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So the next big GT for us in the Northeast was DaBoyz GT, held in Rochester NY. It was a 2,000 point, 6 game tourney, with some heavy comp. I reworked my Crossroads list some, and added more shooty elements. The list was:

Runesmith (and general), with MR of Balance, Spellbreaker, shield
BSB, rerollable 1+ armor, MR of Challenge
29 Quarrelers with GW, fc
16 Quarrelers with GW, standard and muzo
30 Hammerers with fc
16 Hammerers with fc
6 Miners with muzo
Cannon, engineer, flaming
Grudge Thrower, eng, Accuracy, Pen
Organ Gun

The list will play a little more static, and I don’t have the rangers. In previous games, I’ve usually misplayed my gyro and my rangers, leaving them unsupported. The XBows should provide a dual threat. The Runesmith will lead the rear, floating in the background, or hopping from unit to unit. The BSB, with the Rune of Challenge, will hang with one of my combat blocks to force my opponent to commit. That being said, it’s much more of a gun line than I’m used to, and even though the play style is pretty easy, it will still take some getting used to.

A few of the Shambling Horde rolled into town the night before, staying with a close friend who lived nearby. The venue was in the Rochester Armory, a building that looks like a huge castle in the downtown area. Very appropriate. The turnout was good, with over 30 players, and tons of freebies and plenty of prizes. My hat’s off to Brian Moyer, the TO, for grabbing so much swag.

GAME 1 – RICH SALAMONE – Empire

The first scenario revolved around reduced visibility. Each player rolled three artillery dice at the beginning of their turn, and that was how far they could see. An extra tourney point was awarded if you had the lowest visibility during the game.

(It should be said now that the scoring for the tourney was a modified 20-0 system that gave up to 15 points for winning by up to 1500 points, and every 100 points after that got you a tenth of a point. Each scenario had up to 4 bonus points, and for they most part these points could be achieved, even if you were getting smashed. I really appreciated the thought that went into the bonuses.)

Rich’s army was excellently painted, and looked impressive on the table. (He ended up getting best painted at the event). Left to right, his setup was: Spearmen with Level 4 (life) with swordsman detachment / Steam Tank / Halberds with BSB, handgunner and swordsmen detachments / Spearman block with larger handgunner detachment / mortar and cannon with Master Eng, and another cannon out wide. I put my hammerers on the flanks with the XBows in the middle to create a killing field. He outdeployed me, leaving my big hammerer block out wide right.



I went first, with clear skies for visibility. Everything on the left hung back, because I learned my lesson last time I fought a Stank. My cannon shot at the Steam Tank, but misfired. During his turn, his visibility was 14”, so he only surged everything forward. This would be a theme during the game, with the visibility really hurting him in the early game.



My turn 2, I crept my left hammerers up the hill, but still out of LOS of the Stank. On the right, I pressed forward, and the miners come on the back table edge near the artillery park. I have good visibility, but I misfire the cannon again. On his turn, he rolls 10” for visibility, so he can only surge forward again. He also stalls his Steam Tank, taking a wound.

My 3, I send in the hammerers against his big unit of handgunners, and the miners into the cannon, killing them both. I also slid the left hammerers to the side of the hill, giving my LOS to that side of the battlefield.



On his 3, he charges the Organ Gun, which is just in front of the XBows. On the right, he charges the halberds way forword toward the XBows, but fails the charge. This clears the way for the swordsmen to charge the hammerer block.



In the ensuing combats, the Organ Gun stays stubborn, and the hammerers break the swordsmen, plowing into the spearmen.

On my 4, I charge the left swordsmen with my smaller hammerer block. I break them, but don’t catch them. The hammerers on the right smash up the spearmen, but fail to contact the Stank on the overrun, leaving it free to charge into the Xbows. The Halberds kill the Organ Gun, freeing them up as well. The miners, meanwhile, kill off the mortar.

