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Well, I've found myself become more and more intreasted in Chaos Dwarves as my Second Fantasy army. I really like the elite nature, and the models. I am having a hard time putting a list together, as this is an army I really don't want to buy, and find things are useless.The points seem to get eaten up so quickly.


To Surmise, I'd this topic to discuss the Pros and Cons of the various units, and for people to throw list ideas out there, at around 250 point level.

A Sorcerer-Prophet is a must of course, and the Mask of the Furnace is a fantastic upgrade. I'd say throwing a staff of sorcery on him, for the dispel bonus could be peachy. Lore of Hashut is really nice, but the other lores aren't a bad choice either.

I'd like to have a Daemonsmith with lore of Metal as well. It seems that Chaos Dwarves can deal with low strength and T Models fairly easy, but have a harder time with High save ones. Lore of metal can take care of those pesky models fairly easy. Keeping him near the Warmachines for his special rules.


For me, I'm having trouble deciding if the Fireglaive is worth it. It' a Halberd in close combat, lending strength 5 to standard Chaos Dwarf attacks, and it has a powerful ranged component at 18' with strength 4 AP. It's expensive per model though, at 5 PPM. However, a Normal Strength 4, 3+ model is nothing to sneeze at either.


Now, the special choices seem intreasting. I don't know if the Ironsworn are worth it or not. The Iron Daemon seems pretty good, and it can tote a magma cannon a long, to get in range. some of the other choices are pretty good as well.

For the Rare slots, I think this is pretty much a given. a Dreadquake Morter, and a K'daai Destroyer. Those are just too good to pass up. You can get two dreadquake morters, and have room for another choice if you get rid of the Destroyer, but the Destroyer just makes short work of S3 blocks.

Anyway, I can't wait to hear some of ya'lls thoughts.

I'm interested in CD myself, and I would totally get the fireglaives.

They aren't just S4 AP, they are S4 AP multi x 2 IIRC.
That's alot of shots flying. And if they get charged they'll have S5 attacks backing them up after stand and shoot, making fireglaives a reliable defensive choice.

That's all I have to say. I didn't really look at the demon engines rules.

The mask is good. You have to be within 3" of the war machine to use the LOS which is very close and he'll likely be in a unit anyway, which can get awful tight being 3" by a machine.

I think the upgrades to core are a bit expensive. They are basically 1pt cheaper than Ironbreakers at same stats except -1 WS. You start adding Fireglaives and they become twice as expensive as Dwarf warriors.

Hobgobblins shouldn't be overlooked as redirectors/tarpits. Though they are expensive as that, it's all you got.

I'm not sure what is better a steam tank or the iron daemon. The magma can't shoot on the round it's being moved, however.

Mortar is super expensive. Empire's mortar also comes to mind, which you could buy 3 of and spam large templates. Admittedly much weaker, but I'm not sure which would be more effective. You could also just get a Hellcannon for much cheaper.

Kdai are better than I thought. As usual, I misread a line and thought you had to roll per model instead of per unit about them burning themselves out. They are really hard to hurt and pretty good. The destroyer is obviously good but it's still an expensive single monster and you worry about it making its points back.

Some wolf riders or centaurs might be needed to engage enemy fast troops or flank or stop the enemy war machines.

I'm interested in CD myself, and I would totally get the fireglaives.

They aren't just S4 AP, they are S4 AP multi x 2 IIRC.
That's alot of shots flying. And if they get charged they'll have S5 attacks backing them up after stand and shoot, making fireglaives a reliable defensive choice.

That's all I have to say. I didn't really look at the demon engines rules.

They don't have any Multi-shot as far as I can tell, you may be confusing them with the Hailshot Blunderbuss.

The upgrade is really good, but insanely expensive. It really adds up in the Army list, which is super tight for points. S5, and the Stand and shoot would really destroy anything, except elite High Save models.

The mask is good. You have to be within 3" of the war machine to use the LOS which is very close and he'll likely be in a unit anyway, which can get awful tight being 3" by a machine.

It certainly can, but the reroll on the dice can save you from a misfire, which is huge.

I think the upgrades to core are a bit expensive. They are basically 1pt cheaper than Ironbreakers at same stats except -1 WS. You start adding Fireglaives and they become twice as expensive as Dwarf warriors.

Do Dwarves start with the same Save? Basic Chaos Dwarves start with a 3+ save, which is pretty good. I agree the Fireglaives are expensive, but at that point they are better than the Ironsworn special choice.

