So, I headed down to my local Games Workshop today to have my first proper Fantasy battle. I'd played a couple of 500pt gunline armies weeks prior just to get to grips with the basics of movement and the to-hit charts etc but this would be my first proper outing. Upon my arrival I found that most of the store was engrossed with a Saturday 40k Planetstrike something-or-other with the exception of the residing DoC player, who agreed to play me. I was a bit unsure as his army hadn't been beaten for a while and I'd heard some rather nasty things about DoC but I figured what didn't kill me would only make me stronger.

My army:

Thane with Battle Standard ( With Longbeards)
Master rune of Gromril
Rune of Resistance
Rune of Preservation

Thane with shield ( With Hammerers)
Rune of Cleaving
Rune of Snorri
Rune of Stone
Rune of Preservation

25 Dwarf Warriors + Shields
Full Command

19 Longbeards + Shields
Full Command
Rune of Battle
Rune of Stoicism

14 Hammerers + Shields
Champion + Standard
Rune of Courage

10 Thunderers + Shields

Bolt thrower + Engineer
Rune of Penetrating
Rune of Burning

Bolt thrower + Engineer
Rune of Burning

Organ Gun

His army:

Level 2 Tzeentch Herald ( With a unit of Horrors)
Level 1 Slaanesh Herald/Ninja ( 6 attacks, with a unit of Daemonettes)

10 Horrors
10 Horrors

15 Bloodletters

2x3 Swarms of Nurglings

15 Daemonettes

3 Beasts of Nurgle

5 Khornate Hounds

Both his casters had Flickering Fire, as did his Horrors.

Deployment was essentially me castling on the lower slopes of a hill in the bottom left hand corner of the table with my Hammerers detaching slightly to protect a weak flank and also to hopefully provoke some of his nastier units to come and eat them. One bolt thrower was on the far-right corner to get nasty flank shots and also to force him to move a unit to deal with it or lose 100VP's. He set up with his fast combat units screening his horrors with a gap inbetween so that he could get flickering fire off at me and set up 3 of his Nurgling swarms to deal with my bolt thrower on the far right. Terrain was fairly sparse overlooking the main battleground due to me castling on a hill with a clear plain of fire in front of it. He won the roll for first turn.

Turn 1

My opponent essentially moved everything forward, his Nurglings on the fire right burst out of the forest where they'd been hiding setting up a 2nd turn charge should I not deal with them. His flesh hounds, beasts, daemonettes, nurglings and bloodletters all charged forward, eager for bloodshed. His magic phase was uneventful with Flickering Fire being out of range and me dispelling a stupidity spell on my Longbeards.

I wheeled backwards with my Hammerers to gain a higher ground advantage and to prevent them being charged in the flank by Khornate Hounds and left my other two blocks as they were. A 2 followed by a 4 for my Organ Gun rolls saw a single unit of Nurglings being killed, whilst my bolt throwers both conspired against me and managed to accumulate a single wound on a beast between them. My Thunderers, showing the Engineers how it should be done, felled 4 daemonettes at long range, eliminating a rank bonus and threatening another.

Turn 2

His Nurglings on the far right charged my Bolt Thrower crew who passed their fear test and held, everything else in his army simply moved up and set themselves up for a turn 3 charge. His 3 Beasts and 5 Hounds were looking menacingly at my Hammerers whilst his Daemonettes and Nurglings looked set to give my Longbeards something to think about. The Bloodletters, penned in by the large amounts of units attempting to get into a small space were forced into the rear, waiting for the turn 3 charge so they could set themselves up for a charge against my large Warrior unit. Magic was slightly more successful this phase, with stupidity being cast on the Thunderers and 3 brave warriors falling to flickering fire from the Herald, everything else was dispelled/failed to cast. In combat my Bolt Thrower crew lost by one and automatically fled off the board, leaving 3 Swarms of Nurglings with a table quarter all to themselves.

