# New to Fantasy, hoping to do Dwarfs



## Ishamael (Aug 26, 2008)

Well, a few friends and I have decided to start up Warhammer Fantasy armies to change it up from playing 40k all the time. Now, as short and bearded as I am, there is no decision to be made when it comes to what army I would like to start: th' Dwarfs. I've looked at the model range and have been asking around about the tactics they use, and now it's time to bring it to Heresy.

My questions are this: What are the dwarves' strengths, what are their weaknesses, and what can they do that ranks high on the badassery charts?

edit: I need an admin to move this, I forgot I was in the armylist section. Sorted - squeek


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

Well firstly welcome to the throng! Now as far as dwarfs go some of the strengths as I see them are: Great war machines, Great leadership, Good armour (on average), The customization abilities of their runic items/warmachines/banners so you can have a item for any situation. Their incredible ability to shut down any magic( Granted, they have none of their own). 

Now as far as army build go, your either the gunline, balanced, or combat. 
A dwarf gunline is a very tough nut to crack, but its also a one trick pony. Also if you play a gunline regularly your gaming buds may not like you very much! Dwarfs can do a balanced army quite well, with a good mix of reasonably tough ranged units, strong artillery and rock hard infantry blocks.

The one complaint I have with dwarfs is the fact that *every* Elite dwarf unit comes in a metal box of 5, which makes it more than a little difficult to amass a good amount of them. So whatever kind of army you like is up to you! Best of luck and welcome to Warhammer fantasy battle!!


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Dwarves are controlled by 1 fact- they are SLOW. They move slower then every other army and will find it very hard to run away from or chace down enemies from combat.

This means a couple of things- first your unlikely to charge so will need to rely on static combat resolution (banners, ranks, not being flank charged) and second winning combat is less effective at killing enemies and losing is more damaging to you.

The very obvious solution to short legs is long arms.. or guns in the case of dawrves. Your basic 3 tactics as far as I can work out are:
1- advance in a solid line of bad-assery that cannot be flanked by fast moving enemies and will crush anything that charges it (lord knows you wont charge) or at least holds for long enough to get other dwarf units to counter-charge into the enemy's flank.
2- You stay still with a rock solid army that cannot be shifted. Your few guns and artillery peck at the enemy and then you crush them when they charge you.
3- You go for a gun line and mush the enemy into a pulp before they get to you.

I've mostly seen a mix of 2&3, but then I only know 1 dwarf player so the tactics arent that surprising... but to put their movement in perspective- my ogres have a charge range of 12", even if I fail to charge and move half distance then your dwarves arent going to be in charge range... this means I can declare a charge even if I think im out of range because there really is no downside. Elves and men are slower but still pretty much fast enough to be able to control the movement phase when they fight dwarves.


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## Trigger (Mar 12, 2008)

If you intend to do a monster close combat Dwarf army that actually moves occasionally, the dwarves have several tricks up their sleeve to get themselves moving or slow down the enemy charge, plus a unit for burrowing under your opponent, so its just a case of fine tuning your army. Its also pretty easy to make a Dwarf unit that aint going to retreat anytime soon, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. 

Of course, you could always get an army thats quick to start with!

I wouldn't even consider whats metal or plastic by way of miniatures. As long as they have a beard, some armour and a massive axe or hammer dwarves can represent whatever the hell you like!


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## Ishamael (Aug 26, 2008)

I'm liking what I'm hearing so far. Doing Dwarfs will be a big change from the Khorne army I have for 40k. I think what I will do is go for a balanced list of having tough ranks of dwarfs with ranged units behind them. The question now becomes one of what to take, because there are a lot of options, and I'm unsure on what each of them do, like the Dwarfs having gun men and crossbow units.


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## Trigger (Mar 12, 2008)

Thunderers have more punch, Quarrellers have better range (and the option for GW and the Scout USR for the same points cost as Thunderers) Wink wink, nudge nudge. Depends what role you want them for really.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Be a little careful about planning your army- having a line of men and another of guns behind sounds good but in WFB you cant shoot through your own men unless you or your target is on a hill (or a large target like a giant).
Hills are very important for gun line armies but almost more so for mixed combat/shooty armies... it makes advancing all the harder.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw (Mar 23, 2009)

well gun men a.k.a thunderers are probably the favorite choice for dwarf ranged units with their -2 to armour saves. But the crossbowmen have a higher range, so are better to get that extra turn of shooting in. As for combat units dwarf warriors are of course a must. Dwarf longbeards (a variant of warriors) are a great tough unit with panic suppressing abilities. For special choices it just depends whether you want war machines, or tough infantry, hammerers are good at sticking around and dishing out the hurt with str 6 attacks, but are also relatively easy to kill do to only a 5+ armour save. Ironbreakers on the other hand are very good at hanging around with a great armor save, but they are not as good as hurting things as the hammerers. As For warmachines, its just a matter of preference, I prefer organ guns and cannons, but I know a lot of Swear by Bolt Throwers. But ultimately what it comes down to, is what you want!


