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7th Ed. How can I beat this!??

T
Kroxigor

the-graven

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Ok, my friend is practicing really much with his dwarven gunline, I haven't faced it yet but I know what he fields, if he takes an anvil of doom(don't know what he takes if he doesn't field one).
Here is what's in his list at 2k(don't know magic items):

-Anvil of Doom
-BSB with a really nasty thing don't know exactly what it was.
-3 units of Quarrelers(I thought the unit size was 10 but I am not sure)
-3 units of Thunderers(I thought the size was 10, not sure)
-2 Organ Guns
-2 Bolt Throwers
-Cannon

I thought that was it. I need some help, he has 60 dwarfs, he has a massive ammount of shooting, the dwarfs are also not bad in combat and my heavily thinned units will probably lose, and he has 5 year more experience(I am pretty much a noob who hasn't played much battles).


Any help welcome, I really want to show that I know how to play :D
 
Given a list like that, your goal is to shut down the one phase he focuses on, which is shooting.

Engines of the Gods!

The ward save bubble from your EoTG is your saving grace here. If you run two of them you should be able to protect your main core from a bunch of fire. This is especially true if you screen the main line with skinks as your force advanced from behind. So unless he is on a hill he has to shoot your skirmish screen 1st with the -1, and then if they are still within you EoTG bubble you still get your 5+ ward. Very useful.

He is slow, VERY slow and from what you say, he has no real combat viable troops. If you can walk up to his line and just spam with both Engines wounding on 4+ and he loses all his precious armor saves he should be wiped out.

Terradons!

His warmachines are tough and so are the crew. You can try to shoot them down or magic them, but your Terradons are very useful here. The key is presenting multiple targets so there is actually too much for him to shoot, rather than hiding and being defensive. You really just need one unit to get in there, or even a hero on a terradon and you can being to effectively hold up his shooting to get your cold one cav to be able to roll up the flank.

Magic

You have access to all lores so you can be versitile. Given he is not combat heavy I don't think I would take lore of metal, since the only spell you will rely on is the one that nerfs his warmachines. You would better off with Lore of Life and make sure you use the 'Rainlord' spell. This spell is not Remains in Play even though it actually does last the entire battle. Hit up his warmachines and hand gunners with that and you can effectively remove his strongest phase.

Also, since he is so slow, the Comet of Cassandora can be especially devastating against this army if you can get it off.

Lastly, you could also try the tactic with 'Doom and Darkness' and then trying to get a kill with your Salamanders to force panic and have the lines run.


Hope that helps!
 
As a primary dwarf player, I will just say that this list is completely ridiculous. Absolutely no non-shooting units? 2 organ guns with anvil? It does not get any cheesier than this list. I would simply refuse to play against him unless you are actually having fun... I know I wouldn't be.

Some other note...

- This would be a good list to run the slann solo against with the 2+ ward save against shooting.
- His cannon and bolt throwers will eat your stegadons up very quickly... especially if he's got a master engineer giving his cannon d6 wounds + the run of forging which lets him re-roll his misfires.
- His Organ guns chew up any terradons that get to within charging range. Range on the organ is 24, so its hard to get a charge in with the scaly birds.
- I'd almost be inclined to just bring 3 lvl 2 mages and a slann, hide them behind a forest, and spam as many cassendora comets as you can. Or, run your solo slann up with the 2+ ward, regen, ethereal etc... and pit of shades his anvil and war machines all day. Odds of him dying are very very low with this kind of protection and no close combat coming from the dwarves.
- Is the BSB item the master rune of valhala? Gives him +2 to dispel EVERYTHING.

Having said all that... his list is quite simply CHEESE.
 
that list is really nasty...

not really sure what to suggest.

i would probably go for stuff which is as survivable as possible (so high toughness, saves, and/or numbers) and pray for him to misfire/miss with a lot of his shooting.


if you're after beating him, i'd go with skinkers suggestions, especially on the slann. hopefully you can beat him and it might convince him to take a more fun army :)
 
Either the 2+ward against ranged(including magic missiles etc..), and/or Higher State of Consciousness on lone slann would work wonders, as he would have an incredibly hard time dealing with the slann. Just stay out of his range with the priests, as they only need LOS with heavens, no range restrictions. And rain down some comets, and make him come to you.

His list is cheesy as hell, but if your willing to play against him just turtle as well and show him how boring it is.
 
