# Dwarf's.....How to kill them.....



## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Well as the title says i have er....ended up against a couple dwarf players with my vampires and i am pretty stumped on how they work as i have never played against the army in any edition! Does anyone have tips on there inner workings and weakness? Right now i am thinking a 40 man black of terror causing graveguard that eat leadership is my best bet but im not sure!


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

You could have stopped at the 40 man unit of graveguard... should shift some dwarves for you.

Dwarves tend to come in 1 of 2 flavours- great weapons or no great weapons. The great weapon dwarves can kill stuff quite nicely but are quite easy to kill in return, so a unit that can throw out lots of attacks and be raised back will do quite well: I'm thinking of ghouls here.
The second type are a pain since they get to use their shield and will get a parry... but they will only be S3 and aren't going to do much damage. You have the option of how to deal: either send in graveguard to smash through or be subtle and attak with zombies/skellies... the dwarves will never kill their way through your unit. Ideally do both and flank with grave guard against a unit tarpitted with zombies/skellies to the front.


Mostly against dwarves you'll win if you reach combat... it just might take a while. Where they are really nasty is as you're advancing towards them. They'll be hitting you with enough artillery and shots to really hurt, and they are quite able to shut down magic phases to stop you resurrecting your troops. I'm not sure how a good VC player would deal with that...


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Ya im worried since i have to use my Coven Throne.......The guy is a new player to so i shouldn't have to much to fear hopfully, its a shame i cant take 2 black coach's and make chariot unit with the throne.......


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

For war machines, I would consider units of 3 vargheists (he might kill two of them but the third will kill his war machines), fell bats, bat swarms (can't march but can fly 10" and have a lot of wounds and can charge) to go after them. 

Your biggest problem is that your units generally have low initiative and often relatively low weapon skill (no longer have the Helm to boost WS in the new book) which benefits the dwarf player playing the non-great weapon units. Also, your non-vampiric units cannot march unless either vampiric or withing 12" of the general. Dwarves will geneally have higher weapon skill, so dwarves will hit more reliably. You should take the book of Arkhan and make sure you can cast Danse directly as well to move units quickly. 

Spirit hosts and ethereal models will frustrate dwarves because their troops and shooting in general do not have magic weapons. Thus spirit hosts (M6) can hit flanks and charge units with limited ranks and even war machines (if they get in range) and tie them up and wear then down indefinitely as they do wounds and avoid taking wounds. For example, if they set up an organ gun or handgun unit 24" away, march (with vamp in range) the spirit hosts 12' on turn one, consider Danse to get closer and then charge the organ guns or handgunners on turn two. That should limit their ability to shoot or force them to react with other infantry, exposing those units to your elite units and opening holes for flying units to get through to the war machines. Running three units of single spirit hosts thus will make it difficult for the dwarf player. Also, playing an infantry unit with wraith heroes in the front rank along with tough to kill characters will frustrate and nerf the dwarf army. 

Your killing blow units will get through as will your units with poison against T4 dwarves. A unit of black knights with vamp characters can be fast enough to get in early and start doing damage. They have a high enough armour save and every cast of Nehek in range regrows 1+ magic level wounds. Also, raise dead to throw up zombies will block certain units and they can tie up war machines (especially organ guns which can devastate your black guard and crypt horror elites) once your vamps are close enough to raise zombies right in front of and against war machines. Once you units are in combat (Dansed forward), they can no longer be shot at and can start tying up and wearing down the dwarf units.


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## Deathypoo (Jun 27, 2011)

For ethereal models, definitely go for single model units and whatnot. I believe (not sure) that all the runes on his war machines will make their attacks magical, and therefor units of cairn wraiths or hexwraiths just become expensive cannon fodder. Meanwhile, single base spirit wraiths are cheap distractions...


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

To simply recap the battle....i got creamed, he had all Magic Cannons and rolled perfectly........nothing i could do =/ My vampire blew him self up, my necromancer did the same......on two dice....


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Yeah, some games are like that. Put them out of your mind and move on... and make sure your sacrifice to the dice gods before the next game, they are fickle and change sides on a whim 

I did start a 'moment that made you cry' thread for just such games here, but don't get it into your head that it means your army/list/tactics don't work. I get annoyed when I have games like that, but oddly I feel worse if the opponent has them: I just start to feel mean. 

If you vamp keeps blowing himself up then you can take the grounding rod to try to reduce the damage, but play a few more games first... its not normally the biggest problem.


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## gop (Jun 14, 2010)

You can't do much vs bad luck / dice rolls. Sometimes Nuffle curses the best players. Keep playing. One other thing is that most dwarf units will have to take fear/terror checks as there isn't much to stop it.


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