Editing Warhammer Army Project/Chaos Dwarfs (section)

===Casters and Casting===

OMFG - Dwarfs that can excel into sorcery. 

Ok - Dwarfs wielding magic. That is just against their nature. And sooo awesome. It may catch your enemy off guard. And what Legion of Azgorh represents is much better than 8th ed. Dwarven Anvil of Doom. I still remember 7th ed Anvil and boy, that was something, but in 8th it devolved into supportive role the most.

But speaking of magic. Daemonsmiths have access to Fire, Metal and Death. Prophets - all the above plus Hashut. If taking Lammasu you also have Shadow. But Dawi Zharr, in case of miscast, turn slowly and painfully into stone.

So what Lore to choose?

1. Hashut - always. Some boosting spells, 2 deathstars. If you have just one Prophet, think about who you play against and what would support you the most, but if you have 2 or more Lords in the army (aka playing big game), Lore of Hashut is a MUST BE.

2. Metal - always if you play against enemies who actually use armour save. It seems to be optional against Skaven, Vampires and Goblins - basically all the hordes, but even they do have some units with armour save 5+/4+. And you can always use it as a flaming attack combined with Ash Storm or just use glittering scales. There is always at least one gap to fill with Metal.

3. Death - It is my 3rd choice in this army. It is good, might be great in sniping characters (not many casters can pull off Spirit Leech at LD9 or even LD10!) - I just keep using the ones described above.

4. Fire - Nah, Meh, Ugh. I took it once as Dark Elves, and don't remember doing anything spectacular with fire. If I had to take something, I'd rather take Ruby Ring of Fire with Fireball (hello Ash Storm).
Some players mount a Prophet on Bale Taurus, giving him Lore of fire, and keep casting it on themselves, each time Taurus would be wounded (Fire Lore cures its wounds), but really? Would you waste chance to take good a lore for Lore of Fire?

So - your casting and your miscast penalties - how it actually works? You did roll 2 sixes, have a miscast, did the results and then do a Toughness test. Prophet passes on 5 or lower, Daemonsmith on 4 or lower, Prophet on Bale Taurus on 5 or lower as Bale Taurus is a Monster, and its stats do not count here. If you pass - it's all good in a Dawi Zharr hood. If failed - you receive 1 extra wound (non-save-able in any way), but your Toughness goes up by 1 for the first time it happens.

Considering your Prophet is your only Lord type, and you probably packed loads of points on it, loosing like 400-ish points may hurt. You have 2 good options to raise Toughness of your magicians. One is to give him Potion of Toughness for 20 pts and drink it in a round you plan to cast heavily. That gives you +3 to Toughness for a round. Case closed. The other option is Stone Mantle, which lowers your Initiative from 2 to 1 but raises Toughness from 5 to 6 instead, permanently. 40 pts, and TBH - like your Initiative ever mattered. Unfortunately it costs 40pts so you cannot combine it with the Mask of the Furnace, so you cannot have it together with a really good armour save ''and'' a good ward save.

Rest of the items is pretty standard. I bet you will give your Prophets the highest Ward Saves, Earthing Rod, Dispel Scroll and others. After all, as you have sorcerers in the army, you don't have the dwarven 2+ to dispel resilience to magic, right?

In my humble opinion, your Prophets & Daemonsmith should be focused not on Close Combat, but on supporting your units with magic and providing re rolls to your artillery. Leave a unit of Ironsworn near them. Or solid block of Hobbos, so you'll be able to protect your magicians and Dreadquakes efficiently against any ambushers, scouts etc. Add extra Castellan, built to hold enemies and deal some damage. After dealing with pesky ambushing scums, you may have a chance to use them as a second wave.

Me and my friend do understand profits coming from a solid cannon fire or just shooty units, so fitting your Prophet on Bale Taurus and therefore giving him offensive role seem to be pointless in my opinion.

1. As a CC or supportive Lord, Prophet will lose fight against solid Generals.

2. As a flying terrorist dropping bomb (as described may points above), he is too exposed and will be shot to death. Even if set up behind K'daai - what makes him in theory invisible for shooting due to the fact visual is being blocked by massive and bulky shape - you risk your enemy to focus fire on this part of your army. 3 direct hits from cannons and both your monsters are gone. Sad.

3. Setting your Prophet on Lammasu may be awesome if you would challenge hero or general to a duel. Lammasu has anti-magic aura, so Ghaz Maghal, Runefang, Hellfire Sword or any magic weapon is simply being switched off. But Lammasu itself is pretty weak monstrosity in terms of stats.

Prophet and Daemonsmith on foot DO benefit from 'Lookout Sire' version for Dawi Zharr. It is called 'Infernal Engineer' and aforementioned characters, if wound is inflicted by shooting attack may be successfully saved by war machine crew member. Exactly same way as it works in case of Grimm Burlocksonn from Dwarf 8th ed. rulebook.

Conclusion - I consider Prophets and Daemonsmiths as purely supportive, and their prime role is to provide re-rolls to your artillery. Advance with your infantry, keep diminishing strength of your enemy with your artillery, protect gun-line with some infantry, and use them as a second wave.