In my pursuit of learning the ways of the Chaos Dwarfs, I am curious about the general attitudes of the limited supply of magic items.
The Black Hammer of Hashut
This weapon is under 50pts, so can be taken by any hero. It gives +2 S! I play WE all too often, so destroying anything flammable is just too good. My only question is if the weapon is flammable or not.
Obsidian Blade
This weapon costs how many points? It could really ruin someone’s day if you manage to wipe out their armor, but it’s really situational. Also, you have to wound with it and a dwarf lord only has a S4. Does anyone actually use this thing?
Dark Mace of Death
100 pts? Really? It doesn’t even confer any other bonuses beyond the once a battle use.
Armor of Gazhrak
Fantastic for only 30 pts. Enough said.
Armor of the Furnace
Armor with a ward save? Excellent.
Talisman of Obsidian
I know that most 100pt items just aren’t worth it, but what does this one give you? How much does this item actually get used? Has anyone used this before?
Gauntlets of Bazhrakk the Cruel
This item is affordable and gives S, but basically causing a wound whenever you roll a “1”? I know my luck and it’s just too risky. I’d rather spend the points on a Sword of Might.
Black Gem of Gnar
I can see that this item can save your BSB or your wizard lord for a round. It seems expensive, but OK.
Chalice of Darkness
This item seems really cool. It can be used for magic defense and even on the offense. If you have a fair number of power dice more than your opponent’s dispel, you can use it to eliminate his chance to dispel the one vital spell you need to get off that round. I think this item is really unique and quite useful.
Banner of Slavery
If you have a lot of greenskins, I can see this as being vital, especially with today’s army lists. Everything causes Fear or Terror. Being able to re-roll ANY for ANY slave unit within range makes having a slave horde army quite feasible.
Anyone disagree? Can you give examples of how or when? I’d love to hear people’s opinions.
Black Hammer- Totally rocks. Is not technically flammable, so I think this hurts you in that you can’t ignore regeneration but on the other hand there are several magic armors that ignore flaming attacks.
Obsidian Blade- interesting, not worth it for the price as a high enough strength (via black hammer) will ignore most armors anyways. Also, most people seem to go for weapons and talismans, not armors.
Dark Mace of Death- I run this on a lammasu sorcerer, but I think I may be the only one to do so. THis lets me mug a small unit of heavy cavalry. It is good but must be used well.
Armor of Gazhrak- Its ok, but you can get almost as good of an AS with an enchanted shield and heavy armor. Good if you want to use a great weapon I suppose.
Armor of the Furnace- Wonderful, take often!
Talisman of Obsidian- Not bad, but not worth the 100 points either. Your points can be much better spent, as your lord can just hide in a unit for protection from spells.
Gauntlets of Bazhrakk- The thing about these is that they aren’t a weapon, and so stack with whatever you might be wielding. A great trick is to pair them with a great weapon to get your heroes up to s7. I’ve had some success running the “hobbo cannonball” tactic, where I have a hobbo with GW and the gauntlets who I send chariot or wizard hunting with the lore of shadows spell “steed of shadows.” Do NOT put on a hero with a small elite unit like Bull Centaurs, or a Taurus lord as he can smack his mount.
Black Gem- really only worth it for wizards imho, but they would be better served getting the chalice or dispel scrolls.
Chalice of Darkness- Every list I’ve ever run has used this item. It helps you dominate the magic phase if you have more power dice than your opponent, as they will have trouble casting and more dispelling. I always run magic heavy list tho, I’m not sure how this would fare if your opponent has more magic then you.
Banner of Slavery- I’ve never fit this in, as I like having the +1 CR from war banners. This is normally a good item, but the problem is that sometimes you want your hobgoblins to flee, for example if you’re baiting a unit that you want to counter-charge with warriors. If your hobbos rally they will be in the way!