On his 4 he sends everything into the Xbows, and rallies some other stuff. He sends in his spearmen into the hammerers on the left, but are broken easily.



He breaks the XBows, but fails to catch them (damn, I’m lucky), and turns his Stank toward my hammerers. On my 5, I rally the XBows and pin the Stank with my hammerer block. The miners then charge his engineer, who flees. The small hammerers turn toward the swordsmen. Visibility hurts my shooting for the first time in the game (14”).



On his 5, he charges the XBows again with his BSB block, but this time I break them, killing his BSB and carrying my into the rear of the tank. At this point, we also talked about his mage. He had moved him without taking the visibility into account. At my insistence, I told him to reposition his mage so that he could cast some spells. Of course, being a nice guy, he got off an IF Dwellers, killing off my BSB. That will teach me .

On my 6, I’ve put some wounds on the Stank, and I get greedy, so I send in the remainder of the little XBow block into the flank to get the last 3 wounds off it. In the end, I can’t bust the armor, and he grinds off the last few XBows from the little block.



On his 6, he sends in his spearmen into the rear of my big main XBow block, but the last fight ends on a tie. In the end, I gave 533 for the BSB, OG and the small XBows, and got 1,045 points for a 14-9 Win.

Rich was a great guy to play against, and the game was really friendly all around. The scenario really hurt him, though, especially in the early rounds when he needed to shell me. In the end, I gave him my Best Opponent of the weekend.

GAME 2 – JASON CLARK – Vampire Counts

This scenario was called “Storm of Magic” and it caused miscasts on double ones that couldn’t be mitigated in any way. I was playing against Jason Clark and his VC, so I figured the scenario was in my favor. Jason had a fantastic army list, with a map of Sylvania and a wax seal. I played on the same table as my last game. Jason had a pretty stock standard VC army, with the following units from left to right: 4 Wraiths with a banshee, 30 Grave Guard with Drakenhoff BSB and Banner of the Barrows and a combat Vamp, 30 Skeletons with a Casty Lord with the WS Hat, Stupid Crown, etc. and 30 ghouls with a Wraith Hero. His GG were placed out wide on the left, away from my flaming cannon. My setup was the same as last time, but I switched my big and little hammerer units. I also didn’t have a magic weapon in the army, so the Wraiths made me really nervous.




I got first turn, and I moved the hammerers up on both flanks, and shot up the ghouls, killing half of them. The GT deviated off the wraiths. On his turn, he rushed forward, and used VHels on the wraiths to make a run on my GT. He also moved his Skeleton bunker with the Vamp Lord into the building in the center.

On my 2nd turn, I turned my hammerers to face the wraiths. I figured he couldn’t get far enough away with the wraiths, and if I could charge them downhill, I’d pop them. I keep shooting up the ghouls on the right, and the GT misses the wraiths on the left again.



On his 2, he moves the wraiths back to the right, facing the flank of the hammerers, then uses VHels to slam them in. That was an excellent move on his part, and took me completely by surprise. I lose combat, but stay easily and turn to face. On the right, he rushed his ghouls forward again, and VHelsed them forward right into my face. Throughout this game, I couldn’t stop his casting. It was really the only game where my Runesmith just wasn’t up to snuff.

On my Turn 3, I bumrush the ghouls with both XBow units, and wipe them out easily. I was really glad that he didn’t detach his wraith hero to go war machine hunting. The fight on the left continues to grind my hammerers down.



This begins a standoff with me opting to shell the building with the Vamp Lord in it, and him hiding his Grave Guard away from my flaming cannon and the quarreler shots. I would reduce the skeletons down to less than 10, but he would easily heal them right back up again during his turn.



In hindsite, I should have assaulted the building with my smaller hammerer unit to keep the pressure on his Vamp Lord. I was worried about him cresting the hill with his Grave Guard and wrecking my face, but I didn’t reform the big XBow unit to face the possible threat, or just walk away. In the meantime, my Organ Gun misfires and blows itself up. Finally, on Turn 5, he comes over the hill with his GG block. I bail the characters out of the XBow block and reform them to face.



