khedyarl:
The posts on the Great Taurus thread have me thinking, and I wanted to see what others had to think on the subject.
Though I’ve dropped off in the last few years, during 5th, 6th, and some of 7th edition I went to many tournaments across British Columbia and Alberta, won a GT, two Conflicts, and a bunch of smaller tournaments scattered around here and there. The army I played back then was Goblins, and since I had no wife at that time, and a job with an easy schedule, I was able to play bloody near every two days, sometimes once a day, against a group of friends in similar circumstances.
The army I played was, as I stated, goblins. Night goblins, specifically. The difference between my list and most lists, was that I numbered 310 miniatures, ten trolls {At the time, considered worthless, given that a Night Goblin Warboss was unheard of, when you could take a Shaman Lord}, and a grand total of three fanatics. The army was sub-par, as far as goblins go. I didn’t have twelve fanatics, I didn’t take two giants (I did have one, though), I didn’t have a level four and three level two shamans, I simply played a Night Goblin horde, backed up with the neat, fun stuff that I felt you would see if this horde actually existed. Masses of Squigs, hoppers, trolls, and a metric ton of night goblins.
Where’s all this going, you demand? Why do I keep ranting about nonsensical balderdash? It’s because I did really, really well with them. Not because I’m some kind of autistic game savant, but because I practised with them a huge amount. It was an army that people didn’t expect, because it was so different to the paradigm of army building, that it threw some people off of their game. I knew that army inside and out, and had played it against a massive array of other players.
Again, where is this going?! Well, why not take a Bale Taurus? Or a Lamassu? Hell, even a dreadquake? Don’t ignore these pieces. If you love the way they look, or the way they feel on the table, take them. Modify your list to accommodate them, and play as many games as you can get in, against a variety of opponents. Learn to what extent you can get away with keeping them in the open against certain armies. See what gaps you need to plug by readjusting your army after the game.
It is definitely possible to look at a list, and tell from sight if it is sub-par or not. However, I will never look at a list and say “this list will not win. You will be beaten”, because it simply isn’t true. Unless you’re playing a Snotling horde, or an army of 600 gnoblars backed up by a single hunter, chances are that when you know your own army inside and out, you can deal with bloody near anything.
Good luck in your gaming, gentleman. It’s a new era of Chaos Dwarfs, and we were all here to witness it!
-Conan
{As an aside, after reading Tamurkhan, I really, really missed my little goblins.}
I guess my Chaos Dwarfs will be quite effective on tabletop, since I want them to have quite a gun line to boast about, for background reasons.