PLEASE HELP: Dwarves vs Orcs

[John Warhammer]

So I just got this game and have been playing as the Dwarven Realms as dwarves are my favorite fantasy race. My friends tell me in this game they also have great artillery and are good a turtling. Two of my favorite things in strategy games. However, THE ORCS FROM THE SOUTH ALWAYS ♥♥♥♥ ME OVER.

It seems like no matter what I do, they crush me. If I'm aggressive, they sneak behind me and get my settlements while my main army is on the offensive. Either that, or by time my army has reached their capital, they've amased 3 or 4 armies and I can't do ♥♥♥♥. If I play defensive and wait for thunderers and longbeards, they just plow over me with multiple 20 stack armies. My units are also expensive to maintain, so it's not like I can have 3 armies running around attacking and defending. The best I've ever been able to maintain is one 20 stack and one at like 15. What the actual ♥♥♥♥ am I supposed to do. I feel like I loose the game every time in around an hour and a half all because of those stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ orcs.

Note: While I'm newish to this game, I'm not new to the total war franchise. I get the basic mechanics and how things work, the orc faction(s) just keep absolutely destroying me.

[Andrewbh2003]

dwarfs have become significantly harder over the games life cycle they were very easy 4 years ago...not so much now

there very difficult at the start as your start is very delicate as greenskins are gonna rush you and the rework/buff they got only made things harder for dwarfs

my advice try and rush black crag "grimgors capital" its very rich and easy to defend and if you take it you essentially cripple the greenskins permanently

you can take it by turn 11 if you can use your army as early game greenskin armies "exception being skulkers" cant really get through all that dwarven armour

alternatively try a easier race before you dive in to dwarfs

[yuzhonglu]

The Dwarves, unfortunately, suck. They don't get magic, their growth is super slow, their battle income is worse than almost anyone else's, and they start in the cruddiest location on the map. They have a bloated tech tree with waaaaaay too many prerequisites, and right now their campaigns tend to be utter disasters.

They need to be in the next DLC after the Wood Elves and get a proper rework.

You're like the second person in the last 24 hours to make a thread about their Dwarven campaign and how it's gone horribly, horribly wrong.

[yuzhonglu]

I thought the topic of this thread was Dwarves. Not me. Your behvior, Bruce Magician, is extremely rude, bordering on harassment, as you've been rude to me in multiple occasions and in multiple threads over the past two weeks. Please stick to the topic and refrain from personal insults.

[Dreagon]

Try to build up the two minor settlements in your starting province to level 3 and build the garrison structure in those settlements. At level 3 that structure gives your settlements walls, making them basically invulnerable against medium sized armies. You start at peace with Grimgor now so make use of that by going to the north and take that province. Mount Gunbad is a city with a goldmine and a unique structure that gets you 1500 gold. If you wipe out the orcs in both settlements in that province (the same orcs that start in your starting province) your northern border is usually safe because Karak Kadrin will usually take control of at least their own province so you have an ally there. After that go south and declare war on Grimgor and take Black Crag. That also has a gold mine, giving you more money. Once you take that province as well you're in a pretty decent position.

[yuzhonglu]

The problem is that half the time Grimgor declares war on you while you're moving North to Mount Gunbad.

[solidap]

You don't need to wait for Thunderers and Long Beards to beat Greenskins. Basic dwarf warriors are more than a match for any Greenskin infantry aside from Black Orcs and Quarellers will tear them all apart. Quarellers are a huge part of dwarf turtle strategy. Thunderers are for armor penetration and you don't need that against Greenskins unless they're stacking Black Orcs (and if they are that early in the game then it's kind of bad luck lol)

It's important to build up your economy as quick as possible. Dwarves have one of the best in the game. Get the unique building built in all of your capital cities, usually some kind of mine, which generates huge amounts of revenue. Then boost it even more with economy buildings and set up as many trade deals as you can. If you're being invaded, you need to build a garrison in your border settlements (the ones on the outside of your borders open to assault).

And don't underestimate or neglect your legendary lords or your thanes. With some levels on them they can stand toe to toe with swarms of non Black Orc infantry, they will help you quite a bit.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Bruce Magician:

Ignore anything that Yuzhonglu says for starters. He thinks he is funny.

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

I thought the topic of this thread was Dwarves. Not me. Your behvior, Bruce Magician, is extremely rude, bordering on harassment, as you've been rude to me in multiple occasions and in multiple threads over the past two weeks. Please stick to the topic and refrain from personal insults.

OP, they've been at it for a while now so you can do whatever you want with their comments. Bruce Magician isn't wrong, yuzhonglu is very opinionated, if he thinks something sucks, it sucks. If he found an easier cheese method to win, he'll swear by it like it's the only way to win.

That being said, he's also right. Dwarfs get shafted up their stunty butts now by Greenskins' newest reworks. Greenskins used to have an infighting attrition which you'll see if you play Warhammer 1. In addition, they didn't have scrap upgrades, didn't have a map-wide buff with +25% armor-piercing damage, +25% base weapon damage, +24 melee attack and Immune to Psychology or something... Under those circumstances, Dwarfs can 1v2 Greenskins no problem. Now though; that map-wide buff is too crazy overpowered, and it can be used more than twice per battle.

