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As the title says . My friends found good ways to beat my dwarfen gunline , so to keep them on their toes I need another list that isn't one. Now I know melee dwarfs are the slowest army in the game , but a nice block of hammerers supported by 2 units warriors or 1 unit of warriors and two hander armed crossbows shouldn't be too bad. What I struggle with is to find good chaff for such an army . Dwarfs have no fast cav or flyers like harpies and skirmishers . At first I thought about small units of slayers , but their lack of armor could be a problem . The melee list doesn't have to be super awesome GT wining one , just one that would stop my friends from bringing anti gunline lists every time . I play mostly against ogers , high elfs ,dark elfs and rarly against empire

If you're looking for something totally different, try the "Dwarf Ninja" list.

From memory, the bulk of the list are two large blocks of Rangers (one Longbeard) with the special character that allows taking the extra Ranger unit (Bugman, I believe). The third block is of Miners.

The rest of the army is artillery and maybe a Runesmith/Anvil or Thorek, depending on points.

The only thing you deploy are the Warmachines. The opponent deploys the rest of his army. You then deploy your two big blocks (probably Hordes) of Rangers in the ideal place to take advantage of your opponent's positioning, and roll for first turn.

The helps with the Miners' slow movement and after-turn-one deployment with the free move rune, and it can also help slow down enemy units that try to redeploy to address where your Ranger blocks are. The artillery does what artillery does. The close deployment of the big blocks of Rangers circumvent the slow movement of Dwarves, and pretty much gurantee turn two charges. Having a unit of S5 Throwing Axes that will almost certainly chuck 20 of them at a unit on the first turn and then stand and shoot with 20 more is pretty awesome, too.

I can't say for certain that this is a super competitive list, but it plays very differently from the Dwarven Gunline, and in local tournaments I've seen some people completely flummoxed by it.

Man that is a cool list. Sadly because of the old teclis thing all special characters are banned in my , unless they are Monsters or mounted on those new edition big chariot type things.

My problem is that I have just the gunline and they just tailor when playing me , so I get max 1 or 2 turns of shoting with my army. Against HE this is just ugly . Reapeters , bow man , chick bowman kill my crews turn one.we play on 4x4 tables and have a house rule that all units that within 6" of table edge count as destroyed on turn 3 .


ah this is a bit off topic , but don't want to spam new ones. How do people deal with two hander armed elfs always hiting first , specialy the DE ones are just destroying every unit I have offten killing BSB or thanes that didn't try to hide in a challange . Which also kind of a sucks str 10 always strike first with re-rolls , frenzy ,not even my rune lord can survive that.

@Makumba: Hrm. Sounds like your friends don't like you much with those house rules. A 4' x 4' table does a Dwarven Gunline no favors, and forcing them to deploy at least 6" into the board is, well, kinda stupid. Why not just play on a 3' x 3' board then?

The game really is designed to be played on a 4' x 6' table unless you're at really small points levels. Shrinking the board gives a huge advantage to faster and/or close combat type armies.

Also, it's kind of dumb to ban all special characters because people disliked Teclis. Admittedly, Teclis was pretty broken, but most special characters are nowhere near that good. Heck, Bugman by himself is nothing special; the only reason to buy him is to have the extra unit of Rangers. Thorek is pretty strong, but he is a huge amount of points and will pretty much have to be your General, so your Inspiring Presence will never be close enough to your blocks in this army to provide any benefit. Methinks your group needs to reconsider this ban on Special Characters.

Edit: As to your second question, there's not really very much in the Dwarf book right now that can do much about them. If you were playing on a regular sized board with normal rules for placement, I'd say deploy your gunline with their backs against the wall, kind of castled in a corner and then focus fire on the closest enemy units first. You don't have to destroy them, just reduce them in number to a point that they're not really a threat to your blocks by themselves.

Edit again: Don't stress too much though; rumor has it that Dwarves will get a new book in the first quarter or so of 2014. Hopefully, the re-do will be more like Empire/HE/DE/Ogres and less like Daemons/TK.

4' wide and more than 6" forward?
Awesome!

