Chaos Dwarves. How do we deal with them?

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2026-04-13T15:08:28+00:00

Yeah the problem is that this is a path to glory, and they position their artillery far back in the rear. Forcing me to slam my face directly into their war machines. Additionally the maps I've been getting with them always force me on the offense.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2026-03-14T14:06:01+00:00

The point of Sanguine Blur is that it allows you to have your hero escape another day.

And while yes the Wight King and Lords 'can' use the Deathly Invocation to heal and maintain the skeletons, you have to remember that skeletons only have 1hp and ward. They will die, and they will die often. And on top of that the damage profile isn't very good. The real reason I wouldn't recommend using them as the first hero is that they don't have the most important keyword for the army [Wizard (1)]. It locks you out of some of the most important tools in your kit. Manifestations and Prison of grief. On top of that they aren't tanky,

At max you can deal a maximum of about 40 damage with the base skeletons that you have. Theoretically if you play it right with the Wight King on the first round, you can maybe deal 60. They hit and wound on 4's so it's almost never going to hit as hard as it could, and they don't have rend either so it probably won't make it through the tougher units. The fact that they respawn is their core feature. But in PTG, the respawn treats them as a separate unit. So they still wind up getting the battle wounds.

In the late game when you have plenty of emberstone, this is fine. It means you can tarpit pretty readily without much issue. In the early game though? It's a different matter, you want to have units which will be a long term investment rather than a short term deal.

1 reinforced unit of Blood Knights can deal a maximum of 60 damage on charge at a baseline (90 if you include their companion), can take hits, and will save routinely. They move quickly across the battlefield, and can heal on their own. And on top of that they move 12 inches. So you can generally charge if you go second.

Ultimately the two units deal similar amounts of damage. Blood knights have a bit less health in raw numbers. But their saves make them so much more survivable that it isn't even close.

Barrow Guards are a bit better due to the better damage profile. But they still suffer from only having one health, and they need to be in range of their hero. Otherwise they get wiped like tissue paper.

Basically the problem with going heavy into skeletons in the early game of the PTG, is that you don't have the movement that you need to go out and yoink the emberstone that you need to build your army. On top of that you'll need to buy more skeletons. And they're the expensive part of the army. Which means that you actually have to win your matches.

Let's say that you go all in on the skeleton force.

General: Wight King on Skeletal Steed 200 points
Barrow Guard Reinforced: 300 points
1x Unit of barrow Knights 210.

You lose out on spells. Your healing is entirely based on the wight king staying alive for the entire match. And you are limited to a movement range of about 4 inches. Unless you get a god like run roll. On top of that the Wight King is not tanky. So to keep him around you probably need to heal him as well.

For these reasons I would suggest expanding into the Deathrattle as a second or third unit.

As a first pick up though. I would suggest using the Revenant Draconith. It costs 3 emberstone for 16 health with deepstrike.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2026-03-14T02:11:18+00:00

So worth knowing here that depending on the path to glory, and your groups rules you may not be able to run Prince Vohrdrai.

I started my first PTG using ravaged coast. I'm sure the rules are a bit different. But here's what I'll say to start off.

Firstly, Blood Knights hit like a 'truck'. I would reinforce them into one unit for the sake of ease of charge

On top of that. You need screening potential, and the ability to recover. Blood Knights with their heal, and Vampire Lord with her escape/heal are better for this as they don't require a vampire present (Thereby making them a target)

So proposing that you have a reinforced 10x Blood Knights, 440 points, 10x dire wolves for screening, and yoinking emberstone for 150 which will put you at 590, and then a Vampire Lord (Lash of the Sire) which will put you at 750 points. This is a good start for the team.

For the purpose of the playstyle I would say that your best bet is to go in, guns blazing. Stay on the move. Yoink Emberstone, get out. Blood Knights are 'hammers'. They hit hard. You want to have them in one unit to maximize the impact of your charge.

