Anton's Army of the Eight Peaks

Turn 2: Alliance
We started our second turn by rolling for the Storm Banner and our alliance. The storm raged on and the alliance started to deteriorate. I then moved on to my 13 start of turn tests.


This turn things got worse as a small rebellion broke out in the ranks. Not one, but two mobs decided this was a good time to attack Skarsnik’s own Crooked Moon gigamob. By the time order was restored, 13 Night Goblins lay dead. More importantly, those three units would not be moving this turn.


On my left, I charged Mother into a unit of Irondrakes. Better get her in combat as soon as possible as I couldn’t count on the Storm Banner protecting her from the Cannons next turn.


On my right, not much happened as Heinz the Colossal Squig was one inch short of reaching the tower and the Squig Hoppers didn’t roll high enough to make contact either. I moved the Squig Herd out of the Watchtower, knowing I could garrison it with some less important Night Goblin mob later.
Rocky the Great Idol rallied behind the reassuring masses of Night Goblins. Now I just had to manoeuvre him back into the fight without charging my own units by mistake.


The Clanrats flanked the Rangers who had driven off the Doomwheel, while the wheel itself managed to rally.


A somewhat blurry overview of the relief force. You can see how the leading unit of Ironbreakers has suffered heavily from shooting, but the Abomination didn’t quite reach their flank. Behind them are Thorgrim and his 50 gold-armoured Hammerers.


On the other side of the battlefield, the Verminlord charged the Longbeards while the Clanrats pushing the Screaming Bell failed their charge against a unit of Marksmen led by Josef Bugman.

The Grey Seers and Verminlord put the Dwarfs through another tough magic phase, drawing out two Runes of Spellbreaking. Our shooting was largely stopped by the storm, but one Spear Chukka managed to hit on an 8+ and kill 5 Ironbreakers with a flanking shot.

The Verminlord killed a number of Longbeards, but couldn’t break them. Likewise, the flanked Rangers held against the Clanrats and the Irondrakes held against Mother, who decided to Grind the Bones of one of their number. While horrible to behold for his kinsmen, it meant her attack could only kill one model.

Turn 2: Dwarfs
To our great relief, the Dwarfs also failed to stop the effects of the Storm Banner.


Belegar’s Dwarfs largely stayed in place, his grounded Gyrocopters sheltering behind a house while I show my brother how to roll high distances for my Fanatics.


Fafnir’s bane. The lone Dragon Slayer tried to charge the Night Goblins in front of him, but came to a quick end as a huge iron ball crushed his skull. A large unit of Clansmen also charged the Hell Pit Abomination in the flank while Thorgrim’s Hammerers and Ironbreakers kept marching towards the Keep as fast as their short legs would carry them.

Thankfully most of Thorgrim’s artillery failed to fire due to the Storm Banner, but one Doom Wheel and one Lobba were destroyed. Belegar’s guns inflicted 5 wounds on Colossal Heinz.

Mother grabbed the Thane leading the Irondrakes and flung him off the table, presumably aiming for her swampy lair far away. She then went on to stomp four Dwarfs to death, but they remained steadfast.

The Clansmen charging the Abomination were in for a shock as the beast killed 10 of them and took only 1 wound in return. The flanked Rangers held, as did the Longbeards fighting the Verminlord, but their numbers were dwindling.

Sounds brutal, a lot of dead bodies

Turn 5: Alliance

Now was the time to go for Thorgrim’s throat. Thanks to the Abomination taking the cannon fire, and a Quarreller unit lined up perfectly for an overrun, I charged with Rocky. Thorgrim made the second mistake of standing and shooting with them rather than fleeing, which meant that I would get an overrun into the flank of the Hammerers. If he had fled, I could have redirected, but the risk of a failed charge would have been much greater.


My Squig Gobba, having previously killed its handlers in an intestinal explosion, broke its bonds and charged the weakened Dwarf horde in front of it (pictured above before the charge). Seizing the opportunity, Snotmug’s Gigamob (to the right in the picture) charged in alongside it to back it up with some numbers.

The Trolls stupidity-charged the Tower and the Squig Herd charged the last two Slayers. The Verminlord ignored the Dwarf fighting units and charged the Organ Gun.

In the Magic Phase I managed to get another boosted Curse of the Bad Moon off, this time with irresistible force. A dozen Dwarfs died, but the Miscast killed the Squig Gobba and several Night Goblins. Now my Gigamob would fight the Dwarf Horde without its monstrous 3D6 S6 attacks plus stomp. The Dwarfs were down to a single rank though, while I still had 5.

