This post is intended to offer a tactical outlook for running a dwarf gun line successfully. For the purposes of this article, I will be using my own list - dubbed the "Monty Mash" in another thread, as my example. However, the principles behind the way that I play that list apply to most gunlines. In addition to talking about list construction and general theory for your gunline, this Tactica will focus on a few things - deployment, target priority, and breaking the box.

The Dwarf Gunline - The Fluff-Based Competitive Dwarf Army Build

The principle behind a gunline is fairly simple. Deploy back, frequently with a defended or refused flank, gun down must-kill targets and weaken combat units, win the game in close combat or simply hold the line until the end of the game. This form of play has existed for the history of Warhammer, and gained popularity for Dwarfs early in 8th edition through the tournament success of our own Furgil, a dwarf player from central Texas in the United States. This form of play was also used quite successfully across the pond from us colonials by one Andy Spiers. Both of these gents have extensive battle reports and posts on what made their lists work.

Our new army book came out this past year. The changes to our army brought about several options for our gun line builds that made up for weaknesses in them under the previous book.

The general principle behind a gunline in terms of building your list is simple. For the strongest shooting phase you need -

At least 4 war machines, including 2 Organ Guns with Accuracy, and two master engineers to run them.

At least one war machine that can reach out and kill T3 shooting infantry at long range, such as the Grudge Thrower. Flame cannon can also work, but is more limited.

At least one cannon.

Shooting Infantry - Either in large units or in small units. Quarrelers are slightly superior to Thunderers in that they have a 30" range and more options in terms of close combat armament.

At least one solid fighting block of infantry. Generally, that's a unit of Hammerers carrying the Groth One Eye banner, but it can also be done with a central unit of Longbeards with great weapons, or even Irondrakes. Hammerers make an excellent central threat, and tend to draw the shooting ire of opponents who fear them, keeping your actual threat (war machines, shooting infantry) a bit more safe.

The debate about what unit is best rages on. I prefer hammerers because of their amazing close combat punch, and their 75 point banner allowance.

At least 2 Gyrocopters. Some have gone with a single gyrocopter, and make it work. However, the utility this unit offers makes 2-3 gyros ideal for helping preserve the gunline through the game.

Here is the so-called "Monty Mash" list, used at Bayou Battles (4th General), and TWGC (6th overall) -

Runesmith, General, Shield, Stone, Spell Breaker, Furnace
Runesmith, Shield, Stone, Spell Breaker (2)
Thane, BSB, MR of Grungni
Master Engineer
Master Engineer

25 Longbeards, Shields, Music and Standard
10 Quarrelers, Shields, Music
10 Quarrelers, Shields, Music

26 Hammerers, Full Command. Groth One Eye Banner, Rune of Fire on the Keeper of the Gate's hand weapon.
2 Gyrocopters
Cannon, Forging
Cannon, Forging and Fire
Grudge Thrower, Accuracy and Forging
Organ Gun, Accuracy
Organ Gun, Accuracy and Burning

I like my Longbeard unit, and love how it plays on the table. My guess is that a more optimal gunline, however, might trade those Longbeards for two units of Quarrelers with Great Weapons at approximately 20 or so strong. With the Groth One Eye banner, you trade some WS and defense for offense and shooting from turn one. My small 10 man units tend to work like little redirectors at the end of the game, or speed bumps for my opponent to set up counter charges from Hammerers and Longbeards. However, they also tend to give up their points, and 140 is a lot to hand off if you don't make up for their loss in close combat.

Why do you not have a fighty/tanky general?

The purpose of the build is to win in the shooting phase and control the opponent's choices by forcing them to come fight you or get shot off the table. A fighty general is a lot of points to spend on someone who won't be useful until the end of the game, if at all. If all goes according to plan, he'll never see combat. And, given our limited movement, most armies can keep a good dwarf general away from choice targets for the duration of the game. That being said, other successful players have used Thanes and Lords as their generals in a gun line to great success. Just accept that it's a zero sum game - spending 300 points on a Lord that never sees combat means you didn't spend 300 points on shooting that was useful from turn one.

Why Groth One Eye?