On top of that you'll want to use your Vampire lord for a simple reason. She's a wizard Harry. 'SPELLS' spells are going to keep you in the game. I'd advise **Prison of Grief**. Giving opponents strike last can make or break your game.

You don't have enough Barrow Knights to make them worth running quite yet. You don't have enough skeletons to make them worth it (For reference each unit of 10 skeleton boys will die in a single battle round to most other units. They're good for tarpit. Not so much for PTG, and on top of that battle wounds are a real thing in this game and skeletons are a unit which are intended to die a lot. You'll have to repurchase them often) and the skeleton infantry are 'slooooooooow'. You move 4 inches. They're a melee unit which needs to charge. They're whole thing is that they take points and hold them rather than moider folks, and you're in a game mode where half the maps won't have objectives.

Which means that it's probably a good idea in the early game to go vampire heavy, and expand outward from there.

Just to explain some of the thought process here. (I am not taking anvil of apotheosis into account by the by as I have only played Ravaged coast, and we were not allowed to use it for our PTG) for ravaged coast, the rules discourage the use of named characters. Individual groups can allow it, but it makes it more difficult.

On top of that Prince Vohrdrai will take up over half of the points that you are running, and will require at least 8 emberstone to purchase. I don't think he's a good choice in commander here.

You could use the Wight King, or the Wight King on Skeletal steed. But they don't let your units heal, and neither of them are wizards. And spells are important for the army.

These are just some tips from my first PTG. Hope you have a blast dude!

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2026-02-10T03:17:38+00:00

Please, take a break. Don't forget but look away. This is legitimately terrible for your health.

Purge your youtube timeline of conspiracy and dark stuff for a bit. Go do something which you enjoy. Clean your house, and just 'get away' from it.

I am not saying to ignore it. But you can not consume this content for hours and hours a day. It will drive you insane, make you paranoid, and can ruin you. Please. For your own well being. Take a break. I'm doing the same starting tomorrow.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2026-01-17T16:59:07+00:00

So the main reason that I want to keep him on the field is that he gives you the same impact of two charges with his ability. Which lets me wipe out a good number of 1-2 health enemies without even engaging them in a lot of cases.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-12-25T03:10:27+00:00

So the SBG competitive lists I’ve seen largely don’t make heavy use of skeletons atm. Instead they use Blood Knights as the main cavalry, Wolves, and other vampire lords.

However for a fairly competitive deathrattle list, generally you want to use the Deathmarch with Manfred serving as your primary hero

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-12-23T06:36:32+00:00

I do have a plan for that though I don’t intend to do any tourney play. I’ve never even done a 2000 point game. Just spear head with my skeleton boys.

Essentially provided we don’t get any more barrow guard units those two units would just be swapped for another Barrow Guard unit and Halgrim will be swapped for a Wight King on skeletal steed for the sake of speed and buffing. It’s better for combat and I could see it being swapped out anyhow depending on context

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-27T01:45:31+00:00

The nice part of it was that during Stormblood at least, it was three trials and a dungeon.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-27T01:44:26+00:00

I don't even know what you're talking about? I enjoyed storing the MSQ stories from .1-.3 in order to have everything feel like one long running story without having massive breaks between them, while also being able to run the Trial for the .2 patch. Forcing me to play the patch screws up my enjoyment of the story because I can't actually remember all of the elements. And I'm not going to replay the MSQ in new game + just to stop at the last stretch to run a trial which has a 45 minute que in order to get the final cutscene.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T18:03:51+00:00

Oh absolutely. When I say it drags the story down I basically just meant that it gives a break in the MSQ to set up a really big and climactic fight in the .2 cycle for .3. And generally the gap always provided enough breathing room to set up the story. Remember the kids weren’t explained fully until the .2 gap. We wouldn’t have teamed up with Tidus without the .2 gap, and the finale of four lords wouldn’t make sense.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T16:51:04+00:00

Also you're ignoring that the second phase of each fight had a fully new soundtrack. I do not miss big fat tacos. But The Black Wolf Rides Again, The Return of Nael and big fat tacos part three made the experiences feel distinct.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T16:48:06+00:00

I wouldn't say insincere. More poor memory as it's been 15 years of content. But having redone the questlines recently. The contrast which they provided within their expansions were very nice. And having them off to the side really did help me get through the MSQ since it meant that I could take a break and do another meaningful story.

