Chaos dwarf in the current metagame?

[Gerald D. Jerarudo]

Hello
so how does chaos dwarf fair in the current meta?

Thanks!

[King Chud]

Hi there! Are you asking how the chaos dwarves fair as an army, or how they fare in the WHF fluff? I can tell you how they do game wise, but I can't tell about the fluff wise. Chaos Dwarves have a lot of weapon option and have cheap troops with hobgoblins. As far as shooty armies go, I haven't been able to make a tournament list that stands up to Ogre hordes and Warriors of Chaos for 2000 points. The good war machines like hell cannons and dread quake mortars are expensive and are rare choices. So you might be lucky to have a list with four war machines at most at 2000, but you will be limited in core choices that you get. The blunderbusses get bonus for having 10-20 or more shooting, so it makes the small units of them not as good as a 30 man horde. There in lies the problem, you probably will be making 20 man units, rather than hordes. Redirection units are hard to come by, and hobgoblin wolf riders are rare choices. Some people use lone hobgoblin heros on wolfs as redirector units.

The better gaming lists I have had luck with use the chaos dwarf skull crackers and K'daai destroyer monsters with an armed contingent of hand weapon and shield chaos dwarves. Chaos dwarves don't have the shield wall special rule of dwarves, and nor do they customize their weapons, war machines, and standards with magic runes. Chaos dwarves have none of that. Chaos Dwarves have good monsters and monsterous beasts (bull centaurs) that you can use to get quickly up on a foe.

There is some controversy over if Forge World had any business making rulebooks. Some of my gaming acquaintances think the Chaos dwarf monsters and spells of Hashut are broken. They will cite the 2D6 thunderstomp attack of a skullcracker, or the reroll of to wound rolls on K'daai Destroyers when hit by nonmagical weapons. The iron daemon and skullcrackers are special choices, so you can take two of them in a game. But I wish I had steamtanks instead. Steamtanks have a grind attack in the movement phase whereas the skullcrackers only have impact hits and thunderstomps. So the tactic to deal with a skullcracker is to tarpit the unit with a monsterous infantry or calvary. There is little you can do against T8 and W8, but the skullcracker can't use its thunderstomp on the opposing unit. I can't tell you the numerous times that skullcrackers get blown up by concentrated cannonfire. Chaos Dwarves don't have regular cannons by the way.

The K'daai Destroyers are vulnerable to S 6 great weapons and cannonfire. They are very effective monsters, and can take down hordes of infantry by themselves. Two destroyers on an enemy horde will rip them to shreds in two turns or less. I played a 5000 point battle against dwarves and empire, and I had two skullcrackers and two K'daai Destroyers. The skullcrackers were shot to bits, and one K'daai Destroyer burnt itself out in melee. Only one destroyer lived to the end of round 5. We called it game at the end of round 5. I was up against six war machines in the game. My favored bull centaur horde got pinned down in a challenge with the empire general with crown of command. 1200 point unit stuck against a 300 point hero. Go figure. So there are creative ways to stop the chaos dwarf monster blitz, you just got to think outside the box.

The lore of hashut is a good lore of spells I think, but I can see where people think it is broken. Ashstorm is the most commonly used spell. It prevents the enemy unit from marching or charging, the unit becomes flammable, spell casters can only cast spells on themselves, there is -2 penalty to shoot for the hexed unit, and a -1 to hit in melee. It does about seven different things for a casting value of 12. Most hexes only do 1 or 2 things. The usual ploy is to make an ogre unit flammable, then light it up with flaming attacks to do 2 wounds per hit. I would say that it is hard to consecutively get this spell off to prevent a unit from charging or casting. So the likely hood of shutting down enemy magic throughout the game isn't likely. As I understand with army builder, dwarves can take two spelleater runes as long as they are not the same customized magic runes. So which is cheesier, two spelleaters, or ashstorm?

The flames of Azorgh is the other heavy hitting spell. It is a S 6 hit with a small template causing D6 wounds. To cast it is about the same as casting the purple sun. So compared to the purple sun, I am not sure which is deadlier.

Another commonly used spell is breath of hatred. It's an augment that gives a unit hatred, and it can be casted on a unit in combat past the first turn. So say a unit is in combat with ogres for two turns, and this spell is cast, on the next melee phase, the chaos dwarves get hatred, and get to re-roll their misses. It is also a remains in play spell too.

Most hobby store respect the Throne of Tamurkhan rule book and so does Adepticon. Chaos dwarves are definitely playable. Finding one that you like, is hard.

[King Chud]

I will have a chance to play a 2000 points of a shooty chaos dwarf army come May 17th. It will be part of an 8000 point battle between chaos and ogres. It will be a ten foot table. So I decided for a small army with warmachines to try out. I wouldn't play it in a 2000 pt tournament, but it makes sense if you have 6000 points of allies. My army has no redirector units or chaff. Here it is:

Sorcerer Prophet: Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Magical Carpet, Blood of Hashut, Level 4 Wizard of Hashut (420 points)

BSB: fireglaive and Mask of the Furnance (210 points)

29 Chaos Dwarves with fireglaives, banner of eternal flames, and full command (535 points)

1 Daemonsmith: Level 2 Lore of Metal, Dispel Scroll (155 points)

2 Dreadquake Mortars with ogre slave and hellbound (240 points each)

2 Deathshrieker Rockets (100 points each)

I know I will be allying someone with Lore of Death. Somebody will get doom and darkness, and I will team up with that person. My ally will doom and darkness my target unit. Then if my magic is lucky, I will get Dark Subjugation. That is a Hex spell that lowers an opponent's LD by 1 if they fail a LD test due to magic. I want to get a -4 LD on my target unit. Then in the shooting phase I hit that unit with a dreadquake mortar. The mortar has the quake rule, which forces the target unit to take a dangerous terrain test if it moves for any reason. Then I finally hit the target unit with a deathshrieker rocket. I cause 1 wound to the unit, and it will have to take a panic test at -4 LD, and when it routes, all enemy models then take a dangerous terrain test as they flee. I have been wanting for a while to try this combo out, and it looks like I will get the chance. I know about half the players in involved with this 8000 point fight, so I am sure there will be some rules arguments along the way.

