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It's not bad by any means but do you think that that list could stand up to a khorne chaos army, or things like heavy cav, or even units like Swordmasters?

Slayers, can take out any of those, save maybe the swordmasters.

But on the same note, those are the toughest units in the game to take down...

And they can crush cars

Youre right Slayers could do it if they could get there.

With khorne chaos, Swordmasters and cav, they all come to you at the same time so i dont see your point. Like i said the only thing that kills them is gunlines, which is why you put ironbreakers in front of them

Thing is, it's gun lines or a complete fluff re-write for Dwarves.

Really? Complete fluff re-write. Vast, vast majority of the Stunty Background I've read is about their solid infantry going toe to toe against massive odds and breaking heads relentlessly?

I say again, all that is needed is to make Gunlines less of a no brainer, and to encourage those players currently lacking the wherewithall to embrace HTH.

Khorne Chaos, Swordmasters etc...Yeah, do what most races do. Use a bit of ranged firepower to whittle down their ranks, then jump them with your own Heavy Infantry. Remember, once it comes to actually hitting them, Swordmasters are no harder to kill than a weedy little Gobbo armed with a Spear....

"Jump them"? Not likely. Dwarves get jumped, unless they're fighting other Dwarves. Close combat with Dwarves really doesn't work out too well most of the time.
I agree that their fluff is close combat based though- it's what attracted me to them.

Ya,I dont think theres really such a thing as "jumping" other units as dwarves are usually the ones getting charged...usually.

Aside from the humour one may derive from the idea of 'jumping' Dwarves, I'm suddenly inspired to invent a terrain feature incorporating an optical illusion, making your opponent think his unit is two inches closer to your lines than he really is...

It's a no-win situation. Power down the gunline, and the Dwarf army is incapable of chooseing it's fights. Give 'em cavalry, and All non-Dwarf players (and quite a few dwarf players) will complain.
Boost the Infantry, and Non-Dwarf Players will complain.

I would say that the solution is to boost the Infantry without weakening the gunline.

Giant slayers become cheaper, but make them their own unit, and a rare choice. Lower the Unit size for Slayers (5-20), Remove the options for a command, but allow a unit of Troll slayers to take a Unit Champion.

Longbeards become special and Immune to Psychology. They allow re-rolls on any failed Psychology test.

Hammerers Become core, Immune to Psychology, and Hate all enemies. VS Greenskins, they get re-rolls each turn. They do, however, become 0-1 per Dwarf Lord in your army, and must always rank up with the Lord. This Emphasises the oaths that they take to protect the Dwarf Lord.

Ironbreakers remain much the same.

Give Elite infantry 2 attacks each and make all Elite infantry stubborn. Now players will quite likely be willing to swap some cannons for Infantry. Make the point hike small for the amount that they improve.

For warriors, Drop the cost by a point or two, allowing Larger units for the cost, and allowing a solid core of cc infantry for similar costs to a small gunline squad.

Make Rangers a seperate 0-1 unit, Skirmishers, and Give them Great Weapons and Crossbows.

Remove the Great Weapons option from quarrellers.

Raise thunderers costs by a point or two, to make up for Warriors.

For Characters, allow each Dragon slayer to take a unit of Troll slayers as core. Same for Daemon slayer, but make it Giant Slayers. Allow them to take runes to protect them from shooting.

Lower the cost of the Anvil of Doom to say 100 pts, allow 1 rune to be selected before battle, that casts on 2+ with ancient power levels of capability. Thoreks power is that he knows all 3, and can use multiples each turn.

Make the Gyrocopter just shoot grapeshot like a cannon, not insanely weak junk.

These changes should hopefully see an increase in cc units gaurding the ever-present gunlines, which will hopefully be reduced in size, fitting Dwarven fluff of tough infantry backed by big guns.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:It's a no-win situation. Power down the gunline, and the Dwarf army is incapable of chooseing it's fights. Give 'em cavalry, and All non-Dwarf players (and quite a few dwarf players) will complain.
Boost the Infantry, and Non-Dwarf Players will complain.