I'd go fairly melee.
Rune Lord with shield, rune of stone, master rune of balance and rune of spell breaking x2.
Thane: BSB, Rune of Battle, Stollaz's rune, Master Rune Redbeard.

2x30 Dwarf Warriors, great weapons, standard and musician
2x24 Dwarf Warriors, great weapons, standard and musician
4x10 Dwarf Warriors, great weapons, musician
2x Grudge Throwers
2x Organ Guns

Deploy characters in smaller 10 man units. Put organ guns on flanks. Place stone throwers 6" ahead of back line.
Pre game move 150 fighting dwarves at your opponent.
Anything near the BSB gets +1 combat res, and the BSB's unit gets another +2 (BSB, rune of battle, Red Beard Master Rune).
Meanwhile, lob stones over-head at the hard targets.

You can cover about 40" of table if you deploy properly wide (so that the edge of each horde is just in range of the BSB). On a 4' wide table, you're opponent has only 8" of flanking space, and you've got that covered with organ guns.

Melee Dwarves do really well on small tables, as your opponents just don't have the space to stay out of your charge range.

they are 6 wide , there is only one table to play WFB where go and it its 6 wide and 4 long ,deployment goes along the longer ends . the 6" rule is something the owner set up , it suppose to make the game more dynamic . As far as the special goes he doesn't like them , so they can't be played at events here . People have the models but use them with normal rules.

my problems with gunline is that crews just die so fast , they overpower me with magic and ton of missle troops and then wait . If I move forward they outflank me and break my units . If I stay they win from the points they get from killing machines. I also lose every tower scenario which imo is stupid like no scenario I have seen in any game .


Don't stress too much though; rumor has it that Dwarves will get a new book in the first quarter or so of 2014.

so it would be 4-6 months of losing ;/ damn

As for the DE guys - the asf rune and the ws rune will go well, mutual destruction ftw

Makumba wrote:
the 6" rule is something the owner set up , it suppose to make the game more dynamic . As far as the special goes he doesn't like them , so they can't be played at events here .

Ew.

So, having even less room to effectively maneuver on the tabletop is supposed to make the game more "dynamic?"

And special characters aren't allowed because "he doesn't like them?"

Sounds like you're stuck playing at one of those stores....

And special characters aren't allowed because "he doesn't like them?"

Well he doesn't like teclis. All characters that are on monsters or who themselfs are monsters are allowed . It would be stupid if he banned them , his sons play demons and ogers.


I have been thinking today about the gryocoppters dwarf have , I don't have models for them , but maybe they could do the job of light cavalery/chaff. 4-6 of those could be like tougher harpies and I could rune them up to have better strenght and maybe re-rolls for bombs.

Well, nobody likes Teclis except for HE players.

Gyrocopters are ok. I think they're a little on the expensive side for what they do, but most Dwarf armies I see around here usually have one, if for nothing else than to hunt the opponent's Warmachines.

The FAQ change so that they couldn't march and fire hurt them I think - much less useful now

Makumba wrote:

I have been thinking today about the gryocoppters dwarf have , I don't have models for them , but maybe they could do the job of light cavalry/chaff. 4-6 of those could be like tougher harpies and I could rune them up to have better strenght and maybe re-rolls for bombs.

Gyrocopters no longer have Bombs and they cannot be runed up as they are new fangled machines (Check engineering rune rules).
Back to the original question, try to find points for some dragon slayers,keep they naked and they are perfect for chaff. Yes they are slow but have the ability to damage the enemy in return. Gyros are really only useful in the Ambush list.

I don't have a codex yet . Just the rules for the models I own. I hoped that gyrocopters work a bit like nurgle plague flys or bretonias pegasus knights with small 3-4 man units , but with guns instead of lances or magic .

But good to know , I won't be buying them , if they work only in the Bugman using list.

I think I will run 2 units of 10 slayers . A single dragon S seems to be too vunerable a unit of DE on their fast scout horses could drop him turn 1.

