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Here we are, GT time again. Bags are packed, models repaired and retouched, and I even remembered my templates this time (should be good for at least one extra win!) Thought I'd share a couple pre-tourney thoughts here.

I've taken the exact same list I brought to Bayou- partially because I didn't have time to assemble/paint anything in the meantime, and partly because I'd like to see if I can improve on that showing while keeping the tools the same. Certainly I had a lot of fun with the list at Bayou and in a handful of practice games. I just enjoy the extra units (ironbreakers & gyro) and trying to think of sneaky things to do with the MR of Challenge.

Speaking of practice games- I only got 4 in since Bayou Battles- and 2 were at 2000 pts. I lost three, but felt like I played really strongly in the last one. I don't think any of the games were decided until about Turn 6, which seems to be kind of characteristic of this list. During the games, I learned/was reminded of some good lessons:

- If I'm going to bail out of units with the Runelord, make sure I pay attention to potential overruns
- If the other guy's running Heavens, either spread out the war machines, or don't skimp on making sure comet doesn't go off... or both
- Pay attention to cost/risk in turn 6 and don't get cocky with hammerers in wide formation once they're depleted.

So- some goals:

1- Improve on 2-2-1! I think this is certainly achievable, though I think I'd have to definitely be on my game to do better than 3-2 with the list.
2- Stay in the top 25%. Been pretty consistent with this, missing the cut at Cap City this year, but hitting it every other time. I'm led to believe competition might be a little tighter at Alamo, though?
3- Enjoy the games. This hasn't really been a problem in all but one game this year, where my opponent just didn't seem to want to be there. $2 Shiner should help too!
4- I'd love to get up on the podium an overall award, but I don't think I've got the painting or list to do it at this event. I'll leave this one in as a bit of a pipe dream though!
5- Remember to photo-document. Always put this one on, rarely maintain the good intentions. I made myself a game tracker to act as a reminder. Again, we'll see...

I'll give a report of some kind upon my return- no guarantee on timeliness or quality!

Man, you get so many tournaments in you make me feel like an absolute lightweight! I need to get me a car (and free time) so I can get back to tournament gaming.

Good luck and have a great time Zeke! I look forward to the tales of Dwarven strength!

Thanks guys. I'm back, had an awesome time, and took enough pictures that I should have a little bit better coverage than Bayou (though maybe they're all blurry and unusable).

Expect I'll get the first report up sometime this weekend, provided I get a jump on my schoolwork in the interim.

@Da Boss: I suppose I'm a bit spoiled in Central Texas as far as GTs. Lonewolf is a 3 1/2 hr drive, Cap City is local, Bayou is 3 hrs, and Alamo is less than an hour and a half. I don't expect to hit this many next year, but it was a fun run here in 2011.

Red_Zeke wrote:I don't expect to hit this many next year, but it was a fun run.

, He said for the third year in a row...

Kidding aside, the suspence is killing me, the show must go on!

So the morning arrived bright and early- with the venue only an hour and a half away from Austin, our crew drove down on Saturday morning. Our carload included Jesse with Bloodthirster/plague bearer/bloodletter daemons (and a beasts herald!) and Aaron with an Empire artillery battery bolstered by magic and Sigmarites.

We arrived in time to ogle the Leadership 2 club’s armies. Those boys went on to win all the Painting and Player’s choice awards. They were truly awesome.

I barely had time to introduce myself to my first opponent before I was informed that there was some kind of scheduling change and I would be heading to a side room for a different match up. As it just so happened, I was drawn against the Ringer list. See below:



Welcome to the Alamo. Remember that time you thought you were okay at painting? That was funny.

This was Ryan Smith’s Carnosaur army, which won Lonewolf and took Player’s Choice at Lonewolf, Bayou, and possibly even Cap City. In short, it was gorgeous, and an awesome way to start.

Ryan Smith wasn’t helming the list, though he’d chopped it up to make it more Ringer-like (see below). That duty had fallen to David, who had not played in almost a year. Ringer, no-Slann lizards, with an out o’ practice general? Easy Winsville, population me!

This is what is known in the biz as “famous last words”.

Oldblood, Carnosaur, Wizarding Hat (LIFE- Wrath & Earthblood)
Level 1 Skink, Engine, Hex Scroll (Iceshard Blizzard)
Scar Vet, BSB, Hide of the Cold Ones
20 Saurus, full command
24 Skinks, 3 Krox, full command
6 Cold one Cav
3 Terradons
Ancient Steg
10 Skinks, Blowpipes
Razordon (!)
16 Saurus warriors

No Slann, no salamanders. The only potential problems were going to be the three monsters if they made it though my firepower.

In typical fashion, the table edge dice off resulted in neither of us moving. One of the surprising things I’ve found when I started attending GTs is that despite higher stakes, in most games players just don’t want the hassle of moving to the other side of the board (and I include myself in this group).

The scenario had you pick one of your characters to give the “evil eye” to an enemy model. Four objective points for killing it, with your character gaining auto-hits on that model. Since none of my characters are exactly combat beasts, I picked a skink champion for my BSB to punch out. David’s Oldblood picked my Runelord, which pretty much guaranteed I’d be valiantly running him out the back of the unit once I was sure I was safe from Terradons and blowpipes.

Here’s what our deployment looked like:



Hope you're okay out there, rangers.

I’d set a pretty standard battleline. I kept towards the woods in case I got a chance to bust out some super-tough BSB stubborn in the woods tricks. I placed the rangers on the far left to spray crossbows into units as they went by, then jump into combat in later turns.

We gave the dice a roll, to discover that the Lizards had…

First Turn

Uneventful for the cold blooded ones- a low magic roll meant no damage, and the Terradons hid from the organ gun. The rangers found themselves about to gain the attention of 16 Saurus and 6 Saurus cav. As has been a running theme with this list, I forget that at 285 points, many opponents are happy to go eat up some relatively soft VPs. Here’s hoping crossbows can dish out the hurt!

