Kings of War/Tactics/Dwarfs

Why Play Dwarfs

Why indeed?

If you like sitting in a corner, grumbling and drinking, then you've found your spirit animal. Plus ginger fanatics riding giant, armoured badgers!

Army Special Rules

• Dwarven Throwing Mastiffs: Any unit equipped with throwing mastiffs has a once per game shooting attack with a range of 12 inches. This shooting attack gives you 5 dice that hit on a 4+ that gains a re-roll to all failed damage rolls against units with Shambling. Any damage caused then grants you the same number of dice to repeat this attack. This process repeats until you don't score any damage.

• Grizzled Veterans: All units in the army, unless otherwise noted, have Headstrong.

Unit Analysis

Hero

• Army Standard Bearer: A 50 point Inspiring hero. Budget nerve re-rolls for days.

• Berserker Lord: The hittiest of your basic characters. His Inspiring only affects other Bezerkers unfortunately. Can be mounted on a Brock to support your Brock Riders. Your best bet for monster hunting. Note that a Brock mount doesn't give him thunderous charge like the unit; Sveri needs a large cav badger to get TC by himself.

• Garrek Heavyhand: One of your unique heroes. This one has Crushing Strength (3), Inspiring, and Regeneration (6+). He hits on a 3+ and has a defence of 6+, so he is hardy. The problem, as always, is price. At 150 points you aren't getting much more benefit for your points compared to a Warsmith or an Army Standard Bearer. He also wants to be in melee with his rules, but with a speed of 4 you're not going anywhere quick. Probably a pass for most armies.

• Herneas the Hunter:

• King: Crushing Strength (1) and Inspiring on a defence 6+ body. He's slightly sturdier then the standard bearer, but also costs more than twice the points. Generally you'll probably want to stick with the cheaper options for inspiration.

• King on Large Beast: faster and able to dish out more attacks and damage on a charge, he's not a bad option to support infantry or Brock charges. Bear in mind, he's about as expensive as a horde of Ironclads...

• Ranger Captain: Are you taking Rangers? If so, you could do worse; he'll keep up and keep them going. If you're not, best look elsewhere.

• Stone Priest: If you're taking either flavor of Earth Elementals, he's pretty much required (heck, take 2), but is mostly useless otherwise. They can have Bane Chant (2) for a few extra points, which ups them to 'only-slightly-better-than-useless' once the Earth Elementals kick the bucket, but by that point you have bigger problems.

• Sveri Egilax: A bigger, smashier, more expensive Bezerker hero. Being large cav gives him thunderous charge.

• Warsmith: Armed with a pistol and Crushing Strength (1) and Piercing (1), this guy also has a lot of more subtle bonuses if you bring a lot of war machines, which you should. He is Inspiring to all war machines, plus he gives many of them individual bonuses when within 6" of them. These are detailed in the individual war machine entries, but suffice to say he can be quite nice if positioned between two or three such war machines to give his benefits to all of them at once.

Infantry

• Berserkers: A truly obscene number of attacks - especially for a troop - and very high nerve make them fantastic hitters, but their useless defense means they are glass hammers of the highest caliber. Great in Troop strength to add some serious hitting power to your 2nd line, keep them away or hidden from ranged attacks. Thanks to their Nerve, it will take a lot to make them break, but don't expect them to survive sustained combat.

• Bulwarkers: A variation on the Ironclad unit. They have the same stat line as an Ironclad, but add Phalanx as a special rule at a slight point cost increase. Like an Ironclad they can take throwing mastiffs, but they cost a lot more points base. Cancelling Thunderous Charge from the front at a higher cost then even Shieldbreakers for no other significant benefit is not ideal so stick to your other options. (They get a few more attacks, as well)

• Ironclad: Your cheapest unit of Dwarfs. These have a pretty standard cheap infantry stat line and can take throwing mastiffs. Nothing too fancy, but a cheap filler unit if you don't have many points left.

