Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs

This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of The Dwarfs.

Why play Dwarfs?

• Because you want to sit and watch as you're enemies are blasted away while coming towards you.
• Cause you're under 5'5 and want vengeance for all the short jokes.
• You don't want to do too much micro, so an army without much in the way of mobility and cavalry doesn't bother you as much.
• You enjoy having infantry that won't die after being slapped by a wet noodle.
• Slay everything without a beard!!
• FLAMETHROWERS!!!
• SATISFY THE GRUDGE!!!!

Pros

• Durability: You are a tank faction. Most of your units are categorized with high armour, melee defense and leadership. Even your tier one and chaff are very tanky compared to counterparts from other factions. your units will hold out forever.
• Range: Guns, guns and more guns! Dwarfs have some of the best blackpowder units in the entire game. Thunderers and Cannons can lay a whooping on anything they are firing on, and their other artillery aren't anything to sneer at. Even their non AP range units are very good for their price, and it's not hard for them to earn their points back as long as they are defended.
• Airforce: Gyrocopters with their anti large can get you control over the air, and their ability to kite monsters into oblivion is a good skill to have. Even Gyrobombers have a niche for their blob killing capabilities after recent buffs.
• Runes: Runes supply good buffs and debuffs that can help your army out, making them a great way to make sure your infantry stays in the fight a bit longer.
• Anti large: You laugh when the enemy brings big mosnters. With all your AP missiles, Anti Large artillery and slayers, you have the one of the easiest times killing monsters out of any faction in the game.

Cons

• Lack of Mobility: With no Cav, monsters and slow infantry, Dwarfs are the least mobile faction in the game. You will spend the majority of the game standing still.
• Lack of Magic: The only race in the game that straight up doesn't have magic. Runes try to make up, but they do not have the same affect.
• Chariots: Chariots are the bane of a Dwarf players existance. They don't have any real way to lock them down and, as you'd expect, AP anti infantry can really kill what the Dwarfs want to do on the battlefield. Due to the rework to how bracing and knock down works, this isn’t as bad as before, but chariots can still be a problem
• Predictability: Most veteran players know what's going to happen when Dwarfs are picked. They are going to go for a cheap, numerous and sturdy front line and a lot of guns and artillery. This means that Dwarfs are easy to plan for as they only have one real viable tactic. Building an army around fighting Dwarfs is something players from all races know how to do.
• Crap Lords: Do you like the Runelord? No? Well you better start because in multiplayer he's your only viable option. Grombrindal is an ok duelist but honestly Dwarf lords in general kind of suck. With no mounts and no way to stick to their targets it's hard for them to get anything done.
• DLC: Does pretty much every faction have this problem? Yes! Is it still worth mentioning? Absolutely! Rangers and Runelords form a big part of your roster and they cost extra.

