Why Don't I See More Dwarf Anvils?

[Malorian]

I've always been a big fan of running a runelord on anvil and in 7th it seemed people were split between an anvil or a lord. Lately I've noticed that almost none of the local dwarf players take anvils and they almost all got for a dwarf lord or a cheap rune lord or even just a rune priest.

To me the anvil gives the dwarf player so much that I couldn't even think of dropping it from my list:

-extra dispel dice
-magical shooting for ethereal units
-magical shooting that slows down deathstars
-miner rear/flank charge trick
-extra movement on your units allowing you to be more aggressive
-allows you to shoot and then charge a given unit

I had a game yesterday and by far the MVP was the anvil. Mark of khorne GW marauder horde? Pfft! Miners to the flank. Scary chaos warriors on objective? Pfft! Shootem up and use anvil to charge what's left. Even more scary chaos warriors chewing up my dwarf shield warriors? Pfft! A reform and an anvil later and I have great weapon dwarf warriors in their rear.

To be fair, yes I could make a list without it but it would be a boring defensive army that waits for the enemy to come to me and then grind down with great weapons, and I can't see that being fun for anyone.

So fellow dwarf players, or people who have faced their fair share of dwarfs, what do you think? Is it time for the anvil to come back into fashion?


The battle that spawned this thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vslo...ature=youtu.be

[SkawtheFalconer]

Q: why don't you see many anvils?
A: You're luckier than I am.

It's a superb unit for the reasons you've mentioned. A big block of Rangers magically moved into someone's flank on turn one or two will make a mess of any battle plan.

[russellmoo]

Have you ever played against Thorek and an Anvil? If he rolls above average he can stop an army from advancing any of its main combat blocks, on the reverse side a regular anvil is a little too many points for what you get out of it.

But, really I think most dwarf players dropped their Thorek anvils because they felt taking it was dishonorable- (it became too easy to win games)

Add to this the fact that not taking a dwarf lord feels elfish and very undwarflike-

Put another way- most dwarf players play dwarfs because they don't like magic and taking the anvil is pretty much like having a spell caster-

The final point is I don't know how many dwarf players even use their dwarfs anymore, a lot of them are waiting for the new book to come out and in the meantime they are playing other armies.

[shelfunit.]

Too vulnerable to magic, too likely to blow itself up and for those risks combined it costs far, far too many points overall to be worth it - 315pts minimum, and in a dwarf army there are better things to spend the points on in 8th ed.

[Novrain]

I play Dwarves regularly and tend not to use the anvil until 3k.

I'll take the points one-by-one:

-extra dispel dice - I tend not to be short on Dispel dice, a 3 dice swing (Runesmith and MRoBalance) tends to be enough. Plus see the recent thread on Bugmans looking at how having puddles of DD can actually be detrimental to your magic defence as the opponent just goes for IF.

-magical shooting for ethereal units - Again, Dwarf armies tend not to be too short on magical shooting from Cannons, BT and GT. Admittedly the anvil does enable you to target things that are hiding, but the meagre amount / strength of hits when comapred to the risk of using the anvil is not a good ratio.

-magical shooting that slows down deathstars - This is something I agree with. The slowing down of movement is great, but the magical shooting is actually pretty negligible when it comes to D'stars.

-miner rear/flank charge trick - Speaking as a Dwarf player, you will get to do this once, maybe twice, before every opponent you play knows the trick!

-extra movement on your units allowing you to be more aggressive - This was great during 7th, but I think 8th has made anvil-less aggressive Dwarf armies much more viable with the addition of random charge distance, steadfast and step-up. There are also other ways to get extra "movement" - RoChallenge, Scouting, Miners, Strollaz Rune.

-allows you to shoot and then charge a given unit - Yup, target all your artillery on a unit then charge it is fun and pretty useful.

Essentially, for me, the anvil does have some nifty things up its sleeve but these do not offset the cost or the vulnerability until 3k+. Also the damage output / effect on the game is tiny when compared to a lvl4 mage, who costs half the points, and the extras the anvil gives you (DD for example) are something I already have. The chance to have it blow up, and the D3 aspect of ancient power just seal the deal for me.

