Faster Dwarfs

[Alarantalara]

I got to watch a game of Dwarfs vs Lizardmen recently with Dwarfs as the attacker and once again, the Dwarfs lost because they simply couldn't enter melee soon enough.
There are a few attempts to resolve this within 6th edition: the Slayer army got a free move at the start of the game, the 6.5 book added a standard with the same effect and added a anvil rune to move units as well. I'm not a fan of any of these solutions however. Free moves at the start of the game add more time to play since you have to interrupt your opponent after deployment and have no ongoing effect and limiting the effects to specific magic items and units effectively just makes those required choices given how important movement is.

Thus, inspired a bit by the Old World rules previews, I propose an alternative. Add an extra paragraph to their existing Relentless rule.

So implacable are the dwarfs that even running in full armour does not tire them. Dwarf infantry more than 8" from any enemy may run up to three times their normal movement rate forward in a straight line. They may not wheel or change direction in any way while running and may not enter difficult terrain or charge an enemy unit.

This lets dwarfs quickly approach the enemy as required by scenarios that require entering the opponent's deployment zone without greatly increasing their speed or maneuverability. It also allows some more counterplay by their opponent as there is now an equivalent to march blocking. If it proves to be abusable, there are reasonable limitations that could be added (e.g. no Gromril armor excludes ironbreakers and forces interesting choices on making fast characters, must move closer to the enemy prevents cowardly running).

Anyway, I plan on proposing this to my local Dwarf player for our next game, but thought others might also find it interesting.

[Radii Bokha]

I remember a gaming friend I traded some dwarf minis to was tinkering to play them as offensively as possible and get off the back parking lot playstyle. I never followed up with him about how his experimentation panned out.

Your proposal sounds baked into the movement rules with the Marching Column formation of having more depth than width and forgoing rank bonus while in the formation. I'm guessing this 3x march is independent of the 8" rule so a Resolute type rule only needs to apply when in closed order formation. That's my guess at least.

It sounds like Warhammer:TOW is shaping up to have many of the qualities that made Classichammer a stand-out period of Warhammer history.

[mattyfenby]

This is an extremely interesting way to incorporate the Old World rule into 6th Dwarfs and encourage them to run more melee compositions. If your club allows you to adopt this and you have feedback or generate any battle reports from it I would be extremely interested to read those. Thank you for sharing this.