I sent the gyro over to help out the rangers, but otherwise had a very typical dwarf movement phase, which is to say it was only slightly more eventful than my magic phase.

Given that a carnosaur could quite easily rush in and chomp any of my characters to death quite quickly (and sported an impressive M 7) I had one turn left to shoot the thing. Unfortunately the cannon skipped short, but the grudgethrower dropped it hard, instantly exceeding its 5 game combined damage output at Bayou.

The organ gun tried to get a head start on damaging the ancient steg, but failed to cause any wounds. I knew I should probably put the bolt thrower in to the unprotected oldblood before he dove into his BSB’s saurus block, but the Saurus cav had presented a full flank shot that was just too tempting. I did manage to skewer two, and the crossbows felled another to put the unit down to three.



Surely there’s some sort of penalty to pay for killing the prettiest model on the board first.



Ah yes, I remember now. It’s treating 425 points of units like they’re totally sacrificial.


Fairly successful- with one dinosaur down, I was happy to hand it over for…

Turn Two

The Saurus cav jump on the gyro, while the neighboring saurus set up to watch. Terradons fly out from the building, but I’ve clogged my backfield so much, they have nowhere to land behind my front line.

The magic phase is irrelevant? I think the skink fails to cast, and the oldblood may have miscast away both his spells.

Javelins and blowpipes fail to make a mark on the organ gun, and kill a single ironbreaker.

The gyro takes a wound and flees combat, only to be run down, though the saurus cav present a flank to the rangers in the meantime.

In my turn, the left flank doesn’t go so hot when rangers lob in to the flank of the saurus cav kill one but are stuck when the last two pass their cold-blooded check. I reform and wait for the saurus to arrive. Seeing the approaching ancient, my runelord decides to go give the war machines an extra check, and boldly slinks out the back of the great weapons.

In the center, the cannon kills the skink priest, but can’t hurt the monster. The grudgethrower arcs in to kill a surviving skink crewman, on the engine, and the organ gun blasts away blowpipe skinks. The bolt thrower also finds the engine steg a little too tough to handle. On the right, ironbreakers run through a smattering of javelins to charge the terradons and run them off the table for a loss of two.




Things start to get a little hazy after this. I’m going to attribute it to the concussions from a thousand thunderstomps over the weekend.



If there’s one rule that I envy more than any other in the Lizards book, it’s probably cold-blooded.

Turn 3

At this point, I’ve got to apologize. I’ve looked at my pictures and can’t quite figure out the next sequence of events. It might have something to do with it being 10 a.m. and David had just bought me my first beer for the morning. I’ll run it off to the best of my ability-

The saurus charge in on the corner of the rangers, making the situation quite dicey on the flank. The center pushed up to force combat next turn. My casualties were pretty light- double giant blowpipes were a little short of the Runelord, so sprayed down the hammerers for a handful of casualties. The rangers finished off the saurus cav a turn too late, but the saurus got out to a quick head start on the grind to follow.

Looking at one last turn before combat was joined, I apparently reformed the hammerers to a deep formation. Quite why I should have done this is lost in the mists of time. I’m sure it was a supremely genius move when I performed it.

Unfortunately the artillery came up empty, and despite a barrage of fire, I was only able to kill the last skink crew and reduce the engine stegadon to two wounds remaining. The other ancient still had zero shots fired its way at this point.

The rangers had a slight respite with some weaker rolling from the lizards and pulled the combat back close to even numbers- about 12 on each side, but when approaching lower numbers the side swinging last really begins to suffer.

I also chopped up the razordon with my shield warriors and challenge thane, planting firmly in the path of the skink krox to keep them from ganging up on the hammerers.

Turn 4

The Oldblood and Scar Vet accompanied the ironclad engine into my hammerers, but mercifully the other ancient fell short of hitting their flank as well. He would earn a horde of great weapons to the flank for his troubles.

The skrox also jumped the shield warriors to really make sure everyone was in the thick of it. The hammerers took a pounding from impact hits and stomps, as well as the attentions of an Oldblood freshly bereft of his Carnosaur. The BSBs squared off in a challenge, and I discovered, to my horror that the way the combats had aligned, I was only able to swing a single hammer at the Steg’s last couple wounds. Following combat, I attempted to go wide again to remedy the situation, but the old dwarfs had apparently already moved about 6” farther than they wanted to, and they told the BSB he could stuff his combat reform.

The skrox fight was a bit of a parry-off, where I tried to grind skinks faster than the krox ground me. The challenge thane found his great weapon to be easily stopped by tiny skink shields and decided he needed a smoke break anyway.

In the bottom of the fourth, my hammerers counter-punched the ancient steg in the flank, took fairly heavy casualties, and reduced the beast to 2 wounds. A lot would hinge on whether they could break through next round.

In the center, the hammerers expired a little more slowly, but at a rate that would not get me to the end of the game. The shields also started to falter and had to test on a Ld 8, hitting it on the re-roll.



Unfortunately, shield warriors are not exactly an “extinction level event”

Turns 5-6

In the combat after the picture above, the ancient stegadon died, but the shield warriors broke and fled from the skrox, who caught them and overran into the organ gun. At the same time, the rangers broke and were run down by the remaining saurus on the left.

In more bad news, the engine continued to rampage over the top of the hammerers, reducing them to about 10. It was at this time that the cavalry in the form of the great weapons, who rolled a monster round, eliminating the steadfast off the saurus, and breaking the unit. The pesky ancient remained however, and the game swung back to a more healthy prospect.

In a bit of an uplifting tale, the ironbreakers managed to go chop up the last of the skink skirmishers.

