After a short (pun intended) wait since it’s announcement we’ve finally been able to get our hands on the Arcane Journal: Dwarfen Mountain Holds book. We’ve got ourselves a cracking entry to the growing Arcane Journal ranks here with what we’ve come to expect. A thank you to Games Workshop for sending us the Arcane Journal to review.
Inside the book we have two Armies of Infamy, three named characters (one of which almost creates a third Army of Infamy), seven new units, and runes in the shape of Runic Tattoos for slayers and Engineer Runes for handguns and crossbows. I thought that the Orc & Goblin Tribes book raised the bar over the previous two entries in the series and I think this has stepped it up again. You now have legitimate reasons to step outside of that Dwarf stereotype of an army list and into new play styles which can bring new life to your existing collection on the table.
Bair: To add an ounce of pedantry before getting stuck in, like any good dwarf player, it is “dwarfen” not “dwarven” because these are not Tolkein’s dwarves, they are dwarfs.
Armies of Renown
Just like previous Arcane Journals, this one adds two different ways of constructing your army list.
Dwarfen Mountain Holds Royal Clan
We have here what is your more traditional list, back when Dwarfs were Dwarfs and Goblins were Goblins, before all the new fangled inventions of the engineers came along and changed the world we knew. Here we have a limited list where all the black powder weapons are removed and you pick up an improved melee presence in trade.
Ancestral Fury means that during any turn in which a unit from the Royal Clan army makes a charge move of at least 3” or a follow up move (any amount) it gains a +1 modifier to its Strength characteristic. This is a massive shift in melee output; with your average warrior only being S3 as a base, you’re now able to swing at S4 meaning you’ll wound T3 models 33% more and T4 models 50% more. Talk about a shift in the maths on that! You might be thinking you won’t be charging that much but the book does have a helping hand for that as well, which we’ll get to later. The fact that it also works on the follow-up move (from when an opponent gives ground) or on a charge (so it triggers on most Pursuits on Fall Backs in Good Order) means that once you’re engaged and winning combats you’ll constantly have this buff. Over a few rounds of combat it’ll really start to add up.
The second rule you pick up is Riches & Heirlooms which really shows off the wealth these Dwarfen Holds have built up over the years. Characters in the army may spend an additional 25pts on runes, and units who can take them can spend an additional 25pts on runic standards. If you really want to tool up characters and units then this is for you. That additional 25pts lets your King lean into some newer combos that weren’t available before but it, obviously, costs them. All those extra points on heroes are points not being spent on units so be mindful how much you invest!
Falcon: I have started using one rune combination in particular because of this rule. Hammerers now get 100 points to spend on Runic Standards which means you can combine the Rune of Hesitation and Rune of Confusion on their standard bearer, an extremely powerful combo. Now most of your opponents will be striking at their base initiative without the aid of lances, impact hits, or other shenanigans which is a scary prospect for most units in the game outside of Swordmasters.
The last rule the Royal Clans pick up is Striking a Grudge. This allows you to pick a single enemy character your army really wants dead for some reason. Your entire army gains hatred towards the model and if you kill it or they flee the battlefield you pick up an additional 75 victory points. Hatred is brilliant in the right situation and the 75 points has actually shifted a draw into a victory on a single occasion, so that’s always something?
That’s not a lot of rules; why would I do this?
The key thing here isn’t that you gain a bunch of different rules, it is that you gain a different Army Composition List with access to some of the new units. For characters you have to take 1+ King or Thane and you’re allowed to bring 0-1 Anvil of Doom or Runelord per 1000pts. Then you can just bring Runesmiths to your hearts content.
Core sees the first of the new units with Royal Clan Warriors making an appearance alongside Longbeards and Quarrellers. Special units are Hammerers, the second of the new units in the Dwarf Carts (but no miners carts, they’re too new), and the more traditional war machines with 0-3 Bolt Throwers or Grudge Throwers per 1000pts. In Rare you’re allowed Rangers, Ironbreakers and Irondrakes, so all the good stuff you want. Irondrakes feel a little out of place alongside the complete lack of blackpowder but runic forgefire is ok, I guess?
