Designing a Dwarf Army

Written by David Stone

There are three different types of army I consider when I design an army, mainly because there are three types of game that I play - 2000pts, 8000pts and Campaign.

2000pts

This is the hardest to design and use, as its hard to know which bits to keep and which to drop. You can never design the perfect 2000pt army, that can take on all armies. A balanced army pitted against a couple of greater daemons will be hard pushed to stand its ground, whatever race it is. I'll go through the different troop types available, and say which ones I use for a good all-rounder dwarf army and way. you probably won't be able to squeeze it all into a 2000 point army, but most of the elements can be used, and if you're playing regular opponents it's a good idea to vary your force a bit.

My choice for a general is always Thorgrim. He' s the epitome of a Dwarf - a miserable git, but a hard one. He's quite expensive with all his war gear, but all of it is excellent value. The throne gives you an extra 4 wounds and 8 attacks, which is pretty s cary for everyone else. The Book of Grudges makes your whole unit hate everyone, giving them an unmodifiable leadership of 10, and you get to reroll all misses in the first turn. If you can't afford all his stuff, lose the Dragon helm. The throne can cause a problem in terms of movement, so don't use it unless you can magic it about (see Allies).

Next you need to get an elite unit, led by Thorgrim. Ironbreakers are a tempting choice, and can be a Power Gamers dream ( with the Banner of Shielding and Sceptre of Norgrim you get a 1+ save). Unfortunately there are plenty of ways to kill people without allowing an armour save. Hammerers are hard hitting, but always hit last which is a big draw back. The cheapest, and my choice, are the Longbeards. With a weaponskill of 5, and a save of 4+, they're hard enough. I have a unit of 20, in 4 ranks spread aroun d the throne. All Dwarf units, except the Slayers, are allowed magic banners. This is nice, but don't go overboard with them; remember if you lose all the rank and file troops in the front rank, you lose your magic banner and all its bonuses. A 50pt banner for your top unit is a good bet. I like a Dread banner. Although a lot of enemy units outnumber you at the start of the game, your cannons can soon whittle them down, and if you beat them in combat , they automatically break. Also a Dread banner makes you unaffected by fear causing troops.

My second unit is a 20 strong unit slayers. These are impossible to break, and with an additional hand weapon do a lot of damage. Led by a Giant or Dragon slayer they can take out most units, or stall the enemy's elite for several turns. Miners, spearmen an d warriors can all be used as your second unit. Miners aren't so good as they suffer the same disadvantages as Hammerers. Spearmen are a good solid unit as you can fight with two ranks, giving you extra attacks.

My final unit is a smaller unit of 12 crossbows, led by a Runesmith. I deploy them in a single line, to get maximum fire power. I never bother with Thunderers, only half the unit can fire each turn, and the range is 6" less than a crossbow. The Runesmith gets three Runes of Breaking which I use on only really nasty spells, i.e. something that will kill my King or my Flame cannon. Ordinary troops are expendable to magic (cruel but true). Its best not to bother firing at big enemy units; a unit of missile troop s usually only do 3 or 4 wounds, although this can reduce a units rank bonus. Small units or artillery make better targets. Also if your opponent has missile troops, start shooting at them. There's a good chance the other player will fire back, which saves your artillery crews for another turn.

Next there's artillery, which is covered elsewhere. In summary though I have a flame cannon (the most important thing) and a couple of organ guns.

Finally - allies. I don't take much in the way of allies in a 2000pt army, just an Empire wizard and some halflings. If you're using the Throne, you need extra mobility so take a Grey or Ice wizard to get a movement spell. Grey magic allows the Bridge of Shadows which can move the Longbeards unit about, or the Grey Wings which moves one model (the Throne) anywhere you like. If your slayers are holding up a unit they can't beat, you can magic the Throne into a flank attack. I use a small unit of halflings to act as a screen 5" in front of my main units. This saves them from some missile fire, but the main purpose is to screen my units from charges. The halflings get charged instead, and the following turn you can use the main dwarf unit to countercharge.

Note: KimShi distances himself from the abhorrent practice of taing allied Wizards for a Dwarf Army...

8000 pts

My 8000 pts army is very similar, except everything is bigger. I boost all my units up to 30 troops in 5 ranks of 6 and have a champion as well as the main character leading them. The "brave" champion can be used to issue/accept challenges (a sly move) and can be given useful magic items that the main character doesn't have room for, like the Gem of Gnar, Amulet of Fire, Ruby Chalice (all worth having if you can fit them in somewhere). I also give any character who can have one, a pistol. Dwarfs tend to get charged a lot and even if the rest of the unit don't have missile weapons, one or two pistol shots can make a difference to combat resolution.

For units I take the Longbeards with the King and Throne, a champion, a Fire Thrower (see article on War machines) and the Runes of Fear and Battle; the Hammerers with a Hero, a champion, a Fire Thrower and Dread banner; a Spear block with a Rune Lord, a champion and a Banner of Defiance; Slayers with a Daemon slayer, a Dragon slayer and 2 Giant slayers; and a unit of 30 crossbows with a Battle Banner.

I use the Slayers and Spear block as a big "holding" force, to take objectives or guard the flanks. Although the spearmen can't pursue with the Banner of Defiance, they have their rank bonus doubled to 6, and with the 2 ranks fighting and the Rune Lord in the front rank their very hard to shift. They're even harder if you can sit them on a hill (+1 to combat resolution).

As they can't pursue, have an invisible gyrocopter nearby to make a charge into the broken enemy in your turn.

I deploy my crossbows in 1 rank if I have the space, or 2 ranks of 15. This doesn't give them much of a rank bonus which is why I give them a Battle Banner. I also place the Army Standard in this unit, with Valaya's Rune. This Rune is great, but very expensive, so a big game is the only chance I have of using it. Most enemies will then send all their fliers into my crossbows to wipe out the poor little standard bearer. To help him out I stick Burlock next to him to issue challenges at anyone nasty looking. Burlock has the Rune of Swiftness and is Strength 7, pretty useful in a 1-on-1 duel.

Having 8000pts means you can have up to 2000pts of allies - an army in itself. If you don't use allies normally, it's a good idea to try some in a battle this size. Most Dwarf units are very similar, and do the same sort of thing - lots of skilled, tough warriors. There are two reasons to have allies: they can do things dwarfs can't do, and they can do the same thing but cheaper. Cavalry units and fliers can be used to exploit breaks in the enemy lines caused by your artillery, or catch fleeing units that hav e outrun your stout warriors, or harass their war machines. Wizards bring in extra mobility and fire power, and also lots of dispel scrolls to protect your lads. Cheap troops like horse archers, halflings and skirmishing longbows can make excellent screens to protect your big blocks from fanatics or repeating bolt throwers. If you want to boost your army size, try bringing in blocks of 50 Bretonnian peasant spearmen led by a Hero with the Crown of Command. Compared to your other units they're incredibly cheap, and although they've only got a Weapon Skill of 2 they'll hold up the enemy long enough to get your best troops into position. Another important use is backing up your artillery (See Protecting Artillery).

That's it for troop selection, the artillery is covered in my artillery article. Basically use every war machine you've got.

Campaign Banners

When you're designing a competition army, its best to select a balanced army that will work well against a variety of opponents. As your army will be playing a number of differing army types, you should select a force that can hold its own against the different styles of play undead, elves , chaos etc provide.

Creating a campaign banner is very different, and you can afford to design each banner to suit a particular foe. I am currently playing in a campaign with three other races: Elves, Chaos and Skaven. So far the elves have an uneasy non-aggression pact with my dwarfs, but fighting against Skaven and Chaos has been quite demanding. As both opponents are on different sides of my empire, I have found it fairly easy to select forces suitable for fighting the two very different enemies.

Against the Skaven, I have to face lots of big units of infantry, with frenzied plague monks, infiltrators and warmachines. I use lots of template weapons like the flamecannon and stone throwers to cut the skaven rank bonuses down. I also use small units to protect my artillery from the infiltrating gutter runners. These can pick off unguarded crews, but don't do to well against a proper fighting force. Remember, skirmishing units take the LOWEST leadership in the unit, not the leader's, and so gutter runners always test on a 7.

Chaos armies tend to have a few expensive troops, with large very expensive daemons. Against these I deploy my heavier guns, the cannons and organ guns. I also give all my characters weapons that do multiple wounds, as most chaos troops have at least two wounds, and lots of Big Kill items like Frostblade, Rune of Death and so on. Another threat from Chaos is powerful fliers, so I scatter a number of anti-flier items ie Talisman of Ravendark, Scarecrow Banner, Orb of Thunder.

Note: Although all these problems when facing Chaos are nullified to a certain extent due to the new rules..KimSHi

Another bonus for designing campaign armies is the ability to specialise banners. Although we limit each banner size to 2000pts, banners can be used to support each other and several banners can join in battle to overpower the foe. My campaign forces are made up of three different types: combat banners, scouting banners and specialist banners.

Combat banners
These are my main, large banners, up to 2000 pts, Presently I have a Longbeard banner, Hammerer banner and an Engineer banner. The first two are based on my standard 2000pt army. In one I have a Longbeard unit lead by Thorgrim ( my supreme commander), a unit of spearmen and the crossbow unit. The Hammer Banner has a Hammerer unit supported by a Trollslayer unit. My third large banner is an Engineer banner. As the 25% limit for artillery is used for the whole Campaign Force, not each banner, I have a much greater percentage of artillery in this banner than normally permitted. I use this force for siege breaking, or a support role in large battles. With three organ guns, a cannon, and a captured volley gun it makes for an exciting battle against defended city wal ls. To maintain the Engineer feel of the banner, I use a unit of Miners as the combat unit, supported by a unit of Thunderers, rather than crossbows. I don't usually use Thunderers, but I think this banner is most suited to high tech gunpowder, rather than traditional crossbows. As I recently allied with an Empire city I hope to add a Steam Tank to this force, and I'll probably have a second Engineer's Banner built Flame Cannons and Fire throwers.

Scouting Banners
As a campaign is limited to the revenue available, an empire with only 2000pt banners can't expand very quickly. Its a good idea to include a number of small banners. I use these to cover as large an area as I can, and to stall enemy invasions. The banners consist of 500-700pts of crossbows, with some halfling and elf archer allies and can fire a volley or two at an enemy banner, and flee before getting too much of a kicking. This slows the enemy enough for my combat banners to get close.

Specialist Banners
I have several banners suited to a particular role in the campaign including an airborne banner and a marine banner. To speed up exploration, or break through gaps in the enemies lines, I use airborne banners, with gyrocopters, war balloons and flying monsters. Although this banner can be easily beaten in a straight fight, bringing it into the last few turns of a battle can destroy a weakened enemy. I have an elf mage riding the dragon, and the extra mobility of the banner means I can quickly get him to a bat tle where magic superiority would help. I keep a marine banner with my fleet, to cruise the coast and raid unguarded enemy locations. As artillery and cavalry can only be deployed from a fleet in a coastal city, I don't have the usual artillery back up in this force. Instead I rely on gyrocopters to provide some firepower, and several units of crossbows supporting a unit of Ironbreakers. I use Ironbreakers, because without cannon to cancel out the oppositions missile fire, I like to have that extra protection

Thats all for my army selections. To summarise how to use a dwarf army - shoot as much as you can early on, have a runesmith to stop any particularly nasty spells, and have some hard bastards to kill any one left. The rest should be easy. The comments I've made about the different troops, and how to use the Dwarf Artillery, a made from experience of lots of battles against every race there is (at the moment). A dwarf army is a very reliable one to use, but can be a bit boring without allies, especially in larger games. Its also a slow army, so you probably won't have many overwhelming victories if you're playing limited turns battle, but you won't get totally thrashed either. One last comment - watch out for Skaven, flame them all.