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

War Machines:
Cannon - good range, devistating if it hits right, slim chance it will explode on you
Organ Gun - mediocre range, can kill up to ten models at a time, auto hits, slight chance it will explode, this is your skirmish killer
flame cannon - decent range, good against flamable targets, slight chance of explosion
bolt thrower - decent range, fairly accurate (if your Balistics is up to it) armor penetrating, this is your cavalry/WoC killer! Place them on your flanks to get as many flank shots on cav as you can. If I take them I always take three, one on each flank and one dead center.

Did I miss anything? Gyro copter's not really a war machine, it's more of a monster IMO.

As for the infamous "slow moving" don't forget that once you are within 8" of your opponent you will be the only one able to march. That will make you faster then him on the ground, though he will still have a better charge distance. As for ogres on the charge, who cares, they kill a couple dwarfs, you ignore the losses and procede to crush them with scr.

Finally on the ranged unit tactics.
I don't care which unit you take, thunderers or quarelers, it mostly depends on what your enemy has, either way you can't move and fire. If your opponent has anything to say about it he will not let you have a hill to fire from and that's ok. What you can / should do in that case is set your ranged units as your front line, aprox 3" in front of the rest of your troops. Keep long beards interspersed throughout your line. Let the enemy advance under a hail of fire and once they finally do charge you, well, stand and shoot if it seems worthwhile (a dwarf ranged unit is still the equal of many other armies infantry) or better yet flee, the 3" gap ensures that there is only a 1:12 chance of your unit getting cought and makes the enemy very likely to fail their charge. The long beards themselves are immune to the panic checks you just caused and provide the rest of your line with a good bonus to ignore them also. Finally, your dwarven leadership should be more than sufficient to rally the fleeing missile troops while your heavy infantry carves up the enemy with a charge of their own following the failed charge.
Down side to this tactic is that if the enemy is also a ranged fighter and you set up blind you will be very hard pressed to reform the line to make yourself usefull. Pray it never happens as nothing suffers against a dwarven guline quite as much as a dwarven infantry line.

More than anything else, have fun with it. I wish you the best of luck.


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## Ishamael (Aug 26, 2008)

Well, I've been looking at the Dwarf Army Book (codex?), and I have a question on the Battle Standards. I don't have the brb for Fantasy yet, so it may just be in there. Now, it's obvious what the Runic Standards do, but what do the normal ones do?

As a side note, I want to take a Rune Lord with the Anvil of Doom, and I was wanting to know what a good layout for the Lord, and any special tactics for this cool-sounding unit.


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

The rules for a normal BSB are listed in the main rule book, as such I don't think I'm supposed to list them here as it may constitute a copy right infringement issue. 

That said, the information you seek lies on pages 82-83 of the WFB Rule Book.

Page 38 also mentions one of the benefits you gain regarding combat resulution.


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## Reign (Jun 30, 2008)

Just FYI... you can qoute the BRB with it's exact wording and credit the source with the information and there's not a darn thing anyone can do about it...

It's not copywrite infringement if you site your source...

I would, but I'm at work and don't have the book in front of me.

To answer the question though, it adds +1 to combat resolution.


(*Is really confused why there's a "rules questions" forum when people are afraid to answers rules questions to.. it blows my mind how scared people are of GW threatening to sue these days... takes all the fun out of the hobby*)


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

Cool 

In that case (per the BRB) the BSB grants a +1 to combat resolution and allows friendly units within 12" to reroll failed break tests. When coupled with stubborn troops it makes them virtually unbreakable!


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Sure, unfortunately panic and psychology tests arent break tests- this means you only get the re-roll when losing a combat. If you lost by enough the reroll is very rarely going to help anyway (though its nice to have a reroll on Ld 8-10 guys since they might get unlucky and fail).

If it was a re-roll on all Ld based tests I would take one in everygame.


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## Meat Shield (Jun 20, 2009)

One of the unique uses of an Anvil of Doom is that its one of the only ways that an army of dwarfs can actually try to charge other armies. By using rune of oath and honor, allows dwarf units to move in the shooting phase, dwarfs can quickly close with the enemy and try to get their big blocks of infantry into cc on their terms.


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## Dafistofmork (Jan 9, 2009)

dont bother with weapon runes on your anvil, and armour runes are nearly as bad (every character should have the rune of stone though). look at runes that help dispell enemy magic, because an opponent faced with an anvil will usaly go very magic heavy to beat it, or no magic at all to reduce its effectivness. nothing you can do about the second one other than have a lord ready to swap places with.

for the ultimate in flank refusal, have 20 ironbreakers, thane with oathstone and an organ gun, deploy in terrrain on the one flank, have the other flank anchored by the board edge with the rest of your amy in between. nothing will get past.


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