In addition to the ideas mentioned already remember to try to use terrain to your advantage. He is probably envisioning a nice big long hill for him to set all his stuff up on and then an open killing field for his shooting. If he is bringing a list this cheesy he probably has his own "set my guns up here" hill. Work to make sure he can't have a side of the table with that hill.

Or be cheesy yourself and bring a few long skinny woods to lay down across the middle so even on a hill he can't get at you until your much closer. You can't be within 12 inches of the center but if you are playing on a standard 6' wide table you have some options for extra cover. Also if you are bringing a bunch of skinks maybe bring a largish marsh that you can get soft cover in near where you think he is going to deploy his guns so you can take advantage of your aquatic troops (including salamanders!)

I love the massive comets of Cassandra idea. This is a tough (and unimaginative and boring) list. Chances are good you'll lose no matter what you do. Stegs will be toast with those bolt throwers and a cannon. Magic will be all but shut down most likely.

If you had the models you could try and be cheesy by running a ton of skirmishing skink units that are far enough apart they don't panic each other.
 
Should have his beard shaved for such a disgusting list! I agree that this sort of player will most likely bring his own hill.

A note about comets.. they are remains in play and the 100 point banner rune automatically dispels remain in play spells within 12" at the start of any turn. Best bet he will plop him in the center of his fortress hill, and wipe out your comets!

On the Slann, take Life. Early in the game, set up just behind your deployment line. Don't advance, but rather start casting Master of Stone. They only need to be within 12" of a hill, and take even more damage if on a hill, line of sight is the only requirement. Target his Organ guns first, if you can see them, followed by his other guns. Take as many skink priests as possible and begin targeting warmachine crews with forked lightning/uranon's. Remember individual characters can't be hit with the anvil's power. Should one of them roll up Comet, it may be possible to cast it on anything not cowering on fortress hill. Second sign of amul will be a good one to cast early on in a magic phase to try to bleed out some dispel dice. Take regular stegs for counter-battery fire, and remember the Slann can always try to heal them.

If you have a forest on your side of the table, deploy your ancient steg just behind it and cast a bubble of protection that will touch units in front of it. Deploy everything within' 12" of this if possible. Remember your Slann can heal a model within 12" completely with lore of life.

Howler wind is an awesome spell if you decide you want to start approaching, but more than likely you won't get to soften them up enough for this. If you can kill his bolt throwers, cannon, and other gun crews, you might have softened it up enough to approach, but always go with protection from a spell of some sort. If a skink priest rolls up celestial shield, keep it!

It presents a lot of interesting problems, but I would say just sit back and outrange him with magic. Deploy across your baseline if you have to. And don't forget every turn he has a 1/36 chance of blowing up his anvil!
 
That's only if he has the master rune of valaya... still waiting to hear on that.

If not, go with the 3 priest comet strategy + lore of life or shadow with the slann. Even if he does, the 12 inch range can't protect his entire gunline! Stone spell is indeed good at strength 6.... Put banehead on your slann and nominate the runelord on the anvil. Then watch him cry when you stone him to death.
 
Is that even legal? 5 warmachines? I guess it would be, 4 special and a rare...

True Dwarf gunlines are one of the hardest things to fight in the game IMO, and this one is cheesed up. I wouldn't even bother with engines at all, stegs will die on turn 1 even if they get their ward off. And those suggesting ethereal Slann, be careful. A warmachine with a rune counts as magical attacks. I wouldn't both with it.

Lore if life was my first thought as Caneghem said. But really, asking him to tone down that list is about your only option unless you want to take an entire skink skirmisher army.

In all honesty, I think the slightly less shooting but one or two combat units is worse than this list. If you manage to get a tiny bit into combat, you should win. If there is a block or two of fighty Dwarfs? Well by the time your ripped up army makes it across the board, they have not a snowflake's chance in hell of beating a full ranked unit of Dwarfs in combat.
 
If he isn't taking Valaya, then Heavens magic will win the game for you. Bane head on the Slann is a good idea, then just keeping casting comet on top of his anvil. It's actually not as resilient as you would think, the two "crew" anvil guards have 3+ armor vs shooting, and the Runelord might not have any better depending on how confident he is that they can be kept out of combat.

Something I didn't mention earlier... lots of skink screen skirmishers. His long range things are his cannon and his bolt throwers, both of which should only be able to kill one skirmisher per turn at best. Don't even take terradons, he will just hit them with his anvil. Same goes for chameleon skinks. I would still say keep the Slann with Temple Guard and take the banner that penalizes shooting at them. Take the cannon out asap, as he will be trying to snipe your Slann. Another thing I'd do is instead of messing around with the EotG ward bubble, just hide it behind a forest and align it to boost heavens magic.