My blocks of close combat troops braced themselves for the inevitable impact, praying to Grungni for the shooting to be more successful than the previous phase. My Organ gun started by blowing itself up and my Bolt Thrower with Penetrating missed the beasts at short range. Haha 🙁 . The Thunderers continued their proud tradition of being remotely competent and felled 3 more Daemonettes, leaving them with no additional ranks. Looking at the board at the end of turn 2, things looked bleak for the brave Dawi....

Turn 3

Charrrrrrrrge! Or rather....:BEAFOABEFOABFLKANF@KANF@KOANF, or however Daemons communicate! The Khornate Hounds and Beasts slammed into the front of the Hammers, leaving 3 Beasts and two hounds capable of attacking. The two remaining Nurgling swarms and the daemonettes with their scary close combat character charged into the Longbeards who thankfully passed their fear test. The two units of Horrors moved to get a clear line of sight to my unengaged Warriors and the Bloodletters looked set to pick up the blasted pieces. Valaya and Grungni were both with me in this turn, with successful dispels and poor rolling seeing only one Dwarf Warrior felled from magic! In combat, his beasts and hounds fluffed their attacks managing to kill only one hammerer between them and losing a hound and a wound from a beast in return. A respective 10 and 9 for instability checks saw all the Hounds banished to the nether, whilst his last beast clung on desperately with one remaining wound. My [warhammertag13]BSB[/warhammertag13] challenged his daemonette Hero who accepted, but with a 1+ re-rollable armour save, even the 4 wounds were easily mitigated and with the rest of his units failing to kill anything whilst suffering losses in return, plus my static combat res of 8, both units were swept off the table, their un-natural bodies dissipating into thin air.

The Dwarves responded with vigour, moving my Warriors forward and my Longbeards wheeling on an angle, leaving the Bloodletters the choice of charging either but being flanked by the other unit in turn 4. Shooting saw my bolt-thrower making a Blood-letter kebab of a full rank of 3 and the Thunderers dropping another 3, removing both rank bonuses before he charged. In combat the hammerers dispatched the beast and turned their eyes towards the Tzeentch sorceror and his retinue of Horrors.

Turn 4

Bellowing unearthly promises to Khorne, the bloodletters charged the Dwarf Warriors, blades raised high. Magic saw 3 Hammerers fall to the fell winds of Chaos. In combat, the Bloodletters attacked with fury, but their rage was met with cold Dwarven steel and the shield wall held firm. One bloodletter was struck down by the counter-attack and the unit was reduced to 2 as the magic holding the beasts together strained to stand against the willpower of the Dwarves!

My Longbeards and my Hammerer units both set at a full march towards the two Horror units whilst my Dwarf Warriors easily felled the last two bloodletters and stood there, a little bemused as to where the army of Daemons had suddenly disappeared to!

The rest of the battle consisted of ineffective Thunderer fire, a couple of turns of having my Hammerers reduced to a single model by flickering fire and the turn 6 combat that saw one unit of Horrors destroyed and the other reduced to less than 50%! With two Warmachines dead and a single unit reduced to less than 50% with equal table quarters being contested, a massacre result was declared in favour of the Dwarves!

My opponent was a gent throughout, explaining to me certain aspects of the game though he said that through watching other games and reading the rulebook I seemed to have a pretty good grasp myself! His army has been unbeaten for a while now so I think he'll relish the challenge of coming back and setting things straight with a field of Dwarven fallen.

Things I learnt:

Static combat res is fantastic, my SCR of 8 on the hill with my Longbeards was nigh untouchable throughout.

Shooting is over-rated.

Daemons are fast and strategic deployment is essential.

The Engineers guild are having a minor grudge recorded against them for supplying me with shoddy War-machinery.

A big thankyou to everyone who helped my create my list and taught me valuable lessons about Dwarves before I'd even played a game! I have a Warrior-Priest Empire army and a Lizardman army to face tomorrow, another write-up shall be done if there's any interest. 🙂