Old Differences

A 6000 point battle between my Dwarfs and Ben Leopold's High Elves.

Thorgrim Grudgebearer, High King of Karaz-a-Karak, waited impatiently as his throne came to a halt and was lowered to the ground by his sweating, huffing thronebearers. He then heaved his considerable up out of the chair and stomped across to stand before the small gathering of elves waiting near a copse of trees. With one hand on his hip and his belligerent expression, the dwarf king made no attempt to hide his irritation. Cradled in his other arm was an enormous tome that all present knew to be the Great Book of Grudges.

"Where is he?" he demanded. "I haven't come all this way to argue with a bunch of effeminate flunkies."

The gathering of armoured elves stiffened at the insult. The finery of their war gear and their regal bearing surely made it clear to even a witless Dwarf that each one of them was an important noble in his own right. He was being deliberately rude. Hands strayed to the hilts of weapons, but none of them deigned to answer his demands. They too knew how to be impolite.

Their continued silence was not lost on Thorgrim. His grip on the book tightened and he glanced back to where he had left his axe leaning against the throne, clearly wondering whether he should not retrieve it and put it to use immediately. He was right on the verge of doing so when something shifted in the shadows under the trees, and another elf appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Thorgrim jumped slightly, then covered his surprise with an even deeper scowl. "Alith Anar. There you are. What do you want? Shouldn't you be off tormenting some of your own kind somewhere?"

The Shadow King stared at the dwarf without any apparent emotion. "Lord Thorgrim. I have come to retrieve something that belongs to me."

Thorgrim sniffed. "Have you now? I can't see why I would let you take anything else from me. You still haven't returned that bowl you borrowed." He fingered the book meaningfully, making it clear that the debt had been recorded in detail.

"The Vessel of Shadows was not borrowed. It is mine by right," sniffed the elf. "It bears my name upon it."

Thorgrim spluttered. "Yours? It was crafted in Karaz-a-Karak by dwarf hands. It has nothing to do with you! Give it back!"

"I will not," refused the elf quietly. "And now I have come to lay claim to the Blade of Sorrows. That too is mine."

"You're daft!" snorted Thorgrim. "Just because you're a miserable coot who has not respect for the property of others doesn't mean the thing is named after you. Take your pointy-eared army and shove off!"

"Very well," said Alith Anar calmly. "I shall retrieve the blade myself once you and your warriors have been dealt with."

With that, the elf swept his cape up across his face and dashed off into the trees, looking for all the world like a child playing at Vampires and Victims.

Thorgrim snorted and was stomping back toward his attendants when an arrow hissed out of the trees, over his shoulder and punched a hole straight through the Throne of Power's carved stone backrest. He bellowed in rage at Shadow King's insolence.


"You'll pay for that, elf!"

Note that this won't really be a battle report per se, given that I'm not going to bother putting together maps and the rest. But the game was between two fully-painted armies and I have a camera, so I took some photos.

The Armies
Neither of us was trying all that hard to pack real punch into our armies. 6,000 points is relatively close to the limit of what we could both field with these races, so it was as much an exercise in putting most of our models on the table as it was a contest. 

Dwarfs
It would seem I need to paint up some more war machines. I'll never be taken seriously as a Dwarf player when I'm only able to field one war machine for every 2000 points in the army. I mainly just wanted to use Thorgrim, in a game where he wasn't going to absorb most of my points and make things weirdly balanced.