The Groth One Eye banner was designed with gun lines in mind. One of the problems with the old gunline build before our new book came out was combats that went badly for a horde of Great Weapons. Early on in 8th, Dwarf great weapon hordes could throw back just about any foe. However, as more books came out, more threats began to present themselves that could win combat against 40 great weapons and run them down, costing us 400 points and then putting a big enemy into our backfield or war machines.

Stubborn changes all that. We can take stubborn on a magic banner (35 points) and then another (50 points) to have two stubborn units, but you're paying a premium - 85 points, and also the extra cost of those units. With Groth, however, you get a couple of added benefits. Not only will your bubble likely protect all of your units for the majority of the game, it also allows you to use 2+ armor save heroes to hold off entire units of soft-hitting enemies like clan rats, slaves, Orc Boys (normal ones), goblins, zombies, skeletons, and the like. Basically, anything with S3. With Groth one eye, a single hero can stop an entire regiment of enemies, happily losing combat every turn and then holding on Stubborn 9 or 10. Gyrocopters can serve in the same capacity with their 4+, t5, and three wounds.

Groth One Eye can be used in conjunction with swift reforms to allow outlying units to hold against much more dangerous foes until help arrives. That unit of 10 quarrelers can have a body or two left, and if that banner is in 12", they will hold until the big kids get in to clean up the mess. You can then shift your war machines out of the way of an overrun if you don't need them to shoot.

The utility of this banner cannot be underestimated. I believe you can play a gunline successfully without it, but I think it's amazing in a gun line army.

Why the investment in organ guns and master engineers?

The Organ Gun is our most dangerous threat. It can control a massive swath of the battle field, and if any unit comes within 30" of both guns, it can potentially be deleted. 18 Chaos Warriors can easily be killed by two Accurate Organ Guns, fired at long range, through soft cover (if a Master Engineer is nearby). That's impressive. Master Engineers help prevent misfires and keep the number of shots consistent by rerolling low numbers (2s) and misfires. You essentially get a weapon that's S5 Armor Piercing, 30" range, at Ballistic Skill 5. There's really nothing out there that compares to twin Organ Guns, accurate, with Master Engineers. Even more so than the Cannon, it's the bread and butter choice for a powerful gun line. And yes, it will not make folks happy when it does it's job. It's over 400 points invested, nearly 1/4 of your army. But, it can wipe out units of fast cav in a single volley. It can break the spine of monstrous cavalry, or regular heavy cavalry, with a dedicated turn of shooting. It can kill war machine hunters, and even presents a credible threat to those irritating unkillable flying heroes (Masters On Pegasus with the Twilight Cloak will still blow up if you focus fire, as will disc lords and what not).

I can only take 4 war machines because of comp. What should I drop?

The second cannon with forging and burning.

I don't want to use Hammerers. Can I still do this successfully?

Yes. You will need a stubborn combat block to go alongside your Ironbreakers. Greatbeards with a rune of Stoicism and full command fills your core exactly in a 625 point list. You should probably have a third unit to fight with in your army, but if you want to play Chaos-Dwarf style, you can do so with Ironbreakers and a unit of Great Beards. You could also go with Shield Beards with stoicism, or just great weapons alongside Stubborn Ironbreakers. You need stubborn, however, to hold the line. Shooting will fail you. You can also pack a unit of Ironbreakers with heroes, put Groth One Eye on your BSB banner, and hide him in the second rank.

I run into the Banner of the World Dragon on a variety of High Elf units. All of these War Machines are Runic. What can you do against the BOTWD?
You cannot kill what you cannot kill, so don't bother. Gyro copters can either slowly burn them down with steam or redirect them if they are high armor cavalry. Shoot everything else and then let whatever unit has the banner get stuck on stubborn units, chaff, etc. It takes a little management, and some sacrifice, but it's doable.

Deploying Your Gunline

Deployment may be the most important phase of your game when playing this sort of list style. And, gunline deployment has advantages and disadvantages.

