I will be playing the Dwarfs for the first time with the new book and I would like to talk about some tactics to use against them. I figure it will be a standard dwarf list with average units. I don't know if he will take the anvil. I wish I had the Dwarf book in front of me but I don't. Anybody have the rules on the anvil handy? Also, what is the average magic defense for Dwarfs?
I'm leaning towards a magic/shooting/fast attack army or a heavy CC/fast attack list. I know that even if he goes light on magic D it will be hard for me to get magic off so I would like to take lots of magic or none. I played his brother's High Elves last week and hammered them so I know they will be chatting it up about the stuff that blew him away. It was mostly the Hydra, which did get chewed up by White Lions in the end so I don't know why he was complaining.
Oh, we are playing a 2250 point game.
What do you guys think?
"Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake."
-Napolean Bonaparte-
My tip first of all would be, take no magic! It's seriously hard to do anything decent magic-wise against dwarves.
I suggest taking fast flyers and Shades to deal with his War Machines and Thunderers. If you can take them out the rest of the army is quite helpless and you can get the battle exactly where you want it.
Oh and on a side note Dwarfs are the perfect army for fielding Executioners, since they're all high T, low I and use a lot of Great weapons!
Taking the Hydra is pretty risky especially since thay have the flame cannon and that 5 point rune that give their war machines flaming attacks!
As for the anvil I haven't really faced it because my opponent finds it to expensive to use in games under 3k.
Be fast, very fast. This is the dwarves main weakness, their speed. Their guns are powerful but I developed a way of dealing with them. Well, probably been used by others but it's been very effective for me.
Use shades and deploy them as close to the guns as possible, then have them leap out and rain fire on the cannons crew. This should work better these days with shades having BS 5 and rxbs, even with dwarves T 4. Not used flyers, wouldn't think they would be very effective as they would probs be shot down, as harpies are not tough! Once the guns are down, get behind their units with your greater speed and attack! You should never get charged by dwarves, make sure you get the charge.
@Vicinity : why should it matter if the war machines hav flaming attacks against a hydra???????? WHY!!!
Good luck!
V.
Just a quick grammar lesson for you. Capitals, keep abbreviations like u for you to a minimum, and break up your paragraphs a bit. Just remember, you're not speaking, you're writing. Where you'd take a breath while speaking, you hit enter twice while writing. Makes things easier to read, especially for non-English speakers. Though, of course, many non-English speakers have better English than us natives. Make the effort, I assure you it will be appreciated.
Objections? The Green Mind is not unreasonable, PM me.
Good luck, Layne.
"Time, its an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."-Ford, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I used to play dwarves. Still do from time to time... I have a few pointers I can give. I won't say I know all the dwarf tactics, but I can tell you what I do know.
If he takes an anvil, you're looking at 7 dispel dice minimum. Probably some hefty runes. If not an anvil, he'll probably take a runesmith or two, so we're talking 5 or 6 dispel dice there. Thats if he doesn't take the rune of "I steal your power die".
If you go absolutely insane with magic, then you can punch through that. But only barely. And at that I mean every character is a wizard, everyone using power of darkness, and the black staff. And then you can get through it.
As for what else you should do, as above, be very fast. Dwarfs I noticed tend to go gunline. Avoid his melee troops as long as possible. When you do get to taking them on, make sure its with cold one knights, chariots, hydra, the works. Nothing he can get easy combat res for. He'll probably only cause a few wounds, but its the static combat resolution you have to worry about, so keep him from getting any more, and cause as many wounds as you can. If you can get 5 wounds before he gets any, then he's left with his unit champion, which a properly tooled assassin can take down, and whatever character he's put in the unit. A character on his own isn't too much of a concern against any of the above. Unless he takes the rune of "You don't get an armor save".
If you do take all magic, consider the lore of metal, for its spell that removes magic items.
Whatever you hit them with, you want to kill them. Use assassins with manbane, banner of murder, You could also try the manbane/rending stars trick.
