Skamandude:
Greetings all,
Although i’ve only recently signed up to your splendid forum here i felt it important to spark the above discussion purely to sate my own curiosity. I play Warhammer with a bunch of mates every couple of weeks and i had intended to start a Chaos Dwarf army using the LoA list. However after browsing a few threads here it dawned on me that (in part) due to lack of ‘official’ support from GW (barring the recent FW bits and bobs) they might not be very competative against the current armies of 8th edition.
When i say competitive i dont really mean tournaments but rather in friendlies with mates and local gaming clubs. How have people farred in this situation using the LoA list? Although im very keen to start CDs purely as a painting project, i would at some point like to field them against friends and i’d like to know i have a fighting chance at winning. If the current rules which exist for them arent fit for this purpose then i might start thinking about army alternatives.
Sorry if the above sounds like mindless drivel 
Essentially i just want to know if i should expect money spent on CDs to net me some balanced games of WH rather than just a painting/modeling project!
Ska
Samanos:
‘‘Balanced’’ you say.
In my opinion the list certainly is not overpowered but is not underpowered either. certainly there are some options that the community here thinks as must but it really comes down to the player, not only in the list.
The only issue you might have is that generally the lists might seem similar (less variety) as certain builds are better than others.
CopperPot:
Have alook at Tommys book best advice I could give you
Veshnakar:
If you take a gunline army of Magma Cannons, Deathshriekers, and Hell Cannons “backed” by large units of infernal guard, spell casters, and Wolf Mounted Hobgob heroes, you likely stand a good chance at winning at the displeasure of you opponent. Much in the same way a standard dwarf gunline works, except with powerful magic instead of powerful anti-magic.
The issue being that it’s not what many would consider a fun army to play against. I kind of feel that seeing as the acceptance of our list is shakey already, it would be better I feel to take a balanced army and to kind of “comp” yourself to not having more than two or so warmachines, and use some of the more offensive elements in our army to do your damage.
I think many just get frusterated because by the time they are done face potentially 2-4 rounds of shooting from a dwarf artillery line AND magic, they don’t have enough bodies to beat our dwarf hordes that have great armor, weaponskill, and toughness.
So basically, you will have a balanced list yes, but it’s kind of up to you as it’s based mostly on army composition, but even considering, our gunlines are THAT horrible in my experience. I usually take a Magma Cannon, Deathshrieker, and Hellcannon at 2400 points, and I RARELY get complaints. I choose to focus more on infantry, fire daemons, and bull centaur.
I hope this helps!
rpitts2004:
out of two tournaments and other friendly games I have only had one complaint about the destroyer as it ate 40 dwarf rangers, an organ gun and fled off a unit of gw warriors. Best I have places is 4th out of 10, So I think it’s pretty balanced.
Baggronor:
It’s a wonky list that is badly written and lacks the synergies of 8th ed books.
The dirty builds can compete through sheer brute force (Destroyer + double Magma Cannons, etc) but it’s likely not fun for your opponent.
The more relaxed builds (read: no Destroyer, 1-2 war machines) will be at a disadvantage vs the 8th books when it comes to versatility imo. A lot of the time, you’ll find that you can’t chop and change units that much as everything is so expensive and 50% of the choices are rubbish.
But if you love Chaos Dwarfs, there shouldn’t even be a debate
vulcanologist:
Play for fun. Try Thommys list!
nilbog:
You could try proxying with whatever models you have before you decide.
I like the list, there is a lot of opportunity for scratch building/converting. While there may only be one ‘tournament’ build, there are other ways to play with the LoA list: infantry heavy, lots of fast monsters with a lord on a choice of monsters, gunline :mad, magic heavy…
Grimstonefire:
due to lack of 'official' support from GW (barring the recent FW bits and bobs) they might not be very competative against the current armies of 8th edition.
This is an interesting point of view. Being official or not is a seperate issue to being competitive. One does not depend on the other.
rpitts2004:
I would say having an offical FAQ update is a good sign…
Karring:
IMHO, LoA list is balance, indeed: they have powerfull warriors, machines and magic but with a high cost, a little like Warriors of Chaos.
