Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Dwarfs

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Why Play Dwarfs

Because you like to piss people off by legally taking 10 war machines in 2,000 points matches. You also like high leadership and a standard toughness of 4. Also you have a thing for alcoholic midgets.

Unit Analysis

Lords & Heroes

Named Characters

Note: Under the current edition, named characters tend to be overpriced; you can pretty easily emulate most named characters from scratch and save yourself some points. That said, a few named characters do have abilities and wargear or wargear combos unique to them, so if you absolutely need to have them, go ahead. Just make sure you're really getting your points worth.

Generic Characters

Note: While named characters are judged against their generic counterparts, generic characters are examined based on their role in your army.

• Rune Smiths: You want to keep these guys around for good dispel dice, the more the merrier. And field them with dispel runes or have them inside thunderer units or something not likely to blow up in your face to keep those sweet dispel dice coming in.

Core Units

• Dwarf Warriors: These are your bread and butter. They have Toughness 4, Leadership 9 and Heavy Armour as standard. Give them shields if you don't want them to die or give them great weapons if you want them to kill shit. Always take them in big units of 30+ with full command, they may not be the most expensive units but they sure as hell aren't cheap so you need to make sure they are formed up as a horde to get the most attacks out of them.

• Longbeards: Warriors can be upgraded into Longbeards for +3 points each. They are better at killing shit and not running away, being immune to panic. They also allow nearby units to re-roll failed panic tests, which is nice if you haven't take a BSB (but you always should take a BSB).

• Quarrelers: Crossbow dwarfs. They are dwarfs with crossbows. That's about it. Take them if you want to be shooty. Also they can take shields and great weapons. Shields are good if you want to get into a shooting match with Wood Elves.

• Thunderers: Handgun dwarfs. Dwarf handguns have a +1 to hit modifier and have Armour Piercing. So they are better at shooting armoured foes and are more accurate than Quarrelers. However they have less range and are more expensive.

• Rangers: Dwarf Warriors, Quarrelers and Longbeards that are armed with great weapons can be upgraded to Rangers for +1 points per model allowing them to scout. Take them if you want a scouting horde of dwarfs. This can be pretty funny.

Special Units

• Bolt Throwers: Always take in units of 2, and field 6 of them if you want to troll your enemies. Give them an engineer if you want to burn points in higher games and make them flaming to fuck with dark elves.

• Cannons: Give them engineers and you should be fine not watching it blow up, and if you still have the battle for skull pass model (which is a tiny as fuck cannon model), be sure to field those.

Rare Units

• Organ Guns: Your can do, rage machine against light armored troops(if you roll high) to heavily armored elites, but be sure as hell to make sure an engineer is nearby. Using artillery dice, and automatic hits are pretty lulzworthy along with a -3 armor save and strength 5 hits can pretty much decimate enemy blocks of units if you take two, but costing 180 points with no runic upgrades can be tricky and is better to take in units of 2 or 1 with 2 cannons.

Building Your Army

Magic

The fuck is this magic you speak of? Get the fuck out of here, you goddamn sissy elf.

Dispelling Magic

• In 2,250 point games and above, always, always, always have a Runelord with the Master Rune of Dispel and an Anvil of Doom, and park his stubby ass behind some dwarven lines. The Runelord gets two dispel dice, and the Anvil provides you with another one (with the errata stating the enemy loses a power die), in addition to the master rune's ability to steal power dice, all for 380 points. Stack him with his Runesmith buddies, who should have dispel runes, and you are looking at 6 bonus dispel dice and the enemy losing two power dice for about 600 points total. Yes, you could easily have more dispel dice than they have power dice. They can kiss their magic phase goodbye.

• Alternately if you decide for some bizarre reason that you want to play a game of Storm of Magick take a Truthsayer, give your BSB the Master Rune of Valaya and give a Runelord the Master Rune of Spellbinding. Said Truthsayer now has +7 to dispel. Now you can play a game of Storm of Magick without the magick. Hooray.