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I'm playing in a paint-and-play league and just started a Dwarfs army. Where's the offense?! At 750 points everybody else is dealing death and destruction and my dwarfs just die.

Example: A WoC army came at me. By the time he got to my line he had 3 Knights, 6 Warriors, and a Sorcerer. He dealt 36 attacks!
Example: A Skaven army had two Lightning Cannons. On turn 1 he landed a S6 template on my dwarf warriors, killing 16 of them, and another S6 on my cannon, destroying it!

It doesn't matter what my list is. How do I do that kind of damage?! On my best turn, with the best luck, I couldn't hope to dish that out.

at that points lvl, you'd probably be dependant on warmachines like the skaven fellow. if you forsee templates really messing you up, then deploy in a gimmicky fashion for a time. if you have 30 dwarves in a unit, line em up so they're 15x2 or something like that to reduce the dmg of blast templates, then just reform when it matters. For chaos, deploy cannons + organ guns or w/e stuff that you'd depend on to do dmg last so you can place them on the opposite of the board and get like 4 turns of free shooting without much retaliation. That kind of stuff. dwarf don't have any monster-ish units....yet.

Why don't you post an actual army list so we can point out where you might be going wrong with your Dwarves.

As Abbazabba said most of you damage is going to come out of your warmachines at this point level.

My point is you can't post a dwarf army list under 1,000 points that does meaningful damage.

Terrainosaur wrote:My point is you can't post a dwarf army list under 1,000 points that does meaningful damage.

Terrainosaur wrote:How do I do that kind of damage?!

I have to ask why you are posting this thread at all if you are completely convinced that Dwarves cannot be made any better? If you want to just rant that is fine but don't expect to get any better at war gaming if your first assumption is that your army is completely worthless and cannot be made any better.

What is the next point level your league is going to be playing at? Are they continuing at 750 or are they going higher?



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I threw this together in 5 minutes. If I still played my Dwarves I'd take something like this at the 750 points level.

If you don't like the warriors or want more shooting you could always exchange them for a unit of quarrelers of about the same size.


Hero 87
Thane 87
Shield
Rune of Cleaving

Core
Dwarf Warriors 275
X25 warriors
Great Weapon
Full command

Special 260
Cannon 90
Cannon 90
Grudge Thrower 80

Rare 120
Organ Gun 120


At this point level you are going to have some big swings one way or another due to 8ths general tendency to eat entire units in one turn, thanks to no partials, Pit of Shades etc.

This Dwarf list should be able to deal a serious blow to most armies you see at that point level.

Dwarfs are designed to be a massively defensive army, you're supposed to wear down the enemy as they approach and then whats left with smash against your massed infantry - at 750pts that's going to prove difficult, I'd suggest you'll see better results as you play more games and especially as the points value per game goes up.

Against low Ld Armies I'd advise you get yourself a flame cannon, very good indeed at panicking large numbers of Low Ld troops, and the strength of it is effective against most stuff upto T5.

The bigger the units of warriors the better, can really use the steadfast rule to its best with a big unit of Dwarfs. Also, a nice block of Thunderers will prove very effective in the current ruleset.

I've been dramatically successful at low points with Dwarves, winning several small tournaments at my local GW store. If anything, compared to many opponents, Dwarves are *more* potent at lower points. At higher point-levels, we start to run into rune-duplication problems on war machines that limit our effectiveness, and lack answers to some of the better deathstars.

My most-recent tourney-winning 1k list:

Runesmith, Shield, Rune of Stone
39 Warriors, GW, Full Command
16 Quarrelers, GW
Cannon, Rune of Forging, Rune of Burning, Engineer
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Accuracy, 2x Runes of Penetration

Laser-guided artillery, an extra dispel die, and a big horde of Great Weapons to smash whatever makes it to my line.

I've had a lot of success with this 900pt list, as well:

Runesmith, Shield, Rune of Stone, Rune of Spellbreaking
29 Warriors, Great Weapons, Mus, Standard
29 Longbeards, Shields, Mus, Standard
Cannon, Rune of Forging, Rune of Burning

At 750, you could build a combat list like:
Runesmith, Shield, Stone, Fire
20 Warriors, GW, Mus, Std
20 Hammerers, Mus, Std
Cannon, Forging, Burning, Engineer

or a gunline like:
Runesmith, Shield
18 Quarrelers, GW, Mus, Std
18 Quarrelers, GW, Mus, Std
Cannon, Forging, Burning

Both would win a lot of games with a good general.

A few comments on the lists above:

- Thanes are a tougher general with their T5, but that extra dispel die from the 'Smith goes a long way at this level to protect the rest of your forces. I usually favor the Runesmith.

- At 750pts, I doubt you'll see much in the way of whole units biting it in a single phase. Lord-level casters will be basically unseen, and death-dealing engines will be few in number. That said, those high risk/reward aspects of armies will mean more at this level. I've won entire 1000pt games on a well-placed Doomrocket!, and nearly lost because of a failed shot from my Warp Lightning Cannon.

- I also think that, if you're not putting (at least) Accuracy on your Grudge Thrower and Forging on your Cannon, don't bother. I've played with and against a lot of Dwarf armies at low point levels. I honestly think the key is lots of bodies.

- The Flame Cannon has more potential than people think. Thunderers are awful, though.

- Quarrelers with great weapons rock, actually.

Here's my list:

1 Runesmith + shield + Rune of Stone (77)

20 Quarrellers + great weapons + musician + standard (275)

25 Hammerers + full command + Rune of Determination (350)

I don't have a calculator on me (and I can't find one on this computer), and I'm in a bit of a hurry now, but I'm pretty sure that gives you enough points to fill out those units even more, or drop some Hammerers and get a Cannon, like Impy's first list. Whatever you do, I'd get some Hammerers with that Rune, though...it is wickedly awesome.

Thank you for the information, everyone.

For a tournament in the area my friend is taking, off memory.

RuneLord(maybe smith)
Rune of balance and spell breaking
10x Thunderers Standard
10x Thunderers Standard
Cannon (common runes)
Grudethrower(2x pen and accuracy)
Organ Gun

He has been doing really well our practice matches (I have a magic shooting heavy HIgh Elves list) going for about 50%