So went to Ard Boyz this last weekend hoping to get myself a nice 3000 point army for free or at least move on to the next round. There was 14 people that showed up to the semi's and I was the only dwarf player, there were 3 lizardmen armies, 2 Dark Elves, 2 Daemons, 1 Warrior of Chaos, 1 High Elves, 2 Skaven, 1 Orcs and Goblins, and 1 empire player. I only have experience playing against Daemons, Empire, Skaven, and Orcs and Goblins so I was kind of nervous and when I got set up against a Lizardmen army I wasn't sure what to go after.

My list was:

29 Rangers, 29 GW Warriors, 42 Longbeard HWs, 10 hammerers for a dwarf Lordpedo, 2 cannons with forging, 2 grudgethrowers with accuracy and penetration, a runesmith, a thane with challenge and brotherhood, and 20 miners oh and a BSB. Sorry I didn't fill in all the details here.

He had a slann priest in a temple guard unit, 2 units of sinks, 3 salamanders, 1 stegadon, and a carnosaur guy, 10 cold one riders, and a big mob of saurus warriors.

He went first after I placed my rangers in a forest near the skinks as one of them had a mage in it. He moved forward with most my guys and only diverted the skinks to go after the rangers. Magic was really bad for the rangers, as he had the slann with fire lore and some other lore with skink mage. He put some spell that if I move i take a lot of damage and then he forced me to move with some spell he barely got off and i didn't dispel since i rolled two ones and a 3 so I lost have the unit.

My turn the greatest things happens, I kill the stegadon with one shot and it bounces into the carnosaur guy killing the beast and putting a wound on the guy. Stone throwers kill a lot of saurus warriors. other cannon kills a salamander and forces them to panic. Rangers go after the skink guys.

Next turn he gets closer and is ready to charge for turn 3. Magic doesn't do much the rest of the game except kills off the little skink mage and half the temple guard as the guy miscast 4 or 5 times due to the scenario. He rallies the salamander and I keep killing them the same way with cannons until they die. Combat on turn 3 was interesting as he charged my big unit of longbeards with the saurus warriors and cold one riders hoping to take me down under steadfast but fails to realize how awesome dwarfs are and although I lose combat I stay there and flank him on my turn with the lordpedo killing all but one cold one and run down the saurus warriors. My Rangers easily kill the skinks off as they run down one after a bad flee roll and the other one just got smashed to bits. my gw warriors and miners only got to kill the carnosaur guy off as the rest of the lizardmen were killed by artillery.

In the end I lost half the unit of Rangers, 10 longbeards and a few other guys. He had one wound left on the slann priest as the temple guard never got into combat since a forest forced a dangerous terrain test and killed 6 of them, his miscasts killed a bunch more and my artillery took out the rest. I felt like a champ, as this was the greatest win I have ever had.

I scored the most possible points for the round 23 since I can't have a wizard and the judge said the runesmith doesn't count even though some other players thought it would since it generated dispel dice. So I am in 3rd place or 4th place now as a few players got max scores of 24.

Next up Dark elves, another army i have never played. He had a hydra, a horde of corsairs, two spearmen units, a black guard unit, cold one riders, two units of crossbowmen and a unit of fast calvary crossbowmen.

The stupid deployment separated have my army on the two flank leaving my artillery in the middle. so I group the two grudgethrowers together and the two cannons by the lordpedo on a hill. the First turn i take out the hydra but it takes both cannons. The gt's kill a lot of corsairs. my rangers i placed by my bsb by the gt's as i felt the longbeards would need some help defending the gt's this was my first mistake. the fanatic goes right through his guys killing one of them.

His turn he only sends the fast calvary and crossbowmen toward the gt's as the rest of his army target my lord and the cannons and GW warriors. Right now I feel stupid as the rangers are not going to do much the hole game. I should of placed them in the middle instead of on the flank.

Anyways on my turn i have a chance to get a long charge off that I failed the first round at the fast cavalry. I am 12 or 13 inches away and he stand and shoots instead of shooting, then i get the roll off and make the charge amazingly. He shouts the F word really loud and everyone kind of laughs. I kill most of them off and go into the crossbowmen. GT's kill more guys and are now save for the most part the rest of the game. the fanatic keeps going toward his table edge as his black guard eventually chase it down outside the range of my artillery.

the cold ones charge my gw warriors and i fail a ld test at 11, no reroll and they get ran down, worst yet the coldones flank the lordpedo on the overrun. he charges one cannon with the corsair unit with a lord wizard in it. spearmen move up to charge lordpedo next round.

My turn the miners arrive and instead of going for the fanatic as planned they have to help the lordpedo out so I place them behind the cold ones waiting to charge the next round. I kill off the one unit of crossbowmen and am way out of position with the longbeards and rangers. On his turn he dwellers or pit of shades the miners killing most of them but i fail the panic test and run off the board. now the lordpedo is in real trouble as the spearmen charge the other side and his corsairs ignore me and turn toward the gt's after killing the other cannon. I end up killing the cold ones with the lordpedo but it is too late as his BSB charges my other flank and his spearmen are boosted to their ld, although i have MRoSteel he kills my lord out right in two rounds of combat. the last two turn he moves closer to my gt's, pit of shades the longbeards and on the last turn kills one GT with a spell.

Overall he gets a major victory with about 1100 more points then me. I now have 26 points and am in 6th place and have to play a lizarmen army.

He has 3 units of skinks, a unit of chameloens, 2 stegadons, 6 salamanders, 1 ancient stegadon with a machine of the gods on it and 2 blocks of saurus warriors one with a slann wizard and the other a big baddy fighty guy. I have no idea how to play this and get flank by the skinks easily as they take out the warmachines turn after turn.

I do take out the ancient stegadon the first turn and put wounds on the other stegadons and kill of the skink crews easily, however by turn 3 he kill one of the cannons and gets into combat with the other.

My biggest mistake occurs when I go after some salamanders with my longbeards and he end up flanking my lordpedo with both stegadons killing the hammerers and running down the lord. I don't know what I was thinking as I misjudged the arc that he could flank. then it gets worse as his salamanders destroy the miners that came up to save the day and most the longbeards.

I challenge the big fighty guy with MRochallenge hoping to flank him on my turn with the lordpedo on turn two but the unit he is in gets boosted to toughness 8 with an IrF spell and I fail to kill enough to win combat and once again fail a ld test and the unit goes right past my lordpedo eventually into the other cannon. I had one chance to really even it up as both stegadons where in the path of my last cannon shot on the 4th turn but only manage to put 1 wound on the first one so no bounce and the rest of the game is sad as all I have left in the end is the Master engineer with one left in combat with some skinks.

Maybe it was karma or I made two big mistakes or was just down after the second game. I lost badly and should shave my head in shame. Anywho the guy who massacred me moved up to 3rd place and the dark elf player drops to 4th as he gets a major loss as well by a really nasty skaven army who maxed out in points the first two rounds so ends up with 70 points which is crazy since second place is 69 points. I ended up in 6th or 7th, but had a great time except the last round, the second round was a blast as it was an enjoyable battle since i was doing well even with my army separated. This isn't the most complete battle report but you get the idea of what happen and the results.