Gunline deployment is generally consistent, assuming a normal scenario that does not control your deployment choices (Dawn Attack or Meeting Engagement, for example). In most 5-game events, you'll see either Battle Line or Blood and Glory deployment rules in play. I'll go into deploying in other scenarios briefly at the end, but for now let's focus on standard deployment in order to talk about the strategy behind laying out your gun line.

Castle Deployment

Most gunlines rely on what's referred to as a Castle Deployment. You use your main infantry blocks to guard access to your war machines, which sit between or behind those blocks in order to freely fire for as long as possible. The goal of this deployment strategy is to force the enemy to come to you via shooting, and then to punish them for coming to you when they get there by carefully arranging the infantry unit "walls" of your castle to set up advantageous combats for your troops.

The disadvantage of a castle deployment is that you generally have to make the same or similar choices with a castle every time you deploy. Your opponents will almost always have more drops than you, which means they will know where you are going before they commit a major unit to the field. They will be able to approach your gunline from the angles they want (ideally), and you will have to respond to that. The advantage, of course, is that when you deploy someplace, that's where they have to go to get you. So, assuming your shooting is strong enough to motivate them to do more than hide and spam spells at you, you can set the stage for the end of the game (and the close combat that will determine your victory or loss).

The thing to remember about castle deployment is that there is no fullproof formation. Every castle can be exploited, and will be exploited, by your opponent's army. Every army has the tools to do this - they all have fast cav, or deadly heroes that fly, or monsters, or artillery of their own to pick off your war machines from a distance. You must keep this fact in mind - all other armies are better than you at movement, and most armies are better than you at close combat. Magic makes every army potentially better than us in nearly every phase. We excel at shooting things.

But, I digress. Your choice of where to deploy and what to put where is determined by several things.

First, chaff. You will want to drop your Gyrocopters first. If you get the first deployment, you can use that moment to "lie" to your opponent and potentially draw out one of his chaff drops. So, if you're planning on deploying on the left flank, you can drop a gyro out to the right, and trick your opponent into believing that's where you're going. If she's wise, she'll just drop some chaff over there, but that's ok. That means you won't have to deal with that particular unit of chaff early on. It's win-win, because you can just fly your Gyro over to your lines on turn one and leave those wolves or harpies or whatever swinging in the wind. Or, you can go send your gyro out to take them down, and then fly back towards the battle later in the game, or maybe hunt some war machines. Either way, that's a win.

Once you have dropped your gyros (and, I suggest dropping at least one behind LOS blocking terrain or heavy cover), you'll need to build your castle. When picking the ground you wish to defend, you need to take the following into account -

1) Lanes of Fire

With line of sight rules firmly in mind, you want to deploy in such a way that your war machines have line of sight to as much of the board as possible. You also want to make sure your Organ Guns have a nice, broad swath of the board covered with their 30" range. If possible, you can arrange your troops such that any enemy troop deployed on forward line of their deployment zone is in range for a turn 1 volley from the Organ Guns. If they don't deploy on the line, well, you've just cost them some movement, which translates into an extra turn of shooting, possibly 2.

Terrain is important. That hill in your deployment zone can really open up LOS for your Organ Guns, cannons, and Grudge throwers. It allows you to fairly see over your own troops, and that means you can tuck your Organ Guns back without giving yourself a penalty.

That being said, the hill may not be the best choice. It's not always wisest to go after a War Machine hill. You have to look at the battle as it is, not as you'd like it to be. If that hill is too hard to defend, don't try.

2) Where your weak point will be.

Every castle has a weak point. Either you have a smaller, weaker main line unit (quarrelers, for example), or you have a backfield vulnerable to a flying hero. You need to assess where your weak point will be, and try to augment it's defense as best you can. Having clear lines of fire from the Organ Guns will help. Positioning heroes in units that can easily get to that point and stop enemy war machine hunters is probably a good idea. But most importantly, have a plan for what happens when the enemy strikes at your weak point.

If you're careful, you can use that to your advantage. If you know where your opponent might strike, then you can get ahead of the game and set them up for a trap.

3) Likely approach(es) of the Enemy

As you deploy, try to keep in mind where you would strike if you were the bad guys. Where is that aforementioned weak point? But more importantly, how might they get to that point in a way that allows them to strike from a position of strength?

