# Fighting Dwarves



## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

So, I've tried three different armies with multiple different builds, and I CANNOT beat Dwarfs. I've seriously tried just about everything-- my combat units bounce off, even if they outflank them, and my shooting (which only came into play with my Elves) was aptly deflected by their armor. Any ideas, here? I've played like 20 games against Dwarfs, and haven't won ONCE.


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

These are High Elves right?

Can you give a bit of detail about his place style and lists?


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

At under 1000pts, Dwarfs are fantastic, due to their realtively high stats, compared to their points.

Therefore, you need to put your eggs in one basket, unfortunately, a risky tactic with elves, so having a small contigency unit is invaluable - Maybe 7 Silver Helms and a Commander with a Blade of Strength?

From there, you'll want a solid core - 2x16 units of spearmen, one of them lothern. From there, 2 units of 10 archers. A mage kept basic with seer. Choose Curse of Arrow Attraction. Take two Eagles Claws. Take 2 units of Ellyrian Reaveers, 5 Strong, on the flanks. Fill up the rest with units of 10 Archers. You may want to splash out on another pair of Claws as well, or a unit of Swordmasters / White Lions 12 strong to support a spearman unit charged. 

I'm not too savvy on the points - so I'd hazard a guess, and say we have;

Commander - Pure of Heart, Sword of Might, 7 Silver Helms, Full Command. Shields.
Mage - Seer (Arrow Attraction).
16 Spearmen
16 Lothern
12 Swordmasters
2x5 Reavers
4x10 Archers
2 Repeaters.

Play refused flank. Set your Repeaters so that they will be able to target lengthways, taking 4/5 models per shot. If you are only going to take 2/3, switch to Multishot.

Set one unit of Ellyrian Reavers in front of them, the others as far forward on the opposite diagonal. Send these to the opposite corners, fleeing out of range, while peppering with bowfire.

Set your two blocks of Spears side by side, so as not to let anything through. Have You swordmasters and Helms offset, out of charge range and ovverrun, but near enough to charge the next turn. have your mage on its own as far forward as possible. Have it cast Arrow Attraction on the Hammerers > longbeards > Rangers ASAP. Have 2 archer units either side of the central blocks, out of range of overrun. If you enemy has warmachines, make sure these are taken care of with your Reavers, using spears on the charge.

You may want to hit harder, so swap the units for a chariot, but this is more fragile (despite the 3 or so wounds), but the impact hits will easily kill the crew, but again, you'r missing out on more shooting and the fast cavalry baiting.

Thunderers can be nasty - so watch out if they get in range. Tie them up with a charge from the rear by the Reavers. If the thunderers stay behind, then that's good. They'll be too far out of the game and you have just denied 120+pts to the dwarfs, while you've been able move around, sniping and charging the rear.

If you are certain of a victory, then I'd hold off the charge, and stay in position, while gaining an extra-turn firing. Note that you will usually expect them to charge your spearmen, to remove the danger of stand and shoot from Lothern.

It's up to you to find out how that works properly, but just a quick guide. Hope I helped.


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## mgtymouze (Dec 7, 2007)

I will probally end up in the Book of Grudges for this, but here is what works against me. The high elf player I fight tends to hit me with Silver Helms and Dragon Princes. He will usually by-pass my tough units (i.e. ironbreakers, hammerers, longbeards..) and smash into the flank of a basic warrior,thunderer, or quarreler squad. "Cheesemeister", as I like to call him, also will attack my warmachines with a great eagle to tie them up. If I am hit in one of my tought units, I can almost put money down that there is a cloak of beards or battle banner in the unit which hit me. Repeater Bolt throwers can chew up units with light armor like it is going out of style also. In one game I lost a 10 man quarreler/ranger squad and a 10 man miner squad to 2 of those damn things. I wouldn't waste time with archers against stunties, or too much magic (if there are runelords/rune smiths/or anvil of doom). Hope this helps.

If you were to tell us what the Dwarf player and you usually use, this would help.


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## striking scorpion (Nov 11, 2007)

use the lore of metal on one of your mages


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

Lore of metal is good but make sure you can push it through. I am a huge fan of an archmage with book of hoeth. That'll get your spells through his piles of DD.


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

teclis + pit of shades :grin:


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

Oddly enough, I rarely use my elves-- this is with Orcs, Chaos, AND High Elves... I've tried all three, and I lose the same way-- in combat-- with all of 'em. It's particularly retarded against Chaos. He switches out his army list every so often, so I never know if I'm fighting a gun line or a dwarf army with absolutely no shooting whatsoever besides Joseph Bugman's crossbow.


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## KharnTheBetrayer86 (Feb 26, 2008)

What are the main causes of death?

Being unable to break past armour saves?
Lords harvesting your troops heads like so much wheat?
Long range weapons hammering your troops before they can so much as see the white in a dwarfen beard?

Chaos, high elves, orcs, all have their ways of dealing with dwarfs, I may need to know more about the problems you're having.


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

No mightymouse! Don't give away our secrets.

As a dwarf player, what i fear most is psychology. Yes, dwarfs have amazing leadership, but yes, they still autobreak when losing a combat to a fear causing enemy that outnumbers them.

This is a very good tactic to beat solid blocks of dwarfs, and the likelyhood is you will run them down too.

Now, excuse me while i shave my beard and take the slayers oath....


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Chaos should do alright. Solid core of 2 units of warriors including exalted champion and lord, 2 smaller units of flail aremed marauders, 5 Knights, and Banner standard bearer, Chariot. Instead of Exalted, you could take 2 Sorcerors, load them up with Chaos God Spells - Green Fire particularly.

