End of the year is approaching fast and as there will most likely be only one tournament left in my city I decided that it’s time to celebrate the year of the dwarf and give the short, beerloving folks a chance. Additionally I found lovely 3d prints of dwarfen ladies, which might actually be a bigger reason, for my decision to run dwarfs, duardin, disposessed or however they are currently called by GW. I was figuring the list for quite some time and when I finally decided on my list for the next tournament (which will use Mark of Chaos battlepack available HERE) on the next day the french leak happened (if you never heard about it I suggest to check the actual pdf HERE or check out last SaltySea video, where he does great job summarizing and commenting most of the changes). Obviously all my prep went through the window, but as I already had my lovely dwarven ladies ordered I decided that nerfing all my fighters and invalidating my strategy isn’t a showstopper, but a challenge and my short beauties will still kick ass on the tournament (if they do well enough in my “rigorous” pre-tournament playtesting that usually consist of 2-5 games). I will describe my listbuilding process chronologically so if you are interested in list that is using updated profiles jump to the post-update section.

Core of the list

I believe that writing CoS list require answering 3 questions in the order below:

• What is my chaff of choice (Hammerer/Ironbreaker/Longbeard)?
• Which City I will play (and if it’s not Tempest Eye, why it’s not TE)?
• Which allies will supplement my choices/cover my weaknesses best?

Chaff of choice

CoS dwarfs caught my attention after I was looking for spammable chaff options that are not afraid of Gutlord. What I mean by “not afraid” is that there is significant chance (over 50%) of not getting “oneshotted” by single Gutlord attack action (3A 6S 5/10, we don’t do blessings here). Because of this I dropped the T4 options and as with Strength characteristic of 3 they will most likely hit everything on 5+ decided that 50% higher DPA (Longbeard DPA4 = 3 and Ironbreaker DPA4 = 2, if this looks like black magic for you I suggest consulting Warcry Dictionary) is worth the extra 5 points and went with Longbeard with shield.

At this point some of you will be a bit confused how the profile above will more often than not survive Gutlord attack. I had few ideas – first is the double that all CoS heros have that improves the Toughness of nearby fighters with Bulwark runemark by 1.

Other idea would be to use the Hammerhal reaction – Martial Discipline

With either of this the chance of surviving the scary ogre attack jumps to 66%, with both its 79,6%. I think the tankiness of this dwarfs is more than impressive, so we have the chaff option selected.

City selection

I already mentioned Hammerhal reaction and a Shieldwall ability, let’s see what else is there in this city arsenal

This might not be the strongest ability in the game, but it significantly improves chances to win fights around objectives. The reaction is why we take this city and as it lacks big abilities that you can build around lets look for them in other factions.

Allies

I’m not an expert as far as this grand alliance is concerned, but I think most players would agree that one of the strongest abilities in the whole Order is Fight for profit.

As we lack damage with longbeard spam let’s go with 2 Arkonaut Admirals, so KO allies not only provide Fight for Profit for our Longbeards, but also have significant damage themselves.

With the decisions above we are left with just enough points to take the most expensive CoS Dwarf hero – Warden King, so let’s go this route.

After combining everything the final list looks like this:

First version of Dwarf list:

Hammerhal (11 fighters)

1x Warden King

2x Arkonaut Admiral

8x Longbeard

In the beginning I suggested that choosing non Tempest Eye city require answering the question “Wouldn’t Tempest Eye work better here?” and looking at movement 3 on all of the fighters with no movement buffing abilities I’m afraid that the answer is that sadly Tempest Eye seem like a better idea if I want to get anywhere with my fighters, especially as it also has access to Toughness boosting double. In the meantime I played Daughters of Khaine warband where I used Fight for Profit ally for the first time and I wasn’t that impressed. The bubble seemed very small and with only 3” of movement it was never where I wanted it. The other problems were that Haammmerhal reaction was basically useless against low strength attacks and that Toughness bubble was very small. Back to the drawing board then, this time we need some movement buff, more practical reaction while still keeping the defensive approach. In the meantime, I was asked for a list feedback by a friend from Norway. He was working on a very similar list – Tempest Eye longbeard spam supported by Saurus and Runelord. I thought that the idea of combining Runelord double with Tearing Bite was great and very innovative.

