So, Dwarves....

[Joasht]

My internet was out over the weekend, giving me the luxury of spare (wasted :X) time to read some WM fluff from my books and realized that the Dwarves (well, Rhulfolk to be precise...but I'm going to call them Dwarves anyway) are pretty bad***. Prior to this, I had liked them simply because they are dwarves (me being a dwarf fan in all my fantasy games), but the whole "made Orgoth run like little girls" down to the "we fight each other but we don't go kill ourselves and ruin our civilization like what the elves did" and how "even those legally kicked out will come back to help".......thats just awesome.

Anyway, fangirling aside, I have some thoughts and questions which I hope some of you would take the time to answer

1) I should clarify that this is excitement is in part due to the new caster thats coming out, and also that I don't necessarily intend to go pure Searforge; I currently own almost 150 points of mostly non-Rhulic Mercs (barring some stuff like the Bokur and Forge Guard) so I'm entirely open to going Four Star or Highborn. But of course, pure Searforge isn't too bad an idea.

2) What are your thoughts on the position of the Dwarves in the post-Colossals meta? I briefly glanced the other thread, but noticed that it wasn't exactly the discussion I had in mind. I can't help but shake the feeling that Dwarves would do well in the post-Colossal meta due to their comparatively low prices and good combination of hitting power and survivability. Even our infantry are mostly immune to blast damage (literally, if you take Gorten and upkeep Solid Ground) so all those AoEs won't mean anything......as long as its not Critical Consume, or auto-Fire which would be a problem to any infantry.

3) As I aforementioned, I only own the Forge Guard, and am looking into possibly getting the Gun Corps. However, they appear fascinating, but seem to lack punch; literally due to their low overall POW and average combat stats. Sure, they can CRA but theres quite a lot of other ways to get accurate attacks on the table. What are your thoughts on them? Searforge-only, or worth having in any broad Merc collection?

4) Linking to question #2, what do you think would become an fixture in Rhulic caster lists as far as their Warjacks go? I typically play 35 points which would thus limit my ability to necessarily "spam" jacks, but it appears like a pair of gunbunnies (thinking of Blasters) paired with three heavies (thinking of one Driller, one Rockram and one Basher on Thor) would fit any bill nicely to provide armor saturation, while only barely taking up ~20 points of my army (the exact selection with Thor is 22 points with Gorten).

Thanks!!

[Zevanna]

I think Guncorps are fairly average at best since POW 10s don't cut it against anything except infantry, and you aren't going to hit many infantry at RAT 5. You could CRA, but then you aren't killing infantry efficiently as its a lot easier for Rhulic lists to send AoEs/Sprays in their face, while if you are aiming big targets you'd need to do the massive CRA which is inefficient for your points.

[Kenlen]

Jackwise I think the Driller is a must, but the Rockram is also sweet, especially with Durgen. I think both these jacks under SoG or Redline is going to make a Colossal sad, add Tune-up from Thor, and you'll be one-rounding a colossal with just a teenzy bit of dice-luck, have a second one lined up if the first on wiffs it's attacks.

The Basher is good on all three (Gorten, Durgen, Thor), ditto on the bunnies. For hunting stealthy solos I usually take Thor and a Blaster. Pronto, Tune-up attack, walk (or aim), hose down your target(s), JM-boost DMG on the juiciest enemy. I've taken down Eyriss many times with this combo. Also a good way to dance around a 120mm base and hose down all the support hiding behind it.

I rarely take my Highshields anymore, unless I'm playing 50+. Their main strength, their CRA doubletap (with the UA) simply has too short threat range to pull off more than once every 2-3 games. SPD 4 and range 10, with everyone clumped up from shieldwall and therefore not able to move about as freely, means that your effective threat range for a POW 21 CRA is probably less than 10". More often than not, I end up with 4-5 grunts out of range.

So I actually prefer the OAC (shock, gasp) in Searforge and out, They are about as durable and tarpitty as the Highshields, but much more flexible, with their SPD 5, RNG 12, AOE 3, multi wound resistance to continuous effects, and their ability to actually fight their way out of a wet paper bag. I actually find it to be easier to land a POW 17 CRA with 5 OAC than landing a POW 17 CRA with with a MAX unit Highshields + UA.

