8th Ed. Dwarfs

[hellbreaker]

So I don't usually have much trouble figuring out possibilities in fighting different armies but I have found myself a bit lost when trying to figure out ways to deal with the dwarfs a friend of mine recently gathered, the warmachines specifically.
I've been pondering around about Chameleons, Terradons and a Slann but all three seem to fall short for different reasons.

The Chameleons are short ranged and likely to disable or cripple a single warmachine without posing much more threat after if any at all.
Terradons could likely drop rocks on the crew but since bunkering up close together would be favourable for the dwarfs they'll have movement issues and are easy to shoot down.
Dwarfs are innately strong against magic and can easily just close down my magic phase so while a Slann seems awesome I'm a bit iffy about it due to the rules for powerdice.

The only thing I have actually settled for is decking out that old and dusty Engine of mine so that I can at least have some sort of defence against the artillery while I march up and try to deal with the dwarfs hand-to-hand instead. Besides, Gungan shields are cool.
Any advice that you could share for someone not actually used to fighting dwarf gunlines?

Thanks in advance!
-Robin

 

[MasterSlann]

in my experience against dwarfs, bringing a stegadon has never turned out well for me. Especially an EOTG with priest, you might as well give your opponent 300+ victory points because of all the cannons. lots of skinks has worked for me but only as long as there isn't an anvil :/ lore of light with the slann could help in getting to combat faster though and has worked for me. Once you get into combat you should be fine though. Hope this helps

 

[ForgottenKnight2001]

Dealing with gun-lines with a slow-ish foot army is never all that fun. Make sure you have lots of terrain (if you're not generating it automatically), having lots of open space really makes for short games vs gun-lines.


Mobility, magic (not so much vs dwarves, but it can eventually get through), terrain and mobility are your biggest hopes against it (yes, mobility twice).

Give him LOTS of targets he has to deal with or risk losing part of his gun-line. While CoC aren't all that great in most cases, they're fast enough to get into his guns and war machines quickly, so he'll have to shoot them, but not if he's busy dealing with chameleon skinks at the same time, poison kills machines just as easily as foot troops.

I'd avoid a stegadon, he'd be a good cannon magnet on the first turn, but won't last much beyond that.

I'd be tempted to field 2 units of CoC, an Old blood kitted out for survivability with a charmed shield and a crown of command (you know, 1+ re-rollable or 4+ ward, stubborn, GW VoFF build) (either in one of those units or on his own) and 2-3 units of chamo skinks. Granted, that's only really going to work against war machine heavy lists, it won't fight good against anything else.

In terms of magic, he's not mobile, so pray that you get a comet on one of your skink priests and drop it in amongst the gunners and war machines.

Light is good for the high strength magic missile (first spell level 2), Pha's Protection will help a unit that you really want to live, Net of Amyntok might stop gunners or quarellers, but since the machines are high toughness, I wouldn't put it on them, though it's a 50% chance they can't fire with only str 3 and timewarp will get your units across the table and into combat and out of shooting fast (you can get all friendly units within 12" into combat turn 2 with some good rolling).

Life can help with bringing dead models back and +2 or +4 toughness and regeneration (watch out for flaming bolt-throwers) Plus dwellers below can cause serious damage on dwarves.

 

[Taipan]

The Chameleons are short ranged and likely to disable or cripple a single warmachine without posing much more threat after if any at all.

One less warmachine is still better than nothing man. Its another cannon or stone thrower template that doesn't kill more of your infantry. Also, you can charge other cannons in the gunline to tie them up if need be.

Terradons could likely drop rocks on the crew but since bunkering up close together would be favourable for the dwarfs they'll have movement issues and are easy to shoot down.

Them's the breaks man. Just be careful with positioning, he can't block all his warmachines from being pummeled. Plus, if he's busy husbanding the gunline, he's not moving forwards, which means the Slann and EOTG are free to move closer and unleash their pain on his infantry.

Dwarfs are innately strong against magic and can easily just close down my magic phase so while a Slann seems awesome I'm a bit iffy about it due to the rules for powerdice.

