Soapbox!
Soapbox!The main point of this page is to let me rant. At the moment, about dwarfs. Anyone who has a subject they wish to "talk" about should feel free to e-mail me.
5 December 1999
How many of you hate playing dwarfs? Apart from dwarf players I mean.
In my opinion, there are a lot of problems with the dwarf army list. The troops and characters themselves are fine - good selecton, well balanced, reasonable points costs - but both the runes and artillery are incredibly powerful.
Most of the war machines secton is fine - cannons, flame cannons, stone throwers, even gyrocopters - but organ guns are ridiculous. Five barrels, strength 10, D3 wounds, no armour save. All for 65 points. Cannons cost 110 for only one barrel. The only difference is a longer range (which makes no difference on the tables I play on and to a slow moving undead army) and D4 wounds. Organ guns cost 45 points less for almost 4 times the damage (3.75 times to be precise). Taking into account the half range compared to cannons, this means that organ guns should cost 206 points!
To prove it:
Cannon: One barrel, D4 wounds. Assume maximum of 4 wounds caused. 1*4 = 4
Organ gun: Five barrels, D3 wounds. Assume maximum of 3 wounds caused per shot. 5*3 = 15
15 divided by 4 = 3.75 times the damage = 3.75 times the chance of killing a vampire (or anything else!).
110 points divided by 4 wounds = 27.5 points per wound
15 wounds * 27.5 points per wound = 412.5 points
412.5 points divided by 2 (for half range) = 206.25 points
Individually, most runes are pretty acceptable in terms of points-to-capability. However, the curse rune is ridiculously powerful at 25 points. (When enemy is hit, roll D6: 3-4 enemy's strength -1, 5-6 enemy's toughness -1) using this rune almost guaruntees the dwarf's success (unless he is incredibly unlucky or gets killed first) of finishing off even the best enemy (e.g a vampire) without too much trouble, especially if the rune is combined with the rune of cleaving (+1 strength).
If runes could only be used individually or were limited more strongly (like bloodlines or virtues) there would be no problem, but at the moment they are too easy to abuse.
For example: Master rune of spite (basically a Black Amulet tht doesn't run out) and the armour of Fourtune (4+ unmodified reroll) = one almost-invincible dwarf.
I could go on for ages giving hundreds of stupid combinations, but the above is one I actually had to fight against.
For these reasons I am only going to play against dwarfs if I have to, and at some point I might possibly collect a dwarf army just to prove it is possible to create a fair one.
Boneio.