"Re: How to Beat Daemons with Dwarfs" Topic

Now, I must admit I love Dwarfs – at least, painting them – I have about 3000 – plus points of them – enough that one of my former students has challenged me this weekend with his army of Chaos Daemons

When he and I have played, honours have been even – but he does have this Daemon army – have never played against Chaos – and it did win a Best Painted Army award at a Games Workshop event, so I am a little intimated

My thought is to take a fair number of missile troops – cannon, my favourite Grudge Thrower and a few units of thunderers – and back them up with a couple of units of warriors, my beloved Longbeards, a Hammerer unit, a brace of Slayers and a unit of Miners (just in case) – then let them come to me (I hear that Daemons are pretty fleet)

Sound reasonable? Any hints on how to defend Karaz Ankor against the forces of Chaos?

I haven't played the current rules but have run my demon armies against dwarfs on a number of occasions. The dwarfs are tough and for Chaos it was usually a matter of winning the fight or facing a break test that could destroy the unit.

So I typically figured out all the stuff I could to stay out of combat.

I played Tzeentch. I didn't really see any of the other powers, except Khorne, as having much stick-with-itness in close combat though.

Even Khorne was somewhat touch and go. I have a Khorne daemon army too, they haven't faced the Dwarfs as I use them mostly to supplement my 40K World Eaters.

Things I feared most:

Dispel ability: this sucked because it meant that all of my lovely magic wasn't going to work. With the rules we were using at the time, 7th edition I think, Tzeentch armies had horrors that all counted as being magic users. With a greater daemon you had a pretty powerful load of magic you were throwing out.

But if units were immune to magic, because of a standard or some such dwarfen trickery, then there wasn't a lot to do except throw the flamers against them.

Getting flanked: this sucked because if the dwarfs were in combat and you lost the fight and had to take a break test you could lose a whole unit with a bad, and not that bad, die roll.

Take away the rank bonus and units start going poof.

Of course this is true of most armies but my poor horrors had few ways to get the gristly little bearded bastards away. Well they pretty much only had one way, throw in the Changer of Ways but then his magic use might suffer for being in combat.

Miners: These guys suck, they can pop up behind you where you don't have any flamers.

Things I hoped I would see in my enemies battle line:

Gyrocopters: These things could mostly be ignored.

Thunderers: the more shooting the dwarfs had the less close combat they could get up too. Plus the units were usually smaller and had to start taking panic tests sooner. Even with the Ld 9 they would eventually run.

cannons and other artillery: Small crew compliment meant that targeting them with spells that sucked out souls and such like really made them an easy and quickly dispatched target. Plus with a magic save getting shot by a cannon ball was about the same as getting shot by a handgun.

Now my force was Tzeentch themed, it had all Tzeentch daemons in it. I believe they have changed things so that all the ruinous powers get along swimmingly now and can all muck in together to bring desolation to the world without any infighting or some such nonsense so YMMV.

I only played WHFB a dozen times. I only played as dwarves. Dwarves vs various opponents. Won eleven, lost once (from 1800-2300pt games.)

My organization revolved around maxing out my dispel dice to negate any enemy magic. I completely ran the table against enemies that relied on magic to counter their other weaknesses.

One of my "money making" units was a stand of Thunderers twelve across and two deep. If you have a hill, that's 24 shots. They'd wipe out a unit a turn, just protect them against skirmishers trying to engage them.

I took canons and a grudge thrower, no gyro, no flame, no slayers, no organ gun, no anvil (too unpredictable at the cost.)

I have the added benefit of being uncanny with estimating range, so my canons were very effective, YMMV.

My typical formation was the Thunderers supporting two stands of warriors with Longbeards in the middle advancing, Ironbreakers and Hammerers advancing more at an angle on the sides to prevent enemy flanking units (as you are aware, dwarves are outflanked easily.) I used the LB, IB & Hammerer's to reinforce when needed or capitalize when the opportunity presents itself.

My stunties crowning achievement was the time a stand of warriors won initial combat vs 3x their points in charging Chaos Knights, then caught them again on the retreat (he rolled low, I rolled high), destroying the entire unit.

I'd say lots of warmachines, stubborn/unbreakable units (uber lord in hammerers, slayers). Anvil – it might give you much necessary flank or rear charge with miners or rangers. Great weapons of miners or rangers will work on highly armored chaos warriors. As for thunderers – I'm not sure, they don't really work well for me against cavalry armies. If you take anvil, you have a rune that is kinda replacing low strength shooting.

Play this weekend, then in a month have another ago except this time you should have a new book to do it with :)

Barin1, maybe your experience with the anvil was just better than mine…

I only took it one game, it was the only game I lost; I struck failures every turn – which is why I considered it wasted points and too unpredictable.

Don't be greedy with ancient power, you will still get one charge each turn in 5/6… worked fine for me. I was trying ancient power only if it was the only thing that could save me…and even then you have 3/6 possibility to strike it without misfire…Most of tourney lists included the anvil…however if rumors are true, new book will change anvil functioning completely.

Ah – you are assuming I went for gusto – not so. Basic strikes, failed every roll. Bad luck for me.

Great advice and many thanks

I had the same feeling about gyrocopters – and the Anvil of Doom

I plan on using big solid blocks of Warriors with Longbeards and Hammerers and with Thunderers and artillery in between

Will let everyone know how it turns out!