Aiming Low: Tactics Against Dwarfs
Moderators: Layne, The Dread Knights
- Eyes and ears
- Slave (off the Altar)
- Posts: 15
- Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:03 pm
- Location: California
Aiming Low: Tactics Against Dwarfs
Greetings My Lords,
Very soon, I will be doing battle with the stunted, bearded creatures of the mountains and fully intend to bring them to their knees. These battles will be small at first, at the 500, 750, and 1000 point levels. Regrettably, I have never had the pleasure of cutting a Dwarf limb from limb, or even witnessing them on the battlefield for that matter, but that is why I am here. My lords I beg of you, grant me the knowledge to destroy my enemies, knowledge that you, my lords have acquired through your own campaigns against the Dwarfs. I wish to return to Naggaroth with sturdy slaves to toil in my mines. What should I field as far as Ranged Combat units, Close Combat units? What lore of magic will I find most effective? And what dirty tricks should I have up my sleeves? Thank you all in advance for any and all assistance in this endeavor, your help is most appreciated.
Eternally,
Eyes and Ears
Very soon, I will be doing battle with the stunted, bearded creatures of the mountains and fully intend to bring them to their knees. These battles will be small at first, at the 500, 750, and 1000 point levels. Regrettably, I have never had the pleasure of cutting a Dwarf limb from limb, or even witnessing them on the battlefield for that matter, but that is why I am here. My lords I beg of you, grant me the knowledge to destroy my enemies, knowledge that you, my lords have acquired through your own campaigns against the Dwarfs. I wish to return to Naggaroth with sturdy slaves to toil in my mines. What should I field as far as Ranged Combat units, Close Combat units? What lore of magic will I find most effective? And what dirty tricks should I have up my sleeves? Thank you all in advance for any and all assistance in this endeavor, your help is most appreciated.
Eternally,
Eyes and Ears
- Tyrannus deathbringer
- Noble
- Posts: 497
- Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2011 7:28 pm
- Location: The Black Ark Nemesis
May you reap many bearded heads!
Dwarf strengths: good toughness, good armour, reasonable to good weapon skill, ability to hit hard in CC, S4 shooting, warmachines, magic resistance, Runed-up characters
Dwarf weaknesses: Mobility (though watch out for the miners!), Low initiative
Dwarf weaknesses: Mobility (though watch out for the miners!), Low initiative
- A lot of Dwarf units have great weapons...so our great weapon wielding troops will hit them first without the addition of a Hag with a magic banner
Dwarves are often quite warmachine dependent so screeners/hunters like Harpies, and "Commando" Shade units are a good choice. Shades may need a Manbane RS Assassin to do sufficient damage though. Alternatively a flying Pegasus character equipped for the role.
Banner of Murder and Razor Standard on (non-Exec) combat blocks. Black guard (S4) and Witches (poison) good choices though very vulnerable to their small arms fire. COK charges can help turn a combat but dont expect them to be able to take on a Dwarf unit on their own. Druchii characters with strong, anti-armour attacks useful (i.e. S6 halberd, whip of agony).
"No cost" magic cant be dispelled => Cauldron Buffs.
"All who surrender will be enslaved; whoever does not surrender but opposes with struggle and dissension, shall be annihilated."
- Dyvim tvar
- Lord of the Dragon Caves
- Posts: 8372
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 6:34 pm
- Location: The Dragon Caves of the Underway (Indianapolis IN)
- Contact:
Good advice above. I also find that a lot of Dwarf players field units with Great Weapons, which makes Executioners a good choice even without the Death Hag+ASF banner. Give the Execs a 5+ ward with the cauldron until they get into combat, then switch to +1 attack and you'll cut through the Dwarfs like hot knife through butter. You'll take kills in return but will deal about twice as many deaths as you take.
Truly These are the End Times ...
- Mindrazored
- Shade
- Posts: 104
- Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:18 am
Dwarfs....why would you want to take these stubborn bearded beasts of burden for slaves? They will just refuse to work anyway. Then again our priestess seem to delight in sacrificing them so they might be of some use anyway.