I hope this was helpful, and if someone has had different experiences with any of these items your feedback would be awesome
Great Hammer: I like it too much. Usually My hero lord Has got it With Armor of Furnace(the best defense for a hero lord) and shield. Just a point : great hammer attacks are NOT flammable attack… regeneration works normally and subjects immune to fire are normally wounded.
armor of gazrakh: normally I always have a model with it. nothing more to say. I don’t think that heavy armor and enchanted shield work the same because for first we have 3+ and not 1+ of SA and enchanted shied left us just one hand free. Our model with 32 points may have gazrakh + GW: this means 1+ SA and +2 S; with 30 point heavy armor + enchanted shield + sword of mighty: this means 3+ SA and +1 S. Gaz rules!! Only exception: BSB needs both gaz + sword of mighty for obvious reasons
Armor of furnace: look up at great hammer… combo offence/defence
gauntlets of barzakh:
The thing about these is that they aren’t a weapon, and so stack with whatever you might be wielding. A great trick is to pair them with a great weapon to get your heroes up to s7. I’ve had some success running the “hobbo cannonball” tactic, where I have a hobbo with GW and the gauntlets who I send chariot or wizard hunting with the lore of shadows spell “steed of shadows.” Do NOT put on a hero with a small elite unit like Bull Centaurs, or a Taurus lord as he can smack his mount.
tetnis revealed the super-secret-tech!!! gauntlet + GW = S7!!! it works very good
black gem: i use it, like many other people, with my sorcerer lord mainly… i said mainly?? I mean only…
chalice of darkness: good CD resource… but it’s not so intuitive how and when use it…I’m doing continuously tests… I’m gonna post a special thread on it very soon what i don’t like
obsidian blade:
not worth it for the price as a high enough strength (via black hammer) will ignore most armors anyways. Also, most people seem to go for weapons and talismans, not armors.
nothing more to say
talisman of obsidian: too muh expensive for its work
dark mace of death:for its cost it can be used only by lord. For its use it works only with model alone. For use it better it should be used by a lord on great taurus or lammassu. for its cost we cannot put any save on a big and worth and espensive model… circle is closed: I don’t like it
what i don’t know:
banner of slavery: i use only two units of hobbo slaves and some bolt thrower… i never needed it and i cannot say anything about something I don’t know…
Do people use normal great weapons on heroes? Maybe I play too much against Wood Elves, but it seems that there are too many things that are only hurt by magic weapons. VC have this, as well. Maybe I just run into those units on an irregular basis. I tend to give my heroes magic weapons (non-casters) always.
I think the Black Hammer and Armor of Furnace is the best combo. You can’t use the enchanted shield on it as that’s two magic armors. I had thought of that at first, but someone corrected me. Doh!
I love the black gem, and find it really useful on my wolf mounted hobgoblin hero.
He is mainly there to block march and assassinate wizards, but with the black gem I can rear charge him into big nasties like knights of chaos and giants, hopefully holding them in place, or, if he flees, getting them to pursue back towards their own table edge. More than once its allowed for a combined Bull Centaur + Great Taurus charge the following turn.
Great Hammer: I like it too much. Usually My hero lord Has got it With Armor of Furnace(the best defense for a hero lord) and enchannted shield. Just a point : great hammer attacks are NOT flammable attack... regeneration works normally and subjects immune to fire are normally wounded.
Alan the evil
I'm not so sure this is a legal combination. since you've bought no one handed weapon for your hero. I do know that on most occassions if you have a mundane weapon and magic shield you get no armor bonus for the shield. Perhaps my old age is showing and I've missed the 7th ed update, but that's my recollection.
Great Hammer: I like it too much. Usually My hero lord Has got it With Armor of Furnace(the best defense for a hero lord) and enchannted shield. Just a point : great hammer attacks are NOT flammable attack... regeneration works normally and subjects immune to fire are normally wounded.
Alan the evil
I'm not so sure this is a legal combination. since you've bought no one handed weapon for your hero. I do know that on most occassions if you have a mundane weapon and magic shield you get no armor bonus for the shield. Perhaps my old age is showing and I've missed the 7th ed update, but that's my recollection.
flank any small hard hitting unit (or deploy 1 or 2 wide and you can even kill a ranked unit), even with uber-saves, use gem = outnumbering, bsb, sb, flank and no attacks back. and hopefully break the enemy
I love using the great weapon + gauntlets combo espeically when its on a hobgob hero.
I really like the use of the black gem but unfortuatly, no-one in my local games-workshop uses any big single monsters :<
The Chalice made plenty of my games really entertaining (at least for me), made use of a sorcerer lord and two level 2 sorcerers (was trying to get my army to 2k), thanks to the Chalice i made the supposed torrent of warp lightning down to a drip, my opponent wasn’t too chuffed, but it was his fault for chossing to take loads of warlock engineers.
I love taking a Lord on Great Taurus and giving him the Black Hammer of Hashut and Armour of the Furnace and shield. I think someone posted the same above, but it is a FUN and nasty combo.