Finally you’re allowed to take a fair few Mercenaries with Imperial Dwarf Mercenaries, 0-4 Doomseekers and 0-1 Goblin-Hewer per 1000pts. These are still all affected by the ‘Misbehaving Mercenaries’ rules, but that’s not the end of the world. The other thing to note is that you can upgrade a Runesmith (in addition to the normal Thane) to be your Battle Standard Bearer so you can really go character light if you fancy it and still bring the BsB and your dispeller in the same character for the first time.
I keep mentioning those Royal Clan Warriors so lets have a look at what we’ve got here. For a base cost of 10pts you pick up a Warrior with Hand Weapon, Shield, Heavy Armour. What are you getting for those 2 points over a normal Dwarf Warrior? First thing is the Shield, that’s 1pt coming in as a mandatory upgrade. In addition you’ve got the ability to take 25pts of Talismanic Runes on the Champion. You also pick up a bunch of special rules including Gromril Armour and Gromril Weapons along with access to the new Gromril Great Axes as an exchange for the Shield (rather than the possible addition of) for +1pt. These axes act as a -3AP Great Weapon, for when you really need to punish someone for daring to wear armour. You’ve also got the ability to add (at 0-1 units per 1000pts) Stubborn, in addition to Veteran and/or Drilled. These upgrades give the units the ability to really go in different directions; MSU units with Drilled being able to get where you want them, units with Veteran so they really don’t fail LD tests, and Stubborn meaning you can just hold a line where you need to.
As mentioned, you’re allowed to upgrade a Runesmith to be a Battle Standard Bearer. I have personally enjoyed taking the King, Thane Battle Standard on Shieldbearers, and Runesmith combo when playing dwarfs. I’m not sure if I’m willing to commit to losing out on the 5W Battle Standard through the Shieldbearers on the Thane to reduce my character point allotment for lists, but it’s an interesting decision for players to make and depending on your playstyle you might think it’s worth giving it a shot. I’ve enjoyed it a little, but like I said, not sure it’s worth the full commitment or not and it certainly requires more playing.
Dwarfen Mountain Holds Expeditionary Force
The other Army of Infamy in the book is the more technologically advanced Expeditionary Force, and this can go into one of two different flavours. You can certainly look towards the narrower shooting angle which dwarfs are infamous for but there are more interesting takes you can do with the options available.
For starters, you need to take at least one Engineer or Engineer Sapper (a new hero choice) to lead the army, but can take more. In addition you’re allowed 0-1 Slayer of Legend along with unlimited Thanes or Runesmiths. You’re allowed to upgrade either a Thane or an Engineer to the be Battle Standard Bearer, and similar to the first list you can shift your character choices around a little easier than the Grand Army composition list.
Dwarf Warriors, Thunderers (but not Quarellers), and Dwarf Carts are units you can take as many of as you like of in the Core selection. You’re allowed 0-1 Rangers per 1000pts, making them an excellent choice and in addition you can take 0-1 units of Scout Gyrocopters (another new unit) as a Core choice per 1,000. I’m sure you can already guess what will be filling the Core units in most lists here.
Special choices include unlimited Miners, more Scout Gyrocopters, and the traditional stock Gyrocopter. In addition 0-3 War Machines per 1,000 points may be selected from the Bolt Thrower, Grudge Thrower, or incredibly fun Move and Shoot Cannon. Rare units are Gyrobombers, 0-1 units of Slayers and 0-2 War Machines from Organ Guns and Flame Cannons per 1000. Finally you’ve got Mercenary choices of Imperial Dwarf Mercenaries, 0-2 Doomseekers per 1000 and 0-1 Goblin-Hewer per 1,000.
There are certainly some great options in there and we’ll run through the new units in a moment, but shall we have a look at the three special rules which make the Expeditionary Force tick? Expeditionary Marksmen: this rule allows 0-1 unit of Thunderers per 1000 points to be upgraded at +1pt per model. For that point you don’t suffer any modifiers for Moving and Shooting which means you can now bring those guns where they’re needed to on the table at and still be hitting on 4’s or 5’s in most cases. This makes it much more difficult for units to avoid those shots. In addition, any Engineer may also take this upgrade for +10pts which is brilliant when teamed up with some of the new Weapon Runes.
