Dwarf Tactics

Dwarven Advantages:

One of the main advantage of the dwarves is their ability to custom make magic weapons, armor, standards, and other items. But useing the Runic magic system, you can give your general a custom magic axe and magic armor by combining different runes. Up to 3 runes can be put on an axe, which can allow you to create weapons that no other army can have. Same goes for armor, magic standards and other items.

Dwarves are also masters of war machines... and, magical runes can be put on the dwarven war machines to make them stronger, malfunction less often, be invisible or even self destruct. They als have a wide variety of types including a basic cannon, a flying gryocopter, catapults, bolt throwers and the dreaded Organ Gun. Which is essentially 5 short range cannons put together.

Another advantage of the dwarves is their toughness and high leadership. The basic Dwarf has a WS4 but more importantly T4 and Ld9. That makes it hard for dwarves to be killed by low strength attacks and the high leadership means that dwarves are hard to scare and they can wear heavy armor and shields without movement penalties because they are so sturdy. Dwarven generals can be truely awesome HtH fighters bbby using the custom made magic weapons and is very survivable, with a high Toughness of 5. A RuneLord is even more of a HtH badboy with a Strength of 5 and Toughness of 6. Dwarves are also quite magic resistant and while other armies have a base score of 5+ to dispell magic, dwarves have a 4+ base to start.

Dwarven Disadvantages:

The disadvantages of dwarves are very big ones. The first being THEY ARE REALLY FRIGGIN SLOW :) Base movement for a human is 4, but a dwarf's movement is 3. And, with the exception of the gyrocopter war machine and taking monsters, a dwarven army is totally infantry based. Dwarves have no type of cavalry so everything moves at the 3 inch pace. Dwarven characters cannot ride any type of monsters which further increases their slowness. Dwarves also do not have magic users. They don't like or trust magic users. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is a very big deal and becomes apparent when you play armies based around magic such as undead.

Now this may not seem like much of a disadvantage compared to their advantages, but their slow movement forces them into a defensive army (granted probably the best defensive, but you don't get to pick your fights). As well as dwarves often get walked all over in the magic phase because they can't compete in it. And cannot have dispells scrolls. The ONE runesmith character the dwarven army is allowed can carry 3 Runes of Spellbreaking which work the same as a dispell scroll, but only 3. Any other army can have as many dispell scrolls as they wish to buy. It makes it difficult for a dwarf army to fight back in the magic phase.

Dwarven tactics:

The dwarves are a defensive army. Their slow movement forces them into this. Fortunately they are great at it, with tough troops, excellant infantry, crossbows, thunderers and loads of war machines. A dwarf army is at it's best slowly moveing a few units forward (or not at all) and shooting the enemy to pieces while waiting for the enemy to come to them. Unfortunately, i've noticed that some people cry "cheese" or "unfair" when a person designes a war machine/shooty army even though a dwarf army needs to be that way to be succesful. Dwarves can't pick their fights because they aren't fast enough and they can't bomb the enemy with magic so what does that leave them? Exactly, FIRE AT WILL!

Hammerers wioth double handed hammers are good, and they are tough enough to survive striking last. Combines with units of crossbwomen, troll slayers which are cheap unbreakable troops, and lots of war machines is a good idea.

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