Dwarf Army List Development

[Haravikk]

Please refer to the latest PDF for the current incarnation of the rules (v4).

Some of you may already have seen my thread about new Dwarf "mounts" here, however it's kind of spinning up into a look at what the Dwarf army book needs in the current era of extra magic heavy armies, plethora of fear causing units and so-on.

Now, I've already posted a few ideas to N0th1ng c4n b34t 3lv3s' thread which contains a number of interesting ideas already. However, I'm creating a separate thread to take a look at the list as a whole, and consider things that might make an 8th edition Dwarf list more competitive.

At present my two main concerns with the Dwarf army are, lack of units that are immune to, or able to resist being auto-broken by fear causing units. And secondly, how a lot of Dwarf equipment, despite being supposedly the best engineers in the world, keeps getting upstaged by other armies.

The rules that I currently have scribbled down mostly supplement the existing army as it is, so here goes:

Unyielding
All units within the Dwarf army form an unbreakable chain that few enemies can threaten. To represent this, when calculating a Dwarf unit's unit strength, add 5 for every Dwarf unit with at least 5 models remaining within 6", to a maximum of 10. Fleeing units do not receive or contribute to this bonus.

This rule allows even basic Dwarf Warriors to resist fear a lot more easily in a well ordered battle line, hopefully without being overpowered.

Wall of steel
Iron Breakers form an unwavering mass of armoured bodies that is near impossible to overcome. If a unit of Iron Breakers were charged in the first round of a combat, then they may negate up to 2 points of lost combat resolution. This is done last, and may not result in better than a draw. For example, if the Iron Breakers are losing a combat by 3 points, then they may negate 2 points of this and thus only lose by 1.

The idea behind this is to give Iron Breakers that extra bit of staying power, essentially making them an even better anvil unit for their points.

Gromril Armour
Gromril armour gives a 4+ armour save. In addition, it is hardened to powerful attacks, and will ignore the first point of an armour save modifier.
For example, if struck by an attack with a -2 armour save modifier, the modifier is only treated as -1.

The improvement to Gromril armour allows it to actually be the "sturdiest in the known world", so that it can compete with chaos and plate armour.

Oath Stone
After setting the oath stone, if the enemy is unable (or unwilling) to meet the Dwarf character's challenges, then he may select an ordinary rank and file model to fight instead. If the challenge is still not met, then the character will fight normally, replacing any model in his unit that is in base contact with the enemy, the Dwarf player must announce where the character is before any combat is resolved, so that attacks can be allocated normally.

The idea here is to make the oath-stone a bit more viable. If your enemy does opt to use a rank and file model, then he runs the risk of overkill points. However, the alternative is that the character has free reign of the combat, potentially striking at different enemy units in each combat phase. The idea behind this is that with his unit formed up around him, the character can direct his warriors to open a gap so the enemy can reach him, or close ranks to hold them back, directing the carnage as he makes his last stand.


Conclusion
The idea here is to make the combat army a bit more viable, the oath-stone less useless, and bring a little lustre back into that Gromril armour to compete with the multitude of high toughness characters out there, bedecked in armour that for some reason is just as good.
My other thoughts are to integrate the War Platforms mounts ideas, and maybe lower the cost of the Master Engineer a bit, as well as tweak a lot of the rune costs, which N0th1ng c4n b34t 3lv3s' thread has a lot of good suggestions on already.

I'm also toying with the idea of making the resistance nature of Gromril (above) apply to all Dwarf armour, but that may be a bit much. My reasoning though is that many armies get to have super knights with 2+ or better saves, while Dwarfs are a bit stuck in that to get a better save they have to sacrifice the +2 strength from great weapons to fight with hand weapon and shield, which leaves them doing little to no damage.

One new unit idea I did have, which I may approach as another conversion even if only for the fun of it, is the idea of Golem's as a unit. These would be fairly typical as a half-giant unit, with one or more Dwarf handlers. They'd be tougher than they are strong (rather than the other way around), but a little faster moving than your average Dwarf. But with some kind of nasty rule should they go out of control.

