8th Ed. Dealing with warmachines & dwarvern gunlines

Playing against a friend? Because warmachines + ranged units sounds like a pure gunline to me and honestly while it might be fine for a friend to try it out once or twice it quite boring to play against. IF it's a friend I hope he realizes dwarfs can be played in other ways.

Regardless though the dwarfen warmachines are brutal, especially when runed up so it' s going to be an uphill struggle.

This is basically what one can expect from dwarfs:

- They'll dwindle our combat blocks with ranged artillery/units.
- Their close combat units are quite superior to ours (hello WS5, S5-S7 and potentially hatred).
- Their anti magic can eat one of our spells, but overall they have to invest quite a lot of points to deny our magic and they don't gain anything offensive in return. Their antimagic isn't as horrible as last edition.
- Their combat characters are better than ours, but they're limited in movement so they're somewhat avoidable.
- Since a lot of their units have WS5 our scar vets will be hitting on 4+. Which means that on average a single SV with GW will do 2 wounds, not counting their 5+ parry.
- Their combat units are never really big which means that removing 3-4 models a turn on the scary units can be crucial.

TBH if you KNOW that you'll be facing a gunline I'd probably take Tetto'Eko. If no special characters are allowed then bring a couple of skink priests with heaven and a slann with heaven. Heaven is generally speaking a great lore with a lot of S5+ spells.
You can do a "trick" where your priests roll first for the magic. This way you can sort of have them "pick" what spells you don't need for your slann. There are only 6 spells so chances are, if you it this way, that your slann WILL end up with the Comet.

Regardless of the opposing army I'd always suggest to get the following slann disicplines:

- Reroll first failed dispel attempt each turn.
- Turn a Dispel Dice to a Power Dice on a 2+.
- Channel staff combo.

On average this will, against dwarfs, grant you +2 PD. With 2 channels from the priests you can excpet to gain 2 additional PD/DD throughout the game (33% chance over 6 turns, if they live that long).

So statistically speaking you should gain 3 extra power dice every third turn or so. If the stars align and so on.

Point being: You'll be generating a healthy amount of extra dice and the dwarf player will have a hard time keeping up. There are 3 damage spells with heaven (thunderbolt, chainlighting and comet) so focus the comet on the warmachines and the other two on hit main damage dealing block, if possible. I believe both spells deals D6 S5/6 (or are both S6? can't remember) So you should easily be able to remove a couple of models with these spells.

Salamanders will be crucial two. Their S4 might not but everything (damn T4), but even a couple of well placed shots can generate quite a few kills and you need that.

Using terradons are a hit and miss. Unless I'm mistakening the dwarfen crew members are WS4, S3/T4 with light armour. So statistically speaking they should have 50% chance to wound your guys once (3 attacks -> 2 hits -> 1 wound -> 4+ armour save with LA, Shield and mounted). Or is it only the Rippers who are 4+?

Meanwhile I'm fairly certain our terradons cannot stomp and only two models are allowed to attacks. So you're looking at 4 attacks -> 2 hits -> 66% for 1 wound and 50% a good chance to bypass their light armour. That's not fantastic.

So all in all it's a pillow fight, but if you can distract just one of their warmachines and get of iceshard blizzard on another it's great.

Just be mindful that if he gets first turn you might lose you terradons to shooting.

Overall I think an army at 2500pts could look sometihng like:

Slann with mentioned discipline and BSB. (I prefer the slann oppose to tetto'eko).
1-2 skink priests (1 dispel scroll at least)
1-2 cowboys (optional) to take out small units suchs as gyrocopters and so on. (1 SV with armour of destiny, mounted and GW is 154pts).

a unit of 30 saurus warrirors.
4 units of 10-man skink skirmisher units.

Templeguards (30 strong. Slann here. DO PICK ironcurse icon (5pts, enchanted item).
2 unit of terradons.

2 units of 1 salamanders (both with extra snack).

From here on out there is 300pts left to. That's enough for 6 kroxigors, a unit of 6 ripperdactyls and a couple of more guards, a stegadon and some more guards or whatever you desire.

IF you care for it you could have both saurus units next to each other and an ancient stegadon with engine of the guards behind them (reaching both). Set the engine for lore of heaven and give both units the 6+ ward. It's not much and considered less competitive, but in return you have +5 casting value and the ward is also effective in close combat.
Use skinks to take our gyrocopters and generally screen your combat blocks, terradons to harass and salamanders to barbecue blocks (which I believe they can do from turn 2 with a little luck).

/end wall of text.

Oh and dwarfs are my least favored army to play against. Regardless of gunline or not expect to see a lot of your models to perish before they reach close combat. Where they'll die too

 

FIgured I'd just continue on with a few things I forgot:

Now depending on your opponent you'll see the following characters:

A Thane BSB.
An Engineer.
Some anti magic.

If he picked a runelord AND a runesmith I don't excpet to see a combat lord. The engineer will be placed near a warmachine and I'd expect at least the thane and one other in a combat block of pain and death.