In the end, the stegadon left the last hammerer standing next to my BSB before finally collapsing when the cow-tipping brigade bundled into its flank to demonstrate exactly how this was done.

End Result: Dwarf Victory

I picked up 16 tournament points for a win with no objectives gained. It may not have seemed it here, but late in the game, it appeared I might be headed for a first round loss to the ringer, courtesy of inexplicable an formation change and a engine of the gods that apparently could control the Matrix. I misplayed the left flank badly. I panicked when I realized he wasn't just going to ignore the rangers and threw the gyro over. It almost worked to trade the gyro's 140 for the cav and saurus, but ended poorly.

I *could* have directed a little more fire at the engine, but really couldn't believe how much it took to drop it. I decided in retrospect that it would be better to let the carnosaur come in and go after the stegs first. The carnosaur is easier to kill with only T5 and a 4+ and doesn't cause impact hits.

The ironbreakers were handy, but maybe mostly because David wasn't as experienced with his positioning. The challenge thane didn't have a call to use his rune, mostly because I'm a little out of practice. In retrospect, it would have been nice to challenge the saurus block with characters into an awkward long charge across his battle line. It would likely have failed and let me get something tasty like hammerers in the flank (or simply more shooting).

Thanks for reading- more to follow when I get the chance!

RZ

Nice report man, and congrats on the win!

As a guy who collects Awesome Dinosaur Minis and tries to jam as many as possible into a chaos army, I'm finding it hard to keep myself from gushing over that lizard army (Game Zone predators and all!)

Also:

Red_Zeke wrote:Oldblood, Carnosaur, Wizarding Hat (LIFE- Wrath & Earthblood)

That is so freaking awesome it hurts. Let me add that build to my Reasons to Play Lizards (Again), right between cold-blooded and the blade of realities ...

Rocking report RZ, quality pics, captions and commentary as ever

- Salvage

Yay for more Wizard Hat lovin!

Fantastic report as always, and good luck in the rest of the tournament!

@ All: Thanks

@ Boss: I wish you could see this army in person. My pic doesn't do it justice. I'll see if I can't drop Ryan a line and get some better pics.

Will work on the second installment once I'm done being responsible for the day. Hopefully have it posted some time tomorrow.

Red,

Impressive job!

Eagerly awaiting the second batrep. I have a unique interest in this one since I think we were matched up round two... Fun with wyverns? I wish I could have given you a tighter game!

-casey

After a quick scramble for lunch we returned for another big ol’ helping o’ Warhammer. I’d drawn Casey C, which was a name I vaguely recognized. It turns out that he is a Houston (or maybe Dallas? Pretty ) member of the Bay Area Leadership 2 gaming club. Casey bagged a well deserved 3rd Player’s Choice & 2nd Paint score.

Casey had Orcs & Goblins which generally feels like a decent matchup until deployment starts and I my head starts to hurt from all the units getting deployed. Casey brought:



Ooh la la! You would cry if you heard how fast he painted some of this stuff.

Orc Warboss, Wyvern, Sword of Might, Enchanted Shield, Light Armor, 4+ Ward
Orc Warboss Wyvern, Charmed Shield
Goblin Big Boss, BSB, Dragonhelm
Savage Orc Shaman, Level 2, Lucky Shrunken Head (Fists of Gork, Eadbutt)
Night Goblin Shaman, Level 1, Dispell Scroll (Vindictive Glare)

34 Savage Orc Big Uns, extra hand weapon, full command
25 Night goblins, full command, 2 fanatics
25 Night goblins, 2 fanatics

Orc Boar chariot
2 Goblin Wolf Chariots
2 Goblin Wolf Chariots
2 Mangler Squigs
Doom Diver
Doom Diver
Arachnarok Spider

Basically my cannon would overheat before it ran out of stuff worth shooting at. I wasn’t entirely sure of my plan until deployment. Some of the problem was that I just don’t run into Orcs & Goblins much and so don’t have a good “gut feel” on what to expect from unit to unit matchups.

Our scenario was to beat up a piñata in the middle of the board- most wounds inflicted on it won, and it skittered away from whatever damaged it.



Come at me Orcs!

I was pretty happy with deployment. The monsters were all heavy right, but I was confident I’d be able to bring at least one down before they arrived. The savages were kind of a problem, but with some luck I could use frenzy liabilities to my advantage. I kind of fumbled the ironbreakers who were kind of stuck out on the flank when I probably would have gotten more use from them over near the frenzied block and manglers.

To his credit, I thought Casey had placed really well by concentrating the monsters where they could come down on me like a ton of bricks. The goblin units had fanatics primed to prevent me from much in the way of backfield shenanigans.

Tragically the Orcs managed to jump on the first turn, which would put the pressure on for a good first shooting phase. One doom diver soared off over the horizon and the other failed to inflict any lasting damage on the organ gun (or possibly gyro?).

I showed uncharacteristic restraint and held the gyrocopter inside the 6” ward save bubble from my hammerers. After some consideration, I figured it might be best to try to drop one of the Wyverns. I could take some wounds off the spider, but it was likely to make it in regardless.

The general’s wyvern was sporting a rider with a 4+ ward and had hidden itself from some of the warmachines, so I decided to go for the softer of the two. Rangers showered it with crossbow bolts, popping the charmed shield and even causing a a wound on the wyvern. Unfortunately the cannon skipped short and grudgethrower hit but rolled a one to wound. The organ gun and bolt thrower fired in some combination that bagged me a dead mangler and another wound on the wyvern.



”Hold till you see the whites of their eyes”, was the idea. Casey informed me Orc eyes are red and my plan fell apart from there.

Turn Two

I spent some time considering whether to challenge in one of the critters in, but figured the only charges I could force were ones he wanted anyway. Sure enough, the wounded wyvern and spider plunged ahead into the great weapons.