Red fire could be useful, but mainly Blue Fire. Can't talk much about the Slaanesh or Nurgle having never used them, but Tzeentch can pretty much send spell after spell through.


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## mgtymouze (Dec 7, 2007)

Sorry Panda, I was just trying to help a guy out. 

If I were to play against my Dwarf army with my Chaos Army, then I would hit the front with probally Chosen Knights and simo into the flank with a unit of nurgle warriors. This way you more than likely outnumber the stunty unit and deny him a rank bonus. Nurgle makes the unit on the flank cause fear, bam need snake-eyes to stay.


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## Hespithe (Dec 26, 2006)

Getting a unit of Warriors into a flank of Dwarfs is very very difficult. Both move to slow to make an easy option.

I've not lost to Dwarfs, but I've drawn against them a couple of times using my Beasts of Chaos Bloodbull army. Fast units with many high-strength attacks usually saw me through. The only time I failed was when the runic banners and such gave the unit a static 7+ combat res. I could wipe out the front rank easily, but had trouble with the static res my mate could throw down. Getting two units into combat with a Dwarf block always spelled their defeat, though.

Oh... and don't go after Dwarfs in buildings if you can ignore them and still win the game. Those little guys are brutal in buildings.


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## KharnTheBetrayer86 (Feb 26, 2008)

Oath Stones are evil things to have to contend with. Ironbreakers with an oath stone and a Dwarven lord are hideously hard to move, let alone kill...

A good tactic with high elves is to set up bolt throwers on either side of the battle field. Gives you a better chance to see a flank and make yourself a nice dwarf-sicle. and they are pretty cheap, pointwise. Get yourself some decent blocks of infantry, because horses are a little wasted on those little guys. A good 20-30 sized unit will still get the charge, and unlike cavalry they don't rely on the charge breaking the opponents.

Never underestimate elven footsloggers. Low toughness they may be, but they are still pretty good. And with great weapons always striking first the units that have them will be a huge boon. In fct, if it turns out that your opponent brought a CC army, then just wait. Dwarves are slow, and it'll take them three, maybe four turns to reach you. Thats three to four turns of shooting and magic with not much opposing you. except Josep bugmans crossbow.

I could go on about Orcs and Chaos as well, but I have no doubt I made a mistake somewhere. Anyone see anything wrong with these tactics?


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Instead of relying on battle magic, suuport magic I find is a bit more effective, although Flames of the Pheonix can prove helpful over a protracted period.

Instead of relying on your infantry to go toe-to-toe with better armoured and higher toughness opponents, hold the charge, while using small cavalry units to shatter the charge, remove ranks, while able to do enough damage. If a dwarven unit sets up an oath stone, go nowhere near it. They are too nasty to risk a charge, having no rear ranks flanks. Aim for taking out it's support units, such as crossbowmen, great weapon armed warriors, and thunderers. Artillery should be a first thing to take out - Ellyrian reavers and Shadow Warriors are always the best to take for this. However, take small enough units so that when you eventually get charged, you will not risk losing a valuable expensive unit. 5-8 should do (5 for Reavers, 8-10 for Shadow).

You could use these as a charge inhibitor, or you can use them to hit the rear of an enemy, and suicide on something such as Long Beards, or Iron Breakers. 


Watch out for miners though. Have something like an Eagle or Equivalently powerful unit to hold it, until you get contingency units, such as Aforementioned Heavy Cavalry into the side of them. Great Weapons, and especially the Steam Drill are deadly, cutting through your Chosen Knights or Dragon Princes with ease. 

As for Orcs, you could just horde Goblins, and a Large Solid Unit of Black Orcs (I'm thinking 30 Strong here) with a Big Boss, 3 Heroes including BSB. Have your Goblins charge forward, swamp the enemy, and charge your Boar Riders and Chariots into the side of those held units. Any that get through should then be charged by your heavies.

Have plenty of Spear Chuckas as well. Orc magic could prove useful, if the magic is similar to the 5th Edition. Foot and Fist of Gork/Mork.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

KharnTheBetrayer86 said:


> What are the main causes of death?
> 
> Being unable to break past armour saves?
> Lords harvesting your troops heads like so much wheat?
> ...


All of the above. Seriously, it's a little ridiculous. With S3 or 4 attacks from Orcs, which is actually what I've been playing with the most lately, the armor pretty much kills my combat resolution, because his units are just as big as mine are, and he makes sure his static combat resolution is at least 5, if not more, before casualties. The army is compact enough that there's a character leading each infantry unit as well, so I'm losing combat with combat-oriented armies by stupid numbers like 7, 8, 9... It's pretty discouraging, really.


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## vo2 (Mar 31, 2008)

*vo2*

im new hear so i am just cheking stuff out dwarfs are awsome


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## mgtymouze (Dec 7, 2007)

If you are running an Orc and Gobblin army, throw out a small unit of gobbos with fanatics. I HATE those damn things. Completely random after the initial push but you get to direct them on the first go. I have had multiple units torn to pieces from those damn things! If you send em at the dwarf unit we have two choices, a) march through and take wounds or b) move back and pray. Of course you run the risk of next turn, drugged out fanatic punching through one of your own units; but it gives the o&g army a nice flavor.


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## Green Knight (Feb 25, 2008)

It sounds you are just having bad luck. Teap trying different tactics.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

the funniest way to beat an oath stone unit is a dogs of war unit called bronzinios gallopper guns the unit sets up shop and the guns just move in front of them and start pounding away. other units of dwarves you just need a unit of hounds in the side to negate ranks or some other fast cav. chaos ogres can be a big help as well.


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