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This was just a friendly pickup game. It was a little skewed in my favor, because I tooled my list for anti-brets and he brought his all-comers list.

I had: (terminology will be in basic terms for you non-beardies out there)
Runelord (Leetson Hakksbeard) with anvil and ZERO runic items. None. Nada. Zilch. he had a shield though.
BSB thane (Wuttf Hakksbeard) with 1+ rerollable save and MRo Challenge (forces any non-Itp unit within 20" to declare a charge at the bearer's unit).
Thane (Emmba Hakksbeard) whose attacks allow no armor saves, and he can re-roll his own armor saves, with a shield.
Grudge Thrower that can re-roll the scatter die.
Cannon that can re-roll misfires.
Two Bolt Throwers with an upgrade that gives them BS4
20 Hammerers with shields, command, and a runic standard that gives them +1 extra combat res and doubles their unit strength.
20 Longbeards, shields, command, same banner (note that this is illegal, I shouldn't have been able to use the exact same item twice).
20 Warriors with shields and command.
10 Thunderers with Shields
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter
My list theory: a lot of things that ignore armor (the weapon on one thane, all my artillery) and more that reduce saves by a lot (-3 from the organ gun). The thunderers aren't expected to do a ton, but they fill out core, and allow me to beef up the static combat res on my two elite blocks. With 3 ranks, banner of +1 combat res, and (at the beginning, at least) almost-guaranteed outnumber at US 40, I've got a SCR of +6 before the steel is drawn, or 7 with the BSB.


He had: A general
A damsel
a BSB
A pegasus paladin
and a regular paladin
3x peg knights
6 Knights of the realm
6 Knights of the realm
5 Knights of the realm
7 Grail knights
5 Knights Errant with Errantry Banner and great weapons for a total of s5 every turn.
20 ranked-up guys with longbows
~20 or so skirmishers with longbows
~Men at arms
I have no idea of the items on his guys, except that his regular paladin had killing blow against large targets, and was therefore not optimized for facing me at all.

Had a large hill just outside my deployment zone about 8" from the left-hand side of the board, and a forest stretching from the midline of the board toward my DZ, slightly off-center to the left. I actually think this was illegal, but I didn't care enough to mention it, as I thought it would help me as much as him. Shows how much I know. There was an obstacle (stone wall) about 8" long right on the edge of my DZ for my thunderers to hide behind, and another one exactly opposite it for his longbows.
Deployment looked like this:
----------------------------Grails-----------------------------------------------------------
--Pegs--------KotR-KE-KoTR-Kotr--M@a-----------------------------LB-----------Sk
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------Forest--------------------------------------------------
----------Big Hill------------------Forest---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------Warriors-----copter-----------------------Th-H-C--BT--BT--GT
------------LB-------------------------------------------------------------------------Anvil--

I had my BSB in the longbeards and my killy thane in the warriors. He had a paladin in the errant, peg paladin with the pegs, BSB and general with the grails, and a damsel in a unit of realms (the smaller one of course). His damsel chose lore of life and ended up with Mistress of the Marsh and the Rain Lord. Bret magic does not frighten me any more.

So right from the start, I have been ludicrously out-deployed. My artillery is going to be blocked from where most of the fighting will take place, and my most powerful infantry block is sitting character-less a silly distance from where everything is going to happen.

He prays. I start.
Dwarfs 1: I moved the warriors up a bit and turned them left, with their flank against the forest. The idea is to MRo Challenge a powerful unit into the longbeards, hold, and flank charge on my turn. I started the hammerers on their long, long march across the board, which meant the thunderers sat and polished their guns. They would only fire them once in this game. Shooting went spectacularly well, with the grudge thrower and cannon killing five grail knights between them (this was the only turn when I guessed even slightly well). a bolt thrower also took a bite out of the damsel's unit, but the other one bounced off that ward save. The anvil slowed down 2 units for the price of 1 by hitting the KotR in front of his grail bunker.

Brets 1: He moves everything forward except his shooters. The pegs fly all the way up to hide from my artillery behind the hill, and everything else motors on forward, including the Men-at-arms (they've got halberds and shields) which move up a bit. His grails were badly logjammed by the men-at-arms and slowed realms and didn't manage to go much of anywhere. Everything else is in charge range. He shoots a large number of arrows to cause zero wounds on my war machine crews, and then he's done.

Dwarfs 2. I move the gyrocopter to marchblock his grail knights and characters, and also barely manage to get his men-at-arms. The hammerers continue their little Dr. Zhivago impression, helped along by the anvil this turn. I sizzle a couple of men-at-arms with my sizzler (steam gun). In what's becoming a theme when I use it to marchblock, I hit my gyrocopter with a grudge thrower shot (10" scatter) but the re-roll saves it. Otherwise, the cannon overshoots to nowhere, the bolt throwers both miss on a 4+, and the organ gun can't see to shoot anything. So far my shooting has killed a couple men-at-arms and two knights of the realm and and some grail knights… not the performance I was hoping for.

Brets 2. The pegs charge out from behind their hill to hit the longbeards’ flank. A lance of knights of the realm, and the errants, smack them in the front though, and his grails wander around some more (marchblocked by the gyro) and hope to do something useful at some point. His depleted knights of the realm with damsel turn around to chase the gyrocopter away. His men-at-arms continue inching forward at their silly little m4, heading toward the woods with my hammerers on the other side. His skirmishing archers continue walking (not marching) toward my war machines, and again fire a large number of arrows and accomplish a large amount of nothing.

