DE Newbie vs. Dwarves

[Scalenex1]

Never played DE before but I got the army book. I'm planning to play a DE army via proxies to test out the DE army against my friend who collects dwarves.

Against my LM, he typically fields 1-2 cannons, 1-2 grudge throwers, and 1-2 organ guns. two runelords/runesmiths, a BSB thane with a 1+ AS, and sometimes a master engineer. He very rarely takes fighty characters. He doesn't often take crossbowmen or hand gunners. He usually fields groups of miscenallenous dwarf infantry with great weapons in horde formation.

I don't think he'd change his ways much for DEs versus LM save gravitating towards grudge throwers in lieu of cannons and likely take runes to give various units flaming attacks for hydra control.

Generally speaking units with single powerful attacks gain a lot for being in horde formation. I figure a horde of executioners will be nice counter to great weapon dwarves. I'm not sure what the best way to field Witch Elves, Blackguard, Corsairs against great weapon hordes.

Are hydras still viable in the face of flaming cannon balls? I'd hope to use cold ones because as a LM player I'm partial to them. Do you guys usually use them on their own or as "buses" for heroes?

What do you guys prefer for war machine hunting? Shades, harpies, or dark riders? Or is it better just to not target the war machines and focus on winning CC?

[Lord tsunami]

step 1:
get your fast units in combat with his warmachines. you can use a combination of dark riders, shades and harpies. especially the organ gun needs to be engages asap because otherwise it will murder said light units.

step 2:
now try to spread him out. pretty much nothing we have can engage his GW hordes alone in a point efficient way. you need to separate one from the flock and pounce on it with several units to kill it. you can soften it up with ranged attacks and magic too.

Dark magic is exellent against dwarfs, since a lvl 4 with dagger can cast all 5 of her spells every turn. that will draw out his dispell runes sooner or later, and even with the superb anti magic of the dwarfs you will have more power dice at your disposal. A well placed black horror or even soul stealer will make that horde a lot less threatening, and chillwind and bladewind are both excellent against his ranged units/WMs. also, casting word of pain on the unit you chose to engage will help you both offensively (hitting on 3+) and defensively (he will hit you on 5+). yummy.

Step 3:
Only fight the battles you KNOW you will win. This goes against every army when you play druchii, but still. in the later turns of the game, when you have disabled his WMs, you can run circles around his units, shooting them (focus on one if you can) with your missile units (dont forget shades and DRs), and if you are lucky with magic and shooting you could pounce on a second unit and kill that too. an "unkillable" roadblock dreadlord can save your other units by engaging his horde of hammerers (im betting he has one of those) and keeping it bussy for a couple of rounds. meanwhile you "kite" and kill his other units.



Do not be too sad if you lose. dwarfs can be tough, and they require you to walk a thin line when fighting them. practice makes perfect

[Saintofm]

Cauldron and either have it bestow killign blow or the ward save whenever they are warranted (one to get past the armor and toughness as most of your attacks will be wounding on 5's, and the other being, well, elves are soft ans squishy and they will make into bloody smears).

I'me suprised that your friend dosn't take flame cannons as those are always a pain, however organ guns can be pretty fevistating in their own right, and the grudge thrower will make short work of horde formations.

Since he will be taking rune lords/smith, i suggest killing the Anvil ASAP, and also be warry of his anti magic. Since dwarvse lack it, they ballence out with more potent magic items and anti magic.

Also, do not expect fear, panic, or terror to work as nearly every dwarf unit is LD 9, and the few that are not are LD10 (with most of those Unbreakable).

[Red...]

I figure a horde of executioners will be nice counter to great weapon dwarves.

Add a BSB Death Hag with Standard of HG. That means you'll strike in initiative order while he strikes last.

Dark magic is exellent against dwarfs, since a lvl 4 with dagger can cast all 5 of her spells every turn

I disagree. Don't bother taking any magic. A tooled up dwarf list will rip your magic to shreds every turn. Be cunning instead - take 0 magic. He can't hit you with magic, but will have wasted points on magic defence.

To illustrate: A typical dwarf list will have:

Runelord with Master Rune of Balance and Rune of Spellbreaking.
Runesmith with Master rune of Spellbinding.

That's just 350 points for a +3 to dispel, +4 dispel dice and -1 to your power dice, as well as two dispel scroll equivalents. If he wants to, he can make magic impossible for you. So don't bother. Imagine you roll a 5 and a 2. You get 7 dice to start with, he gets 5. Add his plus 4 and he is up to 9. Take away your minus one and you are down to 6. Not good.

step 1:
get your fast units in combat with his warmachines. you can use a combination of dark riders, shades and harpies. especially the organ gun needs to be engages asap because otherwise it will murder said light units.

This is good advice. Consider taking a Master/Dreadlord on a Dark Pegasus with Cloak of Hag Graef too.

Are hydras still viable in the face of flaming cannon balls?

Not really, no.

