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Hey all,
I've been playing dwarf(ve)s for a while now, but always with an anvil. Can a dwarf army be successful with a runesmith/thane/lord general? If so, what does the rest of the army need to do to make up for the loss in movement that the anvil offers? The anvil is a lot of points (~400 the way I run it) and swapping that out for a ~140 point runesmith nets me a level ton of points that can be put to good use. However, without it, the army seems much more vulnerable to being out maneuvered. Ideas/experiences?

I think they just shoot the crap out of everything, along with rock hard infantry backed up by heroes.

What's the dwarf build where the army starts halfway up
the table or something? That didn't use the Anvil of Doom,
iirc.

If you're playing without anvil, you're generally stuck with a early 6th edition dwarf force. That means you generally won't lose big but it's very difficult to win big either due not having the movement tricks.

wow, really?
i hate the anvil. too expensive.
i play a static shooty defensive army though.

You can. Simply must use this amazing thing called tactics.

Man, do i hate the anvil. I also hate oath stones but that is a different story.

What's the dwarf build where the army starts halfway up
the table or something? That didn't use the Anvil of Doom,

That would be strollaz rune i believe. Free movement before the game starts for anyone near the BSB.

There are a couple ways to play.
Use enough shooting that the enemy must come to you. Use enough blocks that you can fight him off when he gets there (after loosing ranks everywhere)

Use large numbers of dwarfs. Ever seen a dwarf hoard? Its pretty challenging to fight. Epically if they have a BSB off to one side with strollaz and the lord in the middle keeping things from running.

cypher wrote:You can. Simply must use this amazing thing called tactics.

Man, do i hate the anvil. I also hate oath stones but that is a different story.

What's the dwarf build where the army starts halfway up
the table or something? That didn't use the Anvil of Doom,

That would be strollaz rune i believe. Free movement before the game starts for anyone near the BSB.

There are a couple ways to play.
Use enough shooting that the enemy must come to you. Use enough blocks that you can fight him off when he gets there (after loosing ranks everywhere)

Use large numbers of dwarfs. Ever seen a dwarf hoard? Its pretty challenging to fight. Epically if they have a BSB off to one side with strollaz and the lord in the middle keeping things from running.

sounds like a tactically challenging army, if maybe a little strategically dull.

At my community, you won't hear anyone complaining about the anvil. When you're playing with stunties, you're already considered to be easy vps. Playing anvil or even Thorek, will only result in chuckling. I haven't yet played 2000 pts there, as the current mentality isn't really motivating me to get out my dwarfs. There are a few other dwarf players, of which the most popular doesn't use an anvil and thinks High King Grudgebearer is the best thing ever happened to him. Ofcourse he also would prefer an oathstone. Personally, I'm glad I purchased an anvil and when I play, I won't feel bad about using a runelord nor Thorek.

Without it you will definitely have to be more careful and minimize your tactical errors. With it you get a bit more flexibility since you can really screw with other armies movement or quickly haste your own, provided you can keep it alive. Of course when you field you are short that extra 400+ points and your lord slot so it can be a gamble depending on the army you face. Really it comes down your play style that will determine whether or not its going to help you out or just be a waste.

Huh? Who laughs at Thorek? He's a beast! Maybe if everyone is running around with High Elves and the Pendant of Vengeance...

40kenthusiast wrote:Huh? Who laughs at Thorek? He's a beast! Maybe if everyone is running around with High Elves and the Pendant of Vengeance...

They would only do so if they knew they were facing me on 2000 pts. That's why I quickly need to make work of my lizardmen.

Strimen wrote:Of course when you field you are short that extra 400+ points and your lord slot...

But then I had to choose between a Slayer lord or a Dwarf lord. Slayer lords just don't seem to be worth the lord slot. And hthough I by far LOVE a fully kitted out Lord on shieldbearers fielded in a block of hammerers, I've been told that my opponent will just ignore that unit and go try and score easy points while I lack movement to manoeuvre.

Vidar wrote:

40kenthusiast wrote:Huh? Who laughs at Thorek? He's a beast! Maybe if everyone is running around with High Elves and the Pendant of Vengeance...

They would only do so if they knew they were facing me on 2000 pts. That's why I quickly need to make work of my lizardmen.

Strimen wrote:Of course when you field you are short that extra 400+ points and your lord slot...

