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So for the past two days we've been gaming pretty much non-stop and, with 10 different players consisting of a Skaven, Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Gobbos, Vampire Counts, Empire, High Elves, all Goblins, and 3 Dwarfs, we have figured out that, at least in our game group, Dwarfs are the top army in 8th edition. I have 10 Fantasy Armies that I play on a rotating basis, and this was my Dwarfs debut (I just finished painting them on Thursday), and they absolutely trounced everything they came up against. There are no weak suites that we saw with Dwarfs. Not having a mage isn't that big a deal, as they can still dispel most of what the enemy throws at them, as well as being tough enough to withstand most magic missiles. "Final Transmutation" hurt once, but then the mage took half his unit with him. Here's how I ran mine, and PLEASE tell me if you have a good strategy to beat them, as I'd love to know so that I can restore balance to the force around here.
1 Lord on Shield
1 BsB with Valaya rune
1 Engineer
30 Ironbreakers (horde)
28 Hammerers (horde)
20 Longbeards
20 Warriors
20 Thunderers
10 Quarrelers
2 Cannons
1 Grudge Thrower
1 Bolt Thrower
1 Flame Cannon
1 Organ Gun

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those large units of dwarves don't really seem all that scary. I play WoC, and have munched units that size before, even if they're tough. It doesn't seem to me like they could stand up to a multi-unit charge from say chaos warriors with a hero attached.

Though maybe your artillery would have something to say before combat was joined.

That's the problem that we kept seeing. Things like Chaos Warriors were getting obliterated trying to cross the field, and then running into units of hard-ass Dwarf infantry which are getting 30+ attacks at WS5 and S4-6. Plus, they're not going to get too many multiple charges in because the Dwarfs will usually outnumber them and are just standing in a line, so you can't get to the flanks. Also, after combat's all said and done, the Dwarfs usually have more ranks, so the units that aren't already Stubborn are.

Surely wood elves could just walk around them and empire could blow them off the field before they got close?

Dwarves are slightly better at shooting than Empire, Chocolate. Same ballistic skill, but (at least for now) more often Dwarves have Engineers with War Machines (meaning very high "To Hit" bonus'), their Thunderers (analogy to Empire Handgunners) are +1 Toughness, have Heavy Armor, and get +1 to hit (meaning where the Empire is at 6's to hit, the Dwarves are at 5's for double the hit-rate), and their war machines can be made slightly stronger (Example including the S4 stone throwers).

Wood Elves have the problem that if they're in short range, they're only one-to-to rounds away from being charged now (or a solid one if facing an Anvil of Doom, which can take upwards of six T10 wounds to be silenced).

It depends, I think a more balanced gunline for dwarfs will be the best.

I got whipped by a Thorek Gunline in my first game, however the few models i did get into combat did fairly well.

I can't see Wood Elves doing too well against anybody right now, especially Dwarfs. It's sad too, because my favorite army is my Wood Elves. The only thing that can hurt Dwarfs are the Treemen, maybe some Treekin, and they'll get blasted all to hell with flaming cannonballs and bolts the first turn. After that, it won't really matter how many Dryads or Wardancers charge in, and dancing around doesn't really do much when you don't negate ranks (and that's only IF you get a flank charge). Stubborn on a 9 or 10 isn't easily beatable.

So the crappy initiative didn't hurt you that badly, eh? Interesting...

Commissar Molotov wrote:So the crappy initiative didn't hurt you that badly, eh? Interesting...

When you can blow away the biggest threats before they get to you, Initiative doesn't matter.

This is what I've been seeing as well.
Even if small one-off games, the only real drawback is the initiative and speed.
- You play static gunlines with countercharge units, so movement doesn't matter.
- Initiative doesn't matter when you can blast any threats ahead of time and Dwarf infantry are tough as nails.

I'd like to add that Dwarf heroes/lords are very inexpensive for being as good as they are and their infantry are not very costly either for being WS4 T4 w/GW and 5+.

Being able to take so many warmachines helps too-- warmachines are king of 8th.

I play Tomb Kings, and even my catapult is very strong now.

I would try teclis with death. IF purple sun and see how much it can kill. On a good day/scatter you could see a lot of dead dwarves. Or teclis with light, IF phas and timewarp to charge you turn 2 and hurt your warmachine shooting.


PG bunkers and Eagles to try to annoy your warmachines.