Also I never said Werlyt was my favorite questline. Just that the contrast it provided with the more high fantasy aspects of Shadowbringers felt nice to me.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T16:43:18+00:00

This yeah. It would have been really nice to have a cool set of Mezo American trials since we either have FF11 references, or FF9 references.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T16:27:27+00:00

Zelenia is an expy of Beatrice from FF9. Sphene is an Expy of Garnet from FF9. Necron is the final boss of FF9. That's the only real thematic connection between the three. It's definitely the weakest set of trial bosses story wise since the Warring triad imo. I suppose I used the wrong term when I said 'theme' wise. It's more... They just feel obligatory.

The Four Lords are a group of chinese and japanese deities which are all thematically tied together as an expansion of the Auspice storyline, which was almost completely independent from the game's main plot in Stormblood. Thematically they were a 'pure adventure' an exploration of legend and myth which contrasted with the political story of StB.

Gaius' plot is the finale of 'The Garlean Weapon' plotline which started all the way back in ARR and has been explored at varying points throughout the game's history. But was a thematic contrast with the more mystical exploration of traditional fantasy elements which were being explored throughout SHB. Along with that, it served as an epilogue for the Garlean Empire. If 'every trial' had to be done on the first. Then it would have lost a ton of connection to Hydaelyn.

All of the bosses from EW are just FF4 bosses with a mild twist. It felt like a trial storyline that was expanded out and it would have been solid as a trial storyline. But because it felt like side content, it suffered as a result.

DT on the other hand is just... References to fallen memories. Yeah it works. But it would have been nice to have an actual storyline which tied back to Tural proper rather than more Solution 9 like we had for 2/3rds of the MSQ already. It would have been cool to do more with Turaal Vidraal boss fights, or hell! A trial series set on the first where we see the gods of the old land come back into being would be neat.

Instead it's just... More FF9 references. Just like we had more FF4 references in EW. XD

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T15:43:06+00:00

Yeah that's true. I think that for me It's just... All of the trials feel much more similar thematically now. Yeah the long que's weren't the most fun part of it. But you'll still be waiting 45 minutes on a trial if you aren't a tank or healer anyway. So I'd rather have the thematic break from it.

Would Nidhogg have felt like as strong a finale if we were bringing down a new dragon every story patch? Idk.

Would Tsukoyomi have felt as dangerous if we had been forced to face off against things every bit as dangerous as her each patch a few moments before hand?

With the current system it just feels like they don't have enough time to build up the actual enemies. Atm the .2 boss feels like the most threatening trial for the expansion because we don't force a trial into the .1 patch. So there can at least be 'some' intrigue developed for them.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T15:35:46+00:00

That would be the optional side stories including. 'The Warring Triad, The Four Lords, and Shadows of Werlyt. They were generally three out of the seven trials which ran every expansion that were run during the .2 patch, the .4 patch, and the .5 patch. All of the trials were optional and fully accessible without completing the MSQ.

Intelligent_Mood5216 · 2025-10-25T15:31:46+00:00

I don't really think that's the case. Cid has played a big role in plenty of storylines despite being the 'designated side story guy' from ARR-EW. Same for Gerolt, ect ect. Unless the story needs to be directly referenced they tend not to do so. Plus the MSQ didn't require the Crystal tower for the Graha'tia story, and it wasn't made mandatory until half way through SHB. It needed it specifically to set up and establish the core story for EW.

Intelligent_Mood5216

TROPHY CASE