On his 6, he casts VHels 5 times to get the GG into the main block. He smashes them up and breaks them, but fails to run them down. On the left, he finally kills the last hammerer. During my turn, I rally the XBows (luckily).

So in the end, I got the ghouls and the wraith, but gave the hammerers, two banners and the organ gun. With some extra scenario points, it ended up being an 11-11 TIE.

Looking back, I should have been more aggressive this game. If I had assaulted the building, I could have forced him to use more dice for healing, stopping him from those 4 or 5 VHels magic phases. Passive player usually just lets the VC player choose the fight he wants when he wants. If he caught the XBows on turn 6, he could have gotten a big win. So, with a win and a tie, I was slated to face…

GAME 3 – DAN VIAU – Lizardmen (I hope I spelled his name right)

Dan is a member of the CanHammer podcast, and an all around nice guy. And for those of you keeping score at home, that’s two tournies in a row where I played a “celebrity” podcaster. He was running a 3 block list with a Life Slaan with all the bells and whistles in a block of 30 Temple Guard. His setup, from left to right, was: 24 Saurus with spears, the TG with Slaan, 24 Saurus with hand weapon and shields with a Scar Vet and 2 Salamanders. I setup my small XBows with the Runesmith on the left, ready to jump into the protection of the building. I put the main Hammerer brick behind them to control the flank. The main XBows with some shooty elements were put on the hill, and the small Hammerer block on the right, with the BSB and the Rune of Challenge. For this scenario, you got tourney points for controlling terrain features, so the miners would grab a hill, wood, whatever became available.

I went first and moved up. Shooting didn’t do much. On his first turn, he advanced, cast Throne of Vines and the Salamanders killed off a few hammers.



On my 2nd turn, I position my right hammerers to force the Salamanders to charge with the Rune of Challenge or flee off the board. I move the right hammerers up some, and pour all of my shooting into the left Saurus block, killing half. On his 2, he charges the Salamanders in, and moves the right Suarus up to support in case they survive. On the left, he rushes the Saurus forward to press me.



In the center, his Slaan miscasts Throne of Vines, rolls a 1 to avoid the affects and his phase comes to an end, killing off a few TG in the process. In the ensuing combat, the Salamanders are wiped out by the Hammerers, and I turn to face the Saurus with the Scar Vet.

On my 3rd turn, I charge the Saurus on the left with my main Hammerer block, and he flees. This exposes my flank to the TG, and I’m hoping he’ll take the bait and not charge my main XBow block in the front. If he did charge in, he’d wipe them out pretty handily. The hammerers on the right back up 2” to buy me time on that flank. I pour all my shooting into the TG, killing about 10.



On his 3rd turn, he takes the bait, and charges the main Hammerers in the flank with his TG. We discussed the move right afterwards and he said that he was afraid of what the stand and shoot reaction would do if he charged the main XBow block. And if he failed, he’d be in big trouble. On the right, his Saurus fail their charge, and his other block rallies.



In the ensuing combat, his Slaan fails to cast much in the magic phase, and being placed in the middle of the unit, he’s robbing the TG of valuable attacks. I stay stubborn there and turn to face.

On my 4, I rear charge the TG with the XBows. On the right, I bail the BSb out of the hammerer unit, and keep nudging back.



In the combat, I crush the TG, but he rolls a double one with cold blooded to stay. On his 4, he has a good phase, bringing a handful of TG back to life, but he can’t stop the inevitable. I kill off the TG, and his Slaan, who is no longer stubborn, goes down. The Saurus on the right go into the hammerers and eventually grind them down. The battle ends with me chasing his left saurus block while the saurus on the right have nothing to fight. I gave Dan 247 for the hammerers and got 1,390 for a 17-4 WIN.

