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Ok so I was sifting through a rumor page/ wish list on Warseer for Dwarfs in the upcoming year (March 2014 maybe?)... Dwarfs was one of my primary armies in WHFB a few editions back, but now... I just don't care to play them.

I know other people still enjoy the stunties, but I am starting this thread to (basically) wish list some changes for Dwarfs that would make them MORE DIVERSE in the game.

I like the direction with many of the newer Army Books to make an army multi-faceted. Meaning the army can be constructed in a balanced way or with one main purpose in mind, giving many options.

Dwarfs just DON'T have this right now: magic does not exist (fluff, I get it, but why not a more detailed rune system?), almost ZERO speed/ maneuverability in the units, and no heavy hitters outside of great weapon blocks.

For me, I would like to see Elite units given distinct purpose/ special rules to separate them into different roles.

Cavalry/ Monstrous Cav/ Fliers that give Dwarfs some chaff and some ability to work the movement phase.

M. Cav/ Monsters/ Warmachines that can fight. Taking the only damage ability off of the Hammerers

Last, I want a Magic Rune system... Maybe bound spells (like the anvil...) or maybe numerous items that grant bound spells to characters/ units via a new rune system...


Anyone have their own ideas on this?

Hermit

I think much of what you have already mentioned will become a reality when their new book releases. I wouldn't at all be surprised by bound spells, particularly with the Anvil.

New units like the ones you have mentioned will also likely come true simply because it has been the case for most other armies that have come out. I imagine a monsterous mechanized cavalry.

The reality however is Dwarves as an army aren't really that broken and don't need much fixing. If anything they need a little more flair and some more units that match up with their engineering fluff. They currently seem so vanilla, and toss in the fact that they can't use magic which is arguably the most fun phase, and you can see where there is work to be done. Maybe some sort of mechanism where irristable dispelling can also cause a negative result for the casting army.

I love my dwarf army, I still consider it my primary army, but I've played them less lately. If my cannons miss or get blown up my dwarfes end up getting run over.

I wish they would re-do runes, most of them are really expensive and only a few units can take them. Also the entire book needs to be reorganized so I don't have to keep flipping back and forth to try to find all of the info on a unit. Variety would be nice but I'm against dwarf cavalry/flyers (gyrocopter is fine I guess) because fluff really doesn't support it. I think what really needs to happen is make the dwarfs slightly more hardy so they can actually do what they're supposed to stand firm and not flinch in the face of the enemy and fight hard, not just move 3in and get trampled to death by Woc.

Dwarfs, more than any other army I think, are tough to balance for a ranks and flanks fantasy game.

The reason is that to show they are slow they often have a lower speed than other units, which means they get out manuevered by enemy infantry. On top of that, by common fantasy lore they don't use cavalry. Some traditions make it clear that dwarves have no wizards, while some allow for magic like powers (priests/rune wielders/psionicists), and a few even just straight up allow dwarf wizards (warmachine in particular).

Building an army that lacks several major aspects of the arsenal that nearly all armies share means they need to very good in other areas, which is something that can be incredibly unbalancing.

If I were to design dwarves from the ground up for WFB or any fantasy system, I'd start with the following rules:
1) Make dwarves slower, but only in straight line, clear terrain situations. So give them the ability to move through terrain, march around enemies, charge more reliably, etc. In the actual tumult of combat, dwarven heartiness should nearly completely off set their inherently slow pace.

2) They should be the premier heavy infantry in the game for large blocks. Nobody should be better at taking a charge. Basically, no matter what the basic kit for a dwarf is, they should have one pip higher of armor than a similar model. Alternatively, give them a "headstrong" ward save of some sort.

3) Avoid gunlines. Nobody wants to play Verdun with dwarves. Give them missle and warmachine support, and if anything trade damage output for reliability, but they should be a melee army with strong missle support, not the other way around.

4) The GW dwarf list is very one-sides in the hill dwarf/mountain dwarf divide. Aside from Rangers, nearly everybody seems like it comes from under the mountain. Every fantasy world has dwarves that live outside, so open the play book! Dwarven skirmishers with throwing axes, dwarven light cavalry on ponies, and even dwarven spearmen should all come back.

5) At this point, the GW dwarf book is the lowest fantasy book out there (well, maybe tied with Brets). Give them some goofy fantasy units. I love the idea of monstrous flying gargoyles for dwarf lords, storm giants, cave wurms, or even some sort of cave swarm chaff unit.

6) Allow for better and more reliable support magic. Give them an equivilent to Empire Priests: a decent buff, some anti-magic mojo, a little extra choppy.

Dwarves should fight like the Roman Legions: very well armed. armored, and trained heavy infantry, missile support for flavort, cavalry just for show, and only enough goofy stuff to fit in.

