HOW TO SHUTDOWN DWARFS! - Total War: Warhammer 2 Multiplayer Guide

how on earth am I supposed to stop the dwarfs I hear many people cry well in this guide I can hopefully give you some of those answers on how we can best deal with the dowry we'll take a look at some of their key units the problems they can present us and what we can do about them and any of their weaknesses that we can take advantage of this is aimed more at multiplayer than campaign but the information will be useful for both let's begin by talking about the default placed out for the dwarfs army armie generally supposed to be played well they've got a strong defensive playstyle overall with powerful ranged options they can just find a nice defensible position on a hill perhaps bring a bunch of artillery and just gun you down until you come to get them rather than them advancing on their enemies they also have superior armor and endurance which allows them to outlast most other factions the combination of high leadership high armor and high melee defense is prevalent throughout their entire army meaning it's very difficult to get their units off the battlefield which means they'll just fight until you run away from the battle because they can go for ages they have no calves or monsters so little in the way of any kind of flanking units because everything's so slow but instead they can afford a lot of infantry which presents its own problems and lastly they don't have traditional magic like most other factions instead they rely on their runes which mostly focus on making them tougher again adding to their ability to win those Wars of attrition so that's the typical dwarf play style that you'll likely come across and you can pretty much always expect some variation of this although sometimes you can really break the mold and do some weird things with the dwarf so do expect things to sometimes be a little bit different so be sure to understand this so you know what the dwarfs are going to be trying to do to you but also understand that there's no foolproof way to beat the dwarfs sometimes you'll win sometimes you lose that is total war Warhammer my friends now let's take a look at some of their key units and what they may be up to first of all with the lords and then the rest of the army so the first Lord that you might see is the good old dwarf Lord he is the quote-unquote weakest of the lords but only because he's the cheapest he is still mighty strong and if you don't believe me check out this online battle which I will link as it shows the true power of the dwarf Lords now him being cheaper does mean that there's going to be more money spent on the rest of the army which is never good but here's a common pick because he is still pretty good in melee can survive pretty well and does provide that little bit of extra funds for the rest of the army and then you've got Bela gar ironhammer who doesn't stand out in any particular way he's basically just a buffed up dwarf Lord but he perhaps is the toughest with the highest combination of high armor a silver shield high melee defense and a high leadership so good if you want something a little bit stronger than a dwarf Lord and if you strip him down with all his abilities he can be pretty cheap which means you're getting pretty good value for money and then arguably the best choice for a dwarf Lord the rune Lord he may be the weakest in melee stats wise but he can still put out some damage and is of course mighty tough the real selling point of him though is the fact that he comes with all the runes meaning you don't have to pay for a lord and a rune smith you can combine them in one and not pay too much so if you see a rune Lord on the field you do have to be wary of all those runes but you can rest assured that you're not going to take a ton of damage if you engage him in melee and then we've got the almighty on grim I invest who is going to empty the enemy's pockets a bit more as he is quite expensive he is unbreakable which will add to his toughness and his potential damage output although he is lacking melee defense for a dwarf Lord so a good armor piercing Lord of your own could put some damage into him the time to fear hunger in though is if you have a large Lord because he will be able to mess them up with his anti large bonus or any of your large units for that matter definitely want to avoid if you have put your Lord or Heroes on a mount or if you brought a large Lord like coal accord earth to take him out in other ways and lastly the maniac that is Grum brindell the white dwarf he is also pretty expensive so if you see him on the field you'll know that less money has been spent on the army he's probably the strongest in melee with ridiculous melee attack weapon strength which is arm piercing and even magical damage so wise to stay clear of him with your lords and heroes perhaps which is pretty easy to do considering how slow these lords are so that's never really too big of a worry and so on to the rest of the army beginning with minors particularly with blasting charges these have become a very popular choice for the dwarfs as they are so cheap and can still provide plenty of benefits no other faction can spend 400 funds on an infantry unit and get 80 armor and armor piercing damage not to mention the blasting charge they are mostly used as an expendable unit slowing down the enemy and doing what damage they can before they're inevitably taken out their low melee defense means they will be melted pretty quickly in melee but it can buy them a little bit of time to make use of that armor-piercing