Function over Form is a rule which allows Cannons, Organ Guns and Flame Cannons to be fired even if they move, at the cost of -1T. This is less great on Organ Guns which still need to roll to hit and will suffer that -1 penalty. However, for the Cannon and Flame Cannon, allowing them to get into position easier is just fantastic. Opponents always lining up to avoid taking a flank shot with the cannon? Move it 3” (or 4” near a Cart) and you’re now getting 5-6 Cav with that Cannonball instead of 1. It also really flexes Grapeshot, with the cannon being able to generate auto hits at short range. Great at removing those annoying skirmishing troops and the like. Cannons are still brilliant against a host of monsters, it is just the ridden ones with their save stacking where they sometimes appear to lack that killing edge (Falcon: and even then I have noted that being able to adjust your angles even a tad will give even the scariest monster some pause).
The third and final special rule is Subterranean Ambush and the reason I’ve been getting far more miners ready for the table than I’ve needed in the past. This allows you (if you’ve got a unit of miners) to deploy two 32mm round markers on the table plus one additional for each unit of miners in your list after the first. They go down anywhere on the battlefield which isn’t in your opponents deployment zone, isn’t within 12” of another marker, isn’t within 6” of an enemy unit, or within 3” of a special feature or potential objective marker. When a unit of miners arrives from reserve they can be placed within 6” of this marker (and not within 6” of an enemy). They can’t charge on the turn they arrive and do count as having moved but otherwise can act normal. What an ability! Having a ranked unit appear within charge range of an enemy in the following turn when they’re hitting your sturdy line of ranked units is amazing and it’s just a joy to play with. Opponents can play around it and lay traps or deny landing zones but if they don’t, then they’re in for a world of pickaxe-shaped hurt.
Falcon: I have found a lot of value in running an entrenched gunline with 3 8-man miner units in ambush and a string of these mining markers in the mid-field. It has some real psychological effects on the board state.
What about those new units? The Dwarf Engineer Sappers work with the Engineers to setup the battlefield ready for engagements. This means they’ll be able to “Dig In!” friendly units and give them the Entrenched rule which works the same was as Burlock’s rule below. In addition they have the Hostile Terrain rule which means that any enemy model which ends a move within this models command range (9”) has to take a Dangerous Terrain Test. This is a great little rule and adds a little extra damage to the enemy outside of the normal attack sequences. At BS5, with the ability to take a Handgun and 50pts of runic items you can create some nice little combos that we cover down below.
The Scout Gyrocopter is a new addition to the army and fits in both Core and Special selections. These are small units of “lighter” gyrocopters. They still have a bunch of the special rules which make the normal gyrocopters great value for points and come with the Clattergun as base instead of the steam one. They can be in units of 1-2 and can skirmish in their extended formation like other larger based skirmishing units. They also get Hit & Run which is a great rule that allows the unit to Fall Back in Good Order rather than making a follow up or Pursuit move. This means you’ll charge in, win the combat, break your opponent who might Fall Back in Good Order themselves (moving them 3-6” away in most cases) then you can fall back 6-10” yourself (due to Swiftstride) and be safe from being charged back in your opponents turn ready to go and cause havoc again.
Falcon: That these are core and come in at a paltry 60 points with a Move and Shoot gun are all I want in chaff clear and board control. They have a slightly worse armour save than the standard gyrocopter and lose out on the bombing run ability but they are an excellent all around tool.
Heroes of Legend
As with the previous Arcane Journals, the Dwarfen Mountain Hold comes with three named characters. These are Thorgrim Ullesksson, Kharl of the Dammaz Kron; Ungrim Ironfist, Slayer King of Karak Kadrin; and Burlock Damminson. These are names veterans of Old Warhammer Fantasy Battle might recognise.
