How would war between dwarves look like?

Long sieges punctuated by pitched combat in gigantic caverns.

>>53964301
All interspersed with skirmish warfare in tunnels that lead to Dwarf forts.
or one dwarvf per fort running with two cat carriers at the rival fort.

>>53964276
A drinking contest.

try to collapse each others underground fortifications
machines and shit

if its high^2 fantasy setting then maybe the enemy nations of dwarves would be focusing all their efforts on constructing mountain sized golems to do battle and destroy their enemies

otherwise it would be war like human irl war but if humans had shorter limbs so they would use some diff weps

>>53964348
>try to collapse each others underground fortifications
this was my first thought, essentially offensive mining, dig under enemy tunnels and then collapse your own

>>53964276

Any war between dwarves would be a short conflict.

>>53964301
This.

And after the war the dwarves create a long, Illiad-esque generation spanning tragedy with a huge cast of characters 10,000 pages long that they sing in entirety at their feasts, and everybody who isn't a dwarf finds it unbearably boring.

>>53964427
>Not enjoying the kinslaying misadventures of Thorin blood beard during the 4th battle of fort Dur

Long stalemates until some sore bastard decides to flood the funnels with lava or water.

Otherwise, exploding the rock in a way to cause earth quakes to crush the mountain domain below.

File: Carlos.jpg (6KB, 225x225px) Image search: [Google]

6KB, 225x225px

>>53964404
You forgot your pic.

>>53964276
I'd imagine the battles would be slugging rests like Roman civil wars or the Peloponnesian wars were both sides were even matched and focused on tougher infantry.

>>53964276
Hilarious.

>>53964404
Damn it, I was going to say that :(

Moving on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnRQHQQi1M

File: mexican kid tricks you wi(...).jpg (2KB, 125x100px) Image search: [Google]

2KB, 125x100px

>>53964276
Short

>>53964942
Already made, beaner.

>>53964276
>little people autistically slapping each other
>everyone else pays to watch it

File: dwarf with shield.jpg (36KB, 387x537px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 387x537px

>>53964276
Starts with honourabu pitched battles and skirmishes, generally in caverns, valleys or in tunnels without damaging them, slowly descends into sieges, trench and tunnel warfare and battles of mining and counter-mining if things aren't resolved, and if shit gets really bad descends into destructive atrocities including flooding, fire in confined spaces and using alchemical/biological/chemical weapons

File: Ms.Thott.290.2º_080r.jpg (511KB, 2000x1357px) Image search: [Google]

511KB, 2000x1357px

>>53964276

A war of champions. Dwarf birth-rates are too low for all out war between the clans when they have to preserve their manpower for the goblins, orcs and all the other nasties of the underdark.

>>53964276
go away skallgrim

File: 1484703021591.jpg (231KB, 958x686px) Image search: [Google]

231KB, 958x686px

>>53964276
You could lift a lot of it from 3rd century Greece and Rome.

Phalanxes of the greek and macedonian styles. Surprising amount of unarmored dwarfs to compensate for lack of good and/or fast cavarly. Even if they have bears and the like, someone needs to be fast. Shield walls plus gladius are great at countering agressive warriors which get tired fast. Mining and counter-mining, earthworks before and during a battle, not!chinese war wheelbarrows because four wheels are bad at negotiating rough terrain.

Lengthy underground sieges and chokepoints with pike walls might require incendiaries, wheeled ballistas and chemical weapons, nothing fancy, just lime dust and poisonous smoke made of arsenic. No biologicals, because underground environments are already damp, full of bacteria and brackish water, and dwarfs probably already resist that. They might create trench warfare before discovering gunpowder.

No axes, unless it's actually polearms or shock troops.

We have videogames to answer that question ..

https://youtu.be/PzKKxiNRLQo

>>53964276
It would last a ridiculously fucking long time. A near unending cycle of revenge, every side uses the others' past atrocities to justify the new horrors they commit. Every time, each side's list of grudge gets longer.

>>53964276

I still can't get over how stupid it is for dwarves to prefer axes.

Axes are a terrible weapon for a short race with short hands.

And ESPECIALLY for a one that fights underground a lot.

>>53965696
>Even if they have bears and the like, someone needs to be fast
I've seen short people try to ride animals and its fairly hilarious. Chariots might work considering they just have to stand there and throw shit at people, do drivebys and drive over things.

>>53965751
But halberds are great.

You'd have to look down.

>>53964276
Two armies set up on opposite sides of a valley, begin digging trenches. They construct elaborate earthworks, bulwarks, quarry stone for fortress walls and keeps. They pull back behind their walls, building interior walls, a bailey, another fort behind that fort.