Legendary Lords and Subfactions

• Thorgrim Grudgebearer: The high king himself, Thorgrim surprisingly doesn't count as a large unit, despite being carried on a massive throne sled carried by some burly dwarfs, Thorgrim isn't huge on offence, better than say mid-tier combat lords, but he's mostly just a hard to kill brick of leadership. Dwarfs in range of him just become slightly harder to break, which isn't saying much given their default morale, and he's not easily sniped. This results in him being kind of underwhelming, you know he's not going to die like a bitch, but you also know that he's not exactly going to recoup even a quarter of his cost. Is kind of safe in campaign play for beginners. - Pass.
• Ungrim Ironfist: The Slayer King, bane of anything taller than six feet, Ungrim is the opposite of Thorgrim; all offence, with low defence. Ungrim is actually pretty good in terms of being a hero-killer and monster-hunter, he's not going to solo Tyrion or Kroq-Gar, and don't even think of monster lords like Kholek or monstrous mounts such as a Tomb King on a war sphinx, without a unit to bog them down. The problem with Ungrim is that while he can throw hands and live up to his title, he eats a lot of damage for a dwarf, or just in general for a combat lord, he's easy to snipe with massed missiles if caught in the open, and while he can butcher most things sent his way, he'll only be able to do this once or twice in a battle before he's at serious risk of dying. Don't let that 120 armour & unbreakable make you think he's a tank, Ungrim's Melee Defence is quite low for a combat lord, and that low dwarf speed means he can by kited to death. Thorgrim lacks the damage to recoup his cost, Ungrim lacks the defence to recoup his costs. If playing with an ally that has access to Lore of Life he can be kept alive, but you're asking a lot of resources to support the Slayer King. - Pass.
• Grombrindal: THE WHITE DWARF, Grombrindal doesn't bring anything really special to the table, he's a decent duelist, although lacking the balls-to-the-wall offence of Ungrim Ironfist, Grombrinal is nowhere near as risky for a combat lord. The flashbomb ability can lockdown mobile heroes and give the white dwarf a few easy hits. Doesn't quite bring much for the rest of the army, but is the best legendary lord for cost-benefit tradeoffs. He can fight, he can survive, and he can make the entire army Unbreakable with a reusable map-wide buff. - Niche but competitive in that niche.
• Belegar Ironhammer:(DLC) Belegar is really just a wall, he's harder to kill than Thorgrim as they have comparable stats, but he has a silver shield for 55% missile resistance. That's all. Just an insanely hard to kill lord, sure his offence isn't terrible, being better than Thorgrim's on base stats and a nice buff can be popped to go higher. But honestly you're paying a lot for a lord that won't die, and generally speaking Dwarfs in Total War: Warhammer aren't a faction that is centred around their generals or heroes. No real wizards to throw high-impact spell effects, no mobile heroes that can exploit small gaps to flank units or hunt down supporting pieces like buffers, wizards or artillery crews. The only upshot to taking Belegar's subfaction in multiplayer is getting access the ancestor heroes who are damned hard to kill, but are also the only dwarf units that are scared of magic damage, which can sort of be a mind-games thing because the default assumption to seeing Clan Angrund picked is that ancestor heroes are on the field, so grab some magic damage to delete them, but then seeing that there are no ghost dwarfs means that the magic damage is actually a big waste considering all dwarfs have 25% Magic Resistance. - Pass.

Units

Generic Lords

• Dwarf Lord: No, just no, he suffers from the same issue that the legendary lords suffer from, being too slow. But wait there's more, the generic lord is easier to kill in combat, provides less army support, and does less damage. He's not even the cheapest option to help save costs. I mean he has a shield, but its only bronze. Unless you've got some kind of bet riding on a battle and there's a specific stipulation that you cannot use any other lord, screw the money because he's too crap. That said compared to generic foot lords in other factions he's quite difficult to kill, which is more advice for fighting Dwarf Lords in campaign really. PASS
• Runelord:(DLC) Yes, yes yes. The one competitive General in multiplayer, the Runelord is just a walking bubble of passive buffs that make your low tier units good, and your good infantry units even better. Has good active abilities, like Master Rune of Oath & Steel which gives +60 armour to all dwarfs in range, or Master Rune of Wrath & Ruin, that cuts move speed and charge speed of enemies in its area by 72%. This is the lord pick that supports the dwarf army, and don't think he's some kind of wizard that dies when someone looks at him funny, while the melee defence is low at 40, the Runelord has the same 120 armour as the other lords, plus up to 35% missile resistance, sharing 20% of that with nearby allies. Slapping him on an anvil of doom gives a map-wide buff of +15% magic resist to all friendlies. TL;DR fucks magic, gets buffs. - Best Multiplayer lord pick.

