Sundays meeting

Had a great game against Neil Williamson's WoC Army, Ill try my best to remember what he had and how the game went but this might be a bit of a read.

WoC List

Sorcesser Lord, lvl 4, Lore of blow all my units up Charm Shield and 3+ ward against shooting (Woo!)

5 Chaos Knights, Banner of Discipline 

5 Chaos Knights, Mark of Nurgle

40 Marauders, GW, Banner, Musician

6 Marauder Horsemen, Banner (I think they had javelins) 

6 Marauder Horsemen, Banner

6 Marauder Horsemen, Banner

6 Maruader Horsemen, Banner

6 Marauder Horsemen, Banner

5 Hellhounds

5 Hellhounds

5 Hellhounds

Giant

Hellcannon (fun!)

Dwarfs

Runelord, Mro Balance, Ro Spellbreaking, Ro Stone, Shield, Ro Resistance-248

BSB, Mro Gromril, Ro Resistance, Mro Challenge-165

Master Engineer, GW, Ro Stone, Ro the Furnace-84

30 Warriors, GW, FC

30 Warriors, GW, FC

29 Hammers, FC

14 Quarallers, Musician, Shields

Grudge Thrower, str 4, flaming, reroll, engineer

Grudge Thrower, str 5, reroll, engineer

Cannon, reroll, engineer

Organ Gun

Organ Gun

Deployment: Set up my army in the never before seen tactic of castling, had my Quarrallers on the very far left, with my Warriors beside them and then my warriors beside my other warriors then my hammerers guarding the flank, with my first organ gun right beside the hammers and the other in between my hammerers and warriors, Grudge Throwers were set up six inches apart from each other behind the warriors and the cannon was placed six inches behind the right most Organ gun. BSB was placed in the middle warriors block, Runelord was placed in the hammerers while the Master Engineer deployed in the middle of both GT's. WoC, both units of Chaos Knights, a unit of hell hounds, a unit of marauder horsemen and the lvl 4 deployed facing my battleline, the 40 marauders deployed sorta on my flank and sorta facing my battleline while everything else deployed on my flank while he hid the hellcannon and giant from my cannon.

Vanguards...

WoC 1st Turn: Neil got to go's first and moves most of his units on my flanks up in hopes of drowning me with targets, he then moves up his dogs and horsemen that are facing my battle line up, along with his unit of marauders. He shoots his hellcannon, killing I think 6 of my hammers, I pass my leadership. He then go's on to magic and casts a spell which makes my warriors see a big flask of Tui and they kick the crap out of each for it.

Dwarfs 1st Turn: No movement other then my hammers moving slightly to give my OG line of sight to my flank, I shoot the str 4 GT at his general and scatter off, I shoot my Str 5 GT at his hellcannon and kill a crewmember, but then, my right most organ gun melts a horsemen unit and my second one kills five and makes that unit flee, another unit of horsemen fails its test because of the previous unit blowing up and flees (going good so far!). I try and shoot my Quarallers at a unit of Knights but fail to wound anything, my cannon shoots the gaint which he failed to hide properly (correct me if I'm wrong here, but I always thought that if I see more then 50% of the model, I was in the clear to shoot at it correct?) I did 2 wounds to it.

WoC 2nd Turn:, Charges a unit of horsemen that was facing my battleline into my middlemost organ gun, multi charging the group of warriors. Charges a group of horsemen into my right most OG. He then moves his knights up and rallies his fleeing units. Giant then moves to finally get out of LoS of my cannon. his right most units then move up even close to my flank, his hellcannon kills some warriors, while I think he gates a unit kills some as well but not enough to matter. Combat see's my right most organ gun dead and my other organ gun with one more crew member and one more marauder horsemen! (fleeing of coarse) I held and reformed.

Dwarf 2nd Turn: I move my hammers around to face his foot marauder unit while staying in the front of the right most enemy units. I shoot my Master Engineer pistols at the last marauder horsemen that was facing my battle line and pistol whip him. I organ gun another unit of horsemen (the unit that killed my other OG) and melted them, try to GT his general again but he saves the 3+ ward, and I try to GT the chaos unit but it misses. I shoot my quarallers again but fail to wound anything. I grape shot the cannon at a unit of dogs and kill three of them, they pass their panic test.

