Hali:
So I’m heading to a tourny in a month and I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to use ravening hordes. Rather than use the unoffical Indy list which I’m not a huge fan of I decided to look into running my CD as either a dwarves or warriors of chaos list. Neither one is an exact match but rather than rebase every model on 25mm to make warriors legal I decided to try my hand at a dwarf list and managed to use just about every model I own. A couple choices are downgraded and my hobgoblins went up in strength but I think for the most part I’m happy.
Lord 201 points used out of 562 maximum
Dwarf Lord Great Weapon Master Rune of Kragg the Grim Rune of Fire Master Rune of Gromril
A lord on foot with the black hammer and armor of gazrakh, except he’s 6 points more and goes last. Close enough. Definitely tempted to drop a couple ironbreakers and give him that tasty reroll to armor saves though.
Heros 455 points used out of 562 maximum
Thane BSB Master Rune of Valaya 190
I always run a BSB in my normal list but this guy has a crazy pimped out standard which has no equivilent in the RH list. Not super fluffy I guess but he’ll give a lot of protection which I like.
Dark Emmisary 265
Using one of my High Priests for the model he’ll give me a bit of a magic phase and provide a nice defensive boost. As near as I can figure it in 8th dwarves get +2 to dispel off the start. My BSB adds another +2 and this guy will give +4 until he fails to dispel. That’s a pretty nice bonus and will stop spam casting like crazy. I like his entire spell lore and since he has a +1 to cast even if I only get five or six power dice he still has a decent chance to get everything off. The only one that is a little more situational is nightmare since it won’t work against undead or demons. Everything else has plenty of use.
Core 578 used with 562 minimum
10 Quarellers Standard 120
10 Quarellers Standard 120
36 Warriors Shield Musician Standard 338
Hobgoblin archers and warriors. Tough and disciplined by greenskin standards but the closest I could get in a dwarf list. By using my hobgoblins as core and chaos dwarves as special I’m hoping to make enough of a distiction. My Wizard will probably sit in the big unit, if he blows up they’re only hobgoblins. They can either go horde for lots of attacks or 5x7 to break steadfast.
Special 874 used out of 1125 maximum
4 Flaming Bolt Throwers 200
2 Cannons 180
My artillery, earthshakers could have gone as grudge throwers too I guess but the model looks more like a cannon. I kind of wanted to upgrade them somehow but none of the runes felt earthshakery.
10 Hammerers 120
My Greatweapon chaos dwarves, Lord probably goes in here. Hopefully they can stay away from really hitty stuff and break some knights before they die.
24 Ironbreakers Musician Standard Master Rune of Grungi 374
My BSBs bodyguard and also provides a nice defensive boost from the standard while I wait to get to combat. They’ll sit in the middle of my line with the great weapons on one side and combat hobgoblins on the other shielding all three units.
Rare 140(405) used out of 562
Gyrocopter 140
My Great Taurus Model. Obviously nowhere near as smashy as in the RH list but he can still fly and has a breath weapon. Pretty much the only way I can use him and I love the model too much to leave at home.
Because the Dark Emissary takes both a rare and hero choice I applied his points towards the limit for heros and rare so that’s what the number in brackets is. I haven’t heard how units like that will be dealt with but I figured this way I should be safe no matter how it ends up getting ruled.
So what do you guys think? Will it work alright in a tournament environment given that no one is going to have much experience with 8th edition. Is the +8 to dispel too much or is justified since some of the new lores are pretty scary. Does the list still feel like chaos dwarves? I wanted to keep enough magic and artillery in the list while still having a couple decent combat blocks. Should I tweak anything? This is pretty much my entire collection except for a few extra heros and command so I can’t really make big changes.
Baggronor:
Perhaps consider merging the Quarrellers? And great weapons? 20 Quarrellers is suddenly formidable in melee in 8th ed and makes a nice flanking unit. At the very least, give them musicians, the bonuses sound neat.
No Grudge Throwers?! Surely the perfect opportunity to use a Hellcannon!? Plus a runed Grudge Thrower will do seriously nasty things to ranked blocks. I’m having two in my new list 
The only other thing I would say is why only 10 Hammerers? They will evaporate in the face of the increased incoming attacks in 8th, and leave your Lord vulnerable.
