Alright kids, now it's time to whack that Dwarf piñata till candy falls out for everyone.

First, a warning. There are a lot of valid ways to build the Dwarf deck, so just because you beat one doesn't mean you beat all of the little buggers.

A decent start on a Dwarf test build would probably be to take Vitamin T's excellent GenCon winning deck and tweak it a little. Something like this:

3 Innovation
3 Demolition!
3 Master Rune of Spite
3 Stand Your Ground
2 Reclaiming the Fallen
-- 14

3 Slayers of Karak Kadrin
3 Dwarf Ranger
3 Grudgebearer
3 Dwarf Cannon Crew
2 Zhufbar Engineers
2 Zealot Hunter
3 Longbeards
-- 19

3 Warpstone Excavation
3 Contested Village
3 Mining Tunnels
3 Ancestral Tomb
2 Grudge Thrower
2 Great Book of Grudges
1 Treasure Vaults
-- 17

For those of you keeping score at home, that was -3 Burn It Down +2 Reclaiming the Fallen +1 Treasure Vaults from the original. There are a lot of different ways to go with this deck, from going back to the Burn It Down plan, adding more Vaults, playing a Lizardmen plan or running Serpent Slayers as a lategame finisher - and that's just for starters.

Alright, so how2beet? That's the million dollar question really. Master Rune of Spite kills off a lot of aggressive decks like the old Orc/Skaven rush. Reclaiming the Fallen means that heavy unit removal probably won't work. Their economy cards are better than everyone else's and the Dwarf opening turns can be pretty ridiculous in terms of the sheer number of hammers they can get onto the board.

There are weak points in there to exploit though. Slayers and Rangers are zone dependent and that's their major unit defense along with Spite. If you can deal with the Rangers then they actually have to attack you with, like, units and stuff, to win.

The first thing that comes to my mind is an aggressive Empire tempo deck. Empire has a decent number of units that don't die to Master Rune of Spite and the Empire guns (like Helblaster Volley Gun) give +damage in combat, not +power. Forced March will let you move Slayers out of the battlefield to clear the way and then the Dwarves have limited options for defense. Similarly, Wilhelm and Forced March can move Rangers out of quest.

Sadly, honestly I am terrible at building Empire decks, it just doesn't seem to work for me. Let's see your best efforts. Unless you have a better idea than Empire, in which case I'd love to see it.

Clamatius said:

Clamatius said:

**** hipocrite

Just a hint: you 2 Zealot Hunter (srsly, skaven can't live past Rune) and 2 Great Book of Grudges (you really don't need indirect damage) and include 1 Master Rune of Vallaya and 3 Order in Chaos. When you have 2 Order in Chaos and Vallaya on your hand enemy practically can't attack you with units

Nah, that's too fragile. All they have to do is respond to Order in Chaos with something that puts your stuff in your discard and the loop is broken. It may be worth running Master Rune of Valaya though, but Order in Chaos usually seems like a win-more card.

You're probably right that you don't need the Zealot Hunters right now. Skaven aren't likely to show their squeaky noses much and Iseara's fun and games get ruined by Reclaiming the Fallen anyway. Lizardmen or Errant Wolf are your most likely targets for the Zealots.

Loop is only broken when the other player actually HAS anything to respond with.

And when you can win-more why not to?

- This is madness!

- Madness? This is DWARFS!

A new age has begun. An age of Dwarfs. And all will know that less than 20 units gave their last breath to defend it. Dwarfs, tonight we Reclaim the Fallen. Give them nothing, but Spite from them everything!

We're in for one wild meta.

I think DE is up there. Dwarf is really good, but they're only really good when they're established. IMO, DE has the best disruption in the game, and they should be able to contend.

-Hate: Play on your opponent at the end of his turn to keep him from sitting on his MROS in your capital phase.

-Caught the scent: Pull the problem card, when they're sitting on a huge hand.

-Mortella: Copy the innovates and demolitions you know they have. Also re-reclaim the fallen. That would be killer.

-Witch Hag's Curse: Null Slayers, Rangers, and Grudgebearers.

-Shades: Just generally good. Also creates an interesting situation with Slayers. It's a pretty cheap way to get them to off their guy.

-Naggaroth Spearman: Unaffected by MROS.

I don't have enough knowledge of the spoiled sets to add them in, but here's what I would do for now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wandering Sacrifice x3
Dark Initiate x3
Vile Sorceress x3
Shades x3
Mortella x3
Corsairs of Ghrond x3
Naggaroth Spearman x3
Dark Riders x2
Malus Darkblade x1
Lokhir Fellheart x1

WE x3
CV x3
Har Ganath x3
Contested Stronghold x3

Innovation x3
Caught the Scent x2
Hate x3
Whip the Slaves x3
Witch Hag's Curse x2

Interesting. Don't forget that you can play Wight Lord now and Slave Pens is also really good - although I guess March isn't on general release yet so you might not have it. Strongholds are serious demolition bait, I think I'd run Treasure Vaults first so you aren't out as much when they demolish them. Whip the Slaves doesn't seem very good and I definitely wouldn't run it with Pens since they provide enough of a sacrifice outlet.