In this game, I really started getting a feel for how my army worked. Dan had some tough magic phases early in the game, which saved my from Dwellers and other awful stuff. In the end, I think his decision to charge the hammerers in the flank was the big mistake. If he had attempted and made the charge in the middle, he’d have easily smashed that main block up, grabbing him some good points and keeping the TG safe for the game.

So by now, I’m feeling really good, with two wins and tie. Of course, I was punching above my weight class....stay tuned for the exciting? conclusion!!

As always, comments are welcome, and thanks for reading,

Orzabal

Great report, looking forward to day 2. What was the comp? Doesn't seem like it could have been too severe- most of those armies seem to have access to most of their toys.

Lot of advancing in game 1. Which unit was your BSB in?

Your army's pretty interesting- don't usually see big hybrid units of crossbows like that.

Zeke,

the BSB was in the small quarreler unit (the one straddling the wall). I usually play a more aggressive style. Sometimes I think it's important to be able to pressure parts of the field to force my opponent into mistakes or wierd charges. When I sit back, I usually find that I'll have a war machine fail and things go sideways pretty quick.

The comp for the event was max 45 shots, 4 war machines (or templates), max 12 dice in a phase, most rares are 0-1, and dwellers, purple sun, thirteenth and gateway gave "look out sirs" for characters. It was also a 2,000 point tourney, so it was hard for players to get all of their toys in. The is the first time I used the big units of quarrelers with great weapons. I figured with the low point limit, I needed units that could be a dual threat. In most gaems, I misplayed the big unit, and didn't change my formation to a deep formation when it was threatened. I just got back from another GT where I took the same two units with some good results (sometimes by accident). I'm also a big fan of the Rune of Challenge, and I'm glad you got some mileage out of it in this tourney. I usually try to set it up so that the enemy has to charge or run off the table. It's a shame that it doesn't work if your opponent is immune to psych, but even if it's useful in a few games, it usually pays for itself in spades.

Orzabal

Great start to the report man, happy to hear how things went down in more detail. Six games, even @ 2000 points, feels like quite the endeavor

- Salvage

So by now, I’m feeling really good, with two wins and tie. Of course, I was punching above my weight class, and I ended up taking a punch in the face from:

GAME 4 – JOSHUA JOHNSON – Warriors of Chaos

Josh was running a Warriors army with a Khorne Knight Bus, a bunch of Wizards and Tiz Lord on a disc (with 3+ ward, 2+ armor, magic sword and the stubborn crown). His setup from left to right was: Tiz Lord, 5 hounds, 24 Khorne warriors with halberds, 30+ Slaanesh marauders, 10 Knights of Khorne and 5 hounds.



My plan was to shoot up the blocks (as before) and mitigate the damage from the knights. It didn’t quite work. The miners would pop up in his deployment zone to grab a scenario point.

He went first and surged forward, swapping the position of his knights and the marauders, and moving the discs to the center, in front of my hammerers. The next turn he could charge any of my war machines, and I knew I’d need them to deal with the knights. My first turn, I have to send the hammerers into the Tizz Lord to protect the machines. I did some math in my head, and with 8 attacks per round at S6, I figured I’d get 3 wounds through by the 4th turn of the game (with him saving on 5s and 3s). I’d also be blocking up that flank if I could damage the khorne warriors enough to dissuade them from going into the hammerers. So I did, killing off 16. The cannon aims for the knight sand misfires. In the combat, he kills some hammerers and I stay.

On his 2, he pushes right with the knights and backs the warriors out of play. The hounds continue their war machine hunt.



The combat against the tizz lord continues, and he kills off some more, and still makes all of his saves. Spoiler alert: this combat will go until the end of the game, with him killing off the last hammerer in turn 6. I will do no wounds to him during the entire game, with him making over 35 saves. Highly improbable. I should say at this point I could have widened my frontage to block off the knights for a turn, but I figured I’d get the tizz lord eventually, so I kept my slim formation to prevent the khorne warriors from charging in.

