Which faction poses the greatest challenge for the Dwarves?

I think dwarves are very weak in the late game. Their attack is terrible (even artifacts don't help much). They make poor mages because their magic is far from that of a Warlock or Necromancer. A Chaos/Armageddon build is only possible if you get lucky with the Guild of Mages (and if not, what then?) Should I just throw away all that development? And how do you know if Armageddon is available? It's inefficient to focus on the Guild early on (and if you're going for a Strength/Magic build, the options are: Form/Leadership/Attack/Defense/Luck – you have to sacrifice something for Light). And so on.
In general, I tried hard to learn how to play them, but it's not very successful. Even Orcs look better. And any race from the original game easily beats dwarves. My favorite mages/necro/elementals tear them apart.
Maybe I just haven't encountered skilled players (I want to play against a skilled dwarf player to see their real strength – but without Chaos, just Light – I know the Chaos option, but it's random). The map is large (Ascension to Power).