Makumba wrote:
As the title says . My friends found good ways to beat my dwarfen gunline , so to keep them on their toes I need another list that isn't one. Now I know melee dwarfs are the slowest army in the game , but a nice block of hammerers supported by 2 units warriors or 1 unit of warriors and two hander armed crossbows shouldn't be too bad. What I struggle with is to find good chaff for such an army . Dwarfs have no fast cav or flyers like harpies and skirmishers . At first I thought about small units of slayers , but their lack of armor could be a problem . The melee list doesn't have to be super awesome GT wining one , just one that would stop my friends from bringing anti gunline lists every time . I play mostly against ogers , high elfs ,dark elfs and rarly against empire

1) Try not bringing a gunline, that'll throw him for a total loop. A Strollaz or Ambush list should make short work of an anti-gunline list.

2) Gyrocopters, while expensive, are the most mobile chaff Dwarves have.

3) Solo thanes with shield and Rune of Stone are the cheapest (if still pretty slow) chaff for Dwarves. You want the extra boost to the armor save to keep them from being shot away too quickly. 2+ is a heck of a lot more useful than 4+.

What is a strollers list . I can't play an ambush list ,because it is suppose to be build around a special character.

Right now I only have the gunline list , so I don't realy have an option to "throw him out of a loop" and I don't want to buy metal slayers or gyrocopters , if they suck , even less so if a new codex comes out in a few months .

the thane tactics and the dragon slayer one , seems to be a non option for me too. I always play with 2 HQ a runesmith and a thane BSB , I didn't know that everyone ehre plays with cut hero and lord slots .

I wish there were ally rules in WFB , I would take some dark elfs or even some empire woodsman as chaff.

"Strollaz" is the 55pt Rune that lets you move any units near the banner after you've deployed, but before the game starts.

Matt's got the idea. Swap out some of those Warriors for Hammerers and/or Longbeards (shields or great weapons work pretty well).
Keep the war machines cheap. All Grudge Throwers need is a Rune of Penetration, but sometimes not even that.

S10 ASF? Sounds like you need the Master Rune of Steel. That, plus Resistance and Stone, and you're sitting pretty good.

Why do you think you need chaff, anyway? Just line the board with big blocks of Warriors, Hammerers, and the like, and march forward. Get the Runes for a pre-game move and a Ward vs. missiles bubble, and I imagine you'll fair decently, at least.

well if I move or don't move am getting decimated by magic. my 2x10 man crossbow man can't even make it in to melee and warriors die very fast to all the str 5 or higher units runing around striking before them . But the real problem is that most of the time it is my unit of warriors geting hit from two or three sides and BSB or not when the test is done at -6/7 I still fail and get run down .

Hammers seem nice , but they are only in metal and not sold here . Kind of a sucks that all other armies have so many plastic boxs and dwarf stuff is metal . I was thinking about runing a unit of iron breakers , but when I saw how much it would cost me to buy 6 blisters and command , I decided against it .


Truth be told I didn't expect magic was so powerful in WFB . in W40k it is powerful too , but not to a game wining level .
Last night I lost a game three times ,only because of IF cast spells that killed half my army . the worse game I had was against chaos dwarfs , I have no idea how to stop a high str , high I , high A monster with stomp that gets supported by mages that cast purple sun .

You are playing dwarves... shut down magic. Nobody can do that as well as dwarves.
Take some runesmiths and 3 runes of spellbreaking

If you're trying to get your Crossbowman units into combat you're doing it wrong.
How many points are you playing?

If magic is a big issue, you can opt to totally shut it down.
Banner Valaya + Master Rune of Spell Binding gives you +4 to dispel, and auto dispel Remains in play spells in the area.
You can also steal a power die, and show up with ~4 extra dispel dice.
In general, Dwarfs can shut down a powerful magic phase for cheaper than a opponent can bring a magic phase. 200 points of banner and talismans is all it takes.

If monsters are the problem, bring dirt cheap warmachines.
3 cannons and 3 stone throwers is 510 points. Don't rune them up, just go with lots of them.

If you're facing an enemy death star, take the anvil. Wraith and Ruin it to cut it's move in half.

For anti-magic: Runes of Spellbreaking are nice, but I'd take the Master Rune of Balance, too. With a Runelord and 'smith, you usually have as many or more Dispel Dice than they have Power Dice, which is pretty sick in and of itself.

