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Hey all-

Spent last weekend up in Dallas playing in the 10th iteration of the Lonewolf GT. It will/should be my last GT for a little while as some real life things will be taking some precedence in the meantime, though I hope to be using the downtime to get a real start on one of several projects I have incubating. Longtime readers will know I've been saying something to that effect for a great while, so many grains of salt and all that.

Anyhow, courtesy of some last minute drop-outs, the tournament was down in attendance from last year, to a total of 65 players. Still a sizeable field, and most, if not all the Texas heavy hitters were present (so far as I know).

I brought a different iteration of my Dwarf army, bringing an anvil in order to have something different to play with. I'd thought to try to run an MSU variant, but it was going to require the painting of many a musician and movement tray, so I just settled on the anvil. As far as the list itself, I'd not playtested this particular variant, though I'd been playing around with the anvil (to the effect of about a .500 record) in the previous ten games.

Locals can vouch for me here- I proclaimed in advance that I would certainly lose one game thanks to the anvil either blowing up, or leaving a crucial unit/move out to dry, but that it would otherwise be fun.

Here is that list:

Runelord, Anvil of Dooo(Ka-b)ooommmm, Spell Eater, Shield, Rune of Stone, Rune of Striking, Rune of Hydra Protection (curiously this last rune was incorrectly struck, providing great protection FOR any hydras on the battlefield)
Thane BSB, Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation, Rune of the Furnace, Rune of Fire, a goodly paragraph of explanations on my army list
Warriors 33 strong, shields, standard, musician, sense of wonderment that they're still in the list this late in 8th
Warriors 30 strong, great weapons, full command, sign instructing shooters to target the shield block
Rangers 20 strong, crossbows, great weapons, musician, a fervent desire for me to not misplay them horribly this time around
Hammerers 29 strong, full command, Master Rune of Grungni, tendency to wave their flag around near friendly artillery
Miners 5 strong, musician, the fear and respect of insignificant units everywhere
Cannon Rune of forging, rune of burning, engineer, the burden of high expectations
Grudgethrower Rune of burning, the burden of incredibly low expectations
Organ gun Suicide pact
Gyrocopter The accumulated experience of a thousand crash landings

The field looked to be a wide spread, but there were a lot of armies represented by a few books- 10 Ogres, 8 Warriors, 8 Dark Elves, 7 O&G, 7 Skaven. I felt pretty good about Skaven matchups, and though Dark Elves and Warriors were often difficult, I at least had played many games against them. I've done okay against Orcs and Goblins when I haven't played like a complete tool against them. Ogres were a wild card- very few games against the new book. Guess I'd learn on the fly. Or not.

My secret weapon, was of course, a big ol' bushy beard I've been growing. Surely the ancestors would see fit to smile upon me...

Game 1, I was matched up against a fellow Austinite, thanks to my insistence on proclaiming my own club (The Fabulous Unicorn Lords) vs. the local standard (Austin Miniature Minions). Mercifully, the Bowman allowed us to make a swap with another pair of local Dallas-ites that had drawn eachother, and instead I was facing off against Jinkazeal, who posted up his list here.

Report to follow...

New chapter in my favorite series of battle reports? Yes please!

LookIng forward to these sir. Especially since Cap hasn't put his up over on under empire and firgil hasn't put his up either

Hopefully you don't stop doing battle reports entirely, yours are the best, and there are few enough fantasy brs here as it is. I hope the GT lived up to the title of Last Ride.

The Beard was awsome dude

Hinge

@hinge: Thanks! It's living on borrowed time, given the way the wife is glaring at it these days.

@moseefus: Furgil's are up over on Bugman's and TWF now. They're good ones.

@Obrek: Really more of a hiatus than a full on end. Reports will continue, but it'll be a bit...

@JC: Thanks man!


So, Saturday morning dawns- I’ve had no painting to do the night before, with decent sleep and a light jog to get my head right, and I’m rolling up on Jinkazael’s Skaven.

Dakkanauts can take a gander at the discussion of the list (linked in my first post). For those needing a summary:

Admiral Riptide aboard the S.S. Ship Wreck: Grey Seer, Screaming Bell, Earthing Rod [Crack’s Call, Dreaded 13th, Warp Lightning, Something else]
First Mate Sea Foam: Chieftain, BSB, Shield, Storm Banner
Captain Typhone aboard the S.S. Dry Rot: Plague Priest, Dragonbane Gem, Flail, Ironcurse Icon, Dispel Scroll, Plague Furnace
30 Clanrats, shields, full command
25 plague monks, full command to push the furnace (Plague banner)
4 x 60-ish slaves, musician
Ol’ Lazer Blazer: Warp lightning cannon
Moby Dick: Hell Pit, warpstone spikes
The Kraken: Hell Pit
5 Gutter runners, poison, slings
3 x rat-darts

It was all themed pirate style, and really quite cool. The plague priest and grey seer each had awesome little admiral hats. I’d managed to run into Jinkazeal the previous night. He had a great attitude, and was super friendly. This was a hard list, but I’ve fought Skaven enough that I had a good feel for the matchups with the big stuff. Courtesy of the posted thread, I’d also spent a few minutes theory-hammering the matchup.

