In dark medieval times, every city had to defend itself. Buildings like Guard Tower enable soldiers to spot the enemy on time in order to make all necessary actions to properly prepare the city for attack. When the soldiers on the Guard Tower sound the alarm, town gates are being sealed and all who can fight equip themselves with weapons and readily await the battle to commence. Guard towers are built on the outskirts of a city, preferably on higher ground. These buildings have to be sturdy enough to withstand enemy’s cannon balls, stones thrown by catapults or even attacks by frenzied monsters such as Giants and Treeman. It has to be high enough so soldiers are able to see as much landscape as possible. Sometimes whole regiments of archers and other troops are stationed in one Guard Tower.

This massive kit comes with lots of accessories:

• 1 x watering place
• 1 x hitching post
• 1 x cart (consists of two wheels and a cart)
• 6 x barell (two kinds)
• 2 x bucket
• 1 x reinforced door
• 3 x hatch
• 3 x torch
• 1 x lantern
• 1 x table with food
• 1 x table with bags, sword, binoculars, arrows and lantern
• 4 x bench
• 1 x cabinet
• 6 x sword
• 2 x sword stand
• 1 x wooden stairs
• 1 x spiral wooden stairs
• 3 x stone stairs
• 12 x window shutter

News Source: Tabletop World

A Warhammer: Invasion card of the week

The fearsome knights of the White Wolf are based in the northern city of Middenheim and follow the creed of Ulric, the god of battle, wolves, and winter. The White Wolves wear mantles of wolfskin over their armour and eschew the use of a lance, instead carrying mighty cavalry hammers to smash the skulls of…

(News Source: Fantasy Flight Games)

Obviously Fantasy is almost completely different mechanically from 40K and even the most ignorant 40K player knows this. What I was more struck by was how different the game felt and had to be approached. Even just reading the rules doesn’t do it justice, as a found out when playing a few small games with my budding Goblin army. I’m by no means a Fantasy expert but the point of this article is how the game looks to fresh eyes, someone who spent absolutely no time with 7^th Edition and only had a basic grasp on how that edition of the game worked.

Welcome to Chaos

Warhammer Fantasy is one of the most random games I have ever laid eyes on. Beyond the fact that dice are used to resolve all outcomes, the game takes it to another level. Charges are randomly rolled, not a concrete number. Warmachines can and will blow up or fail to even get a shot off without enemy interference. Magic devastates armies, either your opponents or your own. Even the terrain is often unknown until you enter it and it often tries to kill you, or at least ruin your plans.

The rules themselves are a hostile environment, giving neither player a sure position or plan. This is wildly different from 40K where you know exactly what terrain does and even if your units fail, they rarely backlash and actually harm themselves or friendly units. In 40K certain laws are always present and that’s comforting, they can be relied upon even when everything’s going wrong. Fantasy gives no such crutch and momentum can change wildly from turn to turn.

The end result? Pure chaos and pure fun. I’ll admit it takes a certain personality to laugh when your carefully laid plans are just shredded but Fantasy almost requires it. Check your ego at the door because often everything is going to fall apart and when it does, it’s beautiful. The rules provide a larger range for success and failure than 40K and the game becomes about who can adjust faster than who can execute better, which results in an increasingly frenetic pace.

I really can’t do it justice, it has to be played or watched. I had a large gallery of people watching when I was playing and even people I knew had no interest in wargames were into it, cheering and laughing and the games went back and forth. I found myself not being sucked into the game tactically like 40k, but sucked into the fun and desire to see what happened next.

I’m Not Gonna Make It Sarge……..

Another massive chasm between the two systems are how casualties are dealt with. In 40K, most of the game is about limiting your opponent’s offense. Cover saves, blocking LoS, giving them bad targets or matchups and just generally taking a hammer to anything their army can do so your models can live another turn.

Fantasy has no such mindset. Your models will die and they will die in droves. This is just accepted as a fact before a game even begins, unless there is a massive disparity between players, lists or luck both armies will finish more or less in ruin. The shocking part is how little you can do to protect your toy soldiers compared to 40K. There are no cover saves, only penalties to shooting which are ignored by most magic and warmachines. Reliable armor saves are uncommon and can be reduced, causing even shock infantry to die easily.

True LoS in particular is ineffective at presenting casualties. Because Fantasy movement is much more rigid and in most cases slower compared to 40K, hiding behind friendly units can cripple your own army. Most terrain are forests, rivers, marshes and other things that don’t inhibit LoS at all, where blocking terrain is almost needed to play 40K. It gives the feeling of fantasy warfare, where you’re almost naked at range and both sides are rushing forward for the “protection” of melee or to stop the missile fire personally.

Also, everything just seems to do more. More missile troops firing, more models fighting in close combat, more spells going off for bigger effects. The rules have a more horde appeal than trying to squeeze the most potential out of elite units. Very small units simply won’t have anything left after a few turns of mass fire or magic, and then can be easily put down by a tide of cheap troops, ignoring their superior skills through attrition and numbers.

Balance Must Be Found

Personally, my favorite thing was how balanced armies need to be. No single phase of the game can be relied on to win, as opposed to 40K where some armies exist for one phase only. Nothing is reliable enough to win a game by itself, so all armies are a sum greater than their parts. Shooting and Magic support Close Combat so your units have better odds of breaking enemy units. Close Combat protects your vulnerable warmachines and shooting troops from being run down.

Even though all phases are important, Close Combat is still king. This is a fundamental change over 40k, where Shooting dominates the game for almost every army. This is because of how the mechanics work; Close Combat is the fastest and most reliable way of destroying entire units. The availability of higher Leadership character and Battle Standard potency have made units fleeing off the board from a shooting casualties much less likely, so it’s necessary to get your hands dirty.

Would You Describe You Experience as Satisfying?

Overall, the 8^th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy appears to be a phenomenal game. I would never argue if it’s better than Warhammer 40K and no one else should either, they offer different things to different people and that’s how it needs to be. The differences are larger than just mechanics; it extends to every other facet of the game. Where Fantasy was once the game of pure tactics and min-maxing, it’s now about working with controlled chaos and finding the right mixture of units for an army.

I won’t say 40K has claimed the throne of “More Tactical Game” but it’s the more reliable game. Dice are the only wild factor; very little chance exists in the rules or individual armies. The popular saying of “No plan survives contact with the enemy” never applied to wargaming because the dice got to your first but in Fantasy even the rules can throw in a cheap shot once in awhile.

A better saying would be “My plan never had a chance” but I’d be shocked if you found yourself caring. If you have the chance to demo Fantasy, you have my whole hearted recommendation to do so. You might find a welcome respite from the same old thing.

First, let’s consider your opponent’s choice of army.  Someone who fields Orks is going to have a completely different mindset than someone who plays Mech Guard.  The one is clearly set for close quarters fighting, the other for avoiding close quarters as long as possible, or at least until they have a decisive advantage.  Since a lot of armies can be fielded a multitude of ways (hey, even Blood Angels can be fielded as a shooty army), you have to pay very close attention to your opponent’s unit and wargear choices.  Most tournaments I’ve played in are open list, and I suggest taking advantage of that opportunity and at least give it a quick glance.  After all, a better informed general is one capable of making better decisions.  Is his army entirely geared for close combat?  Is his army designed to just castle and bomb the crap out of you?  Is it a mobile mech army designed to just run circles around you?  The first thing you need to establish is what sort of list your opponent is fielding, and whether or not that list has an obvious goal.  An Ork horde that’s loaded with slugga boyz and some nob bikers has an obvious goal – getting into assault and killing you.  A marine list with three vindicators, tactical marines and sternguard is obviously designed to bomb you into oblivion.  Hyrbid lists can be trickier, because different parts of the army have different goals, but these are generally obvious.  An Eldar list with war walkers, rangers and howling banshees has clearly defined parts – the first part is to sit back and shoot, the second to either advance to threaten objectives, or to stay back for the countercharge, but in either case it’s obviously for assault.

