4th to 8th - Dwarves

Interestingly I have been playing Dwarves for quite a long time. They are the army I have had the longest and their career stretches back to the very beginning of fourth edition. As you can imagine the lists and models have changed quite a bit since then. Still some of those models still feature in my army but most of them have entered retirement. Having finally used the Dwarves in eighth edition at the Gorey tournament I think I am back in love with this army. In seventh edition I found the Dwarves pretty boring. They were forced to play very defensively and the games were always the same. My opponents generally complained and I can see why. I gave them up for Ogres and Chaos.

Comparing what I took for the tournament in comparison to older army books there is a huge difference. The twenty Clansmen have changed from 242 points including a champion in fourth edition to 205 points in eighth, in fouth they only had light armour however. Better yet the thirty Longbeards have gone from 505 points in fouth to 475 points in sixth and finally to 440 points in eighth. In fourth they had no options for great weapons! Curious to see the general changes in points between the editions I made out the army list in each of them. In fourth I would have paid 3053 points for an approximation of the list. There were no Rangers in this edition so I just paid for Crossboxmen. If there were rangers I am sure there would be a few more points to add to the total. In sixth the list begins to look very similar but comes in at 2580 points. The eighth edition points are 2498.

It was very interesting to go back to fourth edition to try to make out a list. I had forgotten how annoying it was. Champions are a separate option within the characters section. They really are not much more than champions are currently but they are almost twice as expensive. They could take magic items at least. Command group members cost twice that of a standard trooper. This makes them in general a little cheaper than within the current list. Other interesting features was the expensive warmachines. Stone throwers were more expensive and the rune of accuracy came in at fifty points rather than twenty five. This makes fitting these machines in much more of a challenge.

The general trend from fourth to now is that everything is getting cheaper. As the new Tomb Kings and Orc books loom on the horizon I wonder will the trend continue? I can't see why not as it forces us to buy a little more each time to keep the armies current.