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I've been playing Dwarves for around 2 years now after O&G's, Brettonians, Gunline Empire, and the Knightly rabble of Khorne. It's a pretty balanced list (aka 50% shooty/wm) that i swap a couple of units in and out for fluff (aka. miners, rangers and the occasional hammerers unit). My problem is, how do i even deal with the fustration that is the demon dex? I'm 0 for 6 now all massacres/tabled. Starting to really hate them and the players whom use them.
Average list:

Dwarf lord with GW mstr rune of gromril, mstr rune of spite o stone

runesmith with hw/shld 2 rune of stone, rune of balance ( the one that jacks a casting pool dice for an extra dispel dice for me)

runesmith with hw/shld rune of resistance 2x dispel runes

thane battle standard with rune of battle, protection (fot the 5+ ward on him), and either mstr rune of valaya or grungi? (+1 res on all within 12'' of it) (kinda late so sry for the explanations don't wanna turn on lite and wake wife up cause wife aggro sucks)

10 warriors gw's and champ

20 longbeards with shlds and full command (rune of battle, ancestor rune)

10 handgunners (sometimes)

20 longbeards with shlds and full command (rune of battle, rune of stoicism)


3 cannons

gyrocopter

organ gun

that's roughly about it. I've been able to pretty much wipe any and all of the newer cheese (undead BK spam, super casty HE, skink priest lists, etc.) but still i get tabled on a consistant basis against demons. Any suggestions?

What are you facing daemon wise?

Special characters, magic heavy, plaguebearer spam, idiots with bloodthirster?

Daemons are pure powergaming chese but a rough guide as to what you are up against would help...

hmm well as far as your list goes, i'd drop the unit of warriors, 10 of them may be a good speedbump, but you would be better off taking another shooting unit, also drop the runes of stone on your Runesmith, you don't want him in combat and the extra armour save isnt going to help, just give em gromril armor, also a unit of Ironbreakers, with an oathstone can cause problems for you enemy (a unit with a really high save and no flanks and rear can be a problem to shift), hmm lots of cannons, always been a fan of the good old fashioned stone thrower, always caused more damage, couple with the master rune of accuracy, i'd drop 2 cannons for stone throwers, also it saves you a few more points

Gonads is right, if you want a list tailored to beat daemons show us the lists your facing and we can help,

here's the list i be fighting against most of the time:
Bloodthirster
masque
2 heralds slaneesh on chariots 1is stndrd bearer
2X 12 demonettes
1X 18 demonettes with banner (swaps between no reaction and aoe hits banner)
either mounted demonettes or fiends of slaneesh.

gonna try out bolt throwers on wednesday methinks.

So almost no magic.

6 bolt throwers
2 organ guns
Change the warrirs to handgunners or crossbows.
Do you need 2 runesmits? He doesn't seem to have much magic.
Dwarf lord that won't die....
Dwarf Lord, Shieldbearers, Master rune spite (4+ ward), Rune stone (now 1+ armour save), Rune perseverence (reroll armour saves) Rune cleaving and rune snorri spanglehelm (+1 to hit, +1 st) Also throw in a rune of furnace if he makes the bloodthirster axe flaming, because then the bloodthirster cannot wound you.

totally forgot about the shieldbearers, prolly cause i don't have that model. but the warriors are there for the 2nd unit of longbeards. You can only take the first one with the lord choice for free. after that i have to take a unit of warriors so the next longbeards unit becomes available. Great lord idea though. Will prolly drop the 2nd runesmith with the dispell stuff, replace him with a thane with a GW?

Also give the lord a shield for 0+ armour save.
Also you could drop the weapon runes and go for a great weapon (you will be striking last anyway) and add the +1 Toughness rune to his armour.

Then he would be:
Toughness 6
0+ armour save.
4+ Ward save
4 strength 6 attacks and 2 strength 4 attacks and as he is US3 is immune to killing blow.

Also made a mistake on the grudge throwers- you can only take 1 as a selection (O&G can take 2).