Once you know how they might get there, you can get ahead of them in your own movement phase. Can your Gyrocopter be sacrificed early on to jam up their movement for a couple of turns? Can you use the range of their BSB to panic one side or the other of their army, forcing them to re-calibrate their approach?

4) Ability to counterstrike in close combat.

The problem with a castle is that you need room to breathe. This is something I often screw up. I try to make as tight a castle as I can to prevent ingress into my lines, and I wind up getting stuck on my own units when I try to counter charge. You need room to breathe. Give some wiggle room between units (and more if you tuck your war machines in there).

A lot of our better items work in a bubble - Groth and Grungni come to mind. You need to be very careful about where you deploy those assets so that that they provide the maximum bang for their buck. Not every unit needs to be in Groth range on turn one, but any unit likely to be in combat on the following turn should be in Groth range before that happens. Obviously, that's not always necessary. Your longbeards might have enough ranks to hold out for a turn or two on their own Steadfast before you need to have Groth present to hold.

So, you have three competing needs. One, the need to be able to freely counter charge or change your formation to deal with changing battlefield conditions. Two, you need to be able to keep several units relatively close to one another for Stubborn and protection from shooting and magic missiles. And three, you need to make sure your war machines have line of sight and open lanes of fire.

Here is an example of Corner Castle deployment, otherwise known as a Refused Flank -

You'll notice some things. First, all units are within the 12" Groth One Eye banner, projected from the red banner in the hammerer unit on the hill. My BSB also covers all units.

The Weak point is on the left flank, where there are only two 10 man units of quarrelers.However, Groth One Eye means those units are going to hold the line, even against one of those nasty Greenskin hordes over there, and the Hammerers can save the day. But it's still a weak point in the line.

So, I toss a Cannon out right as a tempting target, hoping to keep his chaff approaching from that angle to kill the cannon, and to perhaps draw a Mangler Squig over there. It should also draw some fire away from the Organ Guns, since it's outside the Grungni bubble.

That's not to say you couldn't deploy it in a safer locale. I made a choice here given the battlefield conditions, and what I want to make my opponent do during his movement phase. I want him to commit something to take out the "free" cannon target over there. Hopefully, I can exploit that choice.

The Master Engineers are tucked away in units. This is because my opponent has enough credible shooting threats to kill them with a Doom Driva or maybe even a Bolt Thrower. Until those threats are neutralized, I need my ME's safe and close to their personal Organ Guns.

My general is deployed in the Hammerers in order to make use of the Bodyguard special rule, should it come up. The big Impassible terrain rock is a help and a hindrance. He doesn't have any serious units that can exploit it as cover, so I'm not too worried about it.

The corner castle deployement is nice against big hordes because it forces them to get jammed up on one another should they get in a position to charge my lines.

Here is one example of Central Deployment -

The Quarrelers in the building are Stubborn on their own, and relatively safe from panic. The weak point is on both edges of a central deployment. However, on the right we have some pretty solid anti-troll and chaff shooting, and a Gyro to redirect if needs be. On the left the building will offer cover to the unit of Wolf Riders, but it's going to be tough to get a charge on the Organ Gun without exposing that unit to an Organ Gun volley (almost a certain unit deletion) and 10 Quarrelers. And a Gyro. So, my edges are weak, but they're supported. The enemy doesn't have a lot of back-line threats unless he gets off a Hand of Gork. In which case, I have organ guns and grape shot, and Gyros if needs be.

Magic and Deployment -

A final note on deployment. Make sure your opponent follows the rules and rolls their spells before deployment. Many forget, but it's important. Don't deploy until you know what their wizards are capable of. If they have any of the unit deletion spells that rely on characteristic tests, you need to deploy your war machines spread out to minimize the threat against them. Pit of Shades and Purple Sun are the big problems.

If your opponent has Comet of Cassandora, recognize that a tight Castle will be very problematic if he gets that spell off. If they get it off with If, assume the loss of at least two war machines and probably half a unit. It's that bad. Dispel it, spell eat it, etc. More on magic defense later, but recognize that you must take their magical capabilities into account when you deploy your forces.