The plan was- shoot down the Hellpits, anvil/slow the furnace. Once the hellpits were in check, try to shoot the Grey seer off his bell to get a handle on 13th before it went off irresistibly. I really wanted to send the miners underground after the warplightning cannon, but decided to keep them in the main line instead to help clear off rat darts and delay blocks.

Our scenario was a lone ranger, which pulled one model from your most expensive regiment and reassigned stats, and a little pistol. Winner was the one who killed the most with their ranger, or who killed the other guy’s ranger. I immediately claimed a moral victory, since my lone ranger was… a dwarf ranger. Hell yeah!

A flourish of dice let Jink grab the edge with more woods (letting the slaves remain steadfast once they got in), but I picked up the crucial first turn.

In an effort to get this report out before I die of old age, I’m going to stick to the highlights. This also accounts for the fact that after trying to write up the first game, the account was filled with “probably”, “I think” and “maybe” to the extent that I might as well have been just making up a story.

Deployment


Avast! Thar she blows. Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest? Wait, what? Is that it? That doesn’t even make sense…

Early Game

Things start out great, with the first shot of the game, being a flaming grudgethrower, burning right through the storm and killing a hell pit with a single shot. The second HPA proved tougher to take down, somewhat courtesy of the organ gun exploding on the first turn, but thankfully the beast tripped on a rock at the last minute and couldn’t make the 10”-ish charge to get to my shields.


Wave o’ slaves headed this way. Surf’s up!


The Skaven shooting was lackluster in return- with a single weak blast from the WLC followed by a detonation that vindicated my decision not to send the miners below ground.


The hammerers are treated to a complimentary beard-perm.

The screaming bell went down to two cannon shots, which was fortunate, but the grey seer survived to sit in his unit, safe and sound. This was a potential problem, because he was still providing his leadership to the swarms of slaves, and because of the VP rules, I hadn’t scored anything for him yet. Fortunately, he choked on two warpstone tokens, dropping him to a single wound and making magic incredibly dangerous. I tried to take advantage of this by throwing the miners into the front of the unit, and though they managed to wound the BSB, they couldn’t land a hit on the grey seer, much less wound him.

Mid game

The crossbows managed to seal the deal on the last Hell Pit right before it plunged into my army, but the anvil misfired on turn 3, letting the furnace back up to full speed, and putting some of the pressure back on.

I also made a couple of mistakes here- the gutter runners arrived in the backfield on turn 3. I’d been hanging out with the gyro in the back with the intention of flaming them, but promptly forgot they were there in my fourth turn and flew away to tool around in the main fight. The lone ranger shot two down, but couldn’t force a panic check. Worse, I’d also pinched my great weapons in to keep the first wave of slaves from charging the cannon, but didn’t shift back out, which let the furnace set up an overrun into the cannon as well. One last cannon shot before combat left the furnace on a single wound, but it was enough for the gas, impact hits, wrecking ball, plague priest and plague banner to annihilate the great weapons. In their last defiant dying gesture, I threw all the great weapon attacks on the furnace to take its last wound. This worked, but once again, a big model was gone for zero victory points thus far, courtesy of the plague priest surviving.


The plague monks pick the hammer over the anvil.

Late game
At this point, despite the dramatic departure of all his big stuff, I have about 700-ish VPs (one slaves, both hell pits, WLC) in exchange for 600-ish (my cannon, great weapons, organ gun). Unfortunately, I expect the slaves will probably go through the rangers who are too lightly armored to last against that volume of attacks. So I begin to hatch a dastardly plan with the gyro.

He sprays the grey seer unit with his steam gun to try to sneak the last wound off the Grey seer while casually flying to the flank that has the seer on the corner. Jink doesn’t quite see it coming, and I charge in. The skaven BSB must think I’m coming for him, and fights like a cornered beast, dealing two wounds before I cut power and land the machine on the seer, flattening him for a huge raft of VPs. The skaven countered by running my rangers off the board.

Meanwhile, the lone ranger shot off the last of the gutters, and the not-lone rangers were run off the field by a mass of slaves. My shields broke another stack of slaves, which is actually a decent enough set of VPs when they start at 60 strong. Crucially, though, the hammerers in the flank manage to drop the plague priest, and break the monks right off the board in the last turn of the game to well and truly lock it down.


Picture taken moments before the cyberpolice come to take the Skaven away.

Result: 20-4

Shooting was highly effective, and I caught a lucky break once the Grey Seer escaped cannon death but tried to freebase warpstone. Even still it took a lot of work to get that last wound.

Jink also hadn’t noticed the objective included criteria for the lone ranger killing models to break a tie (i.e. two surviving lone rangers), which made for an easy objective pick up. I made a couple mistakes with the positioning of units (and completely forgot the monks were frenzied, which I might have tried to take better advantage of, but it worked out for the best. To Jink’s credit, he only made one real mistake once the game was under way- which was to leave the grey seer on the corner for the gyro to land on. I also think the HPAs would have benefited from being placed directly opposite my main bricks to have a slightly shorter advance, though that’s debatable, and difficult to control, given that slaves had already occupied much of the deployment at that stage.

