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Was looking at ideas for adding some sort of ridden machine to a dwarf throng, when the idea of Dwarf Death Rollers as monstrous cavalry or as a chariot for an engineer came up. Hoping to put the idea out there and maybe come up with some cool rules. I though a slow movement of 3 or 4 inches and D6 impact hits would be a good start with a price of 60pt per roller.

Any thought on adding something like this to an army would be great.

Chariots can't march, so a move of 3 would be pretty slow.
Monstrous cav with impact hits might work better.

-Matt

It might work better if it continued to grind after the first combat, like the Steam Tank.

So it'd be slow and unlikely to get impact hits on the charge, but every turn it stayed in combat it would continue scoring grinding hits.

Perhaps something similar to the Chaos Dwarve's Iron Daemon?

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/i/Iron-Daemon.pdf

If it moved 3-4" at a time it would have to be fairly tough to survive all of the shots coming at it.

I have always liked the idea of the deathroller. What if the movement was more random and it plowed through units like fanatics? Maybe take a leadership check before moving (or strength) if passed the dwarf chooses the direction and it moves 2d6 inches if he can't control it then roll scatter and artillery dice to see which direction and how far. A misfire means it breaks down and the dwarf has to fight on foot. The deathroller could also take a hit when plowing through a unit that has a strength equal to the number of ranks it went through.

A chariot pulled by stout war ponies. 6" move, can move and fire an Organ Gun or Flame cannon.

I actually took the ponies (or whatever they are) from the miner box (back when it was a 20 man box, I have no idea are they there anymore) and converted a 3 man cavalry unit with them. I did them just for the laughs but am thinking of making rules for them.

Not more dwarf cavalry ideas....

I'll just say what I say time and time again: it's not dwarfy. Cavalry doesn't suit dwarves, they don't like to have to rely on some animal to get to battle and to not run away and they prefer to fight wth their two feet on solid ground.

Eldar Own wrote:Not more dwarf cavalry ideas....

I'll just say what I say time and time again: it's not dwarfy. Cavalry doesn't suit dwarves, they don't like to have to rely on some animal to get to battle and to not run away and they prefer to fight wth their two feet on solid ground.

Which is why dwarf kings and carried into battle?

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Eldar Own wrote:Not more dwarf cavalry ideas....

I'll just say what I say time and time again: it's not dwarfy. Cavalry doesn't suit dwarves, they don't like to have to rely on some animal to get to battle and to not run away and they prefer to fight wth their two feet on solid ground.

Which is why dwarf kings and carried into battle?

-Matt

Or have gyrocopters in their armies.

I'm with elder it just isn't dwarfy.

True, there are excptions. Gyrocopters and those big air balloon things, are very different to cavalry, the dwarves will put their faith in the engineers who made them, as they do with cannons and the like.

And those lorsds who are carried into battle will be done so by the sheildbearers, the most resolute, honourable, brave, strong and skilled warriors of the throng. So there's no question ofunreliability there. True, you could argue that the cavalr would train the horses to be all of those things, but in a dwarf's eyes nothing is more resolute, honourable, brave, strong and skilled than a dwarf itself.

I agree that dwarf cavalry is very undwarfy. But as an idea it is hilarious. Does not fit the fluff by any means unless talking about somekind of "exiles" who live among humans or something which sounds unfluffy.

I'd imagine for dwarfs a steam-powered cycle or something rather.

Not referencing squats.

A Black Ram wrote:I'd imagine for dwarfs a steam-powered cycle or something rather.

Not referencing squats.

Steam-powered motorcycle?

I think a chariot of some kind would be fun. Something like the Deathroller. The rules for the Doomwheel and/or the Steam Tank would probably be a good starting point.

A big drill-tunneler thing would be cool. Slow, but with the ability to move underground (use a marker to show its location, troops can ignore it, cannot be targeted). Needs to roll the scatter die to emerge, but it has an Engineer (or a Master Engineer) inside to make it more reliable.

As for dwarf cavalry: there is nothing in the current Dwarf book or the BRB that specifically says that Dwarfs don't do cavalry.
You say: "dwarfs depend only on themselves to get the job done, for what is more dependable than a Dwarf?"
I say: "Rangers train stout ponies (or whatever) to carry them across rough and dangerous terrain, to keep an eye on enemy movements, and to bring the Hold early warning."

They both work as far as justifications go. I mean, I see dwarfen cavalry as more of a scouting unit than anything else, if only from a tactical standpoint.

I converted dwarfs on ponies (as I mentioned earlier) equipped with hand weapons, shields, great weapons and heavy armor. I might be doing more of them some day just for the laughs. I was thinking that maybe they are actually rangers who had this idea "why not?"

