Hey all,

Relentless is back, and this time we brought pictures. I'm a little rusty, but hopefully we'll be back in the swing of things before long. Nick was looking to practice and test his potential Alamo list. I haven't committed to going yet, though I'd like to. Regardless, I needed to gin up a new all-comers, so I've got an unpainted war machine, and one proxy, as well as a list that still needs some work. Here's what it looks like (and as a side note, this is the first 8th list I've made that would have been illegal in 7th):

Dwarf Lord, Great Weapon, Shieldbearers, Runes of Stone, Preservation, Resistance on the armor, Rune of the Furnace, MR of Spite (so 1+ re-rollable, 4+ ward, 2+ ward vs. flaming)
Thane, BSB, Strollaz Rune, Rune of Guarding (free move pre-game for units in 12", 5+ ward)
Thane, Great weapon, Rune of Stone, MR of Challenge (3+ armor, force a non-ItP enemy to charge or flee)
Runesmith, Shield, Rune of Stone, 2 x Rune of Spellbreaking (3+ armor, 2 scrolls)
25 Warriors, shields, full command
25 Warriors, shields, full command
19 Longbeards, shields, full command, rune of determination, 2x rune of sanctuary (one break test on 1D6, MR 2)
10 Rangers, heavy armor, great weapon, veteran, musician
15 Hammerers, shields, full command, MR of Grungni (5+ ward vs. shooting, magic missiles)
12 Slayers
Cannon, engineer, rune of forging (re-roll artillery dice misfires)
Grudgethrower, Engineer, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Burning, Rune of Penetrating (re-roll scatter die, flaming attacks, +1 str)
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

I ran out of time to make the list, and at the last minute spent the last 25 points on making my general's great weapon magical and flaming. I'm sure there's something better, but it was easy. I've dropped the miners, as I feel like they need to be a bigger unit in 8th, and if they're going to be big, I should be using an anvil to get them involved. Of course, they would have been useful against:

The Goblin Protester Horde

Goblin warboss, shield
Night goblin big boss, BSB, propaganda
5 x Night goblin shaman, level 2, a variety of trinkets
8 x 20 Night goblins, spears, musician, 3 fanatics each
6 Bolt throwers
3 Rock Lobbas
2 Doom Divers

Nick has modeled all 160 night goblin spearmen with signs and has them protesting oppressive orc rulership. All the painted signs have a unique slogan thus far. Nuts!

We rolled Meeting Engagement, which has the diagonal deployment zones. Additionally, on a 1, each unit, character, or war machine is delayed and must walk on the long board edge at the start of any turn. I got to pick side, then deploy my entire army. Unfortunately, my BSB, MR of Challenge thane decided to go on a beer run. The gyro was also missing, hopefully giving those two a lift back to the battle. In a brilliant ploy, I cleverly "forgot" to deploy my dragonslayer at all, giving him a game off, and surely confusing Nick to no end.

I set up as you can see in the picture below, planning on making a run at the hill where I'm sure war machines were going to land. My slayers planned to run through the woods to stay safe from fanatics. Rangers would be sneaky and do the same after I saw where the goblins ended up.

Sure enough, the hill disappeared under the weight of goblin artillery piled up on top. The other blocks deployed to pour fanatics in to the avenue of my advance, and a secondary hill took both doom divers and another rock lobba. One block of goblins stayed off table, along with one very unlucky lobba crew, who would be carrying their machine on to the board.

Deployment:

Here's an alternate angle, included for reference since this is where most of my game pics came from.

So, the plan was to rush the doom divers and lobba on the left with rangers, and then use the rangers and slayers, to trigger fanatics. The rest would advance tight in to the MR of Grungni and hope for the best. War machines would counter-battery his artillery hill to reduce incoming fire as much as possible.

Turn Strollaz

Oh yeah, beer run. Nice timing BSB. You douche.