Engaging the Greenskins in prolonged melee combat now is suicide because melee combat is what charges up that map-wide buff. Dwarfs used to fight a battle of attrition but now, you either decimate the Orcs at range or they ♥♥♥♥ you up in melee doesn't matter who you are.

You must get Lightning Strike if you want to win against Greenskins. Their new Waaagh! armies are basically cheating. When they have effectively two armies and they need to fight in melee to charge their map-wide buff; you can imagine how no one can beat them unless they use Lightning Strike which forces them to fight 1v1 with you, without the reinforcement of their Waaagh! army.

Anyway for campaign, now you need to fill up your army with nothing but Quarrellers and Underway to Black Crag right after you've taken back the province your capital is in. Take Black Crag and turtle in it. Grimgor is your worst nightmare, second to that is Wurrzag. But Wurrzag is easier to deal with since he's further away from you.

Once you have Organ Guns, you'll start to make a comeback against Greenskins.

But unfortunately, my advice is don't play Dwarfs at all. Because just when you think Grimgor/Wurrzag is bad; check out Snikch. That guy will wreck anything you bring to him. Skaven ambush is too OP and I don't think Dwarfs have much means to defend against ambushes. Their end game is all about missile units and artillery, both of these get wrecked by ambush battles.

CA did a bad job with this Greenskins rework. They made them too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ powerful. Next is the High Elves... Those Archmages are downright OP right now. Not only are they on Moon Dragons but if they have Incendiary trait, you're looking at 1k weapon damage, two-thirds of that is armor-piercing damage too. It's like a foot lord wielding a Sword of Khaine...

[Xaphnir]

What difficulty is this on?

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

What difficulty is this on?

And on this note: don't play legendary difficulty with Dwarfs the way they are now. Hell, I play on Normal and I don't want to play Dwarfs. Grimgor is not the problem. Snikch is...

[Dreagon]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

What difficulty is this on?

And on this note: don't play legendary difficulty with Dwarfs the way they are now. Hell, I play on Normal and I don't want to play Dwarfs. Grimgor is not the problem. Snikch is...

He is a pain. That's why I made peace with Grimgor as fast as I could after taking Death Pass and the skaven declaring war. And didn't stop the war against them until they were exterminated.

[Lady MacBeth]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

What difficulty is this on?

And on this note: don't play legendary difficulty with Dwarfs the way they are now. Hell, I play on Normal and I don't want to play Dwarfs. Grimgor is not the problem. Snikch is...

Snitch wasn't a huge issue in my legendary campaign. A few ambushes of my own got him on the back foot that between mine and grimgors assaults with the gold mines from home town, gunbad and black crag was able to wipe him out fairly handily. Honestly was tougher going back and cleaning up grimgor after our peace had ran out of benefits for me and I wanted the rest of the provinces we were sharing.

[wrought82]

I found its fairly random how hard it is to play dwarves atm. they defo got a LOT harder over time, first getting a rat infestation leaving their previous nicely isoated start location suddenly a free for all and then with greenskin getting a (deserved) powerbuff.
but its far from every game either one is an issue. some games your dwarf and empire neighbours will push hard on the greenskin and you wont get backstabbed at all, some games you face grimgor backed by 25 settlements in turn 15, so yeah thats the first bit to know, you may have to start over if your neighbours fall like dominos before you get started.
turtling may work but i prefer to just rip off the bandaid and go for some early hard fights in order to stabilize in a green♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ world. you can take on greenskin really fast, go for quarrellers fast and hard, you need just a handfull or less warriors in your army, get the technology buffs for quarrellers (about +30% damage!) they become murder machines and learn to put your units in ranked formation so even when the enemy joins melee most of your ranged can still fire

[MigraineMax]

I say, learn from the greats. I've been playing this game for a long time now, but only after watching fun Youtube videos showing how to play certain types of battles have I been able to punch above my weight level in battles. I recommend Legenoftotalwar. There are so many little quirks that he can work around to save disaster battles, even if he resorts to "cheese" sometimes. There are dozens of such Youtubers, but Legend has taught me tactics that help in hard battles.

[Morbidius]

Start as the slayer lord Ungrim Ironfist. He has a more relaxed starting position.

Otherwise if you still want to start as High King or the White dwarf I would stay in the starting province and defend it. Until the small settlements are grown to level 3 and you build defenses in each of them so they both have walls. After that kill the greenskin armies that attack you. When you have wiped them out advance and take their stuff. Your gaol is to take Black Crag since they probably recruit most of their advanced troops from there.

[JODEGAFUN]

If you do not want to start with Ugrimm, start with the White Dwarf. Rush instant lightning strike one the blue line (and go for recruitment lv +3). Every unit you get start with 3lv then, a huge buff if you inverst then into red line. The Thorgrimm is way harder as you need lightning strike and his blue line is trash.