Eventually the two sides are so far apart and have spent so long building they call for adjudication to settle the conflict, the judges come through to determine who built the best fortifications and that side gets a shiny trophy which the victorious army brings back to their fastness.

The labyrinthine double fortress is abandoned, eventually becoming home to goblins or other monsters.

And that's where dungeons come from.

>>53964404
They might be short, but they tend to get a pretty hairy.

>>53964276
A lot of tangled beards.

>>53964276
It would be a very short affair.

Alternating from a small amount of legendary champions on each side, to a swarm of recruits, trying to kill eachother by sheer numbers and tactics.

>>53964276
a particularly large bar fight

>>53965819
To someone from the surface, all they see is the two armies setting up and disappearing into the few visible edifices.
Once, a dwarf war that lasted years had seen humans settle above the battleground only noticing the battle raging under their feet when a massive undermining collapse several fields.

File: PW8.jpg (26KB, 512x384px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 512x384px

>>53964276
Porridge Wars!

>>53964276
Tunnel warfare
Like trench warfare but with tunnels

File: 1497862670016.png (698KB, 2022x9691px) Image search: [Google]

698KB, 2022x9691px

>>53964276
Okay this is how I do it

While >>53964301 is certainly a viable option my dwarves have realized there is too high of a casualty rate for attackers in prolonged siege battles. Also it would take way too much time and very dangerous to attempt to undermine the enemy's defenses, and dwarven cities are very labyrinthian so it would be almost useless to do so.

Instead, dwarves blitzkrieg an enemy's city or fortress, in an effort to capture or kill the enemy nobility. The dwarves get as close to the outer walls of a city as they can, and take it by force. They don't waste time with the handful of farmers who live above ground but rush to storm the main city underground. Most of the fighting takes place in the main hall, where the defenders attempt to prevent a break. If the layout of the city is known the attackers will sometimes attempt to go down a side corridor where they can flank the defenders or cut off the escape of the dwarf-king of the city.

Attacking dwarves are usually armed with one-handed hammers or war picks. Defenders carry large shields and fight in pike formation. Wood is scarce so archers are not super common. Instead the defenders use large spiked iron balls maybe 50 lbs in weight to drop onto their enemy from above.

The dwarf nobility usually has a secret passage to a hidden shelter in case their lines are breached.

If the attackers are defeated they group and flee. Wars of attrition in a foreign city never end well.

Absurdly long sieges punctuated by skirmishers trying to cause a collapse or hit the food/water supply.

>>53964276
play WarhammerFantasy/KingsOfWar/anythingelsewithfantasyanddwarfes with a dwarfen armie on each side

File: 7589ca21bcd4.jpg (94KB, 656x1024px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 656x1024px

>>53965762
I can see a dwarven kingdom with plenty of plains or extraordinary paved tunnels favoring chariots, but not most of them. Their requirements of flat terrain, usually complex and/or fragile cars and animals make them too expensive and unpealling otherwise. A sort of dwarven peltastai with throwing clubs, Goedendags and round shields would be more useful and cheaper.

Also, were I a dwarf lord, I would hire many elven/human mercenary archers/crossbowmen, even to the point of making my tunnels taller to acomodate them. The height difference allows for a tremendous sinergy between dwarf pikemen/hoplites and skirmishers. For a crossbowman, it's like having your pavise fighting for you. The practical aplication of two forces upon one defender might break chokepoints.

Dwarven pikemen also probably wouldn't suffer the groin stabbing that came with the push of pike.

>>53964276
Like a series of sinkholes and mysterious avalances, explosions, and hot springs forming.

> Wasn't there a mountain there last year?
> Why has the river stopped flowing?
> What's with that cloud of steam in the distance?
> Why has that plain collapsed by a few hundred feet?

> Ah, hello mister dwarven liason. We've noticed a lot of suspicious geological activity lately. If you don't put our river back the way it was, you'll have a war on two fronts and not just one.

>>53964276
A bunch of fat hairy manlets bitchslapping each other.

>>53964276
Dunno, would have to look down and squint to see them

>>53964276
By day they'd remain in their mountain fortresses carving lewd garden gnomes engaging in homosexual buggery, and by night they'd sneak over to the neighbouring kingdom and leave them at the gates to impugn the manliness of whomever found them.

File: 090114075921_1_900x600.jpg (33KB, 900x513px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 900x513px

Chemical warfare.

>>53965819
This is actually a very good idea. I will use it