As for general combat: sounds like you need to protect those flanks with units that are big in their own right, so they don't get shot/magic'd to death and open up your line.
I'd deploy wide, then maybe reform during/right before combat, if necessary.

Hammerers: my suggestion would be to buy Warriors, equip them with great weapons, and then convert the axes to hammers with some spare weapon bits.
I hate Ironbreakers. You pay 1pt/model more than Hammerers for +2 armour, no great weapon, and no Stubborn or Bodyguard. Lame.

Speaking of Hammerers, if you really need to hold up the enemy, you can always run an unkillable Lord on shieldbearers in a unit of Hammerers, 2-wide. All your opponent can attack is the 1+/re-rollable, S5+=S5 Lord, while you hit with 4 WS7 S4, 2 WS5 S4, and 3 WS5 S6 attacks and sit on Stubborn 10.

And yes, magic can get out of hand super-fast. I wish it posed as greater risk to the user or offered a smaller reward, but alas, this is not to be.
Just wait for the next Dwarf book, when they get the Lore of Runes or something. That'll help out a lot.

A lot of great information in this thread for the OP to work with! It has probably been mentioned, but Organ Guns can guard the flanks pretty well. They excel at busting up fast moving cavalry, flies, etc.

For Dwarfs, you can use Hammerers on the flanks as well (units of 24 maybe). High LD and Stubborn means that whatever hits them is probably stuck for a few turns.

And as has been stated, pack in some war machines and large-ish warrior blocks first and foremost! 2x 30 warriors with GWs are always in my lists!

Last thing: I like to use dirt cheap dragon slayers to protect war machines and/or my flanks some times. At about 75-90 points, it never really matters if they die, but if they can connect with enemy chaff they can usually hold their own and probably will win!

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
If you're trying to get your Crossbowman units into combat you're doing it wrong.
How many points are you playing?

If magic is a big issue, you can opt to totally shut it down.
Banner Valaya + Master Rune of Spell Binding gives you +4 to dispel, and auto dispel Remains in play spells in the area.
You can also steal a power die, and show up with ~4 extra dispel dice.
In general, Dwarfs can shut down a powerful magic phase for cheaper than a opponent can bring a magic phase. 200 points of banner and talismans is all it takes.

If monsters are the problem, bring dirt cheap warmachines.
3 cannons and 3 stone throwers is 510 points. Don't rune them up, just go with lots of them.

If you're facing an enemy death star, take the anvil. Wraith and Ruin it to cut it's move in half.

We play 1500-2500pts , more offten 1500. We play with cut slots , so 1 less of everything that isn't core and I can't take more then 2 of the same option unless it is core [so I can't take 3 rune smiths] . if I take two smiths or a smith and a rune lord , I won't have a BSB.

Most 1500 games are played with the veto rule , so every player can pick up to two magic items the opposing army has and they have no effect .And then his opponent can do the same This works on warmachine runes too .So if I take high cost magic items I will lose points , veto something from his list , but he will still have his lvl 4 caster/casters to demolish me with spells.

Right now my gunline battles looks like this . My opponent army scouts , preferably behind either the big towers or pice of hills we have[higher then a hive tyrant wider then a Land raider] and hits me with magic and shoting . next turn he hits me with magic and shoting , if he gets his IF big spell my big unit dies and I lose , if not I have to kill the scout/anti machine units that treaten my car park . I kill them and he gets his third magic phase and by then he gets of his big spell or mops me up , If it worked one or two turns before . The worse is when it works turn 1 , because then the setting up takes more time playing .
The worse games are against demons and DE though , because in general am unable to shot them up and both kill me with magic/shoting much faster then HE or ogers do . To be honest I think I had my dwarfs in actual melee , where they could win , maybe one time and they lost then because of ASF with str 5 weapons buffed up witchelf brew which killed 9 dwarfs+failed challange in a single turn.



I have no options to buy the anvil , as it isn't sold here anymore. Same with hammeres , and even If they did a unit of 30 would be 10 blisters that is more then a whole battalion in cash .

Hammerers: my suggestion would be to buy Warriors, equip them with great weapons, and then convert the axes to hammers with some spare weapon bits.