Alright, so that crap is obvious, every player should know it, but it needed to be said.  It’s amazing how lots of people will focus so heavily on their own army or parts of their opponent’s army (OMG!!! TH/SS Termies!), that they won’t consider the army as a whole.  But what does this tell you?  Obviously, a player with an all-assault army is going to be extremely aggressive.  All of his points have been spent towards close combat, and as long as his troops aren’t fighting in hand-to-hand, those points are being wasted (or lost from your shooting).  Such a player will be much more likely to get taken in by a bait unit – blinded by his own lust for violence and frustration and being unable to harm you, throwing an easy target in his way should result in the unit being gobbled up, which is just what you want.  Don’t expect to have enough time to set things up perfectly against this type of opponent.  The extreme likelihood is that they will come at you as fast as possible, so things like Reserves might not be as effective as putting everything on the table, especially if you have more ranged fire than melee power.  However, if you do have a cheap scoring unit that can Deep Strike or Outflank, definitely leave at least one in Reserve for an objective mission, as this sort of opponent is not likely to leave much back to hold and defend objectives in his deployment zone.  The best way to frustrate this sort of player is to stay out of combat for as long as possible.  The longer you stay out of combat, the more desperate he will be to get into combat, and the easier it will be for you to bait him into unfavorable assaults.

If your opponent has his points sunk into shooting, well, I think their plan is just as obvious.  Shooting units, as a rule, are not good melee units (except for Grey Hunters and Long Fangs).  But the real challenge has always been surviving long enough to drag them into melee.  Fortunately, there is an easy way to mess with a ranged player’s head – don’t give him a target.  5^th Edition is wonderful in the fact that it allows you to hold anything and everything in Reserve in every mission.  This is especially useful if your opponent goes first.  How worrisome and frustrating it must be to have many big guns, but you are required to sit there, your guns silent, as they have nothing to shoot at?  This is also a great tactical decision as well, because this means your opponent will only have four, five or six shooting phases as opposed to five, six or seven.  In addition, if you have units that Deep Strike or Outflank, do so.  Even if it may not be the most tactically sound approach, often times having the threat of enemy units popping up all over the place is enough to unnerve defensive players, and you’ll see the common tactic of castling everything in the center to guard from deep striking and outflanking.  Well now, if you have any pie plates yourself, they just served up some nice targets.  Not to mention that when you do get into assault, you might be able to assault and tie down multiple units, and when you end up out of assault, your opponent may find that his own men provide cover saves, or you’re simply too close to hit with template weapons.  Another tactic to try is to throw away cheap units by making them a target.  While the bait unit against a shooty army won’t lure the enemy into an assault (in most cases), it can work to redirect some fire.  Remember Target Priority from 4^th edition?  Some players are still stuck in that mode.  If Target A is closer than Target B, A is clearly the graver threat.  Nevermind that Target A is a Combat Squad in a Rhino, and Target B is a unit of Vanguard Vets in a Land Raider.  And, worse comes to worse, you play against someone with a good head on their shoulders who realizes that B is truly the greater threat, well, you just go ahead and drive that combat squad right up there and assault things like heavy weapons squads, dev squads and lootas.  Even if it’s an unfavorable assault for you, provided you can survive that first round of combat into the second one, you’ve just tied that unit down and prevented it from shooting.  Hell, assault multiple such units, if you can.

There’s one more psychological trick I’d like to point out.  You know that guy who spends hours and hours painting his centerpiece unit?  Or that other guy who insists he can’t win without Yarrick/Vulkan/Abaddon?  Ya know how to mess that guy up?  Blast his precious unit/character to kingdom come!  Now, at a tourney you’re likely not going to know your opponents personally (at least, at a non-local tourney).  But it is possible to at least guesstimate what their prize unit is.  If one unit clearly has hours more work put into its construction and painting, that is likely to be the unit.  Or if one unit costs three times as much as the next expensive unit, well, that unit is likely to be it.  Named characters tend to be a dead giveaway.  And if your opponent is stroking his favorite model and hissing “My precioussss,” or has a single unit that he removes from a bullet-proof, steel case that’s handcuffed to his wrist, well, that’s just obvious.  I know a guy who used to quit every game once you annihilate his money unit.  While your opponent may not quit in a tournament (I’ve rarely seen it happen), destroying that unit can really destroy their morale.  Once a player no longer cares about a game, that’s when you have them on the ropes.  I’m not a WAAC player, but I do know that this is the best possible situation in a tournament.  Once they’re down, keep them down.  Don’t be a jerk.  Don’t rub it in.  Be polite while you dismantle the rest of his army and secure yourself a Massacre with bonus points.

In short, pay close attention to your opponent.  Look at his list and figure out his goals and objectives.  Hell, listen to what he talks about.  If you’re deploying your armies, and he takes out a Land Raider and says, “This baby wins me games,” well, I think he just painted a huge bull’s eye on the side of that thing.  If you look through your opponent’s list and see Kharn, Berserkers and close-combat Defilers, that list says one thing, “KHARN IS GONNA EAT YO’ FAMILY!!!”  Unfortunately, these tricks won’t work on everyone.  More seasoned players have played many a game, lost many a prized unit and still managed a win or a draw, and thus are harder to demoralize.  Some players simply don’t care, and although they’re playing in a tournament, are just there to have a good time, meet new people and see new armies.  And there are those players that just don’t pay enough attention.  These are the types who have a battle plan and stick to it, no matter what.  This player is a whole other type, and if you’re a bit seasoned yourself, you should know exactly how to handle them.  So remember – figure out your opponent, frustrate him and let him make mistakes.  And when I say frustrate, I don’t mean upset.  Remember this game is all about having fun.  But who says messing with your opponent’s hopes and dreams can’t be fun?

Kinne out.

My FLGS, which is closed on Tuesdays, received its preview copy of the 8^th ed rulebook yesterday, and I arrived early so I could take a gander at it. . .a three-hour gander.  Most of my night was spent exclaiming “Holy crap!” and “Dude, listen to this. . .”  I had been very concerned with the rumors I had been hearing for the last few months, but I would have to say that yesterday allayed most of them.  In fact, the majority of the rumors we had been hearing lately were very accurate, but in the overall context of the game, they made sense and became less alarming.  I can’t really give a full account of the book.  I didn’t take notes, nor did I study it long enough to put every minor detail down to memory.  I will say this – it’s large enough to stop a bullet, and is full of enough goodness to be worth its $75 price tag.  Yes, I just said a rulebook is worth $75.  This rulebook destroys the 7^th ed one in the same fashion that a battle tank would destroy a smart car in a head-on collision.  The rules are better written, and loaded with helpful diagrams.  There are six regular scenarios, and an entire section on specialty battles.  There are nineteen new magic weapons, and about as many for every other category.  But I digress from my main topic.

This edition will be much, much, oh-so-much bloodier than 7^th.  So much bloodier, you’d think it was written by the Blood God himself.  Even better, the killing has to be done actively with weapons and not passively with Psychology.  Daemons and Vamp Counts are getting a huge tone-down, as being charged by a Fear causer doesn’t force a Fear test, and losing to a Fear causer doesn’t cause an auto-break.  Now, if you’re in base with a Fear causing enemy in Close Combat, you take a Fear test.  If you fail, you’re WS1 for that phase.  This affects your entire unit, even if only a single enemy model causes fear, like a character in a unit, or a dragon or other monster.  So losing combat to skeletons no longer means you run and wet your drawers.  Getting charged by something that causes Terror does carry the risk of fleeing if you fail your Ld test, but I think (I think, not I know) that the 6” range for Terror has been removed, so you actually have to get into combat now.  And since they also cause Fear, there’s a chance that a lord on dragon could cow an entire enemy unit.

On top of that, if you lose combat but have more ranks than your enemy, you count as Steadfast, which is the same as being Stubborn, meaning big blocks of infantry can no longer get mauled by heavy cav and run in one round.  Blood Knights and Chaos Knights will now be forced to hack their way through infantry, rather than having one good round of combat and chasing them down.  Those blocks of infantry also have a much better chance at hurting their opponents.  Models in the second rank, directly behind models in base-to-base with the enemy, get to make “supporting attacks”, meaning that each model gets to make one attack to the unit’s front.  If you have spears, another rank gets to make supporting attacks (if you didn’t charge), and if you are ten models wide, you count as a Horde, meaning yet another rank gets to support.  So you can fight in up to four ranks.  And I do believe that these attacks are made with any Strength bonuses from weapons.  And you remove wounds from the rear ranks, so as long as you have models left alive in your “fighting” ranks, you’ll get to swing back.  So now Chaos Knights charging, say, Dwarf Hammerers will take some S6 shots to the face, even if they manage to kill the first two ranks (provided some are left alive).