I don't agree that Dwarfs would never use mounts, If a Dwarf is missing to trust a Dwarfen Pony to pull their treasure wagons and such, why is it unreasonable to think that they may ride the same beast into battle, I mean it likely wouldn't be anything near fast cavalry, I made experimental rules for this for a friend of mine, and I will post them at the end of my post. I still have a little more to say about the lore of Dwarfs, They like just about any race are naturally lazy for lack of a better way to put it, they are always looking for ways to make life easier and more efficent as I already said, like most races. Most races have captured and used other creatures to make their way of life easier, the dwarfs are known to have done this with the Pony, and also with their Technology, I would agree that it would be reasonable to say that a Dwarf Riding a Pony is Unlikly, but it is still easily agreeable that is more of a rare thing to see in a Dwarf army, therefore it would be considered a Rare unit. I would love to see others bench test these rules that I came up with, feel free to send me your feedback by quoting this of PM me if you would like.

Dwarf Grudge Rider (Dwarf Pony Rider) (Rare Unit)

30 Points per model, minimum unit size 5+

M WS BS S T W I A Ld
3 4 3 3 4 1 2 1 9 For a Grudge Rider
3 4 3 3 4 1 2 2 9 For a Grudge Bearer
6 3 - 3 4 1 3 1 5 For a Dwarfen Pony

Hand Weapon, Gromil Armour, May be armed with Great Axes or lance and a shield.
Dwarf Pony is Heavily armoured and therfore adds a 4+ AS instead of the normal 5+ from a barded warhorse (Counts as being barded for movement purposes ((6-1=5)))

-Upgrade one Grudge Rider to a Musician for +8 points
-Upgrade one Grudge Rider to a Standard Bearer for +16 points
-Upgrade one Grudge Rider to a Grudge Bearer for +16 points
-A standard Bearer may carry a magical standard worth up to 50 points

I'm going to convert the Dwarf Pony from the Battle for Skull pass set into a Grudge Rider, just have to shave a few parts off and add some more armor to it, then convert a dwarf IronBreaker to Ride it. I will probably only make 5 of them. Anyways, feel free to pick this apart and say how "Out of lore this would be!" Happy Gaming All!

I didn't see this mentioned, forgive me if it has been:



http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?group=75

I love those models so, so much... but so pricey, too :-/

Yeah that is an amazing model!

A Strange Man wrote:I don't agree that Dwarfs would never use mounts, If a Dwarf is missing to trust a Dwarfen Pony to pull their treasure wagons and such, why is it unreasonable to think that they may ride the same beast into battle, I mean it likely wouldn't be anything near fast cavalry

I guess there's a number of reasons both fluffy and real-world.

Fluffy, it doesn't seem especially prideful to sit on a pony. It's a bit silly, I think you'd agree. Especially when dodging between the warhorses and cold ones of enemies. Also, dwarves have millenia of experience of fighting underground, where space is a premium. And if 99% of your society is stunty, why build off-shoot caves of 3x that height--and even if they did, the invading orcs and goblins and skaven might not have, and you don't want to leave your cavalry.

Realistically, there's a ton of reasons. People ride mounts because they're huge, they're fast, intimidating (huge), and have huge stamina. Horses are like what, 1500+ pounds and move much faster than a human. That means they can Bull Rush just about anything other than a brick wall. If you're on a pony, you have neither speed, nor girth. You give up your legs as stabilizing factor and ability to brace yourself, not to mention the fact the horse can't turn as quickly as you can. Further, a pony simply would have no attacks. If you fed it an apple it might bite your fingers, but that's about it. Dwarven legs also can't properly straddle anything except a very narrow animal, a small pony. That's why you see goats and rams and stuff, cuz they don't have those horse barrel chests. A dwarf would split in half on one, you'd have to put a pallaquin on a horse, which would be rather amusing. You basically gain nothing from a pony except stamina, which is why they use it as a work animal.

Also, GW don't want dwarves fast and/or mounted.

movie night:

Mines are no place for a pony. Even one as brave as Bill.--Strider from Lord of the Rings

Personally I love the idea of giving armies as many options as possible, and just make the appropriatly priced and themed... So in this case I think the focus should be less on animals, and more on runic magic and technology. Cavalry could be mounted on mechanical versions of ponys or boars and monstrous calvalry on robo-bears. Alternativly, I can easily see dwarves making golums as monstrous creatures or monstrous cavalry. Or perhaps an exoskeleton of some sort, like a dreadnaught/wraithlord from 40k. All those could be linked to your general, like engineer unlocks the robos, runesmith the golumns, lord the dreads...

I don't know, just brainstormin... But I think warhammers method of paper-rock-scissors-warmachine-magic-etc really makes more sense if the races CAN build a lot of ways, but are better suited to certain ones.

Dwarfs of harlys?