to do at least some damage and make themselves useful the biggest threat though is all in the blasting charge to your unarmored units as it will do a lot of damage so take note of where your expensive unarmored units might be the blasting charge is also very useful for interrupting enemy charges and for the dwarfs first actual frontline potential choice dwarf Warriors can be pretty good value for money they don't put out a great deal of damage but they will hold really well which is of course a problem if you're trying to kill the little bastards the best hope of getting through them is of course to bring armor-piercing whether that's in infantry or monsters or cavalry or even magic and just trying to break them down as quickly as possible don't just let them sit there fighting your non-armor-piercing units because they may be able to grind them out and win you'll need to help those non-armor-piercing units to get through them or if you see the armor piercing counterpart you'll just switch the rolls around they'll put out more damage but they won't be so good at holding still armor piercing will be the key and then you've got long beards who are basically exactly the same as dwarf warriors just a lot tougher and better at their job again low damage output but great holding power although the long beards can definitely do more damage than dwarf warriors will so you're gonna need stronger units to get through them and then you may need to get through the dwarf warriors again armor piercing and high melee attack is going to help they can also be problematic because they are old grumblers which will increase the leadership of nearby units so if there's only one or two units of long beards on the field trying to encourage everyone you should try and get rid of them quickly so that they don't you may also see the armor piercing counterpart against which the rolls round they've got better damage but lower holding power Slayers an integral part of the dwarf army their anti large choice of course as they don't have spearmen and I'm sure you've learned by now to steer clear of them with your cavalry monsters and anything large the glaring weakness of the Slayers of course though is that they're not wearing any goddamn clothes which makes them very vulnerable to lots of things missiles cycle charging magic and even cheap expendable infantry which is a great way to deal with them in all honesty because it's very good value for money a crappy unit of goblin spearmen doesn't cost very much but it can put out fair damage against the unarmored Slayers and it's great value for money because they're so damn expensive on to some of the ranged units beginning with Rangers who are a pretty popular choice nowadays they have less armor than other dwarf units but they do have a shield to make up for it a little bit their selling point is that they have Vanguard deployment and stalk so they can be pretty sneaky if the enemy wants them to be they're also the cheapest ranged choice you can deal with them like any other ranged unit if you can find them they do perhaps have a bit more survivability than other dwarf missile units as they are a bit quicker on their feet and have the Stork ability so can maybe outrun some infantry so then to Thunderer's one of the strongest missile units in total war Warhammer they pack a punch with armor-piercing missiles damage which can devastate pretty much any kind of unit which also makes them serve as a great anti large unit gunning down any kind of monster or cavalry nearby and of course all their allies are so short it's very easy for them to shoot over them it's a safe assessment to expect Thunderer's as 9 out of 10 to wharf armies will have them and with good reason not only can they dish out the damage but of course they have high armor and a shield as well making them pretty good against other missile units - but where they fall short is in their vulnerability to pretty much any kind of melee they're very slow on their feet so melee infantry is going to catch them and beat the crap out of them cavalry of course monsters can get them however they can quite easily support each other because they're so powerful so disruption is really the key also be especially careful if you brought a large Lord because he is a big target and a few focus firing Thunderer's that will put an end to him in less than 30 seconds another ranged unit that can put an end to your large units in a matter of seconds troll hammer torpedo iron Drake's they're very expensive but they have anti large missiles which can absolutely ruin your cavalry or monsters they do have fairly short range though so they are avoidable but they're great at protecting the formation interior again just a unit that needs to be disrupted by some kind of cheap unit preferably and then just battered with any kind of melee unit or monster or cavalry anything in melee should take them out preferably keep your large units at a distance until they're taken care of and lastly of course dwarf artillery if you see a gobbler it's probably going after your infantry if you see a cannon it's probably going for your large units and if you see an organ gun it's probably going for your cavalry and my god don't let an organ gun hit your cavalry those three are probably the most used artilleries for the dwarfs with the gobbler and cannon being pretty cheap and having some nice D buffs they can be very dangerous and will give the dwarfs that ranged defensive advantage you can deal with them like any artillery if you can get melee on them or disrupt them those are the two keys