Heros

• Master Engineer: Basically a must if you're running more than 2 artillery pieces, buffs artillery, has a decent sniper rifle of his own, not great in a fight with anything beyond hound packs and light cavalry, so don't expect him to be an effective guard for the cannons he's buffing.
• Runesmith: Basically a squishier version of the Runelord, has many of the same buffs, both passive and active, worth considering even with a Runelord so you can spread the buffs wider.
• Thane: While they still suffer from being slow, Thanes can be used more aggressively than legendary lords. Kit them out with the Rune of Slowness to gimp enemy mobility, or give them the Ironbeard's Ring and coordinate with a source of fire damage: Flame Cannons, Dragonback Slayers, Warriors of Dragonfire Pass, basic Irondrakes, or Brimstone Gyrocopters, all of these will deal serious damage to units inside the debuff aura.

Infantry

• Miners: The closest thing to cannon fodder in the Dwarf Roster, miners are cheap AP units.
• Dwarf Warriors: Did you know that a unit of Dwarf Warriors costs 475 gold but can hold against 3 units of Empire Swordsmen, costing 400 gold each, for just over 2 minutes and racking up roughly 90-100 kills before dying/breaking? Dwarf Warriors aren't great, just good, and are very much just a shield wall frontline. They will trade positively against most infantry that are tier 1-3 excluding units with high AP values or anti-infantry buffs. Dwarf Warriors aren't the same as Elite heavy infantry however, they will break in time, if rear charged, if attacked by great weapon units, if hit with leadership debuffs, or if attacked by characters. This is a unit that buys time for a unit in the second line to get in position to assist, do not assume you can just deploy them as a single line and have artillery sit safely behind them.
  • Warriors of Dragonfire Pass(ROR): Slightly better warriors that deal fire damage in combat, not a guaranteed pick most of the time, but good against any faction that is vulnerable to fire, consider pairing with a Thane carrying Ironbeard's Ring to boost damage.
• Dwarf Warriors (Great Weapons): You know how Dwarf Warriors can hold frontlines for a time but need a second line unit to assist them, this is cheapest of the second line units. Regular warriors have shields, 40 Melee Defence, and charge defence against large units, Warriors with Great Weapons don't have those defences, they get armour piercing damage which is the kind of offence needed to make up for the vanilla warriors' shortcomings. Don't try and use them as a frontline unit, and replace them when you can with other melee infantry.
• Longbeards: Warriors +1 really, they buff the leadership of other units (its the generic Encourage passive so no stacking with lords), so consider mixing them with warriors. Cost-wise your mostly paying for better Melee Defence, better Leadership, the leadership aura, and Immune to Psychology compared to vanilla Warriors. A common question is which is better for cost, Longbeards or Warriors, but outside of fighting undead armies that have tons of fear/terror effects, the answer to the question is; use both. While the differences between the two units are obvious in comparison, to the player on the other side of the battlefield it doesn't matter much because a Dwarf line is still a solid formation that is hard to break. Longbeards work good in the wings to buff leadership in the flanks, and having warrior units means you can save gold for more missile units and artillery.
• Longbeards (Great Weapons): While the difference between shield Warriors and shield Longbeards isn't much, the great weapon variant favours the Longbeards. Being behind the line means you can reposition them to apply their auras and a common occurrence is for fast-moving skirmish infantry to run around the frontline and charge the second line units. GW Longbeards can handle these surprises a lot better than the GW Warriors, but on the other hand, you may not be deploying wide enough to need the aura effects, in which case the Warriors can save you gold.
  • The Grumbling Guard(ROR): Not too bad, stat wise its a bit more armour & melee attack, 10 more leadership, and 13 more Melee Defence, which puts them at a whopping 51 Melee Defence. You don't get any improved damage output with these guys, instead you get an ability that replenishes 9% of vigour for them and nearby allies. This may not sound like much, but fatigue debuffs are crippling for units, and Dwarfs rely on grinding things out so even a small vigour buff to some units is good even if it just moves them from exhausted to very tired. But wait, this ability has infinite uses and a low cooldown so spam it away. While Hammerers do the same job but better, the Grumbling Guard are fantastic for keeping Ironbreakers in better condition than their enemies.
• Slayers: Slayers are kind of weird. They're unbreakable, quick, hit hard, and do a lot of damage with no consideration to survivability. This means that they can seriously fuck up higher-tier units but on the same time are vulnerable to cannon fodder. It does not matter if you're a crappy goblin with a crappy spear, it's getting through a Slayer's hide as much as a Chosen's Daemonforged Axe. When using Slayers, hold them back so that other units, especially ones with charge defence, take the brunt of the charge before moving the slayers to counter attack, and while it might cost you the charge bonus, having them attack through the buffer unit really improves the lifespan of your slayers. Note that if you ever leave them in the open, missile units just have to imagine shooting them to wipe the unit, which is an expensive mistake. Also a definite must take against vampire counts and Tomb Kings with all their fear effects, but do not ever think about using them against Vampire Pirates because they will get shot to pieces before any fear/terror units get close for the unbreakable to matter. Also leave them at home against Wood Elves, or if you have fore-knowledge that your opponent likes horse-archer tactics.
  • Dragonback Slayers(ROR): Slayers with better MA & MD, and they get physical resistance on top of the shield defence. The real value comes with their passive that activates in melee, it gives them fire damage, fire resistance, and applies slow debuff and the flammable trait for weakness to fire (doesn't stack if the enemy already has the flammable trait, but will stack with other effects of a different name that reduce fire resistance). The physical resist, slow debuff and the combo of fire damage and flammable debuff makes this unit a generally better pick over vanilla slayers, note that they do not get the fire resistance outside of combat so getting hit by flaming missiles outside of combat will hurt, lore of fire spells are still subject to dwarf magic resistance though.
• Giant Slayers: These are just super slayers, too costly to run a lot of, they will instantly blend light cavalry units like marauder horsemen or Ellyrian Reavers that dare to charge them, not that you should be using them to counter these units, its just funny to see happen. Giant Slayers are basically Thorgrim Ironfist as a many Dwarfs instead of one. What they don't kill will be pretty close to death. Cannon fodder might counter slayers, but Giant Slayers dish out enough melee damage that you only need to worry about elite infantry and high mass units charging them. More vulnerable to shooting as they don't get the missile defence that Slayers get, these guys are expensive but do the job. Not recommended as a staple unit in army builds due to their cost, but good to pick if you're against monster or cavalry heavy armies.
• Hammerers:
  • Peak Gate Guard(ROR): The ultimate anti-armor unit, they go through heavily armored units like swordsmen through skavenslaves.

