Dwarfs against Rhun (early)

[Wismer]

Basically, after experiencing some rough fights with Rhun early on, I restarted my campaign and focused on the Orcs of Gundabad instead which has been much more fruitful. What's the best way to deal with their numerous slippery skirmishers (and their damnable AP javelins) and the plentiful horse archers? Dale Cavalry mercs and crossbow dwarfs can only do so much.

Any ideas?

[Death's Deputy]

Yeah that's the Dwarves one great weakness. I'm afraid crossbows and dale cav are your only options for now, at least as far as I'm aware...

[Keyser_Soze]

That is the unfortunate disadvantage of the dwarves. While they have strong attack, and massive defence (iron guard are around the same defence as some trolls, though with less Hit points), though they have little to no ranged units.

I suppose balistas and catapults could be used to some effect against Rhun, though I don't really use balistas or catapults, but then again, I've never led an offensive against Rhun with the dwarves.

[Rush]

Try surround and draw them like sheep in with your units, as well as lots of Crossmen to deal with them.

I posted this below in the "Suggestions" thread. Give the Dwarves more flexibility, I think it would.

These could be added in a sub mod I guess.

Or perhaps none of the Dale mercenaries for Dwarves I suggested. Instead some kind of faster than normal Dwarven units like lightly armoured Dwarven Scouts (With no armour piercing) you can get in the first level barracks (slightly weaker than even miners.) armed with short swords for catching and killing Snaga Skirmishers. Also very good for ambushing. And a later and more expensive not very numerous Elite Dwarven Scouts (Maybe a better name, slightly better than Dwarven Warriors) armed with long swords (With armour piercing) and steel shields and light chainmail armour.

The Dwarven Scout units be good for Dwarves far away from Dale where they can get Dale Horsemen mercenaries.

Also perhaps lightly armoured Dwarven Bowmen (armed with short bows, and also daggers for melee combat), fast moving and have a little bit more ammo than Crossmen, but lack armour piercing, and are also not as strong as Crossbowmen in melee combat.

[Maegfaer]

Dwarves should have bows. According to the lore they used bows plenty enough. Not crossbows.

[p00pwater]

look at their army, if its got plenty of skirmishers and/or cavalry units, force them to attack you, or else seige them (dwarves at best at seiges). if its more or less infatry, just annihilate them.

[Gimli]

I've played the Dwarves, mastered the Dwarves. Im the Dwarf Master

First, the Easy way of defeating Skirmishers is with that Dale Cavalry. When attacking OOTMM and OoG always have 1 or 2 units of Dale Cavalry at hand. They are very helpful against Orc Archers, Skirmishers.

Second, on the left hand side going down into Rhun, there is a settlement there. It doesnt start out with a Garrison. It would be a good idea to take and it put heavy troops into it. It acts as a Strong-point against Rhun.

Next, OoG usually goes after Eriador. In that time i'd go after OOTMM. If you can take the settlements against OOTMM, the Dwarves become particularly rich. The Big problem with OOTMM is that in Moria there is a Balrog. You can defeat the Balrog by sending armies to defeat the Orc Infantry, then when the Balrog is the last one of alive, you usually can defeat easily.

Now playing as the Dwarves you also have 2 Settlements in the West, below them are 2 Rebel Settlements. I would take those 2 Settlements then attack OoG from those 4 Settlements while you attack OOTMM from your other settlements East North.

After attacking and possibly taking over OOTMM and or OoG, you will become very rich, and start making 5k + each turn. With that money start making heavy units and then reinforce the rebel settlement you took near Rhun, then start launching attacks against them.

Thats the basic guide of the Dwarves. I like using Auto Resolve for some battles and the Battle map for others. The Dwarves are the best at Auto-Resolve.

Good Luck!

[Burk]

firstly, dwarwes now have at least 2 mounted mercenary. you got the regular dale cavalry and you have another one in the lands of rhun (dont know the name or region because i screwed up my tatw 3.1 and have to reinstall everything).

in my dwarven campaign my tactic was to take every soldier that hasnt free upkeep and take the 2 rebel settlements in the west (nenuial and one more) and "wormcove" on the eastern part of the map. then i continued with those troops and took "dains halls" with the eastern army and "Carn Dûm" with the western.

!!!remember, the dwarves can easily win 1vs5 fights versus early OoG because they dont have those cursed snaga skirmishers!!!

after i have taken "dains halls" and "carn dum" i build up my western army with all the units i can within 2-3turns, (usually 2dwarven warriors,2 miners,1 axe-thrower) and with the help of only these "reinforcements" you should be able to kill off OoG. after that its just the OotMM left. against them i try to fight as the defender and almost always in a settlement, always have at least 1 unit of cavalry in the army to take care of those cursed "snaga skirmishers". i killed of the OoG within 35 turns and then slowly made my way down to moria. at turn 83 i could recruit my first vault vardens(didnt build barracks in erebor cause i felt like i needed more income, 5k + every turn wanst enough) and soon thereafter i decided to try my luck against the balrog. so i put 2 vault wardens , 2 iron guards, 3 axemen, 3 axe-throwers, 1 crossbow unit and some miners+ warriors to fill the stack and besieged moria. (also had a second stack as reserves, mostly miners and warriors, so i could hold the settlement.) at turn 98 i launched the attack (with some help of my best friends the silvan elves)after sieging moria for 2 turns. silvans elves killed of the orc-scum while i killed of the balrog using my 3 units of axemen, 3 axe-throwers and the crossbowmen.

until i screwed up the whole game (at turn 126 or something like that) rhun only attacked me once but because of a well placed tower i saw them coming and quickly build up my garrison. after a crushing defeat they gave up and just send assasinations to kill my generals (they actually killed 4/5) untill i only had gimli left. after that i accepted my first adoption just to be sure of survival.(remember generals cost a lot of money, i only accepted 1 adoption)

also I NEVER EVER use autoresolve, it makes the game way to easy!

