[OSSR]White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs
Posted: Wed May 31, 2017 11:55 pm
Before we begin, I would like to point out that to get to this book, I had to dig for it. Turns out it was in the box underneath the giant skull in my closet.
![Image](https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/18766145_10106491200633741_7352215066145543402_n.jpg?oh=a8664e15cccb35cc6199dc58490641d2&oe=599C10D8)
Photographic evidence.
![Image](http://www.solegends.com/citcat94/cat1994156-02.jpg)
This review was inspired by Koumei & Frank's OSSR of Warhammer 40K, 3rd edition, and is something of a spiritual sequel to my long-ago Dwarfs vs. Dwarfs vs. Dwarfs[/url OSSR
I'm gonna start out with saying that I have more than a soft spot for Chaos Dwarfs. They are the red-headed bastard children of the Warhammer Armies, and that endeared me to them when I was young and didn't know any better. I actually spent quite a bit of time working on the [url=http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/wiki/]Chaos Dwarfs Wiki in college when I had copious spare time, and wrote a series of fan-articles called "Earthshaking Canon" for their fanzine, The Word of Hashut. I played seldom, lost constantly, and superglued my fingers together so often I lost count, but I had fun.
Before we get into the thick of it, however, let's run up some preliminary background.
In the Beginning...
There were no Chaos Dwarfs. Not as such. At the tail end of 2nd edition (1986/1987), in Ravening Hordes the Chaos Army list had a line for Chaos Dwarfs - these were dwarfs that had fallen to Chaos, as mutants and really short Chaos Warriors and suchlike. This was expanded upon in Warhammer 3rd Edition which introduced these Chaos Dwarf mutants as an "Ally contingent," as well as introducing a new type of gobbo, the Hobgoblin. The whole Dwarf-mutants-fallen-to-Chaos thing was solidified in the infamous Realms of Chaos books (1989/1990) as Chaos Dwarf Renegades and...well, they were just part of the vast set of mutants and weird shit that Chaos could field.
![Image](http://www.solegends.com/citcat88/0309dwfboxes-01.jpg)
And yes, this means there were even potentially Chaos Squats.
Then came 4th edition 1992 - the infamous Herohammer edition, where battlefields tended to be dominated by expensive, overpowered characters. While terrible in terms of balance, this was really the edition that set a lot of the future Warhammer Fantasy product identity, such as rune magic for Dwarfs, the look and feel of Greenskins (and elimination of Half-Orcs, gnomes, etc.) - and it also involved a complete overhaul and re-skin of the entire Chaos Dwarf concept.
The way they did this was...unique. Basically, the army book was introduced as a series of articles in the wholly-owned company magazine White Dwarf, which like Games Workshop itself had started life as basically Britain's homegrown equivalent to Dragon Magazine, with articles on D&D, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, etc., and morphed into basically being a Games Workshop-only magazine, full of scenarios, beautifully painted units, rules for experimental units, etc. Rick Priestley was pumped out a series of articles in WD161, WD162, WD163, WD164, WD165, and WD170, and was accompanied by a model range - all white metal, no plastic yet - and so two years into the new edition (1994 for those keeping count), Warhammer Fantasy had a new army.
Well, sortof.
![Image](http://collector-info.com/Manufacturer/GAW/GAWWFB/GAWWFBCD/IMG/GAWWFB%2075815%20T1B%20-%20Chaos%20Dwarf%20Bull%20Centaurs%20%5BBlister%5D.jpg)
As Frank would put it, this review is going to be 30% big hats by volume.
Where the 2nd & 3rd edition Chaos Dwarfs had been random bands of mutants and stout Chaos Warriors, the new Chaos Dwarfs boasted an Assyrian/Sumerian theme, with big hats, long oiled beards, and an overall Near Eastern look that was fairly exotic. They maintained many attributes of the Dwarfs (in fact, their statlines for the average trooper were basically identical), but they were inverted on some things - where Dwarfs had rune magic and eschewed sorcery, Chaos Dwarfs had no rune magic and were led by powerful sorcerers; where Dwarfs hated Greenskins, Chaos Dwarfs enslaved them, and used ranks of Orcs, Goblins, and Hobgoblins to fill out their armies. Where Dwarfs used pistols and guns, Chaos Dwarfs used blunderbusses. Both were generally slow-moving, and loved big war machines, but Chaos Dwarfs also had cavalry in the form of the mutant Bull Centaurs and Hobgoblin Wolfriders. In places of the Dwarf Ancestor Gods, the Chaos Dwarfs revered the minor Chaos God Hashut.
