Warhammer The Old World
Dwarf War Machines:
How They work, which ones are worth it and various tricks

What war machines do the Dwarfs have in The Old World?

They have the Cannon, the Grudge Thrower, and the Bolt Thrower as special units, and the Organ Gun, the Goblin-Hewer, and the Flame Cannon as rare units.

All of them can benefit from a rule that keeps them from getting wiped out, both in combat and against shooting. It’s the following:

The rulebook states that you can pivot your war machine before shooting it, without any penalty. That means if we place the war machine right at the edge of a forest or a hill, WITHOUT TOUCHING the terrain, the enemy can’t see you—but you can’t see them either.

The trick here is to pivot the machine on your turn, so that one of the corners of its base ends up inside the terrain, just as shown in the image. This way, you choose whether you’re visible or not, and whether you can see or not.

This allows you to deploy the machine hidden so it doesn’t get shot off the table and lose your precious cannon on turn 1 before you’ve even fired it. Then, you can fire in your own turns until you see it’s in danger of being charged.

Once this principle is clear, let’s go machine by machine.

Is the Bolt Thrower playable? Yes, it is. In fact, even with the rune, it’s cheaper than the Elven one.

But remember: you need to roll to hit, and in this edition it’s very easy for enemy models to get cover unless they’re a Large Target.

How do you avoid having to roll to hit? By buying a…

Dwarf Grudge Thrower

As for the Grudge Thrower, there are important differences in this edition. While before you could place the template over any part of the enemy unit you wanted, now the rulebook says you must place it in the center of the unit. Only one model is hit at double Strength. And remember, partial hits connect on a 4+.

It uses the small round template. From where you place it, roll an artillery die and scatter it in the direction of the arrow shown on the die. You have two options here:

Option 1: Direct fire with line of sight.
If you roll a hit while seeing the enemy, the template stays exactly where you placed it—no scatter.

Option 2: Indirect fire.
If you can’t see the enemy, you can still choose them as a target, and this becomes very interesting when combined with the pivoting rule (on the turn you need to hide the Grudge Thrower, you can still shoot it—and that’s when you go for that wizard hiding behind a hill).

If you shoot indirectly and roll a hit, the stone still scatters (in the direction of the small arrow), but it scatters less. Instead of moving the full amount rolled on the die, you subtract the crew’s Ballistic Skill from the result.

Dwarf Cannon

Comparisons are often frowned upon, but here, they must be made.

The Dwarf Cannon has Strength 8 and does D3 wounds with -2 to armor saves and Armor Bane 2.
The Imperial Cannon has Strength 10, does D3+1 wounds with -3 to armor saves and also Armor Bane 2.

Accepting this, the Dwarf version is much cheaper, and it can take the rune of reloading—which lets it fire even if it rolls a Misfire result that would normally prevent shooting next turn.

To maximize the odds of hitting, pick a VISIBLE point on the battlefield that is either 7″ from the front of the enemy unit or 10″ from the back.

Then, as usual, roll an artillery die to see how far beyond that point the ball lands, then roll again for the bounce to determine how many models it goes through. If the second roll is a Misfire, the cannonball embeds itself and stops moving. Large targets and hills stop the bounce immediately when touched.

Also keep in mind the cannon can fire grapeshot at 12″, which is really effective—even more than the Organ Gun in some cases—because of one very particular detail: it doesn’t have to roll to hit, unlike the Organ Gun or the Goblin-Hewer.

It causes a number of hits equal to the artillery die, at Strength 4 and -1 to armor. That’s more than enough to wipe out any light enemy infantry.

Flame Cannon

Is it viable? The Flame Cannon is terrible.

And with that, I could just end the section.

But I’ll explain how it works. Because I’m just that nice.

How does the Flame Cannon work? Place the flame template with the narrow end touching the Flame Cannon’s base and the wide end pointing at the enemy unit (so you can choose its direction within limits).

Then, move it up to a MAXIMUM of 12″ toward the target.

Now roll a die in inches. If you don’t roll a Misfire, move the template the exact number of inches rolled (you don’t get to reduce the distance this time). That’s where the template is placed.

The problem is you have to make the aiming decision before knowing how far it will go.

On top of how hard it is to aim properly, the flame template in this edition does have partial hits. So due to its thin shape and the increased base sizes in The Old World, it’s incredibly hard to land a full hit on anything. Most hits will be partial, and it’s extremely hard to cause damage—despite having Strength 5.

The Flame Cannon would be more playable if:

• You could choose its facing 360º.
• You could pick the final placement after rolling the distance, not before.

Of course, if you roll a Misfire while rolling for the advance, the cannon misfires. It’s nowhere near as reliable as a Bolt Thrower.

Organ Gun and Goblin-Hewer

Which one’s better? The short answer: NEITHER.

And that’s simply because they have to roll to hit in a game where any idiot can hide just the tip of their base behind another friendly model to get cover. It’s ridiculously hard to hit and actually deal damage with these machines.

The difference between them: the Organ Gun rolls two artillery dice, and that’s the number of shots. Strength 5, -1 to armor saves, Armor Bane 2, 30″ range.

The Goblin-Hewer rolls one artillery die plus 1D3 for each enemy rank (or column if hitting from the flank). That’s the number of shots. Strength 4, -1 armor, Armor Bane 1. It has a 36″ range (its only advantage over the Organ Gun—which can help it hit better since its short range threshold is 18″ instead of 15″).

It has Toughness 6 instead of 7 against shooting, and 2 Wounds instead of 3 in combat. So yeah…

It’s almost laughable, really, that the war machines occupying Special slots are far more playable than the ones that are Rare choices.

In any case, I hope this breakdown was helpful, whether you play Dwarfs or find yourself facing them across the table.
If you’ve read this far—respect.
I’ll leave a link below to the full Dwarf section, where you’ll find more posts about things you probably didn’t know about Dwarfs in TOW.

If you think there’s an error in the post, feel free to reach out at theoldwarrior@theoldwarrior.com, and I’ll review it. Hope you enjoy ToW!

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