So, this is my first battle report. My dwarfs versus my friend's Orcs and Goblins. Both lists are seriously suboptimal. We field what we got. For my part, I had spent a lot of time on some of the models that might not ever see the light of day in a tournament, but it was fun to play them here.

I have pics. When I figure out how to upload them I will insert them into the post.

Karak Beardling List -

Lord, Shield Bearers, Stone, Resistance, Anti-Killing blow rune. Great Weapon.

Lord. Shield, Rune of Might, Fire, and MR of Swiftness. Rune of Stone and Resistance (iirc)

Runesmith, Rune of Balance, shield. Yep, that's it.

40 GW Warriors, fc

29 Hammerers, FC (Lord on SB went here)

25 Ironbreakers, Full command (Killy Lord went here)

Grudge Thrower with all the Fixins

Canon with all the fixins

Organ Gun

12 Quarrelers

20 Warriors, hw+sh, FC

The Newbie Waag (Waagling?)

Orc Lord, mostly naked.

Black Orc Big Boss, mostly naked.

Goblin Big Boss, sword of..um...taking away one point of armor save.

Savage Orc Shaman (level 2).

Goblin Shaman (not sure what level)

1 block of about 20 Black Orcs

1 Block of Orc Big'uns, around...25 or 30.

1 Block of Orc Boyz, about 25 or 30.

2 units of 16 Goblin Spears with Fanatics.

1 unit goblin archers with Fanatics

1 Squig Herd (10 models total)

2 Units of 8 Spider Cav.

4 Trolls.

1 Giant.

One Rock Lobba, which wasn't actually in the list, but was not discovered that he didn't include it until after Dwarf turn 1. It never fired, so we just figured the crew never showed up.

Battle: Simple Battle Line.

Results: Dwarf Victory, almost complete.

Terrain - We were short on terrain. A couple of small rocks on the field worked as impassables, a little building in the middle did the same. I had a hill in my deployment zone. Other than that, mostly open field.

Deployment

Starting from the left hand side from my perspective -

A hill in the left hand corner of my deployment zone. Placed the unit of 20 warriors there, and next to them on the right the unit of quarrelers (in order to give good LOS, not that it wound up helping much. To the right of the Quarrelers went my Grudge Thrower. On the ground level to the right of the GT was my horde of GW warriors. Next to the right (on the same line, forward edge of my deployment zone) was the Canon. Then the Ironbreakers, then the Organ Gun, then the Hammerers. The Runesmith wound up with the shield warriors.

Looking down field, from my perspective from left to right -

Unit of Spider Cav, vanguard places them in charge range of the hill.

Trolls, then the regular orc boy unit (with the black orc boss), then the Big Unz with the General, then the Trolls, then the Black orcs, then Goblin units (spears, archers, spears). On the right flank I was looking mostly at one of the spear units and the Giant, which could be a problem. Also, the other unit of spider cave has vanguard moved into a range where they could easily evade my hammers and hit my war machines if I didn't take them out.

Looking across the field, I was intimidated. Lots of models, a big gribbly giant, and block of trolls that I knew would be hell to take down.

Dwarf Turn 1)

Rule the first. Don't be stupid and set your canon in a place where terrain is between it and your biggest target - the Giant. Sigh. Ah well.

Move: Nothing, really.

Shooting: Grudge Thrower, aimed at a big orc block, scatters right after reroll and kills 2 Orc Boys. The canon actually misses. Grr. Organ gun kills six spiders on the right flank, who then panic and flee. They would eventually flee off the table. Go go OG.

Orc turn 1)

Spiders on the left flank charge my warriors (probably should have charged the Grudge Thrower, but it was pretty far away).

The orc army advances, and winds up getting in it's own way a bit., After the battle, my friend and I agreed that his deployment caused him some movement trouble and prevented him from bringing his orc infantry to bear early on.

Magic - And this, kiddies, is why we take runes of Spellbreaking. Foot of Gork steps on 10 Ironbreakers, killing them. They do not panic. He rolled really high on his cast, but did not get IF. In fact, he didn't get IF all game. However, I rolled for "I Swear too much", and that's what you get when you take a risk.

Spiders hold against shield warriors, who also hold against spiders. I think the shield warriors lost combat but had steadfast and held their ground.

Dwarf Turn 2)

Move - Stuff moves. 😛

Shoot: Grudge Thrower hits and kills 6 Black Orcs. Booyah.
Canon kills two more (aiming at the General, who passes his LOS roll) and a troll. Only decent canon shot of the night.
Organ gun does one wound to the giant, which has advanced to threaten the hammerers, who moved the turn prior (forgot to mention). Did I mention that the Hammerers also failed a leadership test to reform facing the giant? Yeah, that was special.

Rule the Second - I have answered the question of putting a BSB in my army succinctly. Do it. Presenting your flank to a Giant and then rolling boxcars on a swift reform SUCKS. He flanks you.

Orc Turn 2)

Giant charges into the flank of the fail hammerers and their dwarf lord. He focuses on the Lord, and fails to wound (go go tank lord). He's jumping up and down. Ouch.

