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Ninja Dwarves

I’m a pretty loyal Dark elf player but after reading the ard boy scenarios I was hesitant to take them. The first mission screwed over wizards and all rare choices were liabilities. Normally this wouldn’t affect my dark elves but how I think they would have to be ran in an ard boyz environment it did. I borrowed my friends dwarfs and built a close combat ninja style army… And boy did it work. The list was as follows.

Thorek Ironbrow 505

Dwarf Lord, General, Rune of Brotherhood (Scouts), Rune of Furnace (immune to fire), Rune of Resistance, (re-rollable armor save), Rune of Preservation (immune to killing blow and poison), Rune of Fire (flaming attacks), Rune of Stone (+1 to armor save), and a Great Weapon 226

Thane, BSB, Rune of Brotherhood (Scouts), Rune of Spite (4+ ward save), Rune of stone (+1 armor save) 160

Runesmith, Rune of Brotherhood (Scouts), Master Rune of Balance (steal and opponents power die and add it to my dispel pool), Rune of Stone (+1 to armor save), Great Weapon 149

60x Longbeard Rangers, Great Weapons, Heavy Armor, Full Command, Rune of Slowness (any unit charging me subtracts D6 from their charge) 915

30x Miners, Great Weapons, Heavy Armor, Full Command, Drill (lets me re-roll their reserve rolls) 380

29x Miners, Great Weapons, Heavy Armor, Full Command 344

Cannon, Rune of Forging (re-roll any misfires to land or for bounce), Rune of Burning (flaming shots) 130

Cannon, Rune of Burning (flaming shots) 95

Cannon, 90


If you’re not familiar with fantasy this is a dirty list that’s a one trick pony… But unlike most armies of this type it’s a frickin good trick.

The basis behind the list is in deployment you lay down your cannons evenly at your very back board edge for the most part spread out so they have to travel to get another one after finishing off the first. Next I put down my characters, which is only Thorek (whom is a warmachine character) and I place him where he can see the whole battle field but where he is relatively safe terrain wise. I am now done deploying. I get to see where your whole army goes before I place my scouting unit… did I mention my scouting unit was 60 bad ass dwarves of hand to hand beat stick and 3 characters? I choose the weakest spot in your deployment and place my unit 12 inches away. I always try to get on one flank if I can so my miners can come in off any board edge and support with rear of flank charges if some how the nasty unit gets stuck or just to sweep along the opposing army starting on one flank. My cannons go for target priority large things and then just going for anything that worries me after that. Against hell pits, hydras or regenerating units I send in the flaming cannons to knock the regeneration off. Thorek allows the minors to get a charge in as soon as they come on the board and half the enemies movement on units that could get into the flank of the nasty unit. Combined with the slowness standard your charging at half movement +2d6 –d6. This helps them only get into the combats I want them in.

The list is heinous and I wouldn’t ever run it out of ard boyz. I’ll follow up soon with all the battle reports and how I lost 1st place because of one bonus point…


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ard Boyz Round 1

Scott (I don’t remember all the specifics of the list so here’s the general stuff)

Thorek
Bugman
Master engineer
Slayer Hero
25 ish Iron Breakers
10 Warriors (hand/shields)
20 Thunderers
30 Longbeard Rangers
Bolt thrower
Cannon
Cannon
Cannon
Gyro Copter
Organ gun
(most (if not all) of his warmachines had engineers.)

This battle report will not be the most accurate thing because I didn’t write anything down and I got no sleep the night before. After the tournament was over and I went home I had been up like 40ish hours… so I crashed hard. I do remember what units killed what and how they did it just not the list specifics or what turn it may have happened on.

On a side note I have just started using battle chronicler and I’m still in the learning stages so there may be little hick ups here and there. I’ll try to get better with this.

I dropped my cannons spread out and my Thorek and he then deployed his whole army. I thought his thunderers were the weak link in his lines and placed my scouts in front of them. I also wanted to keep my nasty unit out of his long beard rangers with Bugman. He scouted his guys in the building. (They would never come out they just threw str 5 axes at me all game.)

Deployment



Turn 1a
I got first turn and Marched up in front of his lines and took some cannon shots doing two wounds to the copter and 3 to the cannon. That engineer kept it going.



Turn 1b
He flew his Gyro up to my cannon and started the reform to face my main battle line and shot up my unit downing several.



Turn 2a
I shot the Gyro out of the sky and charged the thunderers loosing more to stand and shoot and one unit of rangers came in and got an Anvil charge on his Thorek. I did this mostly to tie him up so he couldn’t use him but also because even with only 7 attacks a turn I would eventually kill him. I killed the unit of thunderers to the man and over ran hoping to get out of his charge range. I only moved 3 inches but that was enough with his warmachines in the way and his Thorek tied up.



