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(first edit) What do you think?


1 Dwarf Lord (Great weapon, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation, Rune of Stone, Rune of the Furnace, shield bearers) 226

1 Thane (Battle standard bearer, Rune of Fire, Master Rune of Gromil, Master Rune of Spite) 165
1 Rune Smith (Shield, Rune of Stone, Master Rune of Balance) 127

29 Dwarf Warriors (Great weapons, musician, standard, Veteran) 325
20 Dwarf Warriors (Shields, musician, Veteran) 195

1 Cannon (Engineer, brace of pistols, Rune of Forging, Rune of Burning) 150
28 Ironbreakers (Musician, standard, Ironbeard, Rune of Determination) 414
15 Miners (Musician, standard, Prospector, steam drill) 243
1 Grudge Thrower (Engineer, brace of pistols, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating) 150

Total: 1995
Models: 98
Units: 10
Fortitude: 7

Lord goes with the big block of warriors, Thane goes in with Ironbreakers. Smith goes either in with Lord or with the smaller warrior-block. Shield-warriors protect a flank and hopefully charge into one (the shields and Veteran are there to try and keep at least 10 alive to negate ranks). The other warriors, war machines, Ironbreakers, and Miners all do pretty much what you'd expect.

You need 45 more points of core to be legal.
1) add rune of stone to smith.
2) miners are great, but in a game this small, they might come in too late to be useful. I would consider swapping them for 23 warriors with great weapons, standard, and musican (3 points cheaper)
3) Put burning on the cannon, not the stone thrower. Those regen monsters are easier to hit with cannons. If you face a lot of regen units, but burning on both.
4) Upgrade 15 block of long beards. WS5 will survive better, and S4 will help out a lot better (and it hits that 25% core, should you keep the miners).
5) My experience has been 2 dispel scrolls are better than stealing a power die. Since you're one of two armies that can take multiple dispel "scrolls", I would.

I love the gear on the lord. 4S6 + 2S4 is pretty decent offense. Because he's in a horde that also throws out 28 S5 attacks, you don't really need more.
The BSB is fairly survivable, but I wouldn't put him in the same unit as the rune smith. The loss of the BSB and your magic defense in 1 hit would be pretty rough.

That's 50 points of upgrades (47 if you swap out miners), which I would get by dropping a few Iron Breakers. I'm not a fan of Iron Breakers at all; but some people love them.
My experience with miners has been that Rangers are better, and taking rangers and miners is best.

-Matt

Drop the miners to 15 and you'll have the points to bulk out core and put that rune of stone on the smith. Also I would give the handweapon and shield unit a standard bearer over veteran any day. And shift some points to make the handweapon and shield unit longbeards. As above I agree the WS 5 and making the most out of their strength will make them pack a solid punch. As well as survivability. Though i prefer GW's on my longbeards. Ironbreakers I'm not so sure on this edition. Their points dont justify it so much for me. Plus rune of metal will ruin your day. I prefer spending my rare/special points mostly on artillery and the rest on decent amounts of core units. Core dwarf units are great. Make the most of them. Failing that take hammerers with a lord. They'll be hard for anyone to shift and make a great anchor for the battle line.

Your lord I like. I feel survivability is a must for dwarf combat characters. The BSB is great also. You want this guy as hard as nails. The smith i would give a greatweapon as well as the stone rune. And replace the master rune of balance with either 2 spellbreakers or a spelleater rune.

I do like your dwarf lord's build, but my experience has been that he's too expensive for what you get out of him at 2000 (and possibly even 2500). He's worth 27 warriors with great weapons, which is damn hard to pass up.

That being said, I think it's still possible to be successful with him, and certainly, he gives you an answer to a number of threats you might not otherwise be able to deal with. In the presence of a BSB, he can solo charge things. As long as he's only losing combat by two-ish, you can expect to hold a couple turns while you work your way around to the flank with another unit.

As far as magic defense- I think a spellbreaker is almost mandatory. I finally caved and started using the MR of Balance- which is good, but best in conjunction with at least one scroll-equivalent.

I would also mention that I'm not particularly hot on miners if there's not an anvil, but your mileage may vary.

Finally- my personal preference is for the cannon to be burning. I've found the three most common targets for flaming artillery are: Hydras, Hell Pits, and Regen banner undead. The first two are better targeted with a cannon and the last, you can put a cannon through then drop a stone on.

New list above.

The lack of minimum core and the runes on the machines was probably due to copy-and-paste from Excel; thanks for catching that for me.

So, I changed things up with the characters, even though everyone seemed to like them a lot. Here's my thought:

- the Lord, as Red Zeke mentioned, was very expensive. So I cut out the Ward save (against S6, he'd have to fail two 4+ saves before it came into play anyway) and gave it to the BSB. The thane is more beneficial to the army than the Lord-re-roll Ld9, or get Ld10, so I wanted to protect him from things like the Lore of Death. The Lord is mainly there to add some muscle and take on enemy characters. If he dies, well, better than the BSB. What do you guys think?

- the Miners are the only "trick" the list has, and at 1 more point a model than warriors, I thought I'd go for it- the lack of an Anvil means they don't get to charge on the turn they enter, but that makes their psychological effect that much stronger, I guess.

- the Ironbreakers are there to keep the BSB around, being a lot more survivable than anything else- that one extra point of armour seems to make a huge difference.
In 8th, they will still slowly loose combat to anything fierce, but the other units should hopefully be able to help out. Does that make sense, or does this not work?

- finally, the Runesmith. I thought I'd put him in the most survivable unit, but Matt makes a good point. The shield-warriors are supposed to be as non-threatening and low-profile as possible, to ensure more bodies when I need 'em. Where would you guys put the Smith?
As to his build...he already has a Rune of Stone...but beyond that, I've just found that the spells I want to stop are the ones that are cast with IF, so I figured that every d6 they don't have is one that can't come up a second 6.
At 2500, though, I've got two smiths, to spread out my magic defense, and one of them has at least one Spellbreaker.

Whew. So. What do you think?