Thorgrim at this stage in his life isn’t a King; he holds the position of Kharl and it’s his job to study the Dammaz Kron on behalf of the High King, read and memorise each insult to the Dwarfs and make sure nothing is ever overlooked. On the table he’s a very study character with T5 and 3W along with his 4+ Armour save and a 4+ ward save against Killing Blow or an attack with the Multiple Wounds (X) rule. His weapon Grudge-Settler makes him S6 with -1AP and Armour Bane (1). In addition it has the Master Rune of Smiting for offence and the Rune of Parrying to help keep him alive in combat. He also only counts as a Thane (as he isn’t a King) so fits into any Dwarf list where the points allow. He also has the Grudgelore and Grudgestone special rules. These combine to give him and any unit he joins Hatred (all enemies) special rule and allows him and his unit to become unbreakable (with some caveats) so well worth looking at when you need to in the game.
Ungrim (Youngrim?) is back and while he’s not the grumpy old sod we knew from Warhammer Fantasy, we’ve got him in back earlier in his life similar to Thorgrim. Ungrim is a combat monster, a Dwarf King with T6 and Ws9, he’s incredibly resilient and his Slayer Crown and Light Armour combine to give him a 4+ save and a 5+ ward. He has all the expected rules with Slayer allowing him to always wound at a 4+ at worst and Deathblow, Gromril Armour and Immune to Psychology. The Axe of Drago is S+2 in combat (there is a typo in the book which states it is just Str 2) with -3AP and the Monster Slayer Special Rule. With I5 and 4Attacks you’ll really apply hurt to whatever the Axe gets into combat with. Given the Dwarfen lack of Monster Slayer, he’s a really great pick in any list. What really makes him different is the King Of The Slayer Hold special rule though, which gives the Dwarfs a pseudo 3rd Army of Infamy in the book. If Ungrim is the general of a Royal Clan army, then you gain access to Daemon Slayers and Dragon Slayers as Characters, 0-1 unit of Slayers per 1000 in Core and 0-4 Doomseekers per 1000 as Special Choices (Falcon: the Doomseekers is the big one here in my opinion). In addition he’s also able to join a Unit of Hammerers (when he normally wouldn’t be) and they gain the Immune to Psychology and the Unbreakable special rules if he does. This really lets you build a thematic list of his hold if you want to which is great, who doesn’t love the little monsters?
The third named character is Burlock Damminson and they are an engineer of renown. For 85pts you get a decent engineer with a bunch of special rules which are different and fun. In addition to entrenching a War Machine during deployment, you’re allowed to entrench a single unit of Quarrellers or Thunderers. If you get them into the right spot, this makes them really tough to shift as they’re now behind light cover and defending a low linear obstacle until they move. In addition, you’ve got his Range Finding Optics which means once per turn (unless engaged in combat/fleeing) a unit of Quarrellers, Thunderers, or a War Machine within Burlock’s command range can reroll a single Artillery dice or reroll To-Hit roll of natural 1’s. Additionally, as part of this rule, he and the unit he’s joined to do not suffer the usual -1 for shooting at long range. Sure. this is great in a unit of Thunderers, but if you put him in a unit of Rangers and start hitting on 3s at long range? Brilliant! Finally he’s got the “Stand Back Chief” rule which allows him to hide near nearby friendly War Machines like a standard engineer. The last thing to really talk about are his weapons. The Furnace Hammer is a combat weapon with a Strength characteristic of an Artillery Dice! If you roll a misfire it’s not worked, he loses a wound and can’t attack this turn while he tries to fix the device. His Rivet gun is also pretty neat (if short ranged) with R10, S3 and -2AP (with Armour Bane (1)) and D3 hits if it does in fact hit it’s target. A lot there in such a small character.
Old Dog, New Tricks
The Dwarf Arcane Journal does include a host of new options and we’re going to run through the ones I haven’t touched on already at breakneck speed now.
