8th edition: 2000 points vs Dwarven gunline

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Nutty
Slave on the Altar
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 8:20 pm

8th edition: 2000 points vs Dwarven gunline

Post by Nutty »

Hello Everyone,


This Thursday I will be playing my first game of fantasy in a long time, and I'll be facing of against the dwarves of one of my friends. The few times I've seen him play with them he used a gunline army, and I expect it'll be the same when we face each other later this week.

I've thrown together the following list that will hopefully stand a fighting chance:

Lords:

Morathi

Heroes: 279

Master (bsb) 167
-heavy armor, sea dragon cloak, shield
-dawnstone, iron curse icon, sword of might
-dark steed

Assassin 112
- ahw
- manbane

Core: (500)

5 dark riders 110
- shields, xbows

10 darkshards 130
- musician

10 darkshards 130
- musician

10 darkshards 130
- musician


Special: 710

1 cold one chariot

5 cold one knights 185
- full command
- gleaming pennant

War hydra 180
- fiery breath

Reaper Bolt Thrower

Reaper Bolt Thrower

5 shades 90
- great weapons


Rare: 135

5 Doomfire Warlocks 135
- master of warlocks

---

The plan is to try and whittle down the thunderers with the darkshards, before charging them with the cavalry & chariot. The shades (+assasin) & bolt throwers will focus on the warmachines. Morathi will fly around and depending on the spells she rolls debuff or blast the enemy. The master will join the warlocks and (hopefully) cause trouble for the dwarves, at the same time the hydra tries to get into close combat whilst attracting the attention of the warmachines.

Any tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
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Lord Drakon
Malekith's Best Friend
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Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:25 pm
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Re: 8th edition: 2000 points vs Dwarven gunline

Post by Lord Drakon »

Hi! Welcome back to Warhammer!

I would suggest you swap the darkshards for combat core troops. As your opponent will likely have a gunline (crossbows + thunderers) he can pick out your dangerous combat units too easy (chariot, warlocks, knights, hydra). These combat core can be in several units witch elves or corsairs or a big block dreadspears, witch elves or corsairs. You might even try units of 10 dark riders. Normally a mixed dark elf army can fare against a lot, but it doesn't do well against a Dwarven gunline in my experience. Assassins are cool, but he will not be of great use in the Darkshards and can't be deployed with Shades if they scout, so he will be of much greater use in a core combat infantry block. The rest of the list looks solid!
Nutty
Slave on the Altar
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 8:20 pm

Re: 8th edition: 2000 points vs Dwarven gunline

Post by Nutty »

Thanks for the advice Lord Drakon.

It's been a long time since I've played with my Dark Elves (and I didnt play them all that much) but I'm pretty sure you used to be allowed to stick an assassin in scouting shades. So it just went in the list, I must have missed a rule somewhere: is it in the army book? All I can find there is that he can't be in a unit of harpies. Or is there something in the rulebook that prevents deploying the assassin like that?

Sadly I don't have any Witch Elves, and only 10 dark rider/warlock models so I won't be able to implement those suggestions before the game. I do have ~20 corsairs and a bucket of dreadspears so that is something I can work with. (I actually compiled a list of the models I have over in another topic: http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?f= ... 57#p935029)

Dropping the darkshards will free up a fair chunk of points, so I could replace them with a big block of ~40 dread spears or two medium/small units of warriors/corsairs.

Would it make sense to drop the assassin and/or shades to free up some points to flesh out two units? Say a unit of 20 corsairs and 20-25 spears (or 40 spears if I drop both)? Or would an assassin with a few more points worth of toys be enough to help a small unit of warriors/corsairs beat down dwarven missile troops?


Thanks again,

Nutty
tehnico
Warrior
Posts: 58
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2015 8:59 pm

Re: 8th edition: 2000 points vs Dwarven gunline

Post by tehnico »

I play dwarven gun lines often.

Morathi surprisingly isn't the worst choice as you can choose nearly four perfect signature spells. A Missile that can actually kills dwarves (and Gyros if they showup), cheap BS modifier, sniper spell for artillery or runesmiths, and a way to generate more strength and power dice.

Economic magic is a great way to go against dwarves. Absent big game changing spells, they always struggle to know what to use their scrolls on. They're bound to do the wrong thing at some point. I have won games turning thunderers and quarrellers BS to nothing round after round just because of the threat of Doombolt spam. There's actually a lot of head games you can play with the warlocks threatening the boosted version because the IF/miscast rules are so safe with them. If you roll up purple sun though... well... giddy up Morathi.

He'll have an elite infantry block somewhere, avoid it. If possible strategize your deployment after avoiding it. All the better if you can pull it away from his friends.

If you're faced with an organ gun, make sure you tilt. The less rounds it gets to fire the better.

In my experience assassins never get their money's worth against dwarves. See if you can change it to basic unit buffing master. Might even be cheaper.

You have a decent number of units/targets for your opponent to choose from. Something I always like to be aware of when playing dwarves. Overwhelm him. Make his choices difficult. Try to make the crappy targets easy, and your valuable targets hard.

Anyway, that's all I've got. If you can get into his flank after two turns you should be okay... until something crazy happens of course.
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