Runesmith.
This model always cracks me up, as it looks like he's swinging a weapon whose head fell off the shaft. Actually, it's some sort of runic banishing stick--kind of like a big runic seal that can stomp and snuff the power out of things. Perfect for another Runesmith to bring Runes of Spellbreaking to my battles. I also love the little runes all over his armor, as they pop nicely with the blue rune-glow in my opinion.
Markers for entrenched war machines.
I've shared my converted 40k Squat Master Engineer before, but now I've completed the entrenchment markers for him. I made a set for all three of my Master Engineers, so they could indicate which War Machines in the same army they've set up defenses for. His are the ruined pile of pieces from his crashed Gyrocopter, and a pile of Gyrocopter bombs--for when he eventually gets back into the air.
Miners.
I also completed the front rank of a unit of Miners for my force. I've always been kind of lukewarm on the unit, thinking the candles on their helmets, weapons, and standard were kinda silly. But I changed my mind once I got working on them--I love the look. I'm really happy with how they came out, particularly the battle standard. It gives the unit a really fresh, unique look when standing amidst my sea of other purple/gold/bone models. Really nice contrast from the yellow. The rest of this unit is certain to get painted sooner rather than later in my painting progress!
The battle was a three-player Triumph and Treachery clash, with my Dwarfs facing off against Chaos Legions and Lizardmen. 2,000 points each, with 400 points of mercenaries. The battle was the one with half-circle deployment zones and a single objective in the middle: an objective marker that only the general could move, which gave the closest general at the end of the game +500 victory points. An enormous Yellow Citrine gem was placed in the center of the field--the battle's objective, sought by each side for their own purposes.
Kevin's Chaos Legions of Nurgle. Led by a Beastlord, the army featured two units of Gors, a unit of Plaguebearers, three Beasts of Nurgle (Plague Toads), Plague Drones, and Minotaurs. For Mercenaries he brought two Skaven Doomwheels along with a Warlock Engineer.
Tom's Lizardmen. Led by Kroq-gar, the force also included a big block Skink Cohort, a large unit of Saurus Cavalry with an Oldblood, a block of Saurus Warriors, and some Skink Skirmishers and two Skink Priests. His Mercenaries were Dwarfs: an Engineer, a Grudge Thrower, and an Organ Gun.
My Dwarfs deployment. Two blocks of Warriors and a block of Irondrakes, supported by two Grudge Throwers and a Bolt Thrower--as well as scouting Rangers and tunneling Miners. My mercenary was my Dwarf Ancestor Statue, which I run as a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch with the Lore of Metal.
My sturdy Dwarf Rangers set up on the far side of the board using their Scouts rule, ready to rain havoc on the Chaos line with their crossbows.
However, they quickly got a Skaven Doomwheel charging at them for their trouble (prompting many "You ever take it off any sweet jumps?" inquiries). The Rangers proved their mettle by charging the wheel, and managing to force it to flee thanks to their swinging great axes.
The hunting party of the Lizardmen advanced through the abyssal wood, trying to size up their Chaos foes. The first turn ended with a lot of maneuvering by each side, but very little combat and progress.
Start of my second turn, my Miners turned up from the ground--their steam drill bored its way through rock and earth to arrive and strike. They threw their blasting charges at the Nurgle Daemons, inflicting exactly zero casualties. And then found that the Nurgle forces moved too quickly away from them to ever get into combat or even shoot again (they managed one failed charge in the rest of the game). Ah, the fate of newly painted and beloved miniatures: the more you like/spent time on it, the more likely it is to be useless/quickly destroyed.
While I had some successes early disposing of Doomwheels, my luck didn't hold out on the casting side. A Dimensional Cascade miscast exploded around my Ancestor Statue, killing two of the nearby Dwarf Warriors and sucking the caster himself into the Warp. The only positive? He's probably hanging out with Nagash in some dimensional, Beetlejuice-esque waiting room.