There're some simple changes that can be made, but they don't include making unit X cheaper and unit Y more expensive.

For starters, miners should be placed back in Core, and their underground advance needs fixing.

with an iron fist wrote:

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:It's a no-win situation. Power down the gunline, and the Dwarf army is incapable of chooseing it's fights. Give 'em cavalry, and All non-Dwarf players (and quite a few dwarf players) will complain.
Boost the Infantry, and Non-Dwarf Players will complain.

There're some simple changes that can be made, but they don't include making unit X cheaper and unit Y more expensive.

For starters, miners should be placed back in Core, and their underground advance needs fixing.

And maybe not giving shields to the guys with the guns. The true problem that encourages gun lines is that even your troopers with the missile weapons can be WS4 T4 4+ save in close combat. Thunderers/Quarrelers with shields and light armor are STILL among some of the harder infantry in the game. Removing the option for shields from those two units will make strides in discouraging gun lines.

I also think that removing some of the options from the war machines (like entrenching - they're T4 and Ld9 already!) will help move in that direction.

Again, if Dwarfs ever get Stubborn for more than just specific Combinations (I think it's Hammerers with a Lord/Thane just now) I will simply refuse to play them ever again, and I don't like turning down games!

And define toning down the Gunline meaning you can't pick your fights. It doesn't allow you to right now. Firing a Cannon or three into someones face doesn't slow them down, it just makes the inevitable combat against said unit far more in your favour.

Stunties should have a problem with people getting in past their lines. Now I can see this getting easier in their next book, as all evidence so far would seem to suggest the Organ Gun rolling to hit (following the trend of other such things).

Now, the two attacks for some Heavy Infantry (don't like the term Elite. Purely personal thing there though) does make a certain amount of sense. After all, Swordmasters got it, Black Guard got it, and both are exceedingly nasty things to deal with. So Stunties ought to get their fair crack of the whip as well!

What I mean by picking combat is, Dwarves have no ability to dodge "deathstar" unit. The gunline allows these units to be taken out on Dwarven Terms.
I agree with the idea of Takeing away Great weapons and sheilds from the Rangted units.
Reason I suggest giveing the Elites stubborn is that Dwarves are meant to be really stubborn, but Universal Stubborn on Ld9 would be cheap. However, giveing it to the (Fluff-wise) Standing Regiments makes sense.
As to the Organ Gun Haveing to roll to hit: I will be Disipointed, but not Surprised. Still (brigtens) it will give me an excuse to grab a Flame cannon.

You already don't have reason enough to get a flame cannon??!!! You can hit more models, strength 5, -3 armour AND an Automatic panic test if you wound JUST ONE. the automatic panic test makes it worth while, and in many cases better than the organ gun (I see a lot of green skins runnin)

Yeah, but Organ Guns are cheaper, more accurate, and non-Flameing attacks (One of my regular opponents plays HE, and always brings Dragon Princes). The re-rolls numbers of hits is also nice.

True, true. But if you are playing a horde army, you get a lot more bang for your buck in the flame cannon. I once won a game against goblins with the flame cannon doing almost all the work. sure the organ gun killed a few, so did the other cannons, but the flame cannon made a unit run, it ran through his own units, and by turn 3 all of his units were running away, and off the board. We didn't even get into combat.

Arion wrote:True, true. But if you are playing a horde army, you get a lot more bang for your buck in the flame cannon. I once won a game against goblins with the flame cannon doing almost all the work. sure the organ gun killed a few, so did the other cannons, but the flame cannon made a unit run, it ran through his own units, and by turn 3 all of his units were running away, and off the board. We didn't even get into combat.

...and therein lies the whole point of this thread.

But it was funny, even the goblin player was laughing his head off. that isn't always going to happen. That is VERY rare, and Dwarfs are supposed to be good at fighting greenskins.

MGD, it's been a long time since I've read posts on the interwebs that have incensed me so.

Don't take this the wrong way, but after reading your posts on Dwarfs I've wanted to reach through my monitor and throttle you with a fish for being so silly.

