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I have a dwarf army and I have been thinking of bringing it into line with the 8th edition changed. The issue is how much is to much and what really works.

Two questions
Assuming an anvil will be present...
Are two stone throwers + one cannon to many war machines. Is only three but with the addition of some crossbow men people start to gak.

Is 3 combat units enough? I can make a good army with the above ranged units but cannot fit a fourth ranked unit in my army. Three seems kind of smallish to field. Thoughts one way or the other on three hard units vs four somewhat hard units?

Good thing about dwarves is that a 3 CC blocks arent all that bad. Longbeards with GW can knock other core choices silly sans more expensive people like chaos warriors. Warriors while lesser skill and strength still dont need to sacrifice good I to use the GW. Or perhaps use shields for a solid +4/++6 . 3 warmachines for dwarves is ok. Especially since you arent taking multiple cannons and organ guns.

First off, can i see a army list? Will help clear things right up.

Anvil of Doom - Used them occasionally but never really saw the point in them, your paying 400 odd points for somthing that can make you slightly faster, do abit of damage or make you more fearless (dwarfs have a very high leadership to begin with, this last ruin is mostly pointless) But then we have ancient power, this is best used on the rune of wrath and ruin, turning D6 strength 4 to D3 units take 2D6 Strength 4, much better!

Cannon - Cannons are immense, you are firing a Str 10 line of death at your target that on multi-wound models does D6 instead of 1. As a general rule on your cannons take a rune of forging, for 35 points you can reroll your artillery dice once during the firing process (this includes both bounce and the starting location) Furthermore as 8th edition took out guessing range you can become soo much more accurate.

Grudge throwers (stone throwers) - These have also got a boost for dwarfs as you again don`t have to guess range. At Str 4 under the hole and Str 3 under the plate you can hit a large amount of enemy units (remember there are no partials anymore with templates, you can hit even more!) In the closely ranked units you can hit around 20 models in a single hit. If you take one of these a rune of accuracy is a must, at 25 points you get to reroll the scatter dice, and with lucky roll (or reroll) you can often get a direct hit!

Qurallers - Never really used these personally but at Str 4 with a 30" range you will often get in a extra shot over your other ranged slot, thunderers. They also are relitivly cheap and can buy great weapons, these means they can be very versatile at close and long range.

Thunderers - My personal pick over Qurallers is the thunderers, more expensive and at a shorter range of 24" they can be seen as a worse choice, but crucially they are armed with dwarven handguns. These are just like normal handguns as they are Str 4 and Armour pircing but, they have a +1 to hit modifier, this means that a long range where a Quraller would be hitting on 5`s a thunderer is hitting on 4`s. This can make alot of difference.

Close combat - I cannot say anything about dwarven combat troops as i run a gunline but warriors with great weapons are godly, all i can say really.

EagleArk

Every time I field hw/s warriors I have been disappointed. They are resilient but only being str 3 they need help winning combat against most troops.

At 2k three war machines is no where near cheesy. If people start to 'gak' politely remind them that you can't get wizards so they should expect to see them. I use 4 at 2k with one unit of quarellers and one thunderer. No one has complained yet.

Lastly I can't gauge if 3 is enough without more details. What type and how many in each unit would help us help you.

Ehh true about HW Warriors I suppose. I've always heard that sometimes dwarves have a hard time killing in CC!

The last dwarf army I tried was

Anvil, rune of spellbreaking

Lord, GW, +1 to hit, +1 attack, reroll saves, 1+ save

Thane, BSB, +1 str, +1 attack, 1+ save

Thane, +1 str, +1 att, +1 to hit, 1+ as

14 Quarrelelers

25 long beards, full cmd, hw/shield
25 warriors, full cmd, GW
25 hammerers, full cmd

Grudge thrower, +2 str, Reroll scatter
Grudge thrower, +1 str, reroll scatter
Cannon, forging, burning.


O, and the anvil is there because it adds +3 DD, Scrolls, Master rune of ballance (which I had to drop to fit in the lord) and an almost unkillable runelord. Runesmiths are way to easy to kill this edition.

I think its a good well balanced list the only thing i would change is the weapon runes i find a great weapon is good enough combined with there high stats and armour save, you could spend all the extra points saved on an organ gun which will definetly be more effective.

