Ive been looking at the army book and i noticed how great hammerers were compared to long beards. Why would you ever buy long beards over hammers if you had the special slot open? They are nearly the same cost with shields as long beards with shields, gain a great weapon and stubborn. Am i missing something here?

Well they have the old grumblers special rule which is very useful.

Also, you might not have that special slot open; with war machines and other elite infantry they can fill up very quickly :)

Because Longbeards are almost as good as Hammers and they count as CORE rather than speical, and Hammers are only really good if you have a Dwarf Lord and put him in the unit, otherwise they don't get the Bodyguard special rules. Longbeards also have "Old Grumblers" which is a good bennie. Mostly though its the difference between LB's being CORE and Hammers being SPECIAL.

longbeards and hammerers are both excellent units, but i don't think they can be compared O_o

when you look at them you can see that while hammerers are your bearded beat-stick unit, the longbeards are the glue that keeps a dwarf battle line together. their old grumblers rule is stupendously good when facing enemy artilery fire as it allows you to re-roll on that fantastic ld9! ld10 if you have a dwarf lord in the army :D.

they also only take up a core choice. this is a pretty big plus as they also get a cheaper command group than hammerers or ironbreakers. i find that due to their central location they are an ideal choice for carrying the master rune of grungi, that 5+ ward save is pretty stupendous after all :party:

hammerers on the otherhand are there to hold then smash anything that is kind enough to challenge them. with the dwarf lord in the front rank and the hammerers above average stats you can be sure of holding against pretty much anything in the game and, in most cases, smashing it in sucessive combat rounds ^_^

my advice is to take both if you can, but units provide a huge amount of the dwarf army (boosting the moral strength of the battle line and keeping the lord alive) and their combat ability is never to be underestimated ;)

You should be getting both as they are both superb. I for one rarely have the points or the special slots to get more then 1 Hammerer unit though.