Axes at the ready!

Well, earlier this week I got to try out my first proper 2k game with the angry, bearded ones, against Alistair's High Elves.
Luck was certainly on my side (or, perhaps more accurately, and absence of luck on his. See something like 30 arrows killing a single dwarf thunderer and various other High Elf mishaps), but I certainly think the core of my army is the way I want it.

I ran:

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Dwarf Lord
-Shield, Rune Weapon (+1S, +2A) Talisman of 4+ Wardsavery

Thane
-BSB, Runic Standard of Grugni (5+ ward save against missiles to anyone within 6")

Runesmith
-Great Weapon, Talisman of power dice stealing

30 Longbeards
-Full Command, HW/Shields

25 Warriors
-Full Command, Great Weapons

25 Warriors
-Full Command, HW/Shields

14 Quarellers

14 Thunderers

Cannon

Organ Gun
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The basic HW/Shield warriors were my "sacrifice block", in that I threw them in the path of the nastiest thing on the board (in this case, Sword Masters). Their decent T, Save, Parry save and numbers meant they held strong for a couple of round of combat before breaking, which gave the rest of my army time to get things done.

The strong core of Long Beards had good survivability, and with higher S and WS than normal meant they steadily ate their way through the block of spears I had them fighting. The BSB went in this unit, and I think it's a solid anchor point to my army.

Finally the lord went in with the GW warriors, and pretty much failed to get into combat after the Organ Gun destroyed everything they were trying to fight. We did a quick couple of theory rounds with them taking a charge from some dragon princes once the game ended, and I think they held their own pretty well. They've got enough numbers to take some casualties, and S5 should be enough to bring some foes down with them.

I'm not settled with the shooting phase. I think dropping the quarellers and getting some more warmachines will be the eventual plan, but for now they're doing ok.
I need to play with the runes on my characters a bit more though. The ward save against shooting was OK, but I think giving my BSB survivability in combat will be more useful.

Now to get on with painting the bearded little drunkards.