Hey guys,
I've got 10 Khazad guards that I use as a war band for Dain, but they so far have been utterly useless, they are constantly riddled with bow fire and just drop like flies.
Like my last game, a unit of 10 Rohan warriors with throwing Spears just annihilated 4 Khazad guards in one turn.

And in the battle before that, 15 Harad Archers just demolished three Khazads a turn, and even when they get into a fight they never seem to win (Cursed dice me thinks) but I'm thinking I don't know how to use them properly, anyone give me any help, because it kinda frustrating watching my favourite models get turned into swiss cheese before they happen to do anything.

Sounds like extremely lucky rolling on the part of your opponent. 15 Harad should maybe kill 1.1 per turn.

khuazad guards are really good, but harad archers with those rolls you can't beat.
normally is's 0.6 a turn, 4+ to hit 6 to wound and then a 4 to wound. is 1/24 is a kill. (some more because of poision)

I play against Khazad Guard a lot and they are as hard as nails. Also, with the bodyguard rule, they don't run! 10-20 of these are a great backbone to any army IMO.

Hahaha, the phrase 'drop like flies' used to describe arguably the most solid infantry in the game. Just don't let them get within clear range of 15 harad archers again, deploy the warband of KG last, and if your opponent counter-deploys this then move your KG to cover. The new rules state that at least 1/3-1/2 of the map should be littered with terrain, so you should never find yourself incapable of finding cover.

RE: The other example about warriors of rohan annihilating your KG, yet again that is terrific luck from your opponent but even so, if your KG are that important, and you are facing off against troops with throwing weapons, you should have called a heroic move to charge first and nullify their spears.

KG are solid as hell, once in combat they are nigh unbeatable and are built to be incredibly resistant to shooting aswell, the problem is literally just that you had bad luck.

What was your army list?

You could always hide all of them in a line behind Dain?

Loving this idea LordElrond!

Don't worry about it too much. The Rohirrim were insanely lucky and the Haradrim were quite lucky too.

Once you get into combat, there shouldn't be a problem. From my experience a small group of Khazad Guard can butcher most evil troops and low-level heroes without too much difficulty, whilst in turn being difficult to kill themselves.

Maybe try to use the terrain to your advantage more, make them test more cover shots? Alternatively shoot their archers with yours. Rids you of that worry at least.

My only question is do you know how to use them? I own only 6 but I utterly devistate the enemy. High defense, str, fight and bodyguard special make them a steal at 11 points.

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Was a 500pts game:

Dain Ironfoot (Will never leave home without this Dwarf)
10 Khazad Guard
2 Dwarf Warriors with Shields

Balin With Durin's Axe
6 Dwarf warriors with Shields
6 Dwarfs Warriors with Bows

Dwarf King

He had:
Theoden
6 Riders of Rohan

Gamling
6 outriders
6 warriors with TS

Ewoyen
12 Warriors with TS

It was Hold Ground. I do think it was bad luck, but my Khazad just vanished so quickly, it was so annoying, i love the models for them and it just really got to me that I lost so many so quickly, Dain was the star of my show however, punching though warrior after warrior and Killing Gamling.
Balin did well until he was conquered by two riders and Theoden.

But yeah, he had alot of good shooting rolls, and the Hararim were the shoot 3+ ones.

Sometimes models with 2H weapons can struggle to win a fight due to the -1 to dice rolls , looking at your list I think I'd be tempted to mix the KGs up a bit with the dwarfs with shields and then try to double up on your enemy. This give you 2 dice to roll in the fight phase one of which is without the -1 penalty , after that the KG will slice most things straight in half!!!

With god awful heroes like Theoden and Gamling he really shouldn't have been able to get the drop on you. I'd really avoid taking lone generic heroes in the future, if you'd want to ally in arwen on a horse with your last 70pts for her natures wrath then that is fine, but you should really try to have as many full/half full warbands as possible. Nameless heroes rarely pay their pts back like Aragorn or Glorfindel do, and spending your last few pts on them is not a great investment.

When they are one their own I normally just use Khazads with normal hand axes, until I get my new Erebor warriors anyway.
But Gamling was there to keep Theodens might store up and he use kept rolling sixes for heroic fight against Balin, there was little I could do against it.
In the end he won only by a single point and half of his army was gone (as was mine).