Starting up, advice?

[Andywill]

Hey guys, im fairly new to warhammer, (iv played 40k for a long time now tho). And me and some friends are all starting up with 500 pt armies. I tried vampires for a while but i dont really liek how they play (relying on characters to win things whilhe hiding in hordes of guys). So i was looking around the army books in store and i liek the image of the dwarves, a few really stubborn guys not giving ground till theyr all dead, with big cannons backing them up :P.

I really need to whack out a small 500pt list fast, what would you guys reccomend i start with, would the battle force box be a good start? (In our 500pt games we are only allowed 1 war machine and the hero has to be below about 130 points.)

Any and all advice most welcome :).

[Wolf_Pack]

Hey guys, im fairly new to warhammer, (iv played 40k for a long time now tho). And me and some friends are all starting up with 500 pt armies. I tried vampires for a while but i dont really liek how they play (relying on characters to win things whilhe hiding in hordes of guys). So i was looking around the army books in store and i liek the image of the dwarves, a few really stubborn guys not giving ground till theyr all dead, with big cannons backing them up :P.

I really need to whack out a small 500pt list fast, what would you guys reccomend i start with, would the battle force box be a good start? (In our 500pt games we are only allowed 1 war machine and the hero has to be below about 130 points.)

Any and all advice most welcome :).

If you can bear the models, battle for skull pass is a great purchase. Find a friend who wants the goblins, and trade sets. You will end up with a good amount of infantry too begin with.

If you are like me (and find the models fugly!) you will buy your boxes seperate, at higher cost. At low point games, quarellers give flexibility. Thunderers give accurate and harder hiting range support. As goes unit of 15-16 warriorswith shields is good at 500 pts.

Never go overboard on characters. Dwarves and great cost effective setups for low point games. If you know your opponents will tend to field magic at this point level, using a Thane has your general is nothing to be ashamed of. he still has high weapon skill and access to a great weapon.

An organ gun or a bolt thrower would be a good bet for your first warmachine. The organ gun is very effective, but short ranged. The BT never blows up, but will not kill as much, albeit at a cheaper cost.

[Andywill]

Cool thanks :).

Heres my first draft i jsut drew up. Any comments welcome :)

Thane - Hand weapon, sheild, rune of stone

14 Warriors - Hand weapons, Sheilds, Standard.

10 Thunderers - Sheilds, Standard, Veteran.

Organ gun.

Total 498 points.


Thanks :)

[waЯu]

People are going to hate you for having an Organ Gun in 500pts... Keep it in!

The only general advice I can give you is not to take command on your missile troops- Champions are generally not worth the points unless you're Empire and upgrading means you get access to Longrifles (drools) and a Standard is worth 100vp if captured which effectively doubles its worth to the enemy is destroyed. If you've got the points then a Musician is useful but with Dwarven Ld, it's always the first thing to go when you need to shave off a few points.

Dropping they should give you points to give your Thane a weapon rune- not the best use of the points but, honestly, I find the Runic item creation to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of building up a Dwarf army so I like to include a few runes even when it's not strictly in my interest.

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

I would say drop the organ gun, it's too easy to avoid in small points! a cannon or pair of bolt throwers is a. Cheaper and B. Just as, if not more, effective. With the points saved then runes on your thane and maybe a dragon slayer to defend your War machines (only 50 points and could also be used to hold up an enemy unit while you flank charge it. OR instead of runeing up your thane and getting a dragon slayer or w.e get 2 units of 10 warriors (one of the units being Longbeards) because together they will be much more effective, one to hold the charge, the other to flank charge with GWs.

[AltheAlchemist]

In a recent 500 pt battle I had with Dark Elves I used a similar list, except I had a Bolt Thrower instead of an organ gun, and I had a unit of 19 dwarf warriors. I did pretty well with it at the beginning of the game but my opponent went around a forest with a few horsemen and flanked my thunderers and my bolt thrower while my dwarf warriors and my thane chased down a unit of corsairs (which we eventually destroyed) The battle was a tie with me in the lead by 65 pts. It was a fun game all the same, and I think you'll do well with your current list. I personally like Bolt Throwers better and I like having large units of soldiers to assure a quick victory in close combat, but you can do what you want.

[Wolf_Pack]

I would say drop the organ gun, it's too easy to avoid in small points! a cannon or pair of bolt throwers is a. Cheaper and B. Just as, if not more, effective. With the points saved then runes on your thane and maybe a dragon slayer to defend your War machines (only 50 points and could also be used to hold up an enemy unit while you flank charge it. OR instead of runeing up your thane and getting a dragon slayer or w.e get 2 units of 10 warriors (one of the units being Longbeards) because together they will be much more effective, one to hold the charge, the other to flank charge with GWs.


You can't avoid it if it is stuck inbetween the 2 units. If you ever want to engage the dwarves, you got to commit.

Penetration weapons are the most ineffective weapons at low point games. Your opponent tends not to have multiple ranks, so your kill rate is sub optimal, unless you want to use them for character sniping. The ogran gun needs not to hit, and is not affected by distance, quantity of the enemy, weather, playoff games or hurricane seaon.

It's the deadliest weapon around at 500 points.

If you are worried about range ( woodelves for example) Quarrellers are great for this. They can also sport great weapons, meaning you can get a really good support unit out of it too.

[Sumilidon]

The Organ gun is a good choice as it will certainly cause your opponent a headache. I wouldn't rule out a grudge thrower however.

Slightly more expensive than the Organ Gun if tooled up right, a Grudge thrower with Rune of Burning, Rune of penetrating, Rune of Accuracy & an Engineer will allow you to:

* Re-roll a misfire
* Re-roll a scatter
* Cause large hits on a unit, and killing most of them.
* Be a complete sod against those vulnerable to burning attacks

All for 20 more points.

Downsides -
You need to guess well & when they are within 12" you cannot shoot them
You're not as effective against Cavalry - unless your good at guessing

Upside -
You can fire if you have the first turn
Against hoarde armies you'll easily make them flee or at least hurt them quite badly
You'll still cause a lot of damage against tough, heavy armoured & multiple wound units (ie Ogres)


Definately practice your guessing if you want to use one however

[Royal_Marine_Machine]

The only thing that takes those two options out of my mind at 500pts is the cost - it's over a fifth of your total points cost! A Bolt thrower isn't even a tenth! Two will be just as effective (about 2 or 3 casualties per turn and can fire and two different units, at long range.)

[The bearded one]

I think an organ gun would be more effective. As wolfpack pointed out, rankpenetrating warmachines have little effect at low pointcost games because the units are smaller, the enemy uses cavalry units, or he uses skirmishers. An Organgun can blast away entire units of cavalry with a single shot, decimate infantryunits and hit those pesky skirmishers :)

Against Ogres, take a pair of boltthrowers. D3 wounds ftw!

[Andywill]

Thanks for all the replys guys!

I bought the dwarf battalion and assembled it as the lsit i posted earlier. Iv gone with a light blue colour scheme for my thunderes, everything else is still lacking paint (bad i know :P).

I gave my list a try against a small chaos warrior army and it worked pretty well. The thunderers managed to kill all of his fast cavalry before they got hit by them, due to some jammy rolling on my part i think :P, dogs i think? Whilst my warriros sat back protecting things, his wizard didnt do much at all, i think he killed 2 warriros with a lucky fireball hehe. and my organ gun turned a unit of coas warriros into a nasty little smear :).

Only a first game though against another unexperienced player i have mroe games coming this week now so ill see how things work out and let y'all know! Thanks for the help!