[Malorian]

Too vulnerable to magic, too likely to blow itself up and for those risks combined it costs far, far too many points overall to be worth it - 315pts minimum, and in a dwarf army there are better things to spend the points on in 8th ed.

Dwarfs tend to do ok against magic though It isn't that likely to blow up (need double 1s).

You should be looking at 315 as the cost either as it includes the rune lord that you would be taking anyway. So it's 175 point to give your movement 3 troops flank charges and actually make the army fun to play with.

[Novrain]

...actually make the army fun to play with.

I didn't realise you got to judge what I find fun...

[shelfunit.]

Dwarfs tend to do ok against magic though It isn't that likely to blow up (need double 1s).

DD and anything else does jack all against irrisistable force. If you are using only the basic power you need double 1's, using ancient power increases this to 1-3 followed by a 1. Also being destroyed isn't everything as rolling a 1 on "casting" and you at best will forfeit a whole turn of using a very expensive unit.

You should be looking at 315 as the cost either as it includes the rune lord that you would be taking anyway. So it's 175 point to give your movement 3 troops flank charges and actually make the army fun to play with.

I wouldn't be taking a RL if I wasn't taking an anvil - as Novrain says, the anti magic can be well supplied by a rune smith with MRoB. So no, it is 315pts min to give a unit or two the potential (you still have to a) get the power to activate and b)get the troops in position first) for a flank charge. In todays games a combat lord is far more valuble.

EDIT: TBO will turn up soon and being Grungni incarnate will explain in more detail.

[Novrain]

In todays games a combat lord is far more valuble.

I disagree. Id rather have another block of 35 Dwarves with great weapons than a Lord - and rather a defensive lord than a combat lord.

[shelfunit.]

I disagree. Id rather have another block of 35 Dwarves with great weapons than a Lord - and rather a defensive lord than a combat lord.

I meant more valuble than an anvil. Also by "combat lord" I didn't mean a killy lord - all these modern terms... 35 extra dwarfs is alwaays useful mind...

[The bearded one]

EDIT: TBO will turn up soon and being Grungni incarnate will explain in more detail.

You're desperately trying to get into my sig

The anvil is great. It grants extra dispeldice and extra tracitcal possibilities relating to movement, and wiping skirmishers off the field in spades.

However, it would be a lot greater if it were more reliable, that is its achilles heel. While activating on a 2+ seems great, if you happen to roll that 1, your plans may be ^&%'ed and/or your units stranded. The odds are good enough for the rune to be struck properly, but because it is so enormously vital that they are, it is all the more disastrous if it isn't, and a 1 in 6 chance of disaster happening is not the style of play many dwarfplayers enjoy. Being able to go 'boom' when misstriking is nearly a secondary issue compared to the problem the unit you just set up and left out there to dry has. There is too much importance attached to the failure of he anvil's strike.

On top of that it can be automatically killed (generally granting about 450pts for the runelord & anvil, and another 100 VPs for the general) by initiative tests. With shadow being one of the more popular lores, it will probably experience mass pitting quite rapidly.

The anvil definately has lots of possibilities, but the failing of the roll has far too great downsides and it is easy to destroy with initiative tests. If the failing of the 2+ roll might not entail the possibility of explosions or a turn of uselessnes, you might see it a bit more. For its importance it is not reliable enough in the army renowned for rerolling misfires, artillery dice and scatter dice.

[Malorian]

I didn't realise you got to judge what I find fun...

Fair enough.

DD and anything else does jack all against irrisistable force. If you are using only the basic power you need double 1's, using ancient power increases this to 1-3 followed by a 1. Also being destroyed isn't everything as rolling a 1 on "casting" and you at best will forfeit a whole turn of using a very expensive unit.

IF is always possible and you can't help that, but if they don't get it off they are taking miners into the rear of the unit with their caster.

I never go for ancient power unless I'm losing.

In todays games a combat lord is far more valuble.

What is better: one character that can be tied up in a challenge or a horde of miners in a flank?