Also, the Screaming Bell hit all war machines again, taking out most of the remaining Dwarf machines and reducing me to a single Spear Chukka. None of the Skaven weapons were T7+ though and they continued to hit Belegar’s tower and Thorgrim’s Hammerers with all sorts of template weapons.


Predictably, Rocky stomped the Quarrellers into a bloody paste and overran into the Hammerers’ flank.


Snotmug’s Gigamob performed surprisingly well, killing all the remaining Dwarfs with their spears. Skalf, the Thane leading them, grimly fought on alone, cursing Snotmug for not daring to face him in a challenge.


The Trolls failed to kill the Irondrakes in the tower, but the Squigs killed the last two Slayers. The Skaven Warlord with Fellblade killed Bugman. Very few models remained in either unit in that fight, and still they would not break.

Turn 5: Dwarfs
A Clansman unit charged Heinz (who had failed to reach the flank of 4 rallied Irondrakes). Those same Irondrakes and those in the tower together killed another 2 Trolls.


Rocky smashed into the Hammerers, killing 6 with Impact. Then the Hammerers made way for their king, who wounded the animated statue once. Since the Rogue Idol had Killing Blow and the Armour of Skaldour provides a 2+ Ward save against such attacks, I didn’t have high hopes for Rocky’s normal attacks, but I got lucky. I rolled 2 killing blows, Thorgrim failed a save and the High King was dead.


Rocky then proceeded to thunderstomp the unit until only the Battle Standard Bearer and a single Hammerer remained. These last 2 brave Dwarfs held their ground.


The Old Guard could have come to the aid of the Thane Skalf, but only at the cost of moving through a Fanatic, so they instead charged a small cottage filled to the chimney with Night Goblin archers. They quickly panicked and went for the back door when the Longbeards came knocking.


Thorgrim’s deployment zone was almost empty now. Just a single War Machine, the Anvil and a lone Engineer remained. The lone Thane Skalf finally got to fight Snotmug. They wounded each other once each, but as they fought, Snotmug’s cronies surrounded the brave Dwarf and stabbed him in the back, and he was overwhelmed.

In the Keep, Heinz died quickly to the charge and the fight between the Screaming Bell and Quarrellers somehow ended with only the bell itself still standing. I don’t know exactly how this came about as I was working out my own combats as they fought, but all the Dwarfs, all the Clanrats, the Warlord and the Grey Seer were dead.

Holy Cow! The Dwarfs got crushed it seems. Which player won the ... looks like the Gobbos....

Did Queek ever kill King Belegar??

Endgame: Turn 6 to 8
I don’t have enough pictures of the last 3 turns to do them turn by turn, and I would probably mix things up anyway, so I’ll just do it picture by picture to capture the main events. It should be noted that due to the death of their High King, all Dwarfs were now Frenzied, and the results of some of the remaining combats would show just how lethal the combination of Frenzy and Hatred can be.


The Ironbreakers had started to get too close for comfort, and with a Dwarf King with shieldbearers leading them they were still a force to be reckoned with, so Queek had turned both his own bodyguard and his Battle Standard Bearer with Clanrats to face them the previous turn. When the time came to charge, I agreed to support them with a flanking charge with a unit of 30 archers. However, both the treasonous Skaven units failed their relatively easy charges while my Night Goblins completed theirs! In the ensuing combat, the Night Goblins killed nothing while the Ironbreakers killed enough goblins to make the combat a draw.

In the Dwarfs’ turn, the lone Thane Helga charged the Clanrats with BSB in the rear, killing four, but they held. At least they would not be joining the combat against the Ironbreakers.


It was finally time for Skarsnik to join the fray himself. Since the closest tower was now only garrisoned by a handful of Irondrakes, he led the charge personally. The Trolls reformed and the Squigs turned to face Belegar’s tower. The Irondrakes proved too tough even for Gobbla though, inflicting two wounds on Skarsnik and pushing the hated foe out of the tower.


My deployment zone is almost emptied, War Machine batteries destroyed by the Screaming Bell. The big archer unit has just finished off an annoying unit of 30 Miners I forgot to write about earlier. They finally fled, but before it did it ran down 50 Night Goblins, destroyed a Pump Wagon and absorbed the hits of 4 Fanatics.

To the left, you can see the Old Guard, having killed Mother and two Pump Wagons, driven my archers out of the building and now in combat with what remains of Snotmug’s Gigamob. They would add Snotmug’s banner to their collection as well before the battle was over, but they were too far away to affect the outcome of the battle.


Belegar’s reserves were his Ironbreakers and a Runelord. Fuelled by Frenzy and Hatred, they charged the Verminlord, and to everyone’s surprise the Runelord killed it. It turned out dad had tooled the Runelord rather more offensively than most people would.


