This weekend I was back in Konstanz for the Warhammer Fanatiks Turnier. This was a well run and well attended event and I’ll definitely be signing up for the next one in October. Once again I took my Dwarfs, and once again I enjoyed patchy results with them
The points limit was 2250, which gives plenty of room for some really obscene lists. I chose to take a fairly tame list and I definitely suffered for it. For the record, my army looked like this:
Dwarf Lord with shieldbearers, Master Rune of Command, Master Rune of Skalf Blackhand, Rune of Resistance
He sits inside a unit of 15 Longbeards with great weapons and the Rune of Slowness on their banner.
Also in this unit is the Battle Standard Bearer who had the Master Rune of Stromni Redbeard and an Ancestor Rune. This gives me 3 ranks of 6 elite Dwarfs and 8 S6 and 5 S4 attacks in my front row. The unit’s main schtick is that the Lord uses the Rune of Challenge on an enemy, which fails the charge due to the Rune of Slowness and is then left in a position where the Dwarfs can charge it ontheir next turn.
The Longbeards stand close up with 15 Ironbreakers who carry the Master Rune of Grungni and who’s job is to soak up charges from cavalry without breaking.
Next to them is a unit of 12 Slayers. I put 3 Giant slayers in the front row and that, to me seemed to be much better value than sinking the same number of points into a single Dragon Slayer. The Slayers protect the flank of the Ironbreakers and in return get a 5+ ward save from their runic standard.
Behind the lines is a unit of 14 warriors who’s main job is to bodyguard the Runesmith but who are also tasked with shoring up holes or dealing with anything that flanks the core fighting units at the front. The Runesmith has the Master Rune of Balance and a Spellbreaker Rune.
Finally the gunline consists of 10 Thunderers along with a cannon, Grudgethrower, organ gun and a Gyrocopter. Both the cannon and the Grudgethrower are runed up to a respectable level.
So, first up was a Lizardman army. I usually do badly against these because it’s hard for the Dwarfs to counter the extreme mobility of the skirmishers or to damage the heavy stuff very much before it makes contact. In this case though the opponent had gone for a heavy hitting force rather than an ultra mobile one, centred around no less than three stegadons. Cold one riders and a big Saurus block made up the rest of the points and Skinks were notable by their scarcity – terradons and a small screen in front of the Saurus warriors were the only light troops in the army.
I did pretty badly against this army. I failed to kill any of the Stegadons due to some bad luck with warmachines and the area ward save projected by the Machine of the Gods. My Dwarfs held against the initial charge but collapsed in subsequent turns due to being outnumbered by a fear causing enemy. Normally you can rely on Dwarfs to hold but this is something I’m going to have to address in future. End result was a massacre with only my Thunderers still alive at the end.
The next game was versus another Dwarf Throng. This one was similar to mine but he had two Organ guns which were moved up aggressively to support his advance which I thought was interesting – I usually use mine to anchor a flank and protect against light cavalry and flyers trying to get behind my lines. This was a bit of a slugfest as my Longbeards hit his Ironbreakers and his Hammerers hit my Ironbreakers in the middle of the table. Nothing really moved for a couple of turns until my Ironbreakers failed an 8+ break test with a reroll and what should have been a draw turned into a marginal victory for my opponent.
Finally I was up against an Ogre Kingdoms army. Normally I do quite well against these (mostly because if you can’t beat an Ogre army then you should probably quit playing), this one ended in a win but a messy one. First off the scenario allowed both sides to kill one enemy character, monster or warmachine before the game and score full victory points for it. Not surprisingly we both chose each other’s general. So I was without my Lord in the Longbeards which meant that the Runesmith became the new General. The game started well when my shooting killed the Rhinox and the Giant in the first couple of turns. My Longbeards got a charge in on his big unit of Ironguts but rather crucially failed to do much damage. This left them a bit exposed and the Ironbreakers had to rescue them from being completely outflanked. Meanwhile pretty much the entirety of the rest of his army was busy murdering my Slayers. The Warriors came to the aid of the last couple of Slayers and managed to rout the Ogres, the elites in the centre finally broke the Ironguts and the Thunderers picked off random individuals as they presented themselves. The victory was never really in doubt but my Dwarfs were pretty badly mauled due to not being able to break the Ogres on the charge.
My overall result was 30th out of 40 which was a reasonable come-back after my spanking in the first game.
I think I either need to paint up my Anvilof Doom or get over my aversion to putting bare metal on the tabletop.
