(Taken from my thread on the 9th age website, for all you none believers that dwarves can't do well in tournaments)

This coming weekend I attended a rather large GT in the states called Brawler Bash. It was the first big tournment from my region, and I of course, brought the dwarves out to play. They are known far and wide in my region as being hard as nails to beat...and with that...well...yeah some people were upset. Here is the list I took:

Dwarf King, Bruenor Bronzehammer:
Dwarf Shield Bearers, Shield, Rune of Shielding x3, Rune of Might x2, Rune of Destruction 310
Battle Standard Bearer, Durak Oathkeeper:
Shield, Rune of Bronze, Rune of Iron x 2, Rune of Might, BSB 188
Runic Smith, Dagna Alricsdaughter:
Shield, Rune of Iron, Rune of Devouring, 3 Rune Spells: Rune of Metal, Rune of Resilenace, Rune of Reckoning 127
Runic Smith, Ragna Stouthammer:
Great Weapon, Rune of Denial, 3 Rune Spells: Rune of Gleaming, Rune of Oaths, Rune of Resilence 121
Engineer, Ulric Thunderbringer:
Pistol 69
Marksmen, Sureshot Stunties:
16 Troops, Standard, Musician, Crossbows, Great Weapons 260
Greybeards, Grungi's Grumblers:
29 Troops, Full Command, Great Weapons 446
Ironguard, Grudgemakers:
21 Troops, Full Command 314
Steam Copter, Silver Lightning:
Forge Repeater 80
Steam Copter, Golden Thunder:
Forge Repeater 80
Field Artilley - Cannon, Big Bertha:
Engineer Runes 115
Field Artillery- Cannon, The Gorbechav:
Engineer Runes 115
Tunnel Artillery - Organ Gun, The Duece:
Flaming Shot 130
Tunnel Artillery - Flame Cannon, Soot-Shot:
Engimeer Runes, Rune Struck 145
Total Cost: 2500

Thoughts on the list:
To be quite frank, this is a hard as nails list to play, but it comes at a steep cost. this is the kind of list that I feel is almost impossible to beat in a straight up fight. Between all the combat troops and the artillery to back it up, coming straight at this list when castled (and it is castled quite often) is usually a death sentence. Plus, the flame cannon was 18 inches of no fly zones, because, let's be honest, it cuts through infantry and monstrous infantry like butter. Warm, warm butter. The trade off is I lack the power of mobility (which is not 100% true, but I often lack the ability to chase down opponents using Calvary or fliers, just no way the stout legs can catch them). So my match up depends on how well my opponent thinks they can deal with this list, or how well I feel that I can move forward. Here is a brief summary of my games.

Game 1: Kingdoms of Equitaine
This game was against quite a nice chap. He played two trebs with 3 units of knights of the realms with all sorts of assorted characters. He drew a short stick running into my stubborn onslaught of dwarves, but after a few rounds of ineffective shooting (seriously, the lady did not like lead from the organ gun) the longbeards made a long charge on his unit with one of his more killy lords. This enabled me to grind them down a bit (and it was seriously a grind, because this was a 3/4 round combat. His other bus happened to charge me as well, which was then promptly charged by lord's bus in the flank. Needless to say, greybeards died to a man, but so did the rest of his army (his general had to issue challenges when he charged me in the rear, and my lord ate him for breakfast). Besides my gyros and the greybeards, everyone else walked away clean from this, and Khaz-a-Dron walked away with a massive victory.

End result 23 - 1 Dwarves

Game 2: Orcs and Goblins
This was a game where I played a genleman named Gene. Gene hates me. I don't know why, but he does. he does not like me or my list. He is an excellent chap, but for some reason despises being on the other side of a gunline.

This was diagonal deployment, and I got to go first. Because of his tricky goblin shenanigans, he set it up so I had no good corner to hide in. So I hunkered down on the center line and went about my work. He had a giant spider with a goblin lord that I promptly dealt seven wounds to (great first volley of cannon fire). Needless to say the spider took the high road and ran for the hills (no literally, it ran for the hills and hid behind them). His spider riders were trying to flank my cannons, and my gyrocopter decided to play footsie with them.

Gene got the better of me for most the game, until I started to put the pressure on him with my units of combat blocks. It was a brutal and menacing task, but I finallybacked him up so he decided to charge my Deep Watch. Now here is the problem. They stuck. They stuck a lot. Even though I was miasmaed (minus 3 WS!!!) I managed to hold the lines with only a few casualties.

And funny story about a brick of 30 longbeards 7 wide. With hatred. Yeah, that's right. He had a good chunk of gnashers try and bite them down. They did 1 wound out of 15 or so attacks. Longbeards did 11 out of 13 wounds. Yeah, plus the extra ranks meant the orcs were no longer steadfast. He brok, his orcs ran 7 inches, I ran 11 inches for a huge point swing on the top of 6.

End Result 19 - 5 Dwarves

Game 3: Pansy...er...Highborn Elves
So yeah, on table 2 now (no clue how that happened) and i played a high elf player. This was 6 turns of him hiding. No coming out for anything. He tried to pick off a few war machines, he barely succeeded. I picked off a couple of bolt throwers and units of elves. All in all, the game took about 45 minutes max. He got objective points and I didn't.

(PS it was a smart play, as two cannons and a unit of 8 great eagles meant that he wouldn't be able to move about freely. He could have rushed my lines, but in all lielyhood it would have been bad)

End Result 14 - 10 High Elves

Game 4: Return of the Cowards...er...Highborn Elves
Yeah, very similar game. This one was a bit different though. I stayed put he stayed put, and at the end of the game I tried to claim an objective and it cost me the game. Even with a fairly strongly buffed unit of long beards the sword masters burned through them. was my misplay, as I forgot he still had a damn great eagke to redirect me. was so very dumb of me.

(My opponent played a very careful and fantastic game. I have nothing but respect for his tactics. He did what I have done many times, he capitalized on my mistake, and in the end, that's what wins games, is not how you roll but how you pay attention to the strategy of your opponent, and if they make a mistake you crush them).

End result 17 - 8 High elves

Game 5: Damn it Empire...
So if you have read the battle report above you will know how this goes. I played my mate Joel, and we had done a bunch of practice games together with our lists. Now we were playing on table four round 5. Yeah...it was not pretty. His list ran into the brick wall that was the dwarves, trying to claim glory for the umgi, but in the end meeting only defeat. My magic was on fire, my longbeards were detemined to prove their mettle, and everything he did ended poorly. It was a horrifying win for the dwarves, where litterally everything did not go his way

End Result 25 - 3 Dwarves

Overall Results:
I placed 5th overall and won 2nd best general (thanks to a generous helping with my paint score I finished well). I will post my thoughts on the units tomorrow, as well as post some of the lists that I will be trying in v.99.

For all those who are still fighting the good fight, whether against umgi, orcs, rats, gobbos, or elves, have one on my tab.