Sounds like the new Iron Hills dwarves are Khazad Guards with spears and a D8 shield (inclusief wall bonus). That, plus a Bodyguard bonus for being near Dain, and cheap heroes courtesy Champions of Erebor.

Doesn't that make every other Dwarf army obsolete?

How do you fight that thing?

I don't know much about the actual game but looking at the profiles for Iron Hills I only see hard to kill melee units and a few strong heroes. They lack magic and cavalry.

For sure they are strong and cool, but they do look balanced to me.

Compared to Durin's Folk, they lack bows, Iron Guard, Vault Warden teams (ever so slightly tougher), Shieldbearers, Floi, the King's Champion. They probably pull off the shield/spearwall better than the Warriors of Erebor, but do cost 20% more than those, or a third more than those in the front rank not equipped with spears. Come the new army organisation rules next year, they may also have a very different group of potential allies.

As for ways to combat them, that'll be interesting to see. Disrupting the line will be paramount, albeit tricky (Courage-based techniques to lure some away won't work). Magic would be the way to go, or somehow getting rid of Dain. Alternatively, striking against Courage with spooky swords will do just fine, not to mention that any S3 model with an axe/S4 model needs 6s as usual. Let's also not forget that Dwarves weren't exactly seen as especially competitive before now, and these still struggle with their usual weaknesses: they'll be a very small force (if forced to, deploying single-line negates the use of their spears and shieldwall), and terribly slow. Upcoming cavalry may provide some speed, but those are bound to be very expensive.

Seems that Their lack of cavalry will be fixed with goat riders.
As for magic, that's a weakness every good force, elves asides, has.
Their price is the real downfall. Their basic troops are elites and priced as such while the cheaper heroes (so far) are pretty much worthless

The biggest thing for me about the new profiles is the power of the ballista. It seems overlooked. It has it's flaws as with all siege weapons; but the ability to negate arrow lines firing at blocks of your troops is huge. Add to that the knockdown and volley fire; you can see it shooting at pesky shamans hiding behind shieldwalls and still managing to potentially knock down the front line, if place right, ready for that charge.

I was just about to comment on that. At a larger point field battle it seems pretty destructive, especially with the anti-arrow ability. It seems like it would see much more use bigger in non-siege battles for that aspect.

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Forlorn, I remove my Iron Guard from the pile of Goblins; just staring at that 6 with disbelief.

I think the ballista doesn't do much for the dwarves, I mean think about how few wounds you'll get against the d8 dwarves marching forward. It does make other armies come to them though, which I think is a little underrated and not because of the shot blocking but by raining down str8 shots with aoe. Allied in to any other army it seems super busted.

The ironhills dwarves themselves seem pretty good but I think fairly balanced. I am a little worried about the Champs of Erebor going bonkers though leading them. Dwalin, Dain Thorin? Free heroics, all mounted, with two str 5 with plus ones to wound?! Uhhhck. I know that's a pricey trio but yikes. I thought the champs seemed strong before they could lead troops lol.

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Cheers,

P

I think it depends on wheter or not the dwarves will have a ranged option. At a certain point in the movie we say them shoot lots of missile weapons against trolls, and crossbows have been rumored for a long time. Having access to crossbow will force the opponent to come closer as soon as possible. With good positions, even knights of rivendell will avoid shoot and run tactics against sturdy crossbowmen (crossbowdwarves?)

Plus, the ballista shoots on 4+. A couple of bad rolls in a row and they may be done with. Plus, there's always that 1/6 chance of rolling 1 on the scatter roll. As it is, the ballista is not expensive, considering that it comes with 4 dwarves; however, an engineer captain is needed to make the most of it, and that boost it to 165 points at least.

By the way, I am the only one who noticed that there's no profile for the engineer captain? Is he strenght 5?

The ranged attack that happens in the film is they throw there spears at the trolls!

The only crossbows I remember are the repeating machine gunesque things mounted on the chariots. Cost like 25 points but shoot twice? Veeery untolkieny in my opinion. Straight up crossbows I'd be ok with and honestly would be good to add a little variety for the dwarves. That and the ram riders they'd have a pretty fleshed out list.

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Cheers,

P

Guess thats true. I guess it's powerful enough with the regular shot and the anti-arrow is just a bonus.

Do you mean busted like overpowered? Or just really good?

Also, I doubt it would be useful in the book scenarios, as you'd have to have a large point value for it to be useful. But also, since in those scenarios armies don't deploy in typical line fashion, but rather scattered, which could leave it exposed and in a poor position to fire.

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Forlorn, I remove my Iron Guard from the pile of Goblins; just staring at that 6 with disbelief.

Apparently, crossbows have been confirmed.
So Iron hills dwarves now officially have siege weapons, plenty of heroes (many profiles changed for the best), spears, crossbows, 2 handed weapons and cavalry and that beast of a chariot.

For the chaps that have yet to get the book, what models can take a banner? And war horn?