He must have gone on to do fairly well later, because I saw him up on the higher tables late in the tournament. Great opponent who was just a razor’s edge away from getting my best game vote. Hopefully he can drop by and elaborate on some of the things I've elected to gloss over here. As with any report, inaccuracies and exaggerations (unintentional and otherwise) no doubt abound...


Next up: Chaos Dwarfs!

Brief but great as always

Yep, everything looks about right! I screwed up in five ways that game-

-Hellpits should have been straight away from the Dwarf lines, just so they could get in for a turn or two before dropping

-I should have used the Lone Ranger more effectively, trying to shoot up the gyro or gun down the miners

-I definitely should have held the plague monks in check after slaying the warriors. Flanking the hammerers was foolishness!

-As stated before, need to keep that Grey Seer alive! I could have won but instead, I lost!

-I should have put the gutter behind the Grudge Thrower. This would have saved them from the Lone Ranger's fire, and netted me two war machines because the monks were already in line to kill the cannon.

I buckled down and played conservatively for the rest of my games, which allowed me to come back to a solid 12th place. I'll be practicing vs dwarfs until Wargamescon, hope to see you there!

Congrats on the win Red, and awesome batrep as always.
I'm looking forward to the Chaos Dwarf report.
Any spoilers about it being the FW list, or Ravaning Hordes?

@J; I remember your skaven bog list from the army list sections; are you going to be posting some batreps here too?
I'd like to see how your army did after such a long thread about it.

Very good report zeke

Can't wait to fight dwarves myself though my lists completely different. Slave spam and relying on aboms and melee I don't think runs all to well on dwarves, looking at the results it didn't seem too either. Need to bring more guns to the sword fight ;D

Poisoned wind Mortar spam and double cannonage' probably would have faired better vs heavily armored dwarves but I'd been waiting to see a match up like this to see how it would go :O


Automatically Appended Next Post:
btw I want your camera, I love the pictures!

Great battle report Zeke. I just might copy your list for the tournament that's coming up, HEHE.

@Sasa: Thanks! The camera's quite old now- but the lighting was pretty great in the hall, which really helped. And not to spill beans, but Skaven are on the menu a little later, and a little more to the style you describe.

@Poppa: Copy away. Just let me know how it goes.



Warning- My intentions to take many a picture seem to have fallen short after Game 1, but I think I have enough of most of the rest to entertain at least a little.

Game 2

After a swift lunch, we returned, and I was dismayed to realize that the only beer service this year was out in the hall, with a long line for various concessions. Looks like this game’s gonna be stone cold sober!

I was fortunate to get back a little early and have a chance to go over the Chaos Dwarf rules with John. He could have told me they all had strength 9 and could shoot rainbow rockets out of their beards and I would have been none the wiser, so it was quite kind of him to give a comprehensive rundown.

I didn’t come away with a copy of the list, so here it is from memory:

Sorcerer Lord, Lvl 4, 4+ Ward, Lore of Hashtut [Ash storm, 3 other spells]
Sorcerer Lvl 2, Stuff, Lore of Metal [Hounds, Signature]
BSB, 2+, 4+ (maybe?)
Hero (strength 5 possibly?)
36 Chaos dwarfs with full command
A big deep unit of hobgoblins, maybe a musician
5 Wolf riders
5 Bull centaur, full command
Magma cannon (like a flame cannon, but good)
Hell…shriek…rocket… doom…something (bizarre war machine that did a big blast if it hit you, a small blast if it didn’t, or could fire siege shells)
K’Dai Destroyer (the big guy)
Both war machines had an upgrade that gave them +1T and +1Wound (boo!)

The models in use were those put together once upon a time by Mr. Bowman himself, and have a cool Soviet theme. It also meant that their true owner wandered by the table a number of times, whereupon he would glower at me any time I looked to be doing something well (which was not often).

Our scenario was flag oriented- flags were distributed to units which gave small boosts (with one notable exception). Most abilities were things like gaining feigned flight for one turn, or a one turn triple march. However, the US flag allowed you to regrow D3x100 points worth of models back to the carrying unit. The victor went to whomever held more scenario flags at the end, captured and otherwise.

Here’s how we ended up deploying:


The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley. So do the crappy, hastily made schemes, though.
NOTE: Pic taken part way through the first turn- whoops!

Problems right off the bat- both my heavy hitter machines were flaming, which granted the K’Dai a 2+ ward. Poop. Other than that, I felt like I could handle things okay. The plan was to anvil the big guy to slow him, pepper him with the organ gun, and then try to hold him up hoping for him to burn out. Meanwhile, miners get one warmachine, if they survived the crossbows and my warmachines. If the Chaos Dwarf block rolled up, I’d double it up with two of my blocks and try to kill the characters out for big points.

I even won first turn, and opened with a little shifting- not fully committing till I got a feel for how John was going to play it. If I could get an advantage shelling his artillery early, it was going to be on him to do the advancing. The gyro puttered forward, but stayed close to the 5+ ward banner.