and try to minimize damage to your important units by keeping them out of harm's way so with all that information in tow let's take a look at some of the problems that the dwarf army may give us well of course they're defensive play style can be a problem depending on your army setup and your army plans it's very common to see the dwarfs take up a nice defensive position and then just bombard you with their superior ranged units setting up on some kind of healers obviously the first choice because it will slow down cavalry and flanking units which is only going to help them out where you may start to find problems is if you try to trade artillery fire with the dwarfs which really isn't a good plan you either need to try and out artillery them by bringing more artillery than them which will force them to come down from there nice defensive position and engage you they need to be coming off worse to have a reason to come and get you the trouble with more even trading is that the dwarves are going to take a pounding far better than any other faction will so they can still survive and fight well even though they've been beaten to crap by artillery they've got high leadership high armor high melee defense you probably don't have all those and will come off worse in an even artillery skirmish the other option is not to bother with puny artillery spend the money on units and rush them down don't give them a chance to use that artillery take away their ranged advantage personally I'd say they're the only two choices you either bring the artillery to outgun them or you rush them there's no middle ground skirmish because you will be on the losing end of it dwarfs absolutely love it when you sit there taking their ranged fire because even if they're taking it in return they know you're gonna feel it more which brings me nicely to my next point that dwarf ranged units are really their strength and power they have many different options through their missile infantry and artillery which they're usually very reliant on to win the battle if you can take out their ranged units you'll have a much better chance of winning of course like any faction with ranged superiority they will try to wear down your elite units before they even reach you and if they're successful all you'll have to fight them with is your lesser units which is obviously bad news so you've got to do your best to protect your important units from this ranged fire as much as you can it's not always easy especially in open field battles but if there's trees or rocks or hills or any stalk spells you can use to help keep those important units hidden it's gonna help out so disrupting those miss and stopping them from firing is very important in the usual ways you can disrupt them with your cavalry with your flying units with your magic with summoned units but do be careful of those god damn Slayers they do sometimes feel like they are everywhere and they'll be doing their best to chase you off which means the missile unit you just attacked will probably turn and shoot you and do some damage so you have to weigh up where it's worth it look for those holes where the Slayers aren't and take advantage of them if you can't control the enemy ranged units you'll find them just covering wherever they want slowly whittling down your health you'll also find that any good dwarf player worth their salts will spread their missiles and artillery out so they can all protect each other like here we've got three units of thunderous and some iron Drake's in there and they can just all cover each other if someone should come in and attack them so say a dragon swooped down on one unit two Thunderer units could then turn to shoot that dragon and given their damage output they will put a lot of hurt on it quickly forcing you to retreat or die and the last potentially problematic part of the dwarf ranged power its gyrocopters now they're not terribly powerful but over time they will do a lot of damage left unchecked they're the closest thing to any kind of cavalry unit or mobile unit that the dwarfs have but they really cannot take damage at all any kind of air flying unit will probably be able to take them out and missiles will also Whittle them down quick enough especially if they're armor-piercing so keep an eye out for them but be aware if they're just trying to draw you out of position by being harassing so like I said the ranged units are one of the most important components of any dwarf army if you can limit their damage output and get rid of them you've pretty much got the win in the bag and just for a quick trick a good way to waste minor blasting charges is to run around a single character in front of them like a hero or Lord most of them will miss and their ammo will be wasted as most people keep their blasting charged units on fire at will so we can take advantage of this and make them waste some of that precious blasting charge ammo but be careful parading yourself around in front of things in case you get focused down by missiles or artillery next we must address the dwarf endurance their ability to hang in there our best hope of getting past this is to deal with the three stats that give them that enjoy grunts armored leadership and melee defense these three things combine to make a unit really good at staying alive the high melee defense stops them from getting hit in the first place the armor protects them if they do get hit and leadership helps keep them mentally steady so how can we deal with that thick heavy armor of the dwarfs you guessed it trolls or just any kind of