1800 points unconventional Dwarves vs. Skaven

My first response was, where is BSB, but i see you are already on that case. Dwarves do not even have that great LD when compared to other races, undead, lizardmen, daemons, chaos all have it better.

I feel as if your blocks are a bit small, something like a bolt thrower will really hurt when you only have 20 hammerers/longbeards. Also, why do you not have a cannon? Seems like this list could struggle against good anti infantry monsters. How are you going to kill a Warsphinx, for example? No magic, no high density of attacks, no strenght 7 (your Runelord has 6, right?).

Thanks for the advice - we finished the game earlier this evening; we've got another tomorrow (now up to 3000 points!). I'll write a full report up probably next week, but it was a fun game and reasonably close. I stuck with the original list, despite its limitations. It was a fun experiment, but not a build I'd bring again.

Horace - the Ring was fun but as you say not really worth the points; the Valaya rune I consider essential as Westy always brings a Level 4, and I hate Skaven magic.

airjamy - while I have had some terrible experiences with Dwarf leadership, I'd disagree and say theirs is one of the best (obviously the unbreakable armies are best, and Lizardmen better) - I don't think the BSB is needed for them in smaller games, particularly with Longbeards' ITP/Old Grumblers and Hammerers' Stubborn. The blocks are small as aside from Thunderers, I don't have more than 20 models of any type, so I'm limited by that. In the future I'll probably get more Hammerers as they feel too fragile for a 20-dwarf unit. The lack of a cannon was felt - though the deployment of my bolt thrower didn't help (it wasn't up against any of the "big targets").

knoffles - this was the first time I wasn't hampered by the Storm Banner/Howling Warpgale all game, and my gyros were utterly useless! Too many targets were in combat, and I got some bad rolls.

I totally failed to write a battle report for either game   Possibly because I got smacked in both...

First game I was up against a large block of 80-ish Clanrats, a 20-rat block of Stormvermin, small units of Jezzails and Stormfiends, a Doomwheel, Warp Lightning Cannon and bloody Thanquol. I let Westy use End Times rules to fit Thanquol in, and he was also his rare allowance so he could try out the newly built Stormfiends plus use his two painted units (Doomwheel, cannon).

Highlights were using the spellbreaking runes to kill off the Dreaded 13th first turn, which got a loud cheer from me. The Stormfiends predictably turned up in the backfield but scattered from where I'd expected them - they combo-charged my Longbeards alongside Thanquol, which I unsurprisingly lost - but they then made the mistake of rear-charging the Hammerers (who were mulching the Clanrats at the same time) - the back rank of Hammerers smashed them to bits - a dismal end for the debuting Stormfiends.

I had some abysmal rolling - this was typical:





The Bolt Thrower actually managed to shoot a file of Stormvermin down, and then got charged by them - I blew it up but only managed to kill a couple of Stormvermin in the process. The Doomwheel destroyed the Quarrelers but afterwards misfired and careened off into the Arcane Ruins, blowing itself up. Thanquol killed the Runelord over a lengthy combat.

At the end, it was Thanquol, a few remaining Stormvermin and 20-ish Clanrats left against both Gyros (utterly useless) and a few Thunderers, so after some suicide charges from myself we called it.

I need to work out a way of dealing with those massive blocks of Clanrats, as they just wear down any of my 20-dwarf blocks they get into combat with - only Ironbreakers could probably hold out in a war of attrition, and one bad break test would see them run. Thanquol was a pain given my lack of cannon, and the Runesmith/Anvil while useful, didn't justify its cost. The Gyrobomber was a big disappointment, dropping duds everywhere.

Still, the second game went worse - he had 6 Stormfiends and I couldn't deal with them. Thanquol managed to hide from the cannon, and refused to go near my tooled up Daemon Slayer (he must have something against Slayers - can't imagine why), and my poor Hammerers got turned into rats.