The opening volley from the rangers chucked over 4 wolfriders, and panicked the last for the hills. Sweet! Next I thought I’d try to knock out his only real ability to counter-battery. The grudgethrower sailed wide, but not a big deal. My cannon sighted in, misfired, re-rolled into a misfire, rolled a detonation, and re-rolled into a detonation. Dang. Down 145 points and my reliable artillery smacker. That made things a bit harder.

The runelord knew he was going to need to buy some time slowing down that K’daai, so reared back and swung a mighty blow downwards, directly into his own groin. Perhaps he was distracted by the exploding cannon. Regardless, the 5000 year old relic of immense power exploded, taking with it my general and all my magic defense.


Yo dawg, I heard you like misfires, so I put some misfires in yo’ misfires so you can misfire while you misfire…

The hammerers and great weapons both needed their BSB re-rolls to stay on the board after this turn of events. Clearly they were in a rush to get somewhere with a calculator to crunch the odds of all this happening on turn one.

John began his first turn up by about 600 VPs, having traded wolf riders for anvil and cannon.

The K’Dai rushed forward, and the bull centaur rumbled up, staying clear of the organ gun. The Chaos Dwarfs and Hobgoblins strolled forward to see what all the fuss was about on the other side of the field.

The gyro was grounded courtesy of an ashstorm, but the winds of magic blew weakly otherwise, perhaps still rippling outwards from the massive detonations that had taken up residence in my lines.

Speaking of massive detonations, the bombardment began.


Not as bad as it looks.

Apparently this thing is only strength 3 when it lands? John rolled a fair number of wounds, but my line was groveling in horror under their armor, and so only a single dwarf died. Hooray?

Turn 2

Okay, new plan. Panic. Okay, second new plan. K’Dai still has to go, and all that’s left is the organ gun and hammerers. I can stand the BSB in front of the thing for a few turns too, courtesy of his flaming ward. If I can get the K’Dai and his war machines we could be pretty close to tied, so long as I don’t lose any more stuff.

Infantry, move out! I moved to position the horde of great weapons against an obstacle to make them less appealing and set the hammerers to try to make it a lose-lose. I also tried to angle them in a manner that would let them head over to the Destroyer if needed.

Rangers peppered the magma cannon for two wounds (yeah!) and the organ gun took two wounds of the Destroyer (double yeah!). The grudgethrower blew a passing bird out of the sky.

The Chaos dwarfs continued to ash the heck out of the gyro, dropped a rocket on the great weapons for a few losses, and moved up a little farther.

Turns 3-4

Note: Arranged by area of the battle, not sequentially!

My backfield: AKA Craterville

The Destroyer takes another two wounds from the organ gun (double, double yeah!) leaving it on two, which increases the chance that it might burn out. Unfortunately, the big guy gets into my lines, engaging the shield warriors. I try to move the hammerers to help, but a magical ashstorm prevents them from charging. The shields dutifully fail their re-rollable 9, and are caught by the beast, who overruns into my artillery. Right as he is about to kick the organ gun over the horizon, he chokes on a tremendous hairball induced by swallowing too many beards and dies.

The left

As the bull centaur round a building to pile into the back of the rangers, they boldly shout Olé and dive into the nearby building. This is so effective that the centaur forget about them, and start heading for the remarkably devastated dwarf backline and are treated to some petulant shots in the butts as they ride away.

The middle

The hobgoblins charge the miners flank but realize their error after a few turns and flee away, freeing up the dwarfs just as the Chaos Dwarf block commits forward. The BSB has bailed out at this point, looking to try to block off the war machines from the meandering bull centaur.

Chaos Dwarf backfield

The miners arrive, tip over the rocket, and realize they’ll never be able to pin down the level 2, so go jogging off after the magma cannon, while the gyro tries to beat them there. The grudgethrower tries to show them all up, and lands a direct hit on the thing, but the T8 upgrade saves it from a possibly lethal hit.

Turns 5-6

Craterville

I pull my signature move and block up the 5 wide centaur with my BSB on the end of their formation, then promptly shoot them down to 4, giving them room to pass. The bull centaur are laughing too hard to make the charge, thankfully.


I’ve been making this same mistake for several years. You might think I’d learn at some point. You might not know me very well, then.

The BSB successfully holds the buggers off when they charge him on turn 6, though!

The middle

The level 4 cascades a spell, but dodges the hole and his USA banner heals his block back up. Heedless, and seeing little risk at this point, the hammerers pile in to his block, using their USA banner to get two rounds of horde formation swings at his characters. Unfortunately, this only results in the non BSB hero dying.

Chaos dwarf backfield

The gyro rams the magma cannon again and again, but it hangs on to one wound, and passes all its checks. All that remains is to count the cost…


Result: Dwarf minor loss, with objective

At Lonewolf, a 100 VP advantage gets you a win, but a 500VP win gets you a Texas sized win. I’d kept this from going Texas sized, which made it a 6-14 loss, and picked up the objective for a 10-14, which I was exceedingly happy with, given the first turn shenanigans. John was a great opponent, and runs a hell of a tournament down in San Antonio. You should all attend. Alamo 2012! See you there…

Next up? Life Slann Lizards. Also probably salamanders.

Happy to see you slap down the Kdia

Dwarfs! Dwarfs! Dwarfs! I'm sure you could have pulled a win if your runelord was able to get a tankard of liquid bread prior to taking the field.
Keep em comin'!