It's just really frustrating as someone who absolutely loves Dwarfs as GW has portrayed them, but was so sickened of the army's rules, play style (if you could call it that), and ridiculous number of bad matchups that I sold my army and just cling to my BL novels and a small set of character models.

Let me cover a few things you got right:

Gunlines, or just heavy amounts of shooting with a small subset of blocks are the only "non-anvil" way to win, and even that isn't that great. Plus, as you mentioned, it's absolutely boring. The only tactical thought comes during deployment, then it's target selection.

Now here's where you went wrong:

"In your face" infantry style armies do not work and are not fun. Strollas, Strollas + Anvil, etc just do not work for Dwarfs. Not against any kind of competent opponent with a semi decent optimized army. You end up doing half the work to hang yourself by trying to maneuver M3 blocks into combat positions. And by taking enough infantry to build this kind of army, you don't have the army slots available to dedicate to shooting to force the enemy to try and engage you - which means Fast-Cav and traditional WM hunters become even more of a problem than they already are.

Which brings me to why Dwarfs as they are still suck, even with the "shooty army":

5 Furies - 60 Points (Core)

5 Harpies - 55 Points (Core)

5 Dire Wolves - 40 Points (Core)

Tomb Scorpion - 85 Points (Special, but can tunnel & charge)

5 Gutter Runners w/ Poison - 70 Points (Special, but can tunnel & charge)

1 Empire Great Cannon - 100 Points (Special, but can kill any Dwarf Warmachine with startling regularity & ease from Turn 1 onward)

etc. etc. etc.

Most armies have good WM hunters that are cheap & plentiful, meaning they can field just enough units to make sure that you can't shoot them all down before one or two make it through and kill your WM crew.

This is why Dwarfs don't do so well at tournaments. You can neutralize their shooting quickly, and then just avoid combats you don't want and get the easy win. Sure you don't massacre, but you can win.

I'm going to quote one of the best posts in this thread:

Agamemnon2 wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Perhaps a superhard unit of infantry, sure, but no Cav.

I'm pretty sure you could give Dwarves the hardest infantry unit imaginable and it still wouldn't make one iota of difference. Their army list (and indeed the entire concept of close combat troops with 3" movement) is just fundamentally flawed. I think giving them an extra inch of movement would be by far the least painful option in the long run, precedent be damned.

Dwarfs already HAVE the hardest infantry unit imaginable (Hammerers) without being VC/Daemon levels of slowed powerful. It doesn't matter. Tooled up Dwarf Lord in Hammerers? Good Job, I'll never fight you with anything but a pittance.

Maybe if the Rune of Challenge worked like the Siren Song it would be good, but as it is now, you're putting a ton of points into a super hard death unit....that can't project any force whatsoever. Same goes for any dwarf block that is Stubborn, or Immune to Psych, or has Static CR7 and are hard as hell to kill (Ironbreakers), they will just be avoided.

Kill the shooters/warmachines, flank the warriors (if there are any or if the previous step wasn't already enough), and you can net yourself an easy win. Most losses you'll incur will be less than the cost of what you kill, and away you go with your merry little (and boring) win.

So with all that:

Voodoo's Way GW can make Dwarfs not Suck and get him to re-buy a Dwarf army

Increase Dwarfs to M4.
Gobbos are the same size as Dwarfs and are M4, so are Gnoblars, etc. Dwarfs should not be that slow in a game with the kind of mechanics WHFB has for winning.

Give Dwarfs a limited number of hard hitting/faster units.
The fact that the Empire gets Steam Tanks and Dwarfs do not is a travesty against any semblance of logic in the WHFB fluff. There are other things that could be done as well. M6-7 Dwarfs riding armored bears = awesome, however if Dwarfs get M4, then this option probably shouldn't appear. The "Steam Tank equivalent in Rare" would suffice.

Also, a Dwarf riding a Dragon or some kind of Griffon style mount would be awesome. Chaos Dwarfs getting something along these lines is what makes their Lord choice somewhat interesting.

