Dwarfs: Mantic Dwarf Starter Army, a trial army list

I've always been a big fan of Dwarfs - they were my first fantasy minis army, and the general theme of tactics for the short, tenacious buggers fits my play style very well. Kings of War's Dwarfs are very similar to Warhammer's, in the sense that they are slow, have heavy armor, and generally good ranged weaponry and war engines.

Where they differ is primarily in the variety of regiments they have access to - Bulwarkers are very good at cavalry defense, Sharpshooters are a long range sniping option with a powerful hit, Earth Elementals fit the dwarf theme very well but add in a solid bit of movement shenanigans, and Berserker Brock Riders... they're dwarf berserkers riding giant, angry badgers! High speed, lots of attacks, and hitting power like mad, they're a great tactical asset in any dwarf list!

Rather than go into any more detail on the Dwarf units (there are so many!), I'm going to start with a basic 1000pt list. I'm basing the list on what comes in the Mantic Dwarf Starter Army, which is a pretty nice way to start an army. I'll be doing another for the Mantic Dwarf Mega Force, but only after I've gotten a few games in with the Starter Army List to gauge it's ability.

List after the Break!




Kings of War Army List: 1000pts
Dwarfs (Good): 1000pts
Infantry:
170pts - Ironguard Regiment w/ Dwarf Throwing Mastiff
155pts - Shieldbreakers Regiment w/ Dwarf Throwing Mastiff, Brew of Haste
135pts - Ironwatch Crossbows Regiment

Cavalry:
230pts - Berserker Brock Rider Regiment w/ Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar

War Engines:
85pts - Ironbelcher Organ Gun
85pts - Ironbelcher Organ Gun

Heroes:
55pts - Army Standard Bearer w/ War-bow of Kaba (using the Ironwatch infantry standard)
85pts - Warsmith (using a mini from one of the Ironbelcher crews, or an Ironwatch mini)


It's a very basic list - an Ironguard regiment (using the Ironclad models, because why not?) as a solid anvil, while the Shieldbreakers deal with high Defense models. The Ironwatch Crossbows are there to deal with low Defense enemies, while the Organ Guns deal with high Defense. The ASB will go behind the infantry line, while the warsmith sticks around the war engines to give them the bonus.

This makes for a surprisingly nice looking list to start out with, and since it's a nice 'core' army, it can be easily added to over time. Now, on to some specifics:

Ironwatch Crossbows vs Rifles: I picked Crossbow Dwarfs for this list for a few reasons - they're cheaper, for one thing, with a shot-per-point ratio of 12.5 (135pts /10 shots) over the 15.5 S/P of Rifles. This doesn't take into account differences in stopping power, but since they're only 1 Piercing less than the Rifles and Organ Guns, I think that's a pretty good deal. Additionally, compared to both of them, the Organ Guns are running at 5.6 S/P, which is staggeringly higher, not even counting how the Warsmith makes them Elite.

What does all this mean? Well, against a high Defense enemy unit, the Crossbows are less effective than Rifles due to the weaker shot; however, against a medium or low Defense enemy, that shot per point ratio makes them more effective. Since most armies have a mix of both, this means I can prioritize my Organ Guns on the enemy anvils, and leave the cheaper Crossbows to target fliers, light infantry, cavalry, and other things. Idealy, I'd split them into 2 troops (each with a 12.5 S/P ratio) to spread out the number of targets and be a better defense against fliers, but I need 4 Regiments to get 4 War Engines/Heroes slots, and the starter army doesn't have enough models to go for Hordes yet (which I'm not convinced are a good choice under 2000pts anyway).

War-Bow of Kaba: it's a 5pt magic item that I think will see a lot of use - it's only 1 shot, but it has good range, hits on average, and even has a bit of kick. This will give the ASB the ability to put some shots into fliers and flankers at long range, since he's not doing anything but standing around anyway. Kevinar's Flying Hammer might be a harder-hitting choice for the same price, but it's range is quite low, and when the ASB is that close, you're probably charging with Infantry anyway.

Dwarf Throwing Mastiffs: these guys are fun, but they obviously don't come with the starter box. Luckily, Mantic has said over and over that it's okay with proxies, and since you don't even need to have anything showing them anyway, using a spare weapon off of one of the sprues or just a token of some kind should be fine with noting it. Are they worth it for 10 points? I have no idea, but since they're even more effective against shambling units (which every army has), I don't think they're that bad of an investment for the units.

A Note on Models:
KoW's rules on conversions and model count are interesting - you have to have at least 60% of the models the unit is "supposed" to have. This means you can get away with having fewer models per unit, but it also leaves room for more interesting filler.

Here's a handy graph from the official Kings of War Errata:

(MMC= Minimum Model Count, PMC=Preferred Model Count)

For the list above, in regards to the Dwarf Starter Army, it means you have some spare models running around to use as the Warsmith and ASB. Even with Minimum Model Count, there aren't quite enough models in the Starter Army to get a Horde without swapping some infantry between units, and I'm not a big fan of that one when they're units are so cheap anyway.



So, there you have it, a basic 1000pt Dwarf List using the Dwarf Starter Army. I'll try to post more soon on Multibasing Ideas, as well as a list for the Mega Army.


Contributions are welcome!
Email: TalesofMantica at gmail dot com