So, as I was browsing GW's site, I came across this http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=13000048 Have any of you heard any rumors so far?
I've read rumours about 2 attacks + gromril armour on hammere, but a higher price per model. I'm not sure what to think of that. On one hand that means we're looking at stronger models, but on the other hand it will also mean that their units will be smaller and therefore suffers more from stuff like salamanders, ancient stegadons and damage magic. If the rumours are true we're basically looking at hammeres being stat-wise close to warrior of chaos, just with worse movement and initative and no mark of nurgle. This should be reflected in their cost.
Summary of things gathered recently -Yes Belegar has gromril. His Oathstone will be an extra points upgrade -Thunderers/Quarrellers are CORE and RARE currently -Gyrocopter is coming (see picture behind Slayer in video in "what's new" -pg 27 of the WD says "Next week: Engineering Madness" in Designer Notes -I would like to note that the Hammerers use GROMRIL hammers ARMY RULES It's basically 3 rules: -Ancestral grudge, roll a D6 before the first turn. On 1-2 your general hates the enemy's general. On 3-4 your characters hate all enemy characters. On 5-6 your army hates the entire enemy army. -Resolute, charging units have +1 strength -Relentless, cannot be marchblocked. (NOTICE: no -1 to flee and pursue rolls? I figured this would go with how movement and charging changed and all.) My speculation based on writings and my own reasonable deduction, says that the Dwarf (special name) armour will be a 4+ and that Gromril will be a 3+. The basic heavy will remain. Now this may be the armour or rune related. ARMOUR SAVES 6+ Thunderers/Quarrellers/Machine Crew 5+/6+ Thunderers/Quarrellers with HwS 5+ Warriors with Great Weapons 4+ Hammerers/Longbeards 4+/6+ Warriors with HwS 3+/6+ Longbeards with HwS 2+/6+ Ironbreakers with HwS
i bet their organ gun will be nerfed (they'll have to hit i think) but cannons and strong dispell phase will stay IMO, so prepare to struggle against those short warm blooded drinking guys.
Kimiko has a good general summary: GW is switching to rolling out new army models and books in weekly releases, rather than all at once at the beginnng of the month. Additions: Hammerers/Longbeards are the dual kit disclosed, with hammerers having two attacks (sentence in the new White Dawrf revealed this) each and "scale [plate] armour" (does not say gromil armor, so we do not know if they have a gromil armour upgrade opton but it does not look like it). and longbeards having an axe (great weapon option) Gyrocopters will be two types: bomber or fighter and one of the types will be able to be run in a unit of multiples, sorting of like the flying pegs in Bett armies. A dual kit with Throne/Anvil, possibly on a chariot type base like we have seen done in other armies, such as Dark Elf Cauldron, instead of as a war machine or fixed unit is coming out. Belegar special character has partial rules in latest weekly White Dwarf, he looks to be stout with a 1+ AS, immune to KB, some ward save, but only S4 but with some other special rules such as stubborn. Ironbreakers/Iron Dragons dual kit (new shooting unit, not clear what they shoot but may be like flaming blunderbusses) are the next out. Less certain stuff: Plastic slayers are uncertain, other than the elite models like the dragon slayer model (GW was offering a special on buying a lot of basic slayers in metal raising doubts about a plastic slayer box until later in the year) A larger cannon is possible perhaps in a dual kit with some kind of iron daemon like model or a drilling machine for miners. Supposedly cannons are nerfed a bit but, with runes and/or engineers, able to avoid misfires most of the time. The organ gun is likely to have to roll to hit (no autohits) like the hellblaster volley gun in Empire.
Is the OG that powerful? The 18" range is a bit crappy and even if the Hellblaster rolls to hit, it shoots three artillery dice instead of one for the same price.
http://plastickrak.blogspot.co.nz/2014/02/new-dwarf-pictures-leaked-gyrocopters.html?m=1 Take a look. Those gyrocopters lol.. With that said though I'm mildly jealous. I mean.. It looks like their whole range of units are getting an update while all we got was a couple of priests, tetto'eko, the bast, ripper and the trog. I suppose it would've helped if the trog would've actually been great. Anyway I'm excited for my dwarf friend :3
Building up to become a great release. I don't do stunties myself but I love playing against them with my Greenskins. I think this will be the year that I finally paint up the latest Skarsnik model. I'm a big fan of the Karak Eight Peaks background and now Belegar is out with his own rules too!