[Ramius4]

Some of you may already have seen my thread about new Dwarf "mounts" here, however it's kind of spinning up into a look at what the Dwarf army book needs in the current era of extra magic heavy armies, plethora of fear causing units and so-on.

Now, I've already posted a few ideas to N0th1ng c4n b34t 3lv3s' thread which contains a number of interesting ideas already. However, I'm creating a separate thread to take a look at the list as a whole, and consider things that might make an 8th edition Dwarf list more competitive.

At present my two main concerns with the Dwarf army are, lack of units that are immune to, or able to resist being auto-broken by fear causing units. And secondly, how a lot of Dwarf equipment, despite being supposedly the best engineers in the world, keeps getting upstaged by other armies..

Seriously? I honestly find this laughable. I play a lot of Dwarves and it's still one of the most solid and competitive books around.

[Malorian]

These are all interesting ideas and not OTT like some I've seen.

In fact I've never heard of reducing modifiers before so it would be unique to the dwarfs which is what you want with a new army special rule.

[Condottiere]

Gromril Armour may ignore Armour Piercing, instead of ignoring the first point of modification, otherwise it may be a little too powerful.

[theunwantedbeing]

Unyeilding
You already have a banner that doubles unit strength, use that?
Just seems like your a bit sore from fluffing your attacks and armour saves to a unit of skellies or zonies.

Wall of steel
You'll rarely get charged by anything in the front of your ironbreakers anyway.
This doesnt really help them, its just a reason to avoid combat with your dwarves some more. Dwarves have a hard enough time getting into combat as it is!
Plus as a -2 modifier its very bizarre, things tend to be -1 or -D3.
Ironbreakers need more equiptment options rather than special rules

Gromril Armour
Just another reason to ignore the gromril wearing elite troops and pick on everything else.
Gromril is already one of the top 3 armours in the game, it doesnt need to be outright number one.
A 4+ save is fine as it is. Maybe allow unit champions and such to take the rune of stone on their armour as an upgrade?

Oathstone
Not particularly nessecary, nor does it really make the oathstone anymore attractive as an option. How about making the unit with the oathstone only lose a single point of rank bonus when flanked/rear charged when the stone hasnt been deployed? Certainly makes it a much more interesting prospect to take as a result.

[Haravikk]

Unyeilding
You already have a banner that doubles unit strength, use that?

I do, but it can get expensive since you can only give it to multiple units by combining with other runes. You also can't give anything to a unit of warriors to help them, unless you put the battle standard bearer among them, which only works for one unit.

Just seems like your a bit sore from fluffing your attacks and armour saves to a unit of skellies or zonies.

Maybe a little, but the fact is that Dwarfs can be broken really easily by fear causing enemies. I see a lot of Wood Elf armies where I play mostly, and a high number of forest spirits is a hard one to fight as they're extremely manoeuvrable, will usually hit with two or more units at once, and can end up auto-breaking a unit before you even get a chance to counter charge. With Dwarfs you need to hold for a turn, sometimes two, to counter charge an enemy and turn the tide, that doesn't work if the unit is wiped out after a single round.

Obviously the double unit strength rune would need to be tweaked, probably to make it cheaper, but I don't think the rule is unreasonable, as +10 isn't a lot, but should be enough for a turn unless you're really having a bad day.

Wall of steel
You'll rarely get charged by anything in the front of your ironbreakers anyway.
This doesnt really help them, its just a reason to avoid combat with your dwarves some more. Dwarves have a hard enough time getting into combat as it is!
Plus as a -2 modifier its very bizarre, things tend to be -1 or -D3.
Ironbreakers need more equiptment options rather than special rules

While more equipment would be neat, fielding the hand weapon and shield combo is what gives them their 2+ save. I actually have mine modelled with "tall" great weapons/halberds for a unique look (since I've assembled using converted Dwarf Warriors), but I'm not sure halberds really suit them much, or would benefit them as a unit. One other idea I had for Ironbreakers in the same vein of them receiving charges, was that they get to reform to face their enemy (if the player wishes), which could negate flank charges, but isn't a no-brainer to use as you could just end up exposing yourself for another flank charge instead.