Also, you can't have the same rune combo on both grudge throwers, add a rune of burning to help this.

Hes got 2 penetrating/accuracy and 1 with 1 penetrating/accuracy.

cypher wrote:Lord, GW, +1 to hit, +1 attack, reroll saves, 1+ save

If you take weapon runes you lose any bonus that that weapon had, that great weapon will no longer strike at +2 strenght with allways strike last but will strike with the benifits you gave it, you lose the points of the weapon for no bonus.

EagleArk wrote:

cypher wrote:Lord, GW, +1 to hit, +1 attack, reroll saves, 1+ save

If you take weapon runes you lose any bonus that that weapon had, that great weapon will no longer strike at +2 strenght with allways strike last but will strike with the benifits you gave it, you lose the points of the weapon for no bonus.

Unless he has the certain master rune

but he does not

@Eagle: The anvil is taken for flexibility in affecting the movement phase. If you look at it as a damage dealer or something to make you slightly faster, it will disappoint. But if you look it as something to slow down a critical unit, or to allow you a flank charge then it comes in to its own.

My main hesitation with the anvil these days is vulnerability to things that instant kill it like Purple Sun, Dwellers, Pit of Shades, Crack's call. So be prepared in the magic phase if this is something you're going to take.

I think 3 combat blocks, if they're nice and meaty will be ok, especially with extra maneuverability from the anvil (which lets you stretch them that little bit farther).

If the points in core/special work out, hammerers are better for cheaper than great weapon longbeards... I've been using hand weapon shield warriors, mainly because those are the models I have painted. I'm happy enough with them, but they are certainly lacking in a lot of situations. I need to get to trying out GW warriors soon.

RZ

Sorry, missread that. grudgethrowers as they are, are fine.

If you do worry about heavy spells that insta kill an anvil, add a rune of balance at the least.
This with the rune lord and anvil will up your DD by 4,should be enough to counter those spell (unless he gets a irrisistable force)

jochemvh wrote:unless he gets a irrisistable force

Which is what people do with suicide power scroll casters.

If you take weapon runes you lose any bonus that that weapon had, that great weapon will no longer strike at +2 strenght with allways strike last but will strike with the benifits you gave it, you lose the points of the weapon for no bonus.

Yea, he has the master rune of kruni (the GW one) just for that reason. I kept him that way because that is the way I use to run him in 7th edition. That dwarf lord will walk into dam near anything and kill it easily. Aside from multiple hearlds of khorn inside hound units he killed everything that stepped in front of him for an entire edition.

So far I have played the list twice. Lost to lizards because trying to move regenerating temple guard out of a building in watchtower is just plane impossible for this list. I did walk over the beastman army. The anvil happily threw the hammerers around with the dwarf lord inside killing everything in sight.

Was thinking of dropping the lord and the hammerers in favor of 30 slayers (with 3 or so champions) and a couple daemon slayers (the guys are only 100 pts which is a steal for their base stats). But that removes the ability of moving characters from unit to unit as the daemon slayers cannot join the non-unbreakable units and the thanes cannot join the slayers.

When ever ive used the anvil just place it in the far corner opposite where the enemy deploy, the only thing that will bother to go all the way to the corner is fast cav/flyers, and if they send anything over there it will be stuck there for most the game.

I think your spending roughly 70 points for the dwarf lord weapon which is just +1 to hit and attack its way over priced just get a 4+ ward save and he will be so much better. Same with the thanes its to many points, Great weapons are the best.

So far this edition ive really been dissapointed with quarrellers/thunderers just because everything seems alot faster/mobile this edition and so many -hit modifiers and you cant move and shoot, i would get rid of them for an organ gun it should get you alot more kills than the quarrellers(it should aslong as you dont misfire 1st turn)

Sadly the thanes cant take great weapons as the bsb simply cant have one (old design) and the other guy loses his important shield (i like my 1+ saves).

True the dwarf lord's weapon is expensive but he goes from killing an average of 2.2 enemies to killing an average of 3.5. Usually worth it but I will keep that in mind (if I drop it I can fit the master rune of ballance back in which can be HUGE at times).

Yea, the quarrellers failed me prety bad. They are only good at siting around threatening smaller units and picking off the odd rank when the stone throwers are needed elseware. O, and filling in core points sometimes.