The proper application of Dwarf Rangers

It has taken me a while to work out what on Earth you're meant to do with Dwarf Rangers. I've had a dozen or so games now with my Dwarfs, mainly against Matt's Skaven, and I think I have finally worked these guys out.

The basic deal of these fellows is that they're a Scouting unit with crossbows, great weapons, throwing axes and heavy armour with shields as an option. Up until now I've been using them as a Death Or Glory Suicide Squad and it turns out that was a terrible idea. For the most part I've been setting them up using Scout the minimum twelve inches away from the scariest things my opponent has (usually Rat Ogres or similar monstrous infantry) and hope to get in a first turn volley of crossbow fire in before being charged.

For the most part this tactic ended in death. Mine, to be specific.

On Sunday, again against Matt's Skaven, I tried something different for no better reason than there was already a 16 model Thunderer unit staring down the Rat Ogres. More by luck than judgement I discovered what Rangers are for: creating an exclusion zone.

I set them up roughly at the centre of the battlefield with a piece of impassable terrain protecting their left flank. To their right was empty space but, crucially, it was empty space that my Dwarf Lord and his Ironbreakers were going to be moving up into in the very near shortly. The presence of the Ironbreakers provided me some protection from being charged by Matt's larger and more powerful units who would have had to weigh charging against the possibility that they'd be countercharged by the scariest infantry unit in my army.

Meanwhile, the crossbows were in short range and whittling down one of Matt's infantry blocks until something more valuable, such as his Doomwheel, came into my arc of sight.

Once my Ironbreakers and Warriors had caught up with the Rangers, the Rangers became a supporting unit to them effectively returning the favour and being the scary unit Matt didn't want in his flank if he made a badly judged charge against the larger rank and file units.

There's a lot more synergy between Dwarf units than I thought there was and I'm looking forward to exploring these mechanics a little more deeply. 

In Theory: Dothraki-inspired Warriors of Chaos army

Every season of Game of Thrones brings with it the same thought: “all-mounted Chaos army”. The mental image of waves of Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Knights charging across the board is an arresting one. In the meta sense it presents challenges different to the usual tactics of Chaos Warriors, putting more emphasis on speed and maneouvre than anchoring the battle line around large units of elite infantry.

So what would actually be in this army and how would it work, in theory?

Character Classes

Every character class aside from Daemon Princes have mount options so really the only question is what to mount them on. Your barded Chaos Steed is cheap, allows you to put the character in a unit and can't be shot out from under you. The generic Daemonic Mount has a lot going for it for the price: WS4, Strength and Toughness 5 and 3 Wounds is nothing to sniff at for 35 points.

As to the power-specific mounts, personally I'd say the Palanquin of Nurgle is too slow at only Movement 4; the Disc of Tzeentch 's has Fly so, to my mind, is best used to give a spellcaster maximum mobility; Slaanesh doesn't get a specific mount anymore; and, Juggernauts we'll deal with later.

Chariots (be they drawn by Chaos Steeds or Gorebeasts) have great potential as centrepieces and the extra hitting power will definitely come in handy.

As to monsters, well, that comes down to personal taste. I do want some monsters in the army because monsters are an essential part of any Chaos army. That said, I want the characters to maintain the cavalry theme. Plus, I've never been much for monstrous character mounts, just personal taste.

Cavalry Units

The way I see it, you have two basic types of unit here. First, you have your fast cavalry units in Marauder Horsemen, Chaos Warhounds and Hellstriders Of Slaanesh. What we're talking about here is an army that is super eleite even by Chaos standards so one phase of the game you want to be very dominant in is Movement. You want to be dictating the agenda of the game and luring your opponent into positions where you can really take advantage. Fast cavalry units are great for this. All those free wheels and Vanguard moves mean you can offer a credible threat to your opponent's backfield reallt early in the game so they have to choose between dealing with those units or holding their nerve in the hopes they can take down your heavy hitters before the fast units are in a position to do real damage to them.