I think I mentioned in the War Platforms thread that being able to equip some units with Runic weapons (perhaps as a unit upgrade) would be cool; Ironbreakers, Hammerers, and Longbeards would be the obvious candidates, perhaps with separate options for Slayers, but I have no idea what I'd propose they be.
Another alternative from N0th1ng c4n b34t 3lv3s' thread is the rune of stone for the Ironbreakers to give them even more armour save and survivability. A mixture of unit-level runic effects could be interesting if properly balanced, but I still like the idea that Ironbreakers are there to take charges, and repel the worst enemies in vicious close quarters, so a rule reflecting that would be nice.

Gromril Armour
Just another reason to ignore the gromril wearing elite troops and pick on everything else.
Gromril is already one of the top 3 armours in the game, it doesnt need to be outright number one.
A 4+ save is fine as it is. Maybe allow unit champions and such to take the rune of stone on their armour as an upgrade?

Hmm, I quite like that idea in leu of (or even in addition to) unit level runic equipment. I also like Condottiere's idea of having Gromril ignore armour piercing as a toned down version of reducing armour modifiers.

[Jericho]

Saw the link to this page in your sig I have a friend who's trying to rewrite the entire army list, so I've put some thought into these matters as well.

Unyielding
I have put some thought into similar rules. Dwarfs are almost always going to be outnumbered, and their fluff says they should be used to it. One option is to simply let them count their ranked infantry count as 1.5 each for the purposes of outnumbering. Not hugely overpowering, but like the Rune of Stoicism it's a nice bonus to have especially against Fear.

Gromril
I do agree that it could probably be improved slightly to make up for the fact that there's no speedy Dwarf units out there. 1+ knights with M7 are a lot more intimidating than Ironbreakers with 3+/2+ and M3. My friend wants Gromril to be a 3+ save where I definitely think that they should ignore the AP rule. This is definitely useful against many ranged attacks and a handful of close combat attacks as well. Just a nice little bonus that doesn't make anything too crazy.

Ironbreakers
I really think there needs to be a better distinction between the roles of Ironbreakers and Hammerers. Hammerers are used for their sheer Stubbornness and there's no point making Ironbreakers try to compete with that. I say give them 2A so there's a unit in the army that actually balances offense and defense. With the Chaos Warriors and Saurus all getting 2A in their current books this is hardly game-breaking and gives the stunties a chance to keep up.

I think a few little tweaks like these could go a long way towards making balanced/combat heavy Dwarf armies more attractive. At the moment it's just very frustrating trying to make army lists that will be any fun to play against. War machines are just too good for their points, so you don't have any slots left to take much in the way of combat specialists. You don't have any elite infantry available, so you try to take more missile troops as core to help give more edge in shooting. Next thing you know, you're just another gunline.

I don't think you should need an Anvil to play an aggressive army. I say give Warriors a crossbow upgrade option, so they can be an interesting hybrid. Quarrelers don't need to be a separate entry. Slayers could also use a big revamp, since their current rules are pretty lackluster and they really don't compare with Organ Guns/Gyrocopters/Flame Cannons (especially with the possibility of no partial hits in 8th) in Rare. I would love to see them get MR1 and 5+ ward against ranged attacks, and the skirmish ability. I think that Wardancers (minus the dances) would be a very good model for this unit. They should be flexible, they should have some protection against shooting, and they should still hit hard in combat. My favorite idea for them is to take a page out of Warmaster's book and make them good but have them surrender VP even if they survive the game. No ability to capture standards or table quarters will keep them from being broken.

[Haravikk]

One option is to simply let them count their ranked infantry count as 1.5 each for the purposes of outnumbering.

I considered that as well actually, while the one I proposed is a bit more complex I feel it's more characterful of the unbreakable chain idea the army book and some of the articles on the GW site give out. 1.5 times is likely a lot easier though ("add half again a unit's strength when determining if they outnumber their enemy"?)