I am not sold on the heroes - they don't do enough for the cost.

Shades do die to Spite but virtually nothing else does so that's probably ok.

Dark Riders also seem awful, wouldn't you rather have Cold One Riders instead?

I could well be wrong, but I don't think this will beat Dwarves consistently although once Soul Stealer is out, maybe things will liven up in the DE camp. Fighting economy wars with Dwarves is rough unless you can nuke their supports (a la the Grimgor plan).

Clamatius said:

Yeah, I just checked it out. Slave Pens is a definite must have. I like Whip the Slaves because of the early game card advantage it can give you, but I have issues with it because you need to devote an entire tactic slot to it to use it in that way. I think Slave Pens will free up the slot just nicely.

I like Contested Stronghold because it is always a threat. Especially with our BT on wheels, Naggaroth Spearmen. Though, I would probably give the slot to Slave Pens once I got ahold of the new set. (since if you get it early, it's essentially the same thing anyway)

Clamatius said:

I think that depends. Malus isn't as great VS Dwarf, but he will tear up Empire like a chew toy since all he has to do is hang out and get you resources anyway. Lokhir I agree is not very cost effective.

Clamatius said:

Yes. I just looked at it again, and I didn't know why I was thinking they had 2 loyalty instead of 1.

Clamatius said:

Yeah, It seems like a losing battle most of the time. I just tend to burn Mining Tunnels and Grudge Throwers as I see them, taking care of those two tends to keep it from being unwinnable.

I have been thinking along the same lines as you about how to beat the dwarves and figured I would give Empire a try for the reasons you stated.

I will never claim to be a great a deckbuilder and this a is just a skeleton of a deck to begin testing. The deck was built after 2 bottles of hobgoblin ale the next night my brother and I played some games and it seemed to beat Dwarves and Thrower but it wasnt a night of solid testing but the deck showed potential.

Units

3 Huntsmen

3 Pistoliers

3 Sigmar's Blessed

3 Warrior Priests

3 Gold Wizard Acolyte

3 Talabheim Detachment

3 Wilhelm of the Osterknacht

Supports

3 Warpstone Excavation

3 Contested Village

3 Dericksburg Forge

3 Mining Tunnells

2 Griffon Standard

3 Hellblaster Volley Gun

Tactics

3 Innnovation

3 Demolition

3 Burn it Down

3 Forced March

The deck has lots of card drawing potential and builds to 6 resources really easily, although youu only need 4 to operate optimally.

The first cards i would pull are probably the support destruction now that thrower is dead. Innovation does not seem that great in here as you dont usually need the resource although they are good for late game tricks, but early you will always want to develop the Battlefield.

Anyway let me kno what you think, thought the deck was relevant.

Looks like a fine start. I'd throw some miser's 1-ofs in there during testing to help give a more varied picture of potential card interactions, even if you suspect they are terrible.

I played a lot empire and I am not very impressed of Volleyblaster. It takes you too much cards to get much use of it and you might play an extra unit as well.

When you're going with the guys-with-guns plan, I start liking Church of Sigmar but especially Iron Discipline. Discipline in response to a Slayer activation is brutal since the Slayer still dies. Rodrik's Raiders in March of the Damned is also a really good tempo card.

I'd also have Thyrus Gorman and Called Back on my shortlist of things to try. Also, I probably like Warrior Priests more than Pistoliers or Talabheim Detachment here. Sigmar's Blessed is always worth bearing in mind since if/when it dies (e.g. to Spite) it has an annoying effect.

I was thinking a really agressive Empire strategy might be good against Dwarves too... but I like Reclaiming the Fallen in that deck. I mashed my idea into your dudes-with-guns plan and came up with this...

3x Peasant Militia
3x Huntsmen
3x Gold Wizard Acolyte
2x Sigmar's Blessed
3x Warrior Priests
1x Thyrus Gorman
3x Wilhelm of the Osterknacht

3x Innovation
3x Iron Discipline
2x Forced March
3x Reclaiming the Fallen

3x Warpstone Excavation
3x Contested Village
3x Helblaster Volley Gun
2x Church of Sigmar
3x Derricksburg Forge
2x Griffon Standard
3x Runefang of Solland
3x Shrine to Taal

(51 cards)

Not sure if 18 units is too few and/or 11 "guns" is too many. I also am not in love with playing a full set of Runefangs, but I DO love playing a fullset of RTF's, so the 3rd Runefang seems neccessary. Now that I'm looking at the list, I'm pretty sure Called Back would be better in the Forced March slot. I'd love to fit in some Rokrik's Raiders, but the list is tight and I don't have my MotD boxset yet anyway.