The lord hits the giant for a couple more of it's wounds. Neither side runs from the combat. An Ironbreaker is killed by an orc arrow!!! (so much for Gromril, lol)

Units move into position. The spiders lose combat and break, but roll a 12 and cannot be persued. I hold my ground with the shield warriors. Their job is to protect the WMs.

Dwarf turn 3)

Movement: Hammerers reform to face Giant. GW Hord charges the Black Orcs. Ironbreakers charge the Squig Herd.

Shooting: Organ Gun panics the goblin spears on the right hand side. Like a boss.

Grudge Thrower kills 5 Orc boyz sitting in the back in reserve. Like a boss.

Canon fires at the Giant, and rolls a 1 to wound. yeah. Fail.

Close Combat:

GW Horde decimates the black Orcs, leaving only the General standing. He flees, Dwarfs hold their ground.

Hammerers lose 8 wounds to the Giant but kill him and reform. Squigs get blowed up by the Ironbreakers, their handlers turn and run. One dies after they run through a friendly unit. They eventually flee the table.

Orc Turn three -

Goblins finally move into position and release the Fanatics. They hit no one, but wind up as a little pond of death between the units. Ok, they didn't hit anyone but the ironbreakers.

In fact, the Ironbreakers had a big "hey, Fanatics, come hit us in the face" neon blinking sign for the remainder of the game. I think they got hit every turn from here on out, and I kept on being unable to really get them out of the way sufficiently.

Big'Unz unit charges the Ironbreakers (finally getting over their animosity). They are deep and broad. Ironbreakers lose combat but manage to roll low on the leadership and stand their ground. they give back hard (mostly due to the killy lord in the front rank), but not hard enough. This fight lasts until turn 5.

Trolls charge the GW Horde. They hit hard, kill several. GW Horde wounds 11 times, only to see 2 wounds delivered!

Magic is shut down.

Dwarf Turn 4 -

This is where the tide turns.

Shield warriors manage to roll high on a charge and hit the Trolls' flank. Between them and the GW warriors, the trolls break and run. 2 of them are left standing.

Shooting is a bust. GT misses, OG has no target, nor does the canon. Quarrelers continue to fail. Which is why I haven't mentioned them before.

Orc Turn 4 -

Bigunz continue to fight the Ironbreakers to a standstill. IBs hold again, despite losing combat by 3.

Goblin Spears charge the Hammerers. You can imagine how that plays out for them.

Boyz unit fails a charge.

Trolls regroup. Boss charges the shield warriors, and they kill him dead! (seriously, they killed the general. I was impressed).

I stopped taking notes at this point, because it was more or less all over. The hammerers beat the goblins and ran them down. They then began to roll the remnants from the right flank across to the left. The Orc Boyz and the Shield warriors duked it out for a while, and eventually the Orcs won that fight, wiping the unit out to a man (including the Runesmith). The GW Horde helped the Ironbreakers and sent those Orcs packing, who reformed and tried to kill the Organ Gun. They failed their charge, and then got smoked by the OG (except the Shaman, who survived, charged the OG, but did no damage to the crew). More magic was dispelled.

When all was said and done, I had wiped him out with the exception of one troll, a handful of Orc Boyz, and his BSB.

It was a fun game, and only my 3rd. It was the first at 2500, and definitely involved lots of suboptimal lists and suboptimal choices. But that's ok, it's how you learn. I think next time we play I'm going to see bigger infantry blocks from him, a larger cav unit, and a heavy hammer flank (probably his Giant, his Spiders, and his Trolls on one flank). He'll see a larger group of hammerers and a more patient group of dwarfs.

We made some rules mistakes, went back and fixed some of them (my shield warriors should have fled the turn before they were killed but we forgot about the penalty for not being steadfast and losing combat. Some fanatics did not release when they should have).

Quick review -

2 Lords - Might not be optimal, but man can a killy lord kill. Putting him with Ironbreakers have them an even higher leadership, but also gave them killing force they lacked on their own. He struck first, and generally wounded on most of his blows. Not ideal, and I definitely felt the lack of a BSB once or twice.

Runesmith - To my mind, 2 Spellbreakers might be better than the Rune of Balance. Not sure how I feel about it yet. A naked Runelord might just wind up being better, especially if I can hide him. My friend forgot to use his second shaman a couple times, which didn't help him any, so it might not have been a good test.

Hammerers - of course, awesome.

GW Horde - awesome, as expected.

Shield Warriors - Panicked the cav charge, and then went toe to toe with a Black Orc boss and his crew of naer'do wells. Pretty impressive, honestly. No, they didn't kill a lot. They did survive, and they held their ground, which was what they were supposed to do.

Ironbreakers - did the same thing as the Shield warriors, only against a harder unit. They also took several Fanatic spins in the face and survived. Mock a 3+ AS and 6+ shield wardsave all you want, it works, and it keeps them standing.

Grudge Thrower - The bomb, yo.

Organ Gun - Did a stupid amount of wounds, panicked at least two units and nearly wiped a third out. Very much worth the investment.

Canon - would have been better if I could stop rolling 1's to wound. Had one good hurrah, but the rest of the game was Meh. I think I used it to take out a fanatic at one point.

Quarrelers - Failed to hit. When they hit, they failed to wound. Sort of sad, honestly. They did not get into melee, and so never put their great weapons to use.