Most importantly it reminded me that the only Saurus I have in my collection has a friend that would complement the list I’m working on – Kixi-Taka and his Imbue with Azyrite Energy ability

I think this ability is a perfect fit for a warband I was working on. 9” range mean that the buff can cover huge part of the board unlike the 3” Toughness bubble from CoS and it fixed some mobility problems connected with not running Tempest Eye. I also decided that the idea of combining Runesmith with Saurus would be a nice plan B that the list could do when killing something big would be required. The fact that Hammerhal reaction wasn’t universal enough and didn’t help in chaff v chaff combat led to decision to switch to Phoenicia, as it has both – easier to use offensive double (bonus attack if you lost a fighter that turn), that synergizes well with Runelord Forgefire ability and a reaction that can help win “wet noodle fights” with other chaff even if opponent will roll few sixes.

Lastly previous list had a big problem – no way to abuse rolling quad. I believe every list must have a plan on how to make a big impact in the game in case of rolling a quad and Phoenicium quad might be a defensive gamewinning play in some treasure/kill missions.

Second version of the list looked like this:

Phoenicium (11 fighters)

1x Runelord

1x Kixi-Taka, the Diviner

1x Saurus Knight Alpha

8x Longbeard with Shield

For a moment I was quite happy with the list, but as the process went against the “don’t play the game, play the map” rule, I started to think about how the list would work in the context of the battlepack that will be used during tournament. I decided that Saurus Knight isn’t the best investment if I want to use Kixi-Taka triple instead of Tearing Bite often and someone who can work great without abilities or with only a double would be a better choice. When looking for an alternative I thought that a good net might be much better than powerful defense in Proving Grounds mission so I decided to change Saurus Knight to a Medusa to have her powerful net ability as a great tool for Proving Grounds and as better “individual operator”.

Last iteration of the list was ready. I finally was sure that it’s good enough to win tournament so I ordered the minis…

Final version:

Phoenicium (10 fighters)

1x Old Guard

1x Kixi-Taka

1x Bloodwrack Medusa

7x Longbeard with Shield

… and on the next day the “French leak” happened, but with the dwarf ladies already purchased I decided to continue brewing. I know that there might be changes to the leaked profiles and most probably other changes will join the CoS refresh (maybe Seraphon or Ironjawz, as they received some new models), but let’s celebrate the year of the dwarf and try to predict how the competitive dwarf lists will look after the change.

Future Dwarfs (not Squats!)

I think the new listbuilding process for dwarves is similar to the old one, but now instead of 4 great dwarf chaff options you have great non-dwarf options and “OK” dwarf ones, additionally you don’t have to pick a city. Let’s go through some new abilities that new dwarfs have as they will dictate where we go with the build:

• Reaction is basically Questors reaction (on death give attack/move bonus action to another friendly fighter)

• Double that makes a fighter counts as +2 fighters for scoring objectives

• Double that lowers the damage that dwarves within 3” receive from enemy attacks by 1

• Longbeard/Old Guard Double that grants +1 Strength to other longbeards/old guards within 6”

As there is no longer Swift as the wind kind of ability the Kixi-Taka must stay. The naature of the reaction also makes running a powerful ally necessary, otherwise we should focus on non-dwarven chaff. Lack of numbers isn’t as painful with new +2 on objective double, but to be most effective with it we need to fight for activation advantage. Additionally the power of Medusa’s net in Proving Grounds Victory Condition is still a great tool to have so, lets make Medusa our reaction vehicle (with 7” move and 2” range she should do great) and lastly we need to decide which hero we want for 120 points that are left. As Runelord kept his double ability let’s go with him as his ability can be useful, especially when combined with extra actions from reaction. The current version of the list:

1x Runelord (115)

1x Kixi-Taka (125)

1x Bloodwrack Medusa (275)

6x Longbeard with Shield (480)

It’s no longer as numerous as I like and it lacks the powerful quad, so I’m considering changing Medusa into Annihilator Prime (200) and another Longbeard (80), but let’s wait until the changes are official as there might be something new that will replace Swift as the Wind. As I know many people would want to know how the 3d prints that inspired me look like, so here it is:

As always thanks for sticking to the end and sorry for not posting more often. Lately I was painting walls more often than minis and as the time of my son’s birth is getting closer and closer I’m afraid my free time will keep shrinking. I have few other articles started, so I hope to release them soon, bye.