I continued to get off light during the shooting phase, with both doom-divers swooping impressively off target (though maybe Casey was only correcting by D3” instead of a full D6)

Combat was okay-ish- I didn’t challenge out the wyvern with my unit champion, possibly because I hoped to just kill the thing outright, possibly because that is an area of the strategy that I am still really, really bad at. The spider took a couple wounds and the wyvern was dropped to just one or two left.

I had the gratifying feeling of lobbing a horde of hammerers into the flank of the wyvern rider. I could almost see the gyro pilot rolling his eyes in exasperation as I positioned him to block off and redirect the frenzied block away from the main combat. Shooting options were a little reduced. I tried to knock the orc general off his wyvern, but he warded it and took a pair of wounds from his mount. The grudgethrower couldn’t land its shot. In a fine display of marksmanship, the rangers shredded the second mangler, which freed my organ gun and bolt thrower to wreck a pair of wolf chariots.

Combat was a trade- the warriors were ground down to 10, but the wyvern and rider were slain, with an overrun into the spider from the hammerers. With the spider down to 3 wounds, it would be dicey on whether it could survive another round.




I keep declaring my intention to make sure I’m not fighting monsters in combat and then doing just the opposite.

Turn Three

In a moment of clarity, I recognize that savages in the flank of my hammerers might actually be one of the better places for them. They won’t get full attacks, and should be there for quite a while. So I flee the gyro and let the savages into the end of the hammerers. The orc general joins in to try to hurry things along.



Now *that’s* an eighth edition combat!

The spider is able to crunch the warriors down to 5 models plus their thane, but persishes. The plus side is that those 434 points are alive. The down side is that there’s still a pair of doom divers tailor-made for picking up those points. Elsewhere in the combat, the hammerers lose about 15 of their number in exchange for the savage orc champion and another wound on the wyvern.

In my turn the shield warriors and rangers start angling for the flank of the main event and the gyro sails over the top of the combat. He’s above the savages when the fanatics are triggered, which is a little awkward. I was expecting Casey to lob them both through the main combat, counting on his ward save to minimize the damage he took from the fanatics, but he sends both into the woods instead. Casey might have been looking at the approaching rangers and warriors and figured he needed to maintain his numbers.

The gyro sets up to start hosing down the goblin unit in future turns or even charge the rear of the combat if it looks like it’ll help.

Combat has a slew of hammerers mushed, and I continue to employ the combat reform strategies I learned in the school for the terminally stupid, and collapsed out of my long line, bringing a couple more big ‘uns in. I thought I was going to get more hammer swings at the wyvern, but, the BSB was going to be forced to challenge just to keep the unit alive anyway.



Good thing I reformed. I was worried I wouldn’t lose all the hammerers for a second there!

Turn 4

Casey charged his last two wolf chariots in to the A-Team (Ironbreakers). I tried to dissuade him of this clearly suicidal notion, but he wasn’t having any. He ignored my descriptions of how awesome they were, wiped them out, and pursued them off the board.

The doom divers continued to be the most spectacularly miserable shots the old world has ever seen, which was alright by me.

In combat, the BSB broke the wyvern’s toe with his forehead, surviving the onslaught like a champ. I got a reprieve with enough hammerers dying to take them totally out of contact with the savages, who now could only touch the BSB, currently getting wedged in the Wyvern’s gullet. (Both the Wyvern and my BSB were on a wound left each).

I was now in a really strong position to get the flanks on the combat with my supporting blocks. You might even say I had these Orcs right where I wanted them…



But you would be wrong.

My BSB decided that fighting challenges against Lord level characters on monsters was clearly not in his contract, and failed the stubborn 9 re-rollable. Whoops! The savages had to pursue, and the Wyvern chose to do so after swallowing the BSB during his final stand. Amazingly the last three hammerers escape, and the wyvern, who pursued an appallingly low distance also blocked the Savages from getting much distance.

Ignoring, for a moment, the loss of my BSB and hammerers, this actually set up a very nice situation for a double charge. Both the shields and rangers got in to pin the flanks of the savages, and it was business time!



Sometimes you gotta break a few ridiculously valuable eggs to make an omelet.

Shooting was healthy, with the cannon performing a Heimlich maneuver on the wyvern to get him to choke up my BSB, one of the doom divers getting smashed by the grudgethrower and the organ gun joining forces with the bolt thrower to smash the boar chariot.

Turn 5 (and 6)

Casey made sure I didn’t snake eyes the hammerers to rally or roll really low on subsequent flee rolls, and chased them off the board with his dismounted Warboss, redirecting into the cannon. I tried to bluff a stand and shoot, but he wasn’t buying it. I couldn’t quite figure out how to take advantage of my MR of Challenge thane at this point.

Thinking back, I could have bailed him out of the 4 GW warriors, and pulled the warboss away from the cannon, which was worth more than the thane, but this didn’t occur to me at the time.

The game wound down with me cleaning up the wolf chariots when they returned, and grinding down the savages till they were no longer frenzied, and then broke, basically locking in the win.

End result: Dwarf win 16-8

Casey picked up the objective, as he got out to a head-start with some chariots and goblins, and I never had the resources to spare to try to get some back. I noticed I haven’t written much about magic- I believe Casey may have miscast away some of his spells early on, though I’m not totally sure I’ve got that right. By and large magic was (apparently) a non-issue.

Casey had some appalling shooting with the doom divers which could have turned the game. My war machines struggled a little with monsters but otherwise obliterated everything they looked at.

This was the ideal tournament game (or really any game for that matter)- beautiful army, awesome opponent, and a game that really could have swung the other way with different dice. Basically all the reasons I enjoy GTs.

We got to chat a little afterward while I picked his brain on painting tips. This was easily one of my favorite armies out there- great painting, imaginative and well executed conversions, and a strong (but not garish) color palette. As usual, my pictures do it an injustice.