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Raugnir
sindarin for demon slayer
raug-dagnir

Heh. They're Isengard with better heroes now. Still, they don't have a wizard who can lead them so Isengard will still have that going for them. They honestly feel pretty freakin good. When you think about list building though, they can't take all of that stuff until you get to 800-1000 points so likely it will 2 warbands with a couple strong heroes, and various upgrades which, as good as the troops and the heroes are, is still going to struggle against lots bigger numbers of other good troops, which are cheaper or have cheaper heroes. Maybe a champs list with all the cheap ones, Dori, Nori and Thorin? At like 600 could get close to 3 full warbands which could get scary. But if they take Dain and someone else you aren't going to get more then 2 warbands up till 700 I bet, which is almost always going to be out numbered. They'll definitely crush other armies like that though. Namely elves, and armies of men minus maybe Harad? I dunno. Its cool to see such an expanded list with some really fun rules though and I don't think they'll ruin anything too badly but they will definitely be relevant and do well I am sure.

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Cheers,

P

I’ve played against them 3 times now. Once with Moria, and twice with Gundabads. My conclusion is that they are not overpowered by any means.

In the Moria fight, they didn’t have access to a ballista as it wasn’t released yet (opponent was using proxies). My boys got the better of them. Admittedly I did get a lot of 6s that game. What I’ve observed is that it’s not as easy to maintain the shield wall as it may sound. i.e. after taking the first charge they will start to counter attack and then they inevitably become D7. If you have numbers you can roll enough dice to get those 6s.

In the second game (reconnoiter) the dwarves made no attempt to cross the board. Rather they blocked my crossing successfully. Here I got to experience the ballista. It rolled poorly and killed maybe one guy. In the end though Dain went into beast mode. My army got broken, and Bolg wounded. So I lost even though the dwarves made no attempt to cross the board.

In the third game (Hold ground?) with the same forces as game 2, I got the slugfest that I wanted. My normal philosophy is to grab the objective and make the enemy take it from me. Much easier to hold it than to take it. So Bolg and his warband sat on the center hill. My second warband was to the left ready for a quick flanking attack. And Yazneg and two other hunter orcs prepared for a quick cavalry end run around the left to get at the ballista. The dwarves deployed near the left hand warband and were all clustered around the ballista. So the second warband engaged at a numerical disadvantage, and Yazneg didn’t have space for the end-run (it was a known risk deploying him there, but I was willing to take the chance. This time it didn’t work out). Meanwhile Bolg and his boys were just going to be ballista fodder on the hill.

Once again the ballista didn’t really do any damage. But its damage potential forced me to change the way I played. Bolg had to charge – both to help the other warband, and to neutralize the ballista. The Ballista is still subject to “Good” shooting rules i.e., it can’t take a shot that might result in friendly fire. So the best way to neutralize it is to get into the melee and deny it any targets. In the end, my boys got the better of the dwarves. But the ballista, with no shooting to do, skirted to my right and got on the hill. A technical victory for the dwarves, but I felt like a winner since my boys virtually exterminated them – and it was fun.

Yeah that sounds about right. I bet the balista, is a waste up until like 700-1000 and even then I feel like I'd rather take a chariot for a big model.
I've played a couple games with and against the dwarves, against Isengard, and Moria at about 500-600 points and I don't think the dwarves won either game. That being said, I think str 4 armies that can have more troops like Moria and Isengard are are probably two of the best armies to deal with the dwarves. I am not sure I'd want to play against them with elves or Minas Tirith though.. They'll have as many troops or more and you're wounding on 6 by 4 and they're wounding on 4s or 5s? And winning fights a little less then half against elves but more then half against men from more armies aaaand their heroes are bigger and better then yours.
I do think a dwarf spam list would be pretty scary. If you could 30 dwarves in at 500-600 I think you could give some armies a real scrap.

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Cheers,

P

Right. If the ballista were traded for more troops it could have been a completely different fight. But I think the ballista will give good armies fits, especially elves, by denying shooting attacks. Forcing the elves to come to you would be a welcome change.

30 dwarves at 600pts!
Easy,
Fili-10 IH dwarves
Kili-10 IH dwarves
Other hero-9 dwarves(1 banner)
Lol

If I go with Ironhills ill turn a bit more movie fluff

Dain
Ironhills warriors
Ironhill captains

(later on goat riders and maybe just 1 chariot or 2)
I doubt ill need more than this as I´ll have to trust on the numbers and the captains 5+ to repeat heroic actions within 6" of enemy heroes which can prove handy.

The only thing I do not fit in a ballista its for the chance of being forced to put it within the front 12" margin... it can be extremely annoying on an already elite army to cover all the spots to protect the ballista while you reposition it into a place where it can be usefull.. and even then, it wont shoot at stuff if you got your own forces nearby. (a cunning enemy commander will know where to put stuff nearby yours, so it denies your ballistas shoots at).

Ooof yeah with the banner that's pretty nasty. That list is scary I think.

I don't think the balista ruins elves that badly at the lower points costs cause when I've done it I've killed 2-3 dwarves with shooting before combat so they're basically buying the balista to save 3 dwarves. It will definitely kill some elves too but I am guessing the crossbows will take out just as many elves and be way cheaper. I think at like 700-1000 it starts to be more relevant and its definitely true with the balista up you smash armies with lots of bows I guess I just think you already will.

I agree with galanur though! That's what I'll be building up. I've got Dain and a couple boxes of warriors. I really like the captain's profile but I might put Balin or Dwalin in there leading too. Fill out with the crossbows and a few goats! Maybe a chariot at bigger games, but probably not the champs version.

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Cheers,

P