You're desperately trying to get into my sig

The anvil is great. It grants extra dispeldice and extra tracitcal possibilities relating to movement, and wiping skirmishers off the field in spades.

However, it would be a lot greater if it were more reliable, that is its achilles heel. While activating on a 2+ seems great, if you happen to roll that 1, your plans may be ^&%'ed and/or your units stranded. The odds are good enough for the rune to be struck properly, but because it is so enormously vital that they are, it is all the more disastrous if it isn't, and a 1 in 6 chance of disaster happening is not the style of play many dwarfplayers enjoy. Being able to go 'boom' when misstriking is nearly a secondary issue compared to the problem the unit you just set up and left out there to dry has. There is too much importance attached to the failure of he anvil's strike.

On top of that it can be automatically killed (generally granting about 450pts for the runelord & anvil, and another 100 VPs for the general) by initiative tests. With shadow being one of the more popular lores, it will probably experience mass pitting quite rapidly.

The anvil definately has lots of possibilities, but the failing of the roll has far too great downsides and it is easy to destroy with initiative tests. If the failing of the 2+ roll might not entail the possibility of explosions or a turn of uselessnes, you might see it a bit more. For its importance it is not reliable enough in the army renowned for rerolling misfires, artillery dice and scatter dice.

Are you against all warmachines then? All will misfire with a 1/6 chance. Hell the cannon is even worse since it has another 1/6 chance on the to wound roll.

It's also fairly rare that a failed roll leaves you in a bad spot:

Miners didn't charge a rear? Ok, well they are they to threaten to do it next turn.

Didn't get to charge after you shot up a unit? Meh, let them charge you then. At least you still shot them up.

It's only when you are going for the (practically broken) ability to swing over for a flank charge that you could be in a bad spot if it fails.

Overall I would throw numbers out there and say it loses me 1 game for every 10 that it wins for me. Then again I'm an orc player and unrealiablilty is second nature

[The bearded one]

Are you against all warmachines then? All will misfire with a 1/6 chance. Hell the cannon is even worse since it has another 1/6 chance on the to wound roll.

not in the dwarf army. Cannons have the rune of forging virtually standard, and grudge thrower can reroll the scatter dice, and reroll misfires as well if a master engineer is present. Regular engineers can at elast allow a reroll on the misfire table. Frankly even the organ gun makes me anxious because it is all dependant on that 1 dice not to misfire, but at least you can still reroll if it isn't a misfire. But in contrast warmachines like cannons and grudgethrowers, even when tooled up (like a str5 reroll scatter GT with engineer with pistols, for 175 pts), the anvil with the runelord costs round 400 points, so that is a lot more points going up in smoke. Generally if your anvil explodes early in the game, it will mean you'll have lost.

For miners to arrive not being able to charge if the anvil doesn't manage to strike, they're generally not left in that bad of a situation, but how about other units from your battleline which you moved up and set up for a flank charge, to support another unit that is being clobbered, or to execute a flankcharge you needed to break an important enemy? Except for miners coming from the flank or rear, other anvilflanking might often leave you in a very bad position if it is not executed, ready for the enemy's own units to pounce on.

However note that I don't think the anvil is bad or anything, just that there are certain things keeping them from being automatically include and widespread. I personally like a bit more reliability for a 450 point warmachine as my general, than one D6. On average it is going to fail at least once per game, with a 50% chance of it being out of the game long term (either permanently, or 2 turns ). On the other hand at the tournament I was to last sunday, the battle of the clubs, we had 2 dwarf players, who both took the anvil.

[Malorian]

Personally I don't add engineers or the RoForging, but I'm more willing to accept risk.

Again I don't agree that the runelord should be seen in the same cost when comparing effects. Yes it all dies in one go but to me the runelord is standard anyway. In that respect I see the anvil being the same investment as a tooled up grudethrower. Both are awesome in the dwarf army but even I still give the anvil the edge for all the options it brings with it.

Something else I'll do is when I am lining up a crazy flank charge that may go wrong if I roll a one is that I will move another unit up so that if needed I could flee being flanked myself, jump over the other unit, and be safe.