Turn 2b
One of his cannons killed on my middle cannons and he shot up my huge unit they went from 60 to about 45 now.



Turn 3a
I reformed my LBR’s to face his warmachines and start running down his lines the other unit of miners come on and I position them to get a flank charge on his iron breakers. In the shooting phase I shot one more of his cannons punking it with one of mine and called upon ancestral power to multi charge. I have one re-roll per game and I had to use it but it was a success and I hit his first warmachine and his iron breakers in the flank. I blew through the first warmachine and over ran into the master engineer (whom was by himself) The iron breakers lost enough guys combined with all my static res that they panicked but were able to get away by an inch.



Turn 3b
His unit of 10 warriors and his Slayer hero charged into the flank of my minors and stomped but they were able to hold. His iron breakers rallied and I killed the engineer and orver ran into the organ gun



Turn4a
Shooting I killed of his last cannon (the one with a wound left) and I killed the organ gun and ran into the flank of his iron breakers. This is where its starts getting really hazy. I ended up taking out the iron breakers in the flank and he ended up taking my minors with his 10 man unit and slayer hero. I eventually took Thorek and the last bolt thrower of his.



He Claimed a cannon and one ranger unit from me. I claimed everything but the slayer hero, LBR’s that never left the building and the 10 man warrior unit. I got all bonus points except 1. The only bonus point I didn’t get was the one where you have to keep a wizard alive. ( I was playing dwarves and this would later end up putting me in second place instead of 1st)

Scott was a great opponent and a fun player. Our game was over in about 45 min with my army being so fast to play and neither of us having any rules disputes or magic phases.

Ard Boyz Round 2

Josh (same as last time list is off memory)

Slaan (shadow) various upgrades
Slaan (life) BSB various upgrades
Scar Vet
Skink Priest lvl 1
Skink Priest lvl 1
20 Sarus Warriors
20 Temple Guard
20 Temple Guard
40 skinks with 3 kroxigors
30 skink skirmishers
30 skink skirmishers
2 salamanders
2 salamanders
5 chameleon skinks
5 chameleon skinks

Also again I may get a bit fuzzy on the turns but everything that killed everything and how is in here.

Deployment; Again I dropped my cannons and Thorek and made him deploy everything. After he got done I noticed the Slaan in the far corner by himself and that was just the tastiest thing I have ever seen. So I threw my longbeard rangers out to take him out quickly.



Turn 1a
I got greedy and did the ancient power and it went off. I hit both salamander units with the half movement 2d6 str 4 hits and a chameleon skink unit. Killed some guys and halved their movement. I marched up my LBR’s and took some pop shots with cannons at salamanders and the slaan hoping for a fail Look Out Sir. Pretty nice first turn all and all.



Turn 1b
He pretty much advances everything up takes some poison shots at Thorek and charges the 20 man saurus warrior unit into my LBR’s…. I quickly turned them into paste and ran them down and his turn was over.



Turn 2a
I charged with my LBR’s into the shadow slaan temple guard unit and a unit of minors came in off the board and I used the anvil to flank attack the same unit. Cannon pop shots at salamanders and again at the slaan hoping for a bad Look Out Sir which I got and then he rolled his 4+ ward! Damn Frog! I wiped out about 80% of the slaan unit but thanks to stubborn he stayed.



Turn 2b
He mostly moves his army up to advance his life frog miscasts and fails his 2+ and looses a level and Throne of Vines. I’m not going to go into much of his magic phase as I shut most of it down. More pop shots at Thorek but that 1+ save is keeping him up and going. I kill the slaan unit to the man and reform to face the rest of his line.



Turn 3a
My second unit of Miners come on the board edge and see a tasty slaan flank and go for it and with help from my buddy Thorek they get in. I kill off a salamander with cannon fire. We fight the life slaan combat and he stays on stubborn but can reform on double ones.



Turn 3b
His chameleon skinks charge Thorek. Otherwise just a general advance on his part. Chameleon skinks loose combat and hold. The temple guard munch on some miners and the miners munch back I win but he holds.



Turn 4a
I advance my LBR’s and 1st Miner unit to go help out the other miners. I pick off the last salamander. Thorek can’t kill the last skink and so they stay. The critical combat still going with both sides loosing about the same amount but both are holding. (I put hit markers on my cannons. Those happen next turn. Oops!)



Turn 4b
More advancing… He gets a couple of wounds through shooting at my warmachines. And again whittling each other down in slaan and miner combat but holding.



