Dwarf strategy; best way to support an engaged frontline.

[bill.stevens]

As any veteran player can tell you about the Dwarfs;
1. Their killing power comes from their ranged units,
2. Their melee units are meant to hold, not kill, and
3. They are infamously immobile.

While my siege weapons may work splendidly against approaching enemies, any armor piercing unit who makes it through causes big problems, and hoards of chaff can whittle them down with sheer numbers. Because of point #3, flanking is rarely an option, leaving my poor frontline to tough it out on their own.

While the Dwarfs have many tools at their disposal, each one seems to have sever drawbacks when their own troops are in the way. Am I undervaluing these units or using them incorrectly?

Gyrocopters: extremely vulnerable to missile fire / fragile in melee / limited damage.

Slayers: picked off by cavalry/ missiles before they can flank.

Quarrelers: apparently the best option, but are prioritizing enemy ranged units and weak against armor.

Rangers: when deployed too close they are discovered and annihilated. Deployed too far away, and the battle is over before they arrive.

Irondrakes: friendly fire.

Thunderers: any gap big enough to shoot through is big enough for the enemy to move through, + not enough "wrap around" to be effective.

[Oorslavich]

Trollhammer torpedos as standard missile units, regular irondrakes folding in from the flanks, flame cannons for the enemy ranged units.

I typically form a tall trapezoid shape (open at the back usually, with the short parallel edge facing forwards) with my ironbreakers, then have my trollhammers inside, and my irondrakes at the back corners ready to wrap around and clear out the enemy infantry. Flame cannons at the back.

[Father Ribs]

Slayers are anti monster, anti calvary if you can catch them pinned on other dwarves, and will eat cheap infantry with low morale. If they can keep up, they seem to kill more routers than any other type of pursuer.

Thunderers get put on the flanks, but not in line, rather in compact rectangles or squares. Pin flankers with one dwarf unit and they'll melt to guns. Monsters and fliers also melt to thunderers. Flanking for dwarves is more likely when the battle line is fixed than when units are still moving to engage.

Quarrelers work best for me if you focus fire 2-4 units at one target at a time, it will force routs faster and prevent more damage being done to your army over time. If all the enemy missile troops are dead, and if the mail line is engaged 3 units deep (ie: one dwarf unit is being attacked by one unit of orcs and two of goblins), you can always shoot at the enemy unit that is "farthest" from the dwarf troops. Switch fire to routing enemy units with shields as they run, because missile troops are so much better at shielded infantry when they are arse-to.

Never liked Irondrakes; thunderers do the same job but are more versitile.

Rangers I only use for generals that get buffs from rangers (IE Bel). There are plenty of uses for stealthing units. You can hide your army, move a ranger in the open and have the enemy wheel to attack, giving you the positional advantage (and artillery works better going down the side of lines, rather than through them). Also, recon; some maps have terrible line of site, and if you don't have your artillery on a hill stone throwers don't need to be on a crestline to fire...as long as you have spotters).

Not a big fan of gyrocopters either.

[s†. Chris†opher]

stack a few master engineers with their buffs, and gyrocopters become disgustingly good. brimstone ones are great for taking out cavalry and large lord sniping.

an easy way to use thunderers is to spilt your front line in half and have your lord and thanes in the middle tar-pitting the AI in place while your gunners decimate the AI's middle formation.

One thing people forget, is that you can actually reshape/reform your units mid combat, making them slimmer or facing the enemy they are engage with to face your guns, essentially opening firing lanes when needed.

[Xaphnir]

Note that thunderers can actually fire over the front line if the enemy your front line is fighting is tall enough. Many orc units are tall enough for this.

Originally posted by Father Ribs:

Never liked Irondrakes; thunderers do the same job but are more versitile.

The benefit of Irondrakes is that they're way more effective at the one thing they're specialized in. Most infantry units will break after only 2-3 volleys from one unit of them.

[SarmatII]

Irondrakes are the best job to clear any type of infantry, so if thats what you need, go put them on flanks or create small gaps in your melee line.

Else, the Flame Cannon is really good for this role too, manual target them to avoid FF.

Generally, my Irondrakes tend to have 2-4x more kills than Thunderers, and their fire effect causes enemies to rout quicker.

[Sn3z]

You concentrate all artillery units on the center of armies to blow it apart, use grudge throwers on compact infantry and bolt throwers/cannon on single entity's, if anything gets close you can use Qurellerers/thunderers or weapons teams to finish it off, you need to try and make sure you don't get into a position where your have an entire wall of a frontline because it limits what you can do as dwarfs.

[yojimbo1111]

i like 2-3 thunderers to protect the back from flankers or a lord that gets a hole then move them around to the sides and make a L to shoot across the font line into the enemy's sides. This doesn't work if you play too wide. A flamethrower in the middle is great because you need a smaller hole so they are easier to protect and they can wipe out blobs of infantry and then move anywhere in the fight easily

[Aleera]

Gyrocoptors are still strong, they can hunt down Cav before you engage.
Bombers do amazing damage. Their gun does alot. Just don't send them ahead of the enemy, meaning they get shot to pieces by enemy ranged fire.

Unless your Umgrim, slayers are best kept in reserve. For the inevitable cav charge the Ai will try to do against your backline. Countercharge the cav and watch the enemy cavalry just melt.

Basic rangers are meh, greatweapon variant are extreemly strong. Bugman rangers are the Dwarf variant of Lothern Seaguard, only better.

But the most important thing for Dwarves. Either you play them as a perfect box, clumped up, with runepriests buffing them up even further.

Or you go checkerboard formation. Which is the best option if you have ranged infantry.
Never, ever, EVER. GO into lines. That's just obstructing your own field of fire and is almost all the cause of the "I got defeated as Dwarves" singleplayer issues.

[eldiabs]

Don't forget you can force fire artillery (check your hotkey, usually alt). Grudge throwers and flame cannons are insanely OP when your front lines bunch up.

[Father Ribs]

Originally posted by PhoBoChai:

Irondrakes are the best job to clear any type of infantry, so if thats what you need, go put them on flanks or create small gaps in your melee line.

Else, the Flame Cannon is really good for this role too, manual target them to avoid FF.

Generally, my Irondrakes tend to have 2-4x more kills than Thunderers, and their fire effect causes enemies to rout quicker.

Hm. I think part of the reason I don't really think about them is they're so far up the tech tree, I usually focus on more "base-level" units when playing. I'll have to recruit some up and take a second look.