DLJ: This short article was written by our very own Derfel, and describes how to beat dwarves so thorughly that it warranted pinning. May it aid all who read it in the crushing of the stunties!

Right then, Dorfs. Dorfs, contrary to what some may tell you, are a rock-solid army when built and played well. They get almost as irritating as Wood Elves sometimes. And they are definitely a hard matchup overall against VC (IMHO). The reason why they don't do well in tournaments - and why people conclude they're not "competitive" as a result - is because there's really only a few ways to build effective Dorf armies, and only one basic way of playing them optimally. Sort of like High Elves, but better.

It's also annoying after a while to play AS them, since truly effective Dorf tactics consist mostly of deploying in one corner, yes corner, of the battlefield and waiting for your enemy to come to you. If there's a forest in their deployment zone , so much the better for the Dorfs - you suddenly get a forest teeming with the short-arses. The war-machines are parked 2" within the forest - good luck getting your M1 Bats in there! Using Wolves? Make sure the frontage is small enough to squeeze in between 2 blocks of rock-hard Dorf infantry. That is to say, your frontage has to be 1 or 2 Wolves only, I'm sure you can imagine why (If not go ahead and ask). Then hope your Wolves can fight past the T4 crew, plus the character who's joined them, usually a Runesmith, or a Thane, or even a BSB. Oh yes, every unit is at least 6" into the deployment zone, so that your infantry takes maybe 4 turns to even reach their lines, which means that much more shooting at you.

The picture I've painted bleak enough yet? This is as difficult as I know it gets, I'm sure it gets worse - although I can't imagine it getting much worse!

The pluses, of course, exist, and keep this in mind, because it's all you're going to have:

1) Mobility. The Dorfs play most effectively like that because, well, they're not as effective played other ways. Which is not to say an assault Dorf army doesn't work (assuming it's not the Slayer List, I'm leaving this out of the equation), but it's not optimal. They have M3, and flee/pursue -1. This can translate to a whole lot on the battlefield - very little mobility.

What VC have is this. We have Flyers, Fast Cav, Heavy Cav, and Vanhels for extra movement. Do your best to maneuver into a good charging position to break down their castle formation. A minor corollary of this is that you usually get table quarters.

But Dorfs have plenty of tricks up their sleeves to counter this, so just this one caveat from me: beware the Rune of Slowness. It is really, really annoying!

I'm not kidding about the Rune of Slowness!

2) Magic. This very much depends on the approach you take. I'll go into it in a while.

3) Fear and Terror. Beware the Rune of Courage. Also, take note that Fear and Terror are most effective in combat, when autobreaking the Dorfs - so of course the whole point of Dorf tactics against Fear-causers is to whittle them down such that they don't outnumber! And Terror is frankly a dubious tool against Ld 10. Break tests are also usually a dicey affair, literally: you're forcing them down from Ld10. Good luck if they're Stubborn for some reason (they're Hammerers, or there's the Master Rune of Kingship, although I imagine that's not so common). Abandon all hope if there's a BSB nearby.

Assuming you have the chance to tailor your list, when it comes to magic there are basically 2 approaches you can take:

1) The minimalist approach. Blood Dragons are perhaps the most suited to this sort of army build. Take a lvl 1 Count. That's all. Everyone else is a combat hero of some sort. You will not need any magic defence (I would chance it against the Anvil: it's not spectacular).

2) The battle of the egos. The Dorfs have magic defence like whoa. Up against 6/7 Dispel dice, and if the Dorf is feeling adventurous, the Master Rune of Valaya (+2 to dispel rolls and autodispel RiP spells within 12" at start of magic phase)? Take 10-12 Power Dice! Take all the Bound Items you can - Staff, Book, heck bring the kitchen sink while you're at it (the Rod of Flaming Death)! They don't believe in magic? We'll make them believe in magic, oh yes we will!

Needless to say I don't particularly espouse this approach.

The third option which may occur to some of you, which is to take middling levels of magic - in other words, your average friendly list - is not one I find valid against Dorfs. Oh you can still play it, certainly, and have fun, of course, but if you're trying to actually win convincingly you need to either go all out, or go not at all. Better minds than mine (on the Warhammer Forum, mostly) have opined that magic in WHFB is pretty much all-or-nothing - either a scroll caddy, or heavy magic. Anything else makes magic an inefficient outlet of points.

Army comp: This depends very much on your bloodline, your style (magic or none), and your personal preferences. But against Dorfs, bear in mind his shooting can be phenomenal - I actually quite understand why Sparky's friend takes no cannons. They fulfill no function an S7 runic BT cannot, for no risk of misfire. My Black Coaches will go straight home if facing one of those - but if it's cannons instead, they will actually take a chance and show up.

Therefore, take everything in slightly larger numbers than usual, except for what you decide are specifically sacrifical troops. Your combat blocks need to maintain size, and given Dorf magic defence and the inherent unpredictability of dice rolling, you can't rely on Invocation to do that. The Banner of Doom may actually become a worthwhile investment, for either your Grave Guard or Black Knights. Usually it's a total duffer of an item, but it's better than nothing.

Troop matchups: Here are some of the troops Skeletons and Zombies do not try to fight if they can help it: Ironbreakers, Hammerers, Slayers. Try to take the first two obliquely, if at all - work at the flanks and rear, but consider yourself lucky if you get the rear. Against Slayers, the ultimate Dorf containment unit, the best solution is to use a containment unit of your own. Preferably hit them in the flank, but it will be quite difficult unless you get lucky with Invocation and/or Vanhel's. I mean, of course, Zombies and Spirit Hosts.

If it's a small unit of Slayers you could try to smash through it with Knights - but it's risky, and it's not worth it, and usually the Dorf player has a trap set. Killing Slayers is overall a waste of time.

Troop movement: There's one major caveat you need to be aware of here.

Beware the bottleneck! When deploying your troops, take this into account. Deployment is half of where bottlenecks can originate - the other half is your actual movement of troops. If you generally move your troops well but deploy badly, you're still going to get a bad bottleneck - in miltary parlance, your troops will get into a clusterf***.

If the Dorfs are all in a corner, this is almost unavoidable, unless you have a compact elite force, and your units won't get in each other's way. To maximize your hitting power, try to minimize the bottlenecks. Fast Cav can sneak through gaps when not charging - use this. Bats can fly - use this, although Bats are nearly useless against solid Dorfs. Knights become a very cumbersome unit, especially if you have the optimum frontage of 6 or 7 - move those carefully, with forethought.

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Best of luck against the Dorfs! As a side note, here's an anecdote from my own gaming group.

Alright there was this one time, another VC player decided to try something really funky against this Dorf player. The VC took 4 characters: Mounted von Carstein Count with GW, Mounted Wight BSB, and 2 Mounted Wights, 1 with the Sword of 5+ KB and the other with GW. BSB had the Banner of the Barrows.

They all went into the front rank of a unit of about... 16 Black Knights, I think. 16 or 12, I can't recall. Anyway, no command group, so all 4 characters fit in the front.

Do the math yourselves. :thumb: Take this as an indication: that unit killed 9 Ironbreakers on the charge. Pretty much NOTHING else does that.

Nothing on earth can stop that unit I think! It'd take something equally outrageous, perhaps! I mean, if your pursuit roll is about average, you can't even get countercharged after crashing through one unit! Then you turn around, rinse and repeat.

Both players were equally upset after that :lol: The point is, no, I'm not encouraging this sort of thing. It was just a funny stunt. If you want friends, don't play this sort of army for real, on any regular basis. B)

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