'Slow and steady!' What better words could be used to describe a Dwarf army? Well 'beards and bellies' comes to mind, but I am referring to tactical qualities here, thank you very much! You see, staunch Dwarf players spend a great deal of time thinking about tactics. The reason behind all that skull work is that, although Dwarfs are an easy army to play, they can be a difficult army to win with convincingly. Why is this the case? Well for Dwarfs it all comes down to one thing really: speed.

Dwarf armies just do not have the sheer speed and hitting power of the typical Khorne army and the like. There is a combination of speed and hitting power found in certain armies that is favoured by many top level Warhammer generals because it allows them to easily match the strength of their army against the weakness of their enemy's army, and helps to prevent the enemy from doing the same to them. Players fielding these steamroller armies execute a battle plan that sends their fast shock units, typically chariots and cavalry, punching through the weak units of their enemy's battle line. Once they regroup, any strong enemy units left over are overwhelmed by being hit from the front, side and rear. When that aforementioned enemy is your very own 'slow and steady' Dwarf army you may well be in for a hard time of it, unless you have learned well the lessons of the Longbeards.

So what were those white-bearded oldsters trying to tell you in their slurred speech when they paused to refill their tankards with foaming brew? Well, to sum it up, a solid Dwarf battle plan requires that a Dwarf general fulfil two objectives. First, he must find a viable substitute for speed for his own troops, and second, he must find ways to negate the speed advantage of his opponent's forces. By overcoming or negating the speed advantage that most opponents have over your Dwarfs you can be the one celebrating victory after the battle as often as not. Fail to fulfil one of them, however, and you will spend a great deal of time filling the pages of your Book of Grudges and cursing your enemies.

FIREPOWER
First, let's take a look at the one substitute for speed that most Dwarf generals know a good bit about: firepower. It is hard to outrun a flying crossbow bolt or cannon ball no matter what your speed, and Dwarfs are good at dishing it out when it comes to punishing enemies from a distance. A good mixture of Thunderers, crossbow-wielding Dwarfs, and war machines will go a long way towards making up for short legs.

A Dwarf army, bristling with war machines, battles against foul Goblins.

The move-and-fire ability of the Thunderers, when combined with the +1 to hit at short range advantage and the -2 Armour Save modifier, makes them the missile regiment of choice in all situations except those where the extra range of the crossbow is a must have. As to war machines, not all are created equal. Each has a different role in the Dwarf army. Rather than recite a litany of which war machines should be used against what and why, let me just mention one effective combination of war machines that I favour as being effective in a wide variety of situations, that being the Cannon and the Stone Thrower. The Cannon is great for taking out chariots and monsters while the template of the Stone Thrower works well on massed troops. Add a Rune of Forging to the Cannon and a Rune of Accuracy to the Stone Thrower and you have as deadly a pair of war machines as you could want. Just don't make the mistake of taking too many war machines or missile regiments because, like anything else, firepower has its downside.

So what is the downside to firepower you ask? I am sure one of them has already sprung to mind. Isn't it ironic that just when you need a spot-on shot the most, your finely wrought, time-tested war machine can misfire? Of course, misfires are an inherent risk when using war machines, and it is one that Dwarf players expect to happen, hoping that they occur later rather than sooner. Yes, you could only take Bolt Throwers but that just smacks of something a bald-faced Elf would do. You could add runes to reduce the chance of a misfire or its severity on some war machines, but those points may be better spent elsewhere. Even so, there are other problems with relying too much on firepower.

To put it simply, those who rely on firepower alone must factor in to their plans the fact that the targeted enemy units are not guaranteed to panic. Even if you do inflict the required 25% casualties on your target in the Shooting phase, they have a good chance of passing their Panic test. Then again, your target may just be immune to panic, such as the Undead or frenzied units. Shooting at units that won't panic means that you have to mass more firepower on fewer targets to reduce their combat effectiveness, and you will find that you have precious few turns of shooting available.

Take a look at the Volley table below, which shows the number of volleys your shooters can get off in the Shooting phase for a given initial range between the target and the shooter, for a given movement rate across clear terrain, and assuming that the enemy moves first. If you move first, and your firing unit's range extends beyond the initial distance, then increase the number of shots by 1. Confused? Let's look at an example to get an idea of how to use the table.

From the example we can see that when facing fast, tough, and well-armoured enemy units, not only must you make every shot count but you must also have something to stand up to the enemy once they charge because two volleys does not give you much of a chance of panicking the unit, let alone destroy it, even with massed firepower. Thunderers or crossbow-wielding Dwarfs that are caught while deployed in a firing line, and any war machines, can be easily defeated in hand-to-hand combat by a chariot or a cavalry unit most of the time. If you take time to reform Thunderers and crossbow-wielding Dwarfs into a ranked formation and they are equipped with shields, then they can stand up to most enemy infantry but they will still have a hard time of it if they are charged by a unit of Knights, Giant, or a character mounted on a chariot. If you want a strong battle line then you need fully-ranked units with heavy armour and shields, and maybe a character too, with a Battle Standard nearby, ready to take the chargers head on.

My final point about relying too heavily on firepower involves the way the Victory Points are scored. Destroying many units by shooting is not only hard to do, it does not gain you the bonus Victory Points that can be realised from characters, captured banners and taking enemy table quarters. These points add up over the course of a game and often become the margin of victory or defeat in a battle. Firepower has its uses, but relying on firepower alone to solve your tactical problems will often lead to your defeat. In a typical 2,000-point army if you have more than two units of missile troops and one or two war machines then your battle line will be too weak to stand up to the enemy charge when it eventually arrives.

Alright then, having warned you about the follies of firepower it is time to look into how you can go about negating the speed advantage of the enemy and, dare I say it, not come up short? As the best defenders in football have discovered, when trying to keep up with a speedy forward, if you can't match his speed then you have to stand him up until help arrives. Let's take a look in the Dwarf Lord's bag of tactical tricks to see what can be done with terrain, magic, trapping, and luring to even up the score.

Next: Terrain