This close combat phase contained some of the worst rolling I’ve ever encountered in my time playing warhammer on his part. When all was said and done, between 4 knights-errant (s5 with great weapons and errantry banner), 4 knights of the realm, and three Pegasus knights, he managed one dwarf bashed with a great weapon and one more kicked to death by a Pegasus. Appalling. Tragic. And not only that, my BSB challenged and wounded his errant champion, while the champ couldn’t get through that 1+ rerolling save. To add insult to injury, at US 38 (due to double-unit-strength banner) I actually outnumbered him, and lost combat by a very small amount. I stuck, and he said that he was pretty sure he’d lost the game.

Dwarfs 3: To help this prediction come true, I charge the warriors into the flank of the errant knights. The hammerers have now made it to where they can actually participate in the battle, and they wheel to their right and head into the forest, because they had not previously been slow enough (and also to block the men-at-arms). I forgot to move the gyrocopter. Shooting accomplished not really an awful lot, especially since I foolishly used the anvil to attempt to panic his skirmishers rather than do anything useful. Did two hits for zero wounds. All my war machines did combine to kill a single skirmisher, for whatever that’s worth. The bolt throwers missed the damsel’s unit.

Close combat, however, nearly made up for it, with all three of his engaged units breaking despite re-rollable tests from the BSB (with a rank bonus and +5 combat res from banners, and with his continued failure to kill enough to compensate, they needed very low numbers.) Now, I made my most serious mistake of the game and did not pursue. This meant that I didn’t get 300 points of banners (although he rolled more than 12 for all three flights, so I couldn’t pursue anybody). It also meant that my warriors (weakest combat unit) were left in position to be charged by his grail knight deathstar with BSB and lord, and from the flank too. We determined that if I had pursued six inches or more, he wouldn’t have been able to charge me at all, and if it was less than six inches, he’d have had to hit me in the front.

Brets 3. Naturally, my esteemed opponent took full advantage of my mistakes, charging both the gyrocopter and the warriors. And of course, all three of his fleeing units rallied. His men-at-arms continued trying to find my hammerers in the deep deep woods. He still couldn’t shoot anything or do any magic, though.

In combat, the grail knights beat the warriors by a lot, broke them, and ran them down, including my combat thane. So there’s 350 points or so gone for no reason at all. I killed one more grail knight with him in a challenge, leaving four, the BSB, and the general in that unit. Fortunately, they overran a mighty 15”, which got them out of the shadow of the forest and into the line of sight of all five war machines. The realms with the damsel hammered the gyrocopter without taking a wound in return, and didn’t overrun.

Dwarfs 4: Sensing the tide turning, I wheeled my longbeards to face the rear of his general’s unit (thereby presenting their rear to two units of knights of the realm and a unit of Pegasus knights. I reasoned thus: If I didn’t manage to shoot all of his deathstar, I’d charge them again, they’d have to flee and splode at the board edge. If I did, I’d anvil them around to face the correct direction again.) I moved the hammerers further into the woods, which meant that they were in sight and charge range of the men-at-arms, who were doing a little dance at finally getting to fight something. As it turned out, all my shooting did manage to kill his general’s unit, although it was a near-run thing; I did exactly enough wounds with my final piece, the Organ Gun, to kill his general through the Lady’s blessing. The dwarfs then turned to stare nervously at the large swarm of incoming skirmish archers. The anvil duly turned the longbeards back around, which in hindsight was silly… I should have just marched them forward out of everybody’s charge range.

Brets 5, and an eerie sense of déjà vu occurred as the errant knights, realms, and the Pegasus knights slammed into the longbeards again in nearly the same spot as before. The Men-at-arms also hit the hammerers, and the damsel’s unit got into position for a flank charge on them. She had to go through an inch or so of forest, but could make it.

I will lump the last turn and a half together, as it basically involved my two large combat blocks getting ground up dwarf by dwarf, killing nothing in return, and holding. We played these combats very wrong; in fact, I would have won two of them, because we forgot that he lost all his banners by fleeing (even though I didn’t get them, he shouldn’t have gotten to use them any more, right?) I was down to 5 longbeards and the BSB and seven hammerers, because like an idiot I decided to use great weapons to get through Bret armor. The Men-at-arms had halberds, and getting through t4 was pretty simple for them, so a lot more hammerers died than needed to because they only had 6+ saves. Another notable event was that his skirmishing archers charged a bolt thrower and killed two crew, but the last one stubbornly held.

When the points were totted up, he was ahead of me, but not enough to avoid a draw. If I had kept my thane in the hammerers rather than the warriors, I’d have done much better, and the three standards I let fall in the mud would have given me a win all by themselves. Frustrating.

I hope to play a rematch soon, which I’ll report if it’s interesting.

I have to say, I really appreciate your using layman's terms for the dwarfy items. I can never tell what they're for when it's just a list of runes!

Bummer about the banners (not getting them by not pursuing, and then him counting them later on even though he had fled). I guess you'll know it for next time . I've wracked my brain over whether or not to pursue fairly often in my few games... but it does seem like the answer is almost always "yes"

Thanks for the report!