The workshop battle lines are drawn. I'm 2-1 down with three battles left to play. Although this is just one section of a huge Karak to fight over, I hate losing anything to those Stunties!

The next battle will take place in the store room for the Karak Engineers Inventions and Concepts. Those things that will likely never see the light of day, lest it get its creator kicked out of their guild! Yet it is here that The Night Goblins and Dwarfs will do battle, to conquer, with the spoils going to the winner.
In this case the spoils are a particularly crazed idea.

I wanted to inform you of it, with my rule intentions and get some community feedback for it. This came about from one session of conversation where we came to a conclusion of 295 pts. We then ran that through Goofy's character maker and decided on 300 pts instead.

So here we go.

The winner of this battle will gain access to this model as a playable. Once it's destroyed, it's gone forever. 2k+ pts battles only.

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Grungni's Legacy
This is a walker, about the size of an Ork Killa Kan.
It is portrayed as a huge Ancestor visage of the Dwarf God of Mining and Protection Grungni. Aptly, it was built for the purpose of mining, with its limb weapons originally designed to bore through hard rocks.
It was considered too brash and dangerous for long term usage, especially because of its fuel type, which was deemed potentially easy to self detonate were it to fall over or incur damage at the wrong point.
It is built to house one occupant the size of a Dwarf (or something smaller) with a series of levers and buttons inside that operate its various functions. A heavily protective visor design lays across the visual panel, oiled specially to keep dust from settling on it. Around this is an ancestor's mask, the visage of Grungni, the classic candle upon his helmed head. In reality this is not a real candle but a luminescent stone that glows brightly like an everlasting flame.

M 4
WS 3
BS 0
S 4 (7)
T 6
W 3
I 2
A3
LD 9


Counts as 1 hero and also takes up a rare choice slot.
Points: 300

Unit Size 1
Unit Strength 3

Weapons: Oversized Steam Drill, Steam Vent

Armour: Heavy Gromril Plating, Ancestor’s Mask

Special Rules:
Oversized Steam Drill: Adds +3 to strength, strikes last – Optional: Player’s choice of whether to use the drill that round. If not, it fights at normal strength and initiative value.

Steam Vent: Breath weapon template, Strength 2, Armour save -3

Heavy Gromril Plating: The gromril used for this walking avatar is much thicker than even an Ironbreaker’s suit of armour. This grants it a 2+ armour save.

Ancestor’s Mask: A mask usually worn by Dwarfs depicting the Ancestor’s of their clans or Gods. Being attacked by such a visage causes fear (See Warhammer rulebook page 50).

Immune to Psychology: (See Warhammer rulebook page 53)

Large Target: (See Warhammer rulebook page 28)

Grungni’s Will: Imbued with a one of a kind rune, said to have been forged by a smith who cited Grungni’s divine inspiration in a dream. As such this grants a 5+ ward save.

All Out Overdrive!: The passenger can activate a turbo charge mode for the attached steam drill. Whenever the steam drill is being used, the controlling player can (optionally) activate this mode to grant +D3 attacks but at -1 to hit for all attacks that round. Roll separately for each combat turn. Rolls of 1 are resolved against the bearer as its unstable motors will have burnt out and caught fire in several places.

Hates Ancestral Foes: The passenger inside, is susceptible to the normal hatred rules of its race where applicable (See Warhammer rulebook page 53 for hatred).

Master Rune of Grungni’s Vengeance: Upon losing its last wound, the walker activates its last right of ancestral pride – destruction before capture. It self destructs, with its alcoholic fuel tanks overloading causing 2D6” of strength 5 flaming hits to all models in range. If Grungni’s Legacy is forced to flee combat and pursued then caught, the point at which it moved to is where it remains immobile, the unit pursuing moves its full pursuit move. However, in the next player’s turn there is an increased chance of self destruction explosion. At the start of the turn phase in the very next player’s turn roll a D6. On a 3+ it blows up immediately and is removed from the field. If it fails to blow up then, at the start of the very next player’s turn after that it explodes on a 2+. On the turn after that, it explodes automatically!
Please note, if you immobilize it in this way, you immediately gain the victory points for it, even if it hasn’t exploded by the end of the game.