Doomseekers have the character unit type distinction which allows them be protected near friendly units. These little guys are outstanding and can be built in a variety of ways. Coming in at WS5, S5 and 2D3 attacks for 50 points base you get yourself an angry little wrecking ball with fifteen special rules! Three of these are specific to them and the others are really what you’d expect slayers and lone models to have anyways. The Doomseeker special rule flips how your opponent scores Victory Points off of these guys; killing them rewards no victory points and keeping them alive rewards their full cost. So, you can invest a runes into them and the enemy is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Kill them and miss out on victory points or try to leave them and they will absolutely carve through units and monsters.
First to the Fray is a unique rule which increases a models possible charge range by 3” (meaning the dwarfs with no other help get a 12” possible charge) and apply a +D3” to that charge roll. As a little angry deathball who wants to be nowhere else but in combat you’re well into dreamland. Whirlwind of Death gives them D3+1 impact hits that use their weapons (yes, runes and all!!) instead of just base Strength and benefits from the Slayer rule to wound on 4+ at worst.
Falcon: My favourite build right now is a Doomseeker loaded up with the Master Rune of Alaric the Mad and then runic tattoos for Hatred (Everything), additional attacks for each successful wound, and even more attacks. This little guy is an absolute menace that can hide between your infantry blocks and then mince the most elite units in the game in a single round of combat.
Imperial Dwarf Mercenaries are the next unit making a comeback from what seems like a lifetime ago. For 8pts you get a Dwarf Warrior with Hand Weapon and Light Armour. You can upgrade to both a Shield and Light Armour (1pt each) or a mass variety of weapons: Great Weapons, Thrusting Spears, Crossbows or Handguns. You can then also purchase Drilled and/or Veteran to make these 8pt dwarfs cost 15pts each, which is a little weird when you look at it. What these really do however is interact with the Dogs of War rule in a similar way to Doomseekers and they’re allowed to be taken in Empire of Men or other Dwarfen Mountain Holds lists. Want those WS4 Quarrellers back in your list? Then feel free to do it with these, it’ll just cost you 12pts a model instead of the 10 it normally would for a similarly armed unit and won’t fill out your Core. In a similar vein, if you’re an Empire player and want a rock solid unit of dwarfs to hold your centre or flank then here you go. For 11pts a dwarf you get Heavy Armour, Shields and Thrusting Spears; excellent little thematic troops. I know for sure we’re going to be using this unit a lot in the future for narrative campaigns in my local group.
Dwarf Carts are one of the options I’m most excited for. For the cost of a small unit of Dwarfs you get a T5 W3 5+ save chariot which moves a mighty M6 with that mighty pony. When you buy one at 65 points you make a choice: Bugman’s Cart or Miner’s Cart. The Mining Cart lets a dwarf unit within 3” of it make Stand & Shoot reactions as if they were equipped with Blasting Charges (6” Range, S3, AP-1, Armour Bane (1), Flaming Attacks & Quick Shot) which can cause a little havoc and is cute but with limited range ultimately not too useful. Much more amusingly when the mining cart loses its last wound it can blow up, causing all units within 3” to suffer D6 S3 -1AP hits. I kind of love the idea of having a Miner’s Cart in the middle of a bunch of War Machines and when the light cavalry come to get you you throw a bunch of blasting chargers at them and then blow up. The more attractive option is the Buman’s Cart which gives all dwarf units within 6” at the start of the Command Sub-Phase gains +1 Movement until the end of the turn. That’s right, mobile dwarfs. You can now shift those Dwarfs 12” a turn in marching column. With drilled this lets you go 20” over 2 turns and be in fighting order, outstanding. In a single model we’re effectively changed the entire way the dwarf army could play if you wanted to. Take two of these and you’ll easily cover most of a combat focused dwarf army!
