“Ahh young ones. So you want me to tell you about the good old Anvil of Doom. Not many Dwarfs know how to use one of these things any more. Not like in the olden days. So I shall tell you a little about them.”

“The Anvil of Doom (AoD) is my favourite piece of kit in the dwarf list, and is IMHO one of the best ways to spend just under 500pts. I have noticed that the AoD is a somewhat shunned piece of Kit. It is dismissed by most as being an expensive waste of points. How could the possibility of 8 power dice and 200pts in the toilet be in any way useful? The answer is simple, look t the other rules. 4+ Ward save, ok – Unbreakable, hang on a minute. Does that say Unbreakable? Yes it does, and this is the main reason for the Anvil. You might now say to me slayers. You would be right, they are unbreakable, but I can’t guarantee that I will have 450pts left on the table every game with a unit of slayers. This is where the Anvil starts to become useful. I know that my opponent won’t kill it; I know that it is 450 safe points, making my list nearly impossible to massacre. Before I speak in more detail let me first lay down one parameter. We are talking about a 2000pt list here. Obviously it can’t be included in smaller games, but I don’t like larger games and I haven’t used it in larger games – where is death becomes more likely and its survival becomes less important. As for talking about the tournament Vs friendly style of play it makes no difference.”

“First up the magic side of things. In my opinion this is only a secondary role for the Anvil. It has the potential to yield 8 PD, which isn’t too shabby let’s face it. 8 PD augmenting an excessive firebase does make for an awesome defensive proposition, but at the same time you could well end up with just three dice. Not so great, but still, you may be able to cast something (unlikely). The major plus of the magic phase is that you know 4 very, very good spells and best of all you are immune to the effects of a miscast, making your magic phase reliable and ruling out the possibility of firing the Runelord. I won’t detail the uses of each spell, for they are fairly obvious but I shall pick out three. The number one spell rocks, and is a perfect way of slowing down unit to keep them out of the fight or give you more time to blast them. The number two spell rocks for killing mages/banshees/hierophants/scouts and just anything that dwarfs just generally struggle to deal with, without cannon sniping. And what can I say about number three, its 2d6 S4 hits. Lovely jubbly. Magic defence wise it grants you a total of +2 DD, which means just with that alone you have 6 DD. I run another Runesmith with scrolls granting me the perfect dispel pool. 7 + 2 scrolls.”

“Now then, the major perks of the AoD is its unbreakable ability. Equipped properly the anvil can take the charge from anything and still not die. It is the best tar pit in the game, no questions asked. The enemy must kill the Runesmith to get any points and 650pts is certainly a nice incentive to try. Therefore it is important to equip the Runelord properly. He must be kitted out to survive first and foremost. Thus, I shall present my equipment which is the minimum protection your Runelord should have: Gromril Armour, Shield, rune of Stone, Rune of Resistance and the Master rune of Breaking. A chaos lord with a GW can hit this guy for turns and still survive. Obviously there are a few things he is vulnerable too. Ignore AS weapons and indeed chaos lords in prolonged combats, but if you fear that then an Axe with the Master rune of Breaking will easily sort such things, but it’s an expense you will rarely need, especially in a tournament setting. You may say this guy is expensive but he is a whole lot of points you know will almost always remain on the table at the end of the game, meaning your enemy can almost never massacre your army, which is also a very good thing in a tournament setting. If the enemy ignores him then he can continue to cast and generally be annoying, as well as giving you safe points. If the enemy goes after him then great. They will be pinned and you can flank and destroy the foolish unit or character.”

“There isn’t really much to say about what to do with the rest of the army. I use a defensive force with Kislevite allied Cavalry to provide some manuvrability and punch as well as 5-6 warmachines. A defensive army means that you can use that important LD 10 goodness, but as we have already said he is more then capable of looking after himself, so if you want to go aggressive then don’t get worried about leaving him at home. I know of a guy who used him in an offensive American GT and placed 4th, and he said the AoD was the best thing about the army. The one disadvantage about the anvil is that it is immobile. However in it not so frustrating. If deployed well it can block flank attacks on warmachines or funnel and/or split the enemy forces. You can deploy it ahead of your army to encourage the enemy to foolishly charge it, and you can set up some very sneaky bait and flee moves to lure enemy heavy cavalry into it so you can flank them. The possibilities are almost endless.”

“Well that is me on Anvils of Doom, if there is anything that isn’t clear or anything you want to ask please do – but I must encourage every one to use an anvil, it’s also a very nice model and centrepiece for your army :D”

Ras

Well i never toyed around with taking one but never really considered it a viable option. You make it sound much more appealing.

I used one in a local semi-tourney thing, to quite a nice effect. Granted, I used it more as part of a firebase than as a tarpit, but it worked out rather well for the most part. Some of the runes on it can be downright deadly, if you pick the right targets.

I don't think I'd take it as part of a seriously designed competitive army, simply because it's so many points and a couple of botched rolls could easily lose you the game, but I don't think it's a bad choice by any means.

Yeah but you need alot of botched roles, and a big nasty to take you out. Even if you have lost it you can still win, maybe nbot a massacre, but a minor/major wouldn't be too hard.