Lol not really. Witness the full extent of Dwarf rune haxery;

- Rune of Shielding: Expensive armour rune, only affects the character wearing it, only works against magic missiles.
- Banner of Valaya: Only on the BSB (he's the only one with the points allowance large enough), and it adds +2 to dispel attempts, and removes RIP if they're within 12" of the bearer. It's massively expensive, and if you snipe out the bearer via other means (he can't afford defensive gear, because Dwarves don't have access to the generic magic items from the main rulebook and he's maxed his allowance anyway), it stops working.
- Banner of Grungi: Affordable on units with magic banner option, its like our Gungan Shield but again only against magic missiles, and even then its only a 5+ ward and 6" aura.
- Banner of Sanctuary: Cheap, but then it is only MR1. Again, only spells which cause wounds will be affected, and you have to stack it with other wards saves to be useful (only a 6+ by itself).
- Master Rune of Balance: Half a Runelords allowance, all of a Runesmiths. Steals a single power dice and makes it a dispel dice for the Dwarves. Meh, we print power dice with every spell attempt, who cares?
- Spelleater Rune: Same as above. One-use, and on a 4+ it removes the spell from your Slann's mind. Oh noes!
- Rune of Spellbreaking: They can buy two of these, but thats it. Works exactly like a dispel scroll.
- Rune of Warding: MR1, again useless if you don't cause wounds and even then, very marginal benefit.

So, at worst, they can block 3 non-IF spells per game, and get +2 on their dispel rolls. All the rest is MR garbage or restricted to magic missiles only, and thus ignorable with nukes or hexes.
Runelords add 2 dispel dice, Runesmiths can be spammed to provide an additional 1 each. Anvil provides one as well. So, usually they'll match you with dispel vs power, but again Slann don't care. We print dice every attempt, and some spells are so horrific he'll have to burn dispel runes to shut them down.

The only thing I have actually settled for is decking out that old and dusty Engine of mine so that I can at least have some sort of defence against the artillery while I march up and try to deal with the dwarfs hand-to-hand instead. Besides, Gungan shields are cool.

EOTG will help, but you need to get into close-combat as soon as possible. Nuke their stupid Oathstone Deathstar with 'Pit' or 'Dwellers' or something, and get in combat. Dwarves pay a premium for worse infantry than we have, and we can hide from their warmachine spam once inside a combat.

 

[strewart]

I would avoid the EotG... It may be able to give a ward, but if he gets first turn you could find it dead before it gets to put up the shield. And for the amount of VP it provides, it is worth him pointing a few artillery pieces at it for a turn to ensure one fails the ward save.

Why are charmeleons useless after destroying one warmachine? They are fast, have fairly long potential range, they could really cause some hurt. Plus a cannon should only be able to kill 1-2 per turn (and be happy if it points at them instead of your army ) or anything else is at -2 to hit minimum, and again better they shoot the charms than the rest of your army. 2, 3 maybe even 4 units of charmeleons would be worth taking.

 

[caldt]

I play dwarves pretty regularly, and have no idea what you guys are on about when you say we will just beat them in close combat.

Regular warriors with great weapons will be hitting and wounding on 3+ against saurus, and are the same amount of points, and the saurus hit and wound on 4+. Typically you will face longbeards instead, which makes the wounding a 2+. The saurus extra attack and armour save doesn't stop them getting chewed up by these guys, plus you will also have casualties from shooting.

Then even our characters seem to be worse off, a dwarf lord can become really nasty with the ridiculous choice of runes they have, which offers a better choice than we have. I even tried to combat this by having 2 scar vets per unit to just try and take him out, but they can easily be made to have 2+ to hit 2+ to wound and no armour saves, which means 2 dead scar vets.

I don't like playing against dwarves, or their homing cannon balls.

 

[eppe]

Recently my buddy has dusted off his Dwarf army and I actually prefer to play against it. If the Chameleons don't kill off his war machines it will atleast draw their fire for atleast 2 turns, if I'm lucky 3. That should give the rest of your army time to close on his blocks. That also means you have 3 turns to work whatever magic your going to get off. Alot will get dispelled but some will get through. (Leave cupped hands at home for this match up imo)

My dwarf buddy just sat their so the key is to out maneuver him and attack from the flanks with all your ranged prior to entering CC. You will probably lose CC if you just walk straight into his dwarf horde.

