Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm looking to get into fantasy soon, and am looking for an army that is cheap to start, yet effective on the field.  I'm thinking that the components from the Battle for Skull Pass are coming down in price, and from what I hear dwarfs are a pretty solid army.

I have a few models from a dwarf mordheim warband that I can use already (an engineer and a lord with some sort of fancy axe, and a few crossbowmen)

here's my questions, what are the "must-have" dwarf units?  What dwarf unit do you see plopped onto the table that worries you the most?  What's better, massed firepower(crossbows or handguns?), massed troops, or a good mix?

Thanks for any advice in advance!

I recently did the same exact thing you're looking to do. I have limited experience playing fantasy though (only about 10 games or so, mostly me learning and losing, but having fun).

Dwarfs have options that can be stupidly good (Gunlines) which I don't enjoy playing with or you could go with a nice mix of H2H blocks and shooting. The basic ideas is your shooting forces the enemy to come to you and your H2H blocks grind away on them. If you're looking for what I've found to be the better units in the book here's what I've got:

Hammerers - Best H2H block for Dwarfs, bar none. Stubbon on a 9, and you can get WS5 S6 Great Weapons or WS5 S4 3+ Armor troops in CC, oh and Stubborn on a 9, with the ability to take a magical banner to make them immune to fear and terror (or do other things). They're an awesome unit.

Bolt Throwers with Engineers and runes are sick. I won't go to battle without at least 2 of them.

Organ Guns also rock for shooting.

Thunderers are probably better than Quarrellers, but the points cost difference and range make the Quarrellers worth taking along unless you're building the most cut-throat list ever.

One special thing to note is the rule of Dwarfs - if your Dwarf has the option to take a shield, take it, always. No really, always.

Dwarf Warriors are actually a great unit for the points and big blocks of them with a BSB near by is awesome.

If you're looking to do an army on the cheap I basically did this:

BFSP, bought enough of the warrior and thunderer sets to make 2 blocks of 25, 2 squads of 10 Thunderers, and a squad of 10 Miners. Using eBay or BWB, you can get stuff like this pretty cheap.

After that I bought a box of missile troops and a Army Box, which let me build a huge variety of troops by maximizing the sprues and doing some conversion work (converting plastic warriors into Hammerers). After that, just buy some Bolt Throwers, or whatever you want that you want to make into your army.

For my Dwarf army what I did was:

Battle for Skull Pass
Dwarf Battalion
BfSP Cannon ($5 at the FLGS)
Runesmith
Lord with Shield Bearers
1 Dwarf Sprue from Bitz (4 extra Dwarfs)

It works out to about 2000 points depending on how I shuffled things. I've got 2 units of Dwarf Warriors, 1 unit of Longbeards, 2 Cannons, 1 Organ Gun, 2 units of Thunderers, a small anti-warmachine unit of Miners, a good mix of characters and the Lord as a centre-piece.

I don't have Hammerers as I like having the army be all plastic (aside from the Lord and Runesmith). I may try converting some at some point in the future.

It was also an exceptionally cheap army to buy.

*cough*



I'm building my second unit of 20 of these guys tonight actually, one box of warriors + extra warrior sprue, and a whole lot of hammer bits (2 from each warrior sprue - 8 per box), extra hammers from banners I didn't use (see unit banner), and hammers from Warrior Champions that I have extras of from the BFSP set.

I love my plastic hammerers.

Hmm. I may scratch my Longbeard and do those instead. I have loads of unassembled Dwarves since a large part of my army arrived yesterday. Gives me something to do while watching TV tonight.

Actually, when I built my army (and I did go a little nuts, but it was cheap compared to what it'd normally cost), I made one squad of Warriors into Longbeards. Let me tell you right now, I probably won't use them again for a long time. They're glorified Warriors with a banner and a higher points tag. Immune to panic and old grumblers isn't that great, and why give them great weapons when Hammerers are one point cheaper and only cost you a special slot?

As it worked out when building regiments I liked with them, the points for the Hammerer squad (that had GW and HW+Shields) with a similar banner setup ended up costing a 10-20 points or so more - now ask yourself this question: "Is Stubborn on a 9 worth 10-20 Points?"

Give in to the beardyness, convert the Hammerers!

