Beasts, Dwarves and Swords?

I am new to Mordheim and Im planning on starting the game at my club.
My warbands of choice are Beastmen and Dwarves.
But what are the pros and cons of these 2?
And which Hired swords are best used with them?
Thanks in advance

Beasts
Pros: T4, many starting heroes have St4, fast, hard hitting and access to Chaos Rituals. The Centigor--faster, more attacks. The Minotaur--the BEST big guy.
Cons: low leadership, no shooting, poor choice of hired swords. The Centigor is a drunk.
Hired swords: "A Beastman warband may never hire any HS unless specifically stated with the HS." This rule causes problems as the Beastmen are one of the last semi-official warbands written and most official HS were written before the rule was. A list would have been more helpful. My group allows the Warlock, the Witch and the Ogre Bodyguard, plus any chaos specific un-official HS.

Dwarfs
Pros; T4, Great shooting and close combat potential, hard to kill, rich, high leadership.
Cons: Slow, limited numbers, expensive to recruit and equip.
Hired swords: large selection to choose from including many other dwarfs. HS can be used to increase the speed of the warband or shooting or combat. Very versatile.

There is also the Cursed Hillman available to Beastmen, who was in an issue of Fanatic Online. I'm affraid I don't have the pdf saved, however. Anyone else have it handy?

The Dwaves seem to be quite good then. No cons that the pros dont more than compensate for. Maybe?

And the Beasts. Can they run without HS? Are they Ok play?

I have found this really nice .xls file that shows what warbands can take what Hired Swords. I have no idea where I found it, but it seems to be very accurate.

I uploaded it for anyone interested, right here.

And for those who don't have Excel or Numbers, here's quick overview what the Beastmen and Dwarf warbands can have.

Beastmen:
Beggar, Cursed Hillman, Duelist, Emissary of Chaos, Fallen Sister, Highwayman, Imperial Assassin, Ogre Bodyguard, Ogre Slave Master, Old Prospector, Pit Fighter, Slaver, Tilean Marksman, Warlock, Witch.

Dwarfs:
Arabian Merchant, Beast Hunter, Beggar, Bounty Hunter, Duelist, Dwarf Pathfinder, Fallen Sister, Halfling Knight, Halfling Scout, Highwayman, Human Scout, Imperial Assassin, Kislev Ranger, Ogre Bodyguard, Pit Fighter, Road Warden, Swashbuckler, Tilean Marksman, Trollslayer Pirate, Warlock, Witch, Witch Hunter, Wood Elf Hunter.

Note that most of these are Unofficial.

Hope this helps a bit!

Let me put it this way: if you're a guy who likes going 'waaaagh!" and charging in recklessly, Beastmen are your kind. If you play beasts hesitantly, you will lose.

If you are little more patient, can compromise with a few pieces of the pie (rather than expecting to scoop up every piece of wyrdstone), and don't mind being the slow moving iceberg that you are in complete control of, go with the dwarves. If you never, ever think about your limitations, you will lose with dwarves.

(personally, I'm a dwarf-man, but that's 'cause I've loved them since 5th edition first came out.)

The dwarves are very appealing to me for some reason.
Not sure why because Im not keen on them in any other game system.

Apart from gaming, my other love in life is Pirates!
I have just found the PDF for them and Im very tempted to do them instead of Beasts.
Any advice or comments on them?

Personally I find pirates to be fun, but a tad bland as far as their rules go. Other than a few skills and pieces of equipment there's not much more to them than there is to mercenaries. I do have a pirate warband, though, and I enjoy playing them. I'm not so keen on swabbies, and tend to avoid henchmen that can't gain xp unless they've got something else going for them (at least most animals move fast or hit hard).

Heh. On a scale of 1 to 10, how shameless/beardy would it be to plug the Dwarf Slayer Pirate Warband of my site?
http://sites.google.com/site/styroheim/

heh heh...

you might be hovering on the border between 10 & 11! Kidding, of course.

Badger: the Slayer Pirate Warband might be the perfect compromise for what you're considering, so give 'em a shot! They're pretty versatile, thematically, so you should be able to fit them into most settings, too, in the event that you guys aren't playing a Sartosa campaign.

I think the Dwarves are going to be a definate.
But I like to run 2 for each spec game. Adds to variety and helps get others into the game before they buy anything.
Are the Pirates different enough from the Mercs to be fun?

I think so, I mean to me it boils down to the character of the warband, not the rules. If you like pirates, then you'll have fun running a pirate warband even though they're similar to mercenaries. Similarly if you like barbarians then you'll probably enjoy the Middenheimer warband, even though they're not much different from the Marienbergers.

I think Dwarves and Pirates will be the way forward for me. Now to just sort out models and how to arm them.