Speaking of heavy hitters: Chaos Chariots, Chaos Knights, Gorebeast Chariots and Skullcrushers Of Khorne. Powerful hammer units who can do a lot of damage on the charge, especially true of the chariots with their impact hits. You need to maximise the amount of damage every charge does with an army like this: impact hits, flank charges, multiple charges. Plus, all of these units look amazing. The downside of this, of course, is that all these units are instantly recognisable high priority targets which is why you need the cheaper, faster units to distract your opponent and present them with difficult choices.

Other units

In the main, the other units that fit the theme and have the speed are monsters. Either big fellas like the Slaughterbrute, Chaos Giant and the Mutalith Vorext Beast or monstrous infantry like Chaos Ogres and Dragon Ogres. I certainly want Dragon Ogres, who have the added benefit of standing on four legs so they're basically cavalry, right? Whether the other monstrous units fit your view of what a cavalry army should be is, of course, entirely up to you.

The Warshrine, though, I think definitely works with the theme. True, it isn't pulled by horses unless you make a conversion but it is definitely a mount. I personally wouldn't use it as a character mount because I'm very aware of the importance of not putting too many eggs in one basket with super elite armies

The Challenges

The obvious, foreseeable problem with this army is the problem with all elite cavalry armies: you don't have many guys. Your units are vulnerable when charged because they have zero standing combat resolution unless you sink points into taking a second rank: expensive for the hammer units, practically pointless for the fast cavalry. Add to that the fact that most cavalry weapon buffs only come into play on the charge. You would have to hit hard and early and be take the gamble that you're break the units you were charging to prevent counter-charges in the next turn.

On the plus side...

Low model count means you can dedicate more time to painting and to create interesting conversions. God-specific chariots, for one thing, interest me as a concept. The Gorebeast harness components, I know, can easily be adapted to accommodate a Beast of Nurgle and Juggernauts are about the same size. Then there's the every popular head swap to create God-specific Knights: Skullcrusher helms to create Khornate Knights, Hellstrider heads for Slaanesh and so forth. There are also a number of fantastic Storm Of Chaos era mounted Chaos Lords to choose from.

The only real problem is that it would be a very hard army to learn. Not much of a problem for mebut I can understand how it might put people off. 

Dwarf Rangers and kiting

I like Let's Plays and one of my favourites is the Side Quest series on the Extra Play channel. For the past year or so Dan Floyd, the voice of Extra Credits, has been playing his way through the Dark Souls trilogy. Its not as educational as most of the other series rhe EC crew put out, at least not since James Portnow stopped giving his designer's perspective early in the series, but its fun to watch Dan die over and over, plus he has a really relaxing voice.

Just me? Okay.

Anyway, his commentary introduced me to an idea that finally allowed me to put one of my favourite Dwarf units to proper use: kiting.

In a video game, you exploit an enemy's programming to make them follow you. You use the tactic to draw members of a horde out one by one or drag enemies into an area where you have an advantage.

On the tabletop, you present your enemy with a target they can't ignore but don't want to deal with. In this case, I set up my Rangers the minimun distance away from a unit of Dark Elves Dreadspears. This unit was holding down the right flank of my opponent's army with most of my power units set up towards his left. This unit was already at the farthest extent of his line and the furthest thing he had from the rest of my army. Chasing my Rangers would mean turning to face away from my army, marching twelve inches out of his way and charging into a hail of crossbow bolts.

Ignoring them meant having a unit with great weapons and crossbows attacking his right flank as my Warriors and Irondrakes moved in on his left.

I also had my Organ Gun positioned to take advantage of a failed charge or the complete massacre of my Rangers (who do not have a particularly long history of surviving contact with the enemy).

As it happens, terrible dice rolling on both our parts meant the tactic worked better than it had right to. I kept losing combat and he kept pursuing me exactly one inch short which meant three consecutive turns of stopping just shy of overrunning my Rangers and getting an Orgun Gun in the flank for his troubles.

Its essentially a psychological tactics so I'm going to have to work on making sure the bait is sufficiently annoying in future but I think I finally have a line on how scouting units are meant to be deployed.