Hobgobblins shouldn't be overlooked as redirectors/tarpits. Though they are expensive as that, it's all you got.

Yeah, you're probably right here.

I'm not sure what is better a steam tank or the iron daemon. The magma can't shoot on the round it's being moved, however.

Well, you can have the Hellbound upgrade for the Iron Daemon, which makes it super tough, and dangerous. The Iron daemon seems like our Answer to things like Mournfang Cav, or anything with a High Armor save.

Mortar is super expensive. Empire's mortar also comes to mind, which you could buy 3 of and spam large templates. Admittedly much weaker, but I'm not sure which would be more effective. You could also just get a Hellcannon for much cheaper.

The Dreadquake is cheaper base than a Hellcannon. They are significantly better than the Empire mortar now. I would find it had to not take one every game. The Dangerous terrain tests it causes if a unit decides to move at all, is great for keeping something at bay.

Kdai are better than I thought. As usual, I misread a line and thought you had to roll per model instead of per unit about them burning themselves out. They are really hard to hurt and pretty good. The destroyer is obviously good but it's still an expensive single monster and you worry about it making its points back.

It seems to me that the Destroyer could just run through anything with S3, since they can't harm it even on 6's. It is really expensive though, but I can just see it Crushing things like Elven spearmen.

Some wolf riders or centaurs might be needed to engage enemy fast troops or flank or stop the enemy war machines.

I haven't paid as much attention to those choices, maybe I should.

From my time when I was seriously considering going these guys (still am for a 2nd army) this is what I have learned:

-As many infernal guard as you can get, with nearly identical stats to a Dwarf Ironbreaker these guys are amazing CC units and are stubborn with the addition of a character.

-Magma Cannons out of all the warmachines are easily the best choice and provide the range support the army needs as fireglaives and blunderbusses are just way to expensive (hobgoblin archers have the same BS and you can take 3 times as many of them). Always take them with a demonsmith so you can re-roll misfire.

-K'daai Destroyers in particular are scary as hell, especially in combination with either a 2nd K'daai destroyer (dont do this if you want to keep friends) or with either some Fireborn or Centaurs and the lore of hashut (make a unit of Ogres flamable and watch what happens).

-Hobgoblin Khans are excellent redirectors, they are cheap and are small enough to make any enemy unit turn the way you want, plus you can spam them.

-Lore of Hashut is amazing! As mentioned above I made a unit of Ogres Flamable and shot x2 magma cannons @ them...I wiped out the entire death star in one turn of shooting almost

Do Dwarves start with the same Save? Basic Chaos Dwarves start with a 3+ save, which is pretty good. I agree the Fireglaives are expensive, but at that point they are better than the Ironsworn special choice

Ironbreakers do. But when you add guns they become vastly more expensive. And their short range means you probably won't get a ton of shots off. And they are clearly designed for melee.

where did you get the rules for CD?

Talon31 wrote:where did you get the rules for CD?

The legion of Azroth list.

Tamukhthan forgeworld book.

ah I see. Its on my list of things to buy :L

gmaleron wrote:From my time when I was seriously considering going these guys (still am for a 2nd army) this is what I have learned:

-As many infernal guard as you can get, with nearly identical stats to a Dwarf Ironbreaker these guys are amazing CC units and are stubborn with the addition of a character.

-Magma Cannons out of all the warmachines are easily the best choice and provide the range support the army needs as fireglaives and blunderbusses are just way to expensive (hobgoblin archers have the same BS and you can take 3 times as many of them). Always take them with a demonsmith so you can re-roll misfire.

-K'daai Destroyers in particular are scary as hell, especially in combination with either a 2nd K'daai destroyer (dont do this if you want to keep friends) or with either some Fireborn or Centaurs and the lore of hashut (make a unit of Ogres flamable and watch what happens).

-Hobgoblin Khans are excellent redirectors, they are cheap and are small enough to make any enemy unit turn the way you want, plus you can spam them.

-Lore of Hashut is amazing! As mentioned above I made a unit of Ogres Flamable and shot x2 magma cannons @ them...I wiped out the entire death star in one turn of shooting almost

I didn't realize the Stubborn, with the Castellen. I'm gong to take one for each unit of Ironbreakers, for sure now.

I would think the Short range on the Magma cannon would be a problem, I'm curious how it has fared in any games it's been in.

K'daai destroyers are super expensive, but seem worth their points, since the will just rollover any strength 3 units.

