Hi there!

I'd like to know the different Runic Combos you have found out to be effective against certain armies/ character/units, etc.... Post away :)

My favourite defensive combo is
Master rune of gromril
rune of resistanceRune of shielding
Master rune of spite.
And give them a banner with three runes of sanctuary
In big battles i take a runesmith with three runes of warding as well.

I tend not to use runic weapons as the dwarven lord/ thane is usually hard enough with just a great wpn (unless a certain opponent has annoyed me previously.) I usually armour him up with grom,shd, rune of stone and spite or Mrune of gromril and spite for challenges. Then let hammerers or ironbreakers do the rest with CR.
I like the skewering, penetrating combo on bolt throwers for hunting chariots.

depends on what army your playing to against magic army the look on the opponents face when i say that unit has m resistance 6 is priceless and the dwarf is basically invincible.

It is nice to play as dwarves as people who haven't played as them think that they are a weak army. But the stunties are the most versatile in my opinion and are still finding ways of amusing me after all these years.

I agree. There was this one time where i hid three cannons with the rune of disguise and some runes of immolation and then blew them all up. One thing that always bothered me though the runic banner of fear right i can understand why they cause fear but not why there immune as there not actually huge and know that.

good point. Perhaps they just get wee man syndrome and aren't scared of anything. Bring back the drunken dwarves. :D

Drunken dwarves rocked I loved it when my drunken hooligans wreaked havoc on the enemy.
They got rid of so many of the dwarves special rules and runes though, rmember rune of smiting,rune of might,m rune of death weapons, The good old days

Dont get me started on the curse rune

Were starting to sound like the dwarf in the army book .
Back in our day we had rune wmiths who could make a toothpick strong enoough to kill agreater deamon and still had time to get back to the pub for ale.

puke attacks!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Back to Runic Combos please :)? Could you also tell what they do as I don't know (not yet anywho...)

I'll go over my previous ones for you. :)
rune of skewering 2+ to hit once per battle
rune of penetrating +1 to strength of war machine hence making the bolt thrower hit something on 2+ at str 7 which means inst destruction of chariot.

Armour runes
Master rune of Gromril 1+ arm sav cannot be improved in any manner
rune of stone +1 to arm save (only one on each char)

Talisman
Master rune of Spite 4+ ward save

The ones i said do the following
M rune gromril 1+ save can't be made better
Rune of resistance re-roll armour save
rune of shielding 2+ ward save vs missiles
M rune os spite 4+ ward save
Rune of santuary +1 magic resistance
Rune of warding +1 magic resistance

:blink: :blink: :blink: Wooow! Dwarf's really do own the besy magic it....I mean Runes :lol: Keep them combos coming :) How's about going against a Bloodthirster? How would arm your Lord?

Against a blood thirster huh
To kill it
Id take thos ones i said above If in unit Get rid of the runes of sactuary and give it a rune of courage.
For the d.lord take
Master rune gromril 1+ save 25
Rune of resistance re-roll 25
master rune of spite 4+ ward save 45
On your weapon i would take either
M.rune of swiftness 25 or rune of might 25 Double strength against toughness 5 or more

To take out a bloodthirster :o , we first have to look at what damage it can do. 8 attacks (frenzied) at ws 10, st 7 with killing blow. Nice. So even with his basic stats he will be hitting your Lord on 3's and wounding on 2's with any 6's meaning instant death. :unsure:
If your Lord was in a unit it wouldn't be a problem as the inevitable challenge combined with a decent rank bonus and a couple of nice banners coupled with the demonic instability mean that the thirster would disappear up its own nether regions pretty darn quickly.
If you are talking about 1 on 1 then it gets tricky. Basically you are looking at surviving long enough to hit back. You are going to need the rune of spite to cancel out ( statistically half of the 6 attacks that will hit with your inferior ws) The best defensively against a thirster would be a 1+ save (reduced to 5+ with the thirsters st, 5+ ward save followed by a 4+ ward save. You could have the remaining 25 pts for either striking first (if you feel lucky, punk,)wounding him on 2's or rerolling a single dice once a game? I would go personally for wounding on 2's. God only know how to counter the psychology aspect involved (us much higher so if you lose a round of combat you are running as fast as your stunty legs will go.) Hope this helped, if not, just runaway when you see one coming :rolleyes:

lol, with these legs? :lol: Thanks for that, it just happens that my chaos friend here sports a Bloodthirster, and he ALWAYS goes for the opponents General, no matter how tactically bad it is :)

If he comes for you then stay in your unit. Challenge him with your defensive general, if only slightly lucky you might not suffer any wounds. With the full 3 ranks and standard and outnumber him with your BSB with Maser rune of Stromni Redbeard (+1 cr to all dwarf unit within 12 inch and rune of battle ( +1 to cr) and rune of courage ( imm to pyscho) with the regular std br with rune of battle, then you have a cr of +8 before you start. It is an expensive unit but it is rock hard and if you are facing Khornate demons then nothing touches it. Ypu have to be a special unit for the points allowance on the std br but then they are worth it. Go for hammerers, stubborn as well. :D

I didnt think you could have two ward saves can you, i know yhe runes your using but i think its a general rule.
If you feel really lucky you could always take an attacking lord with
m,rune snorri sapnglehelm 75pts
rune of might 25pts
rune of fury 25pts
Thats 5 auto hit attacks at 2+ to wound, if you last long enough to hit that is.