Sadly, the +1 Armor Save bonus from sword n’ board is gone, replaced by a 6+ Ward Save.  This is great for followers of Tzeentch, who improve that to a 5+.  But to me, it makes choosing a Great Weapon or a Spear a no brainer in most situations, meaning that yes, more of my dudes will die from having a worse armor save, but more of your dudes will die from higher strength or more attacks.  Which, to reinforce my point, equals more bloodiness.  And, if those smarter than I do the math, I think improving your armor save by one or having a 6+ ward save have about the same mathematical chances of success.

Monsters of all types, from ogres to dragons, got a huge shot in the arm.  First off, units of monsters get a rank bonus if they’re three-wide, meaning six ogre bulls can get a rank bonus.  On top of that, monsters making supporting attacks get to make all of their attacks, and not just one.  So that aforementioned unit of bulls gets +1 CR and 18 attacks.  Further, monstrous units count as a Horde if they’re only six wide, so eighteen ogres or trolls (expensive, I know) would get +2 CR for ranks, and all of those beasties have the potential to fight, throwing down a whopping 54 attacks.  The fun doesn’t stop there.  Monsters, when fighting things smaller than themselves (like infantry and cavalry), get bonus Stomp attacks.  Each monster gets one stomp attack, at their base Strength but with Always Strikes Last, representing how they can simply crush the puny insects defying them.  Larger monsters, like dragons and hydras and such, get Great Stomp (or something like that), which is D6 bonus attacks at their base Strength and ASL.  But wait, there’s more!  If you have the gift of a breath weapon, you can use it in combat, in addition to your other attacks, causing an automatic 2d6 hits at the Strength of the weapon.  Bazinga.

I’ve focused on the close combat death and pain that will result from 8^th’s release.  But there is much more death and pain elsewhere in the book.  Templates no longer roll for partials, so stone throwers and their ilk will become like gods, tearing holes in the enemy lines.  Missile troops fire in multiple ranks, meaning they don’t have to be strung out or placed on hills which could be far from the enemy.  You can always wound on a 6, meaning no one is safe.  Magic is a whole lot of redonkulous.  You can dump half of your points on characters, and new magic weapons (such as the +3 Strength axe) could hail the return of Herohammer.  But with how easily they can die from swarms of enemy infantry or artillery fire, Herohammer is risky.  I suppose that’s what 8^th ed is all about: balancing risk.  Sure, a unit of fifty Night Goblins gets a crapton of extra attacks, and will most likely count as Steadfast (Stubborn), but if it’s hit by a spell which affects the whole unit, or damages the whole unit, they could be gone in the twinkling of an eye.  Taking a wizard lord could lead to you annihilate your enemy from afar, but it could also result in said wizard exploding, getting wisps of beard and scorched, pointy hat over everything, not to mention taking most of his regiment with him.

In the end, I’m very excited to start games of 8^th as soon as possible.  I’m hoping to play my first tomorrow night, and if I do, I promise you a battle report as quickly as I can get it done.  For now, let me leave it at I’m ridiculously stoked over the new edition, and hope that it will breathe new life into Fantasy, and make it the more popular of the two systems once again.

The Throng of Zanzuhf Kazad – This is the Dwarf army that I’ve had for over seven years.  We were only playing 1,000 points, so I had to scale it back a little.

Dwarf Thane Gotrek Hammerfist — Great Weapon, Shield, Rune of Stone, Master Rune of Spite, Attached to (H)

Master Engineer Ufdi Burntbeard — Rune of Stone, Attached to (ST)

(H) 15 x Hammerers — Standard, Musician, Shields

(I) 15 x Ironbreakers — Standard, Musician

(Q1) 10 x Quarrelers — Musician, Shields

(Q2) 10 x Quarrelers — Musician, Shields

(ST) Stone Thrower — Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating

J’s Lizards – Yeah. . .I couldn’t think of a better army name.  And I apologize if I can’t provide every equipment choice just right, but I was doing this from memory.

Saurus Scar Veteran — Shield, Attached to (SW)

(SW) 14 x Saurus Warriors — Standard, Musician, Spears

(K) 27 x Skink Warriors — Standard, Musician, 3 x Kroxigors

(S1) 3 x Salamanders

(S2) Stegadon

Deployment

In 8th edition, now you roll D6+4 for pieces of terrain, and take turns placing them like before.  You can use pieces of terrain from your collection, or make D6+4 rolls on the Random Terrain Generator (we elected to make only two rolls on said table).  We rolled Mysterious Wood and Mysterious River, and, to keep things simple, decided to count both woods as mysterious.  Then we rolled Dawn Assault for scenario, WHFB’s Dawn of War.  Deployment zones are your standard 12″ from the board edge, but you divide your deployment zone into Left/Right Flank and Center.  Each flank is 18″ from the short board edge (which we shortened to 12″, since we were playing on a 4′ x 4′ table).  When you go to deploy, you roll a die for each unit.  On a 1, they deploy on the Left Flank.  A 2 means they deploy on the Right Flank.  A 3 – 5 is the Center, and a 6 means you can place them wherever you’d like.  The big kicker in this scenario is that one player deploys his/her entire army first.  I was said lucky player, and after our random rolls, the board looked as it does above.  Ordinarily, the player that deploys first gets the first turn, but this scenario has what amounts to Stealing the Initiative — the player that deployed last rolls a die, and on a 6 can choose to go first or second.  J rolled a 6.

Top of Turn One — J’s Lizards

J marched his entire army straight at me.  I had two missile units and a war machine, all of which have far better (and more reliable) range than his Salamanders, and most of his army was close combat anyway.  His Stegadon climbed the hill and took a potshot at my Hammerers, but missed.  Once the Salamanders reached the Mysterious Woods (and yes, I always say that with the cheesy, overdone “spooooooooky” voice), J rolled on the chart.  He rolled a “1″, which is Normal Wood, so I made him roll again.  A 2 — Abyssal Wood.  Any unit within an Abyssal Wood causes Fear.  Well, Salamanders already cause Fear.  Bummer.  Anyway, he was done and it was on to my turn!

Bottom of Turn One — Zanzuhf Kazad

Needless to say, my first turn was much more fruitful.  I advanced my melee blocks to the water’s edge, but was afraid of getting wet.  While rivers are no longer Impassable or Very Difficult (the latter something that has gone the way of the dodo), rivers do have some side effects, which I’ll describe later.  My second unit of quarrelers moved forward to garrison the building to their front.  The stone thrower took its first shot of 8th edition, right at the massive form of the stegadon, but even with the Rune of Accuracy (re-roll scatter), it couldn’t hit.  The first unit of quarrelers, however, managed to cause three unsaved wounds on the Toughness 6 beastie.  Go go Gadget Crossbows!

Top of Turn Two — J’s Lizards

Well, now it was charge time.  The Skinks and Krox, heedless of any river (those aquatic jerks!), charged right through an into my Ironbreakers.  Oh, and what did J roll for the Mysterious River?  The scariest result on the chart — 1, normal river.  The stegadon also attempted to charge, but ended out of range with a low roll, and trundled forward.  The rest of the army again advanced.

Combat – Here the new combat rules really showed the changes.  The skinks, at the highest Initiative (of three. . .wow), swung first but did no damage.  Now the Ironbreakers got to strike before the S6, great weapon-toting, charing Kroxigors (which is an odd change to veteran fantasy players), and managed to kill one before it did anything.  The remaining Kroxigors killed one dwarf.  I was up in combat resolution by one (one rank, three wounds, banner vs. two ranks, one wound, banner), but as the lizards had more ranks than I did, they were Steadfast, ignored any modifiers, and passed their Break Test.

Bottom of Turn Two — Zanzuhf Kazad

My Hammerers attempted to get into the fight.  Getting to pre-measure now, I saw that I was 14″ away from the Stegadon.  Not to be dissuaded, I attempted the charge. . .and rolled a total of 13!  Nuts.  So the Hammerers eeked forward and set themseleves up for a nice charge by the Saurus Warriors.  Meanwhile, between the two units of Quarrelers, I managed to bag me a Stegadon (I’m still not sure exactly how that happened).  The stone thrower lobbed a shot at the Saurus, but again scattered, clipped one model and failed to wound (stone throwers are all S3 now, and allow armor saves).