armor-piercing armor means literally nothing if you bring armor piercing units whether as infantry monsters cavalry missiles artillery just make sure a good chunk of your army is armor-piercing because whether an enemy has 40 armor or 120 armor it doesn't matter they will still feel armor piercing damage all the same what about that high melee defense what can we do about that quite simply high melee attack will trump high melee defense whether it's a unit that already has high melee attack or a buff or spell that adds the melee attack just add it to important powerful units and make them even more ridiculous helping them melt through dwarfs like there's no tomorrow especially if they have armor piercing and leadership best dealt with by inducing the usual penalties from flanking from debuffs applying good old fear and terror just find ways to get that leadership down even if temporarily to break the unit and then you can chase them off with cavalry and other faster units only the most elite troops will be able to deal with all three of those stats by themselves but just do your best not to let any of your units just sit there and get groundout by the dwarf endurance next to a common problem at the moment dwarf numbers or Torf spamming as some might say which is when you face nearly a full stack of mostly the cheaper dwarf units and as they have a lot of armor they can still be pretty strong at least when their United strength in numbers and all that the times when this is mostly a problem is when you have a smaller army yourself as any one unit trying to deal with three or four units of dwarf warriors and whiners is going to get worn down especially if they're being battered by missiles as well the play style of these large armies is usually fairly wide and spread out with lots of layers of the cheaper infantry ultimately making it harder to disrupt the army and allowing the missile some room to move around to get into space to keep firing and keep the pressure up should something breakthrough and start to harass them all the missiles can cover the front line the flanks anything that comes in to disrupt they can all start to cover each other like I mentioned earlier so no matter what angle we tried to come in from the dwarfs have probably got a way to cover it with a combination of missiles and Slayers the trouble for us here is having enough units to disrupt all those missiles to prevent them from taking us up quickly one of the best hopes though is simply spreading your army wide and flanking around with whatever you have cavalry infantry monsters whoever just get into those missiles and stop them from firing we'll go into this more in the weaknesses section though now another problem that the dwarfs can give us is with their anti large capabilities while they only have Slayers is their only melee infantry that's anti large pretty much all of their missiles and artillery can also function as anti large most notably Thunderer's can put out a lot of damage very quickly on a single large target if two or three units focus fire it so it can be very risky to have certain large units on the field mainly single large units but cavalry monstrous infantry and lords on any kind of mount are usually at risk as well not to mention cannons and organ guns and if that's not enough to try and avoid you've got to watch out for those Slayers trying to chase after you as well so while large units can be a problem for the dwarfs they can potentially also be easily dealt with so depending on the army setup and your army setup it may be a good idea to leave your large units back until you've taken care or at least are disrupting all the Dwarven anti large units so definitely take into consideration how much large you're bringing against the dwarfs and how much use is it going to be or how vulnerable is it for example don't take slow large units like dirt though he's going to get chopped down into firewood by Slayers all blasted by missiles he can't get in quickly he can't get out quickly instead you may want to take a forest dragon who is far more mobile and can escape Slayers and missiles and the final big problem dwarfs may give you is one that can be considered cheesy depending on who you ask the old dwarf box of course like it or not it can definitely be a problem when facing the dwarfs whether it's a premeditated move and the opponent starts the game in a box formation or whether they move into it as you start to surround them it is not an unbreakable fortress like I say it's going to depend on the units you have available to try and break into it but usually the front is the stronger bit and then the sides are a bit weaker there's a few ways to deal with these boxy problems the first one is to out range your enemy if you're expecting a box for whatever reason you may want to bring a lot of artillery to force them to come out of the box the other option is to pick a side and break it maybe to don't try attacking all four sides of the box at once there's really no point pick maybe the front or the side and just absolutely hammer it with as much damage as you can as quick as you can allowing you to get inside the box and behind all those units that are trying to defend the other sides so the more armor-piercing in melee attack and magic that we can make use of will help us crack that box open so we can jump on inside and start causing some problems again just pick a side and do this maybe two sides if you've got enough troops or try and pick the weaker side if the frontline is iron breakers and the left side is two warf warriors then