All in all I see the risk being very low (then again I am coming from dwarfs) and the abilities it brings to be priceless not only in that is makes a M3 army mobile but also it allows me to break away from the classic castle play which I know many opponent hate to face and even I get tired of.

[Razakel]

The two biggest reasons Dwarf players don't use Anvils is the risk and the cost. The game has to be quite large (generally 2,400+) before taking an Anvil can be at least partially redundant. In lower points games than that if you lose the Anvil then you've generally lost a sixth or so of your army (more if you took Thorek).

The Anvil does unlock a lot of dirty tricks and different playstyles a Dwarf player might otherwise not be used to, but it can backfire horribly, and when the Anvil backfires it REALLY backfires. I don't want to overstate the risk because it's not that serious (unless you're using a regular Runelord and are trying for Ancient Power each turn), but the mere possibility of the Anvil exploding into a tattered mess of flaming beards and Dwarf bodyparts puts a lot of Dwarves off it. I'm a bit dubious about your Miner-in-the-flank example Malorian, it often just doesn't work out that easily. First the Miners actually have to get onto the table via the underground advance rule (which can be helped by the Steam Drill), then there needs to be an appropriate position to put them in, which isn't always available, particularly if your opponent is wise to the Anvil flank charge trick. I used the Anvil for a little while in 2,500 point games and really enjoyed using rangers or miners with it to move them into really interesting positions, but after a while my opponents knew what I was going to do and compensated for it by adding more wizards to 6 dice characteristic test spells at my Anvil in order to destroy. After losing it a third game in a row to Dwellers Below irresistible force I retired the Anvil, save the occasional use.

I've got a game against VC later on, maybe I'll break out the Anvil again and see how the game goes.

[Malorian]

after a while my opponents knew what I was going to do and compensated for it by adding more wizards to 6 dice characteristic test spells at my Anvil in order to destroy. After losing it a third game in a row to Dwellers Below irresistible force I retired the Anvil, save the occasional use.

It doesn't really work like that though since unless they have access to multiple loremasters they aren't going to have multiples of the same spell. I guess we could be talking double slann here but then that's an even bigger investment to bring down a single anvil and even then if the anvil gets the alpha strike those slann could be in big trouble.

On top of this, if super spells are your worry you could just take the spell destorying rune and as long as he doesn't IF it the first try there is a 50/50 chance he won't even get another chance.

Personally I have never had my anvil destoryed by such spells, but I will admit that they are not my main army and other dwarf generals have a lot more experience. It probably also helps that since dwarfs are just one of many armies I might bring out that in casual gaming my opponents can't afford to put in set counters to it in their lists.

[Montegue]

My tournament list generally includes the Anvil of Doom. It has a plethora of advantages. The biggest one is slowing down major death stars to increase the up time on Artillery fire against them. The next biggest one is the ability to swift reform, walk, and then charge in the shooting phase. You can time out that charge to happen after a pounding of ranged fire to maximize your chances of beating that unit in close combat. The Anvil also offers the best single model magic defense we have. But it has serious problems.

First of all, it's bloody expensive. And if you don't make that Runelord your General, you need to spend even more points on a Thane or Runesmith, or ME to take that role. You'll of course need to rune them up for survivability, which costs even more. And, you're not getting much out of that new Hero because our heroes kind of suck in combat.

Secondly, if you did name your Runelord your general, and the Anvil blows up in your face, it's almost a 500 point give to your opponent.

Thirdly, the 170 points you drop on the Anvil of Doom is 170 points you can't drop on other war machines or infantry.

I generally take 2 hordes of Great Weapons, a Horde of Hammerers, a Thane BSB runed up to tank, 2 runed canons, a Gt, and an Organ gun in my Anvil of doom list. It's more or less a standard Dwarf 3-hordes and a cloud of smoke, but the Anvil lends it a certain amount of flexibility that is otherwise missing from dwarf lists. I don't even bother with miners, to be honest. I let them come to me, I use the anvil to slow their big baddies down, the artillery to soften another big baddie or their death star, and then hope for the best in close combat when the smoke clears.

