Hey all,

Sorry it's been a while, but I'm here with my first battle report for 8th. It wasn't my original intention to make this a batrep, so I didn't bring the camera. As a result it won't live up to some of the quality posts going up from Purpledtentacle, Dorack, and Chase (and others!) However, there were enough 8th edition shenanigans present that I felt it necessary to post up.

Wiley One was looking to get some pre-'Ard boyz practice in, so asked for a 3000 pointer. Now, 'Ard Boyz isn't exactly my cup of tea, but I'm sorely deficient on 8th edition experience, with only 3 games in, all against Warriors of Chaos.

I had to work with what I had, model-wise, though Wiley asked me to run with any proxies I wanted to make it "'Ard". Here's what I came up with:

Lord, shield, shieldbearers, MR of Steel, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation, MR of Challenge, Rune of the Furnace, Rune of Fire
Runelord, Anvil, 2 spellbreakers
Thane, BSB, Strollaz, Rune of Guarding
Thane, Rune of Stone, Great weapon
Dragonslayer, ragged pants
25 Warriors with shields, full command
25 Warriors with shields, full command
19 Longbeards, shields, full command, Rune of Determination, 2 Runes of Warding
10 Warrior Rangers, with veteran, musician, throwing axes
15 Hammerers, shields, full command, MR of Grungni
20 Miners, full command, steam drill
Cannon, Engineer, Rune of forging
Grudge thrower, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating, Rune of Burning, Engineer
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

I was facing

Mannfred, super-powered version, with items to get additional +2 dispel and cast (for a total of +6)
Wight King BSB, Regen banner
Vampire, Power stone, Knows all Lore of Light, Poss other things
Vampire, +2 Power dice, weapon skill hat, the book of more Van-Hels
20-ish skeleton spearmen, champ
20-ish skeleton spearmen
40 Ghouls, ghast
40 Ghouls, ghast
50 Graveguard, great weapons, full command, +1 to hit banner

This had 3 big horde units, and was designed to get the huge graveguard unit in, buff with vampiric lore and the hat, to a 2+ to hit, re-rollable, killing blow, strength 6 buzz saw.

Had to say, didn't like the matchup off the bat. Not a lot of point to Strollaz for this matchup, and I didn't see any good way of knocking down the grave guard, or even standing against them for too long.

We rolled a random scenario and came up with #2, Dawn Attack- with the random deployment. The middle of the board held a mysterious wooded hill, arcane ruins (building), and watchtower. Both deployment zones had hills, and a few more forests were scattered about.

Wiley was forced to deploy first, and advantage fell to me in the deployment phase. His rolls left one ghoul unit isolated, with his strength on my far left, including the massive grave guard unit with BSBon the extreme left. Manfred and the confused vampire that had studied Light magic went in to a skeleton block deployed centrally, with the last vampire in the fancy chapeau sitting in another skeleton bunker. I was able to put everything either on the right, or in the right edge of my center zone, creating a nice castle to watch the tidal wave of undead horde units come crashing in. My lord stepped in with the longbeards, bringing the expensive, fragile BSB with him, but forcing the BSB to the back ranks (ze cheeze, it eez so great!)

I felt OK about taking on the ghoul blocks with my warrior blocks- even better would be if I could make this happen in a building. My lord could also, if necessary make a solo stand against a big block- even the grave guard for a few turns as long as the BSB was around to yell encouragement. Another delaying tactic would be to work a situation where the graveguard had to assault a building, limiting them to 10 fighters instead of the 21 or so that would ordinarily fight one of my blocks.

My plan was to anvil and otherwise delay the grave guard or keep them out of the game at all costs, try to get the skeletons, and at least one of the ghoul units, and squeak a win.

Turn Strollaz

We Strollin'. They hatin'.... I decided to use Strollaz anyways, to move on the watchtower, and set up a situation where his ghouls would have to assault or go around. My dragon slayer entered the woods in the middle of the board, and found it to be a venom thicket, and I other wise tried to set up a situation where I could gang up on the

Turn 1

Vampires got the choice on anything but a 6, and so went first. Most of the units swung around to head towards my line, primarily for the artillery battery and anvil I had for some reason clustered together. Perhaps I was hoping to see just how appalling Purple Sun could be. With little else to do, we went to the magic phase. Snake-eyes would have meant a small magic phase, but 2x Master of the Dark Arts and a power stone gave him 8 dice. I dispelled a Van-Hels to keep things slow, and after some consideration burned a spell-breaker to stop shield of Pha (or whatever the protection from shooting Light spell is).

