Chaos Dwarfs

[MexicanNinja]

Nice find BG.  Those are some very nice looking models.

[ratrek]

Those are really nice BG.

 

Admittedly, nearly as pricey as ForgeWorld but they look much better to my eye

[Brother Glacius]

$3 a mini for the rank and file. That isn't too bad. FW is $6 per mini, so I'm not sure where you are getting your price comparison at. Plus these guys fit in with the big hat crowd.

[ratrek]

I get better FW pricing then the standard web site.

 

The real bonus to these is that their metal rather then resin or plastic, both of which I hate working with. Plus, big hats.

 

Now for some Bull Centaur stand ins

[Romes]

Sorry - this goes back in the conversation from models to rules, but I wanted to give my opinion on what you should be aware of going into the army.

 

What's been said is that the army is not supported by GW. What I think is important to add is that the book, written by forgeworld, does not seem to have gone through a ton of play testing before being printed. I play against chaos dwarves fairly often and in my opinion the book does not have good internal balance.

 

It's possible to make a balanced list, but to me you're really just taking some power options and some poor options. Also be aware that there are a couple things to consider regarding your opponents:

1. When people aren't familiar with the book they may react to some of the rules fairly poorly, especially all the artillery re-rolls (which do end up costing a good amount of points to access)

2. There are a few options which set off the "why is this legal?" reaction in a lot of players. In my opinion this is not the war machines, but it's the chalice and the lore of hasphet that really are not OK. Especially Chalice.

3. The K'Daii destroyer is sort of a problem. In my experience, *most* veteran players with *most* lists will have a fairly easy time controlling or dealing with it (at least, with one). But for less experienced players it can be exceedingly un-fun to play against.

 

The exception to this for me is bull centaurs, which I really like, look amazing on paper, and consistently under-perform due to volume of attacks issue. They feel like a surprisingly well balanced unit.

 

I agree with the sentiments of people above regarding the models and all, I just think it's important to be aware of these potential issues when picking an army.

 

Good luck!

[generalripphook]

So what are the main powerhouse units other then the k'daii destroyer?

[Romes]

The basic chaos dwarf army has a big block of dwarves, some goblins, and a sorceror prophet and BSB. When you go from there is where you get the feast or famine in power level:

 

My opinion is:

 

Feast:

 

Chalice on prophet

Book lore (oddly, death is the nicer less broken choice)

2nd Destroyer

critical mass of warmachines 

 

A full 2500 points of feast tends to be either destroyer and 4-5 warmachines and appropriate characters (including a scroll caddie for 2nd re-rolls) or 2 destroyer and 2 or 3 warmachines. The magma and the death shrieker really shine in terms of cost effectiveness. The bigger ones are fun, but put out less firepower per point and so arent' the same kind of powerhouse in my view.

 

So there aren't really that many amazing units (it's a small book!) and these warmachines in themselves are not that broken compared to say, dwarf ones. It's ashstorm, flames, and chalice, combined with either of the 2 builds above that are what I think of as the powerhouse. 

 

Famine:

 

Fireborn (too bad so cool!)

bull centaurs and khan (totally reasonable units)

mount the prophet on  a taurus (though this seems pretty good with the double destroyer build)

the non-core dwarves or more dwarves than is strictly required, any second unit of them really since the second unit won't be stubborn unless you spend a lot more points on characters than would normally make sense

the cho-cho train (I know some will disagree with this!)

 

*you can totally build reasonable lists somewhere in the middle by taking some warmachines and some softer stuff! 

[generalripphook]

So what are the power rankings or the magic lores you said both hasut and all book pores but death are too powerful?

[Romes]

Hashut is the only CD rulebook lore, I said rulebook lore because I realized I was spelling it wrong. It's also the only one that's really an issue. 

 

Death is good, but most armies have access to it, its not something uniquely problematic in the chaos dwarf book. Especially w/ LD9(I think?) spirit leech and a (usually) foot caster. Metal and fire are probably the softer choices. I don't think it's fair to strictly give the lores power rankings, it depends in your army, your strategy and your opponent. There will be situations where metal or death could outshine Hashut. It's more that Hashut has a couple spells that (in my opinion) really should not exist in the game and will often cause significant consternation (and maybe even constipation) in your opponents, these being flames and ash cloud.

[MexicanNinja]

Ash Storm is the only spell which I think is unbalanced.  The rest are "meh" to me.  I also agree that the war machines on their own aren't that crazy.  It's when you include 3 flame cannons and/or 2 earthshakers that make it very unbalanced.  I also like the bull centaurs but they aren't as crazy in-game as they seem on paper.  To me, they seem better than dragon ogres but weaker than most monstrous cavalry.  The army does look amazing though and there are a ton of cool options for personal flavor.

 

I also think that a single destroyer is good to have in the army.  As it was stated above, some people will know how to deal with it while some will struggle.  It's really not that bad, it just sucks when you have to deal with 2 of them plus the war machines and the flying caster using hassut magic wielding the chalice.

 

The army is very solid and can provide a very fun game.  I wish they had the option to take black orcs again though.

[Romes]

The problem with flames to me is not the template, its the infinite range and the toughness test at -3 or die outright. Generally characteristic-test-or-die spells do not come with a built in de-buff to that characteristic, much less -3.

 

*edit it's really the combination of the two though. Flames in a lore that didn't have a 2-3 dicable must-counter like ashstorm wouldn't be that bad because you could always just save all your dice for flames and stop it most the time. However, when your opponent leads with ash storm every round... Alternately when you opponent casts flames and then uses chalice - that's also a problem.