Wow.. Dwarves are T-O-U-G-H!!!

[paradox22]

So, I admit I am a newb to the Wargame scene...But I am still a gamer.  Gamers usually have a sound grasp on strategy.  Right?  perhaps it's my unfamiliarity with the game... but the Dwarves have kicked my but 3 times in a row!

Anyone have any pointers for killing these tough as nails lil bastages?  I thought about ranged attacks, but they are so freaking tough, Im not sure i'd ever hurt them...  So far I've come up with the following:  Out manuver them becaus eof their slow movement, and pepper them w/ missle fire.  Haven't tried missle fire yet.  My opponet just puts a hold order on them makes them stand and shoot until I close, then chop chop chop[...

Help? 

PS. I own the orcs, ravenwood elves, lizardmen and undead + undead reinfircements.

[Forevernyt]

I've got three words for you...

Pinch Pinch Pinch.

If you use the lizardmen, team a T-rex with some Tyrant warriors and go pinch the hell out of them.

[paradox22]

I'd love too, but I dont have the lizardman reinforcement pack ... yet.  I plan on getting all the armies because I really love the game.

Anyway...back to slaughtering dwarves... LOL  You bring up pinching, which refers back to my original strategy of "out manuver them"...  Think thats my best bet?  What would be the best way to set up your front lie to do this?  BTW I shuold mention that we play 1000 pt games since we are still learning.

[ApokalypseTest]

well, in a 1000 Point game I would use LOTS of Goblins and just outflank him. The dwarf can not really field seven units in order to give him a full line in the beginning.

Use Lots of cheap troups, move slow in the center, faster on the flanks (wolfriders are great) and just pinch. In the center you might want unbreakable troups (crazed gobs) or Orcs, since  he will put his strong units there, hoping to break up your center.

[paradox22]

Last night I tried a wacky army of "cheap" units to do just that.  I had 5 units of ghouls and one Troll skelly.  He had 2 crossbowmen and 2 battleaxemen.  When we had to stop, he had a unit of each left, and I had one unit of routing ghouls, and 2 units preparing to close with his... now reformed units...  I'm pretty sure I would've been toast seeing as I couldnt flank/pinch at that point.  Maybe not though

[Niko White]

Ghouls are hard to use for the reason you mention: they're hard to keep from breaking as soon as they hit the front lines.  I'd try Orcs.  You've got two basic options with that few points: either get something like 3 goblin raiders, 2 crazed goblins, 2 Wolf Riders and just go for the full 7-inch melee line which will almost certainly overwhealm him, or get a more solid Crc-based line and direct control the wolf riders once they get close to start running them around behind him.  Dwarves are so sluggish that he'll have to break up his guys to stop this, and getting rear attacked by the Wolf Riders is unpleasant.

In either case, you're looking at trying to pinch or rear attack.  Learning how to pinch effectively is key in this game, doubly so against the heavier armies, and triply against Dwarves who are also not very mobile.  With the Orcs especially, remember the Lash!  You don't generally want to sink CAs into it just for the +1 attack (though this can be ok if you have a really key fight or a unit that will be rolling really good dice, and you want to double it up with a command card), but you can absolutely take advantage of the +1 MC to get pinches other armies can't, or to get Wolf Riders to charge in out of absolutely nowhere to pound on someone.  (They get 8.5" off that!)

[ApokalypseTest]

Leave the troll skelly out and get more cheap stuff. The ghouls are a bit problematic to play. You basically WANT them to be hit ranged before tehy enter close combat because they will flee after the first hit. To my experience, Ghouls are one of the more challenging units to play. I don't have the points costs for units here, but I would guess that you could field about 6 or 7 zombies and one or two abominations. That should be a lot more effective against 4 dwarf units.

[paradox22]

Thanks for the info guys...

Well, at least my strategy was sound (knew I wasnt crazy!LOL)... I knew the only way to beat them was to out manuver them... they are so hard to hurt...  but not when your swinging at the back of their heads!    I dont actually have orcs yet... they are in the mail from ebay... 

Any other suggestions w/ undead, lizards, or ravenwood elves?

[ApokalypseTest]

Lizards: Swarmlings and raptors for a really fast army. I would even consider not to have a real center at all, but just attack from both flanks in this case.

Undead: Zombies and abominations (you would have to overwhelm slowly, outmaneouvering is not possible)

[Niko White]

The Elves are different.  They can actually stand toe-to-toe with Dwarf units, at least potentially.  For them I'd reccomend a solid line of Elf units (Ravenwood Swords or Ravenwood Spears) with a Stag Cavalry or two to crush weak units and cause havoc on charges.  Stags are amazing.  Remember with the Elves that 3/1 defenses are quite hard to crack as well, and they can cause some pain with the Nets rule.  The Stags will be 4's and 4's with an impact hit and six dice plus nets against the hardy dwarf line on the charge -- this is not a bad place to be!  Not to mention 4/1 so they're unlikely to take much pain back on the charge turn.  Send them against any cheaper Dwarves he might send, like Milita or Shortbeards.  I don't know how long his lines usually are, but you're likely to be limited to only about four guys, so that might be hard if he takes a bunch of the cheaper guys.  Though the Stags can do some help there by rushing ahea and charging in on the very flanks of the lines to cause him to need to make bad choices -- don't be afriad to direct control them, and remember that the weaker Dwarf line units should get pretty badly mauled by the Stags just in the first turn of combat.

The comedy option here is 2 Ravenwood Spearmen, Brownies, Treant, an army that is all about the tree but might succeed anyway.  The idea there is that the Brownies and Spears sit around not dying long enough for the tree to stomp whatever it is facing into the dust and then start pinching, with hilarious and predictable results.

[Niko White]

One last thing to remember: unless the Dwarf player has figured out that Antonians are amazing, cavalry units are generally great against them because they're so slow to move that they have trouble responding to fast cavalry antics.  High Elves do this best, but anyone has the option, even lizardmen with Raptor Packs.  The idea is to simply threaten to run entirely around their army.  They obviously can't afford to just let the thing start rear attacking them, so they have to respond in some way, and any units that are chasing the cav aren't contributing to pinches on your main battle line.  It works well if you've got missile troops to shoot at them with, but this can be hard to arrange at so few points, so it also works fine if you're just charging in and taking advantage of broken lines.

[ApokalypseTest]

Missile troups in a 1000 points army don't work unless they are crossbowmen, maybe bowriders. You have too short of a line already - maybe 4 or 5 units. If one of them is an Archer, your line is to short.

Raptors are a very good option, since they are fast AND have good hit points. But be careful, they are only strength 5.

[paradox22]

Gotta get more troops!   I only have one raptor pack...  I have the undead reinforcements... would skeletal cav work?  I only have one stag cav as well...

[Niko White]

At 1000 points it isn't like you can bring more than one of any of these anyway.  And you probably wouldn't want to -- the fast units need babysitting with direct control pretty often in my experience, if you try to sustain too many, you'll run out of CAs in a hurry and never get any cards.

I'd say one Stag or Raptor is fine --deploy it on one flank, and you can see how to use it based on the enemy's deployment.  Either cap the movement on it so it doesn't run ahead, use it to extend the line and hope to break through so you can start rolling that flank with pinches, or run it around back with direct control and start being annoying and disruptive.

[paradox22]

or run it around back with direct control and start being annoying and disruptive.

LoL that I can do   

What would be the best bet vs Dwarves using the undead + reinforcements...  a swarm of zombies and abominations, maybe one skelly cav?