SCGT Prep Work - Dave

So SCGT pack dropped, ticket was purchased and my planned army can now be pointed up and tweaks made.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm going back to my old old Dwarfs this year and painting up a few new models to flesh out a full armies worth of stuff for AoS and anyone following my painting updates will have seen a few of these coming through.

My original list was written under the UKIP comp system and I keep swithering around what I should put into the list as every so often I start to think a bit more competitively versus just putting down all the nice models I enjoy.

Broadly the list planned is:

Characters

Lord

BSB

Runesmith

Engineer

Bugman

The classic one of everything approach to heroes, as a self-imposed rule I’ve dropped all the slayer stuff from the list with the release of Fireslayers, I know they’re different but that’s just what I’m like.

Units

20 xbows
10 Bugmans Xbows (not that you have to define separately on the list but these are the Bugmans models!)

10 Thunderers

20 Hammerers

20 Longbeards

20 Ironbreakers

 

Warmachines

1 Gobbolobber

1 Flame cannon

2 Gyrocopters

 Adding it all up that totals 26.5 pools on the current UKIP (not that dwarfs ever change).

 

Then I was chatting with a group of friends on Whatsapp and someone mentioned one of the formations for the dwarfs were actually pretty decent.  So off I trotted to the scrolls and had a look through.  The Formation is the “Dispossessed Clan Throng” and consists of:

Lord, 2 x warrior Units, 2 Units of either Thunderers or Quarrellers, 1 x Hammerers, 1 x Longbeards

So the only obvious omission from the above is the 2 warrior units.  Therefore I dug out a bunch of my old 3^rd ed models and discovered most helpfully I had a unit of Prince Ulthers Imperial dwarfs that was 18 strong, add to that a second set of Standard & Musician models and I have 2 10 man strong units to go sit on objectives and to complete the formation requirements.

I’m now very nearly finished painting up those 20 models, final highlight on shields to go.  That just leaves the joyous task of basing up the rest of the army.  I’ve done 40ish models so far so have the approach & scheme locked down, it’s now just a case of churning that out across the remaining models.  I’m gonna do all of them now and then can worry about what makes a 150 pool/points army for SCGT from what I work up after but will be nice just to have the army done.

One thing I keep looking at is whether to tweak the army to be a little more effective, an example being that an engineer is the same cost as Grimm Burloksson, so it would make sense to take him.  But the new model doesn’t fit under the theme of the army but I have Burlok Damminson in my collection, now strictly speaking he’s slightly newer than the models in the army but is still very old, so if I bend my theme a little I can improve the effectiveness of the list. 

Similarly I’ve got 3 units of xbow dwarfs in the army with the Bugmans and the 20 strong unit, running these as a 30 strong unit would be very efficient in game terms but doesn’t really fit the models that well as visually they are quite different.  I’m undecided as to whether to stick rigidly to the looks or allow that to flex in order to get a better army on the table.

On that Xbow Unit they could be quite filthy with all the buffs stacked.

30 xbows – 30 shots on 4+, 4+.  Because 20+ unit 2xshots per model =  60 shots

Disposessed  Clan special rule = reroll 1’s to hit
Dwarf Lord command ability – 1 target (enemy) unit within 16” I get +1 to wound.
Runelord Priest ability – -1 to rend on all shots
Grim Burloksson – Additional 6” range to weapons

It’s obviously stacking a lot of buffs onto a single unit, but the impact could be quite devastating and it’s mostly units which I would be taking in my army anyway.

I do wonder whether it would be better with 30 Thunderers, who would be 30 shots hitting on 3’s wounding on 2’s rerolling 1’s to hit.  I haven’t bothered to stat it out though as I don’t have 30 Thunderers so it’s a moot point.

So I wrote the above way back in Jan/Feb, now we're on the last day of March and I've submitted my list which was broadly the same but with a few tweaks, giving up on a bit of the limitations I'd put on before:

Lord x 2, BSB, Runelord, Bugman, Grimm Burlockson, Engineer, Slayer (I had points spare so put it in eventually)
30 Xbows, 10 Thunderers, 20 warriors, 20 Longbeards, 20 Hammerers
2 Grudge Throwers, Flame Cannon, 2 Gyrocopters, Bolt Thrower

SCGT Army

And here's the army (barring the Bolt Thrower & Gyros which are still due rebasing).  Really happy with how it's now looking on rounds, the hammerers in particular are so much happier with a little more room.

I suspect the army isn't actually all that good as it lacks much by way of variety of units & abilities but I'm really happy with how it looks on the table.