The last unit we’ve got is the Goblin-Hewer. Before we get to the rules, I love the flavour text about this unit next to its army entry; I’m not going to spoil it but it’s the best thing I’ve read in ages and anyone who loved this the first time it came around in Sixth Edition Warhammer Fantasy needs to read it. Anyway, so this is a 36” range S4 -1AP Armourbane (1) profile. It shoots an Artillery Dice number of shots plus a D3 modifier for each rank the target has (or flank if firing into its side). Against your average six-man Bretonnian Lance you’re actually get an Artillery Dice plus 3D3 shots. Against a unit of Goblins with five ranks? Even better, it’s the Artillery Dice plus 5D3 shots, if they put a character in there and pushed a goblin into a sixth rank, party time, even more shots! It still have to roll to hit with its BS3 but with an engineer nearby letting it reroll 1s on all its shot means you might actually pick up a decent amount of damage. These do have a small restriction on how you include them in an army and you need a Slayer of Legend in the army to include them and when you do you can take 0-1 Goblin-Hewer per 1000pts. With the inclusion of Runic Tattoos making Slayers of Legend much more attractive that’s not even an issue; sadly, Ungrim isn’t a Slayer of Legend for this rule which seems…wrong.
New Runes to Smite With
There’s two whole new tables of runes to choose from here: runic tattoos for slayers and weapon runes to slap on handguns or crossbows. I love that they’ve brought back runic tattoos remembering the Storm of Chaos book from Sixth Edition WHFB and those handgun runes are just incredible!
Artistic Branding
Runic Tattoos are a new option when it comes to Runic Upgrades on Dragonslayers, Daemonslayers, and Doomseekers. Dragon Slayers can take a single tattoo, Daemonslayers two and Doomseekers three. Slayers of Legend are only limited in points on weapon runes and these are entirely separate. So if you want to add 175 points of upgrades (three of these, plus 50 points of runic weapons) onto a 50pt Doomseeker you absolutely can. It might not even be bad, actually, since that’ll be a hell of a deadly dwarf that needs to be killed…and won’t award any points when he is!
I’m not going to go through all of these but do want to just highlight a few of my favourites.
Rune of Endless Battle – When this model chargers for each unsaved wound it makes it can make a bonus attack, this means that your 6 attack Doomseeker could easily get another 2-3 combat resolution without much effort at all and who doesn’t love killing Goblins by the bucketload?
Rune of the Reckless – Gain Frenzy and +1 Modifier to hit in combat, but the enemy also suffers +1 to hit you. This downside would be terrible if there was an enemy to hit you back, just kill the front rank and don’t worry about a problem which doesn’t exist.
Rune of Wrath – Just +1 Attack, nice and simple. Now you’re getting 2D3+1 attacks. Great when combined with the Rune of Endless Battle or Rune of Fury on the weapons. You can go up to 11 Attacks (or 10 Attacks and the Rune of Endless Battle) on one of these little deathballs.
New Inventions
Schematics for weapons are constantly tweaked for Dwarfs with some engineers trying to outdo their predecessors with new and interesting improvements to their designs. But sometimes they decide that instead of changing what it working fine they could spend their time devising ingenious and effective ways to inscribe runes on middle weapons, as a result Handguns and Crossbows can now have runes on them. Once again I’m going to go through a few of my favourites. These following the same rules as Weapon Runes in the Forces of Fantasy so no two Master Runes, no two weapons the same so and so, you know the drill.
Master Rune of Bursting Flame – If you hit the bolt explodes and causes 2D3 hits instead. Outstanding engineering, can see why it’s a Master Rune. What’s really fun through is if you combine it with the next one on our list.
Master Rune of Piercing – Expensive but gives your weapon +1S (to S5 on either) and it now pierces ranks like a bolt thrower! It’s not cheap at 40 points, one of the more expensive ones here actually, meaning that sadly you can’t combine it with Rapid Fire.
Rune of Rapid Fire – Multiple Shots (2) and Quick Shot, who doesn’t like firing 2 shots hitting on 3’s (most of the time) and doing 2D3 hits each. Worried about that unit of Light Cav or Warhounds getting into your flank? This engineer or sapper will make sure that they don’t know what’s hit them.
Rune of Accuracy – A great Rune meaning your engineers always hit on a 2+. Waywatchers in a Wood, behind a Wall with an Illusion Wizard casting Glittering Robes on them? Doesn’t matter, you hit on a 2+, that’ll show them Elves who’s in charge around here.
