Bugmans Brewery - The Home for all Warhammer Dwarf Fans: A simple guide to the many changes in the Warhammer 6.5 Edition from the old 6th Edition version

Well lets start out with the characters.

Dwarf Lord:
he is now 145pts vs. 135 pts but comes with gromril armour standard. Can have magic items worth up to 125pts!!! Can take an oath stone for 30pts which removes the units flanks and the unit cannot move. He wil always accept challenges and issue them when on the oath stone. should make for a pretty nasty character.

Runelord:
Still remains at 140 pts but now adds 2 dispel dice to your pool instead of just one. He can take magic items up to 150 pts. His leadership has now been reduced to nine.

Thane:
is now 65pts but comes with gromril armour standard. can take magic items up to 75 and can take an oath stone. If you put this guy with a oath stone in a unit of longbeards or ironbreakers it could be pretty nasty. Also with some of the new and improved runes available he could become an even better "Thane of Pain"

Runesmith:
Like the runelord his point cost remains the same. He doesn't change much but could be nasty when put into the right tactical positions.

Master Engineer: This guy is the one of the best changes to the dwarf list. He gets the Entrenchment ability which lets him entrench one warmachine. This warmachine counts as being in hard cover for combat and shooting purposes. Since the Anvil of Doom counts as a war machine now you can entrench that if you wish. (Nasty) Also when he joins a BT they can use his Ballistic Skill. When joining a grudge thrower you can re-roll the artillery dice and when joining a cannon it inflicts D6 wounds instead of D3.

Core Units:

Dwarf Warriors:
they have gone up to 8pts but come with heavy armour. can have the option to carry shields and great weapons. As usual these guys should remain a pretty effective fighting force. A character could make this unit something to be reckoned with.

Longbeards:
they are a 3 pt upgrade to warriors so are eleven points apiece. With GW's these guys would be 13pts apiece and with the upgrade they get +1 WS and +1S. There cannot be more than units of them then there are of clansmen. these guys will be a pain in your opponents backside if used correctly.

Quarrelers(crossbowmen)
can take shields and GW's like warriors and are 11 pts now. Should be the same as usual. good old dwarf crossbowmen. These guys can be uprgraded to Rangers as well as warriors and longbeards if they are equipped with GW's.

Thunderers:
can take shields as usual. They are now move-or-fire but +1 to hit at any range so that is pretty good. But I think the move-or-fire slightly overshadows the +1 to hit. The have declined but not by much.

Rangers:
Now here is where it gets exciting. You can have Ranger Longbeards!!! Since you can have rangers as an upgrade to any GW wield unit. (quarrelers,clansmen longbeards) you could have WS 5 GW wielding scouts. they are 0-1 but with a longbeard unit deployed behind your enemy's lines would not be nice at all. They are a +1 pt per model upgrade to the units.

Miners:
They can now take a Prospector with a steam drill!!!! counts as a +3 strength weapon and always strikes last. even on the charge. The unit can take blasting charges which can be used as stand and shoot missle weapons. With these upgrades you could pop up in front of a unit and totally destroy them when they charge you.

Ironbreakers:
same as usuall but still a good fighting force.

Hammerers:
also same as usual but are now stubborn basic and become immune to panic when a character with royal blood joins them.

War machines:
They can take just Basic Engineers which let the BT use the BS when joined by him and re-roll the misfire result when firing a grudge thrower.

Organ gun has gone down 5 pts and its range has been increased to 24"

the crash when defeated in combat rule has been eliminated for the gyrocopter so all in all a good deal there.

flame cannon good as well.


Tactics:

Defensive:
You can still rely on the old tactic of sitting back and wait for them to come to you.
With the thunderers loss of move and shoot these guys are good in this situation. You aren't planning on moving these guys anyway so they can just sit there. The Thunderers are also +1 to shoot at any range so that is always good. With the improvement of the war machines this becomes an even more viable option.

Also you can take some good stuff to take a charge such as warriors with great weapons or some Ironbreakers.


Aggressive:
If you use this tactic a lot of people will be very surprised and go "Aggresive Dwarfs?" Anyways.

With the improved Anvil of Doom with the regular a unit can make a move in the shooting phase. This makes it possible for units to move rapidly across the field. Also with Strollaz's rune at the beginning of the game after deployment any and all friendly dwarf units within 12" of the banner can make an immediate move. So imagine a unit using a unit using this banner and moving and then moving in its turn and then have the anvil move it. It could fly across the battlefield.

This would be a good Agressive list.

Runelord
Anvil of Doom

Josef Bugman

Thane
Rune of Brotherhood

Rangers
Crossbows

Bugmans Ranger Bodyguard

Quarrelers

Miners

Miners

Fill out the Remaining pts in the army with warmachines of you choice.
With the Rangers Scout ability and the miners Underground Advance rule the rangers and miners can come up close to the enemy lines. Then your other units can shoot ahead and take out some enemy while your Rangers and Miners finish up.