In my turn I try to shoot up the Khorne knights. I put 16 crossbow wounds on him, and 7 Organ Gun shots (save on 4+). He loses one knight. And the cannon misfires again. Oh boy….

On his 3, his hounds charge into my GT and cannon, and the knights smash up the smaller XBow unit, pursuing off the board. On my 3, I send my left hammerer unit into the rear of the hounds fighting the cannon, looking to grab another tourney point from the scenario. I kill them off, leaving the cannon free to shoot the knights when they come back on.

On his 4, the knights come back on, and his big marauder unit charges the hammerers in the flank. Things are looking grim.



On my 4, I send the XBows into the rear of the marauders. I kill heaps, but fail to break his steadfast on the marauders by one wound. He stays, and the knights are getting ready to send a big offering to the blood god. And the cannon goes to shoot the knights in the flank, and misfires AGAIN!



On his 5, he sends in the knights, killing bunches of Quarrelers. I kill every marauder but 2, but it’s not enough, and I break with the XBows and they get run down. On my 5, I shoot up the khorne knights with the Organ Gun (which misfires and blows up), and the cannon, which Misfires for the 4th shot out of 4…batting a thousand.



So in the end, he got almost everything, and I got almost nothing, with two units on 2 wounds each. I was close to grabbing some big points, but it just didn’t work out. One more wound on the marauders breaks them and grabs me the BSB, two more wounds on the Warriors grabs me about 350 more points. I could have changed some of targeting priorities, but it’s all hindsight now. And his armor saves were out of this world .

So I was bashed back to earth at the end of day 1, but still felt pretty good about the army and how I played. The next morning we arrived at the hall, and I was hoping to bounce back after getting smashed up by Warriors fo Chaos. I checked the matchups, and found that I was playing…

Game 5 – BILL KNICKERBOCKER – Warriors of Chaos.

…that’s right. I’ve played Bill at previous GT’s, and he’s a good player with a solid list. He knows what his units can do and is an all around smart player. So I was trying to avoid flashbacks of my last game while we were setting up. I tried to castle up behind a building and a marsh. I figured his troops couldn’t march through it, so I’d have some extra time to shoot them up before they hit home. From left to right, he setup: Hellcannon, 2 x 14 Slaanesh warriors with a mage, 24 Tizz warriors with shields and the rapturous standard and his BSB and a mage (general), 6 Khorne knights and some hounds. I went cannon opposite the Hellcannon, the big quarrelers, an Organ Gun (setup in front of the main battle line), the little hammerers, the main hammerers with miners running interference in front, and the small XBows with the runesmith and the GT behind. Now, in hindsight, I made a few mistakes with this setup. I could have taken the smaller hammerers and set them up in front of the main quarrelers to further delay the Slaanesh blocks. I also didn’t need to have the Organ Gun so far forward because it can’t reach them first turn, and he’ll march forward 8” anyway.



He went first, and surged forward. One of his mages miscasts, double 1s, rolls one with the puppet and goes into the warp to have a personal chat with Slaanesh himself, taking a few warriors with him. My turn 1, I send the miners forward toward the Knights. Everything else shoots to minimal affect (I hit his Hellcannon twice, rolling 1s to wound with both the cannon and the GT).



His two, his Knights charge the miners, who flee so far they run off the table. His two units on the left go to the edge of the water and stall. My 2, I figure the left flank is in good shape (he needs to roll a ten to charge the Organ Gun and an 11 to charge the cannon). I shoot everything at the knights and kill the last one with the final quarreler. The remaining shots go into the left Slaanesh warriors, reducing them to 3.




On his 3, he charges with everything, rolling the 10 and 11 to charge home with both Slaanesh warrior blocks. (Oddly enough it’s very tough to plan for that). He also sends the Tizz warriors into the Main hammerer block and blocks the right quarrelers with his hounds. In the combats, the Organ Gun dies, and the warriors slam into the main quarrelers. On my 3, I turn the smaller Hammerers toward the left and charge the right XBows into the hounds.



