[Archive] Big Hats! A return to Chaos Dwarfs

[system]

Parkerbrum:

Many many moons ago I collected and played with the old ‘white dwarf’ army list, I had a fully painted army of big hats - then I sold them

I now (thanks to Ebay) have a ruck load of big hats again and (thanks to Tamurkhan) have renewed lust to play with the little fellas. So far I am on a record of 2 games/2 wins, with game 3 to take place tonight with a bit of luck.

Game 1: vs Tomb kings, 2400pts scgt comp

By the end of turn 2 I’d managed to lose everything but my prophet on lammasu, 2 units of blunderbuss and 6 fireborn, what followed was the greatest comeback I’d ever seen (and I’ve played fantasy a long old time!) as the k’daai went to town and took around 1200pts on their own including the heirophant and tomb king (!), my opponent was thoroughly shell-shocked, as was I.

Game 2: vs Lizardmen, 2400pts scgt comp

My list changed slightly by dropping the lammasu, the prophet going on metal this time and a 2nd unit of fireborn coming along. The game was a write-off early on as final transmutation killed his Slann turn 1 and the one unit of k’daii essentially bottle-necked half of his army (he’d tried to refuse a flank to avoid the blunderbuss units), the winning margin being around the 1100pts mark.

All of which has brought me to the following list that I will be taking next game:

Prophet lv4, earthing rod, TOPreservation (metal)

Demonsmith lv1, dispel scroll, opal amulet (shadow)

Hobgoblin khan, spear, light armour, wolf, shield

21 Blunderbuss, std, mus

21 blunderbuss, std, mus

20 Hobgoblins, bows, mus

6 K’daai fireborn + manburner

4 Bull Centaurs, great weapons, std, mus, gleaming pennant

Deathshrieker

Dreadquake Mortar + slave ogre

5 wolf raiders

Changes from game 2 are (IN) centaurs, khan, wolf boys (OUT) 6 fireborn+champ.

Let me know what you think, I’ll let you know how I get on game 3!

[system]

Veshnakar:

First, our sorcerers cannot take Shadow, only Metal, Fire, and Death (and Hashut on a Sorcerer-Prophet).

Secondly, how overall did your K’daai Fireborn perform? Sounds like they worked well! I personally can’t stand the D3 wounds per turn if you fail that toughness test, even on the Destroyer. My enemies are going to be killing me enough as is, much less my units killing themselves! I think I much prefer the Bull Centaur as they are a little more reliable in that sense but to each his own.

[system]

Parkerbrum:

Ha! Thought the list was working too well - seems I completely made up shadow, impressive as (as you say) it is nowhere to be seen in the list. #Puts on spectacles…

The K’daai are the golden boys of this army now. I’ve just played my 3rd game (fortunately didn’t cast or even try to cast a shadow spell…) and while one of the unit did die from the toughness tests they rest of the unit survived intact. I took two units of 6 in game 2 against the lizardmen - they don’t like poison shots much, but who does?

Game 3: vs Wood elves scgt comp

Highlights

- dreadquake takes an entire unit of treekin (5) off in one shot.

- Both war machines misfire and blow up turn 2!?

- Prophet (with eternal hatred weapon) kills highborn hitting on 6’s

- centaurs take a flank charge from dryads, hold (pennant) then run them down

- Wood elf player concedes turn 4 after highborn and lv4 die same turn

Positives:

- The bull centaurs surviving, I’ll always prefer survivability over damage but they still hang in there with T5 and a 3+ save

- Prophet, he was awesome, even in combat.

Negatives:

- Wolf raiders really ain’t much to shout about are they… poor, I have the models though so feel I should use them!

List changes:

- Lore of death I think for the demonsmith so that my list becomes legal #shakes head at self

- To wolf raider or not… they are only in the list to ride infront of war machines in the presence of eagles and march with the centaurs to threaten machines if not. Answers on a postcard!

[system]

Jaakko:

This is one of the few list that doesn’t include a Castellan BSB, which I find a bit odd considering what he brings to the table (Ld rerolls, Stubborn). Also, your Blunderbuss units seems a bit small. If they take 2 casualties they lose the opportunity to reroll the To Wound rolls. I’d buff them up!

