Finally writing up some more reports, this time coverage of the Crossroads GT from late September, where I took my new Free Dwarf (Earth Elemental) army for the first time.
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Thanks for the write up! Also the pictures, that army looks great.
Always nice to see more dwarfs.
Even though none of them actually showed up at the battlefield. 
I assume there were dwarfs were involved in forging this army.
Interesting to see how tough De 6+ really is.
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The Sp 4 on the Stone Priest feels distinctly Dwarven 
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Finished up the reports for the first day of Crossroads 2023!
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That EoD kind of just crumbled at some point, which is not my usual experience against them.
Hopefully some lessons learned from the 4th game.
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He easily out-ranged and out-charged me, yet let me start the grind on my terms, which is rarely a good decision unless you have some serious sustain. While he did have some heal going on and put it to good use on Craggoth’s Enslaved Guardians, the Soul Snare (and its drain heal) was quite tunnel visioned on hunting dogs while things fell apart rapidly in the center, where we were in each others’ business and grabbing flanks like it was going out of style.
Anyway, cheers for reading DB!
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I saw these reports pop up but am just now getting around to reading them all. Silly adulting. The wait was worth it though! That’s a wonderfully painted army! Very cool to behold. Those are some good looking armies across from you as well!
It sounds like a really cool approach for a tournament. Utilizing teams is fun so you don’t get matched up against your clubmates, and having some agency in scenarios is neat as well. The latter really worked out for you!
I was surprised not to see more Surge in your list, but I suppose wanting to grind things out you were ok with less Surge, more units and just getting charges where you could? I only found out about Craggoth & Kholearm recently, but that seems like a very fun unit to use, and it was neat to see how impactful they were each game.
Great reads as always! I am looking forward to the rest of the games!
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Thanks, Tasty B! I don’t really love the team format personally, I find it very hard to judge my own performance and suffer a lot of guilty feelings when I pair my teammates into match-ups and they get stomped to goo, while I’m meanwhile crushing my opponent. I’m aware these are generally unfounded feelings but I could do without. I’ve learned over the years that the best way to play Teams of War is to really lean into the chummy “throwing dice with friends” vibe harder and just ignore the overall standings. There are always a few tryhard teams vying for the top spots and that’s cool for them … but I’m just here to cuddle, even more so than usual.
On just having one surge caster, I think it’s fine. My surge targets move 5-6" a turn and don’t have nimble, so I don’t have a lot of surgenanigans to get up to, plus Free Dwarf surgers are either walking 4" or I’m putting a Tome on a brock lord (who has better things to do) or a beast lord (who has better things to do). Both factors limit my interest in investing more in surge - but if I don’t take a surge caster, then all that shambling is only a negative, so I have to take one 
I dunno, I’ve played Elemental Surge before and this is pretty par for the course if you don’t have a flying / high speed / nimble shambling hammer to tech around.
I didn’t mention it in the reports, but closing out Day 1 I had the second highest attrition in the event. Basically tabling all my opponents will do that however I did not expect a De 6+ skew army to do that kind of damage
Anyway, thanks for y’all’s patience, I’ll wrap the coverage up this week.
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And that’s a wrap 
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Some great games to wrap up the event!
The combined-arms NA list was a treat to see in action, but I could see how Dwarves and their constructs might not like dealing with Windblast.
Do you think your Def6 list fared better or worse than a more balanced / typical list against all of the Alchemist Curse casters? On the one hand, the casters were in a target-rich environment, and all but guaranteed to get good work in. On the other hand, you had so many redundant units that it wasn’t the end of the world if one fell to the Curse.
Thanks for the reports!
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You know, despite being a very counter-y bit of tech, I probably did have too many rocks for the paper of the fast AC4 mage to really affect. I lost ~1.5 expensive models to this mage each time I faced it, so it always got its points back, but clearly didn’t stop me from doing my thing.
