Dwarf Skills

Perhaps more than any other warband, Dwarves have some tough choices to make on skills. Do you favor slayers taking slayer skills? Who gets "Master of Blades?" Does everyone get resilient and step aside first? What about turning that valuable Noble into a pistolier? Or should every hero in this cash-starved band take "Extra Tough" ASAP? Opinions?

I confess I tend to take extra-tough first, more often than not. I tend to be unlucky on the "Serious Injury" rolls. Also, I figure it is a skill that keeps them alive longer to earn additional skills. It varies from one warband to another, but with dwarves I tend to go with defensive skills first, playing to their strength.

-Michael

The Slayer's Monster slayer is one of the best skills in the game. Always wound on 4+, regardless if they have higher tough or resilient? Can't be beat.

Speaking of Resilient, that's an awesome skill for a dwarf. Resilient means Toughness 5, which effectively halves the number of S3 attacks that can wound you, and means no one without S4+ can crit on them.

If you're playing a lot of S4 players, however, Step Aside's probably the better bet.

Im currently playing dwarfs in my campaign. All games are multiplayer so far, with 4 players total. Usually my wife's Beastmen, my friend's Skaven or Witch Hunters, and his wife's Sisters.

My noble has Step Aside, he's only got one skill so far.

One of my Troll Slayers has Mighty Blows, Fearsome, and Ferocious Charge. When he charges, he attacks 5 times. It's a guaranteed stun/out of action every time.

My other Troll slayer uses a two handed weapon, and he has Strong Man and Step Aside. Strong man isn't terribly useful for a dwarf, but I hate having to go last when I charge. If he gets killed, I won't be too broken up about it, and I will bring another dual wielding Slayer in.

My engineer has Nimble and Quick Shot, so I can either move and shoot or shoot twice.

I'm really doing the theme thing for my Warband. One of the Troll Slayers is a nutso barbarian. The other is more defensive in combat (he's got two wounds).

Depending on the length of the campaign of course.. If it's a long campaign I usually get Treasure hunter as the first 2-3 skills in order to get some more money - I know dwarves are in the high end of the income pool, but it still helps a lot

I don't play dwarfs but I like the idea of getting master of blades and equiping them with two sword breakers, tht could be a real pain for your opponent, forcing them to spend their GC to replace weps insted of recruting more people

Montegue, I usually have one slayer with two weapons and one with a great weapon, since both options seem equally strong to me and it helps me tell the models apart.

I also really like how my Slayer models came out when I painted them, and like to field them. I gotta tell you, though, the raw number of 1's I've rolled on my two-hander slayer when trying to wound is fricking uncanny. He's the most incompetent troll slayer ever.

Sounds like he may be a refugee from one of my warbands...

mweaver wrote:

Montegue, I usually have one slayer with two weapons and one with a great weapon, since both options seem equally strong to me and it helps me tell the models apart.

I do the same thing with my slayers.

Like someone mentioned, I like to play on the Dwarves strenghts. This means getting Master of blades with both slayers (which then of course should be equiped with 2 Dwarf axes each). Parry two attacks at equal or better with reroll on both is pretty great.
Most of my dwarves get resilient and step aside as well.

After that is done, I usually go for offensive skills, like mighty blow and the like.

Ive now played about 10 games with my dwarves, mostly 4 players. I gotta say, they are pretty amazing when you get through a few games. In fact, Ima probably have to retire them for a while until the other warbands catch up, or folks will start throwing dice at me.

Dwarves tend to start a little slow (low starting numbers, only four heroes), but they build and build. The first three or four times people here played them, they gave up on them after three or four games. But then I was patient one campaign, and they took off. Loved them ever since.

Lack of dwarven movement works out to be a net advantage in multiplayer games - get to the fight last, and can out last the remnants of those that got into the fray first. I've had to retire them now (223 Warband Rating is just too high for the other 'bands to deal with). On to Mercs for a few games, I think. Bitzbarn needs to get my Middenheimer pieces to me, stat.