dwarves dwarfed in perpetual formats?

[Juriel]

I don't think dwarves are a good beginner team, because they punish positioning mistakes and not planning ahead. Chaos Dwarves should give most of the positives, while having more speed. But orcs would, of course, be the best beginner team, and not at all shabby in the long run either.

[klauser]

Longbeard - Guard, MB, then either Fend or PO, (doubles Diving Tackle in league or Dodge in online Match Maker or Black Box setting)
Troll Slayer - MB, PO, Guard Tackle, Fend (Jump Up or Side Step in League, or Jump Up or Dodge in Match Maker or Black Box)
Blitzer - MB, Guard, Tackle, PO, Fend (Dodge Double)
Runner - Block, Tackle, Fend, Kick Off Return (Dodge Double)

What no Stand Firm?

Personal preference. Fend if you face a lot of chaos, SF if you face a lot of elves.

I like Stand Firm over Fend in general, because having it on 2 or 3 pieces can be potentially game-changing. Fend will increase the life expectancy of an individual piece, but unless you have mass/blanket Fend, there will always be some other target for that ClawPOMB Beastman.

[Hitonagashi]

Naw, it's not the blitz that's the problem. If your opponents take a lot of claw, there'll prolly be a juggs guy or grab killer to cancel it anyway.

The issue with dwarves is that a chaos team tends to move their entire team into contact once they get men up from the blitz...and then the dwarves can't get away, and end up being clawbombed every turn. Stand firm doesn't help with that, whereas fend prevents them following up, and makes it harder to stay in contact to hit turn after turn.

[DoubleSkulls]

Disagree completely. Why would you need dauntless on Dwarf Longbeards???

You already start with two Dauntless players if you are thinking 3rd or 4th skill on a Dwarf then you should have built your entire team up to have Guard on every player by then anyway. So you should never need any help dealing with St4 teams.

I'm happy to accept that its personal preference... but what I've found is that often a couple of blockers develop much faster than the rest of the team (MVPs and Mighty Blow) so end up skilling quite early to the 3rd/4th skill. At that point the team may not have enough guard to take on guard heavy Orcs, for instance, so the Dauntless helps even it up.

What I particularly like is that it means I can keep my troll slayers out of the main scrum and use them more to sweep up around the fringes.

[poochée]

I just wanted to chime in and thank you guys for your opinions.
Most likely you are right and dwarves aren't the most ideal starting team for a new player. I would have told him to play orcs without thinking twice, if we hadn't had two orc teams in our league already.
But anyway, I mostly wanted to know if dwarves really weren't a competetive team in a perpetual environment, as this other person said.
Well, now I think I am reassured in what I thought.