Hammerers are used for their sheer Stubbornness and there's no point making Ironbreakers try to compete with that. I say give them 2A so there's a unit in the army that actually balances offense and defense. With the Chaos Warriors and Saurus all getting 2A in their current books this is hardly game-breaking and gives the stunties a chance to keep up.

Hmm, part of the problem is that Ironbreakers and Hammerers fulfil similar roles fluff-wise; Hammerers are courageous warriors who protect their king with grim determination, while the iron-breakers fight in hellish conditions protecting cramped, and sometimes derelict tunnels against enemy hordes.

Game-play wise obviously hammerers benefit a lot from stubborn because they have a tendency to die horribly, but I've never seen my unit of them flee, so they're great for keeping my Lord in combat. But Ironbreakers don't benefit so much by their having heavy armour when most armies have elite units that aren't too phased by it and scorn their return attacks. Fluff-wise I picture them as a wall of metal that is near impossible to move.

Some other ideas I've had are:
Immune to psychology; Dwarfs that spend their time fighting in dark tunnels inhabited by goblins, skaven, ogres, and trolls aren't likely to be phased by much.
Can't be run-down; basically if Ironbreakers flee and an enemy pursues far enough, they will immediately reform facing the enemy and fight the combat as normal. This represents them not actually fleeing but instead moving backward, perhaps with a greatly reduced "flee"/pursue distance to reflect this (D6"?), i.e - if they break in combat, they simply to choose to fall-back, they're not actually routed like other units.

I really like the idea of the second one. Hammerers end up pretty unlikely to ever flee in the first place, the Ironbreakers meanwhile would flee like a normal unit, but not to their death, as they're trained to give ground to redouble their efforts at a better location. So Fear causing enemies would still cause them to flee, but not because they're actually afraid as such :P

I say give Warriors a crossbow upgrade option, so they can be an interesting hybrid.

Not sure on this, I'd be more interested in seeing basic warriors with options for halberds, spears, maybe even dual hand-weapons, or have unit-level runic upgrades available to most units, to make warriors a lot more flexible. I think Quarrellers as they are are pretty good, especially since unlike Thunderers they can have great weapons which makes them an interesting missile unit to position in dangerous locations as they can actually deal some hurt against combat enemies.

Slayers could also use a big revamp, since their current rules are pretty lackluster

Well, I think Slayers are fairly good, unbreakable is an awesome ability to have, with free great weapons/two hand weapons for 11 points. The slayer ability is quite handy, though it makes slayer axes pretty confusing a lot of the time.

I'd like to see Slayers able to move faster since they have no armour, even if it's a restricted move like an improved charge then it'd be a bonus.
The Slayer ability should improve depending on the type of slayer to reflect them, for example; Troll Slayer strength increased up to 6 to wound on 4+, Giant Slayer limit is S7, Dragon Slayer aims to wound on 3+ at up to S7, Daemon Slayer aims to wound on 3+ at up to S8.

[Dorack]

A much simpler solution for Unyielding is make dwarfs inmune to be outnumbered: no mater the US of the enemy, they never give +1 to CR or have a fear autobreak. This are some of my own ideas posted at Bugman´s Brewery some time ago:

Greater freedom of manouvres: keeping our base movement, allow us to do advanced manouvres (like turning 180 degrees) while marching. This will prevent us to go trotting around the field, but let´s us react better to the enemy movement and shows the dwarfs superior martial training and discipline.

Keeping # of attacks after casualties: Dwarfs advance to fill the gaps AND to return the attacks. No one surprises a dwarf!

Dwarfs are never outnumbered: Dwarfs never grant the enemy any bonus or special rule for being outnumbered (no +1 to CR, no fear autobreak, etc.). Fluffwise, dwarfs have always been outnumbered! By now any dwarf warrior expects nothing different than being outnumbered, so they just grumble it and fight on.

Ranks & Files: either let dwarfs get the bonus with only 4 miniatures frontage, or if the "larger frontage wins" rule is included, let us ignore it.

