I did write a
Tactica on them. Actually it was like the fourth or fifth one I've ever done so it's quite old, but I've updated it for our new book. Sadly I only played CD since we got the eighth ed book. The CD player in my area moved away. I have lurked on the Chaos Dwarf forum abit. Behold delicious theoryhammer.
My understanding is the guy I played against played pretty standard lists for Chaos Dwarves. I think most lists in the 2500 points neighborhood use the Iron Daemon War Engine or Ka'daii Destroyer if not both.
Most players seem to favor going Chaos Dwarf Core and ignore their Hobgoblin options. If they take a BSB, it's a geared up Castellan with the largest infantry block. A L4 Sorcerer Prophet is standard issue (relaly the ONLY Lord option) and he usually hangs out with the artillery line.
So you basically have one, probably two giant nigh-invulnerable monsters doing the heavy lifting. They are backed by bad-ass artillery and respectable magic. Then you got infantry almost as an afterthought, though if you just barely overcome the artillery, magic, and giant monsters the infantry can beat you. CDs can take chaff, tarpits, heavy cavalry equivalents, MI, or elite infantry but CD players seem to favor the core setup driven by large monsters and artillery.
Step one is destroy, tarpit, or redirect the big monsters.
Step two is destroy the artillery line OR engage in close combat with the infantry. If you charge the infantry the artillery can't shoot you. If you go after the artillery instead, the infantry can't shoot you while you are going after the artillery.
Step Three is to go after what is left (or play points denial with your battered army remnants.
So assuming you are dealing with a giant K'daii
and a big train. if you only see one big'un it will usually be the train since the Iron Daemon Engine is Special, not Rare. The only one to handle the heavies is to magic them, redirect them, tarpit them, and/or take large units of Kroxigor (with buffs to survive shooting).
If I were gunning for Chaos Dwarfs, I'd take a BRB Slann, at least one Skink priest with Skirmisher bunker, big block of Temple Guard, and a big unit of Kroxigor plus whatever else you like.
Metal Slann: Hopefully you get Searing Doom and Golden Hounds or you are in for a rough haul. You target the Train and redirect or tarpit the K'daii. Peg it three times with Metal magic and it's dead. Peg it twice and it's a pushover for most of your army. Peg it once and i't manageable for your TG or Kroxigor. You don't have any magical tools for the K'daii but the Metal buffs and hexes should help you outclass the Chaos Dwarf infantry. Note, just about every unit Chaos Dwarfs have is fire resistant EXCEPT for the train, so don't waste Metal attacks on anything but the train.
Shadow Slann: You want Withering or Okkams, ideally both and you want Pit of Shades if you can get it. WIth Okkam's Mindrazor your units can beat up either of the two giant monsters. With Withering you can soften up the K'daii enough to take down in close combat. Never forget the K'daii needs to take a Toughness test every wound or suffer wounds so you can theoretically kill a K'daii with Withering alone. If they take the little K'daii (if they bother to take the smaller K'daai) they should drop really fast to Withering. Even if it doesn't eat itself, the reduced toughness will at least mitigate the +1 to wounding difficulties with the K'daii.
Pit of Shades will automatically kill a Magma Cannon, Deathshrieker rocket launcher, and the Dreadquake Mortar. It has a very good chance to kill a train or Hellcannon.
Both the Enfeebling Foe and Melkoth's Miasma will help your PF units survive enemy attacks and overcome the opposition.
Light Slann: There is no magic to kill the enemy heavies, but you can seriously reduce the bite of everything else. You can use LIght of Battle to tie up the enemy heavy. Bubbled Pha's protection to mitigate general shooting and Net of Amytok to completely shut down the Dreadquake Mortar or Rocket Launchers. You want to tie up or redirect both enemy big'uns and engage the infantry ASAP, then crush them with your superior magicked stats. Your army list should have extra Kroxigor, Skroxigor, the Razor Standard on your Temple Guard, and GW packing cowboys to make up for your inability to magic away the bad'uns.
I think squeezing in Tet for some Vangards wouldn't be amiss. Iceshard Blizzard and Comet would be fairly useful too, but I think I'd rather spend my hero points on Saurus with great weapons.
I am quite fond of WD Slann, but I see Wandering Deliberations as a weak "lore" to take versus CD. Searing Doom is the only good attack spell. Spirit Leech will not help you much unless they take a Hellcannon. Ice Shard just doesn't cut it by itself. There are so many flaming attacks Earthblood will not help much. The magic missiles are all flaming Strength 4 hits which makes them not very useful.
I don't see High Magic helping much besides Walk Between Worlds and Drain Magic (in case they irresistibly cast Ash Storm). You can always swap for Metal and Shadow, but I really want to be able to cast Searing Doom from turn one. By turn three, it's probably already too late.
I don't think a tailored ant-CD should not use any dons. Terradons would be easy for their infantry to shoot down and they don't hit hard enough to challenge a Sorcerer Prophet or any artillery with the Hellbound upgrade. Razordons don't hit hard enough to hurt non-chaff. Stegadons are too charge dependent. Ideally you would use Steggies to go after infantry or sharpened horn a big monster, but the infantry is going to be holding back 90% of the time, so they are ONLY useful if you get the charge on K'daii or train. If you don't roll excellent impact hits, the Steggadon will be crushed (assuming it's not shot with artillery first). Troglodons are Troglodons. Bastiladons are slow when you need speed to close the gap with the enemy and their bound spell is sadly a flaming attack.
