Dwarfs Are Squishy(?)(.)

             The post title is both a question and a statement. I have found that a lot of their units are quite squishy. While others are undoubtedly tanks. I am big into the lore of the fantasy world. I believe an army should perform as to how they do in lore. Dwarfs are supposed to be tough sobs covered in unbreakable armor. They are also supposed to excel in shooting and engineering and yet I find this not to be the case. I find them to be remarkably average on these fronts.
             Besides being a lore guy I also love core choices, maybe its just an 'ore' thing i dont know. I tend to bulk out on these choices and if I have my way they end up as half my army, the way it should be IMO. But the dwarfs core are really letting me down lately. I find that if you don't build them to be tanks they hardly last any longer than a maiden elf at a Slaaneshi orgy. Base heavy armor and t4 doesnt do enough to make them stick around. If you give them a shield the 4+ armor and parry save is nice, but then you can hardly kill anything. The WS4 is a wash as far as how long you last in combat. WS3 still needs the same 4 to hit that it does against other WS3s. The super parry is a really nice addition that does make the dwarves tankier than they were, but it only exists on the turn you are charged. A good example was when i was fighting my friend Colin in one of our weekly or biweekly battles. His skink cohort was butchering my dwarfs. Out of 5 attacks, at WS2 S3 they were regularly killing 2 and that's without poison. Or against Bob in this last Battle Report "Hooked On Phoenix Part 2 Hooked On Phoenix Part 1" His guaranteed ward saves on his Phoenix Guard made them damn near invincible and that was needing 4s to hit and anything buts to wound and no armor save vs the Hammerers, I would love to see the option for them to take gromril armor. My Hammerers die off real fast in combat without the ability to use the shield. As they are my best unit they tend to draw the enemies best unit which will almost always modify my armor save to a (at least) 6+ and the way i roll sometimes that might as well not exist.

Notice all the dead Hammerers right in the middle? 6+ armor save, meh I don't think so

              This leads me to take as few warriors as i can, i am steadily making the switch over to a longbeard force of core, now that their numbers aren't limited. Of course if you want your dwarfs to have any hitting power you give them a great weapon and there goes the shield and parry save and when that happens they melt as fast as the snows in March.
            I am not completely bashing the tankieness of the Dwarves as Ironbreakers are great tanks, I just find that one point of overall armor save and parry save makes ALL the difference in the world.
           Armor saves are definitely one thing I would like to see more like in 40k, where it was race specific armor values not blanket values for heavy armor. I think this would help a lot for a lot armies and units not just the dwarves.

Same unit of Phoenix Guard, with one dead, that about sums it up, those pansy elves killed off hammerers, ironbreakers and a good chunk of the warriors they are fighting in this pic, S4= dead dwarfs