I always use longbeards, the more the better. their main points? (1) +1 str. 4 str is exponentially better than 3 str. (2) runic banner. You need to make your troops immune to fear and terror, and the way to do that is through a runic banner. Give them handweapon/shield, like you say hammerers are better with GWs.

Hi!

I'm a beardling myself (just bought my Codex, half of the Battle for Skullpass, and an engineer!) and I just thought I'd throw my concerns into the pot for consideration and some advice.

I'm in love with the idea of a Dwarf engineering army. I'm looking for Engineers, all manner of artillery, shot and shell and what not, riflemen, and Miners (The defining unit for an engineer based army, if you ask me)

I'm playing this for the character of the army mostly, I just love the idea behind it. But I'd also like to know if this is tactically a good army, in game terms. My ideal army will probably consist of 2-4 units of Thunderers (with 1 possibly being rangers), an Organ gun or Cannon (or both), a couple of bolt throwers, maybe a grudge thrower, all with engineers most likely, a master engineer hero or 2, and 1 or 2 squads of Miners (with steam drills!).

I can't really decide what artillery I like, but I know for a fact I will have engineers and master engineers. It's just a matter of picking the best guns at this point (with their awesome BS I'm leaning towards Bolt Throwers, but I LOVE cannons). I'm contemplating making a regiment of Ironbreakers or Hammerers with a big ol' Dwarf Lord leading them. And i mean big, tricked out with all manner of nasty runic goodness, very high point cost. Just to hold the line and protect my gunners a bit. I figure with an Oath stone and a master rune of challenge he can keep the dirty greenskins away from my gunline.

So what I'm really wondering is will I be horribly gimped if I rely almost entirely on Ranged and Artillery attacks? Will I just be easy pickin's for any army that can close the distance? Are miners any good really? (I love 'em so, I want them to be good). I've never played Warhammer before and I'm still learning the rules so I'm the quintessential 'noob' at this point. But after playing Imperial Guard I am firm in my belief in the rifle and the artillery company. Does this faith transfer over well?

The Engineer army probably isn't the strongest tournament build, but it's far from hopeless too. Keep in mind that Runesmiths/lords play a big role in the artillery process too, so you can easily justify including one or two.

Miners are a pretty decent unit.

There's a shield with a Cannon on it on the plastic Dwarf artillery kit. It would be nifty if you could order them cheap enough from BWB to equip your units with them.

Ooo, interesting!

I may be missing something, but when I peruse BWB I don't see any Dwarf stuff at all, save for the "Eh" Skullpass stuff. Am I looking in the right place?

 

Also, Gyrocopters. Very engineery, but they look a little, pardon the pun, flighty to me. Are they any good? Especially against greenskins? (My biggest opponent will be playing Greenskins. I lucked out! He was telling me how one of his units gets Hatred against dwarves. I told him about Dwarven Hatred, he flinched...) I like the sound of grapeshot but I imagine this thing is pretty fragile? No? It's got to be the fastest Dwarven unit though right?

 

Thanks for the info!

Hmm, BWB doesn't seem to offer Dwarf stuff, you're right. Pity.

The Gyrocopter is very good. Movement is key in Warhammer. While it's possible to win games with a pure gunline, it makes for unfun games, honestly.

If you play a really static shooting army, the game tends to revolve around you sitting still and rolling dice, and him moving up as fast as possible. It's dull, and tends towards just two outcomes- either

a) you roll well in shooting and he blows some Panic tests, and what remains of his army is incapable of hurting you/beating your counterassault units when it finally gets to you, or
b) You don't roll well enough in shooting, and he holds up to the Panic, and his horde steamrollers you when it gets there.

Contrary to popular belief, Dwarves CAN move. They even have a special rule (Relentless) to prevent people march-blocking them. And the game's a lot more interesting when they do. I like Dwarves, and I like your army theme. I just want to warn you that some of your ideas (4 units of Thunderers? Yikes!) may not result in the most fun gaming experience.

I personally love and currently play the following. . . It can do everything even move, I love the gyrocopter harrasment, and the bolt throwers taking out chariots, or even other war machines, and my troop blocks slaughter things horribly badly, however I hate when I akm without a hill or two.