Turn 1

I had choice on anything but a 6, and mercifully I was good to go. I held the warriors ascending the Temple of Skulls back to allow my BSB and Thane to catch up. Everything else was a general advance, with the gyro moving in to support the rangers, and the organ gun trundling into range. The cannon justified investment in Rune of Forging by avoiding a misfire (first of four times this game). The shot was long but junked a bolt thrower. A nice 8th edition side effect for me here was that this forced a panic test on every machine on the hill. Unfortunately everyone passed the panic check. My grudge thrower dropped a perfect shot on a lobba, but it bounced off, getting a one to wound. 35 VP head start for me!

Got 'em on the back foot now!

We forgot to check for animosity, so the goblins welcomed a new rock lobba on to the hill and another 20 of night goblins (with 3 more fanatics, bringing the total to 24). Magic flubbed completely. The machines on my left tried to stave off the rangers by drifting doom divers back inside minimum range, but failed to score any hits, thanks to scatters and misfires. Worse for Nick, the lobba on Artillery Hill wrecked itself, meaning he had killed more of his army than I had. Other than that, I lost 5 warriors but sustained no other casualties.

Turn 2

Rangers and slayers charge either flank. The slayers fail their charge and release a handful of fanatics, unfortunately coming to a stop on one, and losing 7. The rest were safely in the forest, though. Rangers made their charge, easily, while the gyro hopped over the top of the woods to prepare to force early fanatic releases. Everyone else advanced again, getting ready to step in to the fanatic blender. The cannon smacked 2 wounds from a bolt thrower, and 1 from the newly arrived lobba. After some consideration, I emptied the organ gun at the damaged spear chukka to force more panic checks. This worked well, wrecking the chukk and silencing the lobba and one more chukka. Hand to hand was a heart warming affair- the rangers got to throw 7 attacks hitting on re-rollable 3s and wounding on 2s with each charge. They easily went through the first doom diver, and in to the next, and panicked the lobba just beyond.

Animosity pulled his general's unit forward, but otherwise had little effect. Fanatics zipped around, and crushed some more warriors, but losses were light. The three chukkas in operation (i.e. not destroyed or hiding under their machines) tried to counter-battery but all missed. Rangers kicked over another Doom Diver and carried on into the lobba, triggering fanatics who caused a wound on the gyro.

Turn 3

My slayers and warriors both charged night goblins on the right. Unfortunately, the warriors managed to stop on top of 3 fanatics. 6D6 hits later, I was lucky to still have 5 warriors in the unit. On the plus side, they passed panic, so I had 5 warriors and 5 slayers left to take out those 60 goblins. My lord hopped over to the hammerers while the longbeards tip toed around fanatics.

For shooting, I decided I would use the turn to try the shooting combo trick I picked up last game since his general had animositied forward into sight of my cannon. It worked nicely, blasting down the goblin unit to shaman, musician, goblin, and warboss using organ gun, gyro, and grudgethrower. The cannon did its weird assassination thing and spread the warboss across the rest of his goblins. The three other goblins in the unit decided to go protest orc oppression to better listeners and started running for it. The other goblins were unimpressed and chanted squeaky slogans.

Rangers kicked over the lobba, which was apparently scarier than utter shooting decimation and sparked panic through other goblin units. Unfortunately they finally bit off more than they could chew with a 10" overrun that killed all but the veteran, who panicked, turned around and ran right back through another fanatic, ending his days. I was really disappointed and wanted to see him try the 1 vs. 20 matchup he was about to charge in to.

On the right, it turned out 6 to 1 odds were just fine, and though enthusiastic goblin spearmen killed 3 slayers and a warrior, they lost and broke, panicking the rest, and running off the board.

Wrap-up

Things were about over at this point. Lord and hammerers charged the artillery hill and took a counter charge in the flank from two full goblin units. They only caused 2 casualties, and return attacks dropped both units below stead fast, and put them on snake eyes, wrapping things up by the bottom of 4th. There was one entertaining moment where the last shaman got an irresistible Mork Wants Ya off, and tried to pulp my general, but I passed initiative to everyone's disapointment (including mine, actually- this would have been a great entry into my "Ways my lord has died in 8th log").

Goblins have had enough...

Dwarf victory

And now, my friends, it's late. The post-game, such as it is, arrives tomorrow. Thanks for reading!