8th Ed. 1500 Point List vs Dwarfs; Is this Good?

[Suspicious Lizard]

Hey, my friend and I are playing a 1500 point game. This will be our 6th game, and I just recently got a slann and I would appreciate any advice as to this list I currently have:

General: Slann (Should I take light or life?!), BSB w/ Sun Standard of Chotek, Itxi Grubs

Hero: Skink Priest with Cloak of Feathers (fly behind to misdirect shoot with Staff of Lost Sun, extra dice)

Core:

2x10 Skink Skirmishers with blowpipes

2x15 Saurus Warriors w/ Full Command

Special:

15 Temple Guard, Full Command, Champion w/ Ironcurse Icon and Relic Sword, Magic Standard Gleaming (Needed to put 5 points somewhere, extra reroll of failed LD test in nightmare scenario)

Rare:

2x Salamander Hunting Pack with extra handler each.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Also, can someone tell me how his additional dispel dice are going to work with his characters? I don't have his book so I have little ability to specifically check. Thanks!

 

[Wistrel]

Hey, I've got a few tips that should help you out.
First of all dwarfs often have lots of warmachines so you need warmachine hunters in the form of either chameleon skinks or terradons, skinks can easily be converted to chameleons if you need models.
Secondly unless you roll to channel with the skink priest who won't get you extra dice, if flying and misdirecting is what you want either take terradons or a skink chief with the same build for cheaper.

As for the Slann its a bit of a toss up for light or life to be honest, light will make you faster than the dwarfs and give you that much needed protection from ranged shooting, but then you have no protection from miscasts! Alternatively you could take life and buff up your Saurus blocks to near invincible, with throne of vines for protection from miscasts and Dwellers to deal with great weapon hordes. I personally prefer Life of the two.

As for his insane dispelling, he gets a +2 to all dispel rols JUST for being dwarves, and for each runepriest he gets +1 dispel DICE and for each runelord he gets +2 dispel DICE.

(the capitals are because on of my friends plays dwarfs and convinced me that this bonus was to his roll, in addition to various other bonuses such as a 'wizard level for runelords' the net result of which was that he got +12 to dispel! which is complete nonsense!)

 

[Suspicious Lizard]

Thank you very much, this is very useful information. Can I ask why Chameleons are preferable over the skink skirmishers? I know they get the scout special rule, but other than this how are they different?

(Last game he placed his 1 cannon on the corner of the map, away from our ground forces, and I had one group of skink skirmishers left which I set over there to immediately run to him.)

Also, I think I agree with you on Life and thats the way I think I am going to go. The throne looks VERY enticing, plue he would have to dedicate dispell dice to the "Remains in Play" spells while I may be able to damage him with others in following rounds...or cast more buffs!

 

[Suspicious Lizard]

Ahhh nevermind I see higher BS and harder to hit on the Chameleons....appreciated!

 

[Qupakoco]

What discipline are you going to give the Slann? Focus of Mystery would be good so you get all the spells. Either that or Rumination so you can (hopefully) blast through his dispel dice. Also, I don't think the TG champ is allowed to have 2 magic items. You may want to read his entry in the army book to double check. If that's the case, just give the ironcurse icon to the Slann if he has enough empty points.

You should read up on the formal and informal LM vs Dwarf threads in the tactics index. Good stuff.

 

[Suspicious Lizard]

I read the tactica for vs dwarfs, both informal and formal. Am I the only one that feels like it was written in a disheartening tone? It offered great insight but I didnt feel like the writer was excessively content with any strategy. Maybe I am reading too much into it. I believe I am taking both focus rumination and focus of mystery. You are right about the revered champion, my phone app/ army builder doesnt restrict me as it should. Thanks for the note.

 

[Scalenex]

I was going to send what Dwarf dispellers can do when I see someone beat me to it. And I was going to suggest the Dwarf Tactica and someone beat me to that too. Here’s something slightly more detailed on Dwarven anti-magic.

Dwarfs get +2 on all dispel attempts. Each runesmith contributes one extra dispel die. Each runelord contributes two extra dispel dice. An anvil of doom contributes another one (on top of the lord that goes with it) though an Anvil of Doom is unlikely at 1500 points. Most lists give a runesmith or runelord the Master Rune of Balance which steals one of your power dice and converts it to a dispel die for the dwarf player. They got two dispel scroll equivalent runes. One functions exactly as a dispel scroll and can The spell breaker rune dispels a spell and has a 50% chance of wiping it from your Slann’s memory for the whole rest of the battle. Note Dwarfs still get a magic phase where they produce power dice. They can use these power dice to dispel your remains in play spells which will move Throne of Vines from being an excellent spell to being merely a good spell.