Unless your opponent just IFs a pit of shades on it's head. Or you roll snake eyes one turn. Or...or...or..

[Swordthain]

Ha! I see several of my friends from over at the Brewery have already added their wisdom to this discussion. Hey, Montegue and TBO!

As a long-time Dwarf player, allow me to share some of my thoughts. I echo some of the sentiments already expressed. I have not lost my Anvil to a characteristic test yet, but when I take it, it's often a serious factor. I have two other Dwarf players in my area, so part of the local meta is spam Lv2 mages to ensure that they get the spell(s) they want--or Teclis, but I won't go there just now.
In order to make the Anvil of Doom effective, under 3K, you really have to design your entire list around it. These lists tend to be one-trick ponies. If they work, they usually work well, but when they don't, they fail hard! For example, one game I played against an Empire opponent saw him get the first turn and destroy my Anvil with a Great Cannon despite my 2+ Ward against shooting attacks (Rune of Shielding). Because I was depending on the Anvil, my Rangers didn't get their otherwise-easy charge, my Miners weren't able to help in time, and I got tabled by the top of turn 3. That was a game where my opponent hadn't ever played against an Anvil list before! When your opponent knows what's coming, he can often anticipate your moves and ruin your day.

As powerful as Thorek Ironbrow is, it is not always easy to include him in my list, because not only does he cost over 500 points, but he also has some intrinsic weaknesses: 1) he has the Master Rune of Gromril, which means that my BSB Thane is not going to have his standard stay-alive kit, 2) he does not have any Runes of Spellbreaking or Spelleater Runes, which means that I have to at least take an additional Runesmith if I want access to auto-dispels, and 3) he does not have the RoShielding, so he's still slightly more vulnerable to shooting. A regular Runelord with an Anvil tends to be a bit more resilient, though less effective in striking runes.

If I don't plan my list around the Anvil, it really becomes penultimate to my list. That means I have invested at least 175 points of my list in something to which I simply cannot assign a dedicated tactical capability. I have seen some folks argue that this just makes their army more dynamic and flexible, but they're wrong. It just weakens the overall structural stability of a Dwarf force. (Note Montegue's post above is not an "ambush list", but he has planned his entire army around what he wants his Anvil to accomplish: "slowing down major death stars to increase the up time on Artillery fire against them". The fact that it looks like a standard "Furgil" list is entirely beside the point.)

That said, I use the Anvil in about half of my games. I really enjoy the "ambush" lists. My signature 2500 points list includes two units of x40 Miners and an Anvil of Doom, actually. But I understand its limitations and vulnerabilities. It can still be a very good option, but in order to achieve success, it must have a complimentary relationship with the rest of my army. Currently, I have experienced the best results in competitive play with lists that exclude the Anvil, making it a fun-but-sub-optimal selection for me. Many other Dwarf players have experienced the same.

[Frankly]

I wonder what will happen to the anvil whenever the new 8th dwarf armybook comes out.

Would you guys like to see any major changes in how it works?


Personally I get to play against the anvil alot in my meta, I really like the idea that dwarf players have a different army type they can play.

[Malorian]

@ Swordthain,

I don't agree that the list needs to be based around it, in fact I think you are putting yourself at a disadvantage with your double miner list. If they both come on at the same time you can't charge with both unless you risk the ancient power.

My 2250 list I used was this:

Rune lord w/ anvil, ro spell breaking, mro balance, shield
Bsb w/ mro challenge, ro cleaving, ro burning

40 warriors w/ gw, banner
40 warriors w/ shields, banner
20 quarrellers

25 miners w/ banner, champ w/ drill
Grudge thrower w/ 2X ro penetration, ro accuracy
Cannon w/ ro burning

Organ gun

Total: 2248 I think


The list is in no way based around the anvil and doesn't even need it, however the anvil really helps the miners and can be used in many different ways with the rest of the army.

I would never think to use Thorek, I agree he's too expensive, but with this build I dominate the magic phase and can play god in the movement phase. Being able to shoot a unit to bit and then send a unit into the flank has lead to many people wanting to double check my army book