So this is my first time actually describing a battle with my friend, who plays those blasted shooty dwarfs. I tried to take as many pictures as possible and collected his army list so you could see what both sides contained and were up against... so here goes. The Beginning - Army Lists Dwarfs - General: Dwarf Lord w/ Sheild Bearers, shield and +75 Blackhammer (248 pts) Runelord w/ Balance +50 pts (190 pts) Thane BSB w/ Valaya (+100 pts) (190 pts) Thunderers x16 w/ shields (240 pts) GW Warriors x38 (horde) Full Command (405 pts) 19 Hammerers w/ Full Command (258 pts) 14 Slayers (172 pts) 1 Dragon Slayer w/ Alric the Mad (125 pts) So in summary his build was rocking a +4 to dispell magic denial including stealing one of my power dice in my WoM phase with some decent shooting and good melee to boot. I was getting wary of having to roll for IF just to get spells off in previous games so I decided this on was the time to throw a curve ball and force him to waste all those points put towards magic denial with what I call my "Harlem Globe Trotters" build loaded with heroes intent on melee domination. Lizardmen - General: Old Blood w/Armor of Destiny, Shield, Dawnstone, Burning Blade of Chotec, IC Icon (+4 Ward Save, rerollable failed armor saves) Hero Killer Old Blood: Shield, Glittering Scales (-1 to Hit) Sword of Bloodshed (+3 Atks for a total of 8) Saurus Scar Veteran BSB w/ Sun Standard of Chotec and GW. Saurus Scar Veteran w/ Lt Armor, Shield, Sword of Strife (+2 Atks) and Dragon Helm Saurus Scar Veteran w/ Sword of Striking, Enchanted Shield and Lt Armor Saurus Warriors x34 w/ FC 2x20 Skink Skirmishers Temple Guard x20 w/ Magic Standard of Swiftness Turn 1 After placing the terrain, I was relieved to find that I got to go first, as no matter what in the past, I always seemed to have to roll last and get my Lizard Tail handed to me in shooting phases turn 1. I was also happy I didn't have any Dinosaurs to make obvious targets. I wanted him to pay for destroying everything I love in the LM world with relative ease with this build, so forgive me if my lack of variety offends you. As for the Terrain, on my right was the Dwarven Brewhouse, making everyone within 6 inches stubborn while making Dwarves UNBREAKABLE and having to roll a Leadership Test to even move away from it. Good times, right? Basically much of the Melee happens within the side of the board, and I moved my horde and supporting TG to meet his,, while moving my skink skirmisher masses to his right flank. He sees my advance and moves up to make use of the Brewhouse, and strangely moves his general unit to ward off my skinks. I was unsure of this tactic because I was wondering why he would move his unit with a movement of 3 so far away from my Horde that contained all of my Heroes. He also shot at me a couple times with his Thunderers and War Machines, and fortunately I didn't lose anything substantial. The supporting TG used my Horde as a shield for as long as possible as with the BSB they were most well defended against all types of shooting. Turn 2 Here I attempted a long charge and failed against his horde and slumped forward with my own horde. I figured if I made it into CC turn 2, great, but if not, even slumping forward puts me in a much more viable range for turn 3. I moved my skinks around and attempted to tempt him to charge one of them so I could use the flee charge reaction tactic to get him out of the game as long as possible on the other side of the board. This picture is a compilation of his 2nd turn and my 3rd. His turn was the arrows marked in Blue here. He moves his slayers into the mystical forest to learn that it is the forest of venom, giving him poisoned attacks but forcing him to take dangerous terrain, which caused him to lose four models of that unit. He also failed a charge against my skinks that were closest to my deployment zone (which, according to the picture, was the group I had moved up to his flank on my turn marked in the Red Arrows) which was a big fail indeed (he would have succeeded on a roll of 5 or more.) His cannon misfired and rolled "May Not Shoot" for a turn (whew) and his grudge thrower killed three in my horde. I succeeded in my horde charge attempt and placed my TG in a way to challenge his Slayer unit that would inevitably charge my horde's flank. I took out a couple of his Iron Beards between the two skink groups with the ones that could fire against his generals unit in hard cover, having to hit on 7s, which for any who have tried it iit is comical to role so many dice just to see most if not all of them fail. On his 3rd Turn, He succeeded against charging my skinks with his general unit after my miserable flee charge reaction attempt. I was prepared for this to happen as anyone should be when they use a unit for flee misdirecting, still sad to lose an entire unit anyway. They at least got one wound on 7 to Hit against one of his Hammerers the turn before, which is awesome, right? In the shooting phase he ended up forcing my skinks to flee on the far left, which foiled my "run up on his war machines" plan. Bunch of CC, which didn't end well for his side. Fortunately for him regardless of how much I won by he would never run because of the Brewhouse. I ended up callenging his Dwarf Slayer with my Old Blood with 8 Atks shown below: Turn 4 to the end The end of the game is pretty much predicable from this point. I met his Slayers flank with my TG unit, reformed with my fleeing skinks, and started ending the CC vs the Horde and Slayer Units. This is the 5th turn after I cleared his two units on the right side of the board. He moved his Thunderers down to try and bolster his forces that he had left. I charged the flank of his thunderers to prevent use of Stand and Shoot and forced them to flee which is what you see off to the left of the above picture. I charged with my general to take out his Grudge Thrower, and his cannon was absent because he misfired again and rolled a 1 for destruction of the misfire chart. During his turn he charged my skinks, forced them to break and was able to move his unit into my TG. He succeeded in destroying my Temple Guard with his general unit, and the game ended with him in base contact with my skinks. It was a CC heavy game as you saw, so it wasn't the most exciting game. But it was nice to be able to play without my razordons eating my skinks on misfires and my slann killing himself when I should have won by a lot. It was also nice to force wasted points into anti-magic. Hope you guys enjoyed this post as it was my first battle report, and may your lizards always get to sunbathe on the rocks of victory.
You made the right choice with not taking a Slann because Dwarves can shut down your magic phase pretty hard if they take a rune lord but without the slann the TG are not stubborn making them not really warth the points over Saurus to I'd drop the TG to grab either more Saurus or maybe a Slamander Unit.
I see what you mean, but I basically took the TG unit for the extra magic standard and better armor save, in their case, Banner of Swiftness, because I wanted them to be a more viable support to my horde as far as moving around them when they needed to. The whole idea was to force his hand to target my horde as much as possible, as all the heroes were stacked in it that way I controlled the direction of the fight. It would have been cool to take a bunch more saurus but another issue is I lack the models But I appreciate your post! I have had limited luck with salamanders and razordons have done better for me against the dwarfs. Get those things in a building and you are in awesome shape with the charge defense (2 scatter dice on a stand and shoot woot!) and the ST 4 against the standard dwarf T 4 has played out better for me. I know the arguement with the -3 AS on the salamanders attacks but I always roll poorly and am lucky to score that many wounds anyway.
Well done! "Warfare is the art of deception"...going no-magic was a strategic victory to start with. I LOVED seeing that single horde filled with awesome characters. I was reading through, thinking, "What is he going to do with that Temple Guard unit stuck behind the Saurus?" And while the TG are generally not as good w/o Slann as the Saurus point-for-point, they filled the niche you needed. Well done!