You could always ask your opponent not to take the bloodthirster for a couple of games (The most horrendously undercosted unit in the game currently) until you can start to do better.

He is using a greater daemon AND a special character!?!

My first recommendation, Don't Play Him. Any person who fields a army like this for a pick-up game is a tool and not worth your time.

I dunno man, that's a pretty weaksauce daemon army to have trouble with.

He's got 3 infantry units that won't stand up to dwarven infantry.
He's got 2 chariots, one is his BSB.
He's got 1 fast unit of cav, won't break a dwarf unit from the front but can from the sides.
He's got the masque (vs. dwarves this'll basically paralyze one unit a turn, and turn any fights you are losing but holding in to breaks.)
He's got a thirster.

This isn't really anything special. I mean, you could see this from vampires (Lord on Dragon, Black Knights, infantry, substitute varghulfs for chariots), Warriors of Chaos (Lord on Dragon, Chaos Knights, infantry, chariots).

Can you explain your defeat pattern? That is, what's the source of your woes? He seriously looks to have a pretty generic force. The basic victory pattern for Dwarves vs. a list like this is as follows:

Thirster is public enemy #1. Deploy in such a manner that he needs to survive a round of your shooting before charging, then try and end him that way. If he survives (he will, about half the time, if you have the equivalent of 4 bolt throwers) flee the charge unless he comes for your Lord (in which case you just challenge and beat him with combat res, as the invinci-Lord suffers no wounds, or just one). You lose your fleeing unit, but he's either stranded for another round of shooting from your war machines, or off the board, in which case he'll be stranded next roudn.

Daemonette units basically don't matter. Unless they hit the front while a chariot or fast cav unit hits the flank they won't beat dwarves. So, once the thirster is down, your next target should be the chariots/other rank breakers. Just do like dwarves do, shoot em down and beat em in combat if they fight you.

The Daemon army codex has MUCH fiercer stuff in it than this.

I just use a non-thorek anvil. Wrath and Ruin even on low power slows him down enough to break up his assault line. Propper dwarf infantry blocks should do for him well enough. Str 3 is crapola against dwarves.

The thirster is best delt with with the anvil too. Ping him once, so he can't fly. Shoot the bejeesus out of him. Laugh.

Dwarf lord on Shield cannot have a 0+ armour save. It says on Page 29 of the Dwarf army Book "The Shieldbearers add 2 tho the Armour Save of the character (to a maximum of 1+) mounted on the shield." I don't know why, but GW does not want the dwarfs to have better than a 1+ save. Kinda dumb, but just the way it goes.

usually i try to shoot him up like crazy, first i try to kill chariots with cannons (old list) sometimes works sometimes don't (he's about 60% on ward saves) then when he's ready to charge i usually end up around 10" away from a unit of demonettes and the GD/chariot i didn't kill. Combat usually happens with my super longbeard unit with lord and bsb (total combat res of +8 before any swings possibly +9 with outnumber) and i lose combat by 1 or 2 (aka demonette champ kills my champ, lord kills 3 demonettes, bsb maybe gets 1 kill in, rest of front rank dies to GD/chariot impact hits +ws5 str3 piercing attacks.) add that in combination with the -D3 ldr from masque and im rockin around ldr8 at best. As far as stubborn goes, ive tried hammerers many of times and i can't seem to make any stubborn ldr tests ever (forgot to sacrifice the bucket of chicken or w/e.). after that happens the rest is a mop up job. on the good note i have shot a couple of demonette units to bits though so normally its just the GD/chariots with masque and between 1 to 2 units hitting my line all at the same time. will have to agree with arion on the 0+ sv though, so i'll prolly just stick with the GW lord (better fluff methinks anyways, i mean what would a dwarven lord be without his beat stick?). we'll see how it goes though. wish me luck.

fitzeh wrote:I just use a non-thorek anvil. Wrath and Ruin even on low power slows him down enough to break up his assault line. Propper dwarf infantry blocks should do for him well enough. Str 3 is crapola against dwarves.