Imagine how cool that will be if my gobbos win it! Of course, it would cause fear in goblins if the dwarfs get it, BUT, if we win it it would fear the Dwarfs instead, because their GOD is attacking them after all :o

This thing is truly a one of a kind machine.

Thats pretty sweet... do you have a model for it???

Haha, I knew that question was coming. It would be a case of creating a model just to use for perhaps a couple or three games...ever. What we'll likely end up doing, being the time pressed chaps we are is using a killa kan (which I have) and because of its particular basing, it's on a square base (go figure eh?), so that would work out fine. We have superb imaginations and would see only the model it's meant to be.

If I did build one for real well...Again, I suppose walkers from 40k would be my first stop for bitz.

Thanks for the comment. I was beginning to think no one in here liked it :P

Edited original design post. Added "Large Target" rule. Duh!

Lol ya i guess it would be a large target...

I want that in the next dwarf armybook :D

I love the idea of this thing - a quick google search for "steam robot" and I found this:



:yarr!: Just perfect, I reckon!

Marry up the picture and the rule and there you go! Ready for a new stunty book. That is some great stuff, Roba. Has anyone tried the rules out yet? How does it all work out.

Something about using a Killa Kan as this thing....it just ain't right! Ha ha ha

Hopefully we will have some reports of others trying out the rules.

Goomb

I've not used it yet. This battle next will decide who gets to have it. Mind you, if I win, then using a Kan would be perfect :D
It's cool, like I said, square base, yay!

I love that picture btw!

You'll notice that if it fails CR and gets caught, it has a countdown timer style explosion. This gives both armies a chances at running the heck away from it and was done on purpose to potentially give both sides a shot at escape.

That picture linked there, one could convert from a dreadnaught I suppose...

I think I'm going to play the game to decide who gets this on Tuesday coming. As Monday is my groups WHFRP meetup day - where I'll be treading the paving stones of Altdorf.

So glad to see people talking about it. All that effort working it out meant something.

Hi Roba,

that sounds like a fun and nice addition to the dwarf army, in my local club we where wondering today why dwarves don't have any steam engines in their book. In the dwarf fluff they write about steam ships and such so I don''t see a reason why dwarves couldn't have some sort of tank.

I really hope you build a model for that beastie.

Do you mind if I show those rulesl to the local dwarf player.

Cheers,
G

Of course you can, as long as he credits me to this post for any public conversation about it.
I reckon I will contact GW with this thing, yeah. I was planning on doing it after using it a bit and perhaps tweaking it some, from player reviews off of anyone here who has access to dwarfs.

I could always post it up at Bugmans, now I think about it...

Make a nice conversion and then show it to GW. Personally I love the idea, or maybe I just love senerios with fluff behind it :D .

Again Fantastic Idea! :)

-Bravehead
WAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Gah, well looks like my opponent's getting it. Free for its first use then normal cost thereafter. Once destroyed, permanently destroyed for the whole campaign!

I just couldn't win that battle, panic tests got really ugly, especially on my new NIGHT GOBLIN spider riders, lol...yeah...My opponent one a quarter, as did I, and he won the walker too giving him a 450-150 win against me.

Edit - He got to the walker on turn 2...by using that banner I mentioned before. Everything in 12" of it gets a free additional march before the game even begins...

UGH! Looks like your back is against the wall now, mate. I suggest the Wollapa's One Hit Wonda on that git. It will work wonders to have the mad gobbo bomber take a crack at it.

Goomb

Not a bad idea at all!

Worse still was that that capturing units with that mad movement were a unit of ironbreakers with Thane and a unit of Hammerers containing Dwarf Lord...

Oh and try this one on for size. My 40 strong NG unit with spears and nets couldn't kill a war machine crew for 3 turns...yeah I know. Mainly because they had a guy in there that made them stubborn...and the Gobbo killing power is less than clever.

Storywise, Tyrgar hid away not coming out to face Twizted. He ended up "twizted" in his unit's own nets and got dragged away with them as they fled combat, before he could do a blimmin' thing. Well at least he's still alive to take vengeance. Plus Tyrgar (him knowing he's not very good in combat) might himself take to the walker! If he does, Twizted himself will go after it. His way is to kill the chain of command and work downwards. He'd go right for the king if he knew the way.

Damn shame, it would have been cool to see that thing punting stunties. Any more details?