Lizardmen with Slann same concept, worse odds (plus your cannons can hurt)

tiekwando wrote:I would try teclis with death. IF purple sun and see how much it can kill. On a good day/scatter you could see a lot of dead dwarves. Or teclis with light, IF phas and timewarp to charge you turn 2 and hurt your warmachine shooting.

PG bunkers and Eagles to try to annoy your warmachines.

Lizardmen with Slann same concept, worse odds (plus your cannons can hurt)

Glad to see someone else had the same idea as me, did anyone notice that you might as well throw 6 dice at one of the two spells since it guarantees a double, and since he doesn't need to worry about 1 miscast per turn, he just got the spell off and there isn't crap they can do.

I have a 2250 list on the forums built for that tactic.

3-0 against dwarves and counting..... Dont know what all the fuss is about.

1st game was a hardcore gunline
2nd was a balanced army
3rd was a mix of gunline and lots of infantry..

ShivanAngel wrote:3-0 against dwarves and counting..... Dont know what all the fuss is about.

1st game was a hardcore gunline
2nd was a balanced army
3rd was a mix of gunline and lots of infantry..

You're my hero

Dwarfs got better, but they're not unbeatable.

Since 8th, I'm taking my blocks of Warriors in 15's. On average rolling most of our stuff should also charge faster. With some good target saturation the Chaos player (And most other armies) should be fine. I wouldn't say Dwarfs are the toughest kids on the block, but they certainly got a big boost, which is probably why I'll un-shelf mine =D

Dwarfs were tier 3. If they got better, they might actually not be the worst army in the game now. Calling them easily the best army in the game is a bit of a stretch

Therion wrote:Dwarfs were tier 3. If they got better, they might actually not be the worst army in the game now. Calling them easily the best army in the game is a bit of a stretch

I personally think skaven are the strongest army in the game right now. Pretty nuts.

ShivanAngel wrote:I personally think skaven are the strongest army in the game right now. Pretty nuts.

Skaven are definitely top tier.

I've played against dwarves a couple times so far in 8th and won both. I do have to say that both games were very bloody and challenging conflicts but in general I didn't see anything overpowering about dwarves.

Gutter runners with poison slings and night runners with warp grinders will deal with the warmachines easily. Horde Clanrats will hold troops up well until a doomwheel or HPA can hit the unit in the flank. Even slaves with the new expendable rule work great (warpfire throwers for the win!)

I'd say High Elves are probably at the top of the game right now. ASF basically gave them all Hatred. I've still yet to see a Dwarf army lose around here though. Or even come close to losing. Nothing that can hurt them even gets close, and not every army has something like Teclis.

I wouldn't say High Elves are at the top, they're still vulnerable to shooting. Personally, it's either Empire or Skaven, IMHO.

Eh, I don't like the tier system because usually its one or two specific lists that are really good, and not necessarily the codex.


I'm not sure about skaven yet. It will come down to if they are stubborn on their base leadership (which is 5 typically) or if they can add their rank bonuses to the roll.

Casper wrote:I'm not sure about skaven yet. It will come down to if they are stubborn on their base leadership (which is 5 typically) or if they can add their rank bonuses to the roll.

As stated in their FAQ (quite clearly)

“Units with the Strength in Numbers special rule add their current
rank bonus to their Leadership value for any Leadership test.”

then later in the FAQ they reiterate;

Q. How does the ‘Strength in numbers’ rule interact with the
‘Steadfast’ rule? (p33)
A. The Strength in Numbers rule is applied after the Steadfast
rule (i.e. ranks are added to the unmodified Leadership).

Casper wrote:Eh, I don't like the tier system because usually its one or two specific lists that are really good, and not necessarily the codex.


I'm not sure about skaven yet. It will come down to if they are stubborn on their base leadership (which is 5 typically) or if they can add their rank bonuses to the roll.

We can actually use our generals leadership 7 then add our SiN to that, which if we have three ranks makes us a stubborn ld 10....

dont hate!