Now I think Ossrum is going to make a huge impact on the Highshields. Martial Discipline alone is going to make positioning so much easier, snipe is fantastic, the increased SPD and durability on feat turn will be sweet.

My 2 coppers

[Joasht]

Thanks for the reply!
I've crunched the numbers, you'd generally need approximately two Drillers to down a Colossal, assuming you have some sort of damage buff on them. Its hard to say simply because defensive and even offensive buffs matter, but it seems like at least two heavies are in order even at 35 points.

I love the OAC models, but I can't quite bring myself to buy them. H&J on the other hand look pretty good, but I've never actually faced them, or used them. For major factions I guess the allure isn't quite there, but I can't see why they wouldn't be good for their points.

[Ger]

My thoughts as a non-rhulic only player. (Actually I want to be a Merc player first and this play a bit of everything. Need more units. Have...most of the solos. All the Warcasters.)

Gorten - Amazing feat. Can do tons of damage in melee and has some solid spells. Focus 5 and Speed 4 are his greatest weaknesses. His high base arm let's you use all his focus though and often protects against some deaths while learning him. Rock Wall is great but you need your own template.
Can make some tasty 4 star and highborn lists ontop of being really solid on Searforge. Solid Ground is more useful outside of Searforge.

Durgen - Crazy fun. Has like 5 ranged assassination runs he can attempt with Reinholdt around. He has ways to get around high def, stealth, and incorporeal. Very hard to hide a caster from his shooting! On top of which he has great quagmire skills in Inhospitable ground and Primed. Also surprisingly strong in melee when it comes down to it.

Reinholdt and Dougal alone make Durgen far better outside of Searforge and I think that's ok.

Redline's a really great spell that does well on pretty much every Rhulic Heavy. Powder Keg is a hard to use spell without Wyshnyaller but if you can get that crit is totally devastating. Ground Zero is solid auto hit tech as well.

Ossrum - No well developed opinion. His feat's partially wasted if he's running a lot of non-rhulic solo's and infantry. However, I feel it'll always be useful for himself and his battlegroup. Martial Discipline however is extremely exciting for mercs in general and is just as strong as a feat. He also has some really solid spells. Looking forward to trying him out without having a large Rhulic collection. (No Forgeguard or Hammerfall units owned sadly)

Blaster - Crazy awesome for 3 points. Well worth running 1-2 with Thor outside of Rhulic casters. Pronto is really strong on them. Powerful Attack makes them really great in battlegroup as well.

Gunner - I can't run a Rhulic caster without one of these. 3 points for a super durable 1 focus to fully boost hand cannon. Really awesome light.

Avalancher - Over priced. However, I'm finding the durability to be really strong if you always advance them. Keeping them toward the middle/front and ahead of your caster often causes people to shoot them. They can survive several turns of red line and shooting without losing any systems. This means they typically don't require repair to still be operating at peak efficiency. If you are not taking advantage of their high arm they are a super waste though. OTOH 1 focus buys a boosted attack roll and +2 pow over a Gunner helps make the loss of Power Full attack hurt less. (+2 pow is still worth less then a d6. Pow 15 would have kept things much more even)

Notably worth running on Thor with Fiona as a long range Nonokrion Brand platform. 11 points is very expensive to do so but it's only 3 more then a Mariner and doesn't use any of Fiona's focus. Also when Fiona is doing this she wants that gun to survive forever and arm 21 + repairs + range does that.

Basher - Very solid. 9 points for him + Thor is often worth it for the crazy bowling you can do. Looking forward to running mine more.

Driller - Augmented by Durgen or Gorten and Thor they can kill anything they reach. However, Dwarf players may forget the base profile is only a 16/17. I think Ossrum is going to be kind of a wake up call to that. Still Sustained attack is great and I feel there is some solid synergy with Shae. (Coup let's them charge for free so with any jackmarshal they get off 3 attacks and 16/17/17 is comparable to 14/17/17/17/17. Espcially given 0 focus allocated)
May also be worth running with Damiano for Pronto movement and focus free charges on Damiano's feat turn. Though he has Warpath for his battlegroup anyway.