As Queek charged with the Ironbreakers, my own schemes were coming to fruition. I had moved my last intact mob out of the watch tower and stopped 8.5” from the Dwarfs, but now I moved them closer. Since the mob carried 2 Fanatics, I had the chance of both hurting the Ironbreakers and getting closer to my secret objectives of ‘accidentally’ destroying a Skaven unit as well as getting Queek killed. Thanks to the archers fighting the Ironbreakers, I didn’t have to roll very high to reach the targets, and both Fanatics went through all 3 units. 7 Ironbreakers fell, but only 3 Stormvermin.


In the combat phase, the Stormvermin ineptly failed to kill even a single Ironbreaker. Queek fought the Dwarf King and wounded him twice, but the Frenzied Dwarf retaliated, killing Queek. The Ironbreakers, also Frenzied, killed several Stormvermin, but they still had the advantages of Steadfast and a Battle Standard Bearer nearby, so they held. My Night Goblins did not, however, and their flight panicked the larger, undamaged mob behind them.

It was clear that the Ironbreakers would destroy the Stormvermin soon, but fortunately Rocky was now in range (he had failed one charge the turn before as he has to try even if he’s unlikely to make it) and made the 16” charge. His Impact and Stomp would destroy Ironbreakers as surely as Hammerers. To make matters even worse, one of the Fanatics came back through the Ironbreakers once more, reducing their numbers further even before Rocky’s attack. Sure enough, the Ironbreakers were wiped out, but the Stormvermin were blocking Rocky’s path to the Keep.

Helga went on to kill all the Clanrats and their Battle Standard Bearer, and in a final act of hatred and defiance she charged Rocky, who unceremoniously crushed her under one massive foot. Rocky was then again blocked by the Stormvermin (and unfortunately for me, he didn’t roll a ‘1’ to accidentally charge them), but then my brother graciously suggested that he should move them onto a Fanatic so that Rocky could make a 16” move towards the keep. I couldn’t believe my luck as my rival completed a second secret objective for me. The last of the Stormvermin fell and Rocky was free to move.

Meanwhile, Thanquol got another Dreaded 13th Spell off, this time against Belegar’s unit. After several turns of killing Hammerers, they were now weakened enough that Belegar and his last men were transformed into Skaven.


On his second attempt, Skarsnik took the tower as Gobbla ate the last of the Irondrakes. The Ironbreakers and Runelord had overrun the Verminlord and flanked the Squig Herd, so I flanked them in turn with Trolls. Since I hadn’t arranged the bases properly in the herd after taking casualties, it turned out all the Frenzied Dwarfs were in contact with herders, and not surprisingly they killed them all. The resulting carnage of wild Squigs and Troll attacks wiped out the Ironbreakers though, and the Trolls had safely completed another objective, that of getting a unit into the courtyard.


With a cry of vengeance for their King, one of the few remaining Dwarf units charged Thanquol and Boneripper. However, they failed to kill them before the Trolls charged their rear.


This blue and white Gyrocopter out of Belegar’s army took a terrible toll on my mobs, killing well over 100 Night Goblins with its steam gun. We made dad promise to paint the Dwarf rune for ‘100’ on its hull.


In our very last turn, Skarsnik’s mob got overly enthusiastic and decided to rush out of their tower (Animosity ‘6’) to kill the last few Irondrakes, which actually meant we lost an objective! There was a Dwarf unit still on that side of the table, but it was not close enough to get inside the tower.

Results
In the end, we had taken most of the objectives; we had the watchtower and one tower, and we had a unit in the courtyard. We had also killed both Dwarf Generals. The Dwarfs had killed Queek, but that was it. I had also completed two secret objectives: getting Queek killed and wiping out a Skaven unit by accident.

Casualties were heavy as you would expect after 8 full turns. The Skaven had only Thanquol, a couple of Engineers, a few Weapon Teams and a stranded Screaming Bell left. The Dwarfs of Karaz-a-Karak had the Old Guard, the Anvil, an Engineer and a Gyrocopter. Karak Eight Peaks had two units of Clansmen and a Gyrocopter. I still had several units, probably some 200 models total, but on the other hand that meant I had lost 500! More importantly though, Skarsnik was alive with a strong unit and there was nothing left anywhere that could threaten Rocky.


Skarsnik – Master of the battlefield and the one true King Under the Mountain!

Final Words
When we decided to end the game after 8 turns, it was 1 AM and when we were ready to leave, having packed everything and cleaned up, it was 2 AM. If you count setup and cleaning, that means the battle took 18 hours. We had lunch and dinner at the table while our opponents took their turn. Much coffee was also consumed. I had worked on my army for two years. It is easily my most ambitious project ever, and it was a blast to finally put it on the table.