 

[strewart]

I play dwarves pretty regularly, and have no idea what you guys are on about when you say we will just beat them in close combat.

Regular warriors with great weapons will be hitting and wounding on 3+ against saurus, and are the same amount of points, and the saurus hit and wound on 4+. Typically you will face longbeards instead, which makes the wounding a 2+. The saurus extra attack and armour save doesn't stop them getting chewed up by these guys, plus you will also have casualties from shooting.

Then even our characters seem to be worse off, a dwarf lord can become really nasty with the ridiculous choice of runes they have, which offers a better choice than we have. I even tried to combat this by having 2 scar vets per unit to just try and take him out, but they can easily be made to have 2+ to hit 2+ to wound and no armour saves, which means 2 dead scar vets.

I don't like playing against dwarves, or their homing cannon balls.

Absolutely, they are hard as nails in combat. And if you give them time to soften you up at range first, you pretty much have no chance at all. The Slann MUST be able to get off at least a hex or buff, and you need to make your army work well together in combat to drag them down. They are a hard little army.

 

[hellbreaker]

Why are charmeleons useless after destroying one warmachine? They are fast, have fairly long potential range, they could really cause some hurt. Plus a cannon should only be able to kill 1-2 per turn (and be happy if it points at them instead of your army ) or anything else is at -2 to hit minimum, and again better they shoot the charms than the rest of your army. 2, 3 maybe even 4 units of charmeleons would be worth taking.

Well he has some 2-3 units of Quarrellers and a unit or so of Thunderers. He's not going to use cannons on the skinks.
With a 12" range I have to be close, most likely definitely close enough for a no-brain-no-effort charge from his warriors/longbeards. And I don't know about you, but skinks have never been champions of hand-to-hand combat for me.

Thanks for the responses, I see there's a bit of mixed opinions here but I'm going to bring out the Slann for once I guess.
I don't have much trouble using my Saurus led army with Skink priest magic defence against what I have been generally facing but Dwarfs? There's no use in magic defence against them and I need firepower more than anything.

I'll appreciate any further responses of course but thanks for now.

 

[Ejpok]

Hello,
The thing with dwarfs is that they have Good Antimagic and they can destroy spells:/
But If you could get pass his magic Defens with spells like Iceshard blizzard or My personal fav - a large Comet of Cassandora cast with IF There is a high prob that You will get 2x6 when you cast a spell with 6 dice Than you will have much easier with Static Dwarfs Using a Death Slann is Also Nice that is if He won't eat Purple Sun.
Cheers.

 

[Ailideon]

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Light is good for the high strength magic missile (first spell level 2), Pha's Protection will help a unit that you really want to live, Net of Amyntok might stop gunners or quarellers, but since the machines are high toughness, I wouldn't put it on them, though it's a 50% chance they can't fire with only str 3 and timewarp will get your units across the table and into combat and out of shooting fast (you can get all friendly units within 12" into combat turn 2 with some good rolling).

Thats not 100% true Forgotten. All warmachines automatically fail the Net of Amyntok check, thus not being able to fire. Look under the warmachine sections of the BRB for characteristic tests.

I have found that against dwarves if you run Lore of Light or Shadow you should be fine. For light the two most important spells to be getting off for the first two turns is Pha's Protection and Net. This doesn't shut down the dwarf shooting but can really hinder it. Chameleon skinks really help against dwarves. There choice is to either fire at the skinks or your front line, I would prefer them firing at the skins.

 

[Scalenex]

I play vs. dwarves a lot (they usually they win ). Chameleon skinks are great at killing grudge throwers and cannons, but they get slaughtered by the organ gun. A dwarf player who knows what he's doing will position his organ gun to cover . If you want to take out his war machines you'll need to take multiplel groups of chameleon skinks or terradons. You are going to lose at least one before you take out the organ gun or get into close combat. I recently started fielding skink skirmishers instead of chamo skinks because you can field a lot more for the same price, but I have yet to try it more than once so I'm not sure how good that strategy is.

