How do dwarf armies play?

[David Wasilewski]

I agree - the scariest Dwarf army I ever played against was a warrior heavy one. If I was buying Dwarves, I would spend 70% of my points on warriors and the rest on rangers/characters. The rest of the army is just too vulnerable. I would play them agressive, roman legion style with brigades of heavy infantry in waves of checkerboard formation.

Saying this, you will still struggle against knights in the open - terrain is your friend against knights!

Dave

[Haranin]

I am not saying two cannon units at 2k isn't useful - the ability to pick off some chaos knight stands and murder infantry blocks is worthwhile.

What I am saying is that against light horse or flyers, a canny enemy will pick off those cannon... even if you do substantially escort them.  Any every unit/point you spend on shooting, or escorts is an unit and points not spent on the main battle line - where the game will be decided.

A large battleline makes it harder for the enemy to flank you, and may mean you can actually overlap his. Getting a full infantry brigade of dwarves into a flank of a battleline puts you a long ways towards victory. 

Not to mention the break point - two units of thunders and two cannon units are much easier to kill than three warrior units. In a typical 2k game, killing the gunline means the enemy merely needs to kill one or two warrior/ranger units.

Pure warrior/rangers means at best the enemy can trade a knight unit for a warrior unit. Moving quickly with a command 10 general a dwarf army has a decent chance to plow through enough enemy infantry to win.

A gunline also ties you down - pure warriors can go offensive or defensive at will and stay together. A gunline risks defeat in detail if you go offensive.

A defensive position might win a game against an enemy who cooperates; but in a campaign game or tournament you need to win, not play for a tie.

[Guthwine]

I am not saying two cannon units at 2k isn't useful - the ability to pick off some chaos knight stands and murder infantry blocks is worthwhile.

Though there wont be that much opportunities to shoot at heavy cavalry if you play against an experienced player.

The best thing about cannons is not so much their firepower, but the abillity to control your enemy because rarely will someone march willingly into an area that is in range of cannons.

[Haranin]

Effectively use of escorts can allow you some degree of targeting flexibility - if you want to run the risk of failing a command roll.  Lothaire's article over the yahoo group is an excellent discussion of the mechanics.

Frankly, outside a siege, the cannons will stay home 2/3-4/5 of the time. I will take them out occansionally just to shake up my opponents.

[Haranin]

Still mentally debating Trollslayers.

They do get almost double the attacks of anything else in the dwarf army; but I dislike having to get myself halfway to break point merely to avoid giving up alot of VPs. The always charge thing result can allow the enemy to lead them into a flank charge easily.

The always charge on initiative makes it easy for the enemy to set up favorable match ups.

What are other people's thoughts?

[Lex]

Still mentally debating Trollslayers.

They do get almost double the attacks of anything else in the dwarf army; but I dislike having to get myself halfway to break point merely to avoid giving up alot of VPs. The always charge thing result can allow the enemy to lead them into a flank charge easily.

The always charge on initiative makes it easy for the enemy to set up favorable match ups.

What are other people's thoughts?

Look at the trollslayers as per the Trail Army list.

[Carrington]

Still mentally debating Trollslayers.

They do get almost double the attacks of anything else in the dwarf army; but I dislike having to get myself halfway to break point merely to avoid giving up alot of VPs. The always charge thing result can allow the enemy to lead them into a flank charge easily.

The always charge on initiative makes it easy for the enemy to set up favorable match ups.

What are other people's thoughts?

I suspect Trollslayers, like most things, play very differently on a dense board with restricted lines of sight.

[vincent]

One thing that I think could help dwarves greatly would be if the "2 rounds of combat" rule from WMA was added to WMF.  It's something that I'm going to try to get a playtest of sometime in the near future.

That being said.  I like my dwarves,  even through they have gotten their tail handed to them every time I've played them.  The lack of cavalry is brutal.

FYI in France most Paris-based players have been playing to Warmaster with the rules of Warmaster Ancients (we call it WMMF).
This includes the "2 rounds of combat" rules, and yes it makes a lot of difference. We have playtested this with most armies now and find it to work fine. We also find a lot more fun, strategic and fair.

I played a 2000pts dwarf vs dark-elves battle yesterday with those WMMF rules. And yes, this "2 rounds of combat" makes a big difference for those small guys. As does the WMA rule allowing infantry to pursue cavalery if flanked and infantery supports being counted before casulaties. This gives the darwves a real chance to stand against cavalery when properly played, and makes the game more strategic.

[Stomm]

I have to confess that I do now much prefer the WMA combat rules in this regard, it's just much more satisfying to know that even rubbish infantry such as in my Empire army can actually do something other than just be a speedbump for my opponent's cavalry...