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Just want to know if the anvil of doom is worth it in a 2400 point dwarf army and i am wondering if anyone has any tactics for using it?

I haven't used it yet, but I think its sounds neato!

Rune of Heart and Hold I think is a little lame because dwarfs have awesome leadership anyways.
Oath and Honour sounds awesome! surprise your opponent with a charge in the shooting phase from an hammer unit he wasn't expecting.
Wrath and ruin sounds pretty sweet too, D6 Str 4 hits is all right, but halving a units movement characteristic while you're unloading your fire line seems effective to me. Might get you an extra turn of shooting before they reach you, or it might help you focus fire a little better. And do any of these things with out having to be in line of sight or within a maximum range means you can just stow it somewhere out of the way and not have to worry about it getting attacked. You'll basically be receiving a free bonus every turn.
Also adding an extra dice to despell magic is pretty useful.
Of course it is expensive and it takes up an extra hero spot. Altogether I think it is sort of a niche thing for the point cost. If you're going up against an army that's aggressive in close combat and also uses some magic, then it might be a good thing to have on your gun-line. I can also see it being a liability though.
Are you asking because you're going up against some specific army?

My advice is keep it cheap.
Just because you can take 150 points of runes on that guy doesn't mean you should.
I always went cheap, shield, rune of stone, rune of shielding.
2+ armor, 2+ ward vs shooting.
348 points.

I used Wrath and Ruin combined with rune of slowness for some brutal shooting.
Opponent haves his move, and loses D6" from his charge.
M6 ogres find themselves charging only 3".
Makes for a brutal stand and shoot (long beard rangers with throwing axes).

-Matt

Stick it behind terrain/right in a back corner and unless your opponent has units coming in from table edges or tunneling up, he'll be pretty much safe, especially with a shielding unit.

Another popular tactic is rangers, pref long beard, and get a first turn charge from a weird angle. It makes things die. Also, no one expects dwarf ninjas.

The problem with the Anvil is that it has 3 spells
One sucks - Fear/Terror-reroll thing that dwarfs do not need and would NOT pay tons of points for, completely garbage.

Charge one is decent, so-so. Very situational.

Wrath and Ruin when cast with Ancient Power is decently effective.
2d6 * d3 = average 14 S4 hits.
Without ancient power it's only an average 3.5 S4 hits. Very sucky.

The Anvil lord is resigned to stand there and not contribute in any melee combats and he only has that one shooting spell which is very weak unless you take a risk.
Someone posted a 348 point build as "cheap"
That's not cheap at all.
Someone can get a Slann Mage Priest for 275 points which is way, way stronger than that 348 point Anvil.

If you want to ever earn 348 points back and attempt to use Ancient Power, 50% of the time you lose that turn's shooting. Then half the time you also lose next turn's shooting (from 1-3, and on 1 it is dead.)

So a generic Anvil can either, play it safe, doing almost no damage and costing a ton of points or play dangerously, not doing much damage because how much it fails and risking your lord dying.

For an anvil that actually does damage, Thorek is the only choice. 3+ to ancient power (needed for wrath & ruin to do any damage) and he gets 1 rerolled if he fails it per game.
The 3+ and re-rolling when you fail can give him multiple extra turns of ancient powering.
Downside: he costs 505 points, so he's still a terrible deal.

Problem with anvil is it's in the price area of stuff like
Cannon - Rune of Forging + 2x Grudge Throwers - both with accuracy, 1 with penetration.
Those put out way, way more than a total of D6 S4 hits per turn. They'll do like 5x as much damage and more reliably.

Maybe i should put my current list up here with an anvil of doom and maybe have some more suggestion where the points would be better off.


Runelord, anvil of doom, shield, master rune of balance, spelleater rune, rune of shielding, rune of stone 448

Thane, BSB, master rune of gromril, rune of fire 120

35 warriors, GW, FC 375

30 warriors, GW, FC 325

28 hammers, FC 366

Cannon, Rune of forging, rune of burning 140

Cannon, rune of forging 135

Grudge thrower, rune of penetrating, rune of accuracy, rune of furnace 135

Grudge thrower, rune of penetrating, rune of accuracy 130

Organ gun 120

Organ gun 120

TheBloodGod wrote:Problem with anvil is it's in the price area of stuff like
Cannon - Rune of Forging + 2x Grudge Throwers - both with accuracy, 1 with penetration.
Those put out way, way more than a total of D6 S4 hits per turn. They'll do like 5x as much damage and more reliably.