Rockram - Really cool with two unreliable crits that are totally devastating to Colossals. There may be some unexplored options involving Thor and Ashlynn. Highest base P+S available to mercs on a heavy.

High Shields - Ah High Shields. I'm weird, I've always thought they looked nifty. One really weird thing I'd be willing to do with them is charge! Mind the situation would have to call for engaging an enemy unit with def 11 arm 15s. Still they have an impressive CRA output and a pretty cheap base cost. 5/8 puts them below other CRA options while their shield wall capacity puts them in a unique spot.
Their UA really adds a lot to the unit and the 3 pc is justified if hard to spend. Standard Bearers are great and Double Time gives them a lot of positioning utility.
One noteworthy thing about High Shields is that the capacity to jackmarshal is commonly underestimated. A Jackmarshalling unit means the bonus is never lost until the unit is dead! If Thor is capped his jacks become autonomous. It the leader of a High Shield unit bites the dust the next one in line takes over! A Gunner becomes a very durable always boosted attack roll hand cannon! A Driller can always run! (Use it to engage then if it survives buy additional attacks with the JM bonus. Also remeber Thor can always tune up it's damage rolls.)

For mixed army players, a theoritical option is Buccaneer on someone else, Thor, High Shields, and Driller. Buccaneer gets the KD on a target. High Shields shoot it and do some solid damage. Driller gets tuned up damage rolls and JM to charge. That's some potential that is.

Forge Guard - Unlike highshields this unit is not undervalued. Being one of the primary armor crushing option for any merc player. Although any warcaster with a speed boost tends to love them more.

Horgenhold Artillery Corps - Overpriced akward artillery unit. For 3 points you can almost always attempt a RaT 6 Pow 14 on a target. Low AoE size, Weapon Pow, and Light Arterilly rules hamstring this unit though.

Herne and Jonne - Good without Dougal and Amazing with. Notably Jonne can achieve a RaT 8 internally via Aiming Bonus and Range Finder. This means his gun has potential as an accurate fire weapon as well. Jonne making initial ranged attacks, with dougals help, Durgan's feat, and no aiming bonus is RAT 8 + 3d6 that really minimizes the risk to your own models.

Scatter Shot in general really relies on it's first deviation. If you get lucky you can have really high chances of drifting at least one of your AoEs over a target. For 5 points Dougal + H/J make a solid infantry swarm counter for any list. (I've considered running that combo with Fiona simply to let me clear swaths of infantry so my other firepower can focus on single models)

I really should make an attempt to do a pattern analysis at some point. I'm not 100% how to do it but I imagine we could crunch out the % chance of scatter shot based on positioning.

Oh a couple other points. Herne brings a RaT 6 pistol which is pretty reliable and thus the Dwarf can head shot things for you. Since he's slower having him walk ahead of Johnne when you are not going for accuracy can work out next turn where Jonne wants to advance 6". Further both members of the unit are MaT 6 and can have a decent charge turn! If it's what you need to do at least they aren't below average at it!

Ogrun Bokur - Capable of a MaT 10 Pow 17 charge attack! Or it can do a MaT 8 Pow 11 slam! And remeber that shield attack can also easily be MaT 8 and thus be used to clear stuff off one of your units.

Sadly Bokurs often get regulated to merely Shield Guard duty. In fact their defensive bodyguard role can prevent you from taking advantage of their possible offensive output. Still for 3 points Bokur's bring a lot to a party and every Merc player should own at least one.

Thor - It's freaking Thor. He's only 2 points. He is undercosted and totally amazing. Tune Up may well be over powered. Pronto may well be over powered and he can repair. Enough said.

Ogrun Assult Corps - I really need to proxy these guys at some point. They are very bland on paper and theory. However, their combination of all around solid points means they may perform much better in practice then theory. Nothing really to mention about them otherwise.

Rockbottom - Mostly a Pirate support model for 2 points he can fit in any list that wants "better then fearless" for their army. Being able to garuntee Drive checks adds a huge level of consistency.

Gudrun - Haven't really thought about him much in MKII due to him being an awkward model.

Brun and Lug - Given my perspective as "What can Dwarves do for me in Highborn/4 star" an expensive model that only runs in Searforge is well outside my band of experience. Simply having a Lesser Warlock is cool for Dwarf players that are often otherwise starved for focus.