Nice reports so far! Is this a typo?

Red_Zeke wrote:However, the US flag allowed you to regrow D3x100 models back to the carrying unit.

So up to 300 models?? Yikes...

It is a typo! D3x100 *points* of models is more accurate. I shall correct it anon...

Ah, that makes more sense . I was thinking it might've been D3x10 models, but doing it by points makes more sense (so it's fair to all units... I'd love to regenerate 10-30 trolls back into a horde ).

Ah, game three. 1-1, but the win was big and the loss not so bad.

I was playing a young gentleman who’s been on the tournament scene longer than I have, but was almost certainly still in high school. This instantly torpedoed my plan to get my opponent to blitzed to play (thanks to some recent “acquisitions” between game 2 & 3). Matt had brought his Lizardmen and I didn’t know what I was going to do about them:

Slann, Becalming, Rumination, extra spell, BSB, standard of discipline, LIFE [Earthblood, Dwellers, Flesh to Stone, Regrowth, Throne of Vines]
Skink priest, dispel scroll, HEAVENS [Iceshard blizzard]
in
35 Temple guard, full command, ironcurse icon, standard of discipline

Oldblood, Sword of Striking, Armor of Destiny, Shield, Crown of Command
In
50 Saurus warriors, hand weapon, shield

2x10 skink chohorts, javelins, musician
1 x 10 skink chohort, javelins
2 x 5 chameleon skinks
2 x 2 &%#$#ing salamanders

So- there were basically 582 VPs that I had any chance of getting. An extra 90 if I could pinch the skink out somehow. Maybe, but probably not, the oldblood, but with T5, 1+4++ he wasn’t going down easy. The objective was bad news too- for Texas Two-step, you needed more units out of your deployment zone than the other guy- and I had little plans to chug forward anytime soon.

Unfortunately, I made some deployment errors- though I essentially had to commit very early given that the skink cohorts delayed him having to show anything. The shields went out on the exposed flank of my corner deployment, which was probably a bad move. The rangers, after much debate ended up wide left. I didn’t really have anywhere to put them close to the main battle line, and a big hill made it possible for the absurdly maneuverable salamanders to hide if they wanted to. I also decided to tunnel the miners for reasons I am not at liberty to explain (because they make no sense).

I decided my plan was to try to clear all his chaff, then hold on for dear life. The anvil would slow the temple guard and I’d try to engage the big block late. I also tucked behind a forest with the plan of the BSB doing his Honey Badger thing and standing in the woods in front of massive blocks.

I picked up first turn, took it gladly, and set about the business of trying to make some magic happen. But not actual magic. That sh**’s for sissy elves.


Turn One
As was often the case- there was very little movement to be seen from my side in the early game. Shooting was a mixed bag- the GT sailed wide, and the cannon rolled a one to wound a salamander. However, the anvil cooperated, and slowed the Slann’s block which was pretty crucial. The rangers plinked a chameleon needing sevens (soft cover, skirmishers, chameleons), and the organ gun wiped the other five off. I thought they’d been given up rather cheaply, but Matt was utterly unphased.

I took a picture of the high point of this game:



60 victory point lead! Catch me if you can, you cold-blooded devils!

The lizards did their lizardly thing and zipped forwards. The Slann cast a bunch of spells on his temple guard unit, giving them regen, toughness infinity, and a comfy plant chair to hunker down in while his unit marched forward at a stately 4”.

On the left, the chameleons trotted away from the rangers, and I realized that despite my intense concentration during the scout deployment, I’d really kind of gotten it wrong.

Turn Two

In an attempt to convince me that they were fulfilling a valuable role after all, the rangers shot off the rest of the chameleons. Huzzah! The anvil crunched the temple guard to slow them down again. The grudgethrower launched a crewmember to go watch the new VC playing a couple tables down and the cannon and organ gun combined to kill 4 skink handlers and take a wound off a salamander. Bah. I had to split fire because if you actually get down to use True Line of Sight, you’ll find that everything can’t necessarily actually see everything as conventional wisdom will have you believe. One of these days, I need someone to field an army of skink handlers. I’ll have that thing tabled by turn two. I can kill me some handlers.

The little lizards gleefully plunged forward into salamander and javelin range, while saurus plodded along behind.

The Slann kicked things off with a throne, healing the wounded salamander, and a dwellers on one of the blocks. After a little consideration, I threw the spelleater, and swallowed it down, saving me the pain of having to worry about the anvil getting dragged under later.

And here comes the start of the pain- salamander shooting. It's just so awful to have to sit there and watch the other guy throw artillery dice and templates at you.

So what kind of tone were we going to set for these salamanders?



Really, I could probably just have posted this picture and a final score for the batrep…

Turns 3-6

Something is up with this report, you say? Well… yes. I’ll explain later. First some summaries-

I spent the rest of the game trying to kill salamanders for a final gain of 1, though I took off all the handlers of a unit who then sat still and spat death all over me. One cohort managed to take down the organ gun and the other got the cannon (finishing it off in combat!) and tried to get out of the way of the saurus.