Stubborness for all: this has been mentioned lots of times before, just wanted to include it here.

New weapon options:
Throwing axes available for most troops.
New Dwarf Halberd: fight in 2 ranks, strikes last, requires 2 hands, +1 or +2 to strenght, cost?

New armor options: Allow heavy armor for missile troops. Allow better than standard shield for some infantry.

Slayers with deathstrike and nothing like frenzy. Just an opinion.

I´m fully aware that all this combined would be too much, but maybe 1 or 2 of them get picked uo for final print... one can wish.

[Haravikk]

Greater freedom of manouvres: keeping our base movement, allow us to do advanced manouvres (like turning 180 degrees) while marching.

This one I like, even with great deployment and good strategy it's easy to end up with that one unit that wastes the entire battle trying to manoeuvre somewhere. A guaranteed 6" movement is great if you're just going in a straight line, but all it takes is one terrain piece and suddenly you're either forced to defend, or risk going forward only to not be able to turn around in time before the enemy passes you (which they will usually do).

Keeping # of attacks after casualties: Dwarfs advance to fill the gaps AND to return the attacks. No one surprises a dwarf!

That's another good one, but I'm unsure of it. While single Dwarf units are pretty much useless in combat with elite troops since they see few (if any) attacks in return, Dwarf combat troops should usually be paired with another that can counter-charge, either that or slap a Thane or Lord in to give his return attacks.

Dwarfs are never outnumbered: Dwarfs never grant the enemy any bonus or special rule for being outnumbered (no +1 to CR, no fear autobreak, etc.).

While as with 1.5x unit strength it's simpler, I think that this variation may be a bit much, with 1.5x unit strength, or for the Unyielding rule as I proposed it the Dwarfs are just more resilient against auto-breaking. It's hard to judge though, I mean, complete immunity to auto-breaking sounds a lot but it's difficult to figure out if it really is that big of a step up, as the Dwarfs can still be broken if flank charged etc.

Ranks & Files: either let dwarfs get the bonus with only 4 miniatures frontage, or if the "larger frontage wins" rule is included, let us ignore it.

Not sure what this frontage rule is, another rumour I expect? Personally I think that they're fine as they are at the moment, immunity or resistance to auto-break should be plenty.

Stubborness for all: this has been mentioned lots of times before, just wanted to include it here.

I think that again auto-breaking is the bigger problem; the Dwarf's high leadership means they don't break that easily anyway. Let hammerers have their uses

Throwing axes available for most troops.

I'm not sure what value this adds other than a stand and shoot if you're lucky? They make most sense for Rangers which is where the option is already. Sort of related though; what do people think about the Miner's blasting charges? I personally never take them as it seems like they're over-priced for something you might never even get to use, a priced per-model option that is dependant on unit size would be better, perhaps one strength 5 flaming attack for each model in the front rank, +1 for each complete rank? So a unit of 5 x 4 would have 8 (5 front + 3 ranks), S5 flaming hits. This would be re-usable any time the unit can normally stand and shoot, and cost +1 point per model. The rational on the cost being that they aren't much more effective than throwing axes (which are +1 each for rangers, and would also have S5 if given to longbeard rangers), but are usable only to stand and shoot.

New Dwarf Halberd: fight in 2 ranks, strikes last, requires 2 hands, +1 or +2 to strenght, cost?

A hybrid spear and halberd would be interesting, I'd say something more along the lines of "counts as a halberd for front rank models, and a spear for second rank, spear attacks may only be used against enemies to the front of the unit". Would probably need to be +2 points per model or so.


These are just my thoughts anyway, lots more great ideas so thanks for posting them! Seems there's plenty of rich ideas for improving Dwarf combat armies, while keeping them in character


As a small bonus idea I thought of another rule that could be interesting for some or all Dwarf units to have, not to say this would be in addition to propose rules, but as a possible option to pick from. Basically the idea is that a Dwarf unit that did not march in its previous movement phase, and which hold as a charge reaction, will count as being in a defended obstacle against enemies to their front. This mainly gains a bit of an advantage when charged, as the effect only continues if the enemy loses or draws the combat.

