The New Age Is Begun: The Khazad-Dum Army List

Good morning gamers,

I got started in my MESBG journey with the Mines of Moria starter set in September 2010. That got me collecting Goblins and the Fellowship. That Christmas, I picked up a box of Wood Elf Warriors and some Dwarf Warriors and Centaur and I started playing (he was running Rohan and Isengard at the time - I would branch into Isengard shortly after Christmas). My "bearded fellows" - the Dwarves of Khazad-Dum (who at the time were the Erebor army list) quickly became "my main faction" and I took them to the first GT we threw here at TMAT. I went 1-2 but had a really great time with them (and have always had a good time with them).

Last edition, the faction was cleanly split between the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum and the Kingdom of Moria (though there was a lot of overlapping profiles) and in this edition, we still have that distinction. Today, we're tackling the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum list and next time, we'll be looking at the Legacy-only Reclamation of Moria (I'll be foregoing the legacy-in-red text there to save all of our eyesight). The traditional Khazad-Dum list wasn't my first love last edition, but I like what they've done to it this time. Let's see how things have changed - and why these Dwarves have the potential to be a dominant force on the tabletop, despite their less-than-average speed (that oh so important resource in MESBG).

The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list includes everyone you'd expect to find. It has Durin and Mardin as your named heroes (as of yore), it has Dwarf Kings/Captains and Siege Veterans (for those pesky ballista crews) by default as your generic heroes (and King's Champions and Dwarf Shieldbearers if you play with Legacy profiles), and Dwarf Warriors, Dwarf Rangers, Khazad Guards, Iron Guards, and Vault Wardens (besides the obligatory ballista crewmen) for your warriors. If you're a Khazad-Dum player from the last edition (and especially if you have access to Legacy profiles), not much will feel that different.

Army List Bonuses

The old Khazad-Dum army bonus from the last edition was preserved in this edition: Dwarves get to reroll To Wound rolls of a natural 1 when making Strikes - and as had to be clarified in the old edition (and I don't think is needed in this edition, thanks to changes in the rulebook), even if you're using a two-handed weapon and you get a 1 that would promote to a 2, you still get the reroll if you want it (since . . . you know, wounding on 2s is in fact quite hard to do now).

The Dwarves of Khazad-Dum picked up three new rules: first, before using any rerolls, if your Dwarves are rolling fewer dice than their opponents, one Dwarf in each fight can reroll one D6 just as if they had a banner in range (but if they also have a banner, they can reroll a second die). This is GREAT when you don't have a banner near your units and like the Depths of Moria banner rules, this is battlefield wide and can't be taken away from you! Additionally, if you really like Dwarf Warriors (which I do), Dwarf Rangers (which I do), and Dwarf Captains (which I do now), they all get Dominant (2). Remember what I said about spamming models with Dominant (2) in the Men of the West and Defenders of the Hornburg lists? Well, all those D5-9 Dwarves have Dominant (2) as well . . . slick, slick, slick . . .

Finally, the Dwarves get something that they had WAY back in the Legions of Middle-Earth supplement days in the scenarios of the Khazad-Dum supplement: mirrors! In each game, the controlling player gets to place two 40mm tokens that are the "mirrors" (STL printed files are available for these, but you can also make them from scratch yourself!) which provide several key bonuses:

• Any unit within 6" can be seen as if it were daylight (great for your archers being able to target enemy units that are coming towards them - but there is a catch with this strategy);
• If any of your units are within 6" of the Dwarven Mirror (illuminated), enemy models suffer a -1 penalty to hit them with shooting attacks (which is great in scenarios where you're fighting during the day, but also great if you happen to be fighting at night);
• Any friendly unit within 6" counts as being in range of a banner (which is cumulative with the reroll-a-D6-when-outdiced rule mentioned above) - though these do not count as actual banners for the purpose of VPs;
• Orcs, Goblins, and anyone with Cave Dweller (not Cave Trolls . . . still) get a -1 penalty to their Courage Tests while within 6" of a mirror;
• Mirrors can be destroyed by a model finishing its move and not shooting, casting magic, being targeted by magic (moot in this list), or being Engaged in Combat . . . I think it's supposed to include spear-supporting, but that's technically not in the rule. War Beasts and chariots who Trample/Chariot Charge can roll right over it and remove it without stopping.

All in all, pretty good rules! None of them help with Dwarven mobility, but they certainly make them harder to shift in combat (and when they're near objectives that also happen to be near mirrors, they're very hard to shoot off of objectives!). Let's take a look at how the profiles for this list have changed from the previous edition.