The gyro made a late contribution by charging a cohort and pinning it to create an obstacle for the saurus behind, but very nearly got wasted for its efforts. (or maybe it did? Don’t remember)

I waited too long to hop the BSB out of the hammerers and though he stood in front of the Temple Guard, they were able to awkwardly charge around him and contact my great weapons, though they earned no points. My shields were consumed fully by the saurus and oldblood, who then headed over to try to scare off the hammerers, who were in turn, busy pounding skinks over the head with foam mallets.

The grudgethrower alternated turns missing everything and launching crewmen onto other more exciting battlefields, finally destroying itself in the last turn.

In the final stages, I actually got desperate enough that I simply started dispelling throne of vines in the hope that he would cascade as he continued to (inexplicably in my book) cast flesh to stone and other buffs on his temple guard.

Here is a picture of something, because this is a battle report and it should have those.


This may be a picture of what happened once the middle got super blocked up, but the configuration looks way off from what I have in my memory. Logically, I’ve decided the photographic evidence is wrong.

End result- 695-172 (or 835-172 if the gyro went down, which it might have). Either way, big loss, no objective for a:

4-20 Dwarf Loss

The lack of details and pictures may make this seem like sour grapes. It wasn’t my intention, but I’m sure the more I was on the ropes, the more I became preoccupied with digging my way out, rather than snapping pictures. I’m definitely doing Matt a disservice by giving this game short shrift, so I apologize to him (and to the readers!) for the shabby work here. One of my pet peeves are tournament reports that gloss over the losses to dwell on the victories in excruciating detail, and here it seems I’m being a bit of a hypocrite- though not really intentionally. I should also note that if it seems I imply that luck was horrible, it wasn’t really, as I’ve highlighted the unfortunate goings on for the sake of humor and my shattered self-esteem. It was bad, but not insurmountable if I’d coupled it with good play.

I gave some thought to this matchup and decided I might have done a few things differently to bring a draw, or at least a small loss out of this.

1- Deploy the shields on the right board edge, or even maybe out wide. Whoever was on the outside flank was going to take a hit from a unit. Hammerers should have been in the guaranteed fighting position.

2- Move the gyro out earlier. Not sure why I didn’t. I’m usually better with it than that, and I needed to split the skinks attention, and make Matt make some choices that could lead to mistakes.

3- Bring the rangers in closer so I could shoot salamanders. I really needed to be able to wipe out a unit to prevent it being grown back by spammed life magic. Even though they have a hard time with salamanders (usually hitting on 6s) every little bit would have helped.

4- Use the miners similar to the skaven game- to whack apart chaff.

5- Maybe, maybe use the anvil to clean up the chaff instead of slowing the temple guard to make sure I could get those points, then proceed with the original plan of standing in front of the temple guard in the woods, and trying to live through the saurus on the left by using hammerers.

In the end, Matt did what he had to do, and had a list that was going to be pretty rough going. There was huge points denial, and I didn’t have the assets (big initiative magic/snipe magic) that would let me touch 80% of his army. I gambled on shooting taking down his salamanders and it didn’t pay off. Matt apparently didn’t really slow down and ended up taking home 2nd general (I believe). With a little painting, he’d have been up in the overall category too.

As for me, that brought me to 1-2, which is the worst I’ve done in 8th, and matching my worst outing at a GT (that being my only 7th edition GT). I was a bit bummed, but as always, the prospect of getting to play someone just as battered as I was in the next game cheered me quite a bit.

Next: Ogres! No wait, Skaven. And a *bunch* of pictures, courtesy of an opponent who heckled me into not forgetting that my camera was over buried in the deadpile.

Damn Zeke, your not having the greatest of luck, specially with your runelord blowing up on the second game. Those lizards are just silly lol. I'm bringing a list pretty much like your so hopefully I fair a bit better with my anvil this weekend ;D

Hopefully your nex two games go a bit better

I missed this until now. I'm surprised that a 500-700 point loss (depending on whether or not the gyro was intact) results in a 20-4 result, even with objectives. Around here that's usually a bit more points to the loser.

I played against a list like this at a recent GT, and ended up getting a draw, but that's all I could play for. Same thing- tried to kill off everything that wasn't a gigantic, cold-blooded block. Basically turned my whole army backwards on turn 1 just to kill 2 groups of chameleon skinks . But in the end, it was a draw. I got the impression that to lose big to an army like this, you'd have to go at them, as they're so slow. However, if a 500 point loss results in a 20-4 result, I can see why this list would rock so hard.

Love your reports, I've read them all, and I don't even play fantasy. That last pic is hilarious

Will the report be concluded or have you run out of steam?

@RiTides: That's a pretty insightful comment. Hadn't thought of it that way. 500 point win gets you a 16-4 win, and the objective gets you 4 more, for a 20-4. I'd always looked favorably on the system, as it doesn't overly favor only the armies that can totally wipe the other guy out. This was an example of the problem with it, though.

@Illumini: Thanks very much. This is definitely getting finished, but I'm hesitant to promise when. I have something of a (very transient) lull right now in real life obligations, so ought to have a bit of time to work on it.

Red_Zeke wrote:I'd always looked favorably on the system, as it doesn't overly favor only the armies that can totally wipe the other guy out.

