Think about this army list.

4 units of 20 Miners with Full Command and Steam Drill- 1080

1 unit of 10 Quarreller Rangers with Shields- 130

1 unit of 20 Warrior Rangers Full Command and Shields- 225

1 unit of 20 Warrior Longbeard Rangers Full Command and Shields- 285

That leaves 280 points for a hero or two, both with the Rune of Brotherhood, so they can go with Rangers of Miners.

This army would be able to completly negate dwarven slowness! With the Miners all having steam drills, they should show up on turn 2, and the latest turn 3. 4 units of 20 great weapon wielding dwarves poping up on the enemies starting table edge would be great.

The quarrellers are there for some shooting, since that is the only thing this army might be lacking.

What do you think?

Burro Boskov

It's nothing my Brets can't deal with. I just move my knights 16" forward the first turn, I turn around and move a bit in your direction the second turn, and I can charge you the third turn. By then, all your units are on the table, so I don't have any nasty surprises. I have no casualties up to now, except maybe two or three from your Quarellers.

But when I charge you, I can kill enough Dwarves to avoid any counter-attack. With your great weapons, you're pretty vulnerable to a charge, even with T4.

Your great weapons are not mentioned in your list, though.



Picture this: a Dwarf player arrives with this army and comes face to face with another Dwarf player who uses the very same tactic... :D

And the two or three lances that were broken in turn 2 when the Rangers rear-charged them.

You've gone 16" forwards. Even if Rangers weren't scouts, that would still put you in charge range on turn 2. The correct strategy would be to rush the dwarfs that actually start on the table early in the game, so as to finish mopping them up in turn 3 or so in their own deployment zone while the Miners are left slogging it across the board towards you. But it needs good timing and decent dice throws - if you got bogged down in the foremost Ranger units, which is pretty easy to do considering Dwarf leadership, you would be in deep trouble.

I personally don't see this as "cheesy" but as a valid strategy that is more or less a all eggs in one basket. If the miners never deploy then your whole plan is ruined except for the one miner a turn or so. But they are avoided then attacked by the remaining units on the field after your archers and warriors are dispached.

Why make all of them Rangers? Do you honestly think there will be enough terrain to put 2 5x4 and 1 5x2 regiment in such that they're out of LOS of all of the enemy? Somehow, I think not....

there might not be enough terrain, and i forgot to add in the great weapon costs for rangers on the army list.

But techincally, all 4 miner units should show up at the same turn (4+ rerollable) that many units, able to show up on a table quarter out of the enemies line of sight, so unchargeable in the turn they arrive, but still march blocking, would be really something, dont you agree?

Burro Boskov

Depends on the army you're facing. Me, I'd LOVE to face that army. I play a speed Khorne army. Slowest thing in my army has a M6, and I don't even have a Chariot to slow me down. Against that army, by turn 2 I'd either be in combat with the tiny force that's on the table, or at worst, be setting them up for charges on turn 3. Bring the miners on in my deplyment zone, fine, I'll just ignore them til I finsih wiping out the small force that started on the table, before turning 180 and crushing the miners.

The Dwarf amries I really fear are ones with a lot of mutually supporting infantry blocks, with at least a fair amount of runed-up artillery fire. Oh, and I hate the anvil. *HATE* *HATE* *HATE* the Anvil. rofl.

ANyway, I was going to post my latest army to the HOC section here anyway for comments, you can see what I mean there about it being a speed army.

yes, it is very fast.

i think that those armies are a bit unfluffy. Only because they are lacking Chaos Warriors. I understand that generals dont like their standard M4(sigh), but i think fluff wise, they are the largest population of chaos followers besides the Beastmen. Anyway, that is just a personal opinion.

Burro Boskov

actually i would advocate that marauders are the largest following but thats just me. Well i wouldnt mind making a chaos army with deamons as flankers but hten again i dont play chaos.

the same points go for them.

see a maurader foot unit in that army? HMMMM?

Burro Boskov

Speed is the way to go in an chaos army. Warriors are cool maybe but they certainly arent worth the points spent on them.

I tried using a big unit of foot marauders in that army, actually. The fact that they were half the speed of everything else completely neutered any effectiveness they might have had. Combine their speed with the fact that they are a much softer target than anything else in the army, and you ended up with 1 of 2 results: 1) they never saw combat, and spent the entire game trudging around trying to get into a fight, or 2) they got nailed by my opponent's speed/hammer units and got crushed, since there were no mutually supporting infantry blocks to back them up.

At one of the Indy GT's, I had a block of 25 foot marauders with an Aspiring Champion with an extra hand weapon in it. In one particular match against a pestilens skaven army, I learned just how weak that unit was. I had full command, and the unit was actually sitting on top of a hill, so it got high ground bonus. It was charged by a grand total of 10 Plague Censer Bearers: 6 in front, 4 in the flank. The Champion was killed by a combination of gas and flail hits before he could attack, and even though 3 PCBs gassed themselves to death, and despite having a starting +6 combat res (3 ranks, standard, outnumber, high ground), I still lost the combat by 8...

So, that kind of killed the concept of bringing a big marauder foot block for me.

On topic again, I think this army could do well but my suggestion is to knock off one unit of miners in favor of gyrocopters, the additional points for the great weapons for the rangers and more quarrelers. You'd be surprised how often you fail a 4+ rerollable fellow dwarf. You are also aware that there is a 0-1 limit on rangers unless you take Bugman in which case there is an 0-2. As it stands right now your list is illegal.