Dwarf Runner Overview:
Dwarf Runners are the fastest player available to a Dwarf team and along with the Blitzers are the most agile of their players as well. This means that they going to do pretty much all of the ball handling for the team, especially as they also start with Sure Hands making them more reliable for picking the ball up and keeping hold of it. Their high movement and better agility makes them the most flexible player for a Dwarf side and as such it can be tempting to build them for blitzing or safety duty. If you could hire four then I would advocate this, though with access to only two on a team and no real alternatives for ball handling I recommend that both get designed for that role in mind.
The weakness of a Dwarf Runner is that they have lower armour compared to most of their team mates. With them being the main ball carrying options on your team they are going to get targeted a lot and the lower armour doesn’t help. This means you have to keep their protection in mind to a certain degree, though when they have got the ball it shouldn’t be hard to keep them safe in a cage. The other drawback is that they only have access to general and passing skills. The trouble with this is that while you can build them into being a good passing player, you don’t have any good options of players to pass the ball too. The team is slow and mostly of low agility, so anyone you get in a catching position is going to be marked out easily. Ideally agility access would probably be more helpful for Dodge and Side Step, but that isn’t an option, or strength access for some skills to help if building into a safety. Rather than dwell on that though there are still plenty of good options for a Dwarf Runner to take as they advance. Your offence can be rather one dimensional, but it is a dimension that you can execute effectively.
While personally I prefer the traditional option of picking the ball up and sitting in a cage until you can run the ball in for the score, there has been more noise made from coaches who go down the Dump Off route and playing them in tandem. I’m yet to be convinced this is a more effective strategy but it will let you play your Dwarf side in a more unexpected way. The fact the player is a Dwarf Runner and not a Thrower is there for a reason in my opinion, even though they do have passing skill access!
Ball Carrying Dwarf Runner:
- Normal: Block, Fend / Kick Off Return, (Pass, Accurate) / (Tackle, Strip Ball) / Pro
- Doubles: Dodge / Side Step, Jump Up / Sure Feet
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
The standard build for a player carrying the ball who sits safely in a cage, they start with Sure Hands so you don’t need to take that, the next most useful skill is Block. It makes them harder to knock over and gives some protection against both losing the ball and getting injured. Couple of choices next, Fend is handy for limiting the number of dodges you may need to do and negates Frenzy. Kick Off Return is also great for getting the ball safely into a cage as soon as possible after receiving the kick off, becomes more useful if you are in a Kick heavy league. At this point there aren’t really many fantastic options that will really make them any better and you can diversify from here. Passing skills can be handy on one for those times you have to try and attempt to score in two turns, or for moving the ball around if you recover it on defence. Alternatively you can take skills which will help on defence making more use from their better movement and agility, taking Tackle and Strip Ball. Pro can also be useful in some spots as well if you don’t have a reroll in vital spots.
For doubles there are a quite a few handy options, Dodge for staying upright when hit and if you need to dodge away. It will probably be easily negated by other teams if you only have one Dodge player though. If you want to skip Dodge then Side Step is also very helpful, both negating chain blocks and lets you control his movement more. Later choices can be Jump Up to help prevent the other team slowing you down so much or Sure Feet for more reliable go for its. For stat increases +ST makes it much harder to hit them when sat in a Guard filled cage and easier to blitz away if you really need it. +AG for ball handling and dodging and +MV gives them greater range, though be careful not to outrun the support of your team mates.
Dump Off Dwarf Runner:
- Normal: Dump Off, Nerves of Steel, Pass, Accurate, Block, Fend / Pro
- Doubles: Dodge / Side Step / Catch
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
This is a nod to Dark Elf Runners in the manner of playing a looser style but keeping the two Runners close by to pass to the other one if the opposing team manage to get at him. I personally don’t rate it, elves can do it as their whole team can handle the ball well and have enough movement to be a threat. Dwarf sides don’t have that luxury and it is negated easier, though can be fun to play if you aren’t all about the win rate. So start off with Dump Off for the obvious use and Nerves of Steel next to make sure you can ignore the players hitting you and also keep the receiving Runner available. After that Pass will give greater success to the Dump Off, as will Accurate after that and both can be helpful if you need the fast score as mentioned above.
All this does mean though that you won’t have Block till late on, so you could take it after Nerves of Steel if you wanted the protection. This is a bit of a paradox though, why would you be taking skills to stay upright with the ball if you are planning on dumping if off. The other downside is that lack of protection on your lower armoured player, especially as they will be getting hit as often as possible. If you don’t have two of these guys this strategy does become harder as well, so missing one who is injured or KO can really hurt your team. Doubles point to Dodge, you need it for the protection and keeps your guys more mobile. Side Step on a future double or Catch to help with the Dump Off success or for taking a hand off. Stat increase as above for the same reasons too.
Dwarf Runner Summary:
Dwarf Runners in my opinion have a very straight forward skill progression, you need them to handle the ball well and keep hold of it purely because your alternatives are practically none. Thankfully this only takes a couple of skills and they will be doing most of your scoring so will advance fairly quickly compared to their team mates. After that it is probably a good idea to try and utilise their movement and agility to help on defence. Low movement is your biggest weak point for both offence and defence so helping to neutralise that can really make the difference.
Similar to the Dark Elf Runners, if you’re going to take Dump Off, then Wrestle is a better option than Block. Once the ball’s been dumped, you don’t really care if you stay on your feat, and you might manage to take down the blitzer as well. Then on defence you’ve got an all important Wrestle player to boot!
In fact, given that the entire rest of your team will have Block already, Runners are really the only ones it makes logical sense to give Wrestle to anyway.