The thirster is best delt with with the anvil too. Ping him once, so he can't fly. Shoot the bejeesus out of him. Laugh.

I'd also suggest dropping the Runesmiths in favour of Master Engineers for the Cannons where possible. Should not only free up points, but enable them to do D6 instead of D3 wounds, effectively halving the time it takes to drop the Thirster. With that big bugger gone, his really hitting power goes as well.

2x Organ gun the fiends
Bolt thrower the chariots (strength 7 will eliminate them quickly) (you can have 2 in one special selection)
Cannon the blood thirster (str 10 no armour save so only a 5+ward (standard issue)

That leaves the ladies running up in 2 to 3 turns. Crossbow men with range (I do not use handgunners as the crossbows have the better range)

That leaves the masques versus what ever you have free to shoot her (Anvil)

Leadership 9 and 10 move down to 6 and 7 in worst case scenario (masque only) when BT charges. Or down to 4 or 5 if the banner is in range as well.

Rank units should be able to hold your position and a Lord in a Hammerer unit will stick around for stuborness.

Standard Dwarf tactic castle in a corner and dont let anyone behind you. Stand and shoot when being charged. Dont setup at the 12 inch mark of your deployment zone. Stay back further. Make them come further.

Had a talk with this at my local GW with the guys at the painting table.

Thorek Ironbrow, for wrath and ruin max power, then as he is about to hit your line, rune of hearth and hold for rerolls panic and break tests and immune to fear and terror so you will not auto break.

Either stick him deep in a forest or buy 12 slayers and put thorek in a corner with a line of slayers blocking access to him (diagonally accross the corner from one edge to another, then castle up around him.

Rerolls on leadership is great but remember to eliminate the masque and the leadership banner as soon after the big stuff is neutralized. That way you can hold on to your high leadership values.

So if you get to affect 3 units with thorek drop one on the blood thirster one on the masque and then the last one on either the fiends or the banner unit.

good ideas all of you! my many thanks goes out to all of you. put him on the ropes but ended up a draw (won by like 100 pts) haven't tried the slayers & anvil thingy yet. No offense but i prolly won't (seems like every dwarf army and their mothers have anvils in them) made him think twice after thirster & chariots ate bolt trowers. =) without hard hitters combining with demonettes he decided to go for quarters and hide after killing my handgunners units (which was the only reason for the draw) all in all he was pretty pissed (kinda feel sorry for him now) that he didn't walk all over me. thanks again!

HE was pissed that you worked out a way to stop a massacre?

Good work.

To be honest, taking an anvil against a top tier army like daemons shouldn't really even be complained about. Unless it's Thorek, who is just wrong....

Don't feel sorry for him. He is pissed that you figured a way to combat his army to a point where Deamons were hiding from you.

Which means if you could have gotten a few more shots off you could have done even more damage. And since the anvil does not need line of site you could blast him where he hides.

Hmmm... Thorek using the anvil to make a unit move. There fore allowing crossbow men to shoot at deamons that were hiding.

Use this pattern if deamons are hiding. Move Crossbowmen. Anvil crossbowmen to move again. Then shoot with crossbowmen. -1 for moving and strength 4 versus Toughness 3. If you can keep out of charge range that should draw his hidey hole units out so the war machines can take a few extras down.

Move the organ guns up as well and then after he moves you hope to be able to see one of them with the OGun and Boom units go bye bye.

And if you can cross fire the Bolt Throwers on the table then he should really have limited places to be able to hide.

Another tip is to move terrain to the edges in setup so there is not much place for him to hide.

Enjoy. And if you think he is upset now. You should see him when you get a solid victory over his army.

you cant move and shoot crossbows
damn cheating dwarfs!

Sorry! Let me clarify!

Then shoot the deamons on the next round when they have no place to hide anymore.

Of course Deamons hiding from Dwarfs is just wrong to begin with.

That better Leith or do you want to play another game. (you going to be at the tournament this weekend?)