But then I had to choose between a Slayer lord or a Dwarf lord. Slayer lords just don't seem to be worth the lord slot. And hthough I by far LOVE a fully kitted out Lord on shieldbearers fielded in a block of hammerers, I've been told that my opponent will just ignore that unit and go try and score easy points while I lack movement to manoeuvre.

Give the Dwarf Lord the Master Rune of Challenge. It sucks vs. armies that are Immune to Psych, but it helps out in general.

Honestly though, if you're even considering a Dwarf Lord Choice, you sadly end up spending the same points as just buying the Anvil. Generally My Dwarfs see three Character Options:

Cheapo Characters
Runesmith General - extra DD and 2x Scrolls
Thane BSB

Dwarf Lord Setup
Dwarf Lord on Shield Bearers
Runesmith - extra DD and 2x Scrolls
Thane BSB

Anvil
Runelord w/ Anvil
Thane BSB

Sadly, options 2 & 3 cost the same since you never really can go without the Scroll Caddy style Runesmith, and while taking the Anvil costs a lot, it saves you from buying a Runsmith as you get a ton of DD from the Anvil Anyway and you can take Scrolls on the guy.

I field the Dwarf Lord for fun, mainly because I love the model I have for him and he's more "fun" because he doesn't "auto win" against some armies like the Anvil allows you to do (when you use miners).

I dont run an Anvil and I have had good success on the field of battle. I run a Dwarven Gunline though. 4 Units of 10 thunders with shields and a Champ with brace of pistols, 1 20man block of Hammers with full command and shields for the Dwarf lord to smash anything getting close to the gun line. Another 20man block of warriors with full command and 2 Runesmiths in it for stiffness on the other flank. A cannon & Bolt thrower for fire support. 1 Organ gun for scare tatics and stratigic area denial and a Gyro copter for some march blocking/mage hunting action and general harassment of light troops. is the basic lay out of the top of my head.

It is played in a tactically defensive stance. Overall strategy is to have enough fire power to win any ranged engagement and cut any HTH based force to ribbons before it gets to you and use your warrior blocks to finish it off. some personal notes are that I absolutely have found it to be worth the points to equip the thunders with shields, gives them a nice 5+ armor save vs other pesky ranged such as shooty elves combines to a 4+ armor save in HTH with there hand weapon which combined with WS4 and T4 means they can be surprisingly resilient in HTH with light troops such as fast cavalry. I have also found arming the champ with a brace of pistols to be a good option, its a free change out and you lose him in long range shooting but he has 3 attacks in HTH again proving to be a nasty surprise to light troops, He can also always stand and shoot even if the rest of the unit cant because the enemy started to close. The organ gun is always nice most experienced players with try to avoid the carnage they know its capable of producing in even the toughest units in the game. This gives you a couple options depending on your opponents army and experience level, You can either set it up to cover a flank in which case most experienced players will avoid that flank making it a nice area denial weapon or you can set it up midfield or at any convenient choke point terrain happens to provide you which will let it turn into a meat grinder or force your opponent to spend alot of resources to kill it fast. Gyro copters are also handy little contraptions not to be over looked, there the ONLY FAST moving unit in the dwarven arsenal with 20 inches of flight. There flame template while only ST3 has a -1 armor save and can hit alot of enemy troops in one shot, its Ideal for march blocking one side of a battle field to unbalance an opponents advancing line and its also capable of wreaking havoc on small fast units with little to no armor such as most fast cavalry or skirmishers. It can also be handy as a mage hunter since its a template weapon and able to reach mages even when their buried in blocks of 50 zombies or clanrats, and gosh help them if their unattached and running solo. Its T5 and 4+ Armor save mean it generally does not have a problem shrugging off light missile troops as well. One other note is its key to get your hammers with lord in a position to intercept the enemy's hammer unit. LD 10 + Stubborn with immunity to fear and terror makes this unit pretty much always fight to the last man, Its able to absorb the most punishing charges and the Dwarf Lord is a killing machine if properly runed up.

I hate dwarf armies primary reason being they aren't fun to play, and aren't anything like the DND dwarf of yesteryear.

I don't mind the anvil so much, it's easily mitigated.

Stunties they are, and stunties they remain. I can destroy most dwarf armies with 60 skinks. How good can it really be? lol

Stelek wrote:I can destroy most dwarf armies with 60 skinks. How good can it really be? lol

Care to explain?

Stelek wrote:I hate dwarf armies primary reason being they aren't fun to play, and aren't anything like the DND dwarf of yesteryear.

I don't mind the anvil so much, it's easily mitigated.