On the left, the XBows break and get run down. On the right the last hounds stays….going well. On his 4, he turns the smaller Slaan warriors toward the middle, and I kill the last hound on the right, reforming the smaller quarrelers toward the Tizz block. In the combat in the center, I’m concentrating on picking off characters, and I kill off his other mage/general. On my 4, the small hammerers charge into the 3 Slaan warriors and the Quarrelers go into the flank. At this point, Bill kindly reminds me that the Tizz warriors have the rapturous standard. SIGH.



His Slaan warriors kill off 12 off the 14 hammerers before I finally do the 3rd wound. On the right, it doesn’t matter that he has the Rapturous Standard because he handily wins combat and the XBows break.



In the end, he takes off the GT, and grinds off the hammerers. Looking at the table, I was sure I had a loss. I had lost both big units, but my characters were still alive, and I got some bonus points for killing his general. So we totaled it up, and I gave 1313 and got 1036 for a 12-10 Minor Loss. To make it worse, I really had a sad face starting in turn 4, when the charges thundered home and he crushed my left. I was reliving the beating from the night before, and to be honest I wasn’t my normal jovial self. I’ve seen him at a GT last week, and we laughed about how grumpy I was so I guess it’s all good.

So, I had a few big wins, a few ties and a big loss going into the last round where I got to play against:

Game 6 – JOE SLEBODA – Tomb Kings

That’s right, Joe Sleboda of TWF fame, and crusader of all things non-comp had come to a heavily comped GT. He was fielding his Tomb Kings, which in my opinion was the best painted army there, especially from a purely technical point of view. I’ve only played TK once before using the new rules, and I was pretty shaky on what a lot of his stuff did. From left to right he deployed, Unit of chariots with TK. A NecroSphinx, a big unit of archers with his heiro and a necrotect, 8 ushabti, a Warsphinx and some fast cav on the flank. He also had a unit of Stalkers. I setup my main hammerer block opposite his chariots, the GT, the main Quarreler block with the BSB, the Organ Gun, the smaller XBows and the smaller hammerers and a cannon. Once again, based on his setup, my hammerers were too wide, so the pressure was on the shoot down his big stuff before it got to my lines.



I went first, and rolled one to wound with the cannon and the GT on the Warsphinx. My Crossbows did kill off 2 Ushabti, though. On his first turn, he rushed everything forward.

On my Turn 2, I shoot the warsphinx again. The cannon rolls another 1 to wound, but luckily the GT hits it, causing 5 wounds and removing it from play. I move my hammerers to the left to intercept the chariots coming round the building, trying to goad him into a charge.

On his 2, he charges the chariots into the hammerers. He then measures the distance for his Necrosphinx and find he only needs to roll a 9, with swiftstride to make it in. This would be brutal, but luckily he fails the charge and just moves forward 5” or so. If he had made that charge, he would have smashed up the XBows pretty good and swung things his way.



He then throws 6 dice at his movements spell, gets IF, but escapes a bad result. He then rolls a misfire to see if the Stalkers arrive, delaying their arrival till later. On the combat on the left, he kills a bunch of hammerers, but I swing as many attacks as I can into his TK, killing him and suffering his curse. Based on combat res, he crumbles away.



On my 3, I move the hammerers around to face the archers, hoping to get a flank charge on him and grab another scenario point. I shoot everything at the necrosphinx. Both the cannon and the GT roll 1s to wound (AGAIN!), but a hail of crossbow bolts put 5 wounds on it, killing it dead. On his 3, he sends the remaining Ushabti into the XBows. After the stand and shoot, one makes it, wins combat, and I need the BSB reroll to stay. I reform.



On My 4, I fail to flank charge the archers. I kill off the Ushabti. On his 4, his Stalkers finally arrive begin to harass my little hammerer block, but it won’t be enough to get their points.

On my 5, I fail to charge again….and on turn 6 I fail again, that time needing to roll a 3. On his 5, he Ifs with the Heiro again, and this time goes into the warp. In the end, he’s left with a few archers and the Heiro.