Cast comet until you win. Once you kill the Runelord, you get 100 points for general and about 500 ish for the Lord/anvil unit. Also, he will drop down to 4 dispel dice instead of 7, and lose any remaining scrolls. Wreak magical havoc at this point until he cries uncle.

Then explain to this "veteran" player that he needs to learn how to play warhammer. If you beat him with the comet strategy, that is exactly how it would play out realistically. Static defenses like that would never be approached by a general who had something even longer range to play with! He is set up for a scenario, not a pitched battle.
 
I was about to say that this looks like a job for Lore of Shadows... But I wonder if magic is really the way to go here. Here's a crazy idea that may or may not work.

First, well before the game, talk about your Slann and how it's great abilities make it the best wizard in the game, hands down. Mention that it's Higher State of Consciousness makes it immune to non magical attacks, and therefore unstoppable. Also speak in reverent tones about the legendary Engine of the Gods.

When the time comes for the battle, be sure and have access to plenty of long forest features and use them to make a channel running from your end of the board to the other. Use as much big forest as you can possibly deploy to block his lines of sight.

Then run a list like this:

Saurus Oldblood- great weapon/ shield, Hide of Cold Ones, Amulet of Itzel, Carnosaur Pendant

Scar Veteran- Scimitar of the Sun, armor, shield

Scar Veteran- Sword of Might, Maiming Shield, armor

Skink Chief- battle standard bearer, Sun Standard of Chotec, armor, shield

16 skirmishers- javelin & shield (Oldblood and standard bearer here)

2x 19 skirmishers (Scar Vets here, respectively)

7 Cold One cavalry- Huanchi's Standard

2x7 Chameleon Skinks

4 Kroxigor

Ancient Stegadon

In all likelihood he'll be tooled up for anti magic... and you don't have any. It's very easy for him to manage +3 to all dispel rolls, and that battle standard is also going to shut down the comet pretty well. You'd have to throw a lot of dice at your spells, and even then a lot of hits are going toward the T7 war machines. So...

Run the Oldblood and his skirmisher buddies up the forests and crash into the war machines. The Organ Guns auto hit and nullify your standard, so try to tie them up asap. Overwhelm him with all your fast moving units, and use the terrain to make sure he can't concentrate too much firepower on any one thing. He can only hit one unit a turn with the anvil, and he doesn't have any march blockers, so use that. Expect the Stegadon to be the number one target, but anything shooting at it isn't shooting at something else.

Once you start getting units through and stalling his shooting out, the battle will be turning in your favor, or so the theory goes.

So, anyone actually think this might work?
 
The problem is that on the turn the carnosaur and stegadon can get their charges, he has open hunting season and will most likely take them out with his gunline, barring some really unlucky rolling on his part.
 
you need 2 EotG. bring your slann. bring terradons. if that is his list, you don't really worry about his combat blocks all that much. you just slam into him as quick as possible, but don't forget to try and take out his anvil as soon as possible. remember that the anvil can slow you down so that you can't march, and it could keep your terradons grounded. make sure that there are forests in the terrain. you're going to need all the cover you can find.

or, fight cheese with cheese.

4 EotG
and what, 3 or 4 stegs as well.

3 fighting skink cohort blocks.
 
His brother(also a Lizzie player beat him though it was very close and he had luck) with a list that contained a solo slann, 2 EotG's, 1 spearadon, some skink skirmishers and as much stegadons as possible.

One thing about the opponent he's really nice and some might call him a powerplayer but he likes lists wich are really good and he loves gunlines and he's a perfectionist(so he isn't a guy who only plays to win).

EDIT: his warmachines always have engineers :(
Another Edit: About the dispelling, he had just as much DD as his brother had PD and that with Slann with rumination, and 2 EotG's
 
the-graven said:
His brother(also a Lizzie player beat him though it was very close and he had luck) with a list that contained a solo slann, 2 EotG's, 1 spearadon, some skink skirmishers and as much stegadons as possible.

One thing about the opponent he's really nice and some might call him a powerplayer but he likes lists wich are really good and he loves gunlines and he's a perfectionist(so he isn't a guy who only plays to win).

EDIT: his warmachines always have engineers :(
Another Edit: About the dispelling, he had just as much DD as his brother had PD and that with Slann with rumination, and 2 EotG's
Click to expand...