Stunties they are, and stunties they remain. I can destroy most dwarf armies with 60 skinks. How good can it really be? lol

They can be boring to play at times, depending on how you build the army.

But easy to defeat, and the Anvil being easy to mitigate? You're out of your mind.

In my experience, actually playing the army is that "Boring" Dwarf armies are very hard to beat, since they can very easily shoot the piss out of you and have the combat blocks to defend their position when you get there. The Anvil just makes it worse, since if you try to hide (usually on a flank, using terrain) then you take Miners in the Flank and get slowed down while they're not on the board.

Ah yes, it's easy to forget how much more interesting skink hordes are than dwarf armies of any persuasion. Excellent point.

@ Chaoslord: It's definitely true that skink swarms are a royal pain to deal with- there's only so much you can blast away with a organ gun or flame cannon.

I find it amazing that someone somewhere is laughing when they see Thorek on the other side of the table. Reliable ancient power is pretty wicked- and pretty handy for blasting skinks (2d6 str 4 hits d3 skink units with mobility clipped to boot? Lovely)

RZ

Red_Zeke wrote:
I find it amazing that someone somewhere is laughing when they see Thorek on the other side of the table. Reliable ancient power is pretty wicked- and pretty handy for blasting skinks (2d6 str 4 hits d3 skink units with mobility clipped to boot? Lovely)
RZ

You realise that unfixed Thorek is one of the most broken things in the game? Not necessary against everybody, but vs certain armies such as Welfs he's pure murder and makes the game almost pointless.

Ancient power is great. Never said it wasn't.

You want to kill 6 point models with your 505 point model?

And you wonder why I laugh.

If the skinks are what wins it against dwarfs (you implied as much) why not.
If the skinks are not what wins the game the dwarf could easily target something else.

Either they are in small units that will be vaporised (causing panic all arround) or they are in larger units that will suffer a panic check. Even with cold blooded they dont stick arround that long.

It then lets the dwarf blocks advance and meet the lizardmen blocks.

It will take the dwarfs what, two turns to get rid of the skinks that are in the way, charge some, anvil some...

You mean...panic on 60 point units?

Lizardman blocks? What blocks? lol

Dwarfs charging lizards. Now that's rich.

Are the dwarf cannons going to shred my skinks too?

Dwarf anti-magic is going to shut down lizard magic?

What game you guys play is beyond me. lol

Etherdude wrote:Hey all,
I've been playing dwarf(ve)s for a while now, but always with an anvil. Can a dwarf army be successful with a runesmith/thane/lord general? If so, what does the rest of the army need to do to make up for the loss in movement that the anvil offers? The anvil is a lot of points (~400 the way I run it) and swapping that out for a ~140 point runesmith nets me a level ton of points that can be put to good use. However, without it, the army seems much more vulnerable to being out maneuvered. Ideas/experiences?

Oh to answer this question correctly:

Dwarfs suck. They are slow, they can only shoot, and you can charge them whenever you want.

To "fix" this problem, they added:

Dwarfs can charge you whenever they want.
Dwarfs can magic you and you can't stop it.

Sadly, dwarfs still suck!

All you have to do is run a magic heavy list that dwarfs cannot stop (sorry stunties, you suck at anti-magic) with some cheap shooting units (skirmishers or 1 liners) and all of the dwarf shooting is negated immediately. Toss in some poisoned weapons or heavy warmachines and dwarfs cry.

Never advance towards their blocks with anything other than a cavalry charge, and you'll beat dwarfs every time.

Except when they roll 12 hits 3 times with Thorek. Woo, random bs magic for the win.

Good luck rolling so high.

Khalidas tomb king army also owns the dwarfs. 120 poison arrow shots per turn isn't difficult to achieve. It's great to see dwarfs burning scrolls on a spell you cast with a 1.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Got none. Never will get some. Na na na na, hey hey hey...

Stelek wrote:You mean...panic on 60 point units?

Lizardman blocks? What blocks? lol

Dwarfs charging lizards. Now that's rich.

Are the dwarf cannons going to shred my skinks too?

Dwarf anti-magic is going to shut down lizard magic?