I play ogres too. I am sure someone will bring two ironblasters to tear up my artillery. That will just be par for the course though. That's why I am going with an ogre slave and hellbound on the dreadquake mortars. You make those warmachines have 7 wounds. It's legal, and its in the Tamurkhan errata, if any one has any questions.

[King Chud]

We had 7 players for 8000 points per side. To make up for the deficit of forces of destruction they gave two of our players (another person and I) an extra 1000 points. Like I expected I was placed in right of center allied with an army of trolls on my right, and three hordes of warriors on my left. Facing opposite of me was an inexperienced player with ogres, who had a horde of iron guts and a horde of ogre bulls. The forces of destruction had two level 4 wizards, and forces of order had only 1 level 4 wizard (Wood elves) and three level 2 wizards.

So for my extra 1000 points I bought:

2 magma cannons at 145 points each
29 man horde of chaos dwarves with fireglaives, full command, at 525 points
1 Infernal Castellan with a fireglaive and Armor of Destiny

The magic set up was rather weird. We should have been rolling 2D6 per person. Both sides had one player without a wizard. We wound up with 3D6, picking the highest 2 dice for dispeling dice.

The game lasted four rounds, and forces of destruction had the first move.

I basically only had enemy contact with the ogre player, and I got off Flames of Azorgh on the ironguts, killing 10 ogres in the horde. I forgot to use my magma cannons the first turn, but wounds with one deathshrieker rocket and one dreadquake mortar. The ogres came forward anyway. In the consequent round 2, I concentrated my fireglaives on the bulls, causing ten wounds. My deathshrieker rockets found targets, and so did my dreadquake mortars. By the time the ogre player tried to charge with both units on round 2, he was effectively reduced to one rank of ogres for his ironguts. He did do maximum damage with his ironguts when he charged on a '10' for his charge, so he inflicted a lot of impact hits. The other unit failed to charge the same unit. I wound up losing half of my fireglaives in combat, but was stubborn due to the BSB. I concentrated my fire on the bulls unit, and reduced it to one rank of bulls. I was down to about 13 chaos dwarves with fireglaives against the ironguts, and wiped out the unit, leaving only the characters at the top of three. The ogre tyrant in the unit had crown of command and stayed The bulls horde charged at the bottom of three, and made contact with both units of fireglaives, and they wound losing the combat. The chaos dwarf fireglaive unit on the right pursued and destroyed the bull, while the ogre character unit remained locked with 8 chaos dwarves and the BSB.

The opposing ogre player compared the game to Pickett's charge in facing the war machines. Most of the damage came from the spell in turn 1 and the fireglaives. This was one of those rare times where concentrated war machine fire worked. There was no way to flank my position because the ogre player was side by side with other allies. He should have split his army in two, and avoided my portion of the board all together. My position was in between two houses, which effectively tunneled my line of sight. I did have a serious points advantage against my opponent, and nor was I spread out. If I had my two thousand point list only, I would have only one horde to effective to deal with the ogres, and the bull horde would have gotten to the war machines effectively.

Since WHF isn't really suited for shooting armies, this was a rare opportunity to try out the chaos dwarf artillery. I have plenty of it, but I don't usually play it, since I have monsters who are quicker in combat. When the game was done, it was a win for the forces of destruction.

I will have a chance to play a 2000 points of a shooty chaos dwarf army come May 17th. It will be art of an 8000 point battle between chaos and ogres. It will be a ten foot table. So I decided for a small army with warmachines to try out. I wouldn't play it in a 2000 pt tournament, but it makes sense if you have 6000 points of allies. My army has no redirector units or chaff. Here it is:

Sorcerer Prophet: Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Magical Carpet, Blood of Hashut, Level 4 Wizard of Hashut (420 points)

BSB: fireglaive and Mask of the Furnance (210 points)

29 Chaos Dwarves with fireglaives, banner of eternal flames, and full command (535 points)

1 Daemonsmith: Level 2 Lore of Metal, Dispel Scroll (155 points)

2 Dreadquake Mortars with ogre slave and hellbound (240 points each)

2 Deathshrieker Rockets (100 points each)

I know I will be allying someone with Lore of Death. Somebody will get doom and darkness, and I will team up with that person. My ally will doom and darkness my target unit. Then if my magic is lucky, I will get Dark Subjugation. That is a Hex spell that lowers an opponent's LD by 1 if they fail a LD test due to magic. I want to get a -4 LD on my target unit. Then in the shooting phase I hit that unit with a dreadquake mortar. The mortar has the quake rule, which forces the target unit to take a dangerous terrain test if it moves for any reason. Then I finally hit the target unit with a deathshrieker rocket. I cause 1 wound to the unit, and it will have to take a panic test at -4 LD, and when it routes, all enemy models then take a dangerous terrain test as they flee. I have been wanting for a while to try this combo out, and it looks like I will get the chance. I know about half the players in involved with this 8000 point fight, so I am sure there will be some rules arguments along the way.

I play ogres too. I am sure someone will bring two ironblasters to tear up my artillery. That will just be par for the course though. That's why I am going with an ogre slave and hellbound on the dreadquake mortars. You make those warmachines have 7 wounds. It's legal, and its in the Tamurkhan errata, if any one has any questions.