[Dorack]

While as with 1.5x unit strength it's simpler, I think that this variation may be a bit much, with 1.5x unit strength, or for the Unyielding rule as I proposed it the Dwarfs are just more resilient against auto-breaking. It's hard to judge though, I mean, complete immunity to auto-breaking sounds a lot but it's difficult to figure out if it really is that big of a step up, as the Dwarfs can still be broken if flank charged etc.

Im not saying they cant break by other means. I simply porposed they never grant CR for being outnumbered and that they dont fear autobreak, they might still be affected by fear as normal.

[Haravikk]

Im not saying they cant break by other means. I simply porposed they never grant CR for being outnumbered and that they dont fear autobreak, they might still be affected by fear as normal.

I know, I was sorting of thinking out loud, basically commenting that it's tricky to figure out the value of "can't be outnumbered" compared to only resistance against outnumbering through unit strength buffs. Both will still allow the unit to be broken through combat resolution, but complete immunity to outnumbering is going to make auto-breaking a dwarf unit impossible which might be a bit much. But then to compare, some armies have tons of immunity to psychology to throw at such situations, which is arguably better.

If the rule were complete immunity to outnumbering, then I think it would be best applied only to close combat units. While Thunderers/Quarrellers are still hardy Dwarfs, they may respond less well to Fear causing situations. Whereas a unit strength buff such as Unyielding would be okay to apply across all units I think, since it isn't a complete immunity.

[Haravikk]

Oh, one other topic I wanted to raise is; what are people's thoughts on the current Master Engineer? Personally I'm more often inclined to go for an extra Runesmith instead, though I love the Master Engineer with great weapon model and sometimes field one purely for that reason.

One thought I had is that it might be cool to have an extra category that applies to pistols and handguns, allowing him to be more effective at shooting, with the option for things like +D3 multiple shots, flaming shots, that kind of thing? This would be available in addition to a runic hand or great weapon, but would of course stretch his 50 points pretty thin if you go for that.

[theunwantedbeing]

A simple solution for the engineer option is to do two things.

1. Make him a character upgrade.
-This means you buy your hero, and pay X amount of points to make him into an engineer and you gain all the benefits of him being an engineer (including access to things, being able to join war machines and crew them, etc).
A further benefit of this is that you can create a full on engineer army, complete with engineer BsB.

2. Create an engineer as a war machine upgrade (much like how a dark elf assasin is bought for an infantry unit). He would be a character (as the assasin is) and would act like an engineer as they do now, albeit not eating up a character slot that you'de rather be spending elsewhere.

The same idea can be done for Slayers.
Making them a character upgrade as well, meaning you can generate your full slayer list, this also if going on the same train of thought as the engineer route sugguested above allows doomseekers to exist like the above engineers for war machines (albeit as character's bought with slayer units).
Perhaps even counting the slayers as core if all your character's are slayers.

[Dorack]

I think the current Engineers and Master Enginners are fine...

Actually, I would like to see a Lord Level engineer that triggers something special for the army, just like a Dwarf Lord allows an extra unit of Longbeards and a Rune Lord allows you to bring an Anvil. An Engineer Lord can give you more warmachine fielding options and goodies, and allow a more themed army. Im all for themed armies!

[Haravikk]

Well, I went a little overboard and essentially made myself a sort of supplement style army book containing a mixture of various rules ideas. It contains a lot of pages as they appear in the Dwarfs army book, which I expect I'd get in trouble for posting here.

However, I've created a trimmed down version that only includes new rules, or rules that have changed, plus the unofficial army list. Various ideas have been incorporated and I've tried to add credit as due to the start, though I haven't listed each individual contribution, though there is a list of changes at the start if you want a shorter summary.

One of the main changes, runic upgrades for units, is probably way to complex. I like the idea but I think it gets a bit too confusing so will probably just take it out again. A few others are more for fun and I might drop from a fully serious incarnation, though they are interesting additions, its mostly the complexity that's an issue.