Although the Dreadquake Mortar is an awesome model I like the Hellcannon better (at least for now). Also, +1 for no Destroyer!

Lastly, a Khan can often achieve the same (or even more!) than a unit of wolf raiders on his own, at least with my experience. give him a 2+ fire ward item and he can really cause some trouble! And is the Manburner really worth the points? I still like the lists a lot and it seems to work well for you!

[system]

deadlydeceiver:

- dreadquake takes an entire unit of treekin (5) off in one shot.

Parkerbrum

I'm sorry, but that is not possible. I quess you forgot that only the model under the centre of the template takes D6 wounds (see rules for stone throwers)
If I'm not mistaken that was also covered in the FAQ.
Edit: Yes it was: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/t/tamurkhanQA.pdf

Apart from that: It seems you're having fun and sucess with CD :hat off Keep going!

DD

[system]

Parkerbrum:

This is exactly why I’ve posted, I wasn’t aware of the FAQ at all so that’s another thing to take into account for the list - thank you!

@Jaakko: The hellcannon may well make the list for game 4 now that I know about the faq on the deathquake. The combo of the quake rule and the after effects of final transmutation I quite like however… I’ve played at a couple of tournaments without a bsb and not really missed him, for 130pts basic that’s a lot of boots on the ground I’m losing to get him in.

The khan will indeed be purchasing the dragonbane gem:)

For scgt comp the blunderbuss units can only go up to 450pts so they can’t be buffed up too much unfortunately but I agree, the one unit was down to 19 against the elves last night and they became far less effective.

The manburner, for ten points I think is a no-brainer for an extra attack and the option to challenge a nasty character.

Thank you for your post!

@deadlydeceiver: Thank you for introducing me to the faq! I can see a couple of changes coming to the list before game 4 on account of the new information…

[system]

CopperPot:

Good to see someone else using Fireborn, Blunderbusses and the Dreadquake.

[system]

Jaakko:

For scgt comp the blunderbuss units can only go up to 450pts so they can't be buffed up too much unfortunately but I agree, the one unit was down to 19 against the elves last night and they became far less effective.
The manburner, for ten points I think is a no-brainer for an extra attack and the option to challenge a nasty character.

Parkerbrum

I totally forgot about the comp you were using, sorry! And for the Manburner: I always manage to forget that it actually can challenge and take down some nasty characters, just like you said.

[system]

Parkerbrum:

The games are coming thick and fast at the minute, I’m at warhammer world tomorrow with a few mates where I should definitely get games 4 and 5 in. I’ll try and do a proper report for one of them atleast.

For the next game I’m going to stick with the list above (with death magic on the level 1), I’m torn on a couple of things but I’m keen to give it all another go.

@ Copperpot: Yeah I try to avoid standard net lists if I can as I’m not always convinced they are the best option. I played a game with the CD’s when Tamurkhan first came out that put me right off them using a net list with iron demon, destroyer etc etc and I got owned because it wasn’t working with my play style. Time will tell if the dreadquake remains in the list though!

@ Jaakko: Yeah the comp is a big restriction, but also hilariously good as the blunderbuss are 12" range and therefore aren’t limited by the ‘number of shots’ comp. I’m buying the models for the k’daai tomorrow as along with the blunderbuss they are the things that are ironed on certainties for any future tournament list I write.

Question…

I have played two games with a metal wizard on foot and one with death on a lammasu, metal seems to sync quite well with what I want to do for the most part, with only one spell that I really never use. For fluff however I’d prefer to be using hashut, the range of certain spells seems very short though.

So the question (finally) is when you use a level 4 hashut on foot, what do your magic phases look like, ie turn 1 I tend to cast ‘x’, turn 2 etc etc, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts?

[system]

Parkerbrum:

I played two games at warhammer world on Saturday, both against two very different demon armies and as a result my record with the CD’s now stands at 4-0-1 after a 20-0 victory and a 5-15 defeat.

The old adage of ‘you learn more from defeat than in victory’ (or similar quote) has come true with regards to my loss as it’s taught me some of the limitations of what I’d selected in my army and made me reconsider what I’m taking and how to use/deploy it.