I'll get to do some actual testing next Friday (and I should have March that day too!), but after some practice draws on deckbox, the guys to guns ratio does seem to be off.

So...

-2 Shrine to Taal
-1 Runefang of Solland
-1 Reclaiming the Fallen
-2 Forced March

+3 Rodrik's Raiders
+2 Called Back

(50 cards)

It's a thought and probably worth a try, but I think it may be getting too cute. You probably won't be able to cast RtF without a Runefang since nearly all your devs and guys will be in the battlefield, which seems sketchy. I think if you were going with that plan you'd have to do a slower version with Mining Tunnels to give you some Dwarf loyalty.

So Clamatius and I playtest dwarves v empire today. I'm driving the dwarves, with a few metagame tweaks and miser cards for testing. Things like 1x High Elf's Disdain, 1x Zealot Hunter, 2x Demolition, etc. But otherwise pretty stock dwarves. His empire brew I'll let him cover in more detail, but basically aggressive, volley gun + wilhelm plan with minor resource disruption subtheme.

We run through a couple of games, which dwarves initially take easily but he tightens up and starts learning the right lines of play.

Our last game of the day is by far the closest. Epic battles back and forth with actual blocking and combat steps more meaningful than "4 to quest, go". On the penultimate turn, I'm squeezed into 3-for-1ing myself by triple blocking his Wilhelm, but I keep my battlefield from burning.

Then I get resources, draw, ponder my options...

And I play Reclaiming the Fallen to completely blow him out.

Nice. Game.

(yes, I slowrolled it during the game too. thanks for reading!).

I'm trying to figure out how to break the Dwarf defense. The problem is really getting past the Slayers. I think the Iron Discipline track is probably wrong if you are on a Forced March / Wilhelm plan to put all his stuff in Kingdom. You can't really use his quest zone as a dumping ground because then the Rangers will kill you. Killing the Slayers usually doesn't work out well because of Stand Your Ground / Reclaim the Fallen.

Maybe there's a moderately aggressive Orc deck that gets enough Orc loyalty to straight up pay 6 for Grimgor, but isn't Troll Vomiting (which sets up RtF) or setting up Lobber Crew / Iseara lockdown. That might work. But then Master Rune of Spite is likely to be more of a problem.

I'll probably build something in DE - use Caught the Scent to pull out Reclaims - but I'm not too hopeful about that plan. Lizardmen with a Dwarf board is another plan just because you have almost all the same overpowered stuff that the Dwarves have.

Any way you slice it, it's going to be an uphill battle. There may be an answer but sadly the answer may be "wait for more BPs".

@ orc decks: agree, MROS is a serious problem, but thats only if you embrace the *aggro* aggro route and play what amounts to a pile of Skaven (whether they are rats or not). The "i love it, hit me harder" deck running Boar Boyz etc can shrug off MROS, but it also is slower than a dwarven spoon army. (That's an f-d up universe, when orcs play 4 cost dudes w/ 1 power and dwarves play Longbeards). I'm not sure Dwarves even cares about getting Grimgor'd if you're on that plan, honestly. You can't be fast enough to punish them and not get blown out by spite.

@ DE decks: might be something here. If there is, and you have the stones to play unit removal against dwarves, they start playing 1-2 Long Winters and hiding their RTFs from your disruption. (Insert side note gripe about the extensiveness of dwarves' toolbox). The dwarf deck can easily accomodate some Long Winters for value - it might be a good inclusion regardless. Spoon brigade with mild disruption v Spoon brigade with KUNG FU UNDEAD REANIMATED HORDE ACTION... I know which side I want to be on.

Another side note... why are dwarves the best undead deck?

@ Lizards... meh. Why give up SYG, Rangers, Grudge Thrower and co for a reason to play 3x MROS main? If you really want to justify 3x MROS because Skaven gets something filthy in the next battlepack, I can get on board with this, but Lizards aren't quite elegant enough of a deck to sway me, yet.

<- is on the "wait for more battlepacks" plan, personally. But, I'd love to be surprised...

Back to DE, I played an updated version of that deck I posted, and in practice I'm really liking Naggaroth Spearman.

With Dwarves, if you're building up a Naggaroth Spearmen, you fear the Slayers and the Rangers. I don't think they have any other "surprise! you're dead!" cards, do they? That's an easy way to break the dwarf defense because it has a damage bonus and not a power bonus. You don't have to fear MROS unless they have multiples.

Also, If I'm running Mortella, chances are, because of my opponent, I'll have 6x possible innovation in my deck, which will be a good boost to the spearmen and make it easier to stomach the CS if I decide to run it. (Honestly though, Slave Pen is probably better, but I like CS's synergy with innovation.)