They could fix a lot of dwarf problems by tripling down on the steampunk theme that they're only tepidly doing right now. the no-wizards could easily be fixed with a new rune system, but it could also be fixed by adding more techno-inventions (a la luminarch of hysh, etc.). Calvary could be handled with things not dissimilar to the mechanical ostrich mounts of the gnomes in world of warcraft (actually, bringing in gnomes as a sub-race into the dwarf army book might not be a bad idea), or, in a cruel parody of their long-time orcish foe, robo-spiders, or robo-squigs. Likewise, you could easily imagine a robotic chariot, or a steam-powered battlewagon

There's all sorts of crazy stuff you could do with dwarfs to fill the roles that the other armies have access to other than just archers, heavy infantry, and big guns. That they're an army of slow units with few options is a sign of the uncreativity of the writers, not a limitation inherent to the army itself.

What I would like to see for magic is to just fill the Talisman Runes with Bound spells. I think this would be a perfectly fluffy way to give Dwarves access to the magic phase.

Just think, Dwarves don't trust magic, right? So they bind power into runes, which controls it. This would appear in-game as the bound item stopping functioning after it miscasts. It didn't explode in magical havoc, it just ran out of power. This ability would be balanced by the fact that dwarves have no way of getting a casting bonus; they would just cast with straight dice. Spells could be limited by making them master runes (except the signature spells).

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
What I would like to see for magic is to just fill the Talisman Runes with Bound spells. I think this would be a perfectly fluffy way to give Dwarves access to the magic phase.

Just think, Dwarves don't trust magic, right? So they bind power into runes, which controls it. This would appear in-game as the bound item stopping functioning after it miscasts. It didn't explode in magical havoc, it just ran out of power. This ability would be balanced by the fact that dwarves have no way of getting a casting bonus; they would just cast with straight dice. Spells could be limited by making them master runes (except the signature spells).

I do think there is a lot of potential for this. Bound spells and a reworked rune system in tandem would be pretty fun. Maybe if a runelord/priest is using a bound spell their skill with runes can offer them a +1 or +2 casting bonus. As for unit variation I think they could branch even more into technology than step back from it. some sort of steam-mechanized heavy cavalry maybe. Redone gyrocopter and rebalanced infantry would be nice to. Definitely agree that dwarves should be the army where affordable heavy infantry is one of their big positives.

Dwarfs dinnae ride to battle. Too slow. Dwarfs fly laddie.

Rare Jump Infantry... The Meteoric Brotherhood

"Like lightning from a clear sky... Albeit with more cursing and smoke and significantly slower. But other than that, like bloody lightning."

Dwarfs Engineers with repeating pistols, gromil armor, and personal gyro-rotors. If they're led by a Master Engineer they can deploy into combat from reserve thanks to their "Rolling Thunder" ability. They can take a gyrocopter as gunship support.

Death rollers are what I'm hoping for, they already exist in bloodbowl which is set in the fantasy realm. Can't wait for dwarfs now.....

Why aren't there any dwarf casters ? Chaos dwarfs have them and in the warhammer RPG it was possible to play a dwarfen caster. A cool self buffing , terrain changing school would be cool . Walls suddenly poping up in front of enemy units and stuff like that. Without magic a non gunline dwarf army seems not worth playing and all gunlines end up with that 1 build to rulle them all and makes the whole codex boring .
The cool thing about other armies is that while the good stuff offten stays the same there is always place to switch a unit o two . With dwarfs its 2 cannons , 1 lobber +something 2-3 xbow units and maybe hammeres.

Chaos dwarfs are chaos. They are mutated dwarfs. They don't even amazingly look like dwarfs other than being short and stocky.

Magic comes from chaos. You either study it or you don't. Dwarfs have never studied it.

Love Dwarves, have a bunch of Dwarf models from a few skull pass sets, but they only seem to play as a gunline (which is gak) and cannons, being the hard counter to monsters, help keep some of the coolest stuff in the game off of the field...

Hope their new book makes them better.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Chaos dwarfs are chaos. They are mutated dwarfs. They don't even amazingly look like dwarfs other than being short and stocky.

Magic comes from chaos. You either study it or you don't. Dwarfs have never studied it.

But in the games workshop RPG there are dwarfs who use magic , granted most of them are imperial , but being the only faction without a caster seem stupid.

And in bloodbowl they have one drive a giant tractor. But this is WHFB.

Different products are really just using the name. The Black Library stuff breaks fluff all the time. Because they're writing novels, not creating balanced games.

I'm sure somewhere, somehow, there is a Troll Wizard. But it would be a lot easier to make a WoC wizard, give him items to simulate being a troll, and use a different model, instead of saying all Trolls can become Wizards.