Slann with Rumination we'll count as 6 PD, then 6 for 2 EotG's, then 2 more for the army pool. A dwarf army with anvil will only have 7 dispel dice, though with a 50 point item he can steal a PD to use as a dispel. The LM should have double the amount of power dice in that configuration...
 
Caneghem said:
the-graven said:
His brother(also a Lizzie player beat him though it was very close and he had luck) with a list that contained a solo slann, 2 EotG's, 1 spearadon, some skink skirmishers and as much stegadons as possible.

One thing about the opponent he's really nice and some might call him a powerplayer but he likes lists wich are really good and he loves gunlines and he's a perfectionist(so he isn't a guy who only plays to win).

EDIT: his warmachines always have engineers :(
Another Edit: About the dispelling, he had just as much DD as his brother had PD and that with Slann with rumination, and 2 EotG's
Click to expand...

Slann with Rumination we'll count as 6 PD, then 6 for 2 EotG's, then 2 more for the army pool. A dwarf army with anvil will only have 7 dispel dice, though with a 50 point item he can steal a PD to use as a dispel. The LM should have double the amount of power dice in that configuration...
Click to expand...

Srry i should have said it differently, he didn't have just as much DD, but he could dispell all spells due to certain magic items, that still sucks :(
 
skinker said:
The problem is that on the turn the carnosaur and stegadon can get their charges, he has open hunting season and will most likely take them out with his gunline, barring some really unlucky rolling on his part.
Click to expand...

I agree entirely; I'm saying give an Oldblood on foot the Carnosaur Pendant, not a carnosaur to ride.

This thread got me intrigued enough that I challenged the dwarf player in our mighty empires league, and just got back from playing.

A couple differences: We have fixed lord characters from game to game, so I had to run my Slann (with the useless Becalming Cogitation), instead of an Oldblood. Also, the Dwarf player has a combat Dwarf Lord in a large block of hammerers (with a banner thane) instead of an anvil, but otherwise it's a full- on gunline, with 2 organ guns, 2 bolt throwers, 2 grudge throwers, and 4 shooting core units. Also, he drew the Scouts special rule before the game, so I had to set up all my guys but the chameleon skinks before he put any of his units on the table, and he got to go first.

I massacred him. Three scar vets in 12- strong skirmisher units dodged down the length of the board from cover to cover and butchered up and down the gun line while the Slann blasted things and shut down organ guns with Lore of Metal. Terradons and Chameleons tag teamed the unit with his Rune Priests and dispel scrolls and basically nixed his ability to stop my magic. The Lord got nailed with Bane Head + Burning Iron, tied up in combat with the remaining Temple Guard, and finished off in a challenge from my Hide of Cold Ones/ great weapon vet that snuck up from behind.

The real star of the show, however, was the JSoD with Sword of Battle that got a flying charge onto one organ gun after the remaining dispel dice were drawn out, killed the crew, then overran into the second organ gun and saved one of the other vet's units from being blown away by both auto-hitting guns.

Long story short, you guys are right about a Slann being a big asset, but the scar veteran in skirmisher unit idea really does work if you can set up enough forests and buildings to use as cover. With runed up bolt throwers and organ guns around, I think EoTGs are an expensive and unnecessary liability, and I definitely retract my earlier recommendation for taking a stegadon.

I'll write up a battle report eventually; it was a heck of a fun game and I'm still pumped up and grinning.
 
Sounds like an awesome game, I look forward to reading the report. Yeah without the anvil it's a little easier to get the magic through, and your terradons aren't instantly grounded for the whole game.

I agree about the EotG. It looks really good on paper but in practice it is just too many points for what it does. It really suffers against shooty armies and the 5+ ward save vs shooting is not going to save it. Not to mention it loses most of its effectiveness if that little priest on the back is picked off.
 
If an army is unbalanced it is easily beaten, unless it is completely and totally devoted to a single aspect of the game. I say you fight fire with fire, and make an entire army of skink skirmishers and unmounted Saurus Heros joining them. Odds are, he won't be able to kill your men fast enough until you hit home.
 
I beat my friends Dwarven gunline with an almost all skink army.

Bring one normal stegadon if you want, he'll soak up the cannons and gun fire for a turn or two.

Bring lots of saurus hereos in skink cohorts and lots and lots of skink skirmishers.

Skrox units are great too.

Lots and lots of terradons!
 
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