Dwarves in general terms
-Dwarves only is both an acceptable and respectable way to play casually.
-Searforge has excellent contract bonuses.
-Playing purely Dwarves is accepting a handicap. Playing only Searforge is accepting a handicap. Doesn't mean you can't win or that you can't dominate a local scene. However, the more national level you get the more difficult succeeding with purely Rhulic will be.
-Any sort of character restricted format exponentially increases the difficulty of pure rhulic given the power of Thor.
-A single purely Rhulic list can be power for any merc player. And often an excellent choice for destroying heavy armor reliant armies.
-Simply having a list run by Gorten or Durgen can be powerful even if it's not purely rhulic.
-Dwarves are typically good at scenarios
-Dwarves play very well in mixed forces.

[Zelot # 87]

Ger I am very disappointed in you, this post clearly shows no signs of forethought or effort.

j/k It was actually a nice read and I am sure it would be helpful to new players.

[StJason]

Dwarves in general terms
-Dwarves only is both an acceptable and respectable way to play casually.
-Searforge has excellent contract bonuses.
-Playing purely Dwarves is accepting a handicap. Playing only Searforge is accepting a handicap. Doesn't mean you can't win or that you can't dominate a local scene. However, the more national level you get the more difficult succeeding with purely Rhulic will be.
-Any sort of character restricted format exponentially increases the difficulty of pure rhulic given the power of Thor.
-A single purely Rhulic list can be power for any merc player. And often an excellent choice for destroying heavy armor reliant armies.
-Simply having a list run by Gorten or Durgen can be powerful even if it's not purely rhulic.
-Dwarves are typically good at scenarios
-Dwarves play very well in mixed forces.

A couple of things that Dwarves have issues with:
-Rough Terrain. A lot of Circle armies can run circles around Dwarves.
-Continious Effects. Cryx is a hard matchup because of this.
-Sprays. Because so many of our squads need to be in B2B, with the right thing, you can spray the whole line
-Incorporal (or magic-only). Usually only the warcaster has any kind of magic weapon, and there are no ways yet to give it to a whole squad.

More then most other forces, Dwarves punish you for not keeping to your strategy. Keep your squads together, slowly advance, steamroll anything in your way. It's always when I gamble on something extra ("I'll just run my Forge Guard up and take care of that squad first!") that I get in trouble. Searforge armies are all about working together. Forge Guard charging at close range, High Shields and OAC firing overhead. When you can't hit a squad with two units, then you are doing it wrong.

[nicholas_342]

While Ger did a great job, the big factor comes down to what your meta is like. Until recently I didn't have opponents who ran much infantry(our legion player usually runs 5 heavy warbeasts). So Herne and Jonne never saw much table time. Now we are getting more guys running infantry and with Ossrum coming out H&J are seeing the table again. Fire for Effect on them is great. Sunday I played a 35pt game where I didn't have H&J so F4E went onto the rockram which gave his assault shot a better chance of getting that crit, which it did to great effect.

Snipe on the gun corps makes them a much more efficient unit. If your going second while running his tier, depending on the terrain you can advance deploy them with snipe already on them, walk them into the trench and now you have def 15 arm 19 immune to blast with a 14 inch threat range. That makes many of the control zones pretty well defended. And with snipe you have a better chance of putting that pow 21 cra onto a warjack, which at dice plus 1 against most khador jacks is a nice amount of damage when you go guns blazing.

Run Searforge, go second, and give Thor an avalancher. Put snipe on it turn 1 and if your enemy warcaster comes out of it's deployment zone you can put a shot on him turn 1. With that said, the avalancher can still be a hard model to put on the table.

All in all Ossrum is a pretty decent caster who brings a lot of things to the Rhulics that was needed. He is a great support caster who unfortunately is pretty focus starved, unlike Gorten who usually doesn't have that many problems. Ossrum has 3 really good upkeep spells, which only leaves him 3 focus if your heavy is lined up to charge, which means there is no focus to cast energizer so if you need those extra inches you have to decide which upkeeps to drop.

