Tactics for using Confrontation Dwarves PART 4

PART 4
Ok, here we go. We now know our strength and weaknesses. We know what we would like to deploy and what we want to avoid but how do make our choices. It is impossible to field it all at once so choices must be made. By now it should be clear that Dwarves have a large number of different troops to choose from. Their troops are almost the same and allow you to choose those with the flavour you like best.

I'll try to provide some combinations of Dwarves/artifacts/spells/miracles that work well on the field and then provide some sample armies fielding them.

Pilgrim le Borgne and the war staff: as mentioned before a cheap and decent way to have a nice discipline on the field. Especially useful in low point battles.

Point total: 74

Nerak Le hardi+crossbow of the hunter+the armourer and the aim enhancement: This gives you two decent models and Nerak becomes a real killer that allows you to take out any mages/long ange troops

Points total: 119

2 Warrior mages and fenggar with thermo-destruction+thermo-compression: two guys that are lethal in combat and one that stays behind to enhance their thermo rolls. And if it looks like they are about to die in combat you can blow them up

Points total: 98

An army focused on steam weapons and a priest of Uren with protection of Uren and the Major virtue perseverance: Just can't stress the importance of this one enough.

Point total: 45 for priest + steam warriors.

Sample 200 point army
'The swarm'
Pilgrim Le borgne
Dwarf musician
Dwarf standard bearer
2 Dwarfs with pick-axe
2 Khor warriors
1 Forge guard
2 dwarfs on razorback
2 griffon fusiliers (or if you hate taking allies you can take 2 dwarf crossbows)

exactly 200 points (or 196 it the dwarf crossbow option)

This army brings a lot of people to the battle. You will almost always outnumber your opponent. You have a bit of long-range fire to harass him and some fast troops to take on his rear guard. Thanks to the war-staff you have high courage and leadership. The khor warriors can hold their own against other elite troops. The other dwarfs need to outnumber their assailants. Although you can always use them to tie them up, as they will still have a hard time of killing them quickly. The forge guard is best left a bit behind so he can charge into an existing combat to help crushing the opponent.

You can easily turn this into a 300 pointer by adding Pilzenbhir and another dwarf with axe/hammer/pick-axe. You still have a lot of troops and you now have a very very high discipline and a character that is able to take on almost anything your opponent can field.

Sample 300 point army
'Chaaaaaarge !!'

Kaël the angry the angry
3 Khor on razorback (or I prefer the alternative version 'assault khor on razorback')
4 dwarfs on razorback

296 points (or 305 with alternative version)

There is nothing subtle about this army. Kaël the angry and the khor take the centre and each flank is covered by 2 of the others. You move forward but not at full speed. Try to look for a weak spot and then use you great movement to pull you entire army to that side. Hit that with your entire might and kill it before the others arrive. If he doesn't split up his army and stays together hit him with the dwarfs on razorback in the sides and then use the khor warriors to hit the centre hard. An attack from three sides is usually not nice for your opponent. It's also an army that finally allows the dwarfs to charge their opponent. Don't try this against wolfen/devoreur or if you now your opponent will also field a lot of cavalry.

Sample 300 points
'fire and water'

1 Priest of Uren with protection of Uren, and the Major virtue perseverance
1 Son of Uren with a minor awakened weapon/retribution (can make counter attacks)
1 Dwarven bombardier
2 Thermo-warriors
2 forge guards both with consecration
1 Thermo-priest

303 points

The forge guards are there to make sure your priests has his TF. You starts the battle by giving it to them that are going to engage the enemy first (Son of uren, thermo priest), second round you give it to the thermo warriors. And then you can help the dwarven bombardier.

Sample 300 pints army
'the holy square'

1 Pilgrim le borgne with consecration (P)
1 dwarf musician with consecration 5(M)
1 dwarf standard bearer with consecration (S)
2 forge guards with consecration (F)
3 dwarfs with pick axe with consecration (D)
1 Elghir Le Resolu + savage iron (fer de la sauvagerie), grace divine, convocation + major virtue perseverance for the savage iron miracle + artifact instrument lithurgique (E)
3 dwarves on razorback
1 dwarf with pick-axe (d)

point total: 300

You deploy your dwarves (except cavalry) like this:

DDD
FEF
SPM
d

Your square has good courage and discipline. Your priest cannot be hit except with area weapons. And each turn you can heal one wound level which should make it very hard to kill something with missile weapons. You just advance letting your front guys take the beating. Thanks to convocation you will be able to even charge first with the troops of you choice (forge guards are excellent chose), grace divine makes sure you can hit stuff and thanks to the fact you can cas savage iron twice you can easily wound the opponents. Don't worry about TF as you will have 7 points each turn unless people start dying. If one of your front guys does die due to a lucky it, you have a back up dwarf waiting behind the square.

The dwarves on razorback are there to chase those nasty opponents who will try to make hit and run tactics against the square. Hoping you can't catch them. Just pin them down and then go for the kill with he square. If you think your opponent isn't going to deploy any troops that can do this or is fielding a lot missile troops you can swap the three normal dwarves with pick-axe for 3 khor warriors with shield an field only 1 dwarf on razorback. This brings you to 301 points

Here ends the treatise on dwarfs part 4. I can make sample armies till the day I die but I think this will give you a good idea of what's possible with dwarfs.

Here also ends the entire treatise. I hope you have enjoyed it and learned something. I know I learned things while writing it. I'm looking forward to comment from all of you. At first, I was going to write two/three pages for Spiritus sanctum. By now it is 12 pages in word. Just glad I could focus myself only on the most important things.