And now, I apologize for any typos or other issues. It's late and I've got school work early tomorrow. I'm sure I'll come back and discover some appalling lapses in quality, but I have about 5 minutes left before I break my pseudo-promise to have this up by Tuesday...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@wuxala/Casey: Glad you found it! I hope I did the game justice. Feel free to correct anything I've bungled, and of course, add your thoughts. There's a number of the shooting phases where I just had to give my best guess at what happened based on the pictures.

Thanks for the report RZ - they always make for excellent reading

As a dwarf player who has recently turned to the dark side (playing O&G I mean ), I find that O&G are a good match up for dwarves as the whole combination of hatred, GW warriors, war machines, high Ld, negating magic, etc, makes them a tough draw for the O&G player.

Even so, you seemed to play things well with good target priority esp. killing the mangler squigs before they could get close.

I agree with not shooting at the Arachnarok as well. Sure 8A at S5 is scarey + goblin attacks + TS, but mine wouldn't survive as many games as it does without the re-roll 6's spell from the little Waaagh deck.

Well done

Very nice report. I think you covered everything quite well. I can't remember if I miscast down to a level 0 in this game or the next. But you're right, magic was non issue. Also I think I hade one turn of animosity with nothing in range to charge.

Holding that gyrocoptor back turned out to be huge in my opinion. Blocking the savages from coming in on your flank a turn earlier solidified your victory as far as i'm concerned. So give yourself more credit!!

See you at Lonewolf

Thanks Casey- looking forward to it. I'm not sure if I'll have a new army prepped by Lonewolf, but I think I'll at least plan on a couple big changes to the Dwarf list for variety's sake.

2-0 Eh? That represents my best ever start to a GT, which probably doesn’t speak all that well to my skillz.

Beating a Leadership 2 Orcs & Goblins player earned me the right to play… a Leadership 2 Orcs & Goblins player…

Guh-wah? This was Mike “Colonel” Sanders, with another really nicely painted army. Behold!



I’m really going to end up with a complex if I keep playing LD 2 dudes and their beautiful armies.

Mike brought another O&G army that put the pressure on with tons of units that hit hard enough that you didn’t want to ignore them, but cheap enough to have numbers where you’d feel overwhelmed. As a cool note, his fanatics were actually placed on unit fillers in the goblins, which let you know how many there were, and whether or not they were released. Really liked this idea!

Orc Warboss on Wyvern, 4+ Ward, Biting Blade, Light Armor
Savage Orc Great Shaman, Lucky Shrunken Head (there must be a factory pumping these things out down in the Badlands), Fencers Blades (BIG WAAGH- Fists, Hand o’ Gork, Eadbutt, Foot of Gork)
Night Goblin Shaman, Level 2, Dispel Scroll (Li’l Waaagh- Curse o’ the Bad Moon, Vindictive glare)
Goblin Big Boss, Armor of Destiny, BSB, Gigantic Spider
Goblin Big Boss, Enchanted Shield, Dawnstone, Gigantic Spider
28 Savage Big ‘Uns, Extra CHoppa, Full Command
31 Night Goblins, Nets, Full Command, 3 Fanatics
5 Wolf Riders, Light Armor Shield, Musician
4 Trolls
4 Trolls
Arachnarok
Mangler
2 x Rock Lobbers
Doom Diver

Our scenario was Defend the Keg- one core unit carried the keg and was stupid, stubborn, and had to defend in the absolute dead center of the deployment zone. Mike commented that this was the best scenario he could get against Dwarfs because it kept me from hiding in the corner and trying to shoot it out. I liked it because it let me make my shield warriors stubborn!

I was pretty happy with deployment again. The Master Rune of Grungni protected the hammerers, kegbearers, ironbreakers, grudgethrower, gyro, and organ gun. I waffled on rangers, but eventually put them to the left to add their fire against the monsters.



The Colonel attempts the old quantum measuring tape vanguard move, permitting the wolf riders to exist at two ranges simultaneously.

To my relief, I picked up the first turn and plunged ahead.

Extremely minimal movement in the dwarf movement phase surprised absolutely no one. I did shift the ironbreakers forward to let the gyro advance slightly while staying in range of the ward save bubble. I also strolled my challenge thane over to the great weapons, while loudly singing, “La di dah, nothing to see here.”

Shooting started with a cannon blasting the Arachnarok for 6 wounds (the Wyvern was hidden from view). The rangers tried to add some more wounds, but the range proved to be a bit too much. I honestly can’t remember what I shelled with the grudgethrower, but looking at the pictures, it doesn’t appear anything of consequence died.

During the Orc turn, the goblin BSB block bickered, which delayed the BSB’s advance. The wolfriders tried a suicidal charge on the rangers, but were panicked away for their troubles. The arachnarok noticed the success the Wyvern Warboss had hiding behind the building and crammed itself over there too. The magic phase released snuck a strength 5 snipe in to my BSB, but failed to wound (it’s possible this happened in a later turn). Orc shooting killed a single dwarf shield warrior with shards of an errant stone.



What the Orcs don’t know is that we’ve rigged that house with explosives…

Turn Two

We played something a bit wrong here- you can see the Mangler approaching on the right, and I wanted to sit the ironbreakers on top of it to prevent it tearing through hammerers instead. I asked Mike if I could charge it to do so, and he said I could. Flipping through the book later, I see that’s not possible. Woops!

The gyro whizzed over the top of the fight, touching down next to the savages. Moving too fast to shoot, I took the opportunity to face the goblin war machines in the backfield. Next turn the gyro could stand in front of the savages if needed, shoot goblins, or charge war machines.

I also backed the great weapons off to leave the wyvern on a 22” charge.