I'me suprised that your friend dosn't take flame cannons as those are always a pain

According to Bugman's, the RAW has nerfed these. They now have a 12" max range or something. Won't see them often until the new AB comes (which it sounds like isn't going to be for a while...)

[Thetosh]

If you don't want toi run Dark Magic (but I would recomend it!) remember that Pit of Shades in Shadow instantly kills any War Machine it touches.

[Red...]

Pit of Shades in Shadow instantly kills any War Machine it touches

And dwarf dispel dice and multiple runes of spellbreaking make it all but impossible to cast reliably. If he's not good enough to have built an army list with decent anti-magic that all but shuts down your magic phase, well tbh you don't need our advice on here at all, as he's just not a good player generally. Anti-magic in 8th is essential for dwarfs, and any dwarf army player worth his salt will have enough of it to make magic all but useless, especially because it costs him so little to do so.

[Dirty Mac]

He can dispel it and destroy it too if you are unlucky.

[Scalenex1]

I figure a horde of executioners will be nice counter to great weapon dwarves.

Add a BSB Death Hag with Standard of HG. That means you'll strike in initiative order while he strikes last.

Dark magic is exellent against dwarfs, since a lvl 4 with dagger can cast all 5 of her spells every turn

I disagree. Don't bother taking any magic. A tooled up dwarf list will rip your magic to shreds every turn. Be cunning instead - take 0 magic. He can't hit you with magic, but will have wasted points on magic defence.

To illustrate: A typical dwarf list will have:

Runelord with Master Rune of Balance and Rune of Spellbreaking.
Runesmith with Master rune of Spellbinding.

That's just 350 points for a +3 to dispel, +4 dispel dice and -1 to your power dice, as well as two dispel scroll equivalents. If he wants to, he can make magic impossible for you. So don't bother. Imagine you roll a 5 and a 2. You get 7 dice to start with, he gets 5. Add his plus 4 and he is up to 9. Take away your minus one and you are down to 6. Not good.

step 1:
get your fast units in combat with his warmachines. you can use a combination of dark riders, shades and harpies. especially the organ gun needs to be engages asap because otherwise it will murder said light units.

This is good advice. Consider taking a Master/Dreadlord on a Dark Pegasus with Cloak of Hag Graef too.

Are hydras still viable in the face of flaming cannon balls?

Not really, no.

I'me suprised that your friend dosn't take flame cannons as those are always a pain

According to Bugman's, the RAW has nerfed these. They now have a 12" max range or something. Won't see them often until the new AB comes (which it sounds like isn't going to be for a while...)

I got a variety of follow up questions/comments.

Given that in 8th ed you get to replace the fallen intiative seems to matter less. Also I fear a Death Hag would be an especially vulnerable BSB with no armor or ward save.

Since Dark Pegasi are multi-wound models wouldn't they be just as easy to kill with a cannon as manticore or dragon?

Playing LM versus dwarves I came to the conclusion that I should go either with lots of magic or no magic. So I guess I'm either going to go with no sorceresses at all or one L4 one L2.

We usually play 2500 points. My vague tactical idea is to stick the L4 Dark Magic caster in a bunker of spearmen with the sacrificial dagger or a bunker of crossbowmen with a darkstar cloak. The L2 with death would join a unit of Cold One Riders along with a mounted BSB. THe idea is the Death mage could get close enough to use a hero killing spell or two at the runelord. Then with the runelord out of action hopefully things will shift my way and the arch mage can have a relatively free field. Is this a feasible strategy?

[Tethlis]

I wouldn't underestimate magic. Irresistible Force is always an option, and if you lure the Dwarf player's scrolls in the opening turns with Pit of Shades or other major threats, then that leaves the door wide open for crucial hexes/augments in combat. The Sacrificial Dagger means we can easily challenge all those Dispel Dice; we may not overwhelm their defenses in the same way that we do most other races, but we can easily compete with their dispel potential.

To answer your questions, the reason that Pegasus Riders are great versus Dwarves is because they share their profile with the rider, and use the rider's armor/defenses when they're hit by enemy attacks. This means that the Pendant of Khaeleth on one character, and Cloak of Hag Graef/Dawnstone on another character, gives you two fast-moving combat options that are basically invincible to enemy warmachines. The Pendant essentially gives its rider a 2+ Ward Save versus cannon fire, while the Cloak will take a cannonball and reduce it to Strength 5 (not that cannons do NOT ignore armor in the same way that bolt throwers do, so you receive the full effectiveness of your armor save here.)

Otherwise, I agree that it's crucial to isolate a Dwarf unit (preferably whichever one is on the flank of his lines) and focus your attention on it until it's broken. You'll also need to redirect or delay the next Dwarf unit down the line; if your initial target holds, you don't want another pile of Dwarves sweeping in to flank you. If you can focus a lot of killing power on one threat, and use units like Harpies or Spearmen to cover your flanks, you can create a gap in your opponent's battle lines that he'll struggle to recover from.