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So i am having a bit of trouble with how shooty my friends dwarves are. Currently we have been playing 1000-1500 pt games. We played a 1000 pt game and got demolished by his shooting.

My Army

Exalted Hero on Foot
Shield
Filth Mace
Acid Ichor
Mark of Nurgle

12 x Chaos Warriors
Halberds
Mark of Khorne

22 x Marauders
Light Armor
Shields
Mark of Nurgle

5 x Chaos Knights
Mark of Nurgle
Razor Standard

10 x Warhounds

His Army

1 Thane

20-ish Warriors

10 Longbeards

20-ish Quarrelers

1 Cannon

1 Organ Gun

Of course once we got into CC I was destroying him. However, the getting to him is the hard part. The terrain somewhat helped me out. There was a large hill in the middle, small farmstead on my left, and a hill on both deployment zones. I sent my hounds up either side of the hill to try to keep his quarrelers in check and to , hopefully, get to the crews of his warmachines. I sent the Knights up the left flank, terrible idea since i lost 2 to dangerous terrain and another to a lucky cannonball. My warriors and marauders i sent up the far side of the middle hill so that the cannon could not blow them to bits early. Turn 2 came and i got to charge his warriors with my marauders but failed due to poor dice and a rune that lets him subtract from my charge distance. this left them in the open and allowed the cannon a free shot on them and by turn 3 they were wiped out. The warhounds did not fair too well against the quarrelers or the organ gun and both went down by turn 2. The warriors got stuck behind the slowly advancing marauders but eventually reached the longbeards on turn 3 and continued to rape their faces off with the halberds. However losses were mounting for me so i had to concede at the end of turn 5 because i had killed everything on the "safe" side of the board, where his artillery couldnt hit me.

Hopefully you stayed around long enough to read all of that, sorry for the long post. Now to the point at hand, the only glaring problem with my strategy is the fact that my warriors got clogged behind the marauders. There was nothing I could really do to get his artillery out of the game. Please any help with the list/tactics would be great. I do realize the Mark of Nurgle isnt exactly the best, but it seemed to work decently.

Are you willing to try Mark of Tzeentch and Blasted Standard? That's the obvious answer to any nasty amounts of shooting.

That one aside, don't bother with your hounds running up to try and get in combat. Use them as ablative armor for your warriors, granting them hard cover and therefore -2 to be hit. They're fast enough to stay ahead easily, and have to be shot up before he can take any shots at your warriors.

Also consider beefing up your warriors. Only having 12 in the unit means you feel losses from shooting VERY quickly. Having 18 will give you more of a buffer. You could do Tzeentch with Blasted Standard, or you could stick with Khorne and give them shields to carry along with their halberds (which they can still use against shooting), and stick Banner of Swiftness on them for good measure. Obviously you want to get into combat ASAP, so speed is your friend!

Don't bother trying to take out his artillery. Your one and only concern is getting into CC as soon as possible. Take a few cannon hits, use the hounds as mobile hard cover to give yourself an extra turn or two, then get those warriors chewing through dwarfs as soon as you can.

Marauders are eh. This is one case when they may not be a bad choice due to raw numbers, I think, but still consider dropping them for more warriors. Extra toughness and armor is great, and they'll have more of a punch through dwarf armor and toughness when they get there.

I do.plan on having an anvil of 18 warriors with shields and Mot in the future but I did not have enough right now to do that. Also I am going to buff my hammer to 18 warriors with MoK with halberds. I was also considering a chimera to try and get to his artillery/get his attention somewhere else besides infantry. Any thoughts on that? I realize it's kinda throwing points away though. I had not considered using the hounds as cover which is I guess a noob mistake on my part.

You could switch the knights to MoT with Blasted Standard. They really don't need much more in the way of defense in close combat against dwarfs, and this way you could make them your artillery hunting cruise missile. You can safely throw them against any dwarfs that don't carry great weapons. They'd be perfect for taking out the organ gun and could weather the one round of shooting they'd have to take to get in range.

Honestly the cannon is not a huge concern for you with that army. Cannons are fantastic against taking out big single targets... like a chimera. If you put a chimera in there you're actually helping him out by giving him a good target for his cannon, which is likely flaming. The cannon will obviously do damage to infantry, but it's not as cost effective as it could be. The one thing to watch out for is a flank shot on your knights, that'd hurt. For the most part, though, it looks scarier than it is.