The best thing I've found against enemy war machines is to not take things that die really fast to cannons. Stegadons and Carnosaurs are a liability. Salamanders and Razordons are also fairly vulnerable to cannons but I had limited success fielding groups of three. The best the cannon can do is kill one a round and when that happens you end up with lots of spare crewman for the remaining dinos.

I usually field larger Saurus blocks on the assumption that they will lose a rank by the time into combat. If you don't have giant dinosaurs, your Temple Guard will become your opponent's favorite shooting target, so I usually try to give an Iron Curse Icon to the unit champion or the Slann with the Icon.

Even if you take out the war machines or mitigate the damage somehow, you still have to fight some hard infantry. Dwarves with great weapons are deadly. Saurus can’t beat them in a straight on fight unless they have magical buffs or get a supporting charge.

I think about any magic lore will work, but you want to avoid basing your strategy around remains in play spells because dwarves have nothing else to do with their power dice than shut those down. I’ve had good luck with Shadow. I plan to experiment with Heavens. I figure if I give the Slann Heavens without lore mastery and take a level two skink priest, I can virtually guarantee the skink priest gets chain lightning. The priest using skirmishers as cover and my foe has to choose between dispelling chaing lightning moving up his packed lines or a Comet in the middle of his artillery line.

 

[SouthlandLizardman]

I play against Dwarves pretty regularly, and it is one of the few cases I have found CoC to be useful. I use them to run ahead of the army and attack quarellers, in conjunction with skinks which will either kill his warmachines or distract them while your CoC deal with shooting units or warmachines. Take a Scar-Vet with the ward save item 4+ so you will survive a bit more of the dwarven shooting.

 

[Taipan]

I would avoid the EotG... It may be able to give a ward, but if he gets first turn you could find it dead before it gets to put up the shield. And for the amount of VP it provides, it is worth him pointing a few artillery pieces at it for a turn to ensure one fails the ward save.

At least it's something. Also, if he's pointing 2-3 cannonballs at it, thats less warmachine fire into your Saurus, TG and Salamanders. I agree though, it probably will die, but no one else gets the Gungan Shield, so we might as well try. It's not like there is anything else worth taking in Heroes except Iceshard Priest spam to shut down his gunline (stacked on top of 'Pha's Protection', he basically doesn't have a gunline anymore).

Why are charmeleons useless after destroying one warmachine? They are fast, have fairly long potential range, they could really cause some hurt. Plus a cannon should only be able to kill 1-2 per turn (and be happy if it points at them instead of your army ) or anything else is at -2 to hit minimum, and again better they shoot the charms than the rest of your army. 2, 3 maybe even 4 units of charmeleons would be worth taking.

Because a unit of Thunderers will then turn around and blast your tiny unit to death, or they'll get charged by the unit assigned to bodyguard the cannon they just sniped.

I play dwarves pretty regularly, and have no idea what you guys are on about when you say we will just beat them in close combat.

Nobody is saying that. But, if you don't get into combat ASAP, you will get tabled by his shooting. Saurus still need to be buffed to have a hope against the Longbeards and Warriors they'll be duking it out with, but they've got a better chance of victory there, rather than getting blown apart from a distance without retaliation. Temple Guard should do ok though, S5 at Initiative does not make Dwarves happy.

Regular warriors with great weapons will be hitting and wounding on 3+ against saurus, and are the same amount of points, and the saurus hit and wound on 4+. Typically you will face longbeards instead, which makes the wounding a 2+. The saurus extra attack and armour save doesn't stop them getting chewed up by these guys, plus you will also have casualties from shooting.

Yep, but they go last. Also, we'll be setting them on fire with Salamanders, or annhilating them with magic from the Slann/'Chain Lighting' if you roll it on a Priest. So, both of them will likely enter combat already damaged.

Also, in terms of getting chewed up, I think they're going to fight to a stalemate. Saurus have more attacks going first and can parry on a 6+ as well. Both sides save on a 6+ with armour. If you throw in a Scar-Vet with a halberd or Burning Blade, you could swing the combat your way.

Longbeards are restricted, he has to take at least as many Warrior blocks. More likely, your Temple Guard will be engaging the Longbeards.