Thor with a basher and a gunner/blaster is a lot of fun. Thor with 2 bashers is a blast against people with high def armys. But if you give him 2 jacks you are going to really want to find those 2 points for Rockbottom. It's frustrating when you fail that drive and it seems like it's always when you need it the most. Plus, he's pretty handy with that gun of his. Lighting stuff on fire is always a lot of fun.

Dwarves are pretty effective. The guys in my group now hate both Gorten and Ossrum. That doesn't mean I win all my games, it just means they have to work harder to win. I've never run Gorten outside of Searforge, and I've never run Durgen in Searforge. The Searforge bonus is too hard to pass up with Gorten. One other thing about Gorten is he's one of those casters who even if your army is dead, he can still pull out a win. Put SoG on yourself and camp the rest. As long as you don't get charged by a heavy you still have a shot.

[Ger]

Avalancher has been oddly reliable for me. As in I kind of don't want to put him in a list, then I do, in a battlegroup, and the clunky jerk performs.


@STJason a few of those problems are mitigated in mixed armies. Which is pretty much my perspective and the one I was trying to share. I can see where every single one of those would be a nasty issue for pure Rhulic forces.

[Kenlen]

A quick calculation says that a tuned up, SoG'd Driller with 3 focus will do 44-55 points of damage, on average, to ARM 20. Depending on if it charges, or can walk in, and of course, if it hits with all attacks (between a colossals low DEF and sustained attack that shouldn't be an issue).

Same setup, using a charging Rockram with Redline, you do about 47 DMG with a good chance of some juicy crits.

This means you'll have to find some other way to deliver the last 5-15 points of damage to reliably take down your average big-*** jack. Not an insurmountable problem for Searforge.

At the very least, you'll have completely taken out one grid, probably with some spillage.

So countering an 18-20 point colossal with the same pointage of Rhulic mayhem, I'd call that more than achievable.

With Ossrum, I guess the best bet to destroy a colossal will be to tap it at range (gotta love snipe), and then swarm it with Drillers and Forgeguard.

[Zelot # 87]

With average rolls a single Forgeguard will put 5 points of damage on an ARM 20 model. So if you get all 10 of your Forgeguard on that colossal you are looking at 50 points, about the same as the Driller and slightly more then the Rockram. Ossram popping his feat should help getting those Forgeguard in as they will threaten from 11" away and stand a good chance of making it though any "covering fire" that they might be using.

[StJason]

@STJason a few of those problems are mitigated in mixed armies. Which is pretty much my perspective and the one I was trying to share. I can see where every single one of those would be a nasty issue for pure Rhulic forces.

Right. I didn't want to get into lots of point-by-point reviews (especially as you did such a good job) so I went with generalities.

A quick calculation says that a tuned up, SoG'd Driller with 3 focus will do 44-55 points of damage, on average, to ARM 20. Depending on if it charges, or can walk in, and of course, if it hits with all attacks (between a colossals low DEF and sustained attack that shouldn't be an issue).

Same setup, using a charging Rockram with Redline, you do about 47 DMG with a good chance of some juicy crits.

Lug can also do some serious damage. A pair of POW 15s with Flank will do around 5 points a hit without the charge. And you can buy two more hits. Use pathfinder to sneak up and then unleash the bear.

With average rolls a single Forgeguard will put 5 points of damage on an ARM 20 model. So if you get all 10 of your Forgeguard on that colossal you are looking at 50 points, about the same as the Driller and slightly more then the Rockram. Ossram popping his feat should help getting those Forgeguard in as they will threaten from 11" away and stand a good chance of making it though any "covering fire" that they might be using.

This. Also the fact that you can buy two squads and still have points left over for the same price. Honestly? Colossals are a bit underwhelming. Sure, they can be nasty, but so can the uniques, character jacks, and so on.

So countering an 18-20 point colossal with the same pointage of Rhulic mayhem, I'd call that more than achievable.

Easily.
Gorton can put 6 boxes on them every turn for 2 focus.
A Driller sans buffs does damage on a 4+/3+.
A full squad of High Shields + UA does dice+1 damage!
Heck, a Bokur does damage to them on a 3+.

Dwarves have very little issue with high-armor. They have issues in other areas, but armor is one thing they can deal with.

[nicholas_342]

@Ger - Don't you just hate it when the avalancher does something great? I had one that was autonomous that somehow hit Ashlynn with it's shield on her feat turn, and then turned around and put her down from full health to to something like 4 or 5 health. It's not supposed to do that.