This point makes me kind of agree with you. That's a lot of fire power to give up.
But the reason I liked the Rune of Wrath and Ruin was because it slowed an advancing force. Cutting the speed of a train of ogres in half might give you at least 1 or 2 shooting phases before you have to deal with them on your front door.

GoDz KI11JOY x: I like your list, the gun-line sounds like a lot of fun. Who are you playing against? And how do you think you'd use the Anvil to benefit you?

While I see the advantage of the warmachine runes, I think people over-do it some times.

Try this for your special warmachines:
3xcannons
3xgrudge throwers

1 more of each, and 30 points cheaper.
You could squeeze a burning and burning+reloading on to two of them if you're worried about hydra/abom.

IMO: 6 average machines > 4 super machines.

-Matt

Dwarfs are my girlfriend's primary army. Telling you from much experience playing with/against her - sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it isn't.

Before faqqing, Kraggi could reroll the anvil strike die EVERY TURN, so Thorek could wrath & ruin with ancient power every turn. Then, it was worth it.

Now, Kraggi gets one reroll a game. With a 1/3 chance of failing every turn with only one reroll, odds are you can get a good 3 turns out of it before it loses its heavy hitting power.

Now, 3 turns of wrath and ruin isn't bad. And once, she countered my ambushers with the rune (can't remember the name) that allows dwarfs another movement that can be a charge! That was an awesome use of the Anvil which bogged down my ambushers and allowed her cannons/quarrelers/anvil to keep beating me down as I advanced and maneuvered.

Just about its only turn-off is its price. 505 lord. You can build a hell of a dwarf lord for that and still have points left over (for spicing up a BSB or various other things).

Anyway, it's player's choice with that thing. It's far from useless (although dwarf players went through a phase of "it sucks now!" after the faq, most quickly got over it).

I say Anvil of Doom is worth it. ...just don't be angry when it explodes on you in Turn 1. As it has for me...

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:I say Anvil of Doom is worth it. ...just don't be angry when it explodes on you in Turn 1. As it has for me...

I really wanna use an anvil too, but that sound soooo lame...

It can be lame like that, but the odds are really against it blowing up. Only 1:18 and that's after Kraggi has used up his reroll.

Warboss Fugnutz wrote:
Just about its only turn-off is its price. 505 lord. You can build a hell of a dwarf lord for that and still have points left over (for spicing up a BSB or various other things).

Anyway, it's player's choice with that thing. It's far from useless (although dwarf players went through a phase of "it sucks now!" after the faq, most quickly got over it).

A normal rune lord can take an anvil. You don't need the special character.
At 315 points base, you can rune a pretty cheap anvil if you want.

-Matt

True. I guess I'm just too big a fan of ancient power, when even striking regularly on a 2+ is a good thing, especially when on a failed rune you still have a 50% chance of nothing bad happening. (besides the rune just not going off).

With no dispel to your choice of what are essentially 2 decent spells with no range or LoS limitations, 315 for a non-Thorek rune is still a good deal. Doesn't leave a lot of room for a decked out lord, and a kitted out dwarf lord is a scary thing. But then, having an answer for ambushers, and a damager/slower/grounder is a scary thing too.

Player's choice, really.

Warboss Fugnutz wrote:True. I guess I'm just too big a fan of ancient power, when even striking regularly on a 2+ is a good thing, especially when on a failed rune you still have a 50% chance of nothing bad happening. (besides the rune just not going off).

With no dispel to your choice of what are essentially 2 decent spells with no range or LoS limitations, 315 for a non-Thorek rune is still a good deal. Doesn't leave a lot of room for a decked out lord, and a kitted out dwarf lord is a scary thing. But then, having an answer for ambushers, and a damager/slower/grounder is a scary thing too.

Player's choice, really.

Problem with a decked out lord is getting him into a fight.
If you can squeeze in a decked out lord and an anvil, suddenly you've got a very mobile decked out lord, and that's something to watch out for.

-Matt

Think I saw you post in another thread about the rune lord set-up. That's another big fan favorite of course.