Dwarf Spellbreaker Guide - Lore Of Metal - The Dwarf Tavern (9th Age + 8th Ed Warhammer) - Bugmans Brewery

I really thought someone had done this, but it wasn't linked from the School, so I whipped it out.

Dwarf Spellbreaker Guide - Lore of Metal

Metal is an effective lore against Dwarfs as every spell has real value. Two of the spells can be very bad for us and one spell is good enough we often take a rune just for that one spell. The most powerful spell in the Lore of Metal looks really horrible for beginning Dwarf players, but there are more dangerous spells in other lores.

Rule of Burning Iron - 3 beers
This is a character snipe. It lets the enemy wizard pick out your Dwarf character from a distance (LOS is required) despite his standing in a unit. The strength increases as your armour save gets better, so the usual Dwarf character walking around with a 1+ armour save is taking a Strength 7 hit and getting no armour save!! The Master Rune of Gromril suddenly doesn't look like such a good idea. However, the 5 point Rune of the Furnace makes a Dwarf character immune to this spell. If facing an enemy that can take Lore of Metal, spending 10 or 15 points to put that rune on characters can be instantly worthwhile. Several of us put Furnace on important characters in general purpose GT lists, just for insurance. With Daemons and Chaos Warriors gaining access to Lore of Metal recently, that looks like an even better idea.
If your character has a good armour save, you are going to need to stop this spell. A strength 6 or 7 hit is going to wound and quickly kill your character. But most of the time the loss of one character is not the end of the world, so I would save spellbreakers for more destructive spells, assuming your opponent rolled them.

Commandment of Brass - 2 beers
A spell that stops a war machine from shooting (or moving). Looks quite effective at first glance, but isn't so significant on the table. For one thing, its range is only 24 inches. While that is plenty for most spells, war machines tend to be further away and any wizard that close to a war machine is risking getting shot by everything else we have. Probably most importantly, it only affects one machine and only lasts one turn. The spells that kill our troops are permanent and thus more threatening.
When facing an enemy with serious magic, this is a spell you let go through. The main exception is if the war machine in question has a critical shot coming on the next turn, such as an Organ Gun at the wizard casting the spell. I would never use a spellbreaker against Brass.

Transmutation of Lead - 0 or 4 beers
A serious combat penalty spell. Its biggest affect is to reduce offense, with -1 to hit and wound, but it also reduces your defense with -1 armour save. When you are engaged in a close combat with a doubtful outcome, this is a spell you must stop. Particularly important when you expect a character in that unit to inflict damage upon the enemy, as the penalty can easily halve the damage you do. However, its limited application (close combat only) means it only matters about 3 turns each game. Also don't obsess over this being cast on a combat that doesn't matter. If your war machine is charged by a dragon, let the wizard cast Lead on the war machine - the crew isn't going to live anyway.
Saving spellbreakers for this is reasonable and using dice against it when the runes are gone is nearly automatic.

Distillation of Molten Silver - 3 beers
Standard large magic missile. Powerful enough to do something, but not powerful enough to really hurt given our Toughness and Armour. An average roll kills only 3 or 4 Dwarfs, but a better roll for number of hits can up that to 6 without being shocking. Normally used on our shooters (or war machines) due to the lower armour. This is normally worth dispel dice, but is not worth a spellbreaker unless your opponent did really bad on spell selection.

Law of Gold - 2 beers
A way to negate our runic items, although sometimes only temporarily. Although much easier to cast, this is not nearly as powerful as the High Magic spell Vaul's Unmaking. Most importantly, Law of Gold lets the target player pick the item affected, not the caster. For example, if you've got a Talisman with the already used Master Rune of Challenge and nothing else, you nominate the talisman and effectively lose nothing! Note that it will take out ALL runes on an item, so you'd lose your entire triple-runed armour, not just one rune.
Choosing whether to dispel this depends heavily on what runes you would lose. If you need the Lord's massively runed Hammer to kill the dragon, you need another rune in the unit you can nomiate or you'd better stop this spell. Most of the time, especially past the first couple of turns, this is a spell I let go.

Spirit of the Forge - 4 beers
The most powerful spell in the lore and one that looks devastating on paper. 2d6 hits that ignore armour hurts, but they will only be strength 4 against most Dwarfs. That averages about 4 dead, which isn't close to the damage against heavy cavalry, where it often removes entire units. It will hit Ironbreakers at strength 5, so this spell is one of the few effective ways to kill them, but overall this spell's reputation is not based on casting it against us.
It is the most damaging spell in the lore and thus worth using spellbreakers against. But don't be too eager to stop this (except against Ironbreakers), because Transmutation of Lead might be more significant later. And don't let yourself get caught with no defense against Burning Iron when your BSB is at one wound. Since this spell will usually be cast with 4 power dice (or even 5), it may not be worth using your dispel dice against. You'll need a lot of dice, a decent roll, and not rolling double 1s. When your opponent has other dangerous options, it isn't worth blowing your entire defense for the chance to stop a spell that needs to roll above average to remove one rank.

Dwarf Spellbreaker Guide - Lore Of Metal

#1 David L

#2 Retiye

#3 gnort_2

#4 Lord Ironaxe

#5 LF - Kevin B

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