• Ironguard: The creme of the crop of your infantry line, they add quite a bit of durability and will dish out all kinds of hits to normal enemy infantry. They are an expensive option, however - Ironclad are a much cheaper and more numerous anvil, while Shieldbreakers make a better hammer than Ironguard with 2-handed weapons. Much like Bulwarkers and Berserkers, use carefully.

• Ironwatch Crossbows: The cheaper of the standard shooting units. This one has Piercing (1) at a 15 points cheaper then the rifle version at troop strength. You do also want to keep in mind that with crossbows and rifles they are only shooting with a 24" range, while the long rifles get a 36" range with Piercing (2). Generally the rifle unit is the better option, although again it is slightly more expensive.

• Ironwatch Rifles: The more expensive standard shooting unit. This one has the same range as the crossbow unit but with Piercing (2) vice Piercing (1). Generally the rifle unit is the better option, although again it is slightly more expensive.

• Rangers:

• Sharpshooters: The elite shooting unit for the army. This one shoots at 36" with Piercing (2). They also come on a larger base, but with a smaller unit size. What hurts though is they get less attacks then your Ironwatch Rifles. They even have a lower nerve value, which is odd, but they do get that extra 12" range so they're not awful, just not terribly ideal for the points.

• Shieldbreakers: The harder hitting, but slightly less defensive version of the Ironclads. You trade out a point of defence for Crushing Strength (2). They are slightly more expensive then Ironclads, but their benefits outweigh the loss of a single point of defence if you got the points.

Large Infantry

• Earth Elementals: Decent hitting power, pathfinder, and fantastic defense - they're solid. They won't replace Shieldbreakers for crushing power and aren't worth it without a Stone Priest for support, but boy are they durable.

Cavalry

• Berserker Brock Riders: Badger cavalry! If dwarfs riding on badgers isn't enough for you, they come with Vicious and Thunderous Charge (1). That means they get +1 to damage and re-roll unmodified 1s to damage, so the damage is going out if you get the charge. They're also your only cavalry, so you'll be using them anyway if you want cavalry.

Large Cavalry

None.

Monsters

• Greater Earth Elemental: It's a good addition to add some serious hitting power to a charge or if you're going heavy on Earth Elementals, but it won't last long going toe-to-toe against infantry. Like it's smaller cousins, a Stone Priest is the next best thing to mandatory.

War Engines

• Battle Driller:

• Flame Belcher: Breath Attack 18. Handy against light units. Short range but useful as a defensive machine to protect other war machines. Gets Elite when near a Warsmith.

• Ironbelcher Cannon: A war machine with Blast (D6+2) and Piercing (4). This thing hits really hard, although it only gets one shot with the Blast per turn. Like many dwarf war machines, if it sits within 6" of a friendly Warsmith it gains a special bonus; this one has you add +1 to your Blast attack.

• Ironbelcher Organ Gun: A 15 shot, 24" range gun platform. The shots only hit on a 5+, but they do have Piercing (2) so what does hit is likely to inflict some damage. If they are within 6" of a Warsmith they gain Elite. Consider taking one in smaller games for their reliability. In larger games you can rely on multiple warmachines to get at least one hit. When your choices are limited it's sometimes nice to fall back on 5 weaker hits a turn.

• Jarrun Bombard: An alternate version of the Ironbelcher Cannon. This one is always Blast (D6+3), but drops to Piercing (2) in return for the ability to use the Indirect Fire rule if it wishes at a range of 12" to 60" for it's shot.

• Steel Behemoth:

Tactics

Dwarfs play fairly similarly to their WHFB cousins. When in doubt, build a fortress in the corner and wait.

Weaknesses:

• Speed. Their low speed, and propensity to castle in the corners, makes the objective missions quite a challenge.
• Healing. You have no native healing spells. Consider a Healing Charm on a Standard Bearer.

Strengths:

• Nerve. Most of your units can get nerve into the low 20s and this means it takes a real hammer to shift them on the charge. You can build quite the counter-charge around this and your small units of bezerkers, used like detachments.
• Guns/Warmachines. Being alcoholic inventors they have a wide range of ways to sit on their porches and kill varmint.