Game 1: Demons headed by a bloodthirster, 2x Tzeentch shadow heralds (double pit :-/ ), 2 slaanesh heralds, khorne herald, horde of bloodletters, horde demonettes, bunker of horrors, flamers, seekers, 2x single fiends. A small but powerful demon army!

Game 2: 2x Tzeentch heralds (metal/shadow), slaanesh herald, khorne herald, horde nettes, horde letters, 24 horrors, 18 letters, 2x single fiends, 6 flamers, 2x 5 furies.

I won game 1 and lost game 2.

The first game just saw the blunderbuss reduce the hordes to a manageable size, beat them in combat and then shrapnel the bloodthirster to death in the final turn. Favourite moment was when the hobgob khan accepted a mounted slannesh herald’s challenge, killing him and with the help of the archers popping the seekers, he then reformed and charged the flamers in the flank, tieing them up for 5 rounds of combat with his dragonbane gem! (I’d dropped the opal amulet for charmed shield and got the points that way…)

Game 2: Siren song. What a mess that created. The nettes ordered my one blunderbuss unit to charge (fleeing not an option) and focussed a lot of magic on the other one to whittle them down. My prophet was killing blowed by the letters turn 3 which meant magic was handed to the 17 spell demon player. Notable moments were when the K’daai (who didn’t benefit from the re-roll to wound faq change all day because of demons being magical :mad) took out the 18 letters in a single round of combat, receiving zero damage in return :).

I made some rookie errors though in deployment which I’ll learn from but the demon player genuinely outplayed me and deserved the win.

I’ll post again another time with my learnings and also how I’m deploying with this army, along with the updated list I’ve cooked up for the next couple of games.

If you pop in to have a read of this please give your opinion and feedback, I’d be interested to hear how this is coming across and what your thoughts are around my choices.

[system]

Parkerbrum:

New list:

Prophet Lv4 (METAL)

Talisman of preservation, earthing rod, enchanted shield

Demonsmith Lv1 (DEATH)

Dispel Scroll, charmed shield

Hobgoblin Khan

Wolf, shield, light armour, dragonbane gem

20 Blunderbuss, std, mus

21 Blunderbuss, std, mus, gleaming pennant

20 hobgoblins, bows, mus

4 Bull centaurs, std, mus, great weapons

6 K’daai fireborn, manburner

Deathshrieker

Deathshrieker

Hellcannon

2398

The basic plan now is to protect the flanks of the blunderbuss units better. I have tended to deploy over one side of the deployment zone, so to refuse a flank and force the enemy onto me and the blunder-line. The way I see this working moving forward is with the hellcannon and bull centaurs protecting the exposed flank and the k’daai moving from the board edge end.

The two shriekers are purely for trimming units and big nasties down incase the hellcannon decides to go bonkers. I found that I could have done with one extra template against the demons, but with the hellcannon classed as monster/handlers I’ve still only got two war machines theoretically.

Th wolf riders bit the dust, they didn’t really find their purpose, so with points saved from other areas of the army have afforded me the extra artillery and a fighty flank protector.

Was due to play tonight on Universal Battle but my opponent cancelled, will post future results as they come.

[system]

CopperPot:

Good stuff keep it coming.

[system]

Parkerbrum:

Good stuff keep it coming.

CopperPot

Thank you kindly, will do. seems a lot of people are viewing this but not posting so thank you very much for doing so!

GAME 6:

I played a WOC army last night, his list was (roughly)
Tzeentch lord on disc, crown of command, 2+ fire ward, flail, shooty gift
Mounted bsb of tzeentch
2x lv2's of Tzeentch, one mounted, one on foot
2x 18 warriors of Tzeentch
8 knights of nurgle with banner of rage
hellcannon
2x war shrines

So a heavily armoured, small-ish force with some heavy hitters floating around. I took the list shown above.

Magic saw him roll flickering fire twice and pandemonium for the foot slogger and call to glory for the mounted guy. Footy as he'll become known was able to steal my spells... which were:
Spirit leech, plague of rust, searing doom, enchanted blades and 5+ scaly skin.

I gave up on the option of final transmutation, don't ask me why I did this because in hindsight I have no logical reason at all - epic fail on my part. This won't happen again...

The table saw two buildings fall between us 12" in from each flank and a marsh filled with fymir 18" in which claimed a whole warrior all game.