So I gave 0 points and got 1,960 points for a 18-1 Win. We talked about the game afterwards, and he did say that he was contemplating castling up in the far corner to try to pull a draw, but he figured he’d give it a shot. To be honest, if he had made the charge with the Necrosphinx, it would have been a very different game. It also helps that TK are so slow without their magic, and it makes my modified gunline hyper affective.

So I finished the weekend with a great record and lots of battle points. However, due to an abnormally low painting score (compared to what I usually get with the army), I finished in 12th place. One more point would have put me in the top 10. Due to the huge amounts of prize support at the event, I pulled home swag for second best sports and third best general. All in all, it was a great event, and I’m definitely going next year.

Looking back at the army, the build was really affective in most matchups, and I’m definitely a believer in Quarrelers with GW. The fact that they pose a dual threat made a big difference, especially in a low point tournament like this one. The Rune of Challenge was huge in two of the matchups, and I don’t think I’ll be leaving home without it any time soon. And the runesmith usually had enough power to stop the worst of my enemy’s magic phases. For the most part the cannon was a big disappointment, but the other war machines helped pick up the slack. I plan on using this as the base for my Border Raids army list coming up in November. I also plan on rebasing the entire army in the three weeks in between. Goblin green flock just doesn’t cut it .

Thanks for reading, and as always, any questions, comments or critiques are welcome.

Orzabal.

I'm a 40k player looking to get into fantasy. Your battle rep gave me great insights into the mechanics of strategy and battle of the fantasy game, without having read the core rules. I think I would like the game a lot.

Thank you very much for that.

Like Thom i am also just comming over to Fantasy from 40K and i found your Battle report fascinating and highly insightful, i am going to make a High elves army as i love the way they look and i am very excited to get stuck into the game now

Thom and Dalveen, thanks for the compliments! I appreciate the feedback.

Good luck diving in the square bases!

Orzabal

Great to see the rest of this report. What weapons did Sleboda's Ushabti have? Gotta respect taking those, stalkers, and the necro all in the same army, what with the net wisdom being pretty down on them.

Your warrior matchups were a bit rough! My main frustration with Dwarfs has been that much of your game can hinge on a couple of dice rolls, with your artillery determining whether the game is close or not.

On that note, may I recommend the rune of forging in future? Possibly the best 35 points you can spend in an army with a cannon. Dwarfs really can't afford to fight monsters in combat, as they almost always get to thunderstomp a couple times. Rune of forging helps to prevent horrors like your Game 4.

Anyhow, really appreciate the write-up great to see some more Dwarf reports on here.

I think I might have read about a game of yours against Silas7's Brets at Border Raids. Looks very much like your list, but fleshed out for higher points. I really like how your lists (at 2000 and 2500) are not at all Internet standard. Makes for very interesting reading.

Zeke,

yeah, that was me. I did pretty well at Border Raids (bat reps will be coming soon). I got lcuky in my game against Silas. He got really aggressive in turn 4 and I think it cost him in the end. A dwarven army with three blocks and an artillery park won first at the event, but I just can't get behind that playstyle. Having more elements on the field makes for more interesting games with what can be a pretty boring army (dwarves really don't participate much in two of the main phases of the game - movement and magic). I think it hurts me in the placings, but what can you do?

Sleboda was running Great Weapons on the Ushabti. He really had some awful luck that game (the stalkers didn't turn up until Turn 4, dimensional cascading with his heirophant, failing the 9" charge with the flying sphinx). I think he also had a list that didn't have enough reliability. If the TK need the movement spell to surge forward, then I think the army needs multiple casters with that spell. And he didn't need to run the chariots into the hammerers. He could have zagged to the center of the battlefield, or just stood there and pinned my main hammerer block there for most of the game.