• Thorgrim Grudgebearer
• Belegar Ironhammer
• Runelord with Great Weapon, Master Rune of Balance, 2 Runes of Spellbreaking, Master Rune of Gromril
• Thane with Battle Standard, Great Weapon, Strollaz's Rune, Master Rune of Grungni, Rune of Slowness
• Grimm Burloksson
• Josef Bugman
• 50 Longbeards with Great Weapons, Shields, Full Command, 2 Runes of Slowness
• 24 Quarrellers with Great Weapons, Shields, Full Command
• 20 Thunderers with Shields, Full Command
• 38 Ironbreakers with Full Command, Strollaz's Rune
• 20 Hammerers with Shields, Full Command, Master Rune of Valaya
• 30 Slayers with Full Command, 2 Giant Slayers
• 12 Miners with Standard, Musician
• Cannon with Rune of Forging
• Grudge Thrower with Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetration
• Gyrocopter
• Gyrocopter
• 16 Irondrakes with Full Command, Strollaz's Rune, Rune of Sanctuary, Trollhammer Torpedo
• 11 Bugman's Rangers with Shields, Full Command
• Organ Gun with Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Forging

High Elves

Apparently Ben's list originally had 8 bolt throwers in it, but I think he realised he'd probably shred through my units a bit brutally and pared them back. For some reason Ben doesn't seem to like Dragon Princes - half his cavalry models were these, but every single one of them was just riding around as a pimp Silver Helm. Such indignity for the noble sons of Caledor.

• Alith Anar (Army General)
• Loremaster with Armour of Caledor, Sword of Might, Power Stone
• Archmage (Level 4 High Magic) with Book of Ashur, Talisman of Endurance
• Prince on Griffon (Swiftsense, Swooping Strike) with Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Ogre Blade, Talisman of Preservation, Lion Cloak
• Prince on Star Dragon with Star Lance, Other Trickster’s Shard, Armour of Destiny, Shield
• Caradryan
• Korhil
• Noble with Battle Standard, Armour of Silvered Steel, Halberd, Luckstone
• 11 Archers with Standard, Musician
• 5 Reavers with Bows, Musician
• 9 Silver Helms with Full Command, Shields
• 12 Silver Helms with Full Command, Shields
• 10 Silver Helms with Full Command, Shields
• 40 Spearmen with Full Command
• 21 Spearmen with Full Command, Banner of Discipline
• 8 Shadow Warriors
• 20 Swordmasters with Full Command, Razor Standard
• 21 White Lions with Full Command, Banner of Swiftness
• Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
• Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
• Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
• Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
• Great Eagle with Swiftsense
• Great Eagle with Swiftsense
• 6 Sisters of Avalon
• Frostheart Phoenix

Deployment

We used a slightly larger board than normal at 8'x4', and then I did a good job of ignoring a quarter of it anyway. Apparently 6,000 points of Dwarfs is still not really all that much.

Thorgrim finished and a little RafRage

OK, I can finally call this model finished. As I suspected when I set out to paint the banners on the back of the throne, the process was not exactly fast. It probably wasn't helped by the amount of fumbling with incorrect techniques and correcting clumsy mistakes, but I got there in the end.

He does look more completed with the banner flapping behind him.

One of the banners deviates wildly from the original because I didn't like it at all. In the end I've gone for a representation of Karaz-a-Karak, based on the rune the Dwarfs use to present it. It makes more sense to me than the random Dwarf waving 2 axes about. I don't get why that would be the High King's banner. On second thought, maybe that's meant to be Grimnir. Whatever, he didn't make the cut.

I'm still here... somewhere

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. That's pretty bad.

Much of my absence has been spent trying to absorb all that's been happening to the Warhammer world. I read my way through End Times: Archaon, and then through the final two Gotrek and Felix novels, Kinslayer and Slayer. I think I more or less knew what I was going to find, but I wanted to go through it all for myself rather than getting it all second-hand. It's all a bit depressing, but I'm still waiting for 9th edition to land before I commit to any long-term plans.

I was also working on Thorgrim, as I said I was going to in my last post. I thought I had basically finished him about a week ago, but then realised I hadn't dealt with the back banners on the throne. This has stalled me an annoying amount. I never had the banner poles so I decided to make some from brass rod, empire banners and a couple of cannon balls for pole caps (I couldn't find any suitable Dwarf-themed caps that fit the fat rods I used).

He's not so much WIP as almost finished.