| I think the Dwarves are just getting unnecessary hate on. Their small number of initial pieces can easily be dealt with by just continually abandoning territories to get to your mining locations. And as mentioned, if at least 2 of those locations are on mountains, chances are people aren't going to hammer them.
Used them in a 3 player game as my second race - and for 3 turns I got a solid 7VPs (3 mining regions, 1 non) and 2 turns 8 (2 non before one got beaten) just from the Dwarves as a retired race. Pulled in a hefty 10 plus victory points for the last 5 or so turns.
And if you're wondering why no one attacked me, was a matter of timing, placement on board and an aggressive active race that had people trying to stem them. | 
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