DEPLOYMENT:
Shrine-Cannon-Warriors-knights-warriors-shrine-lord on disc
vs
Gobbo's-Cannon-Blunders-Blunders-K'daai-Centaurs

My two shriekers went behind the right sided unit of blunders, with the smith looking after them. The khan went in the left unit of Blunders and lord in the other. BSB and mounted sorcerer (mounty)go in the knights and footy with the leftmost warriors.

I don't often win first turn, so it was no surprise when I went second!

WOC T1: The lord presents himself to the bull centaurs but forgets to wail at them, the army advances to around 15.5" away from my blunders (not seen that before ;)) and the shrines get MR3 and +1 attack on the knights - oh boy. My one unit of 20 BB's loses two to the cannon and my favourite moment of the whole game came when footy flickered my khan with 6 str 7 zaps, he lost one wound. He he...

CD T1: Both the centaurs and the K'daai could charge the chaos lord, I plumped for the K'daai not thinking about the 2+ ward. The cannon and both shriekers fire, all 3 scatter. The k'daai out-do themselves, saving all the the s7 lords wounds and winning combat! My opponent reveals the crown of command and my heart sinks, then he rolls a 10! Wooooooo! Pursue please:) then he goes and rolls a 9 to my 7. Damn.

WOC T2:
The lord rallies. Left shrine moves up to 10" from the hobgobs, magic ends quickly as both casters fail to cast, footy directs his warriors into range of the 18 BB's and the angry knights take the bait of my khan who has moved out to angle them awkwardly, funnily enough he died, with all their bonuses and his mighty 4+ armour save who'd have thought that possible, the knights hit the side of footy's unit and stopped.

CD T2: The hobgoblins charge the shrine and run it down through combat res, the K'daai sigh and charge the lord again. Smithy leeches the life from footy. The blunderbuss are both in range, the 18 roll a single shot and down 1 warrior, the 21 don't even scratch the shrine - their only target. My war machines... well they all scatter again with 3 warriors falling. Oh dear. The K'daai take one wound, lord hangs around this time.

WOC T3: Footy takes his warriors into the cannon, the knights charge the 18 BB's (I should have fled), rightshrine charges the Prophets unit without damage from the stand and shoot. The WOC hellcannon gets a direct hit on the centaurs and they run away having lost one of their number, oh wait, I have gleaming pennant - not in this list you don't, that's changing back! The knights run down the last of the BB's, my cannon holds vs the warriors and the shrine passes it's re-rolled LD test. This isn't going well. The k'daai lose 2 wounds but don't disintegrate further.

CD T3: Yeah the centaurs didn't like that much, they just fled the board - thanks for coming. On the plus side the warriors are ran down by my hellcannon and the shrine goes down to the prophets BB's who reform to 5 wide for the charge of the Tzeentch warriors. Magic saw my dice all go into spirit leech (all 4 of them) to the result of 1,1,1,1. The machines all scatter wide again... Quick turn! The K'daai go down to 3 but wound the lord!

WOC T4: K'daai fail their first T-test, then wound the lord again, unfortunately it's now a 1 on 1 fight - pity. The warriors charge the prophets unit, the stand and shoot sees another '1' for shooting (my 3rd from 3 shots) and 1 warrios falls, the bsb charges one shrieker and destroys it. The warriors and BB's happy slap but nothing more.

CDT4: All this time by the way the hobgoblins have been taking 3 wounds off the hellcannon from range, that's as good as it got but I was very proud of the lads. Smithy sacrifices himself infront of the knights who were now a 5 after struggling with some dangerous twigs in a forrest. Magic sees the warriors in combat with the prophet lose their 2nd notch of armour to plague of rust and scaly skin applied to the BB's armour - handy. The prophet runs a huge 9" to mow them down. War machines scatter, except the hellcannon which got my only HIT of the game against the lone bsb, who was trusting Tzeentch alone to save him - it didn't end well for him...

WOC T5: And this is where it ended. In fairness nothing else major from either side would have died in the following turns so we called it after this moment. The knights had a rear charge against the Prophet and 14 BB's. I was going to be up 2 on the roll-off but down a dice, my logic being that fleeing would see me rally in my turn, magic up and win the combat turn 6. He ran me down. We played it out to see what would happen with the charge (I have a 1+ armour save don't forget) and from 13 wounds caused from the knights in total I saved 3. Yep that's 10 rolls of 1 and 2.