Turn 5a
Longbeard Rangers get their charge into the front of the life slaan. I don’t even bother shooting anything. Slaan and his temple guard are slaughtered to the man. I then reform.



Turn 5b
He charges and gets two of my cannons.





The army did exactly what it was suppose to do here to the letter! Charge into a weak deployment spot and have the miners come on and get weak flanks or rear charges and set up only combats I want to happen. Pick off things I don’t like with cannons. If the cannons die I don’t care as long as they do their job for 2 turns. Thorek played like a champ.

There was a +5 bonus point for holding a fanatic that I missed because first turn it ran 18 inches from the opposite board edge I was on so I didn’t even have a chance to get him. I got all other points involved.

Now I kept this report very civil and only about the game itself. Now the report is over time for a little venting. Would you like to know some interesting things that Lizardmen can do?
Temple guard with slaan are unbreakable. (aka Stubborn)
Temple guard with slaan have a 5+ ward save always. (well no…)
Salamanders don’t take wounds just the skinks handling them. (Why?!)
Skinks skirmish like 7th ed and don’t have to be in formation. (Correct… a year ago)

Would you like to hear some basic rule book rules that I was breaking?
Making him maximize models when he charged. (its in the charging section of the brb)
Maximizing models when I charged. (see above)
Not letting him send 6 men into my warmachines with ever unit involved. (6 is not 12)
Dispelling with out a wizard. (rune smith and rune lords generate dispel dice too bad they can’t use them)
Dispelling without line of sight. (WTF?!?)
Dispelling remains in play spells in my magic phase. (dwarfs can’t magic)
Generating power dice. (Refer to ‘Generating power dice’ in the brb)
Not letting him pull my guys out of combat when he strategically killed people. (Only in very specific situations can you do this. None of which we were in.)

This was the worst game of fantasy I’ve ever had to play… 40k too for that matter. He didn’t have a basic grasp of the rules and would call ‘bs’ on me anytime I did literally anything… It was very frustrating. By the end of the game we had two people baby sitting the game looking up rules constantly to prove that I was not making things up. He had the audacity to take pictures of everything with his cell phone and told me he was going to send them to GW to get me disqualified if I had won. For the battle report I included his life slaan as the bsb and when we looked at it and it was the shadow one with the bsb. In round 3 he played someone that noticed he had over 800 points of lord choices. I eventually had to look up everything (EVERYTHING!) he said in the rule book and a lizardman army book and only about 1/3 of it was true or even reasonable. He also did not bring a lizardman army book and we had to get the shop owner to let us borrow one so he could prove his abilities and every item he had and what it did. It was the worst gaming experience I’ve ever had. As a side note we chatted later at the end of the day. He seems pretty cool away from the table. Shrug.

After standing outside for about 20 minutes I was off to round 3.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ard Boyz Round 3

Can’t remember his name… 

Vampire lord, kitted out for hand to hand each wound can bring back a guy.
Vampire lord, lore master beast, dish out WS
Vampire hero, on a horse
Bsb with regen banner
15 to 20 Skellies for lore master bunker
30 Skellies
36ish Ghouls
29 Grave Guaurd
9 Blood Knights

Mission was a modified blood and glory. I had a fortitude of 6 and he had 7. The deployment also helped me as he couldn’t deploy 9inches in on the flank. After I saw his deployment I threw my nasty on his ghoul flank trying to minimize the Blood knight monster unit.



Turn 1a
I march up the Longbeard rangers to get in his face and hit his blood knights for d6 str 4 hits just to half their movement. I can’t remember but I think I actually killed one! I shot my cannon at the small unit trying to snipe the caster vamp inside and failed.



Turn 1b
His blood knights fail a re-roll 10 leadership for stupidity and lurch forward! I felt for him at that point. Everyone else positioned to face the new threat. He casted randomly do 1 wound to everything and make a spirit host. He ended up with 1 host. And used it to protect the flank of his grave guard but with only 1 base it wasn’t quite enough.



Turn 2a
I get both miners on the board and position to get a flank on the ghouls and the others to get a flank on the grave guard. I roll for ancestral power and it goes off. I roll my D3 and am excited to see a 3! I charge into both flanks and the Rangers in the front. I shoot some more cannons at the Blood Knights and maybe kill 1 or two. I blow up one of my own cannons. I kill just enough through res and kills to kill the ghouls to the man. I over ran the Rangers into the caster Vampire and his bunker and reform the Miners. The Miners fighting the Grave Guard kill some and tie them up. Getting all reserves in turn 2 and getting 3 units to charge and killing the ghouls to the man make for the best turn ever!



