a different position for the organ gun, but that was probably out of position too.

Although this ended up a loss, it came close thanks to a timely snake eyes on the left. Unfortunately, I probably got what I deserved when the warriors on the right broke and were run down shortly after. I know I didn't capture it here, but the game felt very cinematic- charging down canyons while artillery whizzed and screamed past the units. And then the runelord and BSB fought back to back for 4 rounds of combat against the horde of flagellants, never taking a wound (and usually winning the combats too).

Final thoughts to follow, but first I need to stop being a lazy bum for at least a few hours...

Thanks for reading!

RZ

Wrap-up

So at the end of the day, for all the fretting I did about the changes I made weakening the list, I ended up with the *exact* same record as I did back in at the Capital City Carnage! I even went about it the same way- lost the first game, win the next two while drinking, pull a draw on Sunday morning, and lose the last one. There's a pattern for ya...

In the end, I tied for 13th overall out of a field of 70, which I could be pretty happy with- apparently my soft scores kept me buoyed (as usual). In particular, I was fortunate enough to take home Best Sportsman, which entailed a plaque, Lizard Battalion box, and free entry to next year's Lonewolf, Rock Wars, and Alamo GTs (and a big thanks to all those organizers for the kind offer). Ironically, I was planning to scale back my tournament attendance next year, but that's kind of hard to pass up! On the dwarf side of things- I was a couple places behind Mr Chapman (whose experiences are well documented here.

I really enjoyed all my games- and impressively, one win, one draw, and one loss all came down to literally the final roll of the game. I recognize that the quality (and obviously, timeliness!) of this report are not really up to usual standards, but I was approaching the point of possibly not writing it at all. I've really had difficulty getting pictures taken during games, as I don't like to slow things down. It's something I need to actively practice, for sure.

I'll include thoughts on the army here:

Overall

Not a super heavy hitter, but not a slouch either. Judging by my comp, opponents seem to have rated the list as the third/fourth hardest list they played (of their five). I'm clearly lacking in the raw killing power department. In the Skaven, Tomb King, Daemon, and Empire games there were units that I either couldn't fight at all, or I would have needed to set up favorable conditions in order to win the matchup. In the games where I did so, I prospered.

I like having units I can push around to force my opponent into reacting. The more decisions they make, the more chance there is of a mistake. Of course, the same goes for me- with more moving pieces, I'm more likely to make a mistake myself. To be honest, I do enjoy this style of play, so I can't really picture changing anything too drastically.

Runelord: I'm sure I'm taking this anti-magic for granted. I trimmed off his spelleater this time around. I thought I'd miss it more than I did. I think it becomes a bigger deal against lists that can really wrack up the power dice *and* have a spell that can really wreck me (Pit, Mindrazor Dark Elves, or Life Slaan). Not facing any of those probably affects my perspective here. The runelord is also a little light on defense, but it never really seemed to be an issue. With active management, I always kept him out of the fight, or only engaged in favorable matchups.

BSB: A straight up star. Ignoring his embarrassing panic attack in game 2, he was an absolute champ. He took down a Tomb King, held off a Skaven Warlord, and by positioning on the corner generally soaked up attacks that would have been hitting softer hammerers. Love the build.

Challenge thane: Specifically changed the list so I could play around with this guy a bit. Don't really know what to say. Non-factor in Game 1, when I got a little too conservative and saved the rune for a fight that never came. Game 2, was against ItP, so I hoped to use him to delay the bloodletters, but he panicked off the board with the BSB. Game 3, he helped keep the door shut on any comeback from the lizards. Game 4, his flaming ward helped me trash chariots, and his combat power captured my primary objective, recovering the draw- but those points might have also been decisive if used to upgrade the GT. Game 5, he very nearly pulled the win off for me, but fell short at the last minute. I have a huge amount of fun setting traps with the MR of Challenge, but so far, it's mostly been more fun than decisive, and obviously is a wasted item against Daemons, VC, and TK.

Shield warriors: A controversial choice. I'm very often asked if they're worth it, and wouldn't I prefer great weapons. The answer is that I don't know. Probably. When I have shields in the army, I deploy them and use them as shields- and so don't tend to think about what they could do as great weapons. For the price of the unit, I could put down about 30 great weapons. I think it'd make the list stronger. I imagine it'd be more intimidating from the other side of the table. Conversely, they've done quite well for me, and don't die nearly as often as the great weapons who tend to rapidly get ripped down below effective combat size.