If you see 5 crew on his war machines, don't charge them with anything less than decked out dark riders. I'm thinking 7 or so. He will stand and shoot and kill one or two before they get into combat.
If he does take an anvil, charge it as fast as possible. There's only three of them, and unless he specifically tooled his runelord to be a combat master, which is hard, you'll likely be fighting 5 wounds worth of ironbreakers. That doesn't last long against 5 wounds worth of knights.
edit: fixed grammatical errors, and added more tips.
I am also Dwarf player and I agree with Schlorgadorb's views, I am also trying to create an all around list to beat dwarfs. We usually play at 2250 (ETC rules). The Anvil is a must for all Dwarf players and if a runelord use it with ancient power then d3 units anywhere on the table are ruined. One very nasty effect of the Anvil of course is that it can suicide (by misfire).
Dwarf anti-magic: Because of the new VC and Daemon armies a Dwarf power player should use the combo of Anvil + magic banner +2 to dispell (no magic can overdo it).
Dwarf gun line: The most of the times a dwarf player puts 2 to 4 BT, Organ gun and 2-3 units of Quarellers or Thunderers. The harpies have no effect against Quarellers or Thunderers and they can only delay BTs, they only can be effective against the Organ but an experienced player will put it between some strong units.
Dwarf air units (gyriopter): It is very effective against T3 units.
Also be carefull of the miners, specially against our BTs.
My strategy is to use the "undying" Dreadlord on a Black Dragon and a Master on a Manticor and full gunline of 3 units of Rxb, a unit of shades and BTs. In the beginning I try to harm Dwarven BTs and Organ gun and after that I attack from the air.
Shades with assassin is a good choice.
I don't use chariots, many DW BTs have St 7.
I don't use expensive infantry, it will be dead before can give a fight.
one guy solves some of the problems.. Shadowblade! Ye might give him a ring, I hear that Anvils are his specialty...
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(O.o )
(> < ) This is the Assassin Bunny.
He has been specially trained by "the Old man of the Mountain".
He looks cute and than bites off your aorta when you least expect it..
Void wrote:Just a quick grammar lesson for you. Capitals, keep abbreviations like u for you to a minimum, and break up your paragraphs a bit. [...] Objections? The Green Mind is not unreasonable
Lol, I think The Green Mind should hold off on throwing those stones and instead check what HIS house is made of.
As for the Dwarves: meddas has it. Shadowblade is just what the Anvil calls for, and any cannon he mops up after that are just icing on the cake. Having said that, I would never take Shadowblade; I'd rather spend the points on a big, fun critter for my Dreadlord.
And I know that magic is generally a bad idea against the Dwarves, but imagine what Black Horror would do to a tightly packed gun line...
Edit: Oh dear, speaking of glass houses...I put meddas as the Shadowblade idea guy, but it wasn't him. it was the guy AFTER him (whose name I can't see now). Sorry about that, guy after meddas!
Duke Daedric wrote:one guy solves some of the problems.. Shadowblade! Ye might give him a ring, I hear that Anvils are his specialty...
I tried this against a friend the other day, much to my disapointment.
Shadowblade only has 4, strength 4 attacks (w/killing blow)
Even with hatred, thats hit on 3's, wound on 4's. I averaged about 2 wounds a round, my opponent saved 1.
With stubborn dwarven machine crews, it's tough to get them to flee, and with 4 men on each gun, I spent 5 turns with shadowblade only killing 2 machine crews (the first crew died on turn one with the potion of strength), before Shadowblade died.
Sadly, I think a 140 point assassin with rune of kaine & manbane would be much more effective against dwarves, if only you could get him into place.
There is some statistics and analysis on betting them with no magic and no over the top characters. I will add some real life analysis as I actually gets to play
I definately agree that Shadowblade is good the first two rounds since it has potion and all, so you gotta be realy careful where you hide him.. but consider that he is making up for his points by makeing it inpossible for your oponent to earn points trough killing your stufff.. So theoreticaly if ye dispose of his "fattest" warmachine he already payed up..... on The first round slaughter that engineer that he payed dearly and crush his hopes of doing that essential STR 7 hits..