Turn 2b
His skellies charge my miners just to tie them up. And it works for about 3 or 4 turns. He reforms the Spirit Host and starts marching his Blood Knights. I kill his bunker unit and over run hopeing to make it to the 6 inch away graveguard and then utterly smash that unit. They only roll 3 inches and fail though. Everyone else fights with the dwarfs winning and undead taking a couple of casualties. His Grave Guard reform to face the Miners. (or maybe they did this last turn?)



Turn 3a
SPLAT!!! Cannon to the Vampire Generals face. I charge the grave guards flank. Other wise everyone chews down some guys and stick.



Turn 3b
Blood Knights charge in with 3 guys and the mounted hero vamp. Spirit host charges in. The game officially becomes a war of attrition. I think it’s in my favor though with instability kicking in and my high strength attacks and superior numbers.



Turn 4a
More war of attrition.



Turn 4b
From here on I forget the turns but I slowly eat away at everything and table his remaining blood knights.



(Forgotten name) was a pretty cool guy. He had a solid army but in the end I had a couple of amazing rolls that decided the fate of the game. I think I played really well and those couple of good dice rolls made the game from a hard fight to a solid victory. We only had one rules dispute but in my mind it was a pretty big one. He had only a character bsb left and was trying the revive the grave guard unit. Every other tourney player there agreed with me but apparently the TO ruled in his favor game 1. I was eventually able to prove my case though through rules and other players. All in all a fun game.

Nice reports, great effort considering you didn't write anything down.

Aside from perhaps the first game, where your opponent didn't really seem to have anything close to a 'Ard Boyz standard list (its an sub par 2500pt list + Thorek), all your opponents lost the game in deployment. Admittedly I'm not sure what the deployment rules were, but both of them put stuff in some very silly places.

From his deployment you the Lizard play looks like he tried to refuse flank you (which is impossible), he basically put nothing of consequence on his left and then also managed to isolate two of his combat units way out on his right. Interestingly he could have easily blocked off his entire board edge with those stupidly large units of Skinks (you can almost do it with 1 unit) which would have removed the Miners as a threat.

The VC player got screwed over by that failed Stupidity roll, but why the hell he would put such a powerful and expensive unit way out on the flank like that I have no idea. Considering he is Vampires and needs his characters with the rest of his army in order for it to function its a really weird move. Its not like they need to be hitting flanks to win combats anyway, you don't break steadfast like that. That unit just causes ranked up units to explode basically so it doesn't matter where they hit, as long as they hit.

Obviously this is partly a case of not playing against this kind of build because it doesn't show up much at normal points levels (its similar to Ambushing Beastmen I guess), but it surprises me simply because in most cases if you don't have an awesome plan you know will work (and a clear deployment to make this awesome plan work), deploying with a hard center + flank guards should always be your default deployment. If you go for the (cheaper) flank guards then the center should have time to get across quickly enough, and the far flank should be fast enough to get there quickly as well. If the Lizardman player had put all his Saurus/TG in the center and the VC player had put his Knights in a more central position then things would have been much more interesting.

Cheers for the report! Bit harsh that Dwarves get penalised for having no wizards.

Scenario 2 was Dawn Attack, I believe. You have to roll for each of your Units to see where they deploy at. I'm sure if the Lizardmen had the option, he would have strung out all his Skinks to deny the edges for the Scouting/Digging units.

Great report, shame about the Lizardmen shenanigans, well played despite them!

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Cheers for the report! Bit harsh that Dwarves get penalised for having no wizards.

Yeah this confused me....

Wow that lizard player was either a complete and total idiot, or a that guy.

These were great reports! That army is Nasty... would've been neat to see Dwarfs win 'Ard Boyz. Admittedly with Thorek and an insanely tricky list, but still!

thats a nasty one trick pony you got there, almost makes me want to play dwarves.

To bad on the missing (and impossible) wizard point, they've should have made an alternative for dwarves there...

So how'd you do overall?

I think he got second:

littleboyblues wrote: I’ll follow up soon with all the battle reports and how I lost 1st place because of one bonus point…

How many ranks did you run the Longbeads?

6x10?

I ran the Longbeards in horde formation most time. if it were a combat I'd be loosing I'd run them 5 wide for a steadfast re-roll 10.

I got second place. The first place guy only got one bonus point I didn't... Keep your wizard alive. I played dwarves and didn't have any wizards... like a 1000 dollar worth of product point. :p

I honestly think the lizard guy just wasn't really familiar with the rules. I don't know. Shrug.