They lacks of variety, that is true, but even so, I made few different lists of Chaos Dwarfs- close combat, gunline or mixed.
Thommy H:
It’s balanced against other armies, because some of the choices are sub-optimal (Infernal Guard with any weapon options, Ironsworn) and some are extremely good (Magma Cannon, Destroyer). A mix of these will produce a balanced list. However, the options in each category aren’t balanced against each other - no one’s taking a unit of Ironsworn instead of an Iron Daemon, for example - and there are only a small number of viable builds.
Also, as Baggronor says, this leads to two extremes: you either play nice, and get slaughtered, or you take all the best stuff and no one has much of a good time. The list isn’t very interesting, I find, and doesn’t have much going for it besides being “official Chaos Dwarfs”.
cornixt:
It’s the Infernal Guard that cause the problems. If they had some reasonably priced options you could make a much larger variety of feasible lists
Discoking:
It's the Infernal Guard that cause the problems. If they had some reasonably priced options you could make a much larger variety of feasible lists
cornixt
Not just Infernals...
The solo Lord choice is restricting.
The BC Hero has limits like it cannot be the general & must have a unit of BC.
No scout options.
BC have 2 attacks... Fireborn have 2 wounds...
Some pricing issues for ironsworn amongst other units.
I like the list, there's just a lot of little niggly bits you can only find in a FW book.
I keep telling myself "this is just the LoA, the real Chaos Dwarfs are out there with awesome machines, infantry & monsters".
Animatone:
All and all it does balance out like Thommy says, but just as with any force you run into a problems if you like a certain style of play (lots of foot troopers, large creatures, cavalry etc.) because the CD’s potency is limited in range. If you’re looking to win games, the army is what it is and you can search this forum and pick the brains of many extremely seasoned CD players and find a force list the get’s you the W, but if you’re a hobbyist who likes to make themed armies that just so happen run with other 8th edition forces and make it interesting in a competitive game play sense, then FW CD’s probably are not for you. Not unless you like to struggle to win when you pick a variety of lists, that is unless you run Destroyers, Mamma Cannons, a gun-line and/or Deathshreikers down the table. The list is thin and somewhat inflexible, Internals are expensive, shooting is nasty, Ironsworns are real pricey, and the hobgoblins are what they are. You can’t really stretch the list like other forces such as Empire, O&G and VC’s, but then again OK’s are finda the same to that degree. It’s just the nature of the beast.
I pick my army’s solely on if I like the story first, figures second, probably cost third and lastly competitiveness, but then again I’m not a gamer, but rather a grown man who likes little solider and monster figures to paint up and make “look cool” when I get the time (or at least that’s what my girlfriend says). Games are kinda the icing on the cake of Warhammer when my friends are over, but the conversation about stories, army construction, strategy and the overall hobby aspect of it are my sustenance and tide me over enough to not sweat the details of will I win when I play or not.
Hope that helped?
And I personally think the CD’s rock!
Skamandude:
Thanks for all the replies guys, i think truth be told i like the lore and models far too much to switch to any other army. I appreciate many of your views on balance and army composition.
I worry that my initial post came off as slightly childish in a ‘yeah, but will i WIN?!’ kinda way. which wasn’t my intention at all. i share the opinion of many of you that the stories emerging from the games irrespective of the victor are what makes warhammer a fun hobby. i lose count of the amount of laughs we’ve had over any given match during which either of our wizards exploded or had a huge unit run off the table.
funnily enough winning takes a back seat to stuff like that 
ill definitely be getting hold of Tamurkan sometime soon and ill give Thommys book a read, although my mates will take some convincing to play me using rules from ‘teh interwebz’ - tsk, no faith!
Anyway, thanks again guys!
Animatone:
Nice!
Welcome aboard then.
Essentially i just want to know if i should expect money spent on CDs to net me some balanced games of WH rather than just a painting/modeling project!