Chaos Dwarfs at 600 Points? Apparently We’re Becoming Dwarfs & Goblins
Small games, big list-building problems
We had one of those very familiar army-building conversations recently: the kind where a list starts as a proper faction project and, a few messages later, turns into a desperate search for anything that actually works at low points.
This time it was about Chaos Dwarfs in Warhammer: The Old World, and more specifically about trying to make them function in smaller games against Orcs.
The core frustration was simple: some options that look great on paper — or feel perfect in the lore — just don’t pull their weight when the game is small.
“It costs 5 points per shot and didn’t do a single wound. That’s rubbish, not a weapon.”
That pretty much set the tone.
War machines: cool in the lore, swingy on the table
A lot of the discussion circled around war machines. We all know the appeal: Chaos Dwarf artillery is incredibly thematic, looks fantastic in an army, and feels right. The problem is that in a small-point game, they can be painfully unreliable.
As Staś put it, the issue is scale. In a 2000-point game, if you have several machines, odds are that something will hit and matter. In a 500–600 point game, though, each machine gets one shot a turn, and if that shot whiffs, that’s a huge chunk of your list doing basically nothing.
He compared it to Doom Divers on the Orc side — great when there’s enough redundancy, much less convincing when every single activation has to count.
That feels like a useful lesson for anyone building compact Old World lists: at low points, randomness hurts a lot more.
The real problem: getting to the good stuff
The bigger list-building headache was that to stand up to Orcs properly, Michał felt he needed Iron Sworn. The catch? Getting to a legal minimum unit meant pushing the army much higher in points than he wanted.
So the army ended up in an awkward place:
- the elite hammer unit was hard to fit,
- the war machines weren’t doing what they were supposed to do,
- and what was really missing was light cavalry.
That last point is probably the most interesting one. In small games, mobility matters a ton. Being able to redirect, threaten flanks, pressure weaker units, or just force awkward decisions can do more than one unreliable artillery piece ever will.
The emergency solution: maximum hobgoblin energy
And so we arrived at a wonderfully questionable draft list:
++ Characters [97 pts] ++
Hobgoblin Khan [97 pts]
(Hand weapon, Light armour, Shield, Ranged weapon [Shortbow], General, Giant Wolf, Ruby Ring of Ruin)
++ Core Units [162 pts] ++
24 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [72 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shortbows)
30 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [90 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shortbows)
++ Special Units [129 pts] ++
12 Sneaky Gits [84 pts]
(Two hand weapons, Throwing weapons, Light armour)
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [45 pts]
(Bolt thrower, Hand weapons, Light armour)
++ Rare Units [112 pts] ++
8 Hobgoblin Wolf Riders [112 pts]
(Hand weapons, Light armour, Shields, Cavalry spears, Shortbow, Reserve Move)
And then came the most important question of the evening:
“If I start with a list like this, are these still Chaos Dwarfs? :)”
Honestly? Spiritually, yes. Visually, probably. Emotionally… this is getting suspicious.
Dwarfs & Goblins
Staś immediately went for the obvious joke:
“I play Orcs and Goblins, and you play Dwarfs and Goblins.”
Which, to be fair, is hard to argue with when the list is basically a Hobgoblin convention with a few Chaos Dwarf admin rights in the background.
There was also the completely reasonable accusation that the next step would be adding Black Orcs and simply admitting we wanted to play greenskins after all.
Michał’s defense was immediate and entirely valid:
“None of my hobos are green!!!”
Case closed, really.
Why 600 points might be the sweet spot
The conversation ended in a very practical place: let’s play at 600 points. That tiny bump upward seems to matter a lot for this kind of army.
At that level, there’s a bit more room to include something with actual punch, instead of being forced into a list that’s all compromise:
- one part underperforming artillery,
- one part unavailable elite unit,
- one part hobgoblin survival strategy.
And that’s probably the real takeaway from this whole exchange. Small games are great, but they don’t treat every army equally. Some factions can throw together a nasty, coherent 500-point force without much trouble. Others need just a little more breathing room before their internal balance starts making sense.
For Chaos Dwarfs, that extra 100 points might be the difference between a list that feels like a workaround and one that actually feels like an army.
Final thought
We really like these conversations because they’re such a big part of the hobby. Not every army-building breakthrough is a glorious tactical revelation. Sometimes it’s just:
- discovering that a weapon you wanted to love is actually awful in your local format,
- realising that war machines are too swingy at low points,
- and slowly accepting that your Chaos Dwarf list currently contains an alarming number of goblinoids.
Which, let’s be honest, is also part of the charm.