The points scored showed a victory of 700 to the WOC.

Good game all told and things would have been very different if some key rolls hadn't gone against me, I've made these conclusions based on this game:

- I want a 2nd Khan, he doesn't even need to have kit, he just needs to die to break up attacks so they are more piecemeal.
- I also want a magma cannon. The shriekers just scattered even with smithy with them and I think 1 is plenty to fill the purpose.
- I think smithy has played his last game for me for a while. He's a very expensive model for what he does, yes today he leeched footy, fair play to him, but other than that he had no effect on the game other than performing the role of a khan in turn 4.
- The centaurs really need the gleaming pennant back. Really.
- Final transmutation, if it's an option, it's in.
- Shoot war machines at MR3 knights, now write 100 times till learnt

I will therefore post the list for the next game shortly but my fingers have tired of typing right now. Let me know your thoughts.

Record after game six = 4 - 0 - 2

[system]

Grimbold Blackhammer:

Thanks for the battle report but the casual style of grammer made it particularly difficult to follow. I can even live with a handful of acronyms here and there but if it wasn’t for my love of Warriors of Chaos, I would have quit half way through…

Grimbold Blackhammer

[French_noodle]

French_noodle:

seems a lot of people are viewing this but not posting so thank you very much for doing so

Well, not posting beacause my experience in game is pretty short, but know that i found all this very interesting to read, since i am still wondering how i will build my army, and don't have many opportunities to play and test.

Anyway, i do have a question :

Don't you think the Metal magic lore is a bit hard to use with a walking sorcerer ?

I tried this lore in my first game, so happy to use true alchemical powers as i was :D, but found that its short ranges were a bit of a problem if my sorcerer wasn't riding a flying beast.

What is your opinion on that issue ?

Keep this way :)

[system]

Parkerbrum:

@ Grimbold: Fair feedback, thank you. You’ll be happy then that the Warriors of Chaos won in the end!

@ French_noodle: I have looked at the lores available to the prophet and think that metal is the most fit for purpose due to the range of possibilities with its spells.

Signature - Can deal with things like steam tanks just as well as any warmachine can, 24" is not a bad range either, but in my opinion this is the 2nd worst spell in the deck for chaos dwarfs. (Controversial).

Plague of Rust - 24" range again, combined with blunderbuss this will render most units armour-less, which when you re-roll wounds gets quite bad for units’ health! Also nice to cast on a unit your deathshriekers wish to fire at I’ve found.

Enchanted blades of Aiban - Favourite spell. On a blunderbuss unit within range and due to be charged next turn this can change games. Makes the unit modify armour by 2 from the stand and shoot and combat - nice! The K’daai quite like this spell too as with a small number of attacks this can see them hitting and wounding on 2’s versus some units.

Glittering robe - Only really worth dropping on the blunderbuss to give them a 1+ save. Only having 12" range doesn’t matter hugely when the prophet is in the unit he’s casting it on and next to my other one.

Gehenna’s Golden Hounds - So far this has brought out two scrolls and if you cast the 12+ version first in your phase on 3 dice opponents don’t like the idea of their character coming under threat and risking the ‘look out Sir’s!’ which is fairly amusing.

Transmutation of Lead - This brings most elite units in the game down to the standard of your own troops, chaos warriors hit on 4’s for example. Because of the casting value I think this is the worst spell, but it’s very handy to have against certain armies!

Final Transmutation - I missed this last game. It’s the go-to spell for turns 1 and 2 atleast to whittle down enemy units. The best result I have achieved so far is taking out 17 of 30 bloodletters with it, oh and who can forget zapping a Slann in turn 1 with a one-dice 6. The range doubles for an additional 3 on the casting value.

The only spell you can’t cast when your prophet ends up in combat is searing doom, and as most armies tend to have to engage my blunderbuss units to win the game the range of the hex/augment spells is plenty in my mind.

Yet to try the lore of Hashut though… who knows what that would bring!

On the note of a flying lord, he is very, very vulnerable as I found when I fielded a Lammasu the once, and with metal I don’t believe you require a mount, for death and hashut this would be different.