Are dwarves harder to win with than Dark Elves?

[Columind]

This one is for a friend of mine...he usually played HE, and still plays from time to time, but he begun collecting a dwarf army, as his 2nd natural army.
I have DE and will now begin Lizardmen.
He is still on a learning stage about how to win with Dwarves against my Karond Kar List (2 mantis, 2 hydras), and he's been massacred 3 out of 5 times now and never won (1 of the games he was very unlucky with misfires from his war machines).
There are 1 or 2 or even 3 formulas that are known to work well on each army (granted, we haven't got that many nor as solid as others, but we do have them). He has found a certain formula with the HE(lots of cavalry,2/3 RBT and a dragon) that he was beggining to have sucess with in recent tourneys, but now he seems a bit lost in the Dwarf mess...
I'm beggining to believe it's pretty hard to win with Dwarves, because basically they only have ONE style of play...defensive(shooting), they can't even make magic a very strong ally...
Can Dwarves be considered similar to DE in terms of being very challenging and hard to win with (at least on a regular basis and especially in tournaments)?

[Pmpn8ez]

Any army can be difficult to win with in the learning process. Dwarfs actually tend to be one of the easier and more forgiving races due to their high WS, T, AS, and leadership. Between their powerful shooting phase and effective antimagic, they're usually great for beginners (though many veteran players will quickly grow bored with the lack of tactical options). If there is something specific that he's doing wrong, either tactically or as a flaw in his list, that could be the reason. DE also tend to be pretty good at nullifying some of the Dwarfs' abilities (like their high WS, which is only equal to DElves'), so it may just be the fact that you, as an experienced Druchii player, can mop the floor with his army because of what you know and he doesn't. Maybe if you played him with your lizzies it would be a very different story, since then you would both be new to your respective armies.

[Columind]

True...My DE army is designed to play against Dwarves...fast, flank denying and hard-hitting army.I don't know...his choises seem pretty normal and wise. He even used 4 or 5 war machines.I don't know.

[Dragon_prince]

It's not hard to win with dwarfs, but it's ahrd to massacre, çause most of the time you don't get banner and no table quarters

[Cornixt]

Although they are good for beginners, you don't find many at all that win tournaments.

[Danceman]

if you are experienced and design a list specific to beat Dwarfs it no wonder he is loosing, just in my humble opinion that one should never make a list to beat another list(especially if you opponent doesnt and even more reason if he is new... kinda takes the fun out of the game).

i think you should try a more balanced, or even a more infantry army and give that a shot. Even games are so much more fun than to just win(again especially when someone is new).

so go with a balanced list insted of a WAAC list, is my advice.

[Vorchild]

They can be really easy to play, or really difficult I find, and against certain armies, they just get owned - so totally, so completely. They are strong in that they are hard to get VPs off of due to their units being rock solid, but they can also be notoriously unforgiving too. Forexample, losing a unit of 20 warriors because you allowed them to be flanked would seriously mess up your day. Those units may not be as expensive as chaos warrriors or saurus, but they can be quite costly. I've had some ideas for MSU dwarfs that I've been wanting to try out. I'm so far convinced that particular style has to be the hardest in the game to play, but I'm equally as convinced that they can do exceptionally well that way and could not only surprise opponents, but also give the dwarfs an edge in the movement phase.

[Imrael]

It is possible to be aggressive with drarves. THey're slow but cant be march blocked. Your friend will need to choose times when terrain etc favour an advance.

Also, he might like to try a gyrocopter. Good fun, quite effective against DE foot units and generally disruptive.

[Andruillius]

One good thing with dwarfs is their dirt cheap warriors. Except for their M they're king. I imagine one could do quite well with MSU dwarfs if played correctly, checkerboard deployment and such.

[Pmpn8ez]

MSU will be really difficult because of M. A lot of MSU relies on bait and flee and flank charges. The dwarfs have no capacity to do either of those; rather, they rely on their guys to take charges head on and hold, then win a war of attrition with their better WS, T, and armor. MSU is much like the antithesis of dwarfs.

[Columind]

But I use the Karond Kar list against ALL armies danceman, I've been experimenting on it for quite some time now, since I started DE about 2 years ago...I used it against his HE and lost a few times...for those who know me, it my trademark!!! I never make a list to win against a specific list unless my opponent wants to try some scenario or something. I love monsters and fast, manouverable armies, that's why I use this list, not because I desperately want to win against dwarves and against him as a dwarf begginer.
Never make the mistake of thinking I posted this to tell how good I am...I posted this because even though he knows WH rules and tactics, he's having a lot more difficulty to win against my REGULAR list with Dwarves, difficulty that he didn't have to such a level with HE.

[Andruillius]

pmpn8ez: Ah well, I guess he'l just have to load up on warmachines with runes and try to blast the buggers

9pts for T4 troops with a 3+ AS in CC though...sounds nice, don't you think?

[Enmanuial]

9pts for T4 troops with a 3+ AS in CC though...sounds nice, don't you think?

sounds nice, but remember they are slow, easily outmanouvred and hardly ever get to charge,