My main takeaway in regards to the AC4 mage was that I had nothing to stop it, like at all, so I put no effort into doing so. But I’m adding two regiments of Stoneclaws into the list going forward (as was always the plan as soon as NA got them), which give me counter-play options.
Spoilers, I played two 2150 point games with the Freeforged last week and the birds are so freaking good. I barely understand how to play them but they are just so teched for the modern Kings meta that it’s scary. Even with that very weird shooting attak, which I’m holding onto because I like rolling low odds dice
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More from the forge! I’ve started shopping 2150 lists for my club’s tournament in January, which means forcing my hardy metal children upon my clubmates
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And some Thanksgiving carnage 
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That’s a good win rate!
We have someone running De 6+ heavy here too (the ironguard plus triple steel behemoth variety) and we seem to be having a hard time dealing with it.
The birds add a great extra dimension to your list.
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Fun Fact: I was thinking about stepping sideways into triple behemoth Imperials at some point (driven by some chariot-sized models I’d like to use), but I thankfully discovered my self-respect this week and binned that idea in favor of going deeper into Frarfs
On the birds, it’s bizarre to me that the better a unit is, the less I want to use it 
It’s like a sickness or something. Anyway, I’m thinking about bringing Craggoth back at 2150 and pushing the Stoneclaws off 
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Definitely some interesting games! Thanks for sharing.
Dwarves in general look to have gotten some nice buffs and points adjustments, but wow I had not really looked at the stats of the Stoneclaw Riders prior to reading about them here. That’s a very versatile unit! Nice to see the Free Dwarves getting some additional love with that unit.
Interesting lists from your opponent in both games.
I haven’t played much Night Stalkers. That Bloodworm horde with the Hammer is bonkers, but I thought they were a bit more smashy and aggressive generally? With this being his first list is he exploring a more control-style build with all the Wind-Blast?
And I don’t think I’ve even seen such an elite Undead list! Not a zombie or skeleton in sight! Has that worked out for him before? “Oops All Hammers” seems strong, but without chaff or supporting units the list seemed to nose-dive pretty quickly. I had not seen a weakness list before either; never considered that emphasis for a list. I wonder how a Weakness emphasis would pair with normal Skeletons or Revenants; make use of their extra Defense relative to the usual Zombies.
Anyways, neat games for sure. The Freeforged are on quite a rampage! And as a quick aside, I love the bubbling swamp terrain piece. Nice and simple but it just looks great as terrain.
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In which I continue to battle the Undead, except this time with far more Wights. Something something ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future?
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Oh wow, those were some dice. Holy moly that was a swingy and bloody game!
Very elite Undead is kinda cool, and I wouldn’t have expected it to perform as well as it did (though again, hard to really evaluate with the dice).
I was hoping to see some more Free Dwarf birdies in action, but it’s hard to be disappointed with seeing all the GEE’s on the field! Thanks for the report!
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That was quite the brawl between some hard large infantry!
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My club’s annual tournament, the Dead of Winter GT, was last weekend! 2150 points with no more than three of any entry. I took my rocks:
FREEFORGED 2150
Earth Elementals Horde - Brew of Sharpness
Earth Elementals Horde
Earth Elementals Horde
Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiment
Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiment
Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiment
Greater Earth Elemental - Craggoth & Kholearm; Fireball (10)
Greater Earth Elemental
Greater Earth Elemental
Dwarf Lord on Large Beast - Blade of the Beast Slayer
Dwarf Lord on Large Beast - Brew of Haste
Free Dwarf Stone Priest - Crown of the Wizard King; Surge (8), Scorched Earth (3), Bane Chant (2)
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While I’ll get around to full reports at some point, here’s a sneak peak of my matches:
- Orcs (Dominate)
- Trident Realm (Pillage)
- Undead (Loot)
- Order of the Green Lady (Modified Push)
- Nightstalkers (Hold the Line)
I won’t spoil the games themselves, but here’s the trophy I walked away with:
Brace for violence, dear readers 
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