Combat – Once again, the skinks had a hard time getting through hard-forged Gromril armor.  My dwarfs managed to take down another kroxigor and a skink, and the last krox failed to do anything in return.  Once again I was up in combat res, but the lizards were still Steadfast and held.

Top of Turn Three — J’s Lizards

Now things were getting crazy.  The Saurus Warriors, as expected, charged into the Hammerers.  The Salamanders moved up and fired into the building at my quarrelers.  They managed to kill one, but six handlers were eaten as a result of misfires.

Combat – The skinks managed to tackle an ironbreaker to the ground and stick a knife in him, causing their first casualty.  Well, my ironbreakers liked that not at all, eliminating the final kroxigor and three skinks for good measure.  No longer Steadfast, the skinks fled and hid behind the salamanders.  My dwarfs gave chase, but couldn’t keep up with the little lizards.  They did, however, manage to smack right into the salamanders.

Across the field, the scar vet and Gotrek Hammerfist squared off in a challenge.  Gotrek escaped unharmed, but managed to put a wound on his opponent.  Right at this critical moment, J’s dice failed him in the most epic fashion I have yet witnessed.  All of his S4 attacks availed him a single unsaved wound.  My ten S6 attacks in return killed six saurus.  Without enough ranks to count as Steadfast, and down quite a bit in combat resolution, the saurus warriors turned and ran, but were not fast enough to escape their pursuers.

Bottom of Turn Three — Zanzuhf Kazad

At this point, the game was essentially over.  But J was a good sport, didn’t curse at his dice (much), and graciously agreed to finish the game so as I could write this here battle report.  My Hammerers, now facing off into nowhere, took full advantage of the new musician rules, and passed a Leadership test to full reform and then make a normal move. With little else to shoot at, the stone thrower took a blind shot at the skinks (yes, stone throwers can fire out of LoS now) and killed eight.  The quarrelers chipped in to take out six more.

Combat – The Salamanders did not fare much better in combat than the rest of J’s army.  They managed to kill an ironbreaker, but the beardies responded by killing a salamander.  A stomp attack took out another dwarf.  Again down in combat res, the lizards managed to stick around.

Top of Turn Four — J’s Lizards

One of the nice changes about 8th edition is that you can rally, even if below 25% of starting unit strength, by rolling Snake Eyes.  Unfortunately, the Skinks failed to do this.  But they DID roll snake eyes for their flee distance.  This is probably the best example of how J’s dice were treating him all day long.  With nothing else to do, we went straight to combat.

Combat – The two remaining salamanders eliminated two more ironbreakers, but the dwarfs managed to kill one of the two big lizards and put a wound on the second.  That was, apparently, enough for the salamanders, as they fled.  It was not fast enough, though.  The ironbreakers managed to run them down, and to settle a grudge from earlier, plowed right into the skinks and eliminated them as well.  It was a victory for the Dwarfs!

I would like to attribute the victory to tactical brilliance, or sheer determination. . .but it was all with the dice gods.  J’s dice abandoned him right after he rolled a 6 to steal first turn.  He couldn’t buy a hit for any money.  Tactically it should have been a solid matchup, but it wasn’t in the dice.

Looking back on the game, I enjoyed it quite a bit.  The 8th edition rules just seem. . .clean.  Since terrain doesn’t slow you down, when you pre-measure your charge range and see that you’re 7 15/16″ away, you know that if you roll a total of 8 or higher, you will reach.  If you roll a 7 or lower, it’s a failed charge.  Pre-measuring does change the game somewhat drastically, but now you have to win with tactics and strategy, and not movement shenanigans.  It also eliminates arguing on whether or not something is in, because you can figure it out before you declare it, and if you’re not in, oh well, shoot at/charge something else.  Warmachines are no longer the be all/end all I was expecting them to be.  Bolt throwers are exactly the same.  And while there are no partials, stone throwers are S3 now and allow armor saves, which makes a huge difference.  You’ll score a lot more hits, yes, but against things like Chaos Warriors, those hits will be hard to wound with, and they will make quite a few saves.

At this point, I’m going to (tentatively) say that 8th edition is a major improvement.  The rules seem simplified, clear and easier.  The game pace just plain moves faster.  And since you don’t have to sit there an worry about overly complex rules, you can spend more time focusing on what you should be focusing on — throwing dice and having fun!

“Incoming: Daemons!” was sent out in the May 16^th newsletter.  Games Workshop is rewriting the Fantasy army book and 40k codex for an August release.  Being a Daemon player myself, I was shocked.  Daemons are fairly current.  Other armies like Dark Eldar, Necrons, Eldar, or even Tau were all considered to get an update first.

Dark Eldar is very out dated.  For a short while, their models were not even readily available on the Games Workshop site, or direct order.  Now, their models have been put back out on the special order list at Games Workshop.  This, of course, started more rumors of their release.

As normal, the buzz started to spread across game stores.  At my local gaming store, Daemon players were suddenly experts who knew exactly what kind of changes will be made to the Codex.  Our league nights for 40k are Monday nights.  Somehow, some of our players knew just outside of 24 hours exactly what Games Workshop was doing before they did.  Comments about ‘Without Number’, fleet, changing squad sizes, point cost, and new models were no longer rumor, but hard fact in our store.  Of course, we all know how this goes.  Games Workshop throws a proverbial wrench in the machine and hits all of us with one amazing rule.  Players complain, some threaten to quit and others just vow not to play against that army.  The rest of the rules are reworded to match up with the newest rule books (changing Killed Instantly to Instant Death, for example).

One such example is the Jaws of the World Wolf.  I played Space Wolves at their release.  This rule is amazing.  Removing any model from play just because it failed its initiative?  Amazing!  Did you want your Daemon Prince?  How about your Squadron of Eldar War Walkers?  Is your Avatar ok?

Another amazing rule was the Doom of Malentai.  You get more wounds by dealing wounds?  Is this guy really this awesome?  Absolutely.  How about spawning gaunts as much as you want, provided you don’t roll any doubles.

But of course, who can forget the flying Dreadnought that Blood Angels brought us.  I have played or teamed up with every one of these new armies recently released.  The best part is watching the faces of your opponents as their models just vanish, or their massive unit sees a dreadnought land behind it, ready to assault.

What will be the new rule this time for Daemons?  Epidemius already makes Nurgle awesome.  Is it possible that some form of troop will get without number?  Do the Daemons even need a re-write?  It is highly possible that the 40K codex just needs a re-word to catch up to the language of 5^th edition rules.  However, the fantasy army will probably need to catch up.  I have heard rumors that 8^th edition fantasy will change a good portion of its rules for regiments.  Is it possible that the rules that Games Workshop is changing for fantasy are so extreme that they break Daemons?  Could this be the reason for the shocking release?  Is this just Games Workshop’s way of finally releasing the Daemon Prince models they promised when the last codex released?  How many new models will they bring us?  Or, what models will we lose?

[START QUIZ]

and don’t forget to submit your own questions for the next and 3rd LO quiz here

Warhammer is coming. This July heralds the coming of Warhammer, The Game of Fantasy Battles.

The Warhammer world is a place riven by relentless warfare and the corrupting power of dark magic. It’s a place where vile creatures and titanic monsters roam the lands, where vast armies of evil warriors unleash slaughter upon their victims and only the unceasing valour of the forces of Order prevent the whole world slipping away into chaos and death.

Amidst this tapestry of conflict and carnage are races fair and foul, warriors chivalrous and brutal. These are the combatants who fight for dominance of the world. From the blasted north come warmongering tribes of Chaos Warriors, armour-clad barbarians who have thrown their lot in with the Dark Gods of Chaos. In the Badlands gather the greenskinned marauders known as the Orcs and Goblins, vicious, brutal creatures whose insatiable lust for war grows almost as quickly as their vast numbers. Beneath the cities of the civilised realms nestle the repulsive ratmen, subhuman creatures whose machinations spread disease and distrust – these are the Skaven and they wish only to destroy and dominate all others. Even the forests of the Old World are not safe, for the trees themselves are things of malign presence and the Beastmen dwell within, the children of Chaos – braying beasts who crave slaughter and the chance to enact their savagery on the civilised races.