Thougth about it too . Asked my friends and at the store , I was told that I can only do proxies like that , if there are no GW models for a unit . If there is the only option is to use GW models and , no I dont play at a GW store.

So really there is no way that we can help you, because of the house rules in place in your area.

Makumba, I've been reading your posts for a while, and I've decided, you need to find a new gaming group. Your current group are insanely unreasonable.

How can they justify all these house rules, it's just insane. There must be people playing historicals or something without such a bad attitude around.

Agree with Da Boss!

If the house rules are set up to punish you, stop playing with them. Go to the General Info section on this (and other) forum(s) and ask for people in your area that would be willing to play some friendly games... Frankly, tournies seem more reasonable than your store.

As for your description of your games... read above! Just set up your dwarf characters for anti magic. Use the rune that takes a PD from your opponent and gives you a dispel dice each magic phase. Take SEVERAL spell breaker/ spell stealing runes to shut down magic for at least 3 turns.

Really there is next to no way a Dwarf player should lose to magic EVERY game. Big spells will get IF now and then, but taking a PD from them will help cut that down.

Dwarves shouldn't loose to magic... at least not until that group houserules THAT away as well....

They've houseruled everything else in their favor; I can't see them leaving dwarf antimagic alone if it started becoming troublesome.

Motyak has the right idea. You need a new gaming group that allows you to play the army YOU want to play, not the army they WANT you to play so they can get cheap wins.

Right off the bat,
Run a unit of ranges. If you and the opponent both have scouts, you roll off for who scouts first. IF you win that roll, you can steal the good scouting spot and force the opponent scouts further back.

Hammerers are really easy to convert. Just buy dwarf warriors, chop the head off the axe and glue on a hammer from the 1 handed hammer bit.
Anvils are also really easy to convert. If you don't want to try a conversion, look at ordering online.

Even with the limit of 2 instead of 3, take 2 cannons and 2 grudge throwers. 4 warmachines should be enough.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Hammerers are really easy to convert. Just buy dwarf warriors, chop the head off the axe and glue on a hammer from the 1 handed hammer bit.

Not allowed by his group.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Anvils are also really easy to convert. If you don't want to try a conversion, look at ordering online.

Not allowed by his group (the conversion) and he can't order online (at least according to his other threads).

It is impossible to help him. Props for trying, but he just needs a new group/his current group needs to drop their rules. Or if he can give us a complete list of their house rules so that every time someone comes up with something (like your hammerer conversion suggestion), he won't have to say 'wait no, no, they have a rule against that too'.

How is it even a house rule that you can not use a converted miniature? GW themselves are comfortable with minis converted from their original kits!

Seriously, just leave that store forever or buy a new army that abuses all of the house rules, forcing them to change the rules in favor of your dwarfs again

There must be people playing historicals or something without such a bad attitude around

There are some people playing a wwII combat squad game , but they are hardcore tournament games. Armies have to be 100% painted , WYSIWYG to a point where not having a bayonet or lookout glass on the model means you can't use it etc. And they only play on weekend nights.

Rangers are x-bowman you can run when you take bugman or do xbowman that are long beards get scout ?

Hammerers are really easy to convert. Just buy dwarf warriors, chop the head off the axe and glue on a hammer from the 1 handed hammer bit.

hmm actualy this could work , the dwarf and all the parts come from a GW box , so unless they say I can't because the hammers head isn't big enough it should be a good way to make them . two boxs of warriors would give me a nice unit of hammerers,.

How is it even a house rule that you can not use a converted miniature?

You can as long as all the parts come from models the store sells. For example the realy awesome Scibor dwarfs are ok , GW conversions are ok . But dwarfs from other firms or when the models weren't bought in the store , can't be. Although the rest isn't fixed as much , there is a guy who play chaos dwarfs here and you can't buy FW here , but on the other hand he is the org of all big tournaments near , so that is why it is different.

They've houseruled everything else in their favor; I can't see them leaving dwarf antimagic alone if it started becoming troublesome.

Am not saying that it doesn't hurt dwarfs more then others , but being able to veto the HE dragon banner helps demon players a lot .