If you want magic Dwarfs, play Chaos Dwarf rules and fluff them to be regular Dwarfs. With the Gorgon thing being a Deathroller. That way the rules are all internally balanced instead of taking an army which was designed around not using magic and then adding magic.

That said, I'm sure the new rules will add a lot. But like Dwarfs themselves, I think the players would be upset if they changed too much. They will add things that have the same theme and feel.

Makumba wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Chaos dwarfs are chaos. They are mutated dwarfs. They don't even amazingly look like dwarfs other than being short and stocky.

Magic comes from chaos. You either study it or you don't. Dwarfs have never studied it.

But in the games workshop RPG there are dwarfs who use magic , granted most of them are imperial , but being the only faction without a caster seem stupid.

Dwarfs in warhammer view magic (when not in runic form) as unnatural and distrust it. If there are Empire dwarfs that practice magic it would be highly irregular and other Dwarfs would regard him as a traitor to his race, friend of elves etc.

I know the fluff. But there's always outliers.

For instance, humans don't tend to kill and eat each other. But if it never happened we wouldn't have invented the word cannibal.

 Ailaros wrote:
There's all sorts of crazy stuff you could do with dwarfs to fill the roles that the other armies have access to other than just archers, heavy infantry, and big guns. That they're an army of slow units with few options is a sign of the uncreativity of the writers, not a limitation inherent to the army itself.

So much truth in so few words. I'd like to add to it that I think it's sad not only because of the uncreativity, but because of the amazing missed opportunity to expand in the steampunk style, which should have been done about 5 years ago when steampunk was at its apex of popularity. I think it would have boosted sales of dwarfs something incredible. It still would, but maybe not at the rate it would have back then.

Chaos Dwarfs are steampunk.

I would be disappointed by a move away from the Saxon/Viking foot and axe dwarf motif, but I can understand it from the point of view of unit diversity.

I think they could fix a lot of problems just by giving Dwarves some extra fast options- a pack of hunting mastiffs, some form of (not too wacky) cavalry or monstrous cavalry, stuff like that. The more steampunk it goes the less interested I will be, sadly. I think it is going to go that way, though.

The idea of introducing Gnomes is potentially not a bad one, but they're not part of WFB background to this point, so it might not go down well.

Trying to plug gaps in dwarf play-style just by giving them funky new units would be a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a death roller/tunnelling machine, and will use one when (general consensus seems to be that they WILL) get one. But for me, and I'm sure many other dwarf players, the heart and soul of the army is infantry blocks, if they are not fun to use then they will remain a 2nd tier army.

Basically I don't care if they get any new units, they have a good number (even if they are homogenous), if they give us some way to buff offensive and defensive abilities then that will (hopefully) create a MUCH wider range of uses and effectiveness between what at first glance are very similar units.

I'm encouraged by what we seem to be hearing about what's in store for dwarves, if they can buff and de-buff combats I don't give a fig what rules and fluff they use to achieve it (runes/buff-machines, whatever). If the runes seem too 'magical' for my taste I will make up my own fluff (longbeard master-tactician giving out orders!)

 Polonius wrote:
Dwarfs, more than any other army I think, are tough to balance for a ranks and flanks fantasy game.

The reason is that to show they are slow they often have a lower speed than other units, which means they get out manuevered by enemy infantry. On top of that, by common fantasy lore they don't use cavalry. Some traditions make it clear that dwarves have no wizards, while some allow for magic like powers (priests/rune wielders/psionicists), and a few even just straight up allow dwarf wizards (warmachine in particular).

Building an army that lacks several major aspects of the arsenal that nearly all armies share means they need to very good in other areas, which is something that can be incredibly unbalancing.

If I were to design dwarves from the ground up for WFB or any fantasy system, I'd start with the following rules:
1) Make dwarves slower, but only in straight line, clear terrain situations. So give them the ability to move through terrain, march around enemies, charge more reliably, etc. In the actual tumult of combat, dwarven heartiness should nearly completely off set their inherently slow pace.

2) They should be the premier heavy infantry in the game for large blocks. Nobody should be better at taking a charge. Basically, no matter what the basic kit for a dwarf is, they should have one pip higher of armor than a similar model. Alternatively, give them a "headstrong" ward save of some sort.

3) Avoid gunlines. Nobody wants to play Verdun with dwarves. Give them missle and warmachine support, and if anything trade damage output for reliability, but they should be a melee army with strong missle support, not the other way around.

4) The GW dwarf list is very one-sides in the hill dwarf/mountain dwarf divide. Aside from Rangers, nearly everybody seems like it comes from under the mountain. Every fantasy world has dwarves that live outside, so open the play book! Dwarven skirmishers with throwing axes, dwarven light cavalry on ponies, and even dwarven spearmen should all come back.