I've also included two ideas I've posted as separate threads, Dwarf War Platforms, and Stone Golems, please follow the links in my signature to comment on specific issues regarding either of these, or comment here about their worth in the Dwarf army as a whole.

[RulesJD]

Interesting ideas. As a long time Dwarf player I see the Dwarf conundrum as follows:

Dwarves are slow. This means that taking objectives and/or bringing your solid troops into combat are very diffcult.

Dwarves have few hard hitting units. Let's face it, strength 5 great weapons on one attack models isn't very scary. Further Slayers are too slow to make use of their arsenals and too easy to shoot down. Absent warmachines, you have very few high strength attacks with which to achieve damage.

Dwarves HAD good magic defense. Prior to 7th edition and the new army books 4 dispel base with one runesmith carrying to dispel runes was enough to be competitive. In the new era of 12 to 20+ power dice, spam casting and special characters you are forced into replacing your fighting characters with anti magic smiths.

This means that taking an all infantry army, while fluffy is very inneffective (without an anvil). Dwarf players are tempted to anvil gunlines or anvil infantry assaults which becomes stale at best.

Frankly, I don't find fear and terror to be major problems given the high leadership. Also the elite infantry can be rendered immune to fear and terror easily.

Minor Changes:

Add some elite Dwarf infantry to the rare slot. Choosing only a Gyro or Organ Gun only adds to the Gunline tedium. Perhaps a special Dwarf beastie like Earth elemental or uber Doomseeker. Maybe give the gyro some air droppable ordnance. Long Drong's Pirate Slayers anyone?

Make slayers skirmishers. Their fluff really doesn't support ranked assault anyway. This would give them a little protection from shooting. Perhaps the slayers should have better toughness or anti shooting ward save.

Create a class of unit upgrades like the DE. This would give your core infantry some hard hitting options and perhaps enhance anti magic and anti fear capabilities. Maybe even give an item like the silver mirror that reflects magic.

Return the foresting rule to rangers. That way Rangers who scout early in the game can start in woods and still move effectively. Also give Miners a real tunnelling rule that lets them appear mid table like their fluff would suggest. Maybe even allow the miners (special character?) to create a pit trap effect.

And please, Give the Dwarves some real choices for special characters. Now it's broken Thorek, Bugmen (good) or the unusable Thorgrim.

These changes could result in a fully mobile Dwarf army based on infantry alone.

[Haravikk]

With the exception of special characters, a lot of those ideas are in the PDF I posted, the idea of some extra elite Dwarf unit is an interesting one though! But I think that unit upgrades kind of cover it.

I do agree on special characters though; I'd like to see a Slayer and an Engineer character as well at the very least, and maybe bring back King Alrik as well for a cheaper alternative to Thorgrim, I mean, 780 points?! He's pretty good granted, but 780 points for something most enemies can just put in a little work and ignore isn't that great, and much worse if he does get killed by suffering a really bad assault from multiple directions. I don't have the previous Army book for reference to previous characters though so I haven't looked much into rules for them yet.

Regarding your point on dispel dice/anti-magic; I'm not sure the Dwarfs are completely broken, as it's still possible to overcome magic heavy lists with runesmiths and magic resistance, the real problem there is such magic heavy lists exist, I'm really hoping magic is limited in some way by game-size in 8th edition, as giving Dwarfs even more anti-magic would look to cause an escalation problem (other armies get even MORE powerful so you're looking at 20-30 power dice instead).

[N0th1ng c4n b34t 3lv3s]

I like your ideas & the Unyielding special rules sounds damn nice (but I like the idea of dwarfs who cannot be outnumbered even more because it sounds sick:P). Dwarven anti magic are okay. I haven't met a cheesy list with vampire spamming invokation or daemons who fires 10000 Flickernig Fires per turn but the problem with magic is that those lists are broken,not the dwarven magic defence.

[Haravikk]

but I like the idea of dwarfs who cannot be outnumbered even more because it sounds sick:P

I actually incorporated that idea into the Unyielding rule as it appears in the PDF, as a 12" area effect around Thanes & Lords.