Great weapons: Good I suppose, but probably a hair small. They survived the Lizards game, and were saved by the bell against the Empire when the steam tank was backing up back and forth over the top of them.

Rangers: Solid. I liked the crossbows a lot more than I thought I would. Good for finishing off monsters or seeing off chaff. Flexibility in scout deployment is pretty nifty too, though apparently RAW means I'm hurting myself on chances for first turn by including these guys.

Hammerers: Excellent. Many have spoken of their virtues, don't need to expound here. Liking the 30 better than my two 20s. MR of Grungni is definitely worth it in a tournament environment. Enough said.

Ironbreakers: Finally gave up on explaining why I had these and just said I liked the models. Thought they did fairly well with what I asked of them. Held off gutter runners in game 1, helped route bloodletters in game 2, made a huge nuisance of themselves in game 3, died for no gain in game 4, and couldn't quite get into position in game 5 (and in fact, probably hurt me by letting the rocket battery shoot the hammerers before the flagellants hit home). So... that looks not so great. I like the idea, though. A more effective backfield chaff (and more expensive) was when I ran 10 warriors with shields and musicians. I like the concept, but it might just be too hard for Dwarfs do do that kind of thing. Plan to keep trying though.

Cannon: Solid. Mandatory in 8th IMO. Aaron Chapman runs two for good reason.

Grudgethrower: Only scored one direct hit in the entire tournament. Did literally nothing of note. But it was only 85 points wasted instead of 175...

Bolthrower: Included partially because I like my conversion. A little extra help with monsters, knights, and characters who make the mistake of wandering out on their own. Not exactly a steal at 60, but cheap enough to throw wide on a flank for enfilading fire. Neutral opinion here.

Gyro: Love it. Lose it almost every game. Really expensive to use in that way, considering I use it like a 50 point eagle most games. Fits my playstyle too well to consider dropping.

Organ gun: Great. Opponents fear it. Great potential that helps dictate who will go where on the field.



What's next?

Alamo GT, first weekend of November! Not sure if I'll have to contend with Mr. Chapman for top Dwarf again- I think it depends on whether or not he's managed to get his painting on. I know there's another army in the pipeline. As for my list- it's due in 3 days, so I may just run the same thing. Although it only went .500 (and could easily have gone worse-- or better), I did have a lot of fun with it. Unless I can think of any good reason, I'll probably just submit the Bayou list again.

I won't promise a report, given how long this one took to put together, but I *will* bring the camera and see if I can't collect enough to give it a go.

Anyhow, that'll do it for this one. Thanks for reading.


OH- and a special thanks to those who PMed me during the lengthy downtime. It was greatly appreciated, and this probably wouldn't have ever been written if it wasn't for that bit of motivation. Thanks! You know who you are...

Awesome to hear how this went! Congrats on Best Sportsman and the prize, looks very well deserved

Red_Zeke wrote:I scouted the rangers on the far right on a mission so secret, even I didn’t know what it was. It may have had some wildly over-optimistic concept of running through the TK backfield, but as you may recall (and I apparently did not)- Dwarfs are move 3.

Best line of the bat reps

Good luck at Alamo! If writing the report is too draining, maybe just the pics and a summary soon after the event would be a good compromise

Enjoyable Batreps Red_Zeke. Hope to see more action with the stuntys!

Thanks guys. I think the cure for batrep difficulties might be to take more pictures. They tend to convey the battlefield a lot better than writing does, and really help to remember the situation.

If I can get in a warm-up game or two before Alamo, I'll try to include picture taking in the warm-up too.

Excellent! It probably motivates you to write them up faster if you have the pictures to inspire you, too

Always good to see more RZ Battle Reports

That was a great read, made my morning at least. Thanks Zeke.

Another great report! Thanks big man.

Red Zeke good luck in the tourney this weekend. Wish I was going, but dont got any money! I am going to lone wolf though coming up and we will have to drink like a dwarf together if your going, and as long as the beer is cheaper than the over priced nonsense in Houston!

Sounds like a plan! I should be at LW. Wasn't planning on it, but free entry's tough to pass up. Is the whole NMW crew going to Lonewolf?

Great work Zeke, always look forward to Relentless BatReps!

Congrats on Best Sportsman, and yeah free entry must be difficult to pass on...