(edit)

Oh, there's grape shot. Read up on the rules on that and stay out of range of the cannon for that if you can help it. That's when it starts getting a little messier. Again, though, if you transform your knights into MoT and give them Blasted Standard you can probably bounce between his artillery pretty easily depending on deployment.

I've learned first hand how effective the grape shot can be. For runes he usually takes the rune of fortune and rune of forging so no flaming attacks so I don't have to worry about that. I will.keep.in mind the MoT on the Knights though with that Blasted standard and hopefully have better news to report next time.

As another thought, you could swap your lord out to the 'unkillable' version. Give him MoT, stick him on a disk, give him talisman of preservation and Third Eye along with Enchanted Shield. He'll have a 1+/3++ rerolling ward saves of 1. I've had an entire DE army shoot at him without a wound. If he unloads everything, it'll give the rest of your forces a bit of time. If he doesn't, then your 20" march means you're charging his war machines on turn 2 as he can't stop you from flying right in.

Given that you're faster at maneuver than he is, and harder in close combat than he is, and have better magic than he does, it's only right and proper that he should be able to shoot you into oblivion.

That's the problem with Dwarves right now. All they're good at is shooting. So no wonder the castle in the corner and do so. I really hope the (rumored) upcoming Dwarf book fixes that, either by giving them some desparately needed maneuverability, or making them the hardest of the hard in close combat so it doesn't matter if they're forced to accept battle unfavorably.

Just jumping in here to back up @Evertras' comment, the Banner of Swiftness is not very expensive and that extra movement will help you get your Warriors into combat faster, where they will eat him up. So definitely try that.

You also don't have any magic--you might consider trying to work in at least a Level 2 Sorcerer (I know Dwarfs are good at anti-magic, but that might force him to take a Runesmith too...)

Lastly, low points games are just not very good for WoC--our units (even Core) are just too expensive. So, try to play a higher points game too. The Dwarf book is old, and they don't really have much other than shooting (as @Vulcan said) so with more (and faster) options available to you at higher points levels, you will have a better time.

A unit of marauder horsemen with flails if used cleverly can quickly make short work of warmachines. I'm assuming he has a few cannons. One of the best tricks I have found is to rush horsemen up fast and then make sure they are out of 12 of the cannons by the end of turn one and charge turn two to take them out. Unless he is bunkering hard it shouldn't be hard to find a gap for the horsemen and they have only rarely fail to off a warmachine I have sent them at. Also more warriors is more power. Only having twelve will make them die fast especially if they are the only real threat in the force.

The 3+ ward exalted on disc is your friend here - into combat with a war machine turn 2, then kill one per turn. Chariots rock - t6 is a win, only a cannon is likely to wound it.

Blasted standard is superb.
Standard of Swiftness is excellent.
Marauder horse / dogs with vanguard / hellstriders are likely to draw fire for not many points

You want to kill that organ gun. The cannon isn't much of a threat. At best, it kills 1 knight. If you can get to the organ gun, the knights should be able to do the rest.

Marauders aren't going to do well against dwarves in combat, but they do make a great meat shield! You can deploy them very wide to screen your warriors from his crossbows.

Also, give the dogs vanguard. Make him deal with the dogs.
Split them into 2 units of 5, vanguard both, and keep them more than 6" apart, so that one unit won't panic the other.
I'd even consider poison attacks and the 6+ scaly skin.
With 5 attacks on warmachine crew, you might win, or tie combat. Which is all you want to do, stomp him from shooting once.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
You want to kill that organ gun. The cannon isn't much of a threat. At best, it kills 1 knight. If you can get to the organ gun, the knights should be able to do the rest.

Marauders aren't going to do well against dwarves in combat, but they do make a great meat shield! You can deploy them very wide to screen your warriors from his crossbows.

Also, give the dogs vanguard. Make him deal with the dogs.
Split them into 2 units of 5, vanguard both, and keep them more than 6" apart, so that one unit won't panic the other.
I'd even consider poison attacks and the 6+ scaly skin.
With 5 attacks on warmachine crew, you might win, or tie combat. Which is all you want to do, stomp him from shooting once.

Definitely agree on the threat assessment of organ gun vs cannon.

I really think the vanguard would be a waste. 6+ would be even more of a waste. Against any dwarf shooting, the armor is negated. The only time it would actually possibly do anything at all is in close combat against dwarfs without great weapons, and even then you're saving 1 in 6 wounds. Poisoned attacks, maybe, but even then.

I've had a unit of 5 dogs go into combat with a dwarf war machine crew. It lasted a few turns without any upgrades, and eventually the crew won.

