 | Main - Tactics - Fiction - Rumours - Army Features |
Runic Wonders - Weapon Runes - Dysartes | |
| First things first - unless you expect to go up against big creatures such as Greater Daemons, Dragons, Hydras, etc, then I would claim that a simple great weapon is a much better investment than a pricey rune weapon. With the possible exception of Daemonslayers, you are almost certain to be striking secnd anyway, so why not make the best of it and get the +2 strength as well? Unless your Engineer has made it into combat, you'll be hitting at S6 with the associated -3 save modifier - enough to scare even Chosen Chaos Knights. The upside to taking any Rune on your weapon is that it becomes magical, removing the Ward save of Daemons and meaning you can actually beat up those pesky Ethereal creatures. However, if you do want to take a Rune Weapon, then we'd best take a look at the different runes available to you. Master Rune of Snorri Spangelhelm - 75ptsWith the high weapon skill (6 or 7) of the Dwarf Lord choices, a rune making you hit automatically does not, in my opinion, become worth it when you're already hitting everything in the game on a 3 or 4 anyway. However, removing one piece of uncertainty (ie, how your to hit dice rolls will go) does allow you greater certainty of how many of the enemy you will kill.Master Rune of Skalf Blackhammer - 75ptsIf you plan on going big gribbly hunting, then the ability to automatically wound is very useful. The main down side to this is that any armour saves are only modified by your base strength, meaning only a -1 save modifier. In a similar fashion to the Master Rune of Snorri Spangelhelm, you are reducing the uncertainty of kills by removing a set of dice rolls, meaning a greater number of kills.Master Rune of Alaric the Mad - 50ptsThe ultimate can-opener - ignoring armour saves means that even Chosen Chaos Knights or Empire Knights of the Inner Circle will be having a bad day when they encounter this character. I'm of the opinion that this rune is a goon one to give to anyone who happens to be fighting Chaos, and especially on a Dragonslayer or Daemonslayer, allowing them to make maximum use of the Slayer skill. I'm toying with the idea of using a Daemonslayer with this, a Rune of Fury and Rune of Speed (or possibly another Rune of Fury) as a counter-charge unit, for mincing cavalry.Master Rune of Flight - 50ptsAlways an amusing one to be carrying, due to the surprise factor when your hammer starts flying all over the place. This Rune can be very handy when charged, allowing you, for instance, to eliminate a unit champion as they charge. Why would that be handy? Well, if there is another character in the unit and you challenge him, he will either have to accept or not fight at all, and if you've eliminated the unit champion and he refuses, you can get on with munching the rank-and-file of the unit, making it easier to break the unit. Also handy for sniping Banshees.Master Rune of Breaking - 50ptsI'm not really convinced on how useful this rune actually is. If it could be combine with the Master Rune of Flight, then it would allow magic weapon sniping, and would be quite potent. However, as this isn't possible (except in a War of the Beard list), it strikes me as a Rune without much use - in a challenge you're either going to kill your opponent or be killed by him in a round or two, and him not having a magic weapon after the first combat phase isn't going to make that much difference in the grand scheme of things.Master Rune of Swiftness - 25ptsA perrenial favourite, especially combined with a couple of Runes of Cleaving. Handy to take out some charging enemy units before they get chance to hurt the character or regiment he is with. Beware of other characters with "Always strike first" items, as you'l invariably strike second against them due to the low Dwarfish initiative.Rune of Might - 25ptsRather handy for dealing with anything particularly big and nasty - S8 compared to S4 when facing T5 and above creatures is quite evil - wounding on 2's instead of 5's and 6's is quite a bonus. However, it doesn;t tend to do much against rank & file, unless your rank and file happen to be minotaurs.Rune of Fury - 25ptsAn extra attack, increasing the impact you can make on combat resolution. As mentioned earlier, two of these combined with the Master Rune of Alaric the Mad on a Daeomnslayer's axe gives a hideously good can-opener (6A, generally hitting on 3's, wounding on 3's or 4's, with no armour save allowed). Also hand combined with the Master Rune of Swiftness on a Thane to stp charging units in their tracks.Rune of Cleaving - 20ptsEvery Thane or Lord's friend, a strength increase. As increasing your stat increases the size of the dent you make in armour, yu are getting two bonuses from one Rune. However, it's substantially cheaper to get a great weapon than to buy two of these - and I know which I'd do.Grudge Rune - 15ptsCharacterful, but its effectiveness is reduced due to the Dwarfish lack of manoeuverability - it becomes too easy for the named character to simply avoid the vengeful caracters, denying him the closure of his grudge.Rune of Striking - 10ptsCheap, but increasing your WS is generally pretty pointless. WS 5 on your heroes and 6 or 7 on your Lord's is generally good enough to batter your opponent. It's possibly worth taking against Chaos, but not against most opponents.Rune of Speed - 5ptsEven cheaper than the Rune of Striking, and possibly even more pointless. It's possibly worth combining with 2 runes of cleaving for a fast strking great weapon, but it's very pricey for what you get.Rune of Burning - 5ptsIf you reckon you'll face an opponent with Regenerate, such as Trolls, or someone flammable, such as Tomb Kings, take it - otherwise, what's the point, other than as a cheap way to hit Ethereal stuff.Next: Armour Runes | |
Want to discuss this? Or anything else? | |
Main - Tactics - Fiction - Rumours - Army Features | |