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Is it possible to make a close combat focused dwarf army?

I've been asking around and all I've heard is that dwarfs are only really good for gunlines, but I refuse to believe 5.5 gnoblars for a great-weapon wielding warrior is at all bad.

my friend ses a cc dwarf army. it is a scary opponent he has afew guns to deter flankers but most goes cc. the horde of hammerers is just mean lol

People who say Dwarfs are gunlines really aren't playing 8th Edition. Gunlines just don't work.

Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't bring a bunch of war machines (3 cannons, 3 grudge throwers, 2 organ guns, for example). You'll just want a bunch of solid blocks of infantry to back those up.

Dwarf Warriors with great weapons make for pretty decent fighters for their points. Longbeards and Hammerers are even better, particularly if you take a Dwarf King. You can wind up with a very solid close combat army that just so happens to have eight pieces of artillery backing it up pretty easily.

Of course it works, but I have yet to see a dwarf player actually going cc... All I've played against so far just sit back and shoot a dozen war machines. They only keep a few block of troops to stop me from reaching their machines.

The biggest issue you're going to have is actually their speed. I'm not sure what advice I can give you to surmount that. Also don't trust slayers to get the job done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's worth point out, Longbeards with Great Weapons makes for a WS6, S5 core choice at 13 points a pop. That's an extremely good core choice.

He who dosen't fear a hefty dwarven axe or hammer is a fool.

GW Longbeards S5? Surely you mean S6?

Long beards are ws5 str6 with gw's.

But I like dwarf fighty lists! Use war machines for support or to soften enemy units, then charge on in!

Hammerers are incredible, long beards are great mainly for old grumblers rule ( I'd rather see more gw warriors on the table) and quarreller rangers can vanguard, shoot, and still pack str5 t4!

To speed up your short legged warriors you can use MRoGrungi and/or the rune of challenge! Good luck using a list that doesn't sit still for 4 turns your opponents will appreciate it lol

By my beard you're right! WS5 and S6? As a core choice? I'd hate to fight that.

Lucky for you, you can never have more Longbeards than Warriors.

Still, WS6, S6, immune to panic, and makes others more resistant to panic? Scary.

Sure you can with a king and bugman.

Or just take a giant ranger longbeard horde.

Close combat dwarves can work quite well. The trick is controlling the opponet's maneuver control elements - cavalry (especially fast cav), fliers, and scouts.

Dwarves have three ways to counteract them - scouts of our own, Gyrocopteres, and shooting the maneuver control units to death. So the odds are you won't be able to take a 'close-combat only' list and be successful.

I find a pair of organ guns to guard the flanks quite valuable. A grudge thrower is good for softening up opposing blocks of infantry. Cannons deal with monsters well.

Combine these with a Strollaz rune BSB and you can be in close combat quickly, and on your terms too!

A king, a horde and two warmachines – army composition rules met

I posted a 2000 point list on the boards here months back, and managed to dredge it up. It's 100% close combat, and you put nothing on the board during deployment, meaning you can get your whole army into close combat almost immediately.

Josef Bugman - 155

Dwarf Lord - 273
Shield, Rune of Brotherhood, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Stone, Rune of Cleaving, Master Rune of Grozril, Rune of Snorri Spangelhelm, Rune of Fire

30 Longbeard Rangers, GW, FC - 485 points
FC, Rune of Battle, Rune of Sanctuary

30 Longbeard Rangers, GW, FC - 470 points
FC, Rune of Battle

24 Miners - 314 points
FC, Steam drill

23 Miners - 303 points
FC, Steam drill

Total: 2000

Thaaaa'ts...not legal.

Rangers are 0-1, and there must be more warriors than Longbeards.

Cerebrium wrote:Thaaaa'ts...not legal.

Rangers are 0-1, and there must be more warriors than Longbeards.

You'd think, but actually it is. Bugman lets you field an additional group of Longbeard Rangers, and due to the following FAQ entry, Longbeard Rangers don't count towards your warriors/longbeard ratio.

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? (p33)
A. No.

Plus with how cheap hammerers are your needlessly lowering the numbers your fielding with a list like that. Even just take normal warriors with greatweapons are nice.

Right, but hammerers and warriors have a movement of 3 and start on the wrong side of the board.

Squash wrote:

Cerebrium wrote:Thaaaa'ts...not legal.

Rangers are 0-1, and there must be more warriors than Longbeards.

You'd think, but actually it is. Bugman lets you field an additional group of Longbeard Rangers, and due to the following FAQ entry, Longbeard Rangers don't count towards your warriors/longbeard ratio.

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? (p33)
A. No.

Not to mention that a Dwarf King allows you to take one unit of Longbeards more than you have Warriors anyway.

So Dwarf King's Longbeards (upgraded to Rangers) one extra more than the zero Warriors you take.

Josef Bugman's Longbeard Rangers, one extra to the normal number of Ranger units available.

It looks like a nice list, have you played it?

Freman Bloodglaive wrote:
It looks like a nice list, have you played it?

Noooo. When i'm considering taking up an army, the first thing I do is make an army list. I have dozens of them now, and a lot of them are pretty niche. The ones I think are interesting, or I'm serious about I post on the forums. That list is as far as I got with Dwarves. Honestly I'm just not big on their models.

There is that.