The problem with vanguard is that if you lose 2 to shooting, the dogs are gone because they're away from your general. They won't do anything in combat, they'll get chewed up by the organ gun while it waits for other things to get in range anyway, and they'll likely panic off the board. They really do nothing. If you instead keep them in front of your units as a screen, they're a much cheaper meat shield than marauders and will still be within 12" of your general for IP so they don't run off.

 Evertras wrote:
The problem with vanguard is that if you lose 2 to shooting, the dogs are gone because they're away from your general. They won't do anything in combat, they'll get chewed up by the organ gun while it waits for other things to get in range anyway, and they'll likely panic off the board. They really do nothing. If you instead keep them in front of your units as a screen, they're a much cheaper meat shield than marauders and will still be within 12" of your general for IP so they don't run off.

If a dwarf player has had to shoot at dogs at all you are probably ahead of the curb. Short of only having dogs left every turn of shooting on them and not something else is a good thing. Vanguard means you can place them early to hopefully flush out his warmachines before your main force needs to go down and still get to move them to either bumb-rush the warmachines to to provide cover against all the none warmachine shooting. Also marauders can do fairly well against a lot of dwarf melee is you use them right. since you strike first flails and mark of khorne can quite often win you the fight before they strike. Sure you will likely die in droves but they will likely die almost as fast.

 White Ninja wrote:

 Evertras wrote:
The problem with vanguard is that if you lose 2 to shooting, the dogs are gone because they're away from your general. They won't do anything in combat, they'll get chewed up by the organ gun while it waits for other things to get in range anyway, and they'll likely panic off the board. They really do nothing. If you instead keep them in front of your units as a screen, they're a much cheaper meat shield than marauders and will still be within 12" of your general for IP so they don't run off.

If a dwarf player has had to shoot at dogs at all you are probably ahead of the curb. Short of only having dogs left every turn of shooting on them and not something else is a good thing. Vanguard means you can place them early to hopefully flush out his warmachines before your main force needs to go down and still get to move them to either bumb-rush the warmachines to to provide cover against all the none warmachine shooting. Also marauders can do fairly well against a lot of dwarf melee is you use them right. since you strike first flails and mark of khorne can quite often win you the fight before they strike. Sure you will likely die in droves but they will likely die almost as fast.

They need to shoot the dogs if you keep them just ahead of your army and use them as hard cover, otherwise anything that isn't a war machine is at -2 to hit. If they shoot at your dogs while they're within IP range, they need to be wiped out before they're actually gone. If you shoot at them after they vanguard, they're running as soon as you kill two (a single volley from 10 thunderers/quarrelers should be enough for that). 2-3 dogs can stall a war machine crew for a turn or two. Fleeing dogs do nothing.

If the dwarf player places his organ gun not at the front lines, you're also giving him easy turn 1 targets. With an 18" range, if they setup, say, 6" back, that means your entire army can move for a turn without being in range. If you have vanguarded dogs, you're providing him with free kills when the gun would otherwise be useless. If he's got it on the front line, then he either targets the dogs (which is fine), or targets your marching units (which hurts), but then your dogs are still providing cover. If he shoots them up with quarrelers afterwards and a few survive, those few can charge the organ gun and hopefully tie it up for a turn while your army closes the rest of the distance. If you had vanguarded, the dogs would have fled, and done nothing.

I do agree that marauders can do some damage with that setup, and certainly more than dogs can. I'm just arguing that if the only thing you're using them for is a meat shield, dogs are WAY better at the role.

personally would rock a chimera or two instead of knights and hounds, the flying beasty can deal with most things and with the benefit of fly can effectively dart around the battlefield making targeting it tricky, clever use of cover and your opponents units will ensure that canon cannot get LoS.

That'll be some pretty darn clever use of terrain if you can manage it. Laser-guided cannons are death itself on monsters.

Well, you could vanguard forward 10", instead of 12, leaving yourself in range of the general.

Take a look at the dwarf army being run.
It's got 3 shots.
1 cannons
1 organ gun
1 unit of crossbows

The cannon does pretty much nothing (at best kills 1 dog).
The organ gun and crossbows are massive over-kill.

As for the poison and scaly skin, the only thing they should be fighting are S3 warmachine crew.
It's a really close fight, if the dogs don't break from a lucky dwarf round, they should kill all the crew. But they kill at a pretty slow rate, and the odds of a lucky dwarf round isn't outside the realm of possibility.
Giving the dogs poison and scaly skin does dramatically improve the odds for the dogs against the dwarf crew.