1st period breakdown (Ice hockey term). At this moment in time, I'm feeling OK about the game, I've managed to take 3 units horsemen out of the game and leaving one feeling, but I'm still REALLY nervous about his magic that is capable of blowing up units and also making my guys beat each other up (be it over beer or not), and that damn hellcannon is still alive and I'm thinking that will be a pain but other then that things are going smoothly.

WoC 3rd Turn: Neil Charges a unit of dogs into the str 5 GT (he fails), while another charges the cannon. I do my best to pistol wip them and I think I kill 2 or 3 combined. He charges his Knights with the Nurgle mark into my quarallers (This is when I panic, If he breaks this unit, which he should, it will leave my warmachines nice and open and make them easy pickings for the knights). He moves his foot marauders up a little bit trying to bait my hammerers. The rest of whatever of his right flank that is not in combat or is fleeing moves. Hellcannon shoots and misfires causing his lvl 4 to take a miscast making him lose 2 levels, PHEW! And he gated a unit of warriors killing 9 of them. Combat! I beat off the dogs nice and easily and grab some easy points. And here is the best part, the Knights have something like 12-15 attacks, they hit well, wound OK, but then I make four 6+ saves and two parry's, while one only dies, and he takes one wound in return, and I pass my break test nice and easy (at this point I've soiled myself because my unit of 14 quarallers have managed to hold them off for a turn which gives my warmachines a chance to do some more damage.

Dwarf 3rd Turn: I turn my left most warrior block around to face his unit of Knights flank, I then try and charge his other unit of Knights with my middle most warriors but fail and stumble 3 inches (I forgot to charge when I moved my warriors and Neil was nice enough to let me charge still), but nonetheless I failed. (They now have left their flank exposed to the unit of 40 marauders which now could end badly....). I shoot my grudge thrower at another unit of horsemen and kill one or two and they flee... (Neil has failed something like 4 or 5 panic tests at the moment!) I Grapeshot a unit of doggies and melt them. I try and grudge thrower his knights but scatter right on top of his marauders and kill 14 of them, I try to kill his general again with the str 4 one, I failed to wound... Combat see's my quarallers..... HOLD yet again! (9 left at the moment)

WoC 4th Turn: First thing Neils does is try to charge his marauders into the flank of warriors but fails (phew...) leaving him a bit open for my hammerers to now charge in my turn) He holds back on his right flank seeing how they are taking a beating from my organ gun and cannon, he moves his lord up beside my hammers and behind my left most warriors (hoping to charge the GT next turn) and his next move surprises me, he takes his giant out of cover right in front of cannon, maybe he was hoping for my cannon to miss or misfire or roll a 4 or less to wound. His magic see's him shooting some sort of magic missile at me, killing the last crewmen on my last OG, leaving my WM count to 3, I pass my panic tests. Combat see's my quarallers HOLDING YET AGAIN for the third bloody time. Oh how I love shields at the moment.

Dwarf 4th Turn: I charge my hammerers into the marauders, and I charge my warriors into the flank of the knights, I also charge my middlemost unit of warriors (the one with the BSB in it) into the other unit of knights, everything at the moment is going right for me :D. Shooting see's my kill his cannon with my str 4 GT, kill his gaint with cannon, and kill either some more dogs or some horsemen with my str 5 GT. Combat see's the unit of Nurgle Knights flee of the table, (leaving the quaralers with 5 guys left) and my units of warriors reforming towards his general. My unit of hammers kill like 6 marauders and his marauders kill 8 hammers, making me lose by one but passing my break test. The combat with the discipline knights see's them lost one and flee, I fail to catch them, but their "aboot" half an inch away from the board edge.

2nd Period Breakdown: Ok now, I'm really pleased, everything is just going really good for me, my organ guns did their job, they held the entire right flank along with my cannon leaving the right with one unit of dogs and one unit of horsemen left. And my quarallers, just managing to hold one round of combat was good, but three! To be fare, Neils leadership test rolls were quite bad and my rolls on the quaraller saves were just awesome!

