A friend of mine is taking an ethereal vamp list against dwarfs. are their warmachines automaticly magical attacks or do they need a certain rune. He hasn't got the internet at the mo so im asking for him
it's a rune, and the Dwarf player is probably taking it, even against BotWD HE's i believe it will be the better option. The Phoenix's are just worth shooting down in general and the rest of the army does not have any specific defense against magic. Against any other army, it's worth it, and if you're running specific lists, he's guaranteed to bring it.
IIRC ány rune makes it have magical attacks. All the Rune of Burning does is make the attack Flaming. It does not explicitly state that the war machine also has magical attacks. But since the runes themselves are magical, the shots coming out of the war machine are also magical. The Hunted
http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/topic/15888-runic-war-machines-and-magical-attacks/ That is from bugman's brewery regarding magic attacks on cannons, it answers the questions completely The hunted is right!