On average, the poison and scaly dogs will wipe the crew on the 4th round or 6th round of combat (for 3 crew vs 4 crew).
Without the upgrades, normal dogs aren't looking at wiping the crew until the 6th or 12th round (for 3 vs 4 crew).

It's unlikely that the dogs will last that long. Ld5 doesn't like loosing combat, even by 1. The Dwarves on the other hand are Ld9, and will hold up pretty well even when losing.
The best bet for the Dogs is for the poison and armor.
Adding more dogs isn't as effective, due to the warmachine rules limiting how many can attack.
Also, adding more dogs doesn't really change the chance you'll panic on the way in. If the dwarf player shoots at you at all, you most likely will be taking a panic test.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Well, you could vanguard forward 10", instead of 12, leaving yourself in range of the general.

That's true, yes. You don't have to go the full 12". If you go 8-10 (depending on where you deploy, which is ideally in front of the warriors), you'll likely stay in IP range at the start of the game.

Take a look at the dwarf army being run.
It's got 3 shots.
1 cannons
1 organ gun
1 unit of crossbows

The cannon does pretty much nothing (at best kills 1 dog).

Why is the cannon shooting at dogs? The cannon should be either going for the infantry block or the knights. It doesn't care about hard cover granted by the dogs. And if the dogs are close enough for grape shot, then they get wiped.

The organ gun and crossbows are massive over-kill.

Very true. The organ gun wants very desperately to shoot at the infantry, and like the cannon it doesn't care about the hard cover granted by dogs. It can also shoot at knights with some pretty devastating results, and really this is the scariest part of the army in terms of shooting.

Let's say the dwarf player goes first. You have vanguarded dogs into organ gun range. The only thing they can shoot is the dogs, so they do so and cripple them. If you stayed in IP range, there's a vague chance they'll live and stay (4-6 roll on gun, maybe a few lucky rolls). If you didn't, they're almost certainly gone.

The cannon can shoot whatever it wants. Likely it's going to go for the infantry block where it can at least cause a few wounds. Dogs make no impact.

The quarrelers are the ones with the tough decision. With a 30" range, they'll likely be in range of both dogs and the infantry block they want to shoot at. The organ gun, having had only one choice, had to shoot dogs. It could very easily clear out the dogs in front of the infantry, giving the quarrelers a clear shot and an extra S4 volley before the infantry can make it across the board.

Now what if you hadn't vanguarded? The organ gun couldn't shoot, because with its 18" range it has nothing to shoot at. The quarrelers now have to shoot at dogs, because the infantry is still covered. The cannon still shoots at infantry anyway (and might take out a dog). The dwarfs have done less damage because you haven't given them targets piecemeal. You need to force decisions for those three shots, and vanguarding can actually simplify them instead. You need to arrive all at once rather than saying "Here you go, shoot this now".

Now what if the dwarf player goes second? Yay, you're almost in range... but you can't charge on the first turn with them, so all you can do is try to get into a more threatening position. Now you're likely in range of grape shot, so the organ gun and cannon rip through them both while waiting for the rest of the army to get in range.

The option to vanguard is nice. I'd be happy to have it for free. But you're spending 40 points that could be used on two more warriors instead, and that's just too expensive for what questionable benefits you're getting.

As for the poison and scaly skin, the only thing they should be fighting are S3 warmachine crew.
It's a really close fight, if the dogs don't break from a lucky dwarf round, they should kill all the crew. But they kill at a pretty slow rate, and the odds of a lucky dwarf round isn't outside the realm of possibility.
Giving the dogs poison and scaly skin does dramatically improve the odds for the dogs against the dwarf crew.

On average, the poison and scaly dogs will wipe the crew on the 4th round or 6th round of combat (for 3 crew vs 4 crew).
Without the upgrades, normal dogs aren't looking at wiping the crew until the 6th or 12th round (for 3 vs 4 crew).

It's unlikely that the dogs will last that long. Ld5 doesn't like loosing combat, even by 1. The Dwarves on the other hand are Ld9, and will hold up pretty well even when losing.
The best bet for the Dogs is for the poison and armor.

This is assuming you want the dogs to actually win in combat. Why not look at it a little differently? Suppose you use the dogs as a delay tactic. If they stay in combat for 2-3 turns, that's 2-3 turns of not being shot. This is also assuming all 5 dogs make it to combat intact, and since they're the first targets you're presenting that's very unlikely. But if they do, that's still 2-3 turns of not being shot while you get into position and charge in with the knight missile without worrying about a cannonball in the flank.