Profile Adjustments

We don't have very many units to talk about this time, but there's a lot to say about the changes that have occurred in these units:

• Durin is more expensive than he used to be (170pts), but saw a few stat improvements. He's F7 with Strike in a world when reaching F8+ isn't guaranteed (or even possible) for all Strike heroes, he's still got the dueling die reroll from Duirn's Axe (which stacks with the army bonus rule and potentially a banner), and he still gets a once-per-game priority reroll from the Ring of Durin. He also has Leader (Khazad-Guards) and besides a Dwarf King army General is your only hero who can lead Khazad Guards. He can still upgrade them to Hearthguard, but with an increase on cost on those guys, this adds to the expense of running Durin. You can certainly run him, but avoiding him is still quite easy, so getting that incredible combat profile into fights could continue to be difficult. I think the comparison of this profile to those of King Thorin and Santa Helm is a big one - both of these guys carry a triple-digit cost, but 
• Your generic alternative to Durin (and my go-to, if I'm honest) is the Dwarf King, who also saw a slight points increase, but in this list, comes with throwing axes by default (so it's kind of like paying for the two-handed weapon and the throwing axes of yesteryear for the same amount of points). Instead of having to buy two-handed axes, they start with hand-and-a-half weapons, which is a really nice change. Additionally, they picked up a second Fate point, which is effectively free - kinda like Gimli's third Fate point this edition. All in all, this is still a very solid profile and my personal favorite General option.
• With the addition of Dominant (2), Dwarf Captains finally have a place in the list over your second or third Dwarf King - though admittedly, they're still only F5 compared to the Dwarf King's F6. If that makes a difference to you, you can take the King. If you don't mind F5, then these guys save you 20pts, which does help you pad your numbers (potentially with Dominant (2) models that have S3 bows, S3 throwing weapons, or D7 with shields for 9pts each). 
  
• Mardin is the other named hero in the list, he's seen a few changes this edition. He costs 5pts less than a Dwarf King and has similar stats, but is -1 Fight Value, -1 Courage, and -1 Intelligence . . . I guess he makes up for one of those by having Sworn Protector? He's also 15pts more than a Dwarf Captain and picks up +1 Will, +1 Fate, Sworn Protector, and a few special rules in trade for -1 Defense and lacks hte ability to defend by shielding (and he doesn't have March). Like the last edition, his special rules are supposed to make him better against monsters (+1 To Wound and D3 wounds dealt against Trolls), and this edition, he's F5 with access to Heroic Strike, which will certainly help him kill off Cave Trolls and Hill Trolls and might even help against other monsters. As a second hitter, I guess you can run him if you're already committing to Durin. He also has the ability to declare a free Heroic Combat to get into Durin's fight (6" radius), which isn't nothing. If you plan to run Durin, take him after your March hero (Captain or King). If not . . . he's your cheapest (sort of) Strike hero, but I'd probably still leave him at home. 
• King's Champions are probably the greatest example of getting the most bang for your buck in all of MESBG. It's always been that way - three models for less than 150pts, two of them are carrying banners, and the other guy is INSANELY high in combat stats! There's nuances to using these teams well, but for most of last edition, I often only had one herald touching the KC (making them both D8 - often good enough) and the other nearby but behind another beater hero (like Balin, who we'll talk about next week) so there would be a second banner radius that covered more of the battle line. If I used up the Fate points on one banner, I'd swap them around so I could later use the Fate on the other one - it worked pretty well . . . most of the time. If you can take these guys, take them.
• Dwarf Shieldbearers, on the other hand, have not aged as well. They're the same cost as last edition (60pts), but lost the rerolling failed Courage tests bubble (12"!) that they had. Yes, they still get free Heroic Combats if your General is in trouble nearby (6" radius now), but the free Combats were always worse than the we-pass-courage-tests-without-paying-for-Khazad-Guards buff that they had last edition. In a list that really wants to lean into the Dwarf Warriors/Rangers, that radius sure would have been useful . . . oh well . . .
• Dwarf Ballistas are 70pts now and are D10/3 Wound siege weapons that bring a S9 bolt to the fight. Their biggest weakness from the last edition is that they used to be able to take extra crew . . . and now there's just one guy besides the siege veteran. You need to get direct line of sight still, but with Piercing Shot and Accurate on the attack, it's quite hard to keep this thing from dealing good damage to a battle line.
• Dwarf Warriors are still the great value they've always been - D7 for 9pts/model and unlike the Warriors of Erebor, these guys don't get to pay (don't have to pay?) for Mountain Dwellers. They can't use Piercing Strike to get to S4 this edition, but as a solid wall of guys who can be D6 with bows/banners/maybe a war horn or D7 with shields (don't get the two-handed weapons - more on that shortly), they're super good and reliable. Buy them in droves (because in this list, they're also Dominant (2))!
• Dwarf Rangers got a nice boost this edition - their base profile has changed very slightly in that their "Dwarf long bows" are finally "long bows" in that they're 24" and S3 (instead of being a fancy named version of standard bows) and they picked up a cool special rule that gives them +1 To Wound against models that are in terrain features (like woods or rocky ground). They're arguably better archers across the board this edition compared to the Dwarf Warrior with Dwarf bow (who have a 4+ SV with 18" range, instead of the Rangers' 3+ SV with 24" range) but having D6 archers still helps sometimes. Still, D5 archers are plenty good and just as resilient against S2/S4 attacks. They can still take throwing weapons (which might soften up the enemy a bit before charging someone in difficult terrain to get +1 To Wound), which is great, and I'd still pass on their two-handed weapons (despite the potential for +2 To Wound from two-handing against someone in rocky terrain) - if you want those, you want to look into . . .
• Khazad Guards went up by 1pt/model to 12pts each (14pts with Hearthguard) and got +1 Fight Value to help them out! As base S4 models with two-handed weapons (and Burly to remove the two-handing penalty), they can certainly chop through enemy battle lines and are even more dangerous than before because they may get a reroll on their dueling roll if they're outdiced by their foes! Beware the Khazad Guards . . . if you want to bring them with Durin/your General Dwarf King. The one argument against taking a host of these guys with your General is that Dwarf Warriors (who are much cheaper D7 models) have Dominant (2) . . . which is a great design space for these guys!
• Iron Guards are basically unchanged from the last edition - they're still your only 2 Attack warrior option, but they added Mountain Dwellers for free, which makes them very interesting alternatives to Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes (admittedly for nearly double the price and without Dominant (2)). Again, this makes for a great design choice (and I'm really liking that keeping these guys near those mirrors might make sniping them before they get into the action harder)!
• Vault Warden Teams are still 25pts and in a very weird way . . . these guys are exactly as they've always been. For some players, this is great - they've always been good - but with changes being made to so many other units in this list, I kinda wonder if there's a reason these guys remained the same? 