Black Hammer means I will be, between Lord and Mount, hitting with 8 S6 attacks. That’s enough to make many things hesitate, and fairly decent killing power. I tend to cause 4 between the two. Which is a lot, and if the Lord maneuvered correctly, or is supporting a combat involving one of your units can win you the combat with a fair amount of CR. Plus being able to kill Treemen in a single blow is something that makes me very happy, as I probably hate the Wood Elves more then any other army (for various reasons including their fluff).
The Armour of the Furnace on a Lord riding Great Taurus is great. With more and more flaming attacks, this can not be underestimated. The increase in regen has brought fire back in a big way. Between fire runes on Dwarf machines, fire wizards in High Elves, and a Bloodthirster with flaming attacks… suddenly both my mount and lord can’t be hurt by them. Trust me, when you get locked in combat with a Bloodthirster who can’t harm you will know how fun nice a combo it is. Especially with the Black Hammer allowing you to dish out so many S6 attacks, that even a Bloodthirster’s getting hurt.
The Ward save is also a nice backup, especially against higher strength fighters or some spells. It adds up quickly.
Armor of Gazrakh I’ll happily put this armor on my BSB. We need the BSB for rerolls and extra CR. Having a solid save, and good Toughness, will make him a lot harder to kill. I used to combine this with Talisman of Protection, but I’m tending to go for Sword of Might these days.
Other items I’m not to keen on, or just don’t get excited about.
Warbanner is something I never leave home with, as are Scrolls and the Staff of Sorcery.
When I tend to go fluffier (for fluffier/fun tournaments) I will take the Enchanted Shield on a character.
Gauntlets are OK, but I’d rather take a GW on a well armored character and not risk hitting myself. With our initiative we do go last a lot so I’ll opt for the higher S boost with GW and not risk hitting my own stuff.
Chalice I’m still very torn on this one. I think it can be good, but only if I ran a high magic army.
I tend to go more light on items with my CD anyways… compared to my other armies.
The chalice is situational: If you have more power/dispel dice than your opponent the chalice lets you ruin their day. For example, if you have 7pd and they have 4 dispel dice, you are more likely to get things cast if you each lose 3 dice (4 power dice to 1 dispel dice, something will get through.) For magic, the ratio of power to dispel dice is more important than sheer numbers- 5-1 is better than 10-10 for example. If you have less casting the chalice will only help your opponent.
Thanks for all the replies! It helps a lot. Yeah, the Black Hammer and Armor of Furnace will be going on my Great Taurus Lord.
I can see the Chalice also working on magic defense. If you take them down for a lot of power dice, but still have some scrolls, you can do well. In my fast attack wing army, I think I would just need to hold the enemy magic off for a few turns until the fast wing hits into them. Also, the first few turns the enemy won’t be in range to cast all of his magic (usually).
The only use for th echalice is if you play under rules who say e.g you can max use 8 PD / turn - if you have L4 + L2 +L2 you have 10 dices then you can use the chalice and remove power dices you can’t use and you opponents DD.
A few common magic item mixes I’ve seen or come up with:
Armor of the Furnace + Black Hammer of Hashut + Gauntlets of Gazrakh + Shield on a dwarf lord means a character who can one-shot chariots and destroy treemen or flammable creatures (I don’t know of any other than treemen). Without the gauntlets he’s still a formidable enemy and can survive a lot of hits.
Armor of Gazrakh + Great Weapon, basically the Rykarth the Unbreakable combo. Simple, easy, defensive, and effective.
Hobgoblin Hero + Heavy Armor + Black Gem. Keep him close to another character, and watch as power characters suddenly lose all power. Especially fun for those powerful vampire lords surrounded by crumbly skeletons.
[[Chaos Dwarf Magic Tactics]] updated a smidgen with respect to magic items.
Ancient History
I have to disagree with the assessment of the Enchanted Shield on the wiki. Waste of points!?!? Are you crazy? Sure, heavy armor can get you the same AS for cheaper, but what if you used BOTH. That would give you a 3+ armor save! Also, if you use a magic shield with a normal weapon, you can still get the Parry bonus. That would knock it down to a 2+ AS. Who thinks it's a waste to get fantastic armor saves for cheap points? You can get the Enchanted Shield and still have enough points for a magic weapon. It's only 15 pts.
