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Has anyone tried small units of dwarf warriors between other bigger anvil type units like hammerers and longbeards? I figure if you have enough units you can reduce the opponent's mobility and their flank charges. The small units can either be speed bumps or the counter charge units. Granted you would need to be playing a pretty high points level game to get that many infantry blocks.

10xwarriors, 20xlongbeards, 10xwarriors, 20xhammerers, 10xwarriors, 20xslayers, 10xwarriors, and so on.

My army has always been gunline heavy, I was just trying to think of other alternatives. Anyway, just some mad musings from Alaric.

Well, there's some who say this is all warriors are good for anymore, being too soft to stand up to any army book released in 2008 or later.

A redirecting block of 10 warriors with shields goes for 90 points. Points spent on a musician are up for debate since they're so slow, they'll often be caught.

Your concept above only works if you *aren't* deployed all abreast in an even line. If the small warrior units are in line with the rest, it forces your line very wide, where the actual meat of your army has no hope of supporting eachother because of slow movement.

David L on Bugman's came up with a super-elite army that looks something like:

Dwarf Lord on Shieldbearers in hammerers
BSB in longbeards
Runesmith floating where needed
Tank thane on oathstone in ironbreakers
2 units of 10 ea. dwarf warriors
2 runed up grudgethrowers
2 organ guns

The dwarf warriors are there to meet core requirements, redirect and slow things down. They, along with the grudgethrowers represent the *soft* points in the list, with the organ guns deployed in the gaps between the units.

RZ

Dwarf Warriors are superior to many core units, and are pretty solid. I have had good success with them, but they work best with a character in them to give them some backing. Unlike some of the other elite units, who can mostly stand on their own, without a character in them a block of dwarves (20 or so) won't be worth it. If you plan to use smaller units, shield units can be used for redirecting charges as mentioned, or you can give them great weapons to give them a little more hurt, but you have to have them back off and prepare for counter charges, however since 10 warriors with GW only costs 100, they are relatively expendable, and can be used as a good threat to flankers. I personally use a unit led by a thane which with him in it gets up to 25 warriors with shields, and they stick by the Longbeards who have the general and BSB in them. Being in close proximity makes running very unlikely, and they can hold their own for the most part. The Thane just helps give the extra balance, giving him an Oathstone can also help make the unit a more solid block.

I don't want to reduce this thread into a debate about the definition of Strategy, and Tactics

But I think we need to re-align your thinking a little bit.

Tactics are the things you do the board when moving units, blocking charges, fleeing from charges, shooting cannons at this unit and not that unit etc etc. It involves the decision making during the game.

Strategy is what you intend to do with your army before you hit the table. IE I want to stand on a hill, and pour massed artillary fire into my opponent while he slowly marches toward me and I clean up the rest with my units that he eventually gets into combat with.

You build the army around the strategy, and execute it with the Tactics on the board.

What sort of things would necessitate this strategy?

Say 1 unit of thunderers, 1 unit of Crossbow men, 2 cannons, an organ gun, and a flame cannon, maybe a bolt thrower.

One of the most important elements of this strategy is to march block your opponent to gain more shooting phases

That would necessitate a gyrocopter, or a runic banner that march-blocks for a turn.

You have the strategic knowledge that you intend to soften your opponent up before he gets to you. So you'l lwant to charge soak that unit of heavy cavalry he'll inevidably have, so you need hammerers to put your general in, and they ought to be a little bigger than normal.

The rest of your Dwarfs though, could probably stand to be in the 15 man range, because you're going to pound your opponent into dust before he even gets to you, and you can spread more points out over more units to help mop up the rest. As long as you kick a units teeth in, until the unit of 15 dwarfs would normally win in combat... then leave that unit alone.

We have a good strategy.

On the other hand, if you want to run to your opponent on your stumpy little legs, that would necessitate an anvil and bigger units of dwarfs to handle static combat res at an earlier time.

Played against an excellent army on the weekend:

Bugman (general)
Runepriest with anvil
BSB with rune defiance and armour runes)
19 longbeards (BSB goes here) with full command
19 longbeards and full command (rangers as bugman lets you take a 2nd ranger unit)...
10 dwarf warriors with throwing axes (rangers)
1 unit 15 miners with full command and steam drill
1 unit 10 miners, full command and steam drill
2 bolt throwers with engineers
1 grudge thrower with engineer/rune accuracy
2 gyrocopters.

In regular deployment there is:
19 longbeards
BSB and anvil
3 warmachines
2 gyrocopters

Everything else is scout and come on from rear/flank.

Zany! Isn't that list illegal? It needs normal warriors to take longbeards and I didn't think the 10 rangers counted. Debatable at least.

Seems like a lot of potential though, and definitely fun and different.

RZ

Bugman lets you take longbeards OR warriors and make them rangers on top of whatever else you take in the army.

The other unit of rangers are warriors.

No, I understand the Bugman thing. My point is that converting the unit of warriors into rangers does not qualify them as warriors anymore for the purposes of buying the unit of longbeards. So it looks like:

Free Rangers (upgraded from Longbeards)
Rangers (upgraded from Warriors)
Longbeards*

*You still need a unit of warriors for this purchase.

From the Dwarf FAQ:

Q. If a unit of Warriors or Longbeards is upgraded to
Rangers, does the unit continue to count as part of the
ratio which restricts players to not having more units
of Longbeards than they have Warriors?
A. Rangers are not Warriors, so an army with Rangers in
it must still include a unit of Warriors before it can field
a unit of Longbeards.

I don't necessarily agree with it, as it doesn't seem to be some sort of terribly unbalancing thing, but there it is.

RZ

What if Bugman had the royal blood special rule? Would that allow you to do that since that rule lets you take one more unit of longbeards than warriors? So the lord would allow you to take a unit of longbeards, then a unit of rangers, and then Bugman would allow a unit of longbeard rangers.

If the army was led by someone with Royal Blood, you could pull it off. Rangers count as neither longbeards nor warriors once upgraded, so you'd be sitting at one unit of longbeards, no warriors- legal with Royal Blood.

RZ