1 Lord with 0+ save, armor reroll, +1 to hit and go first axe

2 Master Engineers, Bracers of Pistols, Rune of Stone

BSB with Master Rune of Fear, Magic Resistance 1

25 Long Beards, Great Weapons, Hand Weapons, Shields
Rune of Stoicism, Rune of Battle

10 Warriors

25 Long Beards, Great Weapons, Hand Weapons, Shields
Rune of Stoicism, Rune of Magic Resistance

10 Warriors

10 Thunderers

10 Thunderers

Bolt Thrower with +1 strength

Bolt Thrower with +1 strength and fire

Gyrocopter

Gyrocopter

Interesting Citadel- How exactly do you get a 0+ save??? The best you can get with 7th edition Dwarfs is a 1+.  Shieldbearers and Master Rune of Gromril let you have a 1+ maxinmum save, so Rune of Stone(shield,etc.) cant be added to make it 0+.

Otherwise a good list.

Gromril armor, Shieldbearers, shield, Rune of Stone. With an ordinary weapon, it would be a -1. (handweapon/shield). However, having said that, can you get a 0+ or a -1+ save in 7th ed.?

You can, but not with Shieldbearers.

In the rules for Shieldbearers it stipulates that they cannot act in such away as to improve an armour save beyond 1+.

0+ saves are possible with Empire (IIRC) (Full Plate, Barded Steed, Enchanted Shield or Helm of Skaven Slayer and Regular Shield). In general though, it's not worth the effort to get - you're better off with a re-roll or (better still) a Ward save. Or both.

My Dwarf Lord has Gromil Armour, Shieldbearers, and a Rune of Stone for a 1+ save, it's also rerollable and he has a 4+ Ward Save in addition (plus a non-runic Great Axe and an extra point of Toughness). It's more than adequate protection.

Asmodai has got it right, Dwarfs can only get a 1+ save, period.

However if you're looking for the ultimate in defense for your lord, boy oh boy do I have the setup for you:

Lord, Shield Bearers, Rune of Stone, Rune of Resistance, Master Rune of Steel, Master Rune of Spite, Great Weapon.

US3 so he's immune to killing blow with a 1+ save, which he will have at worse a 3+ Save (no better than S5 against him, ever), which is re-rollable, and a 4+ Ward Save. And with the Great Weapon he just hurts things naturally, but it's near impossible to hurt him.

You're right. I was thinking through the scenarios and MR Steel is a better buy than MR Adamant for +5 points.

Adamant is superior against the foot troops of Empire, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs, but Steel is better against characters of all sorts most of the time. Things with S<=5 are likely to just bounce off anyway regardless of whether T5 or T6.

That was my point. I play Dwarfs extensively. There is no way to get a 0+ save with Dwarfs that I know of. If there is,please tell me,I've been missing it for a long time.

There I was getting hopeful... I've never run a dwarf with 0+ armor, just thought I had a good combo. Oh well.

The new dwarf lord I am modeling up as an alternate to my great weapon lord will have shieldbearers, and a shield - that way, I get a 1+ save but I have just those few extra points to spend on runes (no rune of stone).

VB - that's a rough combo, I may need to run that someday.

I just thought I would add that you can buy the armybox (the one with 40 dwarfs and 40 thunderers).  You can use some of the thunderer leg parts with the warrior head parts.  If you do that, you can end up with:
60 warriors
(or 20 warriors, 20 longbeards and 20 hammerers [with all cloak bodies]),
20 thunderers
2 units of 10 miners
a cannon and an organ gun. 

It is a pretty good deal, especially if you buy it at a discount online (the numerous 25% off places).  The only thing you would need to add is characters.

I'm starting a goblin army and there are no dwarf players in my area. If any of you would like to trade your extra goblins from Battle for Skull Pass for my extra dwarves from my BfSP, please email me at Lonedragon@msn.com

~Yub yub, Commander!

What a deal....bleh.
There are twice as many Goblins as Dwarfs....
You can get the BFSP Dwarfs for about $15 on Ebay,or pick up individual units. They are also on BattleWagon Bitz.

Just started playing Fantasy after years of 40K. And the dwarf army I'm thinking about building consist of Lord, Thane, Rune smith and Dragon Slayer.
10 thunders, 10 quarrellers, 2X20 warriors, 15 longbeards, 19 Hammerers, cannon and 2 bolt throwers. Not really sure how effective it will be. Would like to throw a unit of 10 miners somewhere in the mix.
Trying to determine if taking Full command on the two ranged units is worth it or not?

The full command on the ranged probably isn't necessary. The Dragon Slayer probably won't be all that useful either - though he is cheap.