Ranged Infantry

• Thunderers
• Irondrakes: Those flamethrowers are very powerful against infantry and everything vulnerable to fire. While they're not technically rated to counter armored infantry their flames will constantly push them back, allowing the damage to pile up. They are surprisingly strong in melee if not deployed in a thin line because the back row can use their flamethrowers at point-blank.
  • The Skolder Guard(ROR)
• Irondrakes (Trollhammer Torpedo)

Combined Infantry

• Quarrellers
• Quarrellers (Great Weapons)
• Miners (Blasting Charges)
  • Ekrund Miners(ROR)
• Ironbreakers: The fact that Ironbreakers are one of the toughest units in the game would make them a key part of a Dawi late game army. Add to that blasting charges and you have something which can stomp most other infantry into the ground. Their only downside is that their damage in hand to hand is not that great, but that's what thunderers, slayers and artillery is for.
  • Norgrimlings Ironbreakers(ROR)
• Rangers
  • Bugman's Rangers
• Rangers (Great Weapons)
  • Ulthar's Raiders(ROR)

Cavalry

Does not exist. See Slayers, Rangers and Air Units if you want something fast, you beardling.

Artillery

• Cannon
• Bolt Thrower
• Flame Cannon
• Grudge Thrower
  • Gob-Lobber (Grudge Thrower)(ROR):
• Organ Gun

Air Units

• Gyrobomber
  • Skyhammer(ROR): Drops cluster bombs so be aware that the damage area is greater than the marker shows.
• Gyrocopter
• Gyrocopter (Brimstone Gun)