I've got one more event this tournament season (The Conflict GT in January), and I'm gonna take your advice and put the Rune o' Forging on the cannon. I had a few spectacular war machine fails at the Border Raids. The engineers helped prevent a catastrophe, but they still didn't perform up to snuff. And like you said, the dwarves rely on war machines as the answer to alot of problems, and if they underperform in the first two turns you can really find yourself up against it.

Thanks for the feedback,

Orzabal

Orzabal- do you have a black, somewhat close-trimmed beard? I think I have spoken to you several times now at mikhaila's events and not connected screen name to face!

I like you and Zeke's dwarf playstyles way better than the traditional... ALMOST makes me want to play dwarfs. Then I remind myself of movement 3 and low initiative... it also seems like with this style it'd be hard to win an event, since your opponent could play coy and it'd be hard to get the big points. Not that that's something I usually do, anyway

Will be back to this thread once I read the report! Still am hoping to post mine way back from Border Raids, or at least summaries, since I took pics.

@RITides- Do it! (Reports, at least. Trying borrowing a dwarf army for a couple games- that might scratch that itch.)

@Orzabal- Thanks for the details. I've only seen the new TK at GTs thus far as no one I play regularly locally is running them, so I particularly enjoy reports with those guys. I think a lot of people who just read Sleboda's more outspoken posts on TWF would be surprised to see the actual lists he runs.

Are Dwarves considered an especially high powered army? It seems like many tourney scenario objectives revolve around movement, more so than the basic BRB scenarios, which is a fairly serious balance shift away from Dwarves (and towards fast armies like Elves and Brets I suppose).

Does anyone else get that impression?

I don't know what they're considered, but they seem to be a good counter to many of the powerful builds and from what I've seen can do quite well in tourneys (as orzabal mentioned, one won Border Raids handily, although it was more towards the warmachine parking lot than he/RZ tend to run).

@Tides - Yeah, that's me. I really like your troll list, and appreciate your painting style alot.

@RZ - Sleboda's also a really nice guy to play against. Everything went my way that game, and he never lost his cool. And we ended up having a long discussion about comp afterward (I like comp for multiple reasons - not only does it tone down the bullcrap but it makes for more varied army types and army builds at tournaments). And man, he can make a solid argument for his ideas.

Yeah, I wouldn't say that dwarves are a power army. You're right that they miss out on some movement based objectives (That's another reason I like the miners. I can bring a unit in the backfield to grab table quarters, terrain, etc). I think dwarves built a certain way are a powerful army. Very similar to VC, that work most efficiently withh one main build or small variants thereof. I'm jonesing for a new book, not just to get some updated rules, but I think the new books offer more variety in terms of available options and builds. In addition, with how powerful magic is in 8th, not having access to it is massively painful in lots of situations. I still don't have a good answer for the lore of shadow, with the tons of debuffs and mindrazor. And dwarves can't bring anything equivalent to the table.

Thanks for the feedback, gents,

Orzabal

Just finished reading, they were excellent! 3rd best general and 2nd best sports is a pretty good combination .

Question about this from your Game 4:
"I send the XBows into the rear of the marauders. I kill heaps, but fail to break his steadfast on the marauders by one wound."

In the pic, it looks like you've got a rank of your own in his rear. Doesn't that mean you're not only negating his ranks, but his steadfast, or do I have that rule wrong?

Interesting to see how you never mention the hellcannon after the start of the game . It looks like he held it back to shoot, but did it miss most of the game? I've been torn on how to use them as they're a pretty effective combat monster.

That last game was pretty one-sided, but it's cool to see someone who doesn't like comp taking a compy list!

Another funny thing is how you dwarf players always "bail" characters out of units. Makes for some funny photos as your general/BSB/etc heads for the hills

Looking forward to seeing your Border Raids bat reps, I hadn't realized this one happened first!

RITides: That does still get some folks. Disruption does not remove steadfast. Steadfast is just a stone cold comparison of ranks without regard to positioning (with the exception of some terrain).

Ah, thanks! It doesn't usually come up as I rarely have ranks on anyone...