"Arrows are useless against a castle - you can only win by using heavy wall-breaching equipment, which is why dwarfs are the superior race in siege warfare. If you are the besieger, you can't hit anything worthwhile at all. If you are inside the castle, you might think arrow-fire would be effective from the towers - but which would you prefer to be hit by, a pointy stick or a 30 lb rock?"
- —Berndt Lavaspear, from the "The Dwarfen Art of War".[2a]
"Don’t seek to tell a Longbeard how to do things. Tell him what to do and he’ll prove his own best commander."
Berndt Lavaspear, (-1842 IC to -1621 IC), lived during the War of Vengeance when the Dwarfs struggled against the Elves. Berndt was a product of his time and most of his analysis focused on making the most of the Dwarfs’ strengths while exploiting the Elves’ weaknesses. Despite his limited perspective he is considered by many to be the finest Dwarf strategist who ever lived, and even Gotrek Starbreaker, who won the war’s definitive victory long after Berndt had died, was said to have studied his dense and exhaustive texts.[1a]
Many Myrmidians swear by Berndt’s The Dwarf Art of War, though he is not as celebrated as Allurian. His text is seen as a reaction to the High Elf ’s work, and he devotes huge sections to nit-picking complaints regarding Allurian’s occasional oversights rather than providing workable alternatives of his own. That said, his advocates suggest that a synthesis of Allurian’s insight and Berndt’s critique makes for a truly versatile master strategist.[1a]
Sigmarites tend to show an appreciation of Myrmidian strategy and often make quite public appearances at Myrmidian temples, leafing through copies of Lavaspear’s The Dwarf Art of War in the temple library and reminding the Myrmidian priests of their shared historical victories.[1b]