The Dwarves are shaping up to be looking quite good, although the gyrocopters do remind me of Dr.Robotnik. Speaking of, I'm tempted to convert a gyro into some Forge of Souls monstrosity, maybe something Nurgle inspired and mix it up with a Plague Drone...
This is from warseer Basically, they reduced the points costs of runesmiths and rune lords and nerfed MR of Balance by requiring a 4+ to steal dice but RL's get MR2 and give unit AP and RS's get MR1 and give unit AP and they can take spellbeaker and spelleater runes. The other thing is MR of Valaya costs a lot less now, is only a bit more costly than MR of Balance (but appears to be a banner), and still gives +2 to dispel (which is pretty good) and allows one to dispel a RIP spell in the friendly magic phase on a 3+. A summary post on Bugman's which I edited. Losses/nerfs: - Less (guaranteed) dispel dice. Anvil is probably too expensive for 3 bound spells and +1 dice each magic phase even with extra wounds and models. - Longbeards with great weapons pretty expensive (one pip increase cost per model) - No more rerollable armoursaves with runes on characters -War machines generally cost more -Need Bugman special character to upgrade Rangers to Longbeard Rangers (+1WS/+1S/+1BS) -Anvil appears to be nerfed (3 bound spells, so easily stopped but less feedback issues) -MR Grungi costs more, gives BSB 4+ ward and 5+ward to units witin 6" of banner or unit with banner (might mean BSB) Gains: - No more warrior-tax on longbeards (long-beards cost slightly more but have better special rules) -Thanes now LD10 - Retain the runes system after fearing for years it'd be removed, when in fact it is almost expanded due to the stacking effects - A list of beneficial armywide special rules the length of your arm. Ancestral grudge gives some kind of hatred to general or army, depending on the roll, shieldwall gives +1 parry save when charged with shields, Gromil Shieldwall gives +1 parry save all rounds of combat. - Cheap-Test special gyrocopters with pretty strong ranged weapon options (better than old copter) (43% cheaper and come with one use drop bombs like drop rocks and an option to vanguard up to half of gyrocopters rounded up) - Hammerers with 2 attacks, for a good price. This. Is. Huge. We've wishlisted this for ages, despite it always seeming so... 'Wishlisty'. - Ironbreakers got a slightly better [parry] save, as I'd hoped for years. - Irondrakes are ridiculously amazing. - Organ guns weren't nerfed into the ground as expected. In fact, they reportedly have increased range, with options to re-roll misfires and gain +1 to hit runes and other war machine runes. - Heavy armour for our missile guys. - Cheaper miners (ambushers for cost of warriors with great weapons). - Ranger units of 5+ size, making ideal cheapo warmachine hunters and chaff fighters and come equipped with a bunch of stuff (warriors with great weapons, crossbows, throwing axes, shield option). - Slayers have a fluffy beneficial rule allowing them to make an attack before they die. - Shieldbearers give +2 armoursave, and +2 wounds extra. - The stupid downside of oathstones is gone (can move with them and get gromil shieldwall parry save on eligible units on all sides with it) - Runesmiths, cheaper and give MR1 and passing armour piercing to units. This is seriously awesome, and makes the damage done by str4 units better, especially when they charge and get str5. - Daemon and dragonslayers with slayerpowers [built in other trickster’s shard and D3 multiple wounds, respectively, plus get to hit back as they die]. Special: Hammerers IronBreakers Slayers Cannons Miners Bolt Throwers Grudge Throwers Rare: Organ Guns Flame Cannons (fixed rules and can rune them) GryoBombers (basically old mortar template wtih a bounce potential for second small template hit, plus multishot weapon, but cost a lot more) Iron Drakes This is summary from information previously posted, leaked pictures on Bugmans and elsewhere, and a couple of guys with access to demos of army book and their notes.
In bugman Brewery people are very disapointed with the latest rumours because they didn't get the promised revamps that would bring a whole new world of tatctics and posibilities to the army and they only got the irondrakes and gyrobomber as new stuff (people were expeting buff wagons, some huge tunneling thing or maybe even runic golems monstrous infantry) but anvil got nerfed to the ground and magic defense from runesmith is now gone (no more auto generate 1 dispel dice, now they have to channel on a 6+ as everybody else). They also said that the guy that wrote the book is the same that wrote ours and he has done to the dwarfs the same thing he did to us. He is a guy that has no imagination that the only thing he knows is nerfing and rehashing.