All in all, there aren't a lot of profiles here - but besides maybe Mardin (and definitely the Dwarf Shieldbearer), there isn't a bad profile in the bunch. Let's take a look at what this list can do (and where it will struggle).

The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum: Strengths and Weaknesses

For most Khazad-Dum list builds, you're going to have high defense models. In any dice game, it's good to have some way to make your army forgiving so you can learn the game and make mistakes without being penalized for a single error. Defense 6+ Dwarves certainly qualify and having F4+ on all of their guys (and decent Courage across the lot), these guys are about as forgiving as they come (at least for their price point - you will find more forgiving, more expensive units in the Erebor Reclaimed army list, among other Iron Hills Warrior-based lists). It is certainly possible (and maybe even competitively viable) to have 67-100% of your Warriors be Dwarf Rangers, but even having D5 on skirmish units is pretty forgiving if you learn to skirmish well. The more you lean into D7 units (Dwarf Warriors with shields and Khazad Guards) or even D9 Vault Wardens, the harder you make it to clear your units if you lose - and this has always been the strong point of Khazad-Dum Dwarves throughout time.

They are also slow - they have no access to cavalry, everyone has 5" move, and while Heroic March isn't THAT limited in the list, there are no units in the army that have both Heroic March and Heroic Strike, so you're choosing between units who can get above F6 and units that will help you get where you're going. In most of the scenarios in the game, movement is the most important resource. Heroic March is a common strategy for most infantry-heavy (or infantry-only) lists to get where they want to go - and while a 1" reduction in speed compared to most lists doesn't seem like that big of a set-back, anyone who can start 12" away from an objective and moves 9" forward while you move 8" forward (7" difference between you all) will be able to move 6" forward and get right up in your face while hedging off the objective well, while a 5" move from you will put people just barely in front of the center objective. Now your units might be able to live for a while in a contest, but if they lose any fights, you're going to lose your buffer after you Back Away, while an opposing player might still have some wiggle room. This isn't a game-ending penalty necessarily, but make sure you understand how important movement is when building your lists!