Sample Lists
Well, that’s everything in the book. How does it actually shape up and look like as an army list on the table? Dwarfs are traditionally expensive and elite due to just very solid stats, aside from slow movement. You’ll never have quite everything you want in one list probably but what can you do?
Royal Clan
Heroes
Ungrim Ironfist (315)
Anvil of Doom – 2x Runes of Spellbreaking (285)
Core
14 Royal Clan Warriors – Gromril Great Axes, Full Command, Drilled, Stubborn (200)
14 Royal Clan Warriors – Gromril Great Axes, Full Command, Drilled, Stubborn (200)
5 Royal Clan Warriors – Gromril Great Axes (60)
5 Royal Clan Warriors – Gromril Great Axes (60)
Special
14 Hammerers – Full Command, Shields, Drilled, Master Rune of Hesitation, Rune of Passage (Champion) (309)
Dwarf Cart – Bugman’s Cart (65)
Grudge Thrower (95)
Doomseeker – Rune of Endless Battle, Rune of Wrath, Rune of Blasting Fury (110)
Doomseeker – Rune of Endless Battle, Rune of Blasting Fury (95)
Rare
8 Rangers – Champion, Shields (102)
8 Rangers – Champion, Shields (102)
Total = 1998
This list is a great little package of a lot of great models and it really gels together into a cohesive force. The Royal Warriors are great and are the mainstay of the army with 2 decent units and 2 smaller ones which double up as redirectors and pack combat potential above their weight class. The Cart allows everyone to get where they need to be easier and the Doomseekers are incredible. Finally the Rangers, Grudge Thrower and Anvil allow the army to put out a little bit of ranged firepower while the other Runes of the Anvil in Oath & Steel and Hate & Urgency are best when used on better units and you’ve got 3 fantastic units to place those buffs on in the list.
Expeditionary Force
Heroes
85 Burlok Damminson
179 Thane BSB, GW, Master Rune of Gromril, Master Rune of Hesitation
118 Runesmith, Full Plate, Spelleater x2
108 Engineer, Handgun, Master Rune of Bursting Flame, Rune of Rapid Fire
70 Sapper Engineer
Core
156 12x Thunderers, Great Weapons, Expeditionary Marksmen
156 12x Thunderers, Great Weapons, Expeditionary Marksmen
60 Scout Gyrocopter
60 Scout Gyrocopter
65 Bugman’s Cart
186 12x Rangers, Great Weapons, Shields, Full Command
186 12x Rangers, Great Weapons, Shields, Full Command
Special
122 8x Miners, Champ, Steam Drill
122 8x Miners, Champ, Steam Drill
122 8x Miners, Champ, Steam Drill
300 3x Cannon, Function Over Form (-1T, loses Move or Shoot)
Total = 1995
This just looks incredibly fun to play, doesn’t it? You get solid blocks of thunderers that can move 4″ with the cart and still shoot, rangers scouting where you need them to be laying down crossbow fire and hitting things with big axes. Scouting Gyrocopters flying around being a nuisance (to any army that’s not Bretonnians and their falcon horn…) and miners popping up around the table making your opponent second guess where they’re going to move! The cannons add a threat to larger monsters and the slew of characters buff units and put out some decent firepower of their own. What’s not to like? (Falcon: Having taken this exact list out for a spin recently it IS in fact a ton of fun to play. If I could change anything I would remove a few miners in exchange for more thunderers but otherwise it is a good time).
Have the Master Engineer join the same unit as Burlok so that he fires two shots most often hitting on 2+ at 24″ range that become 2D3 wound rolls per hit. That’ll clear out some chaff pretty quick and even cause knights some problems!
That’s Going in the Book!
This is all very welcome to dwarf armies. It’s great to get more runes to use, some characters that add dynamic army building, and two armies of renown that dig deeper into familiar playstyles. Even if the armies of renown don’t appeal to you the new runes alone add some much needed flexibility to your existing collecting. Doomseekers with runic tattoos are especially fun and present new problems for your opponent to try and deal with. It’s great and I can’t wait to hear what sort of lists dwarf players are coming up with and how everything is getting used!
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