What is everyones view on Iron Daemons? they seem like a great solution for any High Armor save enemy, and looks to me like it's intended to be our defence against small elite units. I'm still working on a list right now, it's pretty hard. I'll have to post it up later.

Do you guys find that in tournament environments the CD rules in the new book are allowed? OMG the magic lore is just insane, low cast values Ash Storm is similar to Curse of Anraheir gives a further -1 for shooting, does not allow charge march or fly, yet retains the same dangerous terrain and the target is flammable for 2 pts to cast more then the curse. On top of this add in the magma cannon and other abilities it works with a 35 pt weapon that adds +2S and kills a flammable model outright if it wounds it. 6+ for a hatred spell, basically primal fury since you can keep casting it and gaining hatred, option to have it affect all units within 12 inches.

Ash storm is really the only super duper good spell in the list, IMHO.

Ohhh yeah forgot too if a wizard is in a unit affected by it, they can only cast spells on themselves. Severely broken IMO. I am guessing they need to balance that at tournaments.

It's no worse than the Save or DIE! spells.

Well most save or die spells are direct damage and cannot be cast in combat, purple sun can but there is a chance it can misfire. Ash Storm is just a joke, they could have removed 2 of the 5 negative conditions it causes (1. negative to hit, 2. dangerous terrain, 3. restrictions on movement, 4. wizard can't cast anything but on themselves and 5. Flammable) and it still would be a must have. Mostly I'd consider flammable a non issue but since it syncs so well with the other spells, shooting and magic weapons it is a big boost give it a 3-4 casting value alone and it could be given it's own spell in the lore. Now I will concede that they suffer more from a miscast with Sorcerer's Curse but it also boosts their Toughness and they have to spend 265pts for a Sorceror-Prophet to get access to that lore.

. Now I will concede that they suffer more from a miscast with Sorcerer's Curse but it also boosts their Toughness and they have to spend 265pts for a Sorceror-Prophet to get access to that lore.

Not counting the fact it's 300 with level 4 magic without anything else but basic, not to mention anyone will immediately try and dispel ash storm.

I hear ya, I would just have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting on this lore and specifically that spell, I can't imagine an adult was in the room. My other guess is they wrote up half the spells effects took a lunch break and in that time the janitor came in and just started typing and they never proof read it.

Well I have a bunch of hobgoblins(some with axes and spears)

Infernal guard with blunder busses, infernal guard with axes.

Some weird..lammu looking thing and a rider, two big cannons, two bolt throwers.

centaur and I believe that sorcerer.

Truthfully I have no clue what I can do with any of this at present.

poontangler wrote:Well I have a bunch of hobgoblins(some with axes and spears)

Infernal guard with blunder busses, infernal guard with axes.

Some weird..lammu looking thing and a rider, two big cannons, two bolt throwers.

centaur and I believe that sorcerer.

Truthfully I have no clue what I can do with any of this at present.

Infernal guard with the axes are likely wielding infernal glaives, which are a combination halbred/gun

Lammusu is a mount for the sorcerer, there is no bolt thrower in the army, but the magma cannons are nice

Centaur are likely bull centaur, a very nice special unit.

Ah so t he bolt throwers are no longer in the army list. Drat. I suppose I can simply proxy them to be something else.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mind you these are old chaos dwarves, the big hats.

Chaos dwarves are nothing without their hats!

Regardless, you likely could proxy them into standard ones.

Well it is my first WHFB army, I mean I will play with them until noted, I may end up going to the forge and getting the infernal guard, but the hobs I really like so I won't bother changing them

I too am going for a Chaos Dwarf army after finishing my TKs. Why does all the most useful stuff have to be in the Special category? To compensate for that, I may run a couple Hobgoblin hordes to run interference. In between them will be a block of vanilla Infernal Guard with a Banner of Slavery to make the Hobgoblins immune to psychology. After that, just pile in points to magma cannons, Iron Daemons, and Bull Centaurs. Then a Dreadquake and a Destroyer, because awesome.

I want to run a Sorc-Prophet on a Bale Taurus just because that model is so beautiful, and hope the enemy can't decide which giant monster of doom to shoot at. I know, it's a massively expensive way to run a Sorc-Proph, expecially if the enemy decides to hit that with everything they've got. But hey, we've got an entire beautiful FW army. Why not use it?