This is a tricky option to be sure. If Dwarfs stay M3 but get some kind of Ogre/Cav speed unit in Special, then you'll see armies with maxed out choices of this and they lose a lot of flavor. And if you give them this in addition to M4 then they become too much like "normal races". Maybe give them this kind of option in Rare only? Probably not a bad idea since once the Organ Gun has to roll to hit it won't be worth taking anymore (See 7th Ed Empire Hellblaster).

Give Dwarfs Magic Options.
The Anvil becomes a Level 4 equivalent (and still take up a Hero slot). Make their magic more like Tomb Kings (though limit movement spells as anvil-only), everything is a bound spell or some kind or another with a variable casting rate - the ability to unleash the power of runes in the magic phase makes Runesmiths worth taking. Though i would say keep the option of miscasts on a roll of a 1 or double 1 based on the power of the spell, just so that it's more unique and less reliable than TK magic.

Rather than paying for a 120+ point Hero whose purpose is to be an M3 Ironbreaker Champion with 2 Wounds, a DD, and some Scrolls.

Other armies get scroll caddies that do much the same thing, for much the same cost but can also do magic offensively.

I have no problems if you make the Runesmiths cost more points as a result, but Dwarfs already suffer as an army that doesn't get to participate in multiple phases of the game (Movement, Magic). They need something here.

Debuffs
Obviously with these sorts of abilities added Dwarfs would need to see a reduction in their stats and/or points increases. This is fine, but you should account for the fact that a good number of their choices already suck and shouldn't see much of a debuff to compensate, ala Warriors.

Perhaps core units being reduced to LD8 base? I'd definitely accept that for a point of movement increase, though I'd still say that at 9 Points for a Dwarf Warrior w/ Shield is still too expensive, but that is more a reflection of the fact that regular infantry units in general are pretty crappy in the scheme of WHFB's rules, rather than a specific problem with Dwarf Warriors. Still, for a unit whose sole purpose in life is to have Static CR & not die, 250 Points for a unit of 25 w/ Full Command is simply not useful in "Today's Game of WHFB."

Caveat
I realize that these are drastic changes to Dwarfs, but in the scheme of WHFB, they are a terrible army and most importantly are unfun for anyone who wishes to win a game.

I like what Voodoo had to say, except the movement 4.

M4 - I see dwarves as being stocky to the point of lumbering. So I feel movement 3 is okay. This ties in with the next point.

Faster Units - Yes! A race that can manufacture trains and helicopters should be able to have a tank. Or even go-carts. Empire engineers make them and they have no need for it as they can ride real horses (being human). But heavens forbid if the race that moves slowly designs something to combat that (just not crappy steam-horse, please).

Lord Mounts - I dislike steam-punk crap, but I have to admit... An Engineer Lord on some kind of mechanical platform would be cool. Not quite warbuggy from 40k, but close.

Magic Options - I like the idea of bound magic. Why just an anvil? Why not make a section of "Runesmith only" runes that hold bound spells? make them cheaper as the runesmith does not generate power dice.

Even though the dwarfs are somewhat tedious to play against, I dislike most of the changes presented here. The Dwarfs are very, very, veery conservative. Imagine the conservative elderly men in your neighborhood, multiply that guy by 3 and you have a young dwarf. Now let those guys get 300 years old... They don't go out and invent fancy new stuff like tanks and helicopters, they grumble all the time and mow their lawn.

I generally agree that the basic gunner shouldn't be as hard as the ordinary dwarf. Taking away hand to hand options would be the first step. What about introducing a special rule for the dwarfs like "shield wall" or something that increases their AS by 1 in the turn they've been charged. A melee army should consist of units you can rely on, taking a charge from anything and hold the enemy to get charged next turn.

Honestly, I always feared my friends melee armies more than his shooty armies with my skaven. As Vodoo said, the war machines are easily dispatched, but the infantry is dead hard.