What game you guys play is beyond me. lol

For some reason you seem to take lizzies vs dwarfs as an autowin for the first (we can discount Thorek, around these parts at least people are sane enough to limit him a bit so he gets only 1 reroll per game). Care to comment what kind of lizzie list you're running and what kind of dwarf list the opponent is running? Regarding the panic issue, if you're having a big pile of skinks there's bound to be chain panics, and it can easily be only one succesful quarreler/thunderer volley that causes it. Slann is slow and can't spread his ld all over the place. I assume you're running one as you talk about heavy magic, and speaking of which, at least with anvil you get 7dd and a scroll or two, and that's pretty fine magic defense. Yeah, it doesn't stop 2nd gen for the whole game but nothing does nor should it. And who the hell plays multiple cannons anyways. 1 is more than enough (with Master Engineer it's pretty neat actually, altough tourneylists won't have space for that. They opt for bolt throwers usually, 2-in-1 choice and all that).

Playing whfb last time I checked. (insert lol)

Stelek wrote:
Sadly, dwarfs still suck!

All you have to do is run a magic heavy list that dwarfs cannot stop (sorry stunties, you suck at anti-magic) with some cheap shooting units (skirmishers or 1 liners) and all of the dwarf shooting is negated immediately. Toss in some poisoned weapons or heavy warmachines and dwarfs cry.

Never advance towards their blocks with anything other than a cavalry charge, and you'll beat dwarfs every time.

What if the dwarfs have hill(s) in their deployment zone? Game over?

Slann is slow and can't spread his ld all over the place. I assume you're running one as you talk about heavy magic, and speaking of which, at least with anvil you get 7dd and a scroll or two, and that's pretty fine magic defense.

Dont forget he has no block infantry, so no temple guard to defend the slan. Fairly easy kill if you can get to him, and you will eventually.

Lets see a list of your average lizardmen (tournament variety, not anti dwarf variety).

If your magic heavy that means no combat chars which means you get killed in combat (you cant back up forever)
If you have combat chars that limits your skink priest so the anvil guy can shut down the slan fairly well.

It wont be nearly as easy as you think.

I don't have blocks.

I have A block of temple guard, who throw miners off and regular dwarfs never ever get to.

My lizardman list hasn't changed in years.

Anvil shut down my slaan? Not since the FAQ was changed from nerf to upgrade, thanks.

Since almost every joe schmoe at my FLGS has a stuntie set, and I've run the table on all of them...that means the dwarf players who've been playing for 15 years really suck, I'm beyond great at fantasy, and/or it's a magic combination of dice rolling every single time.

Answers to that are: They don't, I'm not, and it isn't.

My lizard list is a takes all comers list put together before the dwarf book was redone, haven't changed it in forever.

Go ahead and take your 7DD, and match it up against the newly improved all-powerful slaan and see how well it really works. Shut down first turn with the scrolls and dice, yep usually. Turn 2-5? Nope, never.

Chaoslord wrote:What if the dwarfs have hill(s) in their deployment zone? Game over?

Not sure why, but since everyone at my FLGS gets a hill for the dwarves and I win anyway...what's it matter if they get a hill?

What, they can put 3 cannons on it and hide the anvil behind it?

LOL say it ain't so...oh my, it's like that EVERY game.

Still, dwarfs suck so hills are pretty meaningless.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/208613.page

Thar she blows!

Sometimes when I'm bored I take the 2+ ward save instead.

Sorry, had to edit to put in the right item I sometimes swap out.

Stelek, you talk big and you seem to have a lot of faith in your opponents abilities. How about you post a battle report against your dwarf buddies and show us exactly what you mean. Now, this thread is about how dwarves work without an anvil, it seems to have devolved into stelek vs the world about the advantages of having an anvil.

P.S. Stelek: Dwarves with an anvil take 1st at Chicago GT. Check it out.

http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18683&st=0&p=202356&#entry202356

I guess I could post a Battle Rep against my buddies, but truth is only 1 of the many dwarf players at the shop is actually a buddy--and given how quickly the bat rep I just posted (written from memory, not a whole lot of effort required) I'm pretty sure I don't want to bother.

Do I think dwarves work at all without an anvil? No, it's a crappy dwarf list without one--the same that didn't win much of anything for years except a place in the closet.

As far as winning at the Chicago GT:

Yep, they sure did.

Against typical normal armies.

Not my style of play. Not my style of army.

That looks like oh pretty much every dwarf army out there but he sure talks alot about how it was so difficult to make choices.

cannons, check.
anvil, check.
blocks of warriors, check.

Gee. That's innovative and new!

I wonder if you read the bat rep where every one of his opponents made major blunders that cost them the game? Maybe I missed something here but if you mess up that bad in your games does it matter what army you play with?? My view is no.