Khazad-Dum has always had great skirmishing options in it - and they got better this edition! On the one hand, you can't take 100% shooting with two-thirds of your army carrying throwing axes and one-third of your army carrying bows/Dwarf bows like you could last edition, but with throwing axes still being affordable on Dwarf Rangers (or a bit more durable and more lethal in combat on Iron Guard), you can still get two-thirds of your army shooting capable from 6-24" away. Technically speaking, the ballista crewman is a melee unit, not a shooting unit, so if you take a ballista or two, you might be able to get slightly above two-thirds shooting if you really want it (especially if you only take Dwarf Kings, who all come with a shooting weapon in tow). With 24" longbows on the Rangers and 18" Dwarf bows on the Warriors, you have excellent bow options for 9pts each (the Rangers are by far and away the better archers, but they're also not as durable against retributive S3 bows - and there are a LOT of those across the range). We'll talk about this more in the Strategies section next, but understand that shooting doesn't have to be part of your game plan, but it certainly can be!

You have a light bench of heroes, but the choices you have are excellent. Durin is incredibly pricey, but he's F7 and Fearless, which makes him a good option into most bad guys who can't Rend. Durin still doesn't want to fight a Balrog (without Piercing Strike this edition, he's wounding the Balrog on a 5/3+ instead of 5s, which is still not bad but also not a reliable way to plow through 10 Wounds) and probably doesn't want to fight the likes of Bill the Troll or Gulavhar, but he certainly CAN fight against these guys. Against your traditional beatstick heroes of Thranduil, Boromir, and Eomer, Durin is feeling pretty good with D9, a 6+ save, and 3 Wounds/1 Fate (though he can still botch his saves, so don't be careless) - and with F7, he may not have to Strike against Warrior monsters and F5 heroes, especially if he's trying to sap away enemy Might so he has an advantage later in the game. The Dwarf King is still a F6/D8 generic hero (and he's so cheap!), the Dwarf Captain is still a F5/D8 generic hero (now with Dominant (2)!), and Mardin has improved to "fine" as a hero (though I think he's your third-pick after Durin and a Captain). If you're using Legacies, the King's Champion is still a bargain deal, but I'd leave the Shieldbearer at home . . . sadly . . .

Finally, you also have great special rules that aren't very race dependent. There are some factions out there who get great rules . . . if they face a particular foe. This list gets some negative-Courage bonuses against Goblins/Orcs, but for the most part, they get decent rules that help them in every scenario (reduced enemy archery efficiency/banner rerolls when near a mirror, rerolling 1s To Wound, rerolling a dueling die when outdiced, and Dominant (2) on their cheapest Warriors and March Heroes). All in all, this is a fun list that has a lot of teeth to it and not a lot of scenario/foe-dependent advantages. I love these guys and am super excited to see them doing well in the meta!

The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum: Strategies for the Tabletop

As we've been doing recently, our first strategy has to do with list building: figure out how much you want to lean into shooting. We're going to have a few lists that lean hard into shooting in the sample lists below, but understand that if skirmishing with throwing weapons isn't your thing, you can swap out those models for melee-only models that have higher Defense (like Dwarf Warriors) and/or Strength (Khazad Guards, Iron Guards, Vault Warden teams) if you want them. I've been a big fan of shooting since I started playing the game, mostly because it's one of the few things your opponent doesn't get a say over when he's done moving - and as the points level gets lower, you feel the impact of shooting more (because killing things with bows and thrown weapons is actually quite hard to do in this game).

Next, you're going to want to figure out if you're taking Durin. Personally, I don't think I'd take him below 700pts because list building at lower points levels with him gets . . . awkward. As a spoiler for the lists below, you're going to see exactly one list with Durin in it and it's at 700pts - Durin's warband isn't full, but the two Captains he has in tow have full warbands. If you have access to Legacy profiles (the King's Champion in particular), you might be able to make the list work at 650pts OR you could really drop your model count and lean into more expensive units like Vault Warden Teams (12.5pts/model) or Hearthguard (14pts/model) or Iron Guard (15pts/model) instead of Dwarf Warriors/Rangers (9pts/model without banners - with Durin in the list, you don't need war horns on anyone). Taking Durin at 700pts and above gives you the latitude that you need to get a high model count (leaning into the Dwarf Warriors/Rangers more), elite units with a decent model count (Hearthguard probably, possibly the other guys), or into the super elite but limited numbers zone (Durin with a King backed by only elite units and probably no archery). While I personally lean towards the King/Captain combo (with a King's Champion if he's allowed), I think there's a very strong case for running Durin once you reach the point of "just adding more guys" - getting 30+ Dwarves instead of 40+ Dwarves if some of those Dwarves have become S4 units can make a huge difference in some match ups.