![Image](http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181451082i/1155186._UY475_SS475_.jpg)
And the new Chaos Dwarf look was so successful, it made it into the official canon, such World of Warhammer, the official encyclopedia; and in various spin-off games like Blood Bowl.
![Image](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/43/56/a2/4356a2aee0eecbb4b7a17fabb8f17460.jpg)
These were some of the last models officially available.
But...Chaos Dwarfs remained very much a minor-league team in Warhammer Fantasy in 4th and 5th edition. The problem was, in part, one that Games Workshop would often struggle with: how do we get players excited enough to buy a new army? Producing fluff and rules was easy and cheap, actually modelling an army, getting in produced and in shops, and then having people buy enough to field in a game was a lot more of an investment. By introducing Chaos Dwarfs in White Dwarf, GW cut the investment a smidgen (since presumably hardcore fans were already subscribers), and by using troops from Orcs & Goblin armies to fill out the ranks, they made it easier for at least O&G players to dabble in Chaos Dwarfs...but it was still a hefty investment, and CD just never quite caught on with the general hoi polloi...and small wonder. Shops aren't going to stock armies that don't sell, and if the shops don't stock them there are no impulse purchases, especially if you have to order from GW direct.
Games Workshop would find similar difficulties in introducing new armies like Tomb Kings, and tried various ways around it - like "allied contingents" for Kislev, or by declaring Ogre Kingdoms "Dogs of War" that could be taken in any army as mercenaries. But this approach didn't really work for Chaos Dwarfs; by 6th edition they were reduced to a rump army, no new models coming out, supported by an aging ruleset and dependent on Orcs & Goblins rules which changed each edition. Eventually they had a bit of a rebirth in 7th edition - where they were re-invisioned once again, albeit without the Big Hats, and as hideously expensive Forge World models, before the whole game setting blew itself to hell.
![Image](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1SlvCHVXXXXauXXXXq6xXFXXXE/Chaos-Hellcannon.jpg)
Leave the beards on.
But that's far in the future! The year is 1994, and the world is your engine of destruction pulled by a dozen slaves. Sorcery crackles at the skull-tipped curls of your beard, and the bull centaurs stomp impatiently at the wasted earth of the Plain of Desolation. You are the Dawi'zharr...the Chaos Dwarfs!
![Image](http://you-happy.ru/uploads/posts/2009-09/1252690482_cd_sorcerer.jpg)
![Image](https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/18766145_10106491200633741_7352215066145543402_n.jpg?oh=a8664e15cccb35cc6199dc58490641d2&oe=599C10D8)
Photographic evidence.
![Image](http://www.solegends.com/citcat94/cat1994156-02.jpg)
This review was inspired by Koumei & Frank's OSSR of Warhammer 40K, 3rd edition, and is something of a spiritual sequel to my long-ago Dwarfs vs. Dwarfs vs. Dwarfs[/url OSSR
I'm gonna start out with saying that I have more than a soft spot for Chaos Dwarfs. They are the red-headed bastard children of the Warhammer Armies, and that endeared me to them when I was young and didn't know any better. I actually spent quite a bit of time working on the [url=http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/wiki/]Chaos Dwarfs Wiki in college when I had copious spare time, and wrote a series of fan-articles called "Earthshaking Canon" for their fanzine, The Word of Hashut. I played seldom, lost constantly, and superglued my fingers together so often I lost count, but I had fun.
Before we get into the thick of it, however, let's run up some preliminary background.
In the Beginning...
There were no Chaos Dwarfs. Not as such. At the tail end of 2nd edition (1986/1987), in Ravening Hordes the Chaos Army list had a line for Chaos Dwarfs - these were dwarfs that had fallen to Chaos, as mutants and really short Chaos Warriors and suchlike. This was expanded upon in Warhammer 3rd Edition which introduced these Chaos Dwarf mutants as an "Ally contingent," as well as introducing a new type of gobbo, the Hobgoblin. The whole Dwarf-mutants-fallen-to-Chaos thing was solidified in the infamous Realms of Chaos books (1989/1990) as Chaos Dwarf Renegades and...well, they were just part of the vast set of mutants and weird shit that Chaos could field.
