Dwarfs, What can be done?

[khaosgoblin]

After yet another event where players call for the banning of dwarfs, I would like to open the floor on how to make them more interesting as I would never like to see an army book banned.

I had a few ideas to try & give them some flexibility:

Start the army 15" on the table rather than 12"?

Free command for combat units (no missiles) of 15+ models?

Runic items for elite unit champions?

Most radically 25% Dogs of War troops, not counting as core?

Ideas, there must be a way

[noahtonkin]

Make them fight.

Max 1 cannon, 1 grudge thrower, 1 bolt thrower and 1 organ gun. Or max 4 war machines. I'm sure this will end up as 2 cannons, 2 grugethrowers, but empire do that with mortars anyway.


Their combat stuff is hard enough, it's just less risky to sit back and shoot.
If you give them bonuses then they'll fight because they'll be under costed, personally I think it's just a case of limiting their artillery.

shot cap as well to limit the quarrellers/hand gunners.

[Meals]

4 runed-up warmachines is still more than enough to encourage castling. Ideally, you have to find a way to make the warmachines a less reliable way of killing things, so they aren't used as the basis for army style.

Its not the player's fault, but when you can take S5 Grudge Throwers and Cannons that pretty much never miss and never blow up either, why on earth wouldn't you? And then you have to make sure they survive long enough to do their job, and dwarves just don't have the mobility to deal with Scouts and fast cav etc, other than by castling in a corner...   

When you then add on top that as they have no magic, they have to make up for the huge damage other races can cause with a magic phase by needing more shooting, its not hard to see that its tough to resolve the issue.

If they suddenly don't have Warmachines as an option, either by limiting them, making them unreliable or too expensive to justify, it will hopefully encourage them to look at other ways to get the job done

My (slightly more constructive this time ) thoughts anyway.

[fatolaf]

4 machines is what they have at most events anyway buddy, does not work, 4 of them and 3-4 units with GW's sitting around them..

Honestly I don't know why people want to even play with them anymore, it's the single most soul destroying army to play against. DO they enjoy people's faces when they see what they are up against, and simply 9 times out of 10, try to hide..??

You can't even hide any more with laser guided indirect Grudge throwers (Who made that rule??).
In this era of big monsters, nothing says ouch like getting drawn against a Dwarf opponent.

My only fix is let them simply die out, Dwarf players find it very hard to get club games and will never get 20-0's (unless you were Jimbob) so long as the opponents don't run at them, so you will see less and less at tournies..

Lets see what Rob's thoughts are...

[Steve H]

I love dwarves... But everybody knew that!

The book itself is not the problem, but they have suffered from the 8th fad of doing things in excess more than others. In my opinion it can be fun....

- the anvil brings you speed and something to help with skirmishers etc... Noone takes it because it's a risk, or they use it in a gunline which is a massive underuse of it.

- units don't have to be 30 men strong... I used small units of 14 hammerers run 7 wide at CC last year and they were ace. Its the units of 30 + men which are the problem. Small units of thunderers, quarrellers, rangers, miners and slayers are all ace - but you never see them.

- there's no imagination in people's lists, just the unkillable lord on shields in huge units of GW guys... You can make total killing machines in the dwarf book, slayer characters can run on their own, strollaz rune on the bsb can get you right up the table (so good with the anvil!)

- gyrocopters are ace!

It's the players and builds, not the army!!!! 

[Steve H]

Wish I hadn't sold mine after that post!!! :(

[jackhoneysett]

I wonder if you could fix this problem of negative play 10-10 snorefests by simply having scenarios. Battleline encourages conservative play I think, minimising losses by not taking risks and plinking off a few hundred points using perfectly reliable warmachines for a minor win.

They would have to be meaningful scenarios, for example with objectives on the board to capture (not watchtowers!), or with table quarters being worth significant points. This would force both players to come to the centre of the board and 'play the game' rather than sitting in the corner and just trying not to lose any points.

People may complain that certain armies are more maneovrable and better at scenario play - but you just need to design a list imaginatively!

[fatolaf]

One thing that can be done to massively improve the army is make Organ guns roll to hit.

NOTHING should be auto hitting in 8th Ed, tales away any chance people have of getting their war machines with flyers, fast cav. Meaning the Dwarf player carries on doing what they do..


Nothing.............They just sit there, occasionally re-rolling a misfire and watching you pick men off each turn....

[Annie]

dwarfs, What can be done?

Burn them all

[Undead Dan]

The Tempest comp this time was very pro-combat Dwarfs, and I think it worked quite well. Max 3 warmachines, Anvil/Gyrocoptor don't count, plus lots of freebies to fighting units. 30 Slayers with 6 free champs made for an interesting struggle. I think my game might've been atypical though, as my opponent actually started moving his army on turn 3, when it became clear I was about to get around the flanks! We had an epic grindfest (not the kind that you guys had at Cardiff) and it came out a very satisfying draw...

Personally, if going for hard comp, I'd say:
-No duplicated warmachines (unless they're a 2-4-1 deal like bolt throwers. This would apply to all armies!)
-3 free Giant Slayers for every Troll Slayer unit (the command models)
-Gyrocopter can march and shoot, no partials

Some positive rules that encourage fighting!
-Dwarf units can march after swift reforming
-All Dwarfs get 6" Vanguard but count as moving turn 1 if they do it
-New Anvil of Doom ability: 2+ remove one Augment/Hex from a unit, 4+ remove D3 of them! A Dwarf player might be more eager to charge into combat if he knows that his Anvil will still be useful, and he'll probably only have 1 turn of Mindwazzor or WS10 Init 10 Saurus to deal with.

Also, I would advise, for the sanity of the game in general, to make some much stricter line of sight rules for warmachines. For example, cannons must target a model, end of. They should only hit 1 part of multiple models. Stone thrower rules are flaunted by nearly all, and they say that you must be able to see all the models you're targeting. But so often people will say "Oh I can see that one model on that corner in that unit, so I'm going to place my template dead in the middle, that's 21 hits, take 'em off!" That is an indirect shot and should scatter even on a hit (- BS of crew).

On that note, Organ guns need something. I would suggest, rather than rolling to hit, simply remove the current to hit modifier from the number of hits. So, if they fire at something long range (12-24"), they subtract 1 from the hit. Skirmishers? One less hit. A unit of Waywatchers, behind a bunch of troops, in a forest 23" away? -5 hits. Also, make the re-roll misfire count as a proper misfire! Hell, now that I think about it, -2 hits for every minus modifier pretty much fixes this thing.

So, that's a start...