Shakhorth:
A combo I’d give to a lord character is… Rune of cleaving +1str. (20pts), Rune of Might doubles str vs T5+ (25pts), Rune of stone +1 armor save and Master Rune of spite 4+ ward save (45pts.) Give him/her a shield and you got a character with armor save 2+ & a 4+ ward save. He/she attacks with str 5 against anything with T4 or lower and strikes at Str 10 against T5 or higher enemies.
The Quarellers I’d combine and field them as one unit. Give the guys great weapons with a full command. Also consider upgrading them to Longbeards.
Or just make a unit of warriors and upgrade it too Longbeards. The added str and ws plus immune to panic and re-roll panic 6inch is very good. And most oppenents don’t think you’d field them. So they are in for nasty surprise when they start wacking with Str.6 great weapons.
10 Hammerers won’t stand a chance. Certainly not with your Lord in it. They’d need to be atleast 20 strong with full command. Most oppenents know Hammerers very well and will try to thin them out with missle fire. So when you do reach close combat the unit will lack the soak to deal out the punch afterwards.
Lastly take Grudge throwers. Now more then ever they are very good. No more guessing, no more partial hits. So it’s deadly for a relatively cheap point cost. Plus you can put runes on it! Like Rune of penetrating (25pts), given + 1str.
This is my 2 cents. :cheers
elrodogg:
I hate to be the guy who chimes in that your list is illegal, but it is. Bolt throwers have the same combination of runes (they can’t all have just flaming). Also note that there is no more +1 to hit large targets, so I wolud consider dropping one bolt thrower to add engineers to the other 3. it’ll allow you to actually hit things (or add engineers to all four).
You are going to want a runesmith with 3 runes of spellbreaking. You simply cannot afford to let the purple sun go off.
As for the dark emissary…is he even still tournament legal? You should check with your TO. I mean look at halfling hotpots, they are 50pt stone throwers that don’t allow armor saves (and are now the best warmachine in the game). I wouldn’t bank on taking him.
Don’t take gyrocopters. The steam thingy counts as a breath weapon and is therefore once per game. Rock out with organ guns or flame cannons instead.
I echo the statements about stone throwers, at least one with a reroll rune. Cannons are fantastic now though, especially with people clamoring to take units of monstrous infantry.
If you’re going to be taking 10 hammerers as a stubborn pit, then take two units of 5. Run them in a congo line formation and they’ll hold at least 2 rounds of h2h against virtually any infantry or cav in the game. Otherwise, this unit needs to get bigger. Drop the warriors down to 25 or 30 (your troops are too expensive to go for steadfast) and take the points you save from droppign the emissary to a runesmith w/ 3 runes of spellbreaking and this unit is in business.
I wouldn’t take MRO valaya on the BSB. 3 scrolls is enough magic defense combined with the +2 you normally get. I would however take Strollaz rune, because in a couple of missions, if forces are lined up at the baseline, then you’re looking at first turn charges.
Hali:
Thanks guys for all the comments and advice, definitely a lot to think about.
@Baggronor
I’ll definitely consider grouping em together, as they are now I was thinking that by keeping one unit on each side of my artilley they could slow down war machine hunters for a turn or two, maybe even get lucky and break some of the weaker ones. If I put them in one unit then I’ll need to find something else to protect the other flank although against certain opponents I’m sure careful deployment will negate most of that problem.
I’ll have to play a game or two with both cannons and grudge throwers and see what I prefer. To be honest I’m a little more concerned about high armor and tough monsters than I am with large blocks. I expect my own combat blocks to at least hold thier own against just about anything from the front. Cannons feel like they might give a little bang for thier buck than stone throwers, especially against ranked ogres and such. Maybe I’ll see if I can pick up a hellcannon for a grudge thrower and leave my two earthshakers as cannons if I can spare the points. I already have six war machines and don’t want to turn the list into a total gunline though.