go after the dwarf warriors because obviously we're more likely to break them open than we will be the iron breakers so if I didn't say enough already armour-piercing is a weakness of the dwarfs make sure you bring armour-piercing I hope that's clear now it can come in many forms all being as useful as the other whether it's armor piercing infantry armor piercing missiles which includes artillery or armor-piercing cavalry or monsters any kind of armor piercing unit is going to be useful against the dwarfs but of course money is always a problem an armor piercing can be expensive especially for certain factions but where possible when you have the choice of either a few very strong armor piercing units or a lot of cheaper armor piercing units usually the cheaper boys are the better option if you bring three or four strong armor piercing units as your frontline and expect them to do all the killing for you well there's a good chance they'll just be blasted down by range units before they even reach the dwarfs granted if they do reach them they will get a lot of kills but bringing lots of cheap armor piercing gives the dwarfs too many targets to shoot that they can't shoot them all and inevitably you should be able to flank them get round and attack those ranged units and stop them from ruining everything of course that was a very black-and-white example you can mix them up and bring some elite troops and some cheap troops it's just finding the right balance of armor piercing and numbers now for a specialist in killing dwarves the good old chariot they can be a mighty old weakness for the dwarfs as they have a hard time stopping them a lot of chariots are armor-piercing as well which is of course even better so quite simply bringing one two maybe even three chariots along can definitely give the dwarfs a hard time and give you a good way to disrupt all those missiles in their backline as long as you can keep them moving like any good chariot most of the time the only real way the dwarfs will be able to deal with you is through missiles and artillery which is a very real possibility but keep a microt to keep moving keep them alive and they will squish dwarfs like it's going out of style cavalry can be a potential weakness in the same fashion charging them around harassing the backline maybe so-called charging some infantry definitely some powerful uses for preferably armor-piercing cavalry as non-armor-piercing cavalry will probably get whittled down to much before it really does any significant damage and this is really just exploiting one of the dwarfs biggest weaknesses which is their lack of mobility they don't have any cavalry units of course closest thing to any kind of mobile unit is the gyrocopters and lord knows they're not doing anything in melee so it's definitely something you can take advantage of if you've got strong armor piercing cavalry with your chosen faction or same deal with chariots just taking advantage of that lack of mobility cavalry are perhaps a little bit more vulnerable to getting tied up by Slayers or blasted by missiles than chariots are but both can still be very disruptive and put a lot of her on those stinking dar way and that lack of mobility spans the entire army so even the dwarf Lords have this problem they're very easily cutted and smashed about if you've got a Lord on a horse or any kind of fast amount you can just charge in knock them over do some damage and run away rinse and repeat and there's not a lot that dwarf Lord will be able to do about it it's a bit of a cheeky tactic but it definitely makes dwarflords manageable now two contradicting approaches to dwarf weakness as I mentioned earlier they have pretty good anti large capabilities so they can deal with our monsters and cavalry fairly comfortably so we can quite simply counter this by not bringing monsters or cavalry don't bring any large in your army just bring mostly infantry this could very well give us a numbers advantage which can be very powerful against the dwarves especially if there's a lot of miners on the field that we can quickly churn through this will take away the capability of a lot of the missiles because they'll be obstructed by their own troops because there's nothing high to shooter like towering monsters and Slayers will be turned into anti infantry units which they can do pretty well they can definitely dish out the damage but of course they are pretty fragile also the numbers advantage means we can get behind them flank them and mess up those missiles allowing for probably a comfortable victory and for the contradiction single large monsters the rampage around can also be a huge problem for the dwarfs provided their missiles or Slayers are taken care of the dwarfs have pretty much no hope of holding South aerial the ever watch er in place he just bounces around too much the same as a staggered on or Kolak or a Camry and war Sphinx the dwarfs just won't be able to hold on to them in melee and really get any damage done effectively because the best way to stop these units from charging around so much is with monstrous infantry or any kind of high mass unit which the dwarfs don't have anything of really so if you decide to bring one or two of them along you have to take care of the missiles and Slayers first somehow and then they'll be free to charging and do some damage if you send them in too early they'll get blasted down by Thunderer's or chopped up by Slayers and that's a lot of money down the drain and this is the same reason they can't handle chariots either so you could bring no large at all and