I second the "magic" approach for the anvil, though, why making the magic of every race different? The anvil as a bound spell host would be cool. Inscribing as many bound spell runes you like, releasing them every round.
You could cast them with low and high power (lvl 3 or 5) and you must roll a dice afterward. If it's a 1 (for lvl 3) or a 1 and 2 (for lvl 6) the spell is lost for the rest of the game.

Well, some of my thoughts...

Greets
Schepp himself

Schepp himself wrote:Even though the dwarfs are somewhat tedious to play against, I dislike most of the changes presented here. The Dwarfs are very, very, veery conservative. Imagine the conservative elderly men in your neighborhood, multiply that guy by 3 and you have a young dwarf. Now let those guys get 300 years old... They don't go out and invent fancy new stuff like tanks and helicopters, they grumble all the time and mow their lawn.

I generally agree that the basic gunner shouldn't be as hard as the ordinary dwarf. Taking away hand to hand options would be the first step. What about introducing a special rule for the dwarfs like "shield wall" or something that increases their AS by 1 in the turn they've been charged. A melee army should consist of units you can rely on, taking a charge from anything and hold the enemy to get charged next turn.

Honestly, I always feared my friends melee armies more than his shooty armies with my skaven. As Vodoo said, the war machines are easily dispatched, but the infantry is dead hard.

I second the "magic" approach for the anvil, though, why making the magic of every race different? The anvil as a bound spell host would be cool. Inscribing as many bound spell runes you like, releasing them every round.
You could cast them with low and high power (lvl 3 or 5) and you must roll a dice afterward. If it's a 1 (for lvl 3) or a 1 and 2 (for lvl 6) the spell is lost for the rest of the game.

Well, some of my thoughts...

Greets
Schepp himself

If they can get an Organ Gun, a Gyro Copter, and a Flame Cannon, they can build their bloody tanks.

Hell, in the fluff, they've built them already! As far as a "fluff" argument, it's nonsense that they can't have something along those lines.

And even if it wasn't, change the fluff. The army is terrible now. Without some kind of speed increase and some key maneuverable units, they're doomed as an army because of how bad the fundamental flaw of the entire premise of the army really is.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:
If they can get an Organ Gun, a Gyro Copter, and a Flame Cannon, they can build their bloody tanks.

Hell, in the fluff, they've built them already! As far as a "fluff" argument, it's nonsense that they can't have something along those lines.

And even if it wasn't, change the fluff. The army is terrible now. Without some kind of speed increase and some key maneuverable units, they're doomed as an army because of how bad the fundamental flaw of the entire premise of the army really is.

Yes, thank you. The fluff for trains and helicopters is already there. Their boats from General's Compendium were Civil War era Ironsides. In the Slayer series of books, Malakai Makaisson has airships (Goodyear Blimps!) and the Goblin-Hewer made it to the lists in the last edition. I do not see a race of slow moving individuals looking at all the calavry that has been kicking their butts for the last 1000 years or so, and just saying... oh well! Dwarf engineers are fanatical! They make all kinds of cool stuff! So far, the dwarf Army Books have only shown the tradional side, but the fluff has so much more to offer.

Yeah, about these slayer books: They sucked pretty hard balls...

And writing something in bold letters, repeatedly, doesn't make it right.

But enough of that. I know that it's bad for an army not having any fast elements as cavalry, but why must every army have a highly mobile element? It's boring! I don't want the dwarfs to become a technology crazefest book like the skaven army book. It belongs to them. And their stuff blows up. Dwarven stuff doesn't blow up.

It's not like I didn't write some serious suggestions for the dwarfs army concept. What do you say about them?

Greets
Schepp himself

I did not realize I was typing in bold...
I liked the Shield wall suggestion as an idea. Not sold on the mechanics of it.
You stated that the gunners should be toned down... what about move that 4 from WS to BS?
I honestly dislike that mutated rats have Gatling guns, but the dwarfs are loaded up with muskets. Based off the fluff, dwarfs are just a little pre-WW1, except for the gyrocopter (1920s). It is not too far a stretch for tanks to make an appearance. And it would be sweet to have a plastic tank kit for fantasy!!!