Well about the battle itself to claim it? Because the walker was immobile for this battle of course.

Well I could just summarise by saying that using Night Goblins on spiders is an extremely bad idea and unless you're heavily theme centric in the games like this, never ever ever do it!

It was worse still that every unit he had, had an oathstone pretty much...so they had no rear and flanks and had no chance of running because of stubborn all round.
Hammerers with Lord - Stubborn.
Ironbreakers With Thane - not stubborn but unkillable by goblins and oathstone means loss of CR...The Thane had a magic banner to give +1 CR to all units around him too...
Finally his Longbeards guarding the other part of the walker (for a total of three at it) are of course immune to some things that would frighten a normal dwarf.

The tide of things are changing now that my opponent is picking every list to specifically deal with the only consistent advantage I can throw at him, static combat res. I need to get a new plan to combat -that- or I'm sunk in this whole war, even though I'm still winning overall by a few thousand pts...at this rate...

Okay, there's been some movement in the development of this thing. I posted it on Herdstone and got the following reply from a chap:

Well it already is ITP but what does everyone think of what he mentioned?

My reply was this:

Alright, well I made an immediate patch to the thing already. I've made the all out overdrive do D6 bonus attacks not D3.
I'm thinking of addressing its wounds or self harm a little more.
If it all out overdrives, there's a strong chance that one die will roll 1 and it will hurt itself with Str 7. For 300 points, it's looking quite an expensive risk with only 3 wounds.

How do you think I should address it perhaps? One or two more wounds? Or maybe making the attack self have internal parts catching on fire doing Str 5, as it isn't the drill itself attacking its own body.

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As for the actual game updates around this. Well, I was 3-1 down in the workshop with 2 games left in it. We played another game, this time for the waterworks, pipework controls/blueprints. about 2200 points game. I managed to win it by over 1000 points. Despite my opponent playing 3 battle event cards at once!
A free grungni walker, a free war machine and 200 points extra troops free.
I am a hero. :D
There's 1 game left in it and I need to win this one to make it a draw.
Tyrgar the soppy git has taken to the walker himself. Hiding inside a can. Poor Twizted didn't even get to find him. He had to make do with beating up normal stunties.
Both named characters will be fielded in the very next game.

Scenario will be Forced March, written by Jervis Johnson. To fight for claim over 3 gyrocopters in the gyrocopter workshop.
Any side that claims one, gets one free as a battle event card.
Yes even the goblins...

The walker was finally destroyed.
It meant sending two fanatics at it mind you! One through my unit of spider riders just to get it. Even then, it had a wound left. I got lucky with a goblin.

So the new patch notes for the walker are as follows:
I want to make it clear that the walker has no sides or rear flanks in close combat.
It resolves 1's rolled to hit with overdrive at Str 5 for internal fires, not 7 anymore.
It can fire its steam vent even in close combat!
It does not get march blocked (just like any dwarf unit).
The unit is a rare that also takes a hero slot (master engineer) not the other way around. Therefore it doesn't deploy with characters.
It is immune to poison.

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Now, the game it was played in was crazy. Tyrgar was riding in it! It blew up and killed him. That's the King's son, the master engineer dead!
It was not by Twizted hand. Twizted is not very happy. Now his mind is turning to the jumped up blind rune priest who keeps stopping all our shamans!

Having won the game as I did though, I claimed the Gyrocopter Yard, played over a forced march scenario. This means I win four Gyrocopters for future games as event play cards! Gyrocopters with goblins in! This won't end well!

The engineering workshop had been 3-1 remember. I pulled it back to 3-3 now. Oh boy! That means we now go to a final game, a play off to decide who takes the whole workshop. (it's a huge cog shaped building full of different workshops inside).
3k points. Not sure about a scenario for it yet. It needs to be pretty epic as a game though. The final battle of that section. Twizted leads his grots into one last game, then he gets a rest.

Hur hur hur, show dem stunties a fing or two! What happened to the poor grot that dealt the final blow? Knowing what we do about Twizted, probably would have been best to let the walker squish him.

I fully endorse this plan. As for the scenario, well...something with steam vents, piston-driven doors, falling portcullises sounds about right if you wanted any suggestions... (2c)

The goblin ended up being Twizted's new axe block :P