She can bury Order in Chaos too, if they try any of that.

Dwarves have access to a ton of combat tricks and unit control, lots of which are enough to kill off the Spearmen, the question is just which ones they run. I imagine that they will play more unit control than when Thrower was around. Here's a few:

• Master Rune of Spite
• Lure Them Out
• Blessing of Valaya
• Grudge Thrower Assault
• Lizardmen

Also, if any of their Slayers are in the discard, they can Reclaim them into the battlefield when you attack and kill off your Spearmen that way,

Oh, I just had an evil thought. Grasping Darkness would let you steal their Slayers. If you do it when anyone is attacking, they will sacrifice it in response - but if you do it on your turn during your capital phase, you can attack with them then sacrifice them to themselves or Slave Pens (etc) after damage. Sadly it only gets units up to 2 cost so you can't grab their Rangers.

Clamatius said:

Yeah, it doesn't seem that there's a good reliable all-purpose unit stealer card in the current environment, Wight Lord as you mentioned probably does the job good enough though with Slave Pens to keep them recycling.

I see your point with the combat tricks. Though I feel that because Dwarf is so solid, they wont devote more than a slot to straight unit control anyway.

How many non-resource generating cards are you guys running? Roughly a quarter of your deck?

What do you think? Innovation, Demolition, MROS, Grudge Thrower and now RTF are all staples, adding much more is going to hurt the efficiency of the deck. I know the Cannon Crew gives you a little lee-way, but I would be on the safe side myself.

Like we touched on, MROS doesn't instakill the Spearmen, and anything after-the-fact like Blessing of Valaya, Grudge Thrower Assault or Savage wont prevent the initial damage that the Spearmen can inflict.

Here's an updated build, after I looked at the expansion cards, and took some of your advice into consideration.

Besides the Wight Lord, and Slave Pen, I added Veteran Sellswords for a useful, easy sacrifice, and slave driver to create some early game breathing room, and a red carpet for the spearmen later.

walking sacrifice x3
veteran sellsword x2
shades x3
vile sorceress x3
slave driver x2
naggaroth spearmen x3
mortella x3
cold one riders x3
wight lord x3

WE x3
CV x3
Har Ganath x2
Slave Pen x3
Contested Stronghold x2

Innovation x3
Caught the Scent x3
Hate x3
Witch Hag's Curse x3

@Clamatius - I thought of an even cooler way to hit them with Slayers... plus it gives you access to using some of their even more broken tricks like RTF, Mining Tunnels, SYG etc. You'll never guess what it is...

@Kefka - without thrower in the meta, the 3x Burn it Down become unit kill almost without question. At that point its just tuning, but for my part I find MROS to be a card that by its very existence means you don't have to play more than 1 - people will build around it as long as dwarves occasionally keep them honest. Slayers/SYG/RTF is really the main angle of attack for dwarves against big unit strategies, while Ranger/Grudge Thrower shores that up against smaller unit swarm. Currently my unit control suite in Dwarves is 3x Slayers, 3x SYG, 2x RTF, 1x MROS, 3x Rangers, 3x Grudge Thrower, 2x Master Rune of Valaya. The MROVs probably going to become Lure them Out (better way of dealing with opposing Slayers). So things do not bode well for your spearmen, though they are no doubt a sexy unit.

Today's question: why can RTF be played on the opponent's turn? It wasn't amazing enough as a near-guaranteed zone burning in the lategame, it had to have added value reanimating all your Slayers during their battlefield phase too? I can't think of a single other tactic on this power curve that doesn't have "play on your turn" if not "play at the beginning of your turn".

Has anyone else run into the Slayer's verse Wilhelm chicken game.

Essentially who will flinch first. Wilhelm attacks the battlefield where there is a Slayer. Now who takes their action first. If Wilhelm takes an action to move the Slayer then the Slayer takes an action to sacrifice and take out Wilhelm. If the Slayer takes an action to sacrifice and take out Wilhelm, then Wilhelm actions to move the Slayer and negate its ability as its no longer in the battlefield. Best option for Wilhelm is not to action unless the Slayer does. If the Slayer does action it either lets Wilhelm through or defends and Wilhelm damages it enough to be destroyed.

Anyways interesting game of chicken I've been noticing? Assuming I've been playing it right?

Wraith428

Not quite right. Once the slayer's ability is announced, it's sacrificed (it's part of the cost of the action), so it's not even there to send to another zone.

Usually the Deck Building Forum is not there for my kind of response. But I believe it does not matter which action is triggered first, Wilhelm's one or the Slayers' one. In the FAQ it is stated that, "[d]estruction or removal of the source at that time will not affect the resolution on the card effect." Therefore Wilhelm will be destroeyed either way.