-------------------------------------------------------
so to make it a little shorter:
1. use your starting troops wisely and take as many settlements with them as possible.
2. dont recruit to many generals (dwarves live very long!).
3. use the merc-cavalry units against skirmishers.
4. dont attack rhun outside settlements (just leave them alone for starters and retake the old dwarven settlements in the mountains).
5. DONT USE AUTORESOLVE!!!

Good luck!

[Gimli]

firstly, dwarwes now have at least 2 mounted mercenary. you got the regular dale cavalry and you have another one in the lands of rhun (dont know the name or region because i screwed up my tatw 3.1 and have to reinstall everything).

in my dwarven campaign my tactic was to take every soldier that hasnt free upkeep and take the 2 rebel settlements in the west (nenuial and one more) and "wormcove" on the eastern part of the map. then i continued with those troops and took "dains halls" with the eastern army and "Carn Dûm" with the western.

!!!remember, the dwarves can easily win 1vs5 fights versus early OoG because they dont have those cursed snaga skirmishers!!!

after i have taken "dains halls" and "carn dum" i build up my western army with all the units i can within 2-3turns, (usually 2dwarven warriors,2 miners,1 axe-thrower) and with the help of only these "reinforcements" you should be able to kill off OoG. after that its just the OotMM left. against them i try to fight as the defender and almost always in a settlement, always have at least 1 unit of cavalry in the army to take care of those cursed "snaga skirmishers". i killed of the OoG within 35 turns and then slowly made my way down to moria. at turn 83 i could recruit my first vault vardens(didnt build barracks in erebor cause i felt like i needed more income, 5k + every turn wanst enough) and soon thereafter i decided to try my luck against the balrog. so i put 2 vault wardens , 2 iron guards, 3 axemen, 3 axe-throwers, 1 crossbow unit and some miners+ warriors to fill the stack and besieged moria. (also had a second stack as reserves, mostly miners and warriors, so i could hold the settlement.) at turn 98 i launched the attack (with some help of my best friends the silvan elves)after sieging moria for 2 turns. silvans elves killed of the orc-scum while i killed of the balrog using my 3 units of axemen, 3 axe-throwers and the crossbowmen.

until i screwed up the whole game (at turn 126 or something like that) rhun only attacked me once but because of a well placed tower i saw them coming and quickly build up my garrison. after a crushing defeat they gave up and just send assasinations to kill my generals (they actually killed 4/5) untill i only had gimli left. after that i accepted my first adoption just to be sure of survival.(remember generals cost a lot of money, i only accepted 1 adoption)

also I NEVER EVER use autoresolve, it makes the game way to easy!

-------------------------------------------------------
so to make it a little shorter:
1. use your starting troops wisely and take as many settlements with them as possible.
2. dont recruit to many generals (dwarves live very long!).
3. use the merc-cavalry units against skirmishers.
4. dont attack rhun outside settlements (just leave them alone for starters and retake the old dwarven settlements in the mountains).
5. DONT USE AUTORESOLVE!!!

Good luck!

Half of this is correct.

Gather your troops in your eastern and western settlements and go after some rebel settlements to get your income up.

Only recruit generals that have good standings for those 4 traits.

Use the merc cav against skirmishing units (Archers, Skirmishers, ect)

Take the Rebel Settlement near Rhun to act as a garrison holder so Rhun doesnt attack you. (They always do)

The Old dwarven settlements are in MM so i suggest you go after OOTMM first then OoG

Then use Auto Resolve as possible. It saves lots of time, and you have a 90% chance of winning each time if you have at least 4 heavy units +

Good luck!

[Burk]

Half of this is correct.

Gather your troops in your eastern and western settlements and go after some rebel settlements to get your income up.

Only recruit generals that have good standings for those 4 traits.

Use the merc cav against skirmishing units (Archers, Skirmishers, ect)

Take the Rebel Settlement near Rhun to act as a garrison holder so Rhun doesnt attack you. (They always do)

The Old dwarven settlements are in MM so i suggest you go after OOTMM first then OoG

Then use Auto Resolve as possible. It saves lots of time, and you have a 90% chance of winning each time if you have at least 4 heavy units +

Good luck!

rhun only attacks the dwarven castle east of erebor and you can easily defend that with some dwarven warriors and axe-throwers against full stacks. just take care that they dont get to use the skirmishers, charge them before they can fire and you'll be fine.

pretty much all settlements in the mountains are dwarven settlements, gundabad as an example was founded by the dwarves and was a great dwarven realm before the orc scum invaded.

and autoresolve= sure win as dwarves, nothing can stop you if you use autoresolve and whats the fun in that? if you dont have the time to play(the battles) why do you play this game?

[kraxmause]

The problem when fighting in Rhûn as the dwarves is that you have no chance of defending the conquered settlements properly, because dwarves need mountain terrain and Rhûn is grassland/desert. Waiting 20 turns for a unit of miners is just ed up!

[Mhaedros]

The thing with autoresolve is that you always loose waay to much men. At least for a hardcore player like me