Good point I hadn’t considered, not that I think the Dump Off build is worth it anyway. Perhaps as later skills on a highly advanced team to give you options and to get Wrestle on the team somewhere though.
I could see it working if you had one Block runner and one Wrestle. The Block Runner would be your primary ball carrier initially, with the Wrestle guy able to clear a path, or pick up a loose ball your opponent knocks free.
Once the Wrestle guy gets Dump-off, he becomes the primary carrier, with your Block dude (or maybe a Blitzer) picking up Catch on a double.
Probably not optimal though, but maybe useful for those times at the end of a half when you’ve been stalled and need to make a break for it. I don’t really play Dwarves though, so what would I know 🙂
This is a very unimaginative build for dwarf runners. Dwarfs runners can score easily enough without any reall offensive skills taken but their weakness is teams that can run or more often, pass over them. Thats where my build for runners comes in.
I use 2 runners and skill them both as Block/Tackle/Passblock/Diving Tackle then things like Dodge, maybe accurate/dumpoff etc. This build uses them as very effective and useful safties, that make scoring on well coached dwarf team very difficult.
Interesting, but that is 4 skills including a double. Linemen have Block and Tackle to start with, so you just need Pass Block and Diving Tackle for the same combo (I’d still take Guard first). Considering Diving Tackle is already a good choice for doubles on Linemen that just means taking Pass Block later. However not many teams really do a great deal of passing and the teams that do can tie up your Pass Block player with a Diving Tackle player of their own. The biggest trouble with this is that clearly Linemen skill up a lot slower compared to Runners. Perhaps you could use this in a shorter league but even then I don’t think its the best way to go.
The other issue with it is that it then puts your Runner into base contact with one of their team. They are then likely to be the target of a Blitz and are your lowest armoured player. It can really hurt your offence losing one of your AG3 players, especially the fastest ones on your team who also have ball handling skills. Using the doubles on them to get Dodge is more effective as it actually forces the opposing player to get the ball off them to have Tackle (which admittedly they usually will). It also helps with dodging to keep the ball moving forward as well.
‘be *cageful* not to outrun the support of your team mates.’
Intentional pun? Helpful article, thanks.
Heh, not it wasn’t. I’ve corrected it now, thank you for pointing it out.
Isn’t it worth taking leader on one of the runners as their 2nd or 3rd skill? It would give you a team RR for just 20k of TV. Anyway, runners don’t require many skills for themselves when doing running job. Even when going for a pass, this usually happens at the end of the drive when team RRs are already out and in this case leader will be better than pass, as it might assist not only the passer, but a catcher as well. Alternatively, if you desperately want a skilled passer, you can take leader right after block on the second runnner.
Only you can really answer that. Not sure I would, Dwarf sides rarely burn through rerolls to need a lot, their rerolls are cheap and they are a cash rich team, the only thing it saves you is 3 Team Value.
I’m sure there are useful skills to give a Runner, Block, Kick Off Return, Fend and as your fasted and most agile players it could be handy to give them skills to act as a sweeper as well like Strip Ball and even perhaps Wrestle.
So there are arguments either way but whatever you choose neither is really game breaking or obviously better.
Using the higher agility and high speed of the Runner, would one make an ideal candidate for becoming a Safety? Someone with Block / Strip Ball / Tackle / Diving Tackle that could harass anyone able to break through the dwarf lines? Or would that role be better suited towards a blitzer?
I think Dwarves could do with more than one player to be able to cover the width of the pitch. Building a Runner in that way in conjunction of using the Blitzers could certainly be an effective defensive strategy.
I have a dwarf running with block, dodge, 2+ agility, was it worth getting the second agi, or should i have gone for a skill instead =\
Usually I’d say it depends on the rest of the team when people ask me skill selection questions and they should post a thread on the forum with the whole roster. However in this case AG5 is well worth taking. Dwarfs are slow and that extra agility means you can dodge into a Tackle Zone on a 2+ which opens up more direct paths to get where you want. You can also pick up the ball in a Tackle Zone on a 2+ roll as well which is very useful if you’ve just used Strip Ball to get the ball loose, or even just recover a bouncing ball that happened to land next to another opposing player.
Hello coach I am starting new dwarf team in a new league and killing a lot so I am thinking would giving frenzy as a second skill after block on my runner be better then strip ball or fend as I cage on offensive and try to beat them down on defence which seems to work well and being able to keep him back to get anyone coming near my end zone
With so few AG3 players and slow movement on a Dwarf team I’d look to build them into ball carriers. They will get targeted a lot by opponents due to their importance and lower armour. Frenzy can also get players into trouble, not something you want on a guy who has the ball. Troll Slayers already have Frenzy and are only one movement slower and also have access to strength skills which Runners don’t.
There’s more than one way to play though, so my preferences don’t match up with everyone.
Thanks coach I took your advice and gave my runner fend as second skill and played a high tv orc team and my runner done my team proud he kept hold of the ball at the right time in the game a mix of block fend and some good luck help me win
Excellent, good to hear it worked out for you!
Im probably most of the time anyway.. prefering block as main, then kick off return followed by Fend actually. Sometimes i choose kick off return first tho cause its so damn nice on slow teams. It really depends on what team i met before he lvl’d up i suppose. If i came from an elven game im def choosing kick off return. I rarely pass the ball as dwarf, only as a suprise action or as a last resort. I see ppl do the MB thing and i laugh a bit, cause u win games with guard.. but u lvl faster with MB i suppose. But its about winning to me. Same as orc/chaos.. str 4 dudes u do block/guard/SF. Lineman dwarf u do guard/SF. Blitzers u do Guard the hope for a double and get dodge/Sidestep. The redheads u can get the MB on