Shooting didn’t have a lot of options- and didn’t accomplish much. The cannon wounded a troll, but was stopped from bouncing through to the with only two wounds, though the bolt thrower and crossbows finished another troll off. The organ gun jammed, missing two rounds of firing, and the stone thrower arced away.

At the beginning of the Orc turn, my challenge thane gestured rudely at the Orc general forcing him into a box-cars charge. Mike sent the trolls at the same target, but both came up short. The spider failed a charge on the rangers who fled to make it a sure thing. This left all those units clumped on my left for what would be an interesting turn.

Confused by the roaring sound of the gyrocopter, the savages squabbled (yay!). The goblins scampered forward, with one of their spider bosses ranging ahead, presumably to threaten war machines.

The goblin shaman got both spells off, and the orc shaman was squabbling. I let the cannon take a Gork’ll Fix It, followed by an irresistible big Initiative based Curse of the Bad Moon which came up a hair short.

Goblin shooting add nothing of note, courtesy of inaccurate lobbas and a misfiring doom diver wrecking itself.




Despite my best efforts at Power Pointing a Bad Moon, this looks more like I narrowly dodged a giant banana.

Turn 3

The gyro, feeling confident the savages were in for a hard time whizzed off to perform some fly-bys on the goblin artillery. My keg bearers sucked their guts in to keep from grazing up against the curse of the bad moon and angled sideways a tiny bit, and with the help of a hammerers swift reform blocked the organ gun to keep the trolls off. The rangers rallied into a 5 wide combat formation.

In an amazingly active magic phase, I dispelled the Bad Moon.

The shooting phase cracked off with a spectacular first shot- the cannon greased a troll, knocked the wyvern off and took one of the spider’s last two wounds. The grudgethrower splattered the goblin BSB, but the bolt thrower skewered the lone spider hero stone dead.

The only combat on the board had the gyrocopter take a rock to the eye from a goblin crewman before scattering them away and heading after the other lobba.


The orcs found themselves in a pretty horrible position- the warboss ran behind the building, shouting encouraging words to his blocks, and the spider didn’t fancy a round three with the cannon, and scuttled back to the board edge.

The trolls on my right passed stupidity on their own, and decided the smartest thing they could think of was to charge a horde of hammerers.

One final rock lobba shot sailed wide to make it a second perfectly horrible game for greenskin shooting. The trolls craftily threw 6 attacks on the runelord, getting an alarming 5 hits and 4 wounds, and 3 failed armor saves. Fortunately, the old coot knew his way around a shield and parried one hit away. The hammerers whacked five wounds away and sent the trolls running. I couldn’t afford to pursue, though. A big roll would take me into the savages, and my runelord couldn’t afford to fight any more combats.

And thus, I reformed 3 wide to push him to the back rank, drawing boos and jeers from vast swathes of the Internet.



Truly legendary displays of heroism and leadership from the opposing generals.

Turn 4

The dwarfs closed in for the kill, and the grudgethrower sent a long arcing shot, that despite being off target, still hit the arachnarok’s truly epic base, killing it. The gyro performed a barrel roll, astounding the last goblin warmachine who applauded politely and went home for the day.

The savages keg bearers headed into my keg bearers and cut a bunch apart, but ranks for steadfast (or keg for stubborn) kept me happily awaiting the arrival of the great weapon horde (who were diverted by a lone troll, one which impressively survived, fled and rallied!)

Turn 5

While the great weapons dealt with the blocking troll, the hammerers decided the keg bearers would be fine, and charged their goofy 3-wide formation into the night goblins. The gyro wandered aimlessly, utterly confused at the prospect of living for a second game in a row.

The savages drunkenly chopped up shield warriors who drunkenly didn’t notice.


Even I shouldn’t be able to goof this one up now.

Turn 6

The game finished with us just fighting the keg battle, since no other combats really mattered. With the horde of great weapons in the flank, the savages were making a pair of break checks for the top and bottom of 6th, but failed the second, granting me the objective and sealing the game shut.


Result: Dwarf Victory

So, my artillery had one of those dream rounds of shooting in the 3rd turn that, when combined with the failed animosity, more or less carried the day. For what its worth, the Master Rune of Challenge bought me the decisive turn of shooting at the wyvern. I rarely use the thing to force improbable charges, and this turned out great.

Mike was a trooper through what was a pretty grisly game for him, with almost nothing going right. Still, until the bottom of the 6th, I hadn’t actually scored a ton of points, somewhere about 930 points. On the other hand, I’d only given up the ironbreakers. This was probably the most lopsided victory I’ve ever pulled off in 8th, and it was a great way (for me) to end Day 1.

3-0, three beautiful armies, and really friendly opponents. Awesome day.

Dang Zeke, you tore it up. Can't wait for day 2 reports!

The turn three picture and caption had me laughing out loud into my beer. Good show, old bean.

Awesome, now I have some reading to do on the plane . Looking forward to these, and might even put up some of my own from Border Raids this past weekend!

Beautiful painted models being shown. Thanks!

3-0, and against such amazing armies! Problem is, that probably puts you at one of the top tables, meaning a tough Game 4...

I love your battle reports like Free Willy loves Tuna. Keep 'em coming!

Three wins so far bud. Keep it up!

Hey all-

Greatly appreciate all the kind words. Things are busy, but I'll try to get at least Round 4 up before we head out of town for Thanksgiving.

RZ

I thought vortrxes altho RiP couldn't be dispelled.

NVM i'm a moron.

Sunday dawned later than usual (!), courtesy of daylight savings. I was awake with a ton of hours to spare so took advantage of our sweet location and went running along San Antonio’s famed River Walk as the sun came up. It was absolutely awesome and a good way to burn off some of the mental fuzz from the previous night’s drinking.

Note: Unfortunately, I don’t have Day 2 Army Pics- I took the opportunity Sat night after play was over to go snap pics of all the armies I’d played against.