Meanwhile the Lizadmen Saurus Cavalry rushed forward and crashed into the left flank of the Chaos line--a big unit of Gors led by the Beastlord General. Reaching into a strange pouch, the Oldblood produced an odd-shaped egg and cracked it open: the Egg of Quango. And this time, the Quango was a fearsome massive beast--slaying seven of the beastmen dead in its thrashing. The beastmen only managed to slay one of the riders, with another full rank of their own falling before they fled from the charging foe.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) the Saurus Cavalry continued onward into the flank of another unit of Gors. They didn't manage to catch the fleeing Beastlord, who rallied his fractured unit by drinking swallows of strange water from the Wyrding Well terrain feature as they passed. The daemonic units of Nurgle were able to surge forth and catch the Saurus Cavalry in a pincer. Over two turns of bloody combat, only the Oldblood remained. He eventually fled from the onslaught, and was run down by the pursing Plague Drones.
At the same time, Kroq-gar had his sights on the treasure objective in the middle of the board: a massive golden gem, the size of a human's head. He spurred Grimloq, his Carnosaur mount, forward and shouted for the cohort of Skinks to join him. They crashed into a wall of Plaguebearers that stood between them and the objective. Kroq-gar raged, as the gem lay in the open just beyond the infested foes, and the normally slow Dwarfs were making surprisingly good speed in that direction. His units fought well, but the defensive resilience of the Plaguebearers was too much to break in a single turn. Instead, the Lizardmen and the Daemons began grinding each other down as best they were able--each side hoping to do enough wounds to break and annihilate their foe.
The unit of Dwarf Warriors that faced off against the Lizardmen had taken a pounding from the poisoned javelins of Skinks and the deadly explosions of the Mercenary Organ Gun perched on the hill at the back of the Lizardmen's deployment zone. Despite carrying the names of fallen comrades-in-arms on their lips, the unit charged forward and managed to cause the Skinks to flee with the might of their attacks.
The Chaos forces launched a last-ditch attempt to gain a great number of points, hoping that three Beasts of Nurgle in the flank would defeat Kroq-gar. Sadly for them, Kroq-gar managed to inflict some wounds and managed to win the combat, keeping the toads from overrunning his next unit. Without the support of the toads, the Plague Drones had little chance of breaking thru the wall of Skinks--even from behind. And the game ended with these units locked like this in combats, neither side gaining headway.
Meanwhile, as Kroq-gar had feared, the unit of Dwarf Warriors containing the simple Runesmith general had sneaked up to the gem and secured it for themselves at the end of the game. The Runesmith held the gem aloft, cheering loudly. While the Lizardmen had wanted to retrieve it to banish the evil contained within, and the Chaos to unleash it, to the magically-insensitive Dwarfs it was merely another enormous Yellow Citrine gem that would look great stacked on their piles of treasure. The Runesmith and his army tromped home carrying the gem as the Lizardmen and Chaos continued to war behind them. With the gem finally appraised, it was sold and then sold again until finally acquired and left in a corner display case in a quickly-forgotten treasure room.
The battle ended with my Dwarfs earning 1250 victory points, Chaos in close second with 1100, and the Lizardmen still a close third at 900. Grabbing the gem objective was the difference between first and last place for my force. Again, the power of the objectives in Triumph and Treachery cannot be over-stated. It was a good battle, and the Dwarfs gave better than they got in all places--my only complete unit lost was due to the miscast. I'm gearing up for more games with the Dwarfs, as I'm really enjoying some of the micro-level fiddling with the army that fielding it again and again is showing me.
Battles
Total 2015: 17 (Win/Loss/Tie: 11/4/2)
Total 2014: 15 (Win/Loss/Tie: 8/6/1)
Skaven:
7 Wins (Undead 2, Empire 1, T&T Daemons and Dwarfs, Siege Dwarfs and Bretonnians, T&T Daemons and Empire, T&T Dual Undead)
8 Losses (Lizadmen 1, Skaven 1, Empire 1, Dwarfs 1, Daemons 1, T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1, Special Game Nurgle)
1 Tie (Empire 1)
Dwarfs:
10 Wins (High Elves 1, Lizardmen 1, Dwarfs 3, Wood Elves 2, T&T Undead and Dwarfs, T&T Lizardmen and Wood Elves, T&T Chaos Legions and Lizardmen)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)
1 Tie (T&T Dual Undead)
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