In my turn I occupied the watchtower and set rangers and warriors to flank charge ghouls if they chose to advance. The dragonslayer hung out in the woods, not wanting to move and take a dangerous terrain test, mostly happy with where he was at for delaying purposes. I also moved my units to force the enemy to advance through the venom thicket with the huge blocks, hopefully taking damage on the way in. The gyro buzzed over to get ready to unleash the steam gun next turn. I could have shot this turn, but it appears the steam gun can't be fired on the march. Boooo, I say. I got first blood, by blasting 7 of the isolated ghouls on my right (the ones getting trapped) with the organ gun. My grudgethrower misfired at Manfred's unit, but the engineer in the crew kept things safe. My cannon took the lame pot-shot at Manfred, but overshot slightly and just killed two skeletons. The anvil of course, slowed the graveguard apocalypse down.

Turn 2

The undead lines shifted a little more. The graveguard intended to move in to the arcane ruins, but with the anvil's wrath and ruin, were too slow. Yeah! Unimpressed with my shooting, most of the rest of the movement was a holding action, waiting for the grave guard, and planning on magic to rock my world.

Shortly after that, magic rocked my world.

The graveguard were Van Hel's into the ruins, which for some reason, I chose not to stop. Then Manfred decided to acquaint me with the boosted version of a little cantrip called Purple Sun of Ohnomydwarfs! With 6 dice, a double 6 popped up, preventing the dispel. I crossed my fingers for a misfire, but tragically, a 10 came up on the artillery, sending the orb of obliteration at my longbeards. My BSB dodged, but 10 of my longbeards and my general all bit the dust. The sun continued on and killed a few dwarfs out of the tower garrison before settling ominously between another block and the organ gun. Depressio!

The miscast was relatively lax, putting a strength 6 hit on every caster. Sadly, this only wounded Manfred's bunker-mate, the sparkling Light magic vampire.

Resolved to soldier on, and in possession of a desperate cunning plan to try to turn things around, I took my second turn.

My longbeards shuffled backwards, carrying their lovely purple statue of a dwarf lord with them. My miners arrived, and wandered towards the back of Manfred's unit, whistling nonchalantly. The rest of my movement involved flying the gyro for a prime steam blast on skeletons, and crossing my fingers.

9 dice generated in the magic phase, allowing me to dispel the Purple Sun of WTF?!. Not as satisfying as you might think.

And now, commence firing...

The lead off here was the grudgethrower, which made up for last turn with a direct hit, smashing 10. Better, the dreamy Light magic vamp was too busy moping to notice the stone and died too! Next up, came the gyro, with a blast that came up big, and killed the unit down to Manfred, the champ, and 2 skeletons. Which meant no look out sirs! Cue the cannon- direct hit on Manfred who doesn't have a ward, but, it turns out, has 5 wounds! The latest in Dwarven engineering managed to knock 4 of those off, which put it down to the miners. The anvil struck true, and sent them in for a rear charge (in barely, with a roll of 8). With great weapons and static combat res out the wazoo, the miners smoked the unit, and reformed to threaten the last vampire unit's flank.

Oh, revenge.

Wiley declared the game over, but after some talk, we continued on anyhow, as there wasn't time for another game.

With the assistance of an irresistable Van Hels from the book, the Graveguard unit were able to close in on my lines with a chance to turn things around. However, the timely sacrifice of the dragonslayer bought an extra turn of shooting, and by starting each phase with kills from the grudge thrower, I burned off regeneration and then laid in with everything (including grapeshot at one point). Somehow, I manged to kill them down to 10 plus the BSB by the time they made it to the hammerers, who with the help of my bargain basement thane, crumbled the unit in short order.

In the end, one unit of 30 ghouls remained, while the only actual VPs I surrendered were my lord and dragonslayer.

Dwarf win!

Tune in tomorrow for post-game thoughts, lessons learned, unit of the match, and other self-indulgent ramblings!