What he doesn't make up in points he makes up in psychology..
P.S. I'm talking bollocks since my operating system is not operating well because of sleep deprivation.. I'm off..
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(O.o )
(> < ) This is the Assassin Bunny.
He has been specially trained by "the Old man of the Mountain".
He looks cute and than bites off your aorta when you least expect it..
Even with hatred, thats hit on 3's, wound on 4's. I averaged about 2 wounds a round, my opponent saved 1.
With stubborn dwarven machine crews, it's tough to get them to flee, and with 4 men on each gun, I spent 5 turns with shadowblade only killing 2 machine crews (the first crew died on turn one with the potion of strength), before Shadowblade died.
Ermm...dwarf machine crews have only got light armour, so he couldn't save a S4 attack, also shadowblade has many special rules and poisoned attacks, it is hard to believe he would've been killed by a war machine crew, in fact, he doesn't need the potion against them!
On the other hand i think it wasn't shadowblade who was dissapointing, more like your dice rolls...
DiscipleOfKhaine said:
Im not saying that makes them unworthy of a model, Im just saying...that Malekith is the greatest elven king in the history of the world and I will never concede otherwise.
I agree with Void. A dwarf army's main weakness is that the troops are slow and have low initiative. The best thing to do is to charge them with corsairs and executioners/black guard, use shades/harpies to shield your troops from cannon fire and try to take out the crew, and use cavalry to aid the troops via flank. Big creatures such as mantys and hydras can be used to support the troops. Shadowblade helps as well.
For the love of Grungni/Sigmar/Kaine. This must be the one hundredth time on 12 different sites. YOU CANNOT PUT SHADOW BLADE IN THE ANVIL OF DOOM. Read his rules, he replaces a single model on a 20 or 25 mm base..... the anvil counts as ONE LARGE MODEL. You can't replace an anvil guard anymore then you could replace a rider on a cav base. I know what your thinking "But Mistr Moon, But Mistr Moon. f he takes Thorek can i replace his little assistant guy (Kragi). No you cant, kragi is a unit champion so there.
Also this is a rather obscure rule made at a UK GT a couple years ago that everyone should know. A Dwarf Runelord on an Anvil is IMMUNE to killing blow the argument being that the entire anvil always counts as US5 even if the lord is the only one left, so does that make him immune to KB? They apparentyl decided yes and this has kind of been taken as the official word since then, just thought everyone ought to know.
- Hard to kill due to armour and toughness. Executioners are a must have to cutting through that armour and wounding reliably once combat is met. Likewise, have some crossbows in the list to take advantage of the armour peicing attacks.
- Hard to break. Their natrually high LD value is going to be hard to overcome and oath stones take the edge off our ability to multi charge a unit. Fear causing and outnumbering is certainly an ability that cannot be under estimated against the Dwarves.
- Magic defense. Dwarves come armed to the teeth with ways of stopping you getting spells off, so it's an all or nothing scenario with these guys. If you do take it, you're going to need that little bit extra to make it reliable, but if you don't, they pose no serious threat to you in thier magic phase, so spend your points on troops that can crack thier line instead.
- Shooting. Once again, they're armed to the teeth, but their weapons shoot further and hit harder and thier handguns deny almost all our units an armour save of any kind so treat them with a bit of respect. Thier ballistic skill isn't as good but the weapons craftmanship makes up for this, deal with them as soon as possible or make sure you screen effectively because they will cause casualties if they are left to do thier thing.
- Slayers. Units of unbreakable redness will always be trouble, and they're a perfect unit that can tie up a flank for some time. If they're going to be a problem, make certain that you dedicate a few bolts just for them, the more you kill out of combat, the less time they'll hold you up when you get into it with them.
- War machines. Everyone knows that Dwarves come with the most reliable War Machines in the game, and they ahve a vast range to choose from. Dealing with these sooner rather than later will always be an advantage to you, as the Dwarves are slow movers they tend to be more than happy to let you come to them while they whittle away at your own ranks.