eledamris wrote:So for the past two days we've been gaming pretty much non-stop and, with 10 different players consisting of a Skaven, Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Gobbos, Vampire Counts, Empire, High Elves, all Goblins, and 3 Dwarfs, we have figured out that, at least in our game group, Dwarfs are the top army in 8th edition. I have 10 Fantasy Armies that I play on a rotating basis, and this was my Dwarfs debut (I just finished painting them on Thursday), and they absolutely trounced everything they came up against. There are no weak suites that we saw with Dwarfs. Not having a mage isn't that big a deal, as they can still dispel most of what the enemy throws at them, as well as being tough enough to withstand most magic missiles. "Final Transmutation" hurt once, but then the mage took half his unit with him. Here's how I ran mine, and PLEASE tell me if you have a good strategy to beat them, as I'd love to know so that I can restore balance to the force around here.
1 Lord on Shield
1 BsB with Valaya rune
1 Engineer
30 Ironbreakers (horde)
28 Hammerers (horde)
20 Longbeards
20 Warriors
20 Thunderers
10 Quarrelers
2 Cannons
1 Grudge Thrower
1 Bolt Thrower
1 Flame Cannon
1 Organ Gun

First off, point value- I'm guessing around 3000? Were you playing on a field void of terrain? Honestly this doesn't seem to be that good of a list. I'm guessing the people you play don't have any template weapons/spellpower/any type of ranged ability, since your ranged manz are move and fire and they should be able to take advantage of that at least. Horde rule is just plain silly on those extremely expensive units of hammerers/ironbreakers.

Once again, where is the shooting that the opponent has? Heck, why aren't they outflanking those units? A single casuality will remove the horde rule from the ironbreakers, and the Hammerers cannot even horde if there are only 28! Any smashy unit will flank your massively vulnerable flanks. Remember- a unit that is flanked DOES NOT GET the supporting attacks EVEN TO THE FRONT. Seriously- A flanked ironbreaker unit like that can only strike with three guys. Your other mele units simply don't have any staying power in a fight against true smashy units.

Also, you don't seem to have any protection against their warmachines- a properly kitted empire warmachine horde would table this in no time flat with their 9+ artillery pieces. Do you have any way of protecting against vanguard units besides castling in one corner? Gah!

How 'bout you show what your friends are playing- that might make it easier to see what to do to help them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

eledamris wrote:So for the past two days we've been gaming pretty much non-stop and, with 10 different players consisting of a Skaven, Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Gobbos, Vampire Counts, Empire, High Elves, all Goblins, and 3 Dwarfs, we have figured out that, at least in our game group, Dwarfs are the top army in 8th edition. I have 10 Fantasy Armies that I play on a rotating basis, and this was my Dwarfs debut (I just finished painting them on Thursday), and they absolutely trounced everything they came up against. There are no weak suites that we saw with Dwarfs. Not having a mage isn't that big a deal, as they can still dispel most of what the enemy throws at them, as well as being tough enough to withstand most magic missiles. "Final Transmutation" hurt once, but then the mage took half his unit with him. Here's how I ran mine, and PLEASE tell me if you have a good strategy to beat them, as I'd love to know so that I can restore balance to the force around here.
1 Lord on Shield
1 BsB with Valaya rune
1 Engineer
30 Ironbreakers (horde)
28 Hammerers (horde)
20 Longbeards
20 Warriors
20 Thunderers
10 Quarrelers
2 Cannons
1 Grudge Thrower
1 Bolt Thrower
1 Flame Cannon
1 Organ Gun

First off, point value- I'm guessing around 3000? Were you playing on a field void of terrain? Honestly this doesn't seem to be that good of a list. I'm guessing the people you play don't have any template weapons/spellpower/any type of ranged ability, since your ranged manz are move and fire and they should be able to take advantage of that at least. Horde rule is just plain silly on those extremely expensive units of hammerers/ironbreakers.

Once again, where is the shooting that the opponent has? Heck, why aren't they outflanking those units? A single casuality will remove the horde rule from the ironbreakers, and the Hammerers cannot even horde if there are only 28! Any smashy unit will flank your massively vulnerable flanks. Remember- a unit that is flanked DOES NOT GET the supporting attacks EVEN TO THE FRONT. Seriously- A flanked ironbreaker unit like that can only strike with three guys. Your other mele units simply don't have any staying power in a fight against true smashy units.

Also, you don't seem to have any protection against their warmachines- a properly kitted empire warmachine horde would table this in no time flat with their 9+ artillery pieces. Do you have any way of protecting against vanguard units besides castling in one corner? Gah!

How 'bout you show what your friends are playing- that might make it easier to see what to do to help them.

Well..with Warmachines, there's really one thing I thought that would work great against them.

The BRB states "Warmachines automantically fail all Characteristic Test save for Toughness and Leadership"


There's a bunch of spells that are "strength test or die" or along those lines.

...Or you just spam shoot arrows at them seeing as Str 3 can hurt them now-a-days.