5) At this point, the GW dwarf book is the lowest fantasy book out there (well, maybe tied with Brets). Give them some goofy fantasy units. I love the idea of monstrous flying gargoyles for dwarf lords, storm giants, cave wurms, or even some sort of cave swarm chaff unit.

6) Allow for better and more reliable support magic. Give them an equivilent to Empire Priests: a decent buff, some anti-magic mojo, a little extra choppy.

Dwarves should fight like the Roman Legions: very well armed. armored, and trained heavy infantry, missile support for flavort, cavalry just for show, and only enough goofy stuff to fit in.

So make them better at everything they are not good at while keeping the other advantages they have?

No, just no.

Dwarves are already a solid, solid army. They can take a charge better than most. They already do have good equipment. And I really wish dwarf players would wake up and realise how good uniform T4 Is. They have excellant LD overall, and steadfast means they are etternally stubborn LD 9 - LD 10. They have runepriests to help shut down magic. They have excellent shooting. They have shooting that also carries great weapons.

Honestly, give them some mad steam cobtraptions to fill the monster sized hole in the book and I think they will be great.

Dwarves are already a solid, solid army. They can take a charge better than most. They already do have good equipment. And I really wish dwarf players would wake up and realise how good uniform T4 Is. They have excellant LD overall, and steadfast means they are etternally stubborn LD 9 - LD 10. They have runepriests to help shut down magic. They have excellent shooting. They have shooting that also carries great weapons.

Except tournament statistics have shown that dwarves are one of the bottom tier armies.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Dwarves are already a solid, solid army. They can take a charge better than most. They already do have good equipment. And I really wish dwarf players would wake up and realise how good uniform T4 Is. They have excellant LD overall, and steadfast means they are etternally stubborn LD 9 - LD 10. They have runepriests to help shut down magic. They have excellent shooting. They have shooting that also carries great weapons.

Except tournament statistics have shown that dwarves are one of the bottom tier armies.

I wasnt aware this was a thread about tournament play, whch really should not be used to reflect the actual state of the game. People taking min/max builds and competetive lists will go with the armies that cater to this. Dwarves are not one of those armies. I was talking about the overall benefits of the Dwarves book as most people will be encountering them, not the relatively small tournament community.

You know, another way you could handle this is with synergy abilities, with or without special character.

For example, you could give them an army special rule of "Wrath of the Ancients" or something, which would work like an ork WAAAUGH!, except once per game, every unit with a musician blows his war horn at once and the dwarfs get a free extra movement phase. That way they could both be a slow army, and not 100% relegated to gunlines because there would be a one-off burst of speed.

Or you could have a special character that prevented you from taking quarrellers or handgunners but gave your army a blanket +1 to their armor save. Or even little things like a berzerker lord who prevents you from taking artillery, but lets you take slayers as core units, or something.

Even if you wanted to keep the dwarfs in homogenous mode, where pretty much the only thing you field is dwarfs, and the only real difference between your few unit choices is what weapons they have, you could still do things to the army to break it out of its current mode.

I agree with Mr Mugguffins about the need to diversify the units more with special rules/ buffs. Making Hammerers, Slayers, Ironbreakers, and (maybe) Rangers distinctive elite units would go along way in improving the vanilla flavor of the army. I would be surprised if the army gains stubborn across the board because it would push dwarfs toward the MMU style of elves when I like taking large blocks, but a racial specific rule would be nice. Examples for unit specific rules could be as simple as:

Slayers gaining swiftstride/ cavalry-esk movement rules to represent their need for combat and the option for 5+ ward tattoos would be awesome.

Hammerers keeping stubborn and str 4 is great.

Ironbreakers desperately need defensive rules to make them viable. Maybe give them the abilities of the current oath stone (count as having no flank or rear when being charged) and bump their armor up to 2+ somehow.

Rangers as specials with vanguard and/or scout. Crossbows and great weapons.

Miners still do their thing...

Small changes making a still predominant infantry force much more diverse.

Still, the addition of new units would go even further. I am one of the people who would like to see Golems/ Ancient Protectors on the table as monsters/ monstrous infantry.

PS love the jump pack infantry idea, but they totally block miners as a viable unit!

Mr Mugguffins wrote:


I wasnt aware this was a thread about tournament play, whch really should not be used to reflect the actual state of the game. People taking min/max builds and competetive lists will go with the armies that cater to this. Dwarves are not one of those armies. I was talking about the overall benefits of the Dwarves book as most people will be encountering them, not the relatively small tournament community.

Wish I could play in a world like yours , here the difference between a tournament and a non tournament army is that the tournament one has to be painted.

i'd like to see some sort of steam powered monstrous infantry, maybe in the style of a dwarf ridden dreadnought.
Also the Gyrocopter needs some work to make it a more viable option. Maybe the "quick to fire" special rule.
As long as they don't diminish the amount of runes available like they did with magic items for other races i'll still be happy.