Someone, somewhere must have something against me because this is the first of two Strollaz Dwarf armies that I fought over the course of the tournament. One is unusual; two is downright disturbing. There were in fact FIVE Dwarf armies at NatCon which I think had everyone pretty much freaked out. W-e-i-r-d!
Peter is a young chap who came up from Masterton with his Dad (who was playing Brettonians for future reference). He was quite amusingly a typical Dwarf player – muttered under his breath a lot, grumbled about inadequate shooting/dice etc. His rather unique list was very light on killy stuff but rather abundant in terms of warm bodies.
Thane (General!) – Great Weapon, Gromril Armour (Rune of Stone), Shield
Thane (BSB) – Strollaz Rune
Thane – Great Weapon, Gromril Armour (Rune of Stone), Shield
Dragonslayer
10 Quarrellers – Great Weapons
10 Thunderers – Shields
16 Warriors – Full command, Shields
16 Warriors – Full command, Shields
16 Warriors – Full command, Shields
11 Warriors – Champion, Musician, Great Weapons
11 Warriors – Champion, Musician, Great Weapons
11 Rangers – Champion, Great Weapons
18 Hammerers – Full command, Rune of Stoicism, Shields
7 Miners – Champion, Musician
7 Miners – Champion, Musician
Bolt Thrower – Engineer
Bolt Thrower – Engineer
Gyrocopter
No. I’m not missing any runic items – that was it. I could see the list semi-working as a concept but in the grim reality of the Warhammer world where there is only war (wait a sec… that sounds familiar) I could also see him getting scuppered by heavy magic, shooting, hard combat troops, fear-causers and hordes of Gnoblars. Hrm.
My spell selection was really the biggest influence on this game – the Wizard managed to get Shades of Death (cast on friendly unit, unit causes fear, remains-in-play) and I immediately determined that the Flagellents would be the beneficiaries of this highly useful spell. Given the lack of anti-fear pokery-jiggery they would be having a field day.
My plans only slightly went south when, after getting the first turn, Peter’s Dwarfs were a mighty 12” away from my lines. I promised myself if I played another Strollaz Dwarf army in this event (yeah right! What are the chances of that happening?!) I would pay more attention to my needlessly aggressive depoyment. So Pete’s lads crashed forward and my detachments crashed forwards and got right in the way of everything. Having neatly put the kibosh on any hope he might have had to maintain a cohesive battleline I then added further misery by getting Shades of Death off on the Flagellents who proceeded to enact a grisly reenactment of Texas Flail Massacre 2. What was left of the Dwarf BSB and another nearby Thane was trampled underfoot by the Flagellents in their eagerness to get at the Bolt Throwers in Pete’s deployment zone. The massive beatdown the administered in combat was not the only benefit they garnered however. Poised to launch themselves into my harmless Spearmen block and cause all sorts of senseless atrocities, the Hammerers and Pete’s last surviving Warrior block (the other having some up short – haha – against my Swordsmen and Arch-Lector) both thought better of it and panicked sideways, tactically redeploying and saving my Spearmen the trouble of actually having to die in this game.
The Flagellents caught up with both Bolt Throwers and the Dwarf artillery met a messy (still Fear-causing) end.
I lost my Reiksguard Knights after I was forced into striking out at the Hammerers or being shot to ribbons by Thunderers (having inflicted Thunderer shooting on Knights myself I knew how that one would end) and the Crossbows also died having given their lives reducing the small Warrior units just in case Peter thought he might later be using them to flank charge my blocks. The Cannons also bit the dust having failed to make any impact on the game. The Mortar spent its time cowering behind a hill ☺
The end result of this fiasco was a 16-4 win to the Empire with bonus point claimed for nobbling Peter’s mostly harmless General who was no doubt left wondering why he’d neglected to arm himself with something from the Runic Weapons catalogue or indeed upgrade himself to a Lord and bump one of his mates up to Runesmith.
Pete wasn’t in the best of spirits for most of this game and unfortunately I couldn’t see his prospects improving massively for the next 6 games. He went on to place 21st out of 38 players with a most deserved comp score of 48/60 and 72/168 battle points.
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