Hammerers - Always seem useless to me?

[Tom]

I know they have AP, but they don't seem to be pulling their weight. They just seema bit 'meh' to me.

[Chibbity]

AP troops are really only good when they are being used to counter armored units.

Aside from that, I know very little about the Dwarfs so...hopefully someone else can give us more details on the particular unit.

[harleyquinrazer]

Armour piercing, but weaker attack and defence stats compared to standard longbeards. They're an upgrade compared to longbeards with great weapons, but players have quite a few options for armour piercing damage in dwarf armies.

[Gray Riders]

I find they'll win unit to unit VS Black Orcs, but they're much less durable and generally seem less effective as a result--Hammeres that get shot at or surrounded die a lot faster than said Black Orcs. The big problem with them is that Dwarfs generally favor defensive tactics where they use their ranged units to do damage and their infantry have a defensive role, reinforced by Dwarf units having weak charge ratings. Top end Dwarf armies usually use a ton of ironbreakers backed by massed ranged units as a result.

Hammerers do incredible damage in hand to hand, but I'm not sure including them in a standad Dwarf defense formation is cost effective. I'm uncertain how a more offensive top end dwarf army with swarms of hammerers instead of ironbreakers would do.

[harleyquinrazer]

Originally posted by Gray Riders:

Hammerers do incredible damage in hand to hand, but I'm not sure including them in a standad Dwarf defense formation is cost effective. I'm uncertain how a more offensive top end dwarf army with swarms of hammerers instead of ironbreakers would do.

More kills by the infantry, but more losses if the opposition fields ranged units and/or artillery. Because they have much lower defence values compared to even longbeards plus a middling armour rating (by dwarf standards), the infantry they kill in hand-to-hand combat will also take some fighters with them to the afterlife.

[TVMAN]

I never saw a reason to take them over Great Weapon Longbeards. Sure, Ironbreakers are better in melee; but GW Longbeards are cheaper, have a leadership aura, anti-charge, anti-fear, and armor-piercing. I'll take a couple units of hammerers in my main stack for flavor reasons, but GW Longbeards fill out the anti-armor role in my other stacks in the campaign.

[Glaeken]

For getting the best out of hammerers, they need extra attention ! I generally find them useful when greenskins start fielding a lot of black orcs and chaos and their tons of chosen come knocking at your Karak gates. I typically field two in each of my armies and micro manage them a lot to almost exclusively a flanking role when heavily armored units have engaged my ironbreakers line. I just watch out for rear attacks especially from cavalry but they're most of the time doing fine and rack up quite a decent amount of kills ...

[maurinusa]

They hit hard, but when I played as Dwarves it felt like they just died too quickly. Like someone else said, Dwarves are typically very defensive and need to outlast and wear down their enemies. Hammerers just didn't have enough defense for my taste :)

[Shirome Artiste]

Hammerers are remarkably fragile compared to pretty much the entire dwarf infantry roster. That said though, IF you face a foe with a lot of heavily armored non-melee specialized infantry(anti-infantry infantry still gets hurt but decimates your hammerers) they get to shine. Problem is though, if there's one thing dwarfs don't struggle with it's a melee slugfest. Ironbreakers, longbeards, lords themselves, quarrelers&thunderers being able to hold mainline in a pinch, very good AP artillery all make holding your main line not much of an issue.

Ergo, hammerers tend to be overlooked in a way, being specialized for something the dwarfs don't really struggle with. Doesn't help that they are very much a lategame unit that doesn't bring extremely much of an improvement over midgame units until you get to VERY lategame research techs.

Doesn't mean they're bad units though. I tend to take a couple of them in a stack to just circle around my ironbreakers and hit people in the back/side because ironbreakers alone will take a bit of time to grind down the opposition. That said though, if you're playing custom games or are short on cash longbeards with great weapons do(pretty much, albeit admittedly a wee bit worse) the same job as can openers/flank hitters as hammerers do.

[Gray Riders]

Originally posted by Shirome Artiste:

Ergo, hammerers tend to be overlooked in a way, being specialized for something the dwarfs don't really struggle with. Doesn't help that they are very much a lategame unit that doesn't bring extremely much of an improvement over midgame units until you get to VERY lategame research techs.

Doesn't mean they're bad units though. I tend to take a couple of them in a stack to just circle around my ironbreakers and hit people in the back/side because ironbreakers alone will take a bit of time to grind down the opposition. That said though, if you're playing custom games or are short on cash longbeards with great weapons do(pretty much, albeit admittedly a wee bit worse) the same job as can openers/flank hitters as hammerers do.

I think this is the thing; Hammerers fill a role, they do that role really well, but it's not an issue the Dwarfs often have and they're incredibly expensive, with other units fulfilling the same role, not nearly as well, but much cheaper and available much earlier. If they had Black Orc tier durability they'd be amazing.

I wonder how Hammerers with their current TT stats but allowed to take a shield and use hand weapons like in 4th edition would do. Shield infantry with really high (though non-AP) attack power would be fun.

[Budoshi]

they rock and almost always got themselves 150 to 200 kills a match, just dont put them near missiles units .

[Milk]

They remind me of the nodachi samurai in SHOGUN 2. They pack a huge initial punch but have little sustain.

[RED /(Weber)\]

Originally posted by TVMAN:

I never saw a reason to take them over Great Weapon Longbeards. Sure, Ironbreakers are better in melee; but GW Longbeards are cheaper, have a leadership aura, anti-charge, anti-fear, and armor-piercing. I'll take a couple units of hammerers in my main stack for flavor reasons, but GW Longbeards fill out the anti-armor role in my other stacks in the campaign.

This is a good tip, I'll try this.

[YaMe]

Hammerers are the apex units of countering other dwarfs and that trickles all the way down to miners. This is reason they are overlooked, dwarf wars are quite uncommon on campaign unless the player goes out of his way.

[Ewalden]

I've found Hammerers to be really good at killing large creatures, such as Arachnorok, and slighly smaller things such as trolls. Hammerers are brave enough not to run away and hit hard enough to bring it down, especially if they get a bit of supporting fire or do a flanking charge. They're also pretty good at killing cavalry. What they shouldn't fight are other blocks of infantry, especially other elite infantry, as that is wasting them, and their lack of shields makes them a good target for most missile troops. Artillery can ruin Hammerers. At least, that is how I use them, and it works for me.

[Morgengrat]

Forget about them, they are useless for their price. Combination of cheaper units of the same price will do jo better 10 of 10 times. Hammerers are going to be tweaked soon or later.