A unit of either ironbreakers or hammerers with 2 characters is a deadly force to be reckoned with. Luckily unlike us their characters doesn't quite have as good stats as us. I mean yes their Thane might have Ld10 and WS6 BUT he also only have S4 and 3 attacks. That's not super good. Obviously if equiped with a GW and have gained hatred it's an entirely different story, but still.. I prefer Predatory Fighter, S7, T5 a 1+ armour and 4+ ward.

Anyway engaging the artillery this is what I would have in mind:

Templeguards have a 3+ armour and a 6+ ward (ironcurse or steggie ward). Even IF a a stonethrower hits 10 templeguards it'll only remove one model (I believe it's S3). That's not super great so don't worry too much about that.

The organ cannons are a bit of a hit and miss. They'll either be super useless or killing machine and super expensive (120pts + rune(s) and an engineer). That's easily 200pts if fully kitted.

So if you see the engineer next to the organ cannon expect BS5 (thane + rune). If you drop a comet do so on these two units you have a decent shot of removing both. Otherwise it's a murder machine hitting on 3+ even agaisnt skink even on long range against saurus (range 30"), wounding on 3+ and it comes with armour piercing.
Cannons can rip a nasty whole in your rank and file troops and destroy monsters and lone characters. See if you can stop these with either terradons or iceshard.
If you cannot get comet off, see if you can get off iceshard on the murder machine. On long range with engineer and rune it'll hit on 4+. However the organ cannon rolls artillery dice and not regular D6. So on average it should do something like 12 hits. With a 6+ ward it'll do 2,8 wounds on templeguards (if on longe range and with iceshard on).
If on close and no hex it'll do 4,7 wounds.
Regular Saurus Warriors with no 6+ ward will take 6,5 wounds at close range.
Skinks will be completely obliterated

Don't let that thing hit the same unit twice at close range. And hope it doesn't roll higher than 6 hits on each dice.

Bolt Throwers aren't really that terrifying.

So to summarize:

Watch out for cannons. Consider to charge with terradons.
Watch out for engineers next to organ cannons (prioritize this target with comet). Consider to charge with terradons.
S3 stone throwers aren't THAT big of a deal.
Bolt Throwers are weird.
No clue about the flame gun.

I hope you can use these things :0)

 

I realize your point about the reroll, but I prefer not to tailor the list too much.

Now tbh I'm actually not too sure when deciding lores happens. It might sound weird, but if we're talking a strictly all-comers list you'll probably always have a slann and priest. Unless you've picked WD or loremaster for your slann I suppose one could choose the lore based on the army you meet or is this not considered legal? As in do you HAVE to write down the lore when you make the rest of the list. I've always wondered this and just picked a lore when making a list since it's usually what I base my army around.

About beast vs heavens - Wyssan's Wildform is 10+ in casting value and I believe iceshard is 7+. With a lvl 1 priest this actually do make a difference. Besides Iceshard also gives a -1 to Ld and that's quite good.

I'm not sure I agree with your weapon choice for the SVs. The biggest issue with charging a lone character into a any unit is not doing enough wounds and thus lose due to CR. Here's the thing though: Regardless of the amount of wound you cause you cannot break them since they'll more than likely be steadfast anyway. Against regular RnF dwarfs with WS5 the reroll to hit will grant you 2 wounds and the GW will grant you 1,68. This is not with PF included though. Rerolling to hit is more safe here, I agree, but still.. One thing to also keep in mind though: Against a thane S7 will be much better than S5. Same can be said for ironbreakers. If the character is lone the 4+ ward will be crucial due to sniping cannons. Again though this is basically list tailoring and I personally try and keep it low (obviously against gun lines I go heavens for sure if I know it's coming, I do however hate gunlines :3 ).

Also are parrys considered to be an actual ward? I realize you cannot have both a ward and parry, similar to how you cant have a regen and parry, but you cannot use OTS against regen so can you use it vs parry?
It wouldn't make much sense really

Obviously one coild list tailor even more. We're talking 4 salamanders, no dispel scroll, no reroll failed dispel, ASF sword on scar vet, take tetto'eko for a second (?!) comet and stuff like that.

 

Core with more armies should be on the minimum. Some armies might have more, but truth be told why would you pick more regular saurus warriors when you can get the superior templeguards?

Cameleons are great, but a risk. Get first turn and pew pew pew the opponent. Don't get first turn and watch them perish. T2 and 6+ save is tough.

When I bring them it's usually 2 units of 5 and try not to get them two close to each other (panic risk). They're a rather small investment. Some prefer 1 of terradon + 1 unit of cameleons, some just a single unit of cameleons or terradons and.. well yeah it depends on what you want. They cost the same and do the same (in rough terms).

I think the more safe option is the terradon. They have more purposes, can shoot, drop rocks, redirect and charge.

 

Wait until you play against a wood elf gunline.