A Small but Important Old World Rules Catch: Heavy Infantry, Unit Strength, and Dwarf Blocks
We had one of those very classic hobby-chat moments recently: a quick rules question turned into a genuinely useful army-building note for Warhammer: The Old World.
This time it was about Unit Strength in the context of disruption from a flank or rear charge. At first glance it looked like the usual threshold we had in mind — but then Michał spotted something important.
The key takeaway is that Heavy Infantry needs to be charged by a unit with Unit Strength greater than 10 to be disrupted, not greater than 5.
That is a pretty meaningful distinction, especially if, like us, you tend to think about compact support units, flankers, and how easy it is to strip rank bonus from enemy blocks.
And that was only the first useful catch from the discussion.
Michał also noticed that Heavy Infantry only needs 4 models to make a full rank. That immediately led us to Dwarfs, because of course it did. Ender pointed out that:
- Dwarf Warriors are Heavy Infantry
- Quarrelers are Heavy Infantry too
- Thunderers are also Heavy Infantry
That opens up some interesting formation thoughts for Dwarf infantry blocks.
One example we talked through was a unit of 13 models arranged as 4x3+1, with an Engineer attached. In that setup, Michał noted that the unit could still hold +2 combat resolution from ranks, even when charged in the flank. That is the kind of small rules interaction that can really matter when we are trying to squeeze efficiency out of a unit during list building.
Of course, there is a tradeoff: if we do that with a shooting unit, fewer models get to shoot. So it is not some magical always-correct setup — just a neat option worth remembering.
That is probably the most fun part of these conversations for us. A tiny rules detail suddenly changes how we look at a unit we thought we already understood. And with Dwarfs especially, where compact, stubborn infantry formations are such a big part of the army’s identity, these little interactions can have real impact on both list design and table play.
If you are building Dwarf infantry in Warhammer: The Old World, it is definitely worth double-checking which units count as Heavy Infantry, how many models they need for rank bonus, and what it actually takes for an enemy to disrupt them from the flank or rear.
Sometimes one rules line is enough to make us rethink a whole unit footprint.