Miners (Blasting Charges)

Miners (Blasting Charges) is a Dwarfs melee infantry unit in Total War: Warhammer. The pickaxe is not the mightiest Dwarfen weapon, but explosives even things out somewhat.

Description
When Dwarfs march to war, many mining Clans form regiments to join the battle. As a point of pride, they do not bear axes, but instead wield the same heavy two-handed mining picks and mattocks they use to laboriously carve out tunnels. As it turns out, these well-balanced and sturdily-made tools work equally well whether digging in to bedrock or hacking apart Goblins. Because tunneling in the deeps is dangerous work, Miners constantly wear heavy armour and helms. Down the ages, this mail has served to protect them against rockfall and cave-ins as well as turning aside such attacks as Elf arrows or rusty Skaven blades. The longer and more established a Dwarf mine is, the more likely it is to be augmented with mechanical contrivances. Great steam engines draw in fresh air or haul chains to tow wagonloads of rock out of the depths. Some Miners even take to war with a few of their 'gadgets', such as blasting charges or a steam drill to aid in tunneling under the enemy battle lines quickly. While the most conservative Dwarfs still grumble about these newer generations, stoutly wielding a pick to carve through a foe and winning the battle go a long way to aiding acceptance.

Strategy
Few things do more to break an enemy unit than a wave of explosives, not to mention often inflicting heavy casualties, especially if that unit is mostly unarmored! For this reason alone, Miners with blasting charges can be a welcome addition to your forces, especially when you are facing large hordes of enemies. Try to keep this unit behind your front lines until you're ready to commit it to blasting as big a concentration of enemies as you can, and for heaven's sake, DO NOT leave them on "Fire at Will", or they'll toss their bombs at the first opportunity, and you'll get almost no benefit from them.