I am aware that pts get eaten fast in these lists, so I'm going to try for a bare minimum core list and see what I can do with that. I just want them to keep stuff away from my cannons anyways. Also, which do you guys think are better flank units, Bull Centaurs or Iron Daemons? Which do you think would be scarier? A lot of stuff is psychology, too, and I'm not going to be playing in Throne of Skulls or anything.

SoulGazer wrote:I too am going for a Chaos Dwarf army after finishing my TKs. Why does all the most useful stuff have to be in the Special category? To compensate for that, I may run a couple Hobgoblin hordes to run interference. In between them will be a block of vanilla Infernal Guard with a Banner of Slavery to make the Hobgoblins immune to psychology. After that, just pile in points to magma cannons, Iron Daemons, and Bull Centaurs. Then a Dreadquake and a Destroyer, because awesome.

I want to run a Sorc-Prophet on a Bale Taurus just because that model is so beautiful, and hope the enemy can't decide which giant monster of doom to shoot at. I know, it's a massively expensive way to run a Sorc-Proph, expecially if the enemy decides to hit that with everything they've got. But hey, we've got an entire beautiful FW army. Why not use it?

I am aware that pts get eaten fast in these lists, so I'm going to try for a bare minimum core list and see what I can do with that. I just want them to keep stuff away from my cannons anyways. Also, which do you guys think are better flank units, Bull Centaurs or Iron Daemons? Which do you think would be scarier? A lot of stuff is psychology, too, and I'm not going to be playing in Throne of Skulls or anything.

Even with minimum core, the amount of units you can take is still very very small. You fill up your points on core, with just two units of 20, with no upgrades. I think an Infernal Castellen is a must, to make them stubborn as well.

I agree that the Bale Taruos is very cool. The problem is just fitting in all of these goodies in a single list. I had to cut my second Wizard to make room at all, for some of the other stuff.

Bull Centaurs are good, they're pretty much Ogre Cavalry, but I think I prefer the Iron Daemons. Iron Daemons are great for punching through High Armor Save units, with their strength 8. Something I think the list really needs. K'daai Fireborn are also very good. They're tough, and really eat through units quickly. Magma cannons I'm iffy on, because of their short range.

The Dreadquake Mortar is probably the best piece of arty in the game. I've been tempted at times to run two of those, instead of a Destroyer, but the Destroyer is so good as well.

Sasori wrote:Even with minimum core, the amount of units you can take is still very very small. You fill up your points on core, with just two units of 20, with no upgrades. I think an Infernal Castellen is a must, to make them stubborn as well.

I agree that the Bale Taruos is very cool. The problem is just fitting in all of these goodies in a single list. I had to cut my second Wizard to make room at all, for some of the other stuff.

Bull Centaurs are good, they're pretty much Ogre Cavalry, but I think I prefer the Iron Daemons. Iron Daemons are great for punching through High Armor Save units, with their strength 8. Something I think the list really needs. K'daai Fireborn are also very good. They're tough, and really eat through units quickly. Magma cannons I'm iffy on, because of their short range.

The Dreadquake Mortar is probably the best piece of arty in the game. I've been tempted at times to run two of those, instead of a Destroyer, but the Destroyer is so good as well.

Hmm, that's no good. I guess you just have to hope you do a lot of damage with your machines, rather than try to tarpit things effectively. The magma cannon itself seems a bit weak, but then you take into account the extra range from the template at the end of the shot's path and suddenly it's range isn't that big of an issue. You're probably not going to be hitting the back field, no, but combine these multiple wound(D3) shots with Ash Storm and you've got guns that are absolutely going to eat the enemy units that do get in range. Especially effective on people that spam MI like many VC players at my local GW do.

As Chaos Dwarfs you really need a solid core, backed up by a gew guns of sorts and a sortment of monsters. I have only played against them twice and both times I was ravaged by those damned stubborn Infernal Guards, and fireglavie is also epic against armies such as Beastmen and O&G

Building on this I just tried out an idea involving giving all you core units Blunderbusses...lets just say my single horde of x28 of them blew away over half of a horde of Dwarf Slayers in two volleys so I am fan so far . Also the Magma cannon is awesome! This thing fried tons of High Elves to crispy bits in the game vs them, my opponent already told me he knows what he is targeting first next game.

Another tactic that I am seriously considering is running some Goblin Khans on wolves, with these guys you would use them as re-directors/warmachine hunters as they are only 60pts. each (with wolf, shield and light armor) and can come in handy when forcing a big scary bull horde to show you its flank.