As for tactics. Personally I prefer to leave my crossbowmen at home since they do very little against these canned in bricks. Plenty of melee works wonders, but since the dwarves are very fond of using those nasty siege weapons of theirs, I’d advice you on using numerous smaller units instead of several larger ones. Our Hydra’s and chariots can do a lot of damage if they can get into combat with these dwarfs as can our cavalry, but beware of his cannons.
As for magic. As you will no doubt know dwarfs are very resistant to the magical arts. I have noticed that overwhelming their defenses seems to be the best solution. In the smaller skirmishes you describe it will be hard to get any spells through, so I’d advice taking Dark Magic. The spells are easy to cast and deadly enough to have him draw out his runes of dispelling. Only in larger battles would I use the Lore of Shadow, complimented with the lore of Dark Magic.
I hope this helps you.
As for tactics. Personally I prefer to leave my crossbowmen at home since they do very little against these canned in bricks. Plenty of melee works wonders, but since the dwarves are very fond of using those nasty siege weapons of theirs, I’d advice you on using numerous smaller units instead of several larger ones. Our Hydra’s and chariots can do a lot of damage if they can get into combat with these dwarfs as can our cavalry, but beware of his cannons.
As for magic. As you will no doubt know dwarfs are very resistant to the magical arts. I have noticed that overwhelming their defenses seems to be the best solution. In the smaller skirmishes you describe it will be hard to get any spells through, so I’d advice taking Dark Magic. The spells are easy to cast and deadly enough to have him draw out his runes of dispelling. Only in larger battles would I use the Lore of Shadow, complimented with the lore of Dark Magic.
I hope this helps you.
- Dyvim tvar
- Lord of the Dragon Caves
- Posts: 8372
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 6:34 pm
- Location: The Dragon Caves of the Underway (Indianapolis IN)
- Contact:
Cold73 wrote:Personally I prefer to leave my crossbowmen at home since they do very little against these canned in bricks.
Crossbows can actually be good against Dwarfs. Unless helped out by Withering from lore of Shadow, it's usually not worth shooting at big blocks (if you do get off Withering though, you can decimate a big unit with focused fire). But our missile troops will normally come out on top if used to shoot at Dwarf Thunderers and Crossbows. It's a good way to reduce the Dwarf firepower from range and without the need to devote combat troops for the job.
Truly These are the End Times ...
-
- Slave (off the Altar)
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:42 am
- Location: Australia
Re: May you reap many bearded heads!
Tyrannus Deathbringer wrote:A lot of Dwarf units have great weapons...so our great weapon wielding troops will hit them first without the addition of a Hag with a magic banner
Hang on, won't we be striking at the same time, rather than hitting them first?
New to DE but liking what I see
- Dyvim tvar
- Lord of the Dragon Caves
- Posts: 8372
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 6:34 pm
- Location: The Dragon Caves of the Underway (Indianapolis IN)
- Contact:
Executioners are great if you can actually deliver them into combat moderately intact. GLHF with that, though. If you spend the points to give them ASF hag, thats a huge chunk of your army, and he can entirely justify setting all war machines on it. It will not survive above ten or so models.
ALso magicwise you either need a huge trickle phase, (casting many many spells and forcing him to choose what to dispel, sac dagger helps with this but you need a lower cost lore,) or you throw all your dice at that clinch mindrazor of purple sun. There isnt much middle ground with dwarves, its so easy for them to get many bonus power dice and three dispel scroll runes.
They arent much frightened of our big hydra, cannons can have flaming. I like the idea of multiple chariots, simply because he cant focus on a huge chunk of your points per turn. Havent tried it yet, (plan to tomorrow,) il let you know how it goes.
ALso magicwise you either need a huge trickle phase, (casting many many spells and forcing him to choose what to dispel, sac dagger helps with this but you need a lower cost lore,) or you throw all your dice at that clinch mindrazor of purple sun. There isnt much middle ground with dwarves, its so easy for them to get many bonus power dice and three dispel scroll runes.
They arent much frightened of our big hydra, cannons can have flaming. I like the idea of multiple chariots, simply because he cant focus on a huge chunk of your points per turn. Havent tried it yet, (plan to tomorrow,) il let you know how it goes.
If all else fails, throw Hydras at it. When the dust clears, they'l be curled up snoozing peacefully on a mountain of corpses.
-
- Slave on the Altar
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2012 4:52 am
- Location: United States