Next, we need to talk about shieldwalls that are designed to be Heroic Marched. I have several formations articles that address this, but my go-to with any Dwarf faction is the Pac-Man/Millenium Falcon formation (there are three formations discussed in that article - the relevant formation is the third one). This formation is pretty straightforward - you want your March hero set up 2-3" beyond your deployment zone upper limit and leave a path (either a straight path in the Millenium Falcon formation or in a V-shapped path in the Pac-Man formation) for the March hero to walk. Setting the hero back a bit means he won't be moving up as far as everyone else (which is fine for Dwarf Captains), but the radius of units he's affecting (and in the Pac-Man formation, the variety of direction he can move) is greatly improved. While you probably can't March 40 Dwarves across the board easily with a single Captain if you make a battle line, you can move a very flexible formation of Dwarves even as high as 50 models in total with a single Pac-Man formation. Give it a try if you haven't already!

Once you're engaging with the enemy, remember that Dwarves don't have spears (Vault Warden Teams and Mardin excepted), so you want to wrap-and-trap your foes. Dwarf Warriors with shields and Iron Guard are great shock-troops for protecting your flanks where you don't have banner support because they can roll 2 dueling dice each (the Dwarf Warriors by defending by shielding, the Iron Guard because they have 2 Attacks base), while your Khazad Guards benefit from anchoring the center of your battle line where you have banner support (or where your opponent will outdice you, since you get a free banner-like reroll there). Ideally, however, you're able to get around the enemy, trap them to make the most of your rerolling 1s To Wound (and hopefully to get some punch out of your S3 warriors who can't Piercing Strike anymore), and get a dice advantage against your foes! I've always loved how the warriors in this list do the hard work of slaughtering your foes - though the heroes can certainly help them out - and so make sure you're doing your best to get them good matchups that can convert staying alive into winning fights and killing your foes!

Finally, don't give up - Dwarves are stubborn and if you're playing a list that's faster than you, don't quit. If you're playing a list with F5+ across its ranks, don't give up. If you're facing a list that doesn't want to be caught and is dancing away with shooting weapons, don't give up. Your Dwarves are tough and when they eventually reach the enemy, they can win if they get their dice volume working for them. Your heroes and warriors are incredibly forgiving and you can rely on them to stick with it when the going gets tough - so don't give up, fight on, and bring those axes of the Dwarves to bear against your foes! BARUK KHAZAD!

Sample Lists

At 500pts, we're going with the Dwarf King - we don't want to spend half of our points on Durin and a Captain! We can lean into the 9pt models, though, and get a really solid model count (31 models!) to support a King, two Captains, a few Khazad Guards, and a banner:

If we boost up to 650 (+150pts), we can actually just add 1 Captain and 10 more Dwarf Warriors/Rangers if we want to, which would grow our numbers dramatically . . . but I opted to nearly fill the warbands, lean as hard as we could into shooting, and add a Dwarven Ballista for some extra punch at a distance. All in all, 41 models and PLENTY of danger at a distance:

At 700pts, we can reach 44 models with a skirmish-heavy list (as mentioned above, you could lean into the Dwarf Warriors with shields instead of the Dwarf Rangers with throwing weapons if you don't care about shooting as much as you like sticking around). I've included the King's Champion, but keep in mind that you could swap him out for a Captain and 2 banners if you really want to skip on the Legacy models:

Finally, I need to provide one list with Durin in it - he's the big guy in the list, after all! At 700pts, I've opted for 7 Hearthguard, two banners, and two Warriors with shields in Durin's warband. This is then paired with two nearly copy/paste warbands led by Captains - each with 6 shields and 6 bows (though the bows are of varying types - feel free to lean harder into one than the other if you want). This list gets to 38 models instead of 44 models and it might be better overall . . . I simply don't know (but it is certainly better if you don't have access to Legacy profiles):

Conclusion

This list is really cool, though I don't know that it's a good home for Durin yet - free Heroic Combat on him instead of his ward (and shieldbearers) would certainly make him better, but I don't know what I'd want to drop from him (and I definitely don't want him going up in price!). All told, this is a very solid list and if you don't mind Dwarf Warriors/Rangers, it's really easy to acquire. If you've used it in the new edition, let us know in the comments below! We're off to Legacy Land next week as we look at Balin and his failed expedition to reclaim Moria. Find out what my beloved bearded fellows are up to next time - and until then, happy hobbying!