And Schepp... you are 100% right about the caliber of ball sucking that makes up the Slayer books.

I agree that a steam tank would make one million times more sense in a dwarf army. Don't quite get why the empire got it. Especially the version with some warriors on an open topped roof. I think the WD rules for the steam tank got that but not the current one in the empire army book.

Greets
Schepp himself

Schepp himself wrote:
I know that it's bad for an army not having any fast elements as cavalry, but why must every army have a highly mobile element? It's boring! I don't want the dwarfs to become a technology crazefest book like the skaven army book. It belongs to them. And their stuff blows up. Dwarven stuff doesn't blow up.

It's bad enough to take an infantry army. In fact it's near impossible to take an army that is nearly all infantry and actually win, even with M4 units. Only VC can manage that, and that's cause they're undead and have relentless movement magic.

Without faster elements in the army, they are simply #1) Not Fun and #2) Terribly underpowered in a fundamental way.

Seriously, by saying that every army having a highly mobile element is boring, it's like saying every army having infantry units is boring. It simply doesn't make sense.

I'm not saying they should be a technology crazy fest, but they should get elements that give them an ability to play in a game where movement is the determining factor in being successful.

BTW, Dwarf stuff does blow up. I've had a Cannon with the Rune of Forging explode itself on Turn 1 (yes, seriously).

It's not like I didn't write some serious suggestions for the dwarfs army concept. What do you say about them?

I don't think things like making Dwarven armor saves better. Dwarfs generally don't die all that much, save for things that will probably kill them in "enough" amounts to do what they need to do.

Dwarf blocks very rarely die from frontal charges that rely on damage output. Dwarf blocks die due to fear/outnumber or being flanked.

This is why the simple answer to fighting dwarfs is to kill their shooting elements and then avoid blocks you can't flank or fear/outnumber.

As far as their shooters go, making them weaker just makes it easier for fast cav or the light fliers to be able to kill them. IMO, it's rarely worth taking more than 1 or 2 units of them (unless you're doing an Anvil Gunline, which is a whole separate animal from a "regular" gunline). Honestly, I'd rather see them easier to kill and be a bit cheaper as a result. Even if you didn't make them cheaper, it's something I'd gladly give up for say M4 across the board.

Maybe allow your whole Army to come on via tunnels?

Most people who say Dwarfs are better go somewhere else...

1) If I use an Anvil, it's not I will agree it is if I use Thorek (sp) it becomes but with a regular RL... It's not that bad, it becomes a Rally Machine, Good Magic Missile, or a Danse - all of which other armies with dedicated spellcasters get off once a turn regardless, and if I roll a 1, I have a good chance of myself because if I roll another 1, I lose tons of points, or at best I fail to cast at all, meaning I only have 5 more times to hit the Anvil.

2) Dwarfs carry Great Weapons (or HW & SH), have great Armor and are Tough - not some Dwarfs, ALL DWARFS regardless if they carry a x-bow or gun.

3.) Has anyone tried to win a tourney using Dwarfs? Tell me how eazy it was playing vs. a VC, DoC, etc... Go about them.

Why am I even arguing, yes you have to walk across a field and get shot at... and... You know what that Dwarf is going to do? Stand there, yup no suprise. How about you...

1.) Shoot back? I know I know those pesky Dwarfs stole all of your bows, BT's, Cannons, bows, guns, steam tanks, etc...

2.) Screen? Throw stuff you don't mind getting killed in front, use terrain to block LoS.

3.) Use fast cal, things that fly, skirmishers, etc...

4.) Laugh at me as I try to run you down with 2d6-1

I mean, c'mon Dwarfs aren't that powerful, they don't finish at the top of tourneys, what did someone lose to a Dwarf once and said Waaahhh they have guns and a magic spell that makes them move. That's why I lost, not because I (rolled bad, made a bad decision, played to my opponents strength, etc...). Go complain about charging HE in the rear / flank that they still ASF, wait I'll need to wait for a person to lose to HE 1st in that exact way in order to hear about it.