Speaking of which, what are you sending them at? The knights make an excellent missile to take out the organ gun, as the gun will likely only get one chance to take them out. The crossbows will do next to nothing against T4 and 1+ armor, and if you're careful the cannon should only take out one per round at best. After killing the organ gun, they can reform to either go for the cannon or join the fight as flank support. The dogs are likely best used to annoy the cannon crew if they even make it that far, and keeping the cannon out for a turn or two would be great for the knights. Actually killing the crew is pretty unimportant, since once the giant clusterfeth begins shooting becomes difficult or even impossible.

Again, these are things that would be nice to have, but that's another 40 points. That's 2 more warriors. You've basically spent 4 warriors to give questionably useful things to the dogs to try and make them do things they're not particularly good at. They're great for mobile cover and getting in the way, and that's all they need to do.

Adding more dogs isn't as effective, due to the warmachine rules limiting how many can attack.
Also, adding more dogs doesn't really change the chance you'll panic on the way in. If the dwarf player shoots at you at all, you most likely will be taking a panic test.

Totally agree. I'd never run dogs past 5. They're just more useful as MSU than as an actual big unit.

Organ guns don't care about hard cover, but both they and the cannon care about LoS. The cannon can't see the ground behind the dogs, so could only shoot in front of them. Dogs 10" in front of your general mean he can't be hit by cannon.
Probably the OG can see over the dogs, but not necessarily.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ofc, was wrong - 10" makes it far less likely that hGeneral will be hit (as 12" away is closest point that can be seen)

Chimeras fly and cause terror... and they wreck face. I only got them to cope aginst my mates shooty empire and now I always take them. They're better in pairs as at least one is going to get there without being shot out the sky but even if there is one and it gets killed to shooting at least thats 2 turns of him being to scared to shoot at anything else.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also its all down to preference obviously but I stopped taking marauders a while ago when they got a points increase.... petty and childish of me definitely (as they deserved the points increase and I accept that) but the unit I used to run is now nearly double the points cost so they will soon be on ebay.

 Evertras wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Well, you could vanguard forward 10", instead of 12, leaving yourself in range of the general.

That's true, yes. You don't have to go the full 12". If you go 8-10 (depending on where you deploy, which is ideally in front of the warriors), you'll likely stay in IP range at the start of the game.

Take a look at the dwarf army being run.
It's got 3 shots.
1 cannons
1 organ gun
1 unit of crossbows

The cannon does pretty much nothing (at best kills 1 dog).

Why is the cannon shooting at dogs? The cannon should be either going for the infantry block or the knights. It doesn't care about hard cover granted by the dogs. And if the dogs are close enough for grape shot, then they get wiped.

They aren't firing the cannon at the dogs. It's just showing that the cannon is useless at stopping the dogs from hitting the crew.
Grape Shot is Horrible.
-1 for ranges between 6 and 12".
7" move and swift stride means dogs can charge from outside of the grapeshot range with very good success.

If he wants to stop the dogs, he has to use crossbows and/or organ gun. In that case, he's giving up most of his ability to kill infantry to kill very cheap dogs.
Think of it as a zulu plan. All the chiefs are holding back just out of range and swarms of cheap guys deplete the enemies ammunition.

-Matt

 Evertras wrote:


Let's say the dwarf player goes first. You have vanguarded dogs into organ gun range. The only thing they can shoot is the dogs, so they do so and cripple them. If you stayed in IP range, there's a vague chance they'll live and stay (4-6 roll on gun, maybe a few lucky rolls). If you didn't, they're almost certainly gone.

1- Generally, I'd agree- but I can say that as a dwarf player I get pretty puckered up about having to risk misfiring at hounds.

2- The other consideration in favor of springing for vanguard is that it's unlikely the hounds and the organ gun are sitting on the deployment lines directly across from eachother. Which means that there's probably still some vanguard space available (especially laterally). Example- your hounds are on the left and right flanks, organ gun on your right. What do you do in the "vanguard phase"? Your hounds on the right spin their wheels, but the ones on the left need to burn rubber over so you can target saturate on your first move. (Something you've wisely recommended).

Now what if you hadn't vanguarded? The organ gun couldn't shoot, because with its 18" range it has nothing to shoot at.

FWIW, organ gun range is 24"...