The Warhammer world is a place where you must bury your dead deeply, for Necromancers and Vampires raise the legions of undeath in their war against the living. Far away in the south the legendary kings of a long-dead kingdom now awaken, leaving their vast tomb cities to wage war upon all under the sun, their skeletal legions a chilling parody of their once glittering majesty.

All these examples of horror are enough to cause weaker hearts to quail, but there are those who resist the darkness, kingdoms and realms that fight for survival. The Empire, greatest of all the nations of Men musters regiments of brave soldiers. Armed with faith in Sigmar, their warrior god, and with tempered steel and black powder weapons they defend their lands. South and east of the Empire lies Bretonnia, a land of chivalry and noble tradition. There, bold knights harken the call of their mighty king and ride out to crusade against the monsters of the Old World. Dwarfs, in their mountain strongholds, are as unyielding as the stone around them as they battle above and below the ground. Loyal allies, but terrible enemies, the Dwarfs are brave-hearted and steadfast as they protect their once-great realm.

In far-off lands the Elves fight out their bitter blood feud against one another – a mighty civilisation that spanned the continents but is now riven with strife and betrayal. Perhaps the greatest warriors in all the world, their numbers are now few and too many of those that remain are lost each day in the unending war between Ulthuan and Naggaroth.

This is a world where victory and death rest upon a knife-edge and the fate of the world, be it damnation or salvation, will soon be decided.

Warhammer, the Game of Fantasy Battles will be released in July. The preparation for this date has been a time of great excitement here in the Studio as we have lavished detail, care and attention onto the rulebook and the fantastic Citadel miniatures range that it accompanies.

Now is the time to gather your regiments, paint your armies and prepare for a battle like never before. If you have a Warhammer army, dust it off and finish up those last few models. If you’ve always been tempted to collect a force there really has never been a better time to start. Warhammer is coming and it’s going to be great.

(News Source: Games Workshop)

(I would like to now pardon myself for any mistakes in this tactica and would like it if people could PM me these mistakes it is 15 pages of tactica after all mistakes do crop up)

Now we have all have read the Tacticas on dwarves, which tell us the basic use of each unit in the dwarf army with maybe an occasional glimpse into how the unit should be used. So as a little project I’ve created this Guide: The Art of Dawi.

Contents.

1: Generic Stats.

2: unit composition

3: character building

4: Anvil of doom

5: which war machines?

6: Sample lists

7: complimentary support

8: deployment 101

9: offence against defence

10: dictating the battle field

Chapter1: generic stats

When anyone looks at the dwarf stat line we can plainly see what makes us so hard. Dwarves have High weapon skill, toughness and leadership, that’s obvious. But most people look at our M3 and say, “I know! Lets play defensive!”. Don’t always think like this right away. The dwarves greatest characteristic is not even on the profile… we’re versatile. Dwarves have the great advantage of being strong in both offensive and defensive play with a vast amount of magic items, units and equipment to augment either plan to a zenith on the tabletop.

Weapon Skill: dwarves have above average weapon skill. This right away puts them above the rest as an elite among other armies with almost no other army’s lowest troop having a WS above 3. This means as a general rule, dwarves can out do empire infantry, skellies, gobbos, zombies, skaven, marauders, men at arms and ogres when it comes to hitting the enemy. We then can match up against more skilled infantry like chaos warriors, elves and any other ws4 infantry.

Our elite units take this even further with a WS of 5 putting them above almost any rank and file core unit letting them square up against chaos warriors, lizard men and a lot of armies elite troops with a definite advantage.

Ballistic skill: this is one of our two average values. We are just as good at shooting as most other armies but seeing as all of our war machines are guess based or have a cheep way to get Bs4 its rarely a factor, even Thunderers have Bs4 from their handguns. There is not a lot to say tactically about ballistic skill as it just means hitting the opponent.

Strength: our other average value and probably the only reason your average dwarf warrior is classed as a rank and file trooper of an elite killing machine. The average strength of dwarf warriors is what makes them unable to take on units like chaos warriors or some special/rare choice on fair terms. So because of this we have to fight differently. Where we can cut down your average manling or elf stat line we tend to have problems against T4 units and as such we have to rely on static combat resolution, that is, ranks, outnumbering and standards. As such avoid equipping great weapons on dwarf warriors and leave them to the elite units. Elite units have higher Strength which makes them perfectly able to take the fight to the enemy. As a result having great weapons on these guys tend to be a good idea having S6 lets them be the hammer to the anvil of your dwarf warriors breaking through the enemy main line to smash apart any resistance.

Toughness: this is probably the most famous of the dwarf’s attributes. The bane of all rank and file infantry the T4 is what really sets dwarfs apart from all troops in their points range. With T4 the enemy will have to wound you on 5’s. so 10 attacks become 5 hits which become 2 wounds which will probably become 2 saves (no standard dwarf trooper should have less than a 3+ save against S3 troops in my opinion) take this inability to die easily and combine it with that pre-mentioned static combat res and for 200-250 points you have an infantry unit that will hold against almost anything short of a fear causing horde with character attached!. This above average toughness lets dwarves hold against even elite troops like great weapon wielding sword masters, with them wounding on 3’s rather than 2’s with their S5 cutting the casualty rate down dramatically letting you maybe pull down 1 or 2 of the enemy with your attacks and win the combat through sheer attrition! The average dwarf is a rock… It hurts when you punch a rock. It hurts more when the rock punches back.

Initiative: dwarves are slow. No doubt about it but don’t think its stupidity. Dwarves think their actions through and let the enemy tire them selves on their armour before unleashing their counterattack in a Romanesque style. We will more often than not be striking last so maximise your defence before looking at attack

Leadership: probably our second most famous characteristic dwarf leadership is probably the highest around matching and surpassing heroes of other races. Not even our own heroes can outmatch our base leadership and you need a dwarf lord before you can raise it higher! This means that dwarves can loose a combat by 3 and still pass with ease. So don’t be afraid to put your stout little troopers into tough situations against elite troops of other races as quite often you will hold and possibly even pull through victorious! Though don’t get too adventurous by trying to take on chosen chaos warriors or grail knights with normal rank and file troops even dwarves can’t pull that one off….

Armour: though not a statistic in its own right it still deserves a mention at this point.

Dwarves are one of the better-armoured races in Warhammer. Our basic troop has heavy armour as standard and has access to shields. So for a mere 9 points we suddenly have an infantry man with the already tough characteristics mentioned above BUT also has a 3+ save in frontal combat and 4+ save against shooting! This gets taken even further with iron breakers who for a extra 4 points have a 2+ save and an elite dwarf stat line making them one of the 2 or 3 the best armoured infantryman in the entire game and is the cheapest of these units.

Chapter:2 unit composition

A Dwarf warrior may be the best point for point trooper in the game but even he is weak alone. The Dwarf army should work like a suit of chain mail. Each link working together to stop any attack against it. So when making your units make them big. Dwarves need combat resolution to win so make sure you have the edge by making your units at least 20 strong with 25-30 preferable. With numbers on your side you gain 3 things;

Ranks: more ranks = more combat resolution up to a max of +3. Even more ranks however don’t hurt as this gives you bodies that can be lost before you start loosing combat resolution preserving it for longer.

Outnumbering: another point of combat resolution is always handy after all.

Protection from fear causing auto break: you can only be auto broken from loosing to outnumbering fear-causing enemy. If you outnumber them you don’t auto break.

As for equipping your dwarves go for defence before offence. Build up armour saves before you go looking at great weapons a S3 model with a 3+ save is a lot more useful than a S5 model with a 5+ save when they both strike last in my opinion.

Elite dwarves like hammerers and long beards however can get away with having both great weapons and shields making them incredibly versatile in the face of a mixed enemy force. Fighting a high strength infantry unit? Use your shields. Fighting something that ignores even a 3+ save get out those great weapons and fight fire with fire.

