My regular opponent are dwarwes and in 6ed it was a lot of trouble to defeat him or just avoiding being massacred. I think the new AB is some what better and dwarves now will make a tough but exciting matchup.
He castles pretty well, is pretty good at range guessing and moves his characters alot between units and war machines. In 2K he usually bring 2-3 conbat blocks, 2-3 shooting regiment and some war machines. General + BSB + perhaps another thane with some rune weapons. To harass me he uses a gyro and/or miners. He has lately aquired an Anvil and some slayers. So a reasonable competent dwarf general.
We try to play a little nice regarding composition especially characterwise. Not taking a dive, but trying to be reasonable, so Crone on a manti, Shadowblade and a master on manti and some assassins is out of the question
After having read the new AB and what I could find on the net regarding this matchup, my thoughts on cores are the following:
The killing power will have to come from the specials, as RxB will have problems wounding and regular WS4, S3 attacks will fail to do any significant damage to T4, AS3+ warriors, although corsairs with SSS should beat missile troops on regular basis. Core troops will have other uses, mainly static CR and shielding. Anything which helps wounding and avoiding armour saves is a must.
Magic against dwarves should either be all in or nothing at all. I'm leaning towards nothing as it would make me character heavy and
beating him by magic could make him field the Anvil, which I prefer stays out.
Specials:
I have devised the following hammers. Still don't know if I bring them all or if I use multiples of one of them. Is 15 a reasonable number assuming they hit the dwarven line together with some core blocks providing static CR?
15 Black Guard + Tower Master: Packs some punch but 4+ to wound and 4+ AS to the stunties makes these the weaker choice. Perhaps a Standard bearer + Dread Banner to autobreak working togegther with other units. They will prefer fighting missile troop, but Stubborn means hey can be used to stop a nasty dwarven unit. The Tower Master would get Crimson Death.
15 Witches + FC + Manbane + Banner of Murder: Will break any missile troop on the charge. The BoM and Manbane gives a decent chance should the be lured into a combart unit. If he fields Slayers, the girls will take care of them! They deliver more wounds than BG, so BoM is more effective here.
15 Executioners + Draichmaster: S4 + Great Weapons + Killing Blow means dead tin cans! WS4, T4, AS3+ dwarves are dropped 0,6 on the charge and a little under 0.5 per attack subsequent rounds. To utilize this to the max, the BSB with Hydra Banner goes here. Tullaris could be included for Fear.
With some more points I would grab some Cold One Knigths, but in 2K vs shooty dwarves, I'll fear they'll die before accomplishing anything and the rest of my stuff is cheaper/more redundant, so shooting will have lesser impact.
Special:
I plan to take 1 or 2 RBT. They (if 2) will be deployed in each side of the DZ and the main target is the gyro. I fear a Hydra will be a war machine target, so first impulse is leaving Naggaroth without.
Core:
I plan to use quite a lot core regiments. Some (2?) 10 strong RxB, which are a decent matchup for dwarf missile troops in a shootout and can do some damage to a small slayer unit. Think I'll go with shields and use them to flank, when HtH begins.
30 spears with shields + FC to provide static CR. General on foot will likely go here to boost unit and make it look more dangerous than it really is.
25 Black Ark Corsairs + FC + SSS: Lots of attacks but not much pain delivered. Their survivability against shooting plus the number of attacks on the charge makes them better than spear elves per point, but not by much.
2*5 harpies for silencing the organ gun(s) for 1 or 2 rounds. Perhaps a single regiment of dark riders to charge a forward placed organ gun.
Charactes:
General: I prefer a dreadlord for the Ld10. To make him survive: Armour of Eternal Servitude, SDC, S, Pendant of Khaeleth, Soulrender or full mundane armour, PoK, Sword of Ruin.
Master: He is the main war machine silencer. He will rumble forward to hide somewhere in turn 1. Turn 2 he can't see any war machines (otherwise he'd be death), so he'll gulp down a Black Dragon Egg and fly behind dwarven line and breath death on war machine crews. Hopefully T6 is enough to survive a flying hammer and some engineer's pistols. Turn 3 and further he will charge what's left. Dark Pegasus, lance, HA, SDC, S, RxB, Black Dragon Egg.
BSB: Will take the Hydra Banner and join the Executioners. Then equipment will be either (for a master) HA, SDC, GW or (for a Death Hag) Dance of Death and Hand of Khaine. I feel the Death Hag might actually be more surviveable and the Executioners will almost want to charge if able to. What's your opinion, Master or Death Hag?
Assassin: Don't know where he goes? Additional Hand Weapon, Touch of Death, Rune of Khaine, Black Lotus. Black Lotus removes the poison to get maximum number of rolls to wound and let me reroll a sixth of those. He average just above 1 killing blow per turn. Hope that dwarf doesn't have Rune(s) of Iron or Master Rune of Spite (isn't that a Cold One
)?
And overview:
Core: 1007 (inkl. spears and DR)
Special: 618 (inkl. BG)
Rare: 200
Characters: 779/824 depending on BSB
So where do I cut the 2604/2649 points?
My own idea is BG (234), General (234), 1RBT and the odd model in a few regiments. Problem are now that I only have 2 medium sized hammer units and my rather squishy general will be running around on his own, untill the footsloggers catches up.