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
They aren't firing the cannon at the dogs. It's just showing that the cannon is useless at stopping the dogs from hitting the crew.
Grape Shot is Horrible.
-1 for ranges between 6 and 12".
7" move and swift stride means dogs can charge from outside of the grapeshot range with very good success.

Very true.

If he wants to stop the dogs, he has to use crossbows and/or organ gun. In that case, he's giving up most of his ability to kill infantry to kill very cheap dogs.
Think of it as a zulu plan. All the chiefs are holding back just out of range and swarms of cheap guys deplete the enemies ammunition.

But here's my problem. There is no ammunition to deplete. There are only targets to choose for that turn. The limiting resource is time, not ammunition. That might make it seem like Vanguard becomes an attractive option, but again, look at the ranges on those weapons. An organ gun with 18" range CANNOT fire at infantry on turn 1 even if it's placed on the front lines. Likely it'll be placed a little back for safety, depending on deployment. Without Vanguard, the dogs are out of range. With Vanguard, the organ gun can only shoot at the dogs... so why wouldn't it? It has lost no potential to kill infantry when it could not have fired at the infantry in the first place. The crossbows are given a choice, but if the organ gun does its job then that choice is eliminated and the infantry get shot anyway. In fact, if the organ gun kills dogs that would have been giving the infantry hard cover, the situation is even worse than it was to begin with.

WoC cannot afford to hold back. It needs to advance, and it needs to do so all at once. Going in piecemeal will just get you shot up piecemeal.

Let me ask this another way. Which would you rather have... a unit of dogs with vanguard and poisoned attacks, or two units of dogs naked? Again, I'm not saying the option to Vanguard is a bad thing to have (even if actually vanguarding could be detrimental, as above), it's the points cost. I'd rather have another unit of dogs than invest that many points in the first. That's an extra deployment step, more targets for the shooty army to worry about, more cover, more options.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH it's 24"

I'm dumb. Thank you Zeke. Still, I'm sticking with the argument. The organ gun cannot fire on turn 1 if the dwarf player goes first, unless you've vanguarded... and that's assuming they put everything on the front line anyway.


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 Red_Zeke wrote:
1- Generally, I'd agree- but I can say that as a dwarf player I get pretty puckered up about having to risk misfiring at hounds.

This is true. But that's one in six games, if you fired at the hounds where you couldn't have normally. And that's one in eighteen where it goes boom. One in twelve where something really 'bad' happens at all compared to not shooting in the first place. Not insignificant, but eh.

2- The other consideration in favor of springing for vanguard is that it's unlikely the hounds and the organ gun are sitting on the deployment lines directly across from eachother. Which means that there's probably still some vanguard space available (especially laterally). Example- your hounds are on the left and right flanks, organ gun on your right. What do you do in the "vanguard phase"? Your hounds on the right spin their wheels, but the ones on the left need to burn rubber over so you can target saturate on your first move. (Something you've wisely recommended).

This I can understand, but I'm not convinced it's worth the points cost to move a few inches. You still have to avoid the 24" bubble to stay out of organ gun range. Going around the side sounds nice, but the only thing you have a chance of avoiding is crossbows if you can get out of their arc. Otherwise it's the same distance you're trying to move in, the angle is irrelevant in this case.

(edit)

Upon further reflection, the angle isn't all that irrelevant. It would let you bypass any protecting infantry blocks that are hanging back and waiting. Still, it really shouldn't be a huge distance to go around in the first place. Again, my comparison is dogs with vanguard and poison vs two units of dogs for the same cost. Vanguard nearly doubles the cost on its own. If it was 5 points to give the whole unit vanguard I'd likely take it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, you know what? Vanguard on dogs only costs 2 per dog. That's 10 points, not 20. I need to stop doing math when I'm uncaffeinated.

I apologize for my misinformation on both ranges and what I thought were correct point values. I'm going to leave my post otherwise intact to keep my shame. Please feel free to pile on more, for I have been dumb.

There's also the new Chaos Wastes battlescroll.

Ambushing (on turn 2!) two spawns, dragon ogres, a giant and a vortex beast can ruin any gunlines day.

I recently had a grudematch againt a dwarf player at our store and used spawns and ogres to great effect, using them to screen my approaching warriors.

I decided to eschew magic, but did take a demon prince and a couple of cheap no-frills marauder units and two small chosen blocks and a warshrine.

I spewed out a free demon prince and got my revenge! (He obliterated my Elves the week before.)