Threats you pose to them:
- Movement. The one things Dwarves can't do is move, this extra advantage means that they will fight on your terms, or at the very least, you're the one picking the fights you want to fight. If you can successfully set up a refused flank on a Dwarf army you can seriously hamper thier combat ability as they do not redeploy as easily.
- Initiative. Dark Elves are faster than the Dwarves in more than just the movement phase, not only will you be getting in the charges, you'll also be hitting first in subsequent rounds, which with dwarves, you can almost count on happening. The less of them there are to fight back the better, and this can be a great boon to how your units fare once hitting the battle line.
- Magic. The Dark Magic is an inately destructive magic list and alot of its spells are high strength attacks (Chillwind and Doombolt), high quantity attacks (Soul Stealer and Bladewind) De-buffs that take away the dwarven fighting/shooting advantage (Word of Pain), or bypass thier higher toughness alltogether (Black Horror). Chillwind also has the ability to seriously hinder the dwarven shooting phase, which is ALWAYS a good thing. If you have the resources to overcome thier magic defense, it will serve you admirably.
Tactics to employ
- One of my favourite and most notable tactics against dwarves is to run a unit of Dark Riders up right infront of the unit, about 3" off it's front. This makes the dwarf unit EXTREMELY hard to manaeuver as they cannot move within 1" of the Dark Riders, and even if you flee with triple 1's you still will be out of pursuit range of the slow Dwarves. This can effectively isolate a flank and can certainly stop a unit from reenforcing a line which makes yuo picking your fights a much easier task.
- Gem of Nightmares and a solid unit to autobreak those stubborn units of Hammerer's etc. is another favoured tactic. This removes the dwarves advantage of being high LD and all it requires is a solid charge, or a supported charge to make things safer and potentially break right through them.
- Throw chariots into combat for good measure. Winning combat simply wont be enough against dwarves, you need to make sure that you hit them with desicive blows in order to crumble thier lines. If they tie you down they'll take the initiative from you, and sap your resources, chariots are great for racking up a few extra wounds in order to put up a few extra points in that combat resolution.
- Shades, great weapons and warmachines where just meant to be. Great weapons means that trouble with wounding those T4 dwarves is a thing of the past and they can effectively rampage across a gun line from very early on in the game. The sooner thier warmachines are out of the picture the faster you can stop worrying about it ruining your day.
- Harpy screens. At such a low price point, and the fact they don't panic any of your units, it's a hard roll not to use them in. This should keep the heat of your units for a turn or two, and you can a similar trick with them as you do with the dark riders. A good idea is to put them a fair few inches infront of the unit thier shielding, that way guess range weapons are less likely to scatter onto your units. If infantry shooting is the order of the day, throw them into the units as soon as they lose thier effectiveness as a screening unit in order to keep the unit in combat, or try and force the shooting unit to move, as all dwarf shooting is move or shoot.
From the High Level Tactica against all races thread.
mistr moon wrote:Also this is a rather obscure rule made at a UK GT a couple years ago that everyone should know. A Dwarf Runelord on an Anvil is IMMUNE to killing blow the argument being that the entire anvil always counts as US5 even if the lord is the only one left, so does that make him immune to KB? They apparentyl decided yes and this has kind of been taken as the official word since then, just thought everyone ought to know.
Immune to KB? Don't know what tournament that was decided. That ruling may have been correct for that particular tournie, but as never made official as far as I know. If it isn't included in a FAQ or rules update somewhere, you can't expect a decision like that being known and used by all players. Perhaps it was FAQ'ed, not sure. In any case, I've whitnessed runelords on anvils getting KB'ed before, by TK scorpions and the like.
I just played a battle against dwarfs and this thread helped me a ton! Thanks guys! I took out one of his cannons first round. My Master on a DP along with shades w/ GW took out a line of thunderers second round! my CoK, Executions and my hydra over ran his Ironbreakers and his Gen.
Anyways Thanks for all the help! I hope i will assist others later!