2nd scenerio was random flank deployment so he was limited to how he deployed. I'm not sure he would have deployed much better. My 3rd round was the best player by far. I think I just got him with his paints down. Most people aren't use to facing ninja dwarves.

Wow, that was shocking. I didn't even realize Dwarfs could pull a list like that, much less have it be so overpowering!
Well done!

Can you give us some insight into why you equipped your characters as you did? I know points are tight, but couldn't you have got a little more out of the lord especially? It seems like a rune of might coupled with the rune of fire would be very useful.

What mileage dud you get out of the rune of spite on the BSB or the re-rollable AS on the lord?

Not trying to be critical. Just wanting to learn

The reason I brought the character I did was I needed Thorek for a good chance to have at least 1 ancient power anvil power go off per game. I needed a bsb to hold my death star. A runepriest to steal their power dice and add more dispel to me to shut down their magic better. I needed a dwarf lord to be able to take a Longbear Ranger unit as core without needing a warrior unit also to add ld 10 to the deathstar unit.

The brotherhood rune (scout ability) has to have 3 different load out on my characters. This influenced upgrade item points on them greatly. The lord with a great weapon and flaming attacks had 4 str 6 flaming attacks and was immune to a host of attacks combined with a swanky save. This was done to prevent me from getting stuck against a regen unit or monster and help keep the high leadership on the unit and deny the 100 bonus points for getting my general. I kitted out my bsb and general the best I could to not die, keeping in mind I had to spend so much points on brotherhood runes and variances to make each characters runes different. The 4+ ward save on my bsb kept him alive game 3 and ultimately allowed me to win that game.

They aren't the over all best character set ups for dwarfs. I think that they are pretty solid set up for ninja dwarfs though.

Nice work. That's a pretty crazy-town list. Doable with Thorek for when the miners arrive. It's one of those that I always figure will roll a lot of lists but could run up against something it just can't deal with. I may have missed it, but does second place earn you a trip to the finals? And will you go? And will you bring Dwarfs?

Side note: As soon as a unit becomes rangers they no longer count one way or another for the purposes of the longbeard/warrior ratio.

There isn't much I'd be scared of with this llist. Placing my unit in the wrong place and not playing safe could get me. Its not impossible to beat but it is hard to deploy against. I went banking on people not knowing what to do or not knowing what it was capable of dishing out.

I didn't know about the ranger thing not counting towards the LB/W ratio. Either way that +1 WS and St is worth it for me.

I did get a ticket to the finals. I don't know if I'll be going, I don't really have the money right now. If I did go I probably would take dwarfs.

Sounds good to me - I suppose I am mistaken when I thought that putting runes on the lord's GW meant that it lost it's +2 strength?

Really imaginative list, excited to see more from you. Any chance of pictures of the army? Grazie.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twd3lr/2225317459/

They are my friends dwarfs. He's a better painter than me. I mostly just play Delves. I think I have pics of them on dakka...

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

zemanjaski wrote:Sounds good to me - I suppose I am mistaken when I thought that putting runes on the lord's GW meant that it lost it's +2 strength?

You are not mistaken. I'm assuming he has the MR of Kragg the Grim on there and just forgot to mention it.

Awesome batrep! Now I want to see a Ninja Themed dwarf army!

Red_Zeke wrote:

zemanjaski wrote:Sounds good to me - I suppose I am mistaken when I thought that putting runes on the lord's GW meant that it lost it's +2 strength?

You are not mistaken. I'm assuming he has the MR of Kragg the Grim on there and just forgot to mention it.

I've never heard of that rule... You would assume wrong. I can say that it wouldn't have changed the overall outcome. But I was totally using it as str 6 the whole time. I'll know better in the future. Is that in the FAQ or somewhere in the rune section? Well crap. :(

It *is* in the rune section, something that's pretty commonly overlooked. Not really a big deal, I think, like you said. Unlikely that it impacted too many situations.

Yeah, I was wondering only because the rune of might + rune of fire is pretty common around here (ignoring that dwarves are not all that common) as a way of dealing a lot of hurt to hydras, treemen and barrow kings with a drakenhof banner

I'm surprised with this list that you have not run up against anything with the magic potential to IF cast one of the massive bomb spells. Dreaded 13th, gateway, purple sun, dweller could eat your whole unit

Great reports. Game 2 sounds like a nightmare. I didn't know dashofpepper played Fantasy.

I wonder if fanatics coulda given your unit at least a bit of trouble.

I didn't know dashofpepper played Fantasy.

Oh noes! Don't bring that drama down to our nice little corner of the forum!