Yes you're right about the ward saves, just change the runes to rerolling failed armour saves, it just means that its even harder to survive against the thirster. And lets face it even the luckiest of us aren't going to survive against this greater demon :(

You picked the same runes as me :D
I,ve manged to beat one with that combination as I kept rerolling untill i saved.
Youve got to 5+ saves and a 4+ ward save you should be able to win.

I think the moral of this story is dont go picking fights with big scary horrible kiiling death machines unless you are tooled up to the hilt

Thats right speak softly and carry a big rune hammer
and some rune armour,...
and rune talismon...
and rune standard...
And a cannon or two ...
and a unit of fifty hammerers
yeah that should do it B)

Just go and get a big unit of slayers and laugh as they chase him round the battlefield for 5 turns. Have a front rank of giant slayers in case any survive to hit back. Result 1 tied up bloodthirster.

Yeah but fifty hammerr look all impressive and stuff :rolleyes:

But thats 730 pts just for the unit not including the magic banner or lord :o

yeah but i like big units models and points wise. and there as solid as a mountain

Aaargh! I really don't want to pay so many points on my lord, but this High Elf Player ALWAYS tools up his Prince like so:

Swordmaster Honor, with a 1+ armour save, on a horse and a 4+ ward save...so in effect, this bad ass gets to attack my Lord first with four S6 attacks, and gets a whopping 1'+armour as well that 4+ ward! <_<

So ho whould I tool up my lord? I was thinking:

Master Rune of Gromril, Master Rune of Spite and a Master Rune of Alaric the Mad on my normal weapon...So I'd be hitting on 4+ and wounding on 3+ ignoring armour....is there a better way? He does have to wound me on 3+ and hit on a 4+...

For those who don't want to spend A BUNCH OF POINTS

A good runic combo!

Thane: 55
Gromril Armor (That's right not the rune) 8
1 Stone Rune: 5 (bringing armor save to 3+)
Two Runes Striking: 20 (bringing WS to 8)
Rune of Resistance: 25 (reroll)

What this does:

Runes of Striking: allows your hero to be hit only on a 4+ or 5+ most times!
Rune of Resistance/Stone: In combination much better than Master Rune of Gromril

Fail the master rune of gromril: 16 2/3% of the time
This rune combo: 11% of the time

The Runes of Striking also double as an offesive rune allowing your hero to hit 2/3 of the time most of the time! What a deal! (this is what I use for my thane!)

Not worth the Great Weapon, if you add runes to a weapon it creates a magic(runic) weapon and so all the bonus/penaties are wiped off of the weapon.

e.g. Great Weapon - +2 S, strike last + Rune of Fury - +1 A = Axe that just gives you +1 A.

Sorry for all those of you that know this, but i see alot of Dwarf players doing this on the GW forum and just want to clear this up.

King Ulrik Flamebeard of Karak Varn

You’re right! Remove the Great Weapon still is dynamite rune combo though.

I quite like:

Thane
Great Axe, Gromril Armour, Shield
Rune of stone (+1 to Armour Save)
2 Runes of Iron (5+ Ward Save)

or replace the 2 Runes of Iron with:

Master Rune of Spite (4+ ward Save)

Right we've all seen how effective the rune combo's can be so lets pool resources and come up with the ultimate combo list for every dwarf character.
Pick your character (Lord, Runelord, Daemon Slayer, Thane, Runesmith, Engineer, Dragon Slayer) and give him equipment, magic items etc with legal points explaining in what circumstances to use him!

Ok this is my dwarf lord his based on the premise thati'll get charged. Put him in a unit of hammerer with the m rune of courage,
Rune of sanctuary and rune of kadrin.
The dwarf lord has Gromril armour,shield two handed weapon, dwarf hand gun.
runes. note: the reason i take gromril armour and m,rune of gromril is in case of vauls unmaking ect.
M.rune of gromril 25pts,rune of resistance 25pts,
m.rune of spite 45 pts, .and depending on the army im playing,
M rune of swiftness or rune of might 25 pts
and rune of the furnace or rune of fire. 5 pts

If your having the BSB in the unit as well then I would use Master Rune of Fear rather than the rune of courage. For only 25pts more you get a big unit of stubborn dwarves that should outnumber with all the benefits of a fear causing unit and you only lose immunity to terror, which shouldn't be too hard to pass on ldrshp 10 anyway

suppose so but i like the rune of courage just because its cool
a lot of my stuff is like that

Right then, my engineer would have
2 pistols (for the extra st 4 attack)
Dwarf handgun (bs 4 not to bad)
grom arm
rune of resistance
rune of luck
Now for the gamesmanship part. I would position the engineer closest to where I thought the threat would come from whilst still maintaining cohesion to the particular war machine crew. I would declare myself as part of the crew when it would benefit the use of his bs, not forgetting to use his one reroll once a game when you desperately need to get that shot off. The turn before the charge of enemy skirmishers or whatever(you can usually see them coming) put yourself in the way of the charge. The skirmishers will hit you on the charge allowing he war machine crew to carry on firing and the enemy will have to beat in combat a dwarf with rerollable 4+arm save with 2 attacks at ws4,st4 (in 1st round) that could have stood and shot. Not entirely honourable but some players might use him like that in certain circumstances.

Bahh engineers are not honourable there crazy like a fox

Daemon Slayer with Master Rune of Swiftness and 2 Runes of Fury. 6 attacks hitting first at ws7.