Dealing with continuous effects and enemy upkeeps is a huge thing. Maybe if we got a 1 point warcaster attachment that was a priest that could purge enemy upkeeps in it's cmd range. Something to think about and hopefully the guys and gals at PP are thinking along the same lines

As for the colossals, you guys are right, we aren't going to have too much trouble putting it down, assuming we get to it. Again, something that Ossrum will be able to help us out a lot with.

[Ger]

I had an Avalancher with red line charge the undead gator caster and bring him down to low health... I'm not sure I even remebered tune up or it'd have been game right there. (Hit rolls)

It was then so intimidating that he devoted a lot of firepower to getting it KD and beat up...which despite being on the ground and disrupted with no Red Line. It still had all it's systems!

It's freaky.

On vs Colossals. Highshields are decent . Being very meaty gives them a lot of survivability against certain colossal weapons. CRA's can get you to the pow you can do damage with.

Oh and with your SoG a Driller may be one of the only heavies able to mantain a lock vs a Colossal...very very very unlikely you will ever get to do it and not rather just murder the thing. But it's kind of neat to think about.

[StJason]

Dealing with continuous effects and enemy upkeeps is a huge thing. Maybe if we got a 1 point warcaster attachment that was a priest that could purge enemy upkeeps in it's cmd range. Something to think about and hopefully the guys and gals at PP are thinking along the same lines.

Ooh. Or how about an Ancestor Spirit. Incorporeal, no real attacks, but it expunges continuous effects in the WC's CMD. I'd buy that.

[MagnustheJust]

Ooh. Or how about an Ancestor Spirit. Incorporeal, no real attacks, but it expunges continuous effects in the WC's CMD. I'd buy that.

I'll sell you one for $20.00 USD !!

>wiggles eyebrows<

[WarlockFiretopMountain]

A couple of things that Dwarves have issues with:
-Rough Terrain.
-Continious Effects.
-Sprays.
-Incorporal (or magic-only).

(Edited for brevity)

I think we can agree that continuous effects, sprays and incorporeal are all problems for Searforge (rough terrain can be mitigated to an extent by Gudrun and Brun & Lug).

Now...

In a competitive context - e.g. a SR 2012 tournament - how likely are we to face these things?

Genuine question, as I have no experience. I have pretty much played against Cryx so far, so I'm well used to seeing my Forge Guard melt with acid and getting ambushed by incorporeal shenanigan solos. But we're going to have some tournaments in my FLGS this summer, so I'm hoping to get the chance to drill something with nice thick armour, let alone a corporeal body.

[WarlockFiretopMountain]

Ooh. Or how about an Ancestor Spirit. Incorporeal, no real attacks, but it expunges continuous effects in the WC's CMD. I'd buy that.

Well that would just change everything. Thematically, sounds coherent. Rules-wise, it papers over a lot of hole that kind of give Searforge its character.

[StJason]

In a competitive context - e.g. a SR 2012 tournament - how likely are we to face these things?

Genuine question, as I have no experience. I have pretty much played against Cryx so far, so I'm well used to seeing my Forge Guard melt with acid and getting ambushed by incorporeal shenanigan solos. But we're going to have some tournaments in my FLGS this summer, so I'm hoping to get the chance to drill something with nice thick armour, let alone a corporeal body.

Depends on the Meta. Continuous effects are the bread and butter of Cryx and to a lesser extent, Protectorate. Sprays are all over the place. Rough terrain spells are not uncommon. Incorporeal... well, that's pretty rare, honestly, though someone could do a Cryx force with lots if they wanted.

For the most part, if you are facing Skorne, Trollbloods, Cygnar, Khador, or Retribution, you shouldn't have issues with these. Circle & Protectorate have some of these. Cryx has all of these in abundance. So if you go to a tournament and see nothing but black... expect a long slog.

[MagnustheJust]

Speaking of Dorfszez... I pulled one hell of a derp moment last night.

For some reason I can not fathom, I was thinking that the Rockram had a spray last night.

DERP!!

[pattison]

Well... Road Hog.

[StJason]

Rockram with a spray would be awesome!