WoC 5th Turn: He Charges his lord into my str 5 GT while charging a unit of two doggies into my 5 man unit of quarallers. He fails to pass his ldr 9 roll on the last unit of knights... and flees off the table.... I know, you  must be feeling bad for him by now, the dice he was using for his tests must have been broken or something?! Combat see's the marauders kill 3 hammerers while they gave 6 back (also, Neil also miscasted  a spell which made him summon an Exalted Champion, putting two wounds onto my runelord...jezz) He lost combat with the marauders but passed his break test. (He cascaded and put 3 wounds onto my str5 GT and a wound onto himself, leaving my Master Engineer Left to control it.) He killed my Master Engineers along with my GT and looked towards the cannon! (Oh and my quarallers killed the last two doggies)

Dwarfs 5th Turn. I moved my warriors up near my str 4 GT while my warriors that were all the way up the table were now making their way down (This was the unit that caused the Discipline Knights to flee) and my grudge thrower shot a unit of horses, killing two. My Hammers did another 6 wounds to the marauders while the Exalted Champion ended up killing my general, but his marauders only did like two wounds and I won combat Neil then.... failed his break test and ran, I then ran him down! Going nine inches.

WoC 6th Turn: The lord charged my cannon and that was it for him. Combat saw my cannon dead :(.

Dwarfs 6th Turn: What happens next was one my favorites moments of warhammer, I really wanted some revenge for my slain runelord and decided to aim my str 4 GT at his lord, I got a direct hit, Neil then failed his 3+ ward then I rolled a 5 for the total amount of wounds... How's that!?

3rd Periods and end game breakdown: I must say, that game was particularly awesome for the warmachines, they managed to hit almost every turn and do some sort of damage, be it poping a unit, or just causing them to panic buying some time. But the real MVP's should go to the Quarallers for the miraculous three rounds of combat to hold the left flank and probably winning the game for me. I really think my deployment was solid and I managed to get Neil to play my game in rushing at me and my castle. 

What was left, My hammers, both my warrior blocks, and my quarallers, along with the BSB as well. 20-0 Win!

Note: What I also found out is that in the players pack I can only generate two dispel dice from my Runelord, which is a bit.... silly really, I know dwarfs get a lot of flack with there anti-magic, but really? two dice... bit OTT if you ask me

Note 2: Heres a link for a small description of todays meeting on the Clubs blog-http://mastertonmarauders.blogspot.co.nz/ 

Call to Arms less then a month away

Well Call to Arms is less and month away and I'm really looking forward to it. But at the moment, out of 110+ people registered, there are only 17-18 people that are playing fantasy... at moment, hopefully there will be more. Don't know why there is such a small number though? I think 40k hasn't done much better, but I can see why some people are a bit reluctant on playing a new rule book that is not even a month old.

But like I said in my last post, my list keeps changing ever so slightly (I also forgot that one of the tournament rules is that unit cannot cost no more then 450pts so my idea of a 60 Warriors horde is throne out the window!) but I will stay with my five war machine premise as it tends to scare the crap out of people. Specially with all those re-rolls at my disposal. But with my nice rolling I'm pretty much just GIVING YOU 830+ pts ;D.


But here's a friendly tip on how my whole tactic is going to work during the tournament. Slowly come at me while I deplete your units to a fighting capability that's nice and comfortable for me! (All this while I'm castling! And for Blood and Glory... Centre Castle! Hey, I enjoy it, so it must be OK!


In theory that is.

A horde of Dwarfs

Thinking aboot running a 60 strong unit of Dwarf warriors... with great weapons of course. I mean instead of two units of 30 which are reasonably good at holding there own, why not sixty with ten wide and 6 deep, same ranks as a 30 man unit but win an extra 10 attacks, yes its less flexible then two units but with a lot of the games I will play, I'll usually just castle up in a corner as my default 'tactic'. I've managed to get lucky these past two months and have gotten a lot of practice games in, I mean over twenty (the term brake as helped a lot) and my list is forever changing, even the list I posted a few days ago I've changed... a lot.

