So the point: a Thunderbarge is able to dish out ~5K damage while being melee'd by two manticores for the whole time.

It costs 3k. The whole problem with thunderbadge is:
1. It can keep dealing damage even if it's being beaten and it's so tough that it's literally impossible to deal with it before it pays for itself.

2. It is unreachable for more than half a units in the game i.e. it's literally immune to anything except flying and ranged.

3. It can ignore what it is not unreachable to because to  because its DPS is higher than it's HP loss rate in most cases.

So, a recap of the match:
The match starts, thunderbarge one-taps my Hellcannon by second 10. I could have ordered the crew to abandon the cannon to save it but it's just 10th second of the match, by the time I scroll to my enemy army, realize what he has and then scroll back - the cannon is already gone.

Not really the best start but we can live with it, my opponent has a thunderbarge, I have two manticores to deal with it + AP horse axethrowers, the problem here - he has thunderers.

As we have no artillery anymore, we have to charge. By 1 min 40 sec my infantry and one manticore is engaging thunderers while the other manticore is engaging the barge because there is nothing that can stop it now. By that point of time, the barge already has 1400 damage where 800 was done on the Hellcannon and destroyed the cannon itself so it's effectively 1800 damage value dealt by the barge. 

My infantry is beating the thunderers without them making even a single shot by 2 min 50 sec. The barge is still flying around unstoppably WHILE CHASED BY A MANTICORE. By that time (2 min 50 sec) the barge was able to deal 2325 (add 400 on top, hellcannon was killed but not its crew) damage value. The manticore that chased it dealt 671 damage value. Another manticore is disengaged from thunderers and sent to deal wtih the barge.

By 3 min 50 seconds the goddamn barge has 3300 damage value, it killed a unit of horse axethrowers that was dispatched to assist manticores, this barge was CONSTANTLY CHASED BY A MANTICORE starting at 1 min 50 sec and it was chased by TWO MANTICORES since 2 min 50 sec. It still had 5600 HP at that point, one manticore had 1080 damage value, the other (that killed thunderers) had 606 damage value.

By minute 6 the barge, STILL CHASED BY TWO MANTICORES was able to fly around and deal 4600 damage value. Still has 1700 HP.  Manticores have 932 and 1300 damage respectively. 

At this point I wanted to ask CA devs only one question "Why can't my hellcannon crew survive in melee for 6 minutes while dealing 2300 damage?!" 

By 6 min 50 sec the thunderbarge is dead, but it died to thunderburner, not to manticores! Manticores have 1300 and 932 damage values.

Replay: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JHKdpolxIikpM9Z9T7BcOZfWOzSL58e9/view?usp=sharing

So, the question: What the hell am I supposed to do if I see dwarfs in the lobby?

furies and harpies are much more reliable at killing them, flying monsters have real issues

Furies/Harpies - may be, before the patch the barge was able to beat 2 units of Khorne furies while they were meleeing it. Now it's still too tough for harpies to beat it if it is covered by thunderers from the ground.

WoC have none of them in the roster anyways

Likely not a satisfying answer but if you wiped out that small ground army while ignoring the barge and just soaking it’s damage, you would likely win just by splitting up running away and letting it lose to penalty from having only flyers left. 

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eumaies#1128 wrote:

Likely not a satisfying answer but if you wiped out that small ground army while ignoring the barge and just soaking it’s damage, you would likely win just by splitting up running away and letting it lose to penalty from having only flyers left. 

True.
However if it is able to deal 5k while it costs 3k then you have to beat 9K worth of ground dudes while having 7K worth of army for it.

​It is a disgusting and totally unfair unit that does not require any skill to rent and should not be playable in ranked in the state it is in. 

If it were up to me I would delete her from the dwarfs' roster. 

In the end it simply forces you to leave the lobby when the opponent chooses dwarves.

I see two options: 
- If it is uncointerable and no matter what happens on the battlefield - it will be able to output damage, then it's max output must be nerfed to the point where it will have slightly overpay it's value at the end of the match. So, by the time it used up all its ammo it should have 3100 - 3300 dmg value max.

- Nerf its survivability. Make it unable to shoot if it was in melee within the last 20 seconds for example. On top of that halve it's HP so that it wouldn't take 7 min to beat it with a $1600 worth of aerial units. 

Actually the problem is the design : putting a world war 1 zeppelin in a medieval/renaissance setup results indeed in strange and unfair things.

I did have some success with the terrorgeist against it.

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songoffire#8157 wrote:

Actually the problem is the design : putting a world war 1 zeppelin in a medieval/renaissance setup results indeed in strange and unfair things.

I did have some success with the terrorgeist against it.

I think that the easiest way to fix this unit would be to simply move it into extended roster. It's just too hard to counter for many factions + it can bring lots of damage value with little input from the player.

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BeastmenPlayer#5381 wrote:

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songoffire#8157 wrote:

Actually the problem is the design : putting a world war 1 zeppelin in a medieval/renaissance setup results indeed in strange and unfair things.

I did have some success with the terrorgeist against it.

I think that the easiest way to fix this unit would be to simply move it into extended roster. It's just too hard to counter for many factions + it can bring lots of damage value with little input from the player.

Good idea

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BeastmenPlayer#5381 wrote:

I think that the easiest way to fix this unit would be to simply move it into extended roster. 

Development resource wise, I would vote against removing a unit from the game if the development efforts were already put into it. Better balance it properly and let it be. In addition, those who paid for it will definitely feel unfairly treated.

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BeastmenPlayer#5381 wrote:

​It's just too hard to counter for many factions + it can bring lots of damage value with little input from the player.

Well, here we have two different problems: 

1. Some factions can't do anything with a flying shooter

2. Thunderbarge can bring lots of value even if you AFK 

The first one is actually not a problem of the Thunderbarge it's just a problem of those three badly designed monogod factions with scrapped rosters: Nurgle, Slaanesh and Khorne. Changebringers are as nasty as the Thunderbarge but they are much easier to kill if you engage them in melee. 

I don't know whose genius idea it was to take a pretty-balanced WoC roster and remove half of it for monogod factions but it clearly made factions barely playable for 1v1s. Thankfully Khorne has Skarbrand with Rage Embodied that causes everyone around to rampage and engage in melee thus forcing flyers to land, also Pavane of Slaanesh spell causes 1 unit to rampage and can force Changebringers to land but not the Thunderbarge coz it's unlandable! And Nurgle is the only faction that not only doesn't have any sufficient options in the roster but also has no tools to force flyers to land and engage in melee. Obviously any faction that doesn't have ranged options will suffer a lot from flying units and single monsters.

So the solution of the faction rosters problem:

1. Give Nurgle and Slaanesh halberds finally!

2. Give all Exalted Heroes with marks a manticore mount option.

3. Recycle the Marauder Hunters from Norsca and give them to Nurgle, Khorne and Slaanesh. Both Javelins and thrown axes.

The second problem is indeed a problem of Thunderbarge itself. There are high-value high-reward units like "The Sunmaker" that can deal a huge amount of damage but a single overcasted Pit of Shades will destroy and shatter them. So the Sunmaker like most of the artillery units is a high-risk-high-reward.

The thunderbarge doesn't have "high risk" component, it's tough as hell and it takes so much time to beat it and it can keep shooting while being beaten. Halve it's armor, halve it's HP.  The same applies to the Land ship. It's still too strong for cost.