In my opinion your Saurus and Temple Guard blocks are puny. If your opponent holds back and shoots while you advance (this is what most dwarf players do) then you will probably lose a between 10 and 15 Saurus just on the advance. You can mitigate this a little bit with Pha’s Protection and Net Amytok or Flesh to Stone and Regrowth but you still want extra ranks. Even at a 1500 point game I wouldn’t want to field groups smaller than 20 (less for TG if you take a Life Slann). I’d advise making your two 15 man blocks into one 30 man block (or maybe 25 to save points) and using the points freed up from one less command crew to buy more Temple Guard.

The Staff of the Lost Sun will not kill 35 points of dwarfs before your skink gets shot down by one of the Dwarfs many shooting units. Even if your foe chooses to ignore your exposed vulnerable high point flying skink all game you would be lucky to kill 35 points of dwarfs. Also, the staff of the Lost Sun plus Cloak of Feathers is more than the maximum allotment of points for a skink priest. I would recommend giving the skink priest the Forbidden Rod if you want to stick with the priest. The Rod will probably kill the Skink but it will buy you one very solid magic phase (unless you roll a 1).

If you swap the Skink priest for a Scar Veteran you could make the Scar Veteran the BSB and free up points allowance for your Slann to take a more potent magical item (not that there is anything wrong with Itxi Grubs in my opinion). If you choose to upgrade your Slann’s magical item I would suggest either the Forbidden Rod (if you take Lore of Life you can heal the Slann’s damage very easily with Lifebloom) or Cupped Hands (to make Lore of Light less risky for miscasts). You can also probably make do with no heroes at all and use the points to buy more Saurus or War Machine Hunters. If you don’t take a skink priest you should probably forgo using Skink Skirmishers entirely and fill your Core entirely with Saurus.

Temple Guard champions can only take one magic item. I would advise you drop the Relic Sword and keep the Iron Curse Icon (the Icon is almost standard issue for fighting dwarfs).

Unless you know for a fact that your opponent is filling all of his Core requirement with Quarrelers and Handgunners, most of the deadly shooting will come from non BS based shooting which means the Banner of Chotec is probably going to be wasted points. The Iron Curse Icon will go a long way to protecting you and either the Lore of Light or Life will help the rest of the way.

Chamo Skinks can still hit on sixes even when double tapping at long range. They also Scout which means on average they get into range one round quicker. They still die pretty easily to the Organ Gun (which does not have to roll to hit its targets rendering the Chamo Skinks ability useless). They also have trouble getting to war machines if your enemy forms a “castle” with his deployment but a castle is hard to do in a 1500 point game. Terradons will breach a “castle” slightly easier but they are also more vulnerable to shooting. You probably want at least two teams of war machine hunters in case one gets shot up by the organ gun.

While not as good at hunting as Terradons and Chamo Skinks, Salamanders and Skink Skirmishers can go after war machines too. You probably shouldn’t blindly rush your Salamanders towards their artillery but some players forget that Salamanders can fight in close combat and not just shoot and they may accidentally leave their big guns open to a Salamander charge, so keep it in mind,.

There is another school of thought on dwarven war machines. I’m the only that endorses it as far as I can tell. That is to go no war machine hunters at all. Use the points you would have spent on war machine hunters to buy more regular troops.

I wrote the formal Tactica. I admit it has a disheartening tone. Before I got my own copy of the Dwarf army book and did some serious analysis of it I lost about 80% (okay closer to 90%) of my games versus my Dwarf friend. Now I lose 50% of them (probably closer to 60%). Dwarf Core outfights our Core and cost fewer points. Of course dwarf players often find our Slann’s bonus power die on every spell intolerably infuriating.

 

[Suspicious Lizard]

Thank you very much Scalenex, I certainly appreciate the insight.

My friend and I have only played 5 games (we are new to the game) and I have one all of them so far but the last one I only won because it was the "fortitude" scenario and I got all of his banners before he comepletely wiped out my unit (he got tunnel vision and charged straight at my general, flanked both sides and the whole shibang). Its put me on alert because with the Slann I realize I am in trouble vs magic denial dwarfs, I dont have terradons or crox to field and am capped at 40 saurus (2 battallions) and have heard everything bad about taking a stegadon.

I am probably going to take your advice on dropping the hero. I was just trying to think of an effective way to fluster him other than relying on high winds of magic rolls and him messing up dispells. I have Cold One Cavalry but I hear they are not cost effective for what they do and wont survive much longer than a charge.

Thank you, I appreciate the help.