This is my own opinion, but those iron drakes sound pretty brutal. If a S5 armor piercing, quick to fire shot model with a 4+/6++ is only 7.5ss, I don think that is very balanced. Thats also just the regular unit, the upgrade for the unit champ is a S8 24" shot with multiple wounds(D3) These guys are made for monster/knight killing. I know that if you chose to take monsters against dwarfs you would have a hard time keeping them alive anyways but now there is no way that will ever be a good idea with these guys on the field.
Iron Drakes sound good to us, but look what they have to compete with. They are a powerful ranged combat unit in an army book that's about 50% powerful ranged combat units by volume. The Redundancy of them will probably mean we won't see them much. Dwarf players who are bored with the old setup will probably use them but Dwarf players who are creatures of habit will probably stick with the tried and true cannons, grudge throwers, quarrelers, etc.
Erhhh... Right. Ok so here's what I agree on: they could've gotten something in terms of monstrous infantry (rune golems or something like that). That along with the two new copters, rangers and miners could've made for a decently mobile army. Or how about the rumoured tunned machine or whatever? Something fresh and interesting, but oh well.. On the other hand though the dwarfs have gotten much stronger. 2 attacks on hammeres, ironbreakers with 2+ armour save and improved parry (I'm not sure if max parry is now 5+ or 4+ on the turn they are being charged). Their organ cannon have been both nerfed and buffed - it is now range 30 and get be buffed with runes, but need to roll to hit. I believe their new unit is a ranged unit (albeit somewhat limited range AFAIK), with S5, AP and flaming attacks along with quick to fire or something like that. Their runesmiths/lords now give armour piercing along with MR1/2 and can each carry a dispel scroll (so we're still looking at multiple dispel scrolls) - combine a runelord with ironbreakers for the ultimate defensive units and along with S4 AP they can at least do something when the swing back. The nerfs the dwarfs got was sometihng that was ineviteble. I know the dwarf players have a hard time realizing this, but just as much as the slann and salamanders needed the nerf so does the heavy anti magic aspect of the dwarfs. I also believe their cannons have gotten a price bump. In terms of army wide rules we're looking at the chance to have a dwarf army with hatred to all their units (oh yay more rerolls to their WS5 and GWs ), +1 S on the turn they charge and some other stuff. Personally I believe that most dwarf players will play the game safe and do what they have always done - stand back, shoot and take the charge with their now improved melee units when time comes. This, however, isn't necessarily the only way to play. The new rules and units appear to inspire for a more aggressive dwarf army, but we'll see. The ironic thing is that I see a parallel from when our book released. Remember that? When the ripperdactyls were deemed useles along with the bast? A half year later people have come to realize that they can indeed be used, it's just a matter of preferences. So what I'm trying to say is that they might be disappointed now, but I'm sure they'll come to find their new book to be good. From what I've seen several people on this forum have claimed that our books is quite balanced, but then again it's a lot of the times a matter of preferences. Some will like to just do the same old, while others are trying out the new stuff and mixing things up. Anyway the dwarf players should try and relax because their new models are looking sexeh along with their rules. I can't wait to play my dwarf friend
More than speaking about the power of the army (wich I won't say anithing until I have the book in my hands), it is that they were suppoused to fix the army so it isn't boring to play with or against, that is why all the new stuff was expected. Then instead of giving more mobility they basically removed the anvil, only thing that allowed some board control. Then added a new gyro variant (really nice model but it is used mostly like the older one, so it is not that new gamewise) and the irondrakes (wich look really good on the paper, but I fear they may end up being a bit like jezzails). So only one and a half new units and nothing with a diferent troop ttype than the one they had before, that is the reason of the disapointment It was expected that the over the top magic defense would be nerfed and the anvil be turned into an innate bound spell thing. But dwarfs are meant to have good magic defenses and now it's kind of mediocre. The runesmiths giving AP makes as much sense as the skink characters restraining the predatory fighters. The spells on the anvil doesn't really seem to be worth the points it costs, specially when you have to cast against the usual level 4 mage using just bound spells. BTW, I wouldn't say salamanders are really nerfed now, the strength 4 template is a really big improvement. On the other hand the Slann got hit too hard with the nerfhammer, it needs to be a powerful caster, now it's just a mage with many spells.