My main struggle is the anvil, one game it works great and want to merry the bloody thing, the next game I'm sitting there moaning, groaning and mumbling about how I failed to strike a rune three times in one game, that really happened, NEVER TRUST DICEHAMMER!

But there are plenty of things that I constantly change, like my grudge throwers, should I take them or shouldn't I? Should I take a third character or.... It's hard to sleep at night, I know right, when people start to get insomnia over toy soldier lists thats a problem within itself, but oh well.

But I guess I'll just have to make a list that I'll enjoy playing as well as making it competitive, we'll see. But yes the list will evolve a lot of shooting and dice rolling in the shooting phase, something that I love to do, and yes the castle will be my fallback point, which again I love doing. I agree that to some people it looks boring and two dimensional but those two things are what I love about the Dwarfs.

But I'll post my final list the day before Call to Arms so that there is turning back.   

Ogres

Had a few games against Aaron's Orgres and I brought out my "current" Call to Arms list and would see how it faired. What I realise is that on the first game (Watcht Tower), the anvil was a huge suprise for Aaron, me being able to charge him in the shooting fase effectivly giving me another move gave me the opportunity to out manouver him. Yes thats right, Dwarfs out manouvering.... Making me pull out a big win on the first game (20-0). But on the second game (Blood and Glory) with Aarons knowledge about the Anvil he now played more carefully, being sure not to expose any flanks and not just running his guys at me. Though a few bad dice rolls also helped him in catching some of me Dwarfs (19-1 for Aaron).

So the thing with the Anvil is that if my oppenent does not know what it does and how powerful it can be, its it will be an up hill battle for him/her, mind you if I dont blow the bloody thing up). But if my oppenent does know how it works, all they need to do is a do a quick readjustment to there tactics and the anvil is an easy work-around.

WoC, Brets and a current change to my list

Had a a view games against Neil Williamson and his WoC and Brets. Which I lost to his Brets aboot 16-4, 15-5 and beat his WoC 12-8, 13-7.... would have been 20-0 if I didn't fail three Ldr 9 rolls on the last turn giving up 1000pts, but anyways. Games were really fun and enjoyed me self heaps.

Now onto the changes.

1. Bring back the Anvil of Dooo(kaboooom). Gives me little friends the chance at being more mobile and getting the jump on some people in the shooting faze with that charge.

2. Lose the Str Grudge Thrower completely.

3. Upgrade one of the Warriors blocks Longbeards.

4. Drop the Rangers upgrade from the Quarrelers and give it to the Longbeards.

5. Drop the Dispell scroll completely, seeing how the Anvil gives me 4 static dispell dice, I figure that a re-rollable save on the Runelord would be better.

6. Give the Longbeards and Hammerers Rune of Slowness, this thing is great for the points its worth, the chance of stopping a critical charge is even at 6 inches away is great.

Normal Deployment would work around the lines of putting the Anvil right at the back and having   cannon pretty much right beside it giving it some covering fire and the two organ guns deployed right on the 12" line while keeping close to the anvil. Put the Quarrelers between the two organ guns while deploying the Hammerers and warriors right up and Scouting the longbeards along with them.

My reasoning on drop the Grudge Thrower is because, its deals with blocks well, but my Longbeads, Warriors and Hammerers do that just as well. And also given the fact that even with the accuracy rune I'm still only going to have 2-3 good hits with it a tournament.

So the list at the moment looks like this:

 Lords:
Runelord, AoD, Ro Resistance, Ro Preservation, Ro Stone, Shield, Ro the Furnace-368

Heroes:
BSB, MRo Challenge, MRo Gromril, Ro Resistance-165
Dragon Slayer, Ro Fire, Ro Speed-60

Core:
30 Longbeard Rangers, GW, FC, Ro Slowness-465
30 Warriors, GW, FC-350
16 Quarallers, GW, Musician-229

Special:
29 Hammerers, FC, Ro Slowness-398
Cannon, Ro Forging, Engineer-140

Rare:
Organ Gun-120
Organ Gun-120