We rolled up to the venue, and I found myself back in the “clubhouse”. For this, (and most of the Texas tournaments) your table number doesn’t mean anything until Round 5, though your matchups are made based on battle points earned thus far.

Speaking of battle points, for some reason, my 52 points had me matched against a fella on 58. There were two guys on 56, who drew each other. Not sure why that happened, but there I was facing Joshua’s Ogre Kingdoms army.

Did I mention he was from Leadership 2? Joshua’s army was still a WIP with a few unfinished models. I didn’t get as many pictures of this game as I’d like, so let me apologize in advance for that.

His list:

Tyrant, 4+ Ward, Stubborn Hat, Flaming Ward, Biting Blade
Bruiser BSB, 4_ Ward, great weapon
Butcher, Hell-heart, Great Weapon (Great Maw: Spinemarrow)
Butcher, great weapon (Beasts: Wildform, Savage Beast)

6-7 (don’t totally understand the Armybuilder printout) Ironguts, Standard of Discipline, full command
7-8 Ogres, full command
4 Leadbelchers, bellower
4 Maneaters, poison, stubborn, banner of eternal flame, musician
4 Mournfang, Dragonhde banner
3 individual sabretusks
Ironblaster

As a side note: Joshua thought only 3 rank and file were needed for Look-Out-Sir on monstrous infantry, which probably explains the presence of champions in the relatively small units.

Ogres are a bit of a bugbear for me. I haven’t played them often, and haven’t lost to them in 8th, but it always seems like I’m scrambling to stay ahead. Of course, I think this might be the case for most games I play, and in this case, I had a little help from the scenario.

Our scenario was Come and Take It! Each side had a free magical cannon. You earned objective points for wrecking the enemy cannon while keeping your own alive. The scenario cannons were immune to eachother, and could be auto-destroyed in combat, but did not allow an overrun.

Deployment went pretty well, considering I was well in to my deployment before Joshua was done putting down Sabretusks. On the plus side, I had both cannons protected by the MR of Grungni. On the down side, I ended up with the great weapon block kind of hung off on their own.

I considered dropping the rangers in the far corner to spray down the maneaters and leadbelchers as they tried to advance, but felt like I wanted them in closer for support, and that if I did so, Josh would just walk away from them. We talked about this after the game, and Josh thought I should have put them in a harassing position rather than the more central one I chose. Part of the problem was that I forgot Maneaters aren’t default Immune to Psych in this book (or maybe even the last book?) and didn’t rate my chances at panicking them off. Instead, I tucked them into the woods for some extra protection and got ready to shoot it out.



Could have used 3 free cannons and still had plenty to shoot.

Josh picked up the first turn and started moving forward. Apparently, mine was the first army he’d played against where he didn’t feel he’d be able to stand off and shoot.

The mournfang didn’t rush straight ahead, which I was greatful for, as it meant I’d be sure to get at least two shooting phases at the buggers. A bigger problem were the lone sabretusks, which sprinted out ahead. At M8 and swift stride, they had decent chances of getting in to my objective cannon and organ gun next turn, which was going to make for some harder shooting decisions.

Magic blasted off with an irresistible wildform which toughened the butchers’ gang, but dealt 5 wounds to them in exchange. Shooting was pretty lax- two rangers killed, and a cannon clipping my BSB (who made his look out sir) and then bouncing off the Grungni save on my objective cannon. His scenario cannon skipped just short of the organ gun.

I countered with fairly minimal moves. After some consideration, the gyro decided to land itself directly in front of the sabre tusk that was threatening my objective cannon, to buy some more shooting time.

Speaking of which- I skipped a shot short of the Ironblaster, blew up his scenario cannon and took off a mournfang with a nice bolt thrower shot. The organ gun only managed another wound on the bulls, which left me in a little bit of a bind. The crossbows needed 5s and 5s to wound the bulls courtesy of wildform, so I decided to pour it all into the sabretusk in front of them, to force a sneaky Ld 7 non-rerollable panic check. Alas, it was passed…

Turn Two

After yesterdays shenanigans, the gyro got right back to the business of dying. It was charged by the sabretusk it had blocked (fine), the ironblaster (uh-oh), and the mournfang (oh dear). The ironblaster failed its charge however, which meant I’d have a pleasant turn, free of any artillery fire.



The gyro enters familiar territory.

With only one spell worth anything at range, and no irresistible force magic is over quicker than a gyro vs. mournfang combat. Shooting kills another handful of rangers, and we’re on to combat, where I heroically crash gyro #378 into another battlefield on the Warhammer world. The sabretusk trots ahead, but the mournfang can’t make it to another combat, so restrain in order to pick their fight.

In my turn, I elect to kick of my tried and true battle plan of “start making mistakes in games you’re doing okay in”. I decided to charge the 15 or so rangers after the leadbelchers, but Josh fled, which left me with some pretty unappealing choices. I ended up redirecting into the butchers’ unit and making it. The great weapons jumped the overrunning sabretusk.

Shooting was weird. Feeling like I was pretty healthy, I took a random shot at the tyrant with my grudgethrower. The flaming rock promptly plummeted through his look out sir, through his 2+ flaming ward, and killed him stone dead. Wut?! The rest (all) of shooting should have gone into the mournfang cav, but I only caused 2 wounds to the unit. Looking at the pics, it seems I must have fired more shots into the ironguts as well because one more died in this turn, so I’m still not sure what I was thinking.

On the left, the great weapons easily dispatched the sabretusk and used the reform to get a better angle on the fight. Unfortunately, my ill advised assault with the rangers into the bulls ended horribly, with the rangers getting mushed for two wounds on the bull champ and one more ogre down bringing the unit size to seven.