![Image](http://www.solegends.com/citcat88/0309dwfboxes-01.jpg)
And yes, this means there were even potentially Chaos Squats.
Then came 4th edition 1992 - the infamous Herohammer edition, where battlefields tended to be dominated by expensive, overpowered characters. While terrible in terms of balance, this was really the edition that set a lot of the future Warhammer Fantasy product identity, such as rune magic for Dwarfs, the look and feel of Greenskins (and elimination of Half-Orcs, gnomes, etc.) - and it also involved a complete overhaul and re-skin of the entire Chaos Dwarf concept.
The way they did this was...unique. Basically, the army book was introduced as a series of articles in the wholly-owned company magazine White Dwarf, which like Games Workshop itself had started life as basically Britain's homegrown equivalent to Dragon Magazine, with articles on D&D, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, etc., and morphed into basically being a Games Workshop-only magazine, full of scenarios, beautifully painted units, rules for experimental units, etc. Rick Priestley was pumped out a series of articles in WD161, WD162, WD163, WD164, WD165, and WD170, and was accompanied by a model range - all white metal, no plastic yet - and so two years into the new edition (1994 for those keeping count), Warhammer Fantasy had a new army.
Well, sortof.
![Image](http://collector-info.com/Manufacturer/GAW/GAWWFB/GAWWFBCD/IMG/GAWWFB%2075815%20T1B%20-%20Chaos%20Dwarf%20Bull%20Centaurs%20%5BBlister%5D.jpg)
As Frank would put it, this review is going to be 30% big hats by volume.
Where the 2nd & 3rd edition Chaos Dwarfs had been random bands of mutants and stout Chaos Warriors, the new Chaos Dwarfs boasted an Assyrian/Sumerian theme, with big hats, long oiled beards, and an overall Near Eastern look that was fairly exotic. They maintained many attributes of the Dwarfs (in fact, their statlines for the average trooper were basically identical), but they were inverted on some things - where Dwarfs had rune magic and eschewed sorcery, Chaos Dwarfs had no rune magic and were led by powerful sorcerers; where Dwarfs hated Greenskins, Chaos Dwarfs enslaved them, and used ranks of Orcs, Goblins, and Hobgoblins to fill out their armies. Where Dwarfs used pistols and guns, Chaos Dwarfs used blunderbusses. Both were generally slow-moving, and loved big war machines, but Chaos Dwarfs also had cavalry in the form of the mutant Bull Centaurs and Hobgoblin Wolfriders. In places of the Dwarf Ancestor Gods, the Chaos Dwarfs revered the minor Chaos God Hashut.
![Image](http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1181451082i/1155186._UY475_SS475_.jpg)
And the new Chaos Dwarf look was so successful, it made it into the official canon, such World of Warhammer, the official encyclopedia; and in various spin-off games like Blood Bowl.
![Image](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/43/56/a2/4356a2aee0eecbb4b7a17fabb8f17460.jpg)
These were some of the last models officially available.
But...Chaos Dwarfs remained very much a minor-league team in Warhammer Fantasy in 4th and 5th edition. The problem was, in part, one that Games Workshop would often struggle with: how do we get players excited enough to buy a new army? Producing fluff and rules was easy and cheap, actually modelling an army, getting in produced and in shops, and then having people buy enough to field in a game was a lot more of an investment. By introducing Chaos Dwarfs in White Dwarf, GW cut the investment a smidgen (since presumably hardcore fans were already subscribers), and by using troops from Orcs & Goblin armies to fill out the ranks, they made it easier for at least O&G players to dabble in Chaos Dwarfs...but it was still a hefty investment, and CD just never quite caught on with the general hoi polloi...and small wonder. Shops aren't going to stock armies that don't sell, and if the shops don't stock them there are no impulse purchases, especially if you have to order from GW direct.
Games Workshop would find similar difficulties in introducing new armies like Tomb Kings, and tried various ways around it - like "allