Dumping the Dwarfs
By Randy Atchley
Tomb Kraig: “Which army are you playing Dave?”
Chaos Dave: “Dwarfs!”
Tomb Kraig: “You ready to deploy?”
Chaos Dave: “Yeah, which corner do you want?”
Actual conversation
#1………
Over the last year of so I’ve had to play against Dwarfs a lot. During that time I’ve came to despise them! I do in fact own a Dwarf army that I play from time-to-time, but it is usually for a change of pace for the other players.
A Change in Dynamics:
There are two army types that have changed the dynamics of playing against the Dwarfs.
1. Anvil Armies-Probably nothing has changed how Dwarfs play more than the Anvil. Its abilities to slow enemy units and give Dwarfs unexpected charges have given them an entire new dimension-surprise!
2. Strollaz Rune-The pre-battle march ability puts the Dwarfs right in your face! Add to that the Master Rune of Challenge causing one of your units to charge, probably break, and pursued, and you may see Dwarfs in your deployment zone on turn 2!
Anvil Armies:
All you have to do is get to the Anvil; easier said than done. Once it is in melee it can’t be struck. You can do a couple of things to distract an Anvil army:
1. You can force him to use it on a target that he really doesn’t want to use it against. By saturating the movement phase the Anvil will have to pick and chose which target to affect. Remember the Anvil doesn’t work against characters, so a lone character may be the easiest way to get through to the Anvil.
2. Keep key units away from the table edges or have a flee path planned. The threat of Miners and an Anvil charge is real. In other words give them nothing if possible. Units such as fast cavalry or throwaway infantry units are the exception. The last thing a unit of Miners wants to encounter on a flank is an unbreakable unit or a fully ranked unit of just about anything.
In my Skaven army I often leave Rattling guns behind my army to deal with the threat. Orcs can use Snotlings or Night Goblins with Fanatics to dissuade attack. My Empire army uses Flagellants. Once you deal with them moving on the table it is easier to handle them.
Strollaz Armies:
The Strollaz Rune is an excellent choice for Dwarf armies. It puts them in your face early in the game. Deployment is the key to defeating the Strollaz army. Put nothing in front of them! Because they must remain near the banner it is pretty easy to figure out where the main axis of attack will hit.
1. Deploy nothing opposite of their main forces. This makes them have to fan out to attack your army possibly allowing you to flank them.
Diagram 1: Here the Empire army has only deployed minor
shooting units in front of the Dwarf Strollaz army. Even the Greatswords in Blue are deployed
left of center. Three units of Knights
will flash down the flanks with hopes of forcing the Dwarf units to drop their
Oathstones (all the red units have Oathstones, the Orange unit is Hammers with
the Rune of Challenge). Empire Great
Cannons; one in the woods and one in the corner of the table, try and destroy
first the Dwarf Bolt Throwers (in light orange) and then the Gyrocopter (in
purple). After that their job is to try
and snipe characters if possible. The
War Altar in light blue can flex either left or right of the woods depending on
the success of the shooting phase at taking out the Bolter threat.
2. If you must deploy opposite of them, deploy back as far as possible to negate their early movement.
3. Don’t allow them to “jam” your army and thus dictate where you must charge.
Diagram
2: The Empire avoids the troop blocks at
all costs except to make them drop their Oathstones. The
War Altar moves to the flank of the Dwarf Army to use its Light Spells for
maximum effect. Even the Greatswords
slide left to avoid being in front of the Dwarf army and the Rune of
Challenge. The Crossbowmen in purple and
the Handgunners in dark blue, pour fire into the Dwarf army with the intent of
reducing them to half. In the situation
the Empire uses shooting and magic, plus table quarters to try and win the
game. A draw is better than hitting one
of those immovable blocks with the Oathstones.
Perhaps the only chance the Empire has to break a Dwarf unit is with a
combined War Altar/Greatsword charge.
Even then with the Dwarf Lord and a BSB nearby it isn’t automatic by any
means! A suicide charge of the War Altar
into a block to try and kill either the BSB or the Dwarf Lord might work. (Normally, I run the Jordan Braun combination
of Sword of Fate, and VH Speculum together).
4. Beware of the Rune of Challenge! Most Strollaz armies have this Rune.
5. Beware of Oathstones! I’ve never seen a good Strollaz army that didn’t have its flanks protected by units with an Oathstone.
General Tactics:
1. Only attack with overwhelming force! If you are going to attack their lines coordinate your attack with other units and prepare for the inevitable
Diagram 3:
Here the Empire has made an all out attack on the flank Dwarf unit. The
skirmishing archers move forward to try and draw away the Hammerers (in
orange). Knights have made a unit of
Warriors drop their Oathstone. Shooting
continues to pour fire into the approaching units. Lastly, the Knights have attacked the Bolt
Throwers and Great Cannons have destroyed the Gyrocopter. Though victory isn’t assured by any means it
is the only chance the Empire has to pick up valuable victory points off of the
Dwarf foe.
2. Bait them out of line. Normally only the end units have Oathstones. Present a juicy flank target to one of the other units to provoke a charge so that the Oathstone units will be out of position to protect the middle units. Once the Oathstone is dropped the unit can no longer move. Also the Oathstone is dropped as a charge reaction using a “hold” reaction. It can’t be dropped unless the unit is being charged.
Diagram 4: Here the Empire
player has offered a flank charge on his Swordsmen unit. If
the Dwarf player takes the bait, it will open the orange unit up to a flank
charge. Baiting a unit may be the only
way to pull the Dwarf unit out of line.
3. Feigned Fail-You declare a charge on a Dwarf unit that you know is about ½” too far away. You then put on your best poker face, curse, whine, etc that “I thought I was in range!” Since Dwarf players hardly ever get to charge hopefully he’ll take the bait and pull his unit out of line.
4. Kill the softies! In my first forays as a Dwarf player I used to use a lot of artillery (this was 6th edition though). All my foe would do is grab the soft targets, missile units, artillery, slayers (soft to shooting at least) and ignore the blocks all together! This can be a winner strategy as the Dwarf soft units are often expensive. An Organ gun costs as much as a unit of Skaven Clan Rats and you can get an amazing 70 slaves for the same price as an Organ gun! However, you’ll need to swamp them to keep them from destroying the attacking units with missile fire.
5. Defending against Miners: The real threat of Miners happens when they move onto the table in time to affect you tactical plans such as a flank or rear charge into melee. Deployment is the best time to react to Miners. Place a cheap unit right on the table edge so that the Miners can’t move on to the table. Empire archers, Skaven Nightrunners, Night Goblins with Fanatics are all good ways to keep the Miners from coming on and ruining your tactical plans. It needs to be said that they are only an occasional threat.
Tomb Kraig: “He he, I found Dave’s Dwarf tactica!”
Atchman: “Quick, what does it say? I hear him coming!”
Tomb Kraig: “It says
pick the corner with the hill on it”.
Actual conversation
#2……….
1. You can outshoot them. The secret is to concentrate fire on the unit you want to break. If the Dwarf player starts using counter-battery to stop you that means you are doing the right thing. In the Empire the thought pattern for artillery is to try and stop the things that are going after your rank and file troops. So reducing the ranks, outnumber, etc of the opposing forces is the desired outcome. By reducing these things you actually have a chance once melee arrives. Your shooting priority should be things like the Organ Gun, Gyrocopter, Flame Cannon, Stone Throwers, etc, in other words anything that can ruin your outnumber ability. You need advantage you can gain before melee as Dwarfs excel in that department.
Tomb Kraig: “Dave that is my turn”.
Chaos Dave: “Okay on to the shooting phase”.
Tomb Kraig: “You mean you aren’t going to move any of
your units?”
Chaos Dave: “Move?
Why would I do that?”
Actual Conversation
#3……..
Summary:
At the end of all of my tacticas I like to have a short summary of bullet points to remember. These are simple things you can keep in your mind while playing the game. Here are my Dwarf bullet points:
·
Always
know the location of the Dwarf King!
·
Go after
the softer support units first
·
Never
setup right in front of the Dwarf battle line with troops of any consequence
·
Bring
overwhelming force to ONE part of the battle line!
·
If it is
going bad, go for the draw; Dwarfs are terrible at projecting power
Anyway, I hope these observations have helped you. Every army has a way to deal with Dwarfs, you just have to take this advice and apply it to your particular army.
“Dwarfs don’t have tactics, they have tricks”-Atchman
I’m sure that will put me in the book of grudges. J
Randy