Shooting units in the dwarf army tend to follow a different set of rules from the combat troops. At most you should have these guys in units of 10-12 as they are quite expensive at 11-15 points per model. A unit of 10 is my own preference as its small enough to be placed on a hill without taking up too much room or form a 10 wide line on a flank so throw support fire into the mix and possibly even flank enemy units. (Covered later in deployment 101)

Shooting units should be equipped with shields as often as possible as thanks to the light armour they can sport an impressive 4+ save in combat – the best available to any mainline shooting unit. As for Thunderers VS quarrellers there has been plenty of debate on this and the final results always seem to end up with both units getting lots of kudos and nothing resolved about which is better. I personally like Thunderers for the better armour modifier and ballistic skill but ill leave this up to peoples own preference.

Unit commands are a must. All three members have an important part to play in my opinion. A champion supplies another attack without expanding your frontage and regardless of casualties lets you get 2 attacks into the fight.

Musicians are another combat resolution precaution, which is very important if you plan to hold. In the event of a draw these guys give you +1 resolution, which is useful for keeping the fight a draw, or in the event that your opponent has forgot to add one for himself tip the combat in your favour.

All three of these characters within your units will cost on average 25-30 points. Now you may be thinking “ I could get 3 more guys for that!” the answer is that you could. But its not worth it in my opinion. The unit command is a vital part of the dwarf army and should never be left behind in your combat units. This rule however again does not apply to your shooting dwarves. Shooting dwarves should not be given a command beyond a musician. This allows you to make them flee as a charge reaction and rally on the roll of a 10 rather than a 9 making sure your shooters always come back when you need them to.

3: Character building

Lords vs. heroes

Lords and heroes in the dwarf army are very similar with only 2-3 differences between them. Most of this being in choice of equipment.

Lords have +1 attack WS wound initiative and LD over a thane for an extra 80 points.

The other differences between the lord and the thane are the 50 points in rune allowance and (probably the most important) the Shield Bearers.

The shield bearers are probably the most important thing to happen to the dwarf lord in this edition. What makes them special is that for 25 points you remove the needs for spending more than 5 points on runes to get the golden 1+ save and you get left with 120 points to spend on assorted runic goodies. The shield bearers also remover the chance of killing blow, unlike normal “mounts” the shield bearers and lord count as a single model with US3. According to the new rules only models with a US of 2 or less can be instant killed making the dwarf lord an even more durable model on the tabletop. To round it all off we get another two attacks at S4 WS5. These might not make too big a difference but the odd chance of killing another enemy model and getting another point of combat resolution is always good.

The dwarf lord is also the only way you can raise the over all leadership of a dwarf army letting you spread ld10 over your army making them even more resolute.

As for equipping your lords and thanes you must first consider the following…

1: you have M3

2: you should not be running around solo

3: you have access to the largest armoury of any wfb army and the most powerful magic item list.

Taking these three facts into account think on how best to tool your combat characters. Dwarf characters are best used to bolster the fighting prowess of your front line fighting units and you should tool your characters to best support this. For example in a 25 strong unit of warriors you can see they lack the strength to cause damage to the enemy unit, knowing this you should add a high strength character to compensate for this. This might be a thane with a rune of cleaving and a rune of fury or it could just be a simple but effective great weapon. The higher strength means that you can cause 2-3 wounds where your normal S3 units would fail (against knights and the like).

On the other hand if you have a unit such as hammerers where Strength is not a real problem but surviving is, a character with a master rune of swiftness might be more important. This wonderful rune lets your character make attacks even before the charging enemy. With a rune of cleaving in support this could mean that you eliminate 2 or 3 of the enemy models before they even make contact with your great weapon wielding hammerers letting more of them live long enough to make those powerful S6 attacks hit home.

Thanes and lords can take oath stones as well as their nominal kit (though a lord should ALLWAYS be using shield bearers in my opinion) this is probably one of the most risky items available to the dwarf army but grudge knows it can give great results. This item when activated removes all the flanks on a unit and pins it in place.

This is very effective as under the new rules this means that even if flanked the dwarf unit will still get its hand weapon and shield bonus and will not loose its ranks. Most people make use of the oath stone by placing on a unit near their flank. I however prefer a slightly more sneaky use. My oath stones generally take position at the centre of my line in a high powered and expensive unit which people want rid of/destroyed as such they either A: attack it head on as I want them to or B: avoid it and attack the weaker units so they can comeback to it later. Taking this into account if you see a chance that should normally be ignored from the immanent support unit ready to flank it you should take the chance and charge the first unit. Then as the enemy cackle in glee as you reveal a flank and charge in you drop the oath stone at the last moment! This lets you bog down the enemy in what is pretty much head on combat with a unit of WS5 dwarves which tends to mean death to all but chosen chaos knights/grail knights/other 400+ point unit.

Thanes also have the option of taking the battle standard. This is probably the most important character in the dwarf army as he makes them near damn unbreakable. Dwarves with their ld9 are hard enough to break but with the battle standard you get a re-roll on break tests making them even more likely to pass their break tests and hold the line. This alone makes him very important to be kept alive and as such you should ignore the magic banner runes and tool him for defence. The master rune of Gromril is perfect for this giving him a 1+ save. A secondary rune is also a good bet and the best choices are the rune of striking (+1 ws), which means that you will need WS4 to hit him on 4’s, and the rune of resistance (re-roll saves). If you also have a dwarf lord on the table this advantage is amplified with your dwarves having ld 10!

Runelords have many more advantages over their smith counterparts than lords have over thanes. Higher wounds, LD, initiative, WS and toughness make up the statistical advantages but Runelords also have the highest total of rune allowance (150 points) in the dwarf character section, they give you 2 extra dispel dice over the extra 1 from Runesmiths and they have access to the mighty anvil of doom. So mighty that it has its own short section further down.

Runelords should however only be used if you want to play the anvil of doom. Otherwise 2 Runesmiths can do the same job for less. Runesmiths are the dwarf army’s mainline anti-magic defence having access to all of our anti-magic runes and giving us an extra dispel dice. The other great advantage to Runesmiths is that they, unlike mages and other spell casters who do the same job, have access to armour and weapons making them pretty capable combat characters if given a great weapon and maybe a rune of stone alongside their anti-magic runes. Its also an idea to attach these guys to your elite dwarf units as they have similar damage and WS so rolling all at once is not too bad an idea and he can throw an extra 2 S6 attacks to a great weapon assault or provide 2 great weapon attacks without loss of armour if you are going for the hand weapon and shield option.

Master engineers are the shooting friendly characters in the dwarf army. With a range of skills that power up your war machines and letting you entrench one of them this guy can almost double the effectiveness of any war machine you attach him to. Entrenchments are useful if you have a war machine on your flank, which you want to keep alive and make a nice shooting magnet on occasion. As for equipment the best option is to grab a brace of pistols and a rune of stone. Nothing like a gunslinger to defend war machines from flyers.

Dragon and Daemon slayers are interesting. With a stat line that outdoes thanes and lords these guys look pretty good. They however have no armour and can’t get any. Not even a ward save. Because of this they automatically becomes a fire and forget weapon. When I play a dragon slayer (I don’t use Daemon slayers, they are too expensive for their job in my opinion.) I basically load him up with as many attacks as I can and launch him towards a nearby enemy unit. This has 1 of two results. 1: he dies as he plans or 2: he hits the unit with 7 attacks and holds them in place for 1-2 turns like I plan. They are a very fun and fluffy part of the army but in any serious play I avoid them. As a result I don’t have too much experience with them and can’t give any more info than this but I’m open to peoples ideas on our little berserkers.

4: Anvil of Doom

the anvil of doom is our answer to magic and is probably the most controversial weapon available to the dwarf army. This weapon can turn the entire game on its head by making dwarves faster than their enemies! The two best runes to use are in my opinion; the rune of wrath and ruin and the rune of oath and honour. These two runes can turn the tables on the enemy by making you faster than they are. The rune of Wrath and ruin is probably more useful in the earlier turns than the oath and honour as it causes damage, grounds flyers and halves the movement of enemy forces. The rune of oath and honour is handy when the enemy are close enough to charge you (12”).