put all of your money into bringing lots of infantry or you could bring a couple of single large monsters that can charge around provided the anti large has been taken care of so two potential weaknesses to exploit there but very different approaches another thing to bear in mind that is not a dwarf weakness is magic they take 25% less magical damage than everyone else because they all have a god damn buff that keeps them safe or a little bit safe so bringing your magic damage spells like blade wind or the penumbra pendulum or the burning head are all going to be 25% less effective than they would be on everyone else so maybe not the best choice or way to use your magic so should we just not bother with magical together no we definitely should but we should do buffs and debuffs primarily reduce the enemy's melee defense increase our unit's melee attack these things are going to be useful for dealing with those high stats of the dwarfs that high melee defense you can bring it down with the debuff or you could bring your units melee attack up so it beats the melee defense you could increase armor piercing damage there's all different kinds of buffs and debuffs that could be useful but think about those when selecting what magic to bring against it Dwarfs and lastly let's just talk quickly about Slayers as they are very much a key unit for the dwarfs they can be a real annoyance if you're trying to get your large units into the Dwarfs as they always seem to be they're chasing you around but as I'm sure you're aware they have no armor so they're incredibly vulnerable to damage even a cheap unit of infantry that would otherwise be considered a meat shield could charge into the Slayers and take off half their health making for a very cost-effective meat shield another option and probably the best option is using missiles as of course they have no armor they are gonna feel every single hit from every single missile and as they're not touching any of our units we're not gonna take any damage from them in the process which is very much ideal melee defence debuff can be especially effective as well in the right moment and CAV charges are also an option but maybe not from the front as they will do a lot of damage to you even if you pull away pretty much straight away but maybe cycle charging some Slayers in the back while they're fighting another unit could be a useful option so find safer ways to take out Slayers rather than letting them chew through or your light infantry and lastly just a few different builds that you may see from the Dwarfs out on the battlefield at the moment large armies with lots of missiles seem to be the choice army type perhaps something like this an armor-piercing missile heavy army we got lots of Thunderer's a couple of cannons blasting charges and a lot of Units overall this is going to be good against those heavily armoured factions especially those that can't bring large armies like the chaos we can use these weaker units like miners were blasting charges to just slow everything down a bit acting as speed bumps buying those Thunderer's and cannons time to just Whittle everything down so that they can't survive any kind of fight with the dwarf warriors and in theory wearing you down enough so that even if you get a hold of all their missiles you won't have enough left in the tank to finish everything off or you may see something with a lot of Rangers with some sneaky tactics going on people like to Vanguard deploy them either right up in your face trying to get some early shots off before pulling them back or they sneak them up behind you so they can shoot you in the back the front line of different kinds of long beards is pretty strong so they can survive pretty well without the support of the ranged units from the front all those ranged units could also sit behind the frontline just like a normal ranged unit also an organ gun in there which could be used to help protect the Rangers from any cavalry trying to chase them down but same idea just lots of range trying to wear you down but a little bit more versatile and unpredictable and what they might do with those ranges they can also kite a little bit the Rangers because they're quite fast so more of a problem for those lighter armored factions like Empire or Dark Elves or you may see a typical balance dwarf army perhaps leading more towards melee infantry than ranged units for this one they're going to try and outlast you with all that staying power and endurance of all these melee infantry units and using their ranged firepower to mostly deal with larger targets this type of army may be a little bit more aggressive and tried to push on you because they don't have that ranged advantage necessarily so there's a few rough ideas of dwarf builds you might see out on the battlefield in the online world there's many different variations and just slight changes can make a big difference but you can usually expect to be gunned down by a huge army with lots of cheap units so there you go a whole lot of information on how to kill dwarfs hopefully this gives you a bit of a better idea about what they're going to be trying to do to you what their key units might be and who you need to take out and how the you can deal with the little bastards I hope you've enjoyed this thanks for watching I'll see you in the future

Channel: Zerkovich

Views: 305,494

Keywords: dwarfs, guide, total war, warhammer, warhammer 2, how to, beat, tutorial, stop, kill, dwarves, dwarf

Id: CXMebyD5xls

Length: 29min 1sec (1741 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019