I’m only using 10 Hammerers because that is all the great weapon chaos dwarves I have. I suppose I could add command models to up them to 13 but I don’t think 3 models for 66 points will make enough of a difference. I’m hoping the Master Rune of Grungi will protect them enough from shooting to hit combat, with a small frontage against a unit of knights or something they might win. I’m not sure about keeping the lord with them but figure he might keep them alive a little longer if my opponent allocates a few attacks against his 1+ save while adding a lot of punch. Might just put him in the ironbreakers and leave them as a suicide/bait/tarpit unit but I kinda like the idea of keeping the great weapon character with the great weapon unit. Maybe not as tactical but more fluffy.
@Shakhorth
Definitely a nice lord combo but I think I’ll stick with this one for now. I like the fact that he is almost exactly the same as my CD lord from my RH list. Makes me feel like I’m still playing my normal army instead of regular dwarves.
I can’t give the quarellers great weapons because the hobgoblin archers I’m using to represent them don’t have anything close to that. Same thing with upgrading any of my core to longbeards. It just makes them too good to be believable hobgoblins. They’re still too tough as is but they’re worse than all my other infantry so at least there’s some scaling between the greenskins and the dwarves.
I realise 10 probably won’t be enough but it’s all the models I have. They’ll be under the 5+ ward save from my ironbreakers banner so even if they do get targetted it’s gonna take a fair bit of firepower to take them down. They’re also kind of my only hammer unit so I don’t think I can just drop them. I’ll see how it goes in my practise games, if they just wiped like nothing I’ll have to change something.
Definitely considering the grudge thrower, see above.
@elrodogg
Ah, you’re right missed that. Not gonna take a huge fix though, the flaming was really just a bonus and I don’t mind dropping it. By my calculation 4 BS 3 bolt throwers will hit just about as many targets as 3 BS 4 ones and will have just as many wounds. It’s kind of a toss up. I’ll think about it but I have no idea what to use as engineer models for my hobgoblin crew. Maybe a slavedriver conversion or something.
In this tournament Dogs are War are completely legal so yes I can use the Dark Emmisary. He gives my army offensive magic as well as a nice boost to dispels. Magic is the core difference in my mind between chaos dwarves and thier cousins. If I don’t have at least one caster in my army it doesn’t feel like chaos dwarves so he is going to stay. Between him and my BSB I don’t have the space to take a runesmith but I think a +8 to dispel will make up for the lack of spellbreakers. They can’t stop irresistable force anyway right? Thier wizard probably won’t succeed in getting it off without risking crippling himself in the process.
I’m only taking the gyrocopter because I love my great taurus model and this is the only way to include him in the army. I don’t expect a whole lot from him but maybe he can cause some mischief. A rear charge for +2 combat res is pretty nice and he’s tough enough to survive the few attacks most units can throw back. If I use his breath in combat he might even win. I don’t have anything to represent an organ gun but they seem nice. Maybe I could make a multi-barreled deathrocket. Flame cannons don’t seem all that great to me, feels like they’d be lucky to get one shot before getting charged.
I do really like this advice about the hammerers. 60 points for a two turn tarpit is pretty decent, in range of the general and bsb they definitely aren’t going to go anywhere until they’re dead. It’s defintiely something a lot of my opponents might not suspect and gives me some sneaky tactics. I can’t drop any warriors without adding something more to Core, I’m just about the minimum at the moment, plus I don’t have any more models to represent them.
The MRO of Valaya is kinda weird. It’s a little cheaper than the runesmith with scrolls and it’s not going to work everytime but it boosts my defence in a different way. If the enemy is someone who trys to cast one or two big spells per turn then +2 dispel isn’t all that much, the scrolls would provide more effect while they last anyway. But if I’m playing against vampire raise spam or deamons flickering fire spam then that bonus is huge. It’ll even work well against bonus dice slann. Set up this way rolling one dice to dispel I’ll average 11.5(8+d6). A slann with one dice plus his free one averages 11(4+2d6). Strollaz seems tricky but it’s not my style, charging one unit that far ahead seems like a bad idea no matter how tough dwarves are, the rest of the army might not catch up in time and if it gets flanked by two units it could get crushed and give a ton of VP to my opponent first turn, and with the free reform he won’t even be badly out of posistion.