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The 1000pt tourney is approaching fast, and my grumpy, grudge-bearing friend has yet to make up her mind on the exact list she'll run. Here's the basic jist:

Two Heroes. Either two Thanes (1- Battle standard, Master Rune of Gromil, Rune of Resistance, 2- Great Weapon, Rune of Stone, Rune of Iron, Rune of Iron, Rune of the Furnace), or Thane #1 and a Runesmith (Great weapon, Rune of Stone, Rune of Iron, Rune of Iron)

Two blocks of great-weapon warriors. 22+ each.

One or two war machines. At least a Grudge Thrower (Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetration, maybe Rune of Burning). Then, depending, a Bolt Thrower (Rune of Burning), a Cannon (Rune of Forging), or an Organ Gun.

The general Thane/Smith costs the same, so they're interchangeable. Could get a cannon and a thrower, with the above runes, and 22 warriors/unit. Or a thrower and an organ gun. Or a Grudge and Bolt Thrower, each with an Engineer and a brace o' pistols, and 24 warriors/unit.

Trying to cover all bases here. 22 warriors seems small, but a cannon is way better than a Bolt Thrower. The Engineers+pistols/Organ Gun are there to protect the other war machines, in addition to their other uses. The Smith is a worse general than a Thane (T5 goes a long way), but is the extra dispel die worth it? Or would you just abandon trying to keep him alive and run him with Spellbreaking or whatever? Or drop the battle standard and make the Thane the general?

...and so on. Thanks guys.

I would probably go runesmith and BSB. Gear the runesmith for a little of both survivability and defense. A rune of stone and shield gets him to a 2+ save with a parry, which isn't terrible. Then he can take a spellbreaker as well.

For the war machines, it's a tough call. The grudgethrower and organ gun combo might be your best bet. At small points levels, you might end up with nothing useful to fire the cannon at, and those two are guaranteed to have targets regardless of the matchup. And the grudgethrower, while less effective at them, can do many of the things you need from a cannon.

Red_Zeke wrote:I would probably go runesmith and BSB. Gear the runesmith for a little of both survivability and defense. A rune of stone and shield gets him to a 2+ save with a parry, which isn't terrible. Then he can take a spellbreaker as well.

For the war machines, it's a tough call. The grudgethrower and organ gun combo might be your best bet. At small points levels, you might end up with nothing useful to fire the cannon at, and those two are guaranteed to have targets regardless of the matchup. And the grudgethrower, while less effective at them, can do many of the things you need from a cannon.

+1 That is what I would have suggested also, but not nearly as eloquently as RZ.

Agree with the above, maybe put Rune of Burning if you can on the Grudge Thrower as Hell Pits can be in play at 1k.

That's generally the plan, unless another war machine that benefits more from it is in play. Can't afford to duplicate those big 5 points...

Thanks guys. She's looked at the thread, and is leaning towards the Organ Gun. The Runesmith seems tempting as well, but that's a bit more in-the-air at the moment.

Also, with all dwarfs, except lord, having a Ld 9, the general may not be as important. So imho I would prefer the magic defense over the T5 general.

Well, it's just a matter of giving up extra points. That, and being able to field a general that can reasonable absorb some punishment and deal it out in turn. But the Spellbreaker would be nice...

Really, it seems hard to justify going down in survivability and kill-ability for an extra dispel die at 1000pts. But then again, I suppose that one extra die is all the more significant at this level.

Argh.

I'm 100% with you. 1000 points is *tough* for Dwarfs, in my opinion. Two heroes are pricey, and take a pretty big bite out of your available points. Heck, I'm still only using 2 characters at 2500 points. It's just a painful choice. I tried a build without a BSB, using Longbeards to help mitigate panic.

Wasn't all that pleased...

2 characters at 2500pts? Really? A BSB and a...Runelord? Or just a Smith? Wow.

BSB and a Runelord (no anvil), and that's it. My closest temptation is to find a way to get a Master Rune of Challenge in, but that would either require dropping some protection on the BSB (bad call) or putting on the Runelord (compromising magic protection).

I agree with Zeke, I only run those 2 as well at 2k. I don't like giving up my war machines, hammerers and awesome warriors.

I mean, I agree with all that stuff. But one lonely Runelord makes me nervous. And a Runesmith general with his runesmith brother would also make me nervous.

Then again, everything really scary is probably cast with IF anyway...I like the feel of 8th ed. magic, but I'm not sure if I'm super cool with how it works out. Mainly: elves with books and toads with...cupped...hands. I guess.

Actually I am quite confident about the anti-magic of the Dwarfs... But I run a list with a Runelord with AoD and a Runesmith with MRoBalance, which gives me almost every turn the same amount of Dispel Dice as my opponent's number of Power Dice. I even made a lizardmen player shy away of using a slann But you are right, the moment a scary spell is cast on IF it will probably be a punch in our face. But in general, I am not scared of magic (unless if casted by High-Elves with that book :( )