The Triple Crown GT
Recently I participated in my first ever Warhammer tournament. I’d always had in my mind a negative view of competitive events, full of people who prioritise winning over making friends and having fun. However, being part of the UK facebook group over the last year and interacting with people online had made me realise that the WFB 8th community here are an awesome bunch of people so I was keen to put some faces to the names and meet everyone. And I was not disappointed. There were of course people who had designed their armies with one thing in mind – winning the tournament, but everyone was there to have fun and as far as I know there were no arguments or big disagreements. The whole weekend was full of laughs and all of my games were played in good spirit.
Sitting in traffic on the M1 on the way to up to Derby I thought to myself someone at Triple Crown Wargaming must have had a wry smile on their face when they paired me with Wood Elves for the opening game. According to the opening pairings I would be the only Dwarf player at the tournament and I was bringing what in my opinion was quite a ‘fluffy’ list with blocks of dwarf warriors and slayers. The one army I feared the most, apart from the obvious ‘broken’ list combos which I will talk about later, was Wood Elves because they rely on a very similar strategy to mine – holding back, getting a big shooting phase and engaging in combat only when necessary.
Here is what I took:
+ Heroes +
Master Engineer [81pts]: Great Weapon
. Ancestral Heirlooms and Runes: Rune of Stone
Runesmith [101pts]: Great Weapon
. Ancestral Heirlooms and Runes: Rune of Spellbreaking (1st rune), Rune of Stone, Rune of the Furnace
Runesmith [141pts]: Great Weapon
. Ancestral Heirlooms and Runes: Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Iron (1st rune), Rune of Spellbreaking (1st rune)
Thane [156pts]: Great Weapon
. Battle Standard Bearer: Master Rune of Grugni
+ Core +
Dwarf Warriors [330pts]: Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer
. 30x Dwarf Warrior: 30x Great Weapons
Dwarf Warriors [330pts]: Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer
. 30x Dwarf Warrior: 30x Great Weapons
+ Special +
Bolt Thrower [55pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew
Bolt Thrower [55pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew
Bolt Thrower [55pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew
Cannon [150pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew, Rune of Burning, Rune of Forging
Grudge Thrower [130pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Forging
Gyrocopter [80pts]: Steam Gun
Slayers [262pts]: Giant Slayer, 19x Slayer, Standard Bearer
Slayers [264pts]: Giant Slayer, Giant Slayer, 18x Slayer
+ Rare +
Flame Cannon [165pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew, Rune of Forging
Organ Gun [145pts]: 3x Dwarf Crew, Rune of Accuracy
++ Total: [2,500pts]
2500 points on the nose. If anyone’s interested I did a video of my army before the tournament and talked about my selection a bit:
youtu.be/A5PTpubmDSINot sure if I’ll do anything with the YT channel btw. It would be cool to do some battle reports Oncebitten style but I have to get into the habit of taking more photos during a game. (And apologising to my opponent that I’ve got my phone in my hand every turn!)
Game 1 vs Nick’s Wood Elves
As I suspected, Nick was also dreading this opening matchup for much the same reasons as I was. With a ‘shooty’ army, any opponent who has the propensity to outshoot you must be respected.
From what I can remember he took the following: 4 units of 10 Glade Guard with trueflight arrows, a lvl4 on unicorn (using a very cool converted giant wolf model), 24 Eternal guard as a bunker for a second lvl4 and a bsb(?), 2 eagles, 2 units of 5 wardancers, and 2 units of 7 wild riders. I think there was also another lvl2 kicking around because I remember Nick having an epic amount of spells. I want to say lore of Shadow, lore of High magic and I think lore of Dark magic too (?) but hey it’s all sorcery to me.
Things started off well for the Dwarfs as I quickly shot his Wild Riders to pieces before they could get in a frenzied charge and hack me to bits, however as the game went on I quickly realised that I should have changed my tactics for this game quite fundamentally. The first clue was after the Wood Elves got the first turn he didn’t move his Eternal Guard at all. However, I stuck to my ‘castle’ strategy and focused my shooting on the immediate threats – Eagles and Wild Riders. I had some success but it was the Glade Guard that were the real threat and it soon became apparent that I wouldn’t win the shooting war after all and would have to advance to get into close combat. The slow pace of the Dwarfs and the ability of the glade guard to move and shoot without any penalties with their trueflight arrows was too much Nick was able to grind out a 13-7 victory.
This was my first game against Wood Elves and I learned a good lesson. Next time I will abandon the usual castle strategy and just march all my Dwarfs forward on turn 1. That will force the wood elves to choose whether to shoot my units or shoot my war machines. If I stay put then the decision is made for them..
Game 2 vs Scott’s Warriors of Chaos
A quick pizza lunch and on to the second game, this time against Warriors of Chaos, which was much more within my comfort zone. Scott had brought a very fluffy army with mostly Khorne units with only one Lvl 2 sorcerer. He had a Daemon Prince of Khorne, 2 chariots, 1 gore beast chariot, a block of Khorne warriors with halberds, a block of marauders, skullcrushers, dragon ogres and a Chimera. I’m not sure I will ever get around to making a WoC army but if I did I would definitely take Marauders – they are a bit weak in the game but very cool.
This list was quite similar to the warm up games I played with David and so I fancied my chances. The scenario was Watchtower, using a hill instead of a tower, and controlling the hill gave an extra 500vps instead of an auto win. This was a much more enjoyable game for me as I was able to play my usual style. The Daemon Prince was cannon balled on turn 2 – hurrah! But the game went down to the wire. There was very little left on the board at the end of the game. The Chimera became the MVP for the Chaos army by single-handedly destroying my entire left flank, surviving the full arsenal of shooting – cannon balls, rocks and bolts just bouncing off it, taking out several war machines, using its breath weapon template all over my slayers before finally dying around turn 4. The Khorne warriors with halberds hit very hard but overall I found them much easier to deal with than the last lot of I fought - Nurgle warriors with sword and board.