Yeah... like that lizardmen army!

Also another nudge for Games 4 & 5

Zeke, do you take notes for your Batreps are they purely from memory?

If from pure memory, I applaud you, my friend. I can never seem to remember my battles well enough to write a batrep even a quarter this good(or entertaining).

@Platuan4th: I've tried in the past to take notes, but found that it was a little too time consuming and found it kind of kept me from engaging with my opponent on a social level to the degree I like. But neither are these purely from memory, as there is some photographic evidence that act as prompts. Thanks for the kind words!

-------------------

Years later.

I’m an old man now. Fondly going through old mementos in the attic, I come across an ancient laptop I thought I’d thrown out. Amused, I boot her up and have a chuckle at the archaic operating system. But then I see it… the Lonewolf 2012 Battle Report, never completed! Oh noes! I rush downstairs to try to make things right, as my grandkids jump on their hoverboards, and don their auto-fitting jackets and sneakers. QWERTY keyboards?! Who uses these anymore? Ah well…

Sunday morning, I arose and made my way to the hall, hoping to dodge any more kicks to the face. For a brief moment, it looked like I’d be playing Mr. Jeff Daniels’ Ogres. Jeff ran over me with giants (!) in game 1 of Cap City, so I was looking forward to a wee bit of revenge, but didn’t know if I rated my chances against Ogres. It turned out there was a bit of a mixup, and I instead was up against Kory’s Skaven. Now there’s a matchup I know!

Kory was kind enough to remind me to take pictures, so you can thank him for the proliferation of pictures relative to the previous game.

Our scenario was called Trade the QB. To make a long story short, we were trying to kill a particular model, Jerry Jones is mocked, and the Dallas Cowboys still stink. There were more nuances to the scenario, but none of them applied to us.

Kory’s Skaven had:

Fighty warlord with Ogre blade and 4+ ward
Grey Seer
BSB with protective kit (I think ?)
Plague priest on furnace
Engineer with doomrocket
30-ish plague monks
2 x 25-ish clanrats
2 x plague mortars
2 x 40-ish slaves
2 x WLC
Doomwheel
Hell pit

As usual, the skaven threats were pretty apparent. I decided I’d once again anvil the furnace, shoot cannons, doomwheel, and of course hell pit, and the rest should be manageable. So long as the WLCs didn’t ruin my shooting early, I ought to do OK.

Deployment went well at first glance. The shield warriors dropped pretty far left, and that got the bulk of his army in a position that would hopefully clog them up moving around a central tower, while I loaded back to the right.

The rangers set up to pepper the Abomb as it rounded cover, and otherwise pour shooting into whatever wandered near the middle. This represented their deepest foray into enemy territory of the tournament, getting almost all the way to the midline of the battlefield. Bold moves!

Turn One…

Was started by me! I started by trying to swift reform the shield block to head back to my main lines, but the failed, and so just about faced instead. Kory took offense to my first action being a “mooning” of 80% of his army.

Unfortunately, my right hand deployment let the HPA drop behind a big wall. I figured I’d be able to focus a lot of fire when it came around the corner, so settled for shooting at other targets. I junked a WLC with my artillery (though he’d separated them enough to avoid panic), and slowed the furnace, wounding it in the process. I’d also left my gyro on the right but it couldn’t accomplish anything with two random movers out and about. I thought about landing it somewhere to tempt the hell pit to move into my fire lanes, but the doomwheel could make short work of it on its own. Ah well.

Your move, Skaven!

Which is pretty much what they did. His WLC considered shooting the organ gun and grudgethrower I’d left lined up, but decided to sneak a shot at the hell pit instead. (His misfire aimed right at the thing, and the template ended up missing it by about half an inch!)

The field…



Something’s missing from this picture…



There it is!

Turn Two

The miners weren’t quite ready to roll in yet, but I still couldn’t see the hell pit, so I had the artillery to spare on the WLC. It would also make my anvil decision easier. The shields moved to position themselves with their back to the board edge, and there was little need for movement beyond floating the gyro back to the middle. My intention was to harass blocks and be available for sacrifice to plague furnace overrun shenanigans if the anvil didn’t do its job.

Shooting managed to slow the furnace again, and though the WLC escaped, the Doomwheel took three wounds and smashed itself to pieces on the central building. Good enough for me!

On the skaven turn, the hell pit decided to take my rosy situation and make a bit of a mess of it.



The Hellpit gives my rangers a lesson in infiltration.

I hadn’t noticed that the wall didn’t actually go all the way to the edge of the board. Problem time.

Dreaded 13th went off irresistibly on my great weapons, but only killed 7. The resulting miscast killed two clanrats. Cataclysmic power unleashed!

Shooting was equally pleasant- with only a handful of shield warriors choking on a mortar shell, and the MR of Grungni protecting the organ gun from a direct warp lightning hit. It may have been at this point that the doom rocket was launched, but it overshot and ended up causing very few casualties too.

Turn 3

The light casualties so far were heartening, and the miners arrived to seal the fate of the last warp lightning cannon, but there was still the problem of the unwounded abomination strolling through my lines.

