Help Dwarf Player Out

DP’s are good there is no doubt about it, especially in smaller point games. I don’t know how often you or others in your group take him but I know I’ve rarely faced a WoC list without one since I started playing 8th. They are normally the build you have, which does make them a bit predictable and I don’t think I could go against a WoC player without tailoring to counter it.

Throgg is also excellent (and I’ve always thought undercosted in a list tailored to his strengths - lots of trolls) and the two of them together make this a solid list (especially as the DP is protected against the counter to trolls).

It maybe that I just have a dislike of WoC and DE’s as armies to play against 😀.

I’ve made a possible list for your opponent but it does have a fluffier element to it, as I can’t do full on lists (not with dwarves anyway!).

Ungrim in a horde of Daemon Slayers with some appropriate Runes may be a good idea.

If I (as an Empire player) know my opponent has a DP Wizard, I usually bring Sivejir's Hex Scroll, and try to use it, when the DP is already in CC, or when I can shoot or charge him myself in my own turn. Doesn't do you any good, of course.

I actually have never faced Chaos, believe or not. Nbody near me every played it, so I don't have the experience to provide detailed lists. Cannons & Slayers though would be my suggestions as well.

What sort of environment do you normally play in. Is it very competitive lists or some competitive, some fluff?

I ask as having now looked at both lists, yours is definitely at the competitive end whereas his is middle to lower end. I’m also guessing you destroyed him due to this post.

Without the exact list breakdown i can’t fully comment so I’ve just put a few thoughts around his existing list and where it could be improved (rather than fully rewriting it).

No one takes normal dwarves with hand weapon and shields in a competitive list (in fairness in any kind of list bar extreme fluff or as a challenge), their S3 is rubbish, if you want that armament from core, use them to proxy long beards. Also with the unit of GW dwarves and the Thunderers, that should have filled his core points, so he could have dropped the unit altogether and taken something else from special (slayers/hammerers/ironbreakers etc. Any of which would be better, though I appreciate there is a points limitation). The unit of 20 thunderers can also (sort of) perform the same task as the shield warrior unit (but with a ranged attack), again making the dwarf warriors with shields in the list a bit redundant.

Likewise not having engineers on both organ guns together with runes of accuracy (I couldn’t tell if they had these) really reduces their effectiveness (though you can get away with just runes). His placement of them directly behind his blocks, thus giving a -2 to his shots for hard cover (or so it looks like) must have really impacted their performance. (I’ll wait for the rest of the report to find out 😀).

I’d also say having one unit of 20 thunderers, rather than two units of 10 was also not recommended as it limits their flexibility (I’m also an advocate of taking xbows not handguns as I prefer the addition range over the AP but that is because I mainly use them for shooting chaff like your dogs and you can always decide for both units to target the same unit). If he didn’t take the shield warriors then 20 isn’t a bad idea, especially without a stubborn rune or bubble to fortify the units of 10 (unless the bsb had the Groth banner?).

It’s interesting that he also set up his thunderers in a block from the word go, rather than 10 wide in 2 ranks, as this wasted the points he spent on half the guns.

I hope I don’t offend him if he reads this but is he quite new to using dwarves, or does he play more for the fun of rolling some dice (and there is nothing wrong with that), or was just trying out things to see how they were on the table?

Another point in xbows favour against this list is the ability to take double handed axes instead of shields. Whilst dwarf shieldwall is exceptional, in the case of facing trolls I would prefer the +2 strength

I once went to a weekend tournament, five games...
I played VS Warriors THREE times and Demons once. 80% Chaos Saturation.