Apart from the slaying of the Daemon Prince, the highlight of the game for the Dwarfs was getting a good round off from the organ gun into the marauders in turn 5 forcing them to flee from their position on the hill and denying Scott that crucial 500vps and it finished 11-9 to the Dwarfs.
Game 3 vs Tim’s Dark Elves
I approached the final game on the Saturday a little light headed as I hadn’t eaten a whole lot during the day and I was beginning to lose my voice talking over all the background noise in the packed venue. This was actually the first time I had played 3 games of Warhammer in one day! However, this turned out to be the most enjoyable game of the weekend as it was really back and forth right to the end. Tim brought a list very similar to the other dark elf players that weekend: Morathi on dark Pegasus, around 10 dark riders, 10 warlocks, 20 or so dark shards, 20 executioners, 2 bolt throwers and the obligatory horde of witch elves with the cauldron of blood..
Although I didn’t realise it at the time I had spoken to Tim a couple times before online. He is a very experienced player and each time I was pondering a decision he would give me information and advice on my options. This was much appreciated at the time, mainly because I was tired(!) but I think if we play each other again I may ask him not to help me as I do enjoy thinking through my options myself. Tim had knicknames for all his units which I thought was cool – ‘Brolocks’ and ‘Execs’ were the ones that I remember!
For the third time today I failed to get first turn and the Dark Elves descended onto the dwarf lines so fast it was terrifying. I had to thin out those ranks of witch elves to have any chance of surviving that unit. There was no avoiding it. On turn 2 Morathi charged into my flame cannon and miscast a big purple sun which ripped through the bulk of my army. It was devastating. 3 out of 4 of my units were decimated and I lost my organ gun and flame cannon. After this I honestly thought the game was over and I suspect so did Tim. However, on Dwarf turn 2 the remaining unit of Dwarf warriors led by my general charged Morathi who elected to flee and they rolled an 11 and cut her down! This lifted my spirits a bit and made the rest of the game much more exciting as I felt I still had a chance.
I wish I had taken more pics of the game because it was really tense at times. The other highlights were 3 bolt throwers all hitting the executioners and each bolt going through 4 ranks of elves thereby killing 12 of them, and finally the icing on the cake – I think it was turn 5 when I managed to break the witch elf horde and run them down. It finished 11-9 to the Dark Elves and I was amazed at how well the Dwarfs held their own against a tough match up.
Game 4 vs Michael’s Daemons of Chaos
This was the first game of day 2 and it was live streamed on the Triple Crown facebook page. If you are interested I recommend skipping the first 25mins as the stream starts before the game begins.
www.facebook.com/thetriplecrownguys/videos/813346866030298/This was another really enjoyable game of Warhammer. Michael’s army is a really beautiful Slaanesh Daemon army with lots of chariots and a lovely mono colour scheme. I was terrified of the speed of the army but after rolling a 6 for the ancestral grudge I knew I was in for a chance.
The roll off for first turn was so crucial because the Keeper of Secrets was deployed right on the line and had the capability of marching a huge 20” right up to my lines and bubbling cacophonic choir on turn 1. Fortunately, after two re-rolls, the Dwarfs got first turn and the cannon and grudge thrower blasted the beast back into the warp whence it came!
Despite some worrying moments of devastating impact hits from all the chariots, the Dwarfs held on for a final score of 16-4. The hatred worked wonders for me in that game and it was nice to get a bit of luck with the first turn and a good grudge to settle.
Game 5 vs Mark’s High Elves
The final game of the tournament was against an army that I had seen pics of beforehand – a terrifying spectacle if ever there was any: A horde of 38 white lions with Alarielle, 2 frosthearts, archers, spearmen, 2x shadow warriors, 2x reavers, 2x bolt throwers.

The first 3 turns actually went well for the Dwarfs. I managed to pick up a few points by eliminating the reavers, archers and one of the frosthearts. I managed to hold up the white lions on turn 3 and get a double charge into the spearmen and they broke. I gambled by choosing to chase with both units, my general’s unit and one unit of slayers, that I could get out of the front arc of the white lions but alas - the spearmen got away and I didn’t manage to pursue far enough. From turn 4 onwards they then proceeded to take out my big units one by one.
It finished 15-5 to the High Elves, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable game. Mark took lots of photos during the game so I am expecting him to do a mini battle report himself.. Unfortunately I never really had an answer to the deathstar. I started to thin it down with the bolt throwers and the gyrocopter steam gun but most of my war machines were runed and therefore couldn’t get past the 2+ ward. I considered taking some un-runed war machines for this very purpose but without experience of tournaments I thought to myself why tailor my list for one specific High Elf list that I may not even come up against.. how wrong I was!
Final thoughts
I came 16th out of 34 players which I think isn’t bad for my first attempt! I played against HE, DE, WE, WoC and DoC so no one can say I had it easy haha. The next competitive tournament I do I will think very purposefully about how to deal with the ‘cheesy’ lists - the white lion horde, the witch elf horde and the wall of nurgle which I managed to avoid this time around…
I think the slayers performed well and I enjoy playing with them. They do surprise people when the death blows kick in and they get loads more attacks. I think they definitely have a place in a competitive list but perhaps not two blocks of 20 as I had this time around. I want to try taking some elite units instead of just warriors and slayers and also play test a second gyrocopter and maybe even a dwarf lord..
All in all it was a fantastic event which I will definitely do again. The best takeaway for me was meeting people who live in London who want to get more games in!
Next stop Colchester..