Turn 3

I oh-so cleverly trigger the Master Rune of Challenge on the mournfang to pull them over to the hammerers. They need a 10 on their swift stride, and make it easily, and are joined by the butcher bulls. I’m pretty satisfied here- the shield warriors will have the flank of the mournfang next round with a whole lot of static combat res.

Shooting comes up aces again, when the ironblaster bounces off another grungni save. 5+ ward is awesome. I should play Daemons!

It is at this point that the ogres hit so hard they explode my hammerers, mind, and most of the pictures I had taken of the previous turns. (Note: This is a lie. I was just a lazy-ass with the camera this game). The two units wipe my 30 hammerers to the last model, with a little to spare. I *did* make a mistake in this combat, refusing a challenge from the ogre champion rather than accepting with my hero. I think I convinced myself he was an irongut? Or maybe that one of the great weapon wielding butchers would challenge? Either way, this might have been enough to keep at least one hammerer alive.

Instead, the mournfang (having taken no wounds!) and the bulls (having lost their champion and one ogre) trundled onwards into my cannon and organ gun respectively.




When good wins go bad…

I didn’t have a lot I could do to salvage the situation right away. The shield warriors charged into the mournfang and the great weapons pushed up to support in a later turn- or at least threaten the ironguts and ironblaster who might think about joining in to help.

I bring in a bunch of combat res and my BSB tries to kill the mournfang hanging around on a single wound, but can’t quite do it, ending the combat in a tie. The mournfang move in for full contact next round. My cannon is crushed, and the bulls also junk my grudgethrower, and then turn to head for the scenario cannon.

Turn 4

The ironblaster strays a little closer, and the ironguts can’t quite decide if they have enough numbers to commit, so mainly act to provide BSB re-rolls to keep the middle happy.

The unstoppable mournfang continue to trample all over dwarf warriors and I can’t quite sneak the one wound through that might get this combat under control. The rest of the ogre army is slowed slightly by the sea of hammerer corpses, but is wading towards my dwindling army.

I charge the ironblaster with my great weapons as my one and only option during this movement phase. I try to pick off some of the butchers with cannon and bolt thrower fire (now that they don’t have a look-out sir), but only succeed in putting a wound on one bull, essentially sealing the fate of my scenario cannon.

The great weapons can’t junk the ironblaster, and are forced to reform to give a more threatening face to the ironguts. Unfortunately, this will put my runelord in contact with as many as four ogre great weapons, but these is desperate times.




Got ‘em right were we want ‘em.

Turn 5

The ironguts are unwilling to call my bluff, and swift reform to walk away, just barely staying close enough to provide BSB re-rolls to the ongoing combat.

Magic is a little tricky- I can’t let off wildform on the mournfang, nor can I let the ironblaster go stubborn. We’re matched on dice and I’m out of spellbreakers, and with a little bit of sweat, I manage to shut it all down.

The bulls junk my scenario cannon, but courtesy of the scenario rules don’t get an overrun just yet. Unfortunately, the cav continue to stamp all over my dwarfs, and I almost kill one by sneaking a wound through, but a deft parry from an ironfist ruins my day.

Against the ironblaster, apparently all my best fighters have been languishing in the rear ranks, and now that I’ve reformed it into my flank, it is summarily smashed of its last two wounds. Which frees the whole unit up! Ho!

In my turn, the M3 cavalry arrives into the flank of the mournfang. Now that he has a bigger audience, my BSB finally finds a winning strategy and impressively whacks one of the big cats in the danglies with his flaming hammer. The great weapons only manage a couple wounds, but the static is enough to panic the last two. After the standard dramatically kills himself (‘cause who knows how long we’d be there if we waited for shield warriors to do it), the last mournfang runs past the ogre bulls, and panics them off the board with both butchers. Woot!

Turn 6

The ogres have to shift into damage control, and the ironguts are facing the wrong way to make any improvements to the situation. The last mournfang rallies at the table edge, but in my turn, the shield warriors have enough momentum left to boot him off the table.


Result:I’ve done enough damage in a dramatic couple of turns that I’m hoping I might have pulled back a draw and it turns out that I’ve actually scratched out a win by about 150 points! With no objective, this was worth a 14-6 victory.

Josh took the last couple of turns well in stride. Honestly, I think he’d played this one better than I had. I made some bad mistakes with target priority, drastically underestimating the mournfang cav. The rangers were also mismanaged.

In my opinion, the ironguts should have just rolled in to the great weapons, but I think Josh was playing a more conservative style, and may have made the right call there. I was quite honestly lucky to come away with anything but a major loss after the hammers were obliterated in a single turn.

I had a really great game here, and ended up giving Josh my best game vote. Apparently other folks agreed, as the final results show he picked up 3 such votes. Which is all the more impressive when you see that Josh went on to win 2nd best general!

So a highly improbable 4-0 going into round 5!

Congrats on the 4-0, sir! I haven't run into mournfang yet, but I can see the 2+ armor being a massive problem, even with S5 great weapons it's hard to get past the armor save and the parry. And they make infantry disappear. Have you found that your unit of warriors with shields actually win combats? I've taken a unit of 30 and they usual don't win very much.

Orzabal

Glad to see this report back on its legs, very much enjoying it. Fantastic turn around in Game 4, though the ogres did seem to pull back significantly there at the end instead of keeping the pressure on - which shouldn't take anything away from the raw skill of those few dwarven lumberjacks up against the ironblaster to their flank

And the nice models continue, love both of those Arachnaroks. Speaking of army comp, I find it funny that the ogre army was probably the most standardized of the ones you've faced so far. With the exception of the Tyrant + 2x butchers, that list is basically everything I'd expect to fight in an ogre army at this point ... which is kind of too bad

- Salvage

Good reports, not too wordy and with plenty of purdy pictures...Well painted armies too!

I liked it, and it was in a friendly manner also. Great work