I could get an angle with the cannon this turn, but if I failed to kill it, I couldn’t afford to risk it going into the rangers and leaving them on 5 left (and steadfast). This meant the miners would have to wait another turn before charging, and the anvil would help boost the rangers away to safety. They could get about 12” away under their own power- I considered using the anvil to charge them into the gray seer’s bunker, but a really low charge roll would still leave them a little too close for comfort.



You know a model is scary when the best evasive maneuver is to run away towards the rest of the enemy army.



There are no terrible jokes in this slide. You’re welcome.

Shooting stripped four wounds from the Hell Pit, which was a relief. He was still 19” away from the anvil, which meant I ought to be able to manage things without too much trouble.

The grudgethrower managed to damage the furnace a little more- combined with the accumulated several turns of anvil strikes, the thing was looking a little creaky with a wounded rider and three wounds left.


The skaven took the opportunity for some revenge, and the dwarfs have to stop laughing at magic when another IF 13th goes off and turns 17 great weapons into rats. BOO-URNS!. With the aid of a plague mortar, the great weapons are now down to a paltry full command, one rank and file, and a BSB looking around for a better place to stand.

Turn 4

Getting down for a table top view, I realized I couldn’t see the hell pit for a second shot with my cannon. Ruh-roh. (Side note: We’d decided to treat the ruins as a woods that gave hard cover).

The organ gun pelted the abomination to a single wound. The anvil tried to save itself by bringing some wrath and ruin down on the abomination, but the runelord got a little flustered and missed the swing. For a consolation prize, I blew apart the furnace with the cannon, and hoped the abomination couldn’t make it the remaining 9” to my anvil. I also started running the BSB over, figuring I might need his tiny flaming hammer if things got desperate on the right flank. Like, super desperate.

The rangers also continued sprinting away from the hell pit and ended up hitting a clan rat unit (with surprised grey seer and engineer) at a dead sprint. With the grey seer sporting T4 and a ward save, and the engineer sporting an impressive will to live, I ended up drawing that combat, with the musicians playing dueling banjos to keep both sides a-fightin’, though I failed the reform check to add some ranks.

Meanwhile, the hammerers started a long grind into the flank of some slaves, secretly hoping to bait the general’s unit into their flank so I could smack the characters out of the unit for some more points.


The skaven turn arrived. A bunch of slaves rushed into my somewhat depleted shield warriors for a battle of truly epic proportions. In a rather more important movement, the sneaky (but crippled) Hell Pit made its final attack run at the anvil.



The honorable M.C. Hammer said it best…

With the skaven casters unable to change facing, I’m able to avoid the worst of the magic phase. The last plague mortar shells my BSB’s meager “bunker” and though he doesn’t wound the BSB, he does send the unit’s drummer to his death the way of all drummers- choking on vomit. Twas his own vomit at least.

My gyro, positioned to delay the plague monks takes no wounds and deals a max two in return (despite popping their banner!), then holds on a 6. I’m a little uncertain what to think about this, as I was planning on shooting the buggers next turn, but no biggie… I guess? Kory made sure I took a picture of this improbable turn of events. Behold.



How… unexpectedly bold of you gyro.

The rangers fail to finish off either caster, the clan rats prove to be incredibly feeble, the combat ties again, and the musicians lead both sides in a rousing sing-along.


Turn 5

First things, first. Kill the beast. Okay, well, execute the dwarf movement phase, which mostly consisted of the BSB running in circles trying to give everyone re-rolls.

But then the shooting phase:



Flaming grapeshot to the facebone!

With the Hell Pit gone, the game was more or less in the bag. The rangers win their dance off in convincing fashion, and the grey seer and engineer retire from the dance-fight circuit for good, while all their fans flee away.

I would be doing Kory a disservice if I didn’t point out that before the end, the plague monks found their cojones, chased the gyro off the board and went pluging into my war machines.



But iiiit’s aaaalright, ‘cause I’m Saved by the Bell!!!


This brought the game to a close with a big 20-4 victory for the Dwarfs. Kory was the recipient of a rough matchup and some rough rolls. I don’t play Skaven that often, but I was further aided by having already played Skaven in game 1.

This was an exceedingly pleasant game and I felt bad it turned out so one-sided. Kory was still figuring out some things in 8th, and said he was just happy to see dwarfs moving forwards at all. Hoping to see him at more GTs down the road, where he can get some revenge!

Stay tuned for the next installment against Dark Elves...
...some time in 2014

What pointage is that o.O skaven army looks small

2500, I should think. I don't have a copy, but don't *think* I've left anything out...

Sasa0mg wrote:What pointage is that o.O skaven army looks small

That's cause the big toys cost a lot. These days, to get the numbers Skaven used to field, you have to leave the toys at home.

Also, I think one of the Clanrats units are actually a unit of Storm Vermin, as otherwise he's under the 25% min on Core.

Well I say because my list I field 100 slaves, 80 clanrats and still field 2 abominations plague monks and furnace and a warlord on blood horror, engineer and plague priest. with no real problems. Alternatively if I did want to include a grey seer I could easily remove the warlord and keep such while adding a WC at the same time... so this is why I ask why from the pictures and list his army seems so very small he must of blown alot of points in places there not needed.