The big question with the anvil of doom however is this: do I use the ancient power or the normal one? My answer: always go for the ancient power, gamble with the anvil using the 2+ casting value is weak and no test of a rune lord’s skill. Always go for the 4+ and maximise the results! This approach could mean your anvil exploding turn one but it could also mean that you could slow, damage and cripple 3 enemy units just as the game starts with the 2d6 S4 hits and halving their movement in the first turn giving your war machines and shooting dwarves even longer to shoot at the enemy forces.

The rune of oath and honour can be thought of as your trump card. As the enemy close in after weathering your onslaught of fire you use this rune and launch your dwarves into the enemies face charging what you can. This has 3 effects 1: you force him into charging what’s in front of him letting you pick targets 2: you might get the charge against several units giving you a definite advantage and 3: you scare his pants off.

5: Which War machines?

This is probably the most asked question by budding dwarf players and deserves a look into in this tactica.

The simple answer is that every war machine is good in its own way. Grudge throwers and flame cannons can obliterate hordes, cannons and bolt throwers smash chariots, pull down monsters and obliterate knights. I will go into each war machine in more detail however in an attempt to bulk this section out and elaborate on them a bit.

Ill stick some stars at the end of each warmachines brief (out of 5) based on my opinions of them to make this seem a little more in-depth than it is

Bolt thrower: the poor dwarves friend; cheep, effective and reliable the bolt thrower is the one war machine that’s its hard to go wrong with and it should be your first consideration when choosing war machines. Basically ask yourself: can the bolt thrower do it or do I need something more? Bolt throwers are generally effective against any target on the battlefield but at the same time are not spectacular against any target on the battlefield so you may want to use another war machine in the event that you need a certain job done. For example if you expect a lot of chariots a cannon is probably a better bet, if you expect lots of multi wound critters grudge throwers are more useful and if you are fighting penny a packet horde troops the flame cannon is your best bet.

One of the great redemptions of the bolt thrower however is that you get 2 of them per special choice. This makes up for their mediocrity by letting you have more of them than any other war machine.

As for equipping them your first priority should be getting an engineer. The engineer is the best thing for bolt throwers this edition. This guy turns the bolt thrower into a real nasty killing machine by making it accurate enough to start striking the enemy from the first turn to the last with consistent results (especially if you have them working in pairs). As for runes, the rune of penetration is a good investment giving your bolt thrower S7 (the magic number) making it a chariot killer.

In conclusion it’s hard to go wrong with a pair of bolt throwers in a dwarf army but don’t expect devastation every game you use them. ***

Cannons: cannons are the real hard hitter of the dwarf gun line. Sporting strength 10 this war machine makes its impact felt almost every time it hits an enemy. Unlike the bolt thrower the cannon does not loose strength as it travels through targets making it very handy for smashing through a unit of high toughness troops. The cannons base S of 10 makes it the best chariot killer in the dwarf armoury with consistent results pretty much every time. It is however only marginally better than the bolt thrower for targeting single chariots. Units of chariots however is where the real difference between these two warmachines comes into effect as the cannon can auto-kill each chariot it hits. The bolt thrower (unless made S8+ in which it would be cheaper getting a cannon) would only be able to auto kill the first chariot before becoming S6 and unable to eliminate the following chariots.

When equipping this war machine only 1 rune is really needed; the rune of forging. This rune makes misfire nothing more than an occasional annoyance by changing the chance of misfire from 1/6 to 1/36. this rune also lets you re-roll the bounce on the cannon ball if it misfires and gets stuck in the mud. ***

Grudge thrower: you either love it or hate it. This war machine is probably the most agued over of all of the special warmachines. In its favour it sports the greatest range and potential for damage out of the three. Against it however is its inherent inaccuracy and lower strength than its two counterparts. I’m personally a great fan of the grudge thrower with them making a regular appearance in my armies. The reason I like the grudge thrower so much is that it sports a template. This let’s the war machine inflict a lot more damage against ranked troops than a cannon would per say.

This war machine also has a psychological effect on your opponent as well, when you do manage to land a nice big rock on an enemy unit you will notice that you will on average get 5 models under the template with 4 partials- This is 9 models averaging out with 7 hits on the models beneath – when you roll to wound you will probably kill 4-6 models. Now this might not seem like anything special but when you consider that this will remove an entire rank of models and allow no save this machine starts to become a real focus on the tabletop.

As for runes there are 2 I recommend: the rune of accuracy and the rune of penetration. The rune of accuracy should be your first priority, this is rune has the wonderful advantage of making the stone thrower horrendously accurate. If you take a look at your scatter dice you will spot that there is 2 sides marked with the “hit”. This means that you have a 1/3 chance of a direct hit. If you miss this however and you don’t like the result of the scatter re-roll for another 1/3 chance to hit. This results in the chances of getting the hit roll rising immensely. The rune of penetration is also very effective on this war machine as with strength 5 you begin to start wounding T3 troops on a 2+ causing even more damage. Not to mention the double strength at the centre of the template becomes S10. ****

note:

Stonehambey was kind enough to do the math for the chances to hit the the rune of accuracy so cheers to him

Quote:

P(getting a hit) = 1 – P(no hits)

= 1 – (2/3)^2

= 1 – 4/9

= 5/9 (I think!)

So more than half which sounds good to me

Ciao

Stonehambey

Organ gun: the Swiss army gun. In the dwarf army no war machine is so effective against every target than the organ gun. You can shoot this at pretty much anything and expect some sort of result. This machines only con however is its short range compared to the other warmachines. Regardless of this however it has become the most popular of all the warmachines and appears in almost every list I read today. The organ gun specialises in targeting skirmishers and flyers however and performs this role to an art being able to gun down any mainline flyer unit in the game with its S5 and –3 armour mod. ****

Flame cannon: this war machine is a real monster. Able to break enemy units with incredible speed this flame-throwing contraption is the most overshadowed of all the warmachines available to the dwarves. This is really because of how effective the organ gun is. Voted one of the top 5 unit breakers in the game by GW this weapon has saved me in many games to the extent that I plan to remove my organ gun to play it more often. With a deceptively long range I have been able to strike enemy units on turn 1. the key to this is to remember that the flame template is 8” long so you will have an effective range of 3” to 30” (12”+10”+ template). So don’t be afraid to target the enemy as soon as you can. The best targets for the flame cannon are light medium infantry whose armour is not too high and their moral is average enough to make the panic tests fail more often. This can be anything from goblins to elves. ***

Gyrocopter: probably the most effective support unit in the dwarf army the gyro copter is our fastest unit in the game and is best served as a march blocker and war machine hunter. The steam gun is not spectacular but it strong enough to give T3 troops a headache and if you place your shots well enough you can probably whittle down units enough to remove their effectiveness, a good target for this tactic would be units of fast cavalry as these tend to be 5-6 strong and killing one or two and making the unit fairly useless. Over all the gyro is a powerful support weapon and has a place in most dwarf lists. Its limited uses however make it only so effective on a tabletop. ***

6: Sample army list

in this section I’m going to put down one of my successful dwarf lists with a little summery at the bottom to how well it has faired in the past.

2k dwarf army

rune smith (general)

2X runes of spell breaking

rune of stone

great weapon

129

thane

bsb

mro gromril

rune of striking

125

core

warriors 25

full command

shields

250

warriors 25

full command

shields

250

long beards 19 (bsb here)

shields

full command

master rune of grungi

346 points

Thunderers 10

shields

150

special

Hammerers 19 (rune smith here)

full command

rune of courage

307

cannon

rune of forging

125

Grudge thrower

Rune of accuracy

Rune of reloading

Engineer

135 points

Bolt thrower

Engineers

60

Rare

Organ gun

120

this list was the result of me wanting to get some more warmachines into my army. It is build around a solid core of troops with an economical character choice and powerful selection of warmachines. This list works by bunkering up in a corner and using its high amount of firepower to draw the enemy army to it and then using its strong infantry line to destroy what’s left of the enemy army after it makes its way past my war machine barrage.

The warrior units are all large enough to mean that they can hold for several turns before needing support and the elite dwarf units are strong enough to smash through the enemy line without much resistance. The Thunderers are my anti-fast cavalry defence using their high accuracy to deal with possible flanking moves or help the warmachines knock ranks off the enemy forces with their good armour mod.

All of the warmachines have been kitted out for reliability and should cause consistent damage for several turns.

The characters have been kept cheep in order to maximise the strength of the rest of the army but still give the army enough magic defence and moral support to bolster the defences.

The long beards have been made the anchor unit of the infantry forces with a wide range of effects that strengthen the overall moral of the troops nearby and protects them from war machine damage (remember that bolt throwers stop once they fail to kill so the 5+ ward from the master rune of grungi would stop the bolt going any further) keeping the effects of enemy shooting fairly low compared to the damage ill be putting against them. If I end up playing against an army however that does not have a lot of shooting I can swap out the master rune for 1 of 2 combo’s: 1 rune of battle 1 rune of stoicism OR rune of courage and the determination rune making the long beards a very hard to unit to break either way.

7: complimentary support

this is the key to a good dwarf army. When you play you have to make sure that every unit in the army is set out to support and augment your other ones. No single unit in the dwarf army is spectacular on its own. Its only at peak efficiency once you have it teamed with the rest of your army. For example your dwarf infantry’s greatest weakness if being flanked and loosing its rank bonus, to stop this you consolidate its position by creating a battle line. By placing all your dwarves shoulder to shoulder you defend their flanks and present an iron-bearded wall to them to try and get past.

One way to consider this is to create “groups” in your army. Putting certain units together to work directly with each other. I for example group my 2 warriors and long beards (see list above) these three units support each other with the long beards giving the two warrior units lots of moral support and protection from shooting while they hold its flanks and make the enemy fight it head on.

Another example is how I use my warmachines. I pair my cannon and bolt thrower together because they do a similar job and they amplify their effects against units.

The Thunderers and organ gun also do this as they use direct fire to cause damage and are again effective against similar targets.

Characters in the dwarf army also follow this trend. Unlike their chaos or vampire count counterparts are not the great unit cleaving masters of the game. Dwarf characters work best as support units attached to your regiments to augment their already potent fighting skills. The only exceptions to this are the slayer heroes but that’s a different matter. Lords and thanes fall into this by strengthening the unit with extra attacks at a higher strength than normal, and in the case of the lord boost LD.

So when building and playing a dwarf army consider which units work well with others to maximise their effects on the overall battle.

8: Deployment 101

I personally use the following method when deploying my army

choose position: this is preferably on one of the table edges in order to create an anchored flank (he cant get you if the table edge is in the way) hills are preferable but if there is only one right in the middle of your deployment zone set up on the table edge closest to it (take the edge over a hill). Keep that refused flank, but don’t rule out the hill.

Fortify: put down your combat formations in a solid line at an angle (towards you) touching the edge you are wanting to use as an anchor and pulling towards the back edge. if you have a hill in your corner deploy around it. if not set up points on your flanks for warmachines to go. Never place warmachines on their own. They are venerable to enemy fast attack and countering this will mean you have to redirect fire to counter them. rough terrain can make another solid flank anchor as it can slow enemy units down a fair bit (but watch out for yeti)

Shooting units should be used in 1 of 3 ways.

1: double ranked on a hill: this one is a no brainier really. but choosing where on a hill to set them up is different. You would preferably want a position, which has a good view over the enemy advance. Shooting dwarves can’t move and shoot so any repositioning mid battle is not good. Instead look at the terrain outside your deployment. Are there forests? Towns? Rock outcrops? What will slow them down? What can block your fire? Take all of these into account before placing your dwarves as any loss in fire can mean the enemy don’t take enough damage this turn or don’t panic.

2: on a flank. A way to solve the problem of enemy approaching is to place them on a flank. A lot of the time you will need a single rank to do this but placing a unit of Thunderers on the end of your infantry formation can whittle down unit numbers enough to tip the scales in your favour. this is achieved be the following (assume that this is the lower right corner of a table)

as you can see you create an area where the enemy must cross if they want to reach your troops but you have a field of fire over. They could then attack the shooting unit which will work in your favour as being so close to the table edge will result in them leaving the board and being out of action for 2 turns or if you hold give you the chance to flank the enemy unit.

3: the forlorn hope, basically a single rank of shooting dwarves in front of your battle line. This gives your troops a field of fire over the approaching enemy and gives you a speed bump to slowdown the enemy army (giving warmachines/other shooting units) more time to fire at loose units.

Once you have your shooting dwarves in place you should then place your warmachines in position that present maximum line of sight over enemy approaches and gives you the best chance to destroy enemy formations as they come to you or in the event that they try to out shoot you, you are able to shoot into their formations and cause more damage forcing them to advance.

9: offence against defence.

Dwarves by default have a defensive posture there is no avoiding this. However this does not mean you can’t play in an aggressive manner. Marching dwarf armies have became more and more popular as of late and with good reason. Dwarves are now one of the top rated combat armies in the game* and are a force to be reckoned with. An offensive dwarf army generally takes the form of a powerful battle line backed up by gyrocopters and maybe the odd war machine to give support fire as it advances. Another common feature of marching dwarf armies as of late is the anvil of doom due to letting you move your dwarves at 12” per turn. This army also tends to set up to one side of the board in order to defend one of its flanks then roll up that side into the enemy deployment then swing around to attack the enemy head on.

*survey at local gaming club

Personally I’m an advocate of the defensive style of play. Using my war machine batteries I force my opponent to find refuge in the comparative safety of combat where my warmachines can’t hurt him. The entire idea of this tactic is to make him/her do this precise movement. Place your self in the corner of the table (as detailed in deployment 101) and use your superior firepower to bring him to you. As he approaches focus on removing ranks from dangerous units or bring them bellow US5 in the case of some chaos knight units. Your main intention would be to make sure that you are fighting weakened units that will not be able to truly break past your dwarf battle line and that you can wear down through a heavy attritional battle. Longbeards and hammerers should endeavour to not only hold but smash enemy units that land against them and begin your counter attack. Once you have broken past you should rapidly move to support any of your warrior units, which might be coming off badly against the enemy attack. Once that’s done you should focus on destroying as much as the enemy army as you can, as dwarves are not famous for capturing table quarters.

As for which tactic to choose over the other there is no real deciding factor. I choose to play defensively because that works for me and it took a few test games (and a lot of draws) to realise that I’m good at that style of play, but I make sure that my armies are able to quickly adapt to changing situations and if needed can march out to take the fight to the enemy.

When building your list for either tactic remember that pure shooting or pure combat will probably not win the battle you will most likely need some form of support from the other in order to make your tactic work.

10 Dictating the battlefield

in Warhammer there is 4 main phases which directly influence the battlefield; movement, shooting, magic and combat. The key to dictating the battlefield to is have control over 1-2 of these phases and using them to influence enemy decisions and put situations in your favour. Dwarves are limited to only being able to take control of two phases, shooting and combat, thankfully we are masters of both these phases.

Shooting: Dwarves use shooting to influence how the enemy move before the combat begins. With a reputation for powerful warmachines and immense shooting people tend to deploy differently that they normally would normally. Use this to your advantage, the placing of an odd war machine away from your lines as a decoy is one example as the enemy player might send a unit away from the main battle to deal with this threat. Placing organ guns on your flank is another example, as a lot of players tend to keep their distance once they see the damage an organ gun can inflict. By making areas of the table danger zones to shooting you can “herd” your foe into sending their units directly against your front line, which brings it to the second phase dwarves have a strong presence in.

Combat: Dwarves are a powerful combat army if played right. Head on combat being our speciality. This can be used to dominate the game by making the enemy wary of what units to charge and result in him/her spending more time manoeuvring than is really needed and give you more time to lay fire into them.

If you are able to make your opponent work to your plan you have won half the battle. This is of course easier said than done and takes practice to perfect it but once you are able to do it games tend to become a lot easier and at the same time interesting.

11: conclusion

Well that’s it. 15 pages of meaningless waffle created by your truly I hope that there is in fact something in this that will help you out. Rather than doing a huge recap here in the conclusion id just like to pass out some kudos

Thanks to:

Members of the Librarium dwarf forum who have over my 4 years of gaming helped me gain my 50 or so games without loss. (yeah a few draws but who is complaining)

The members of the Bugman’s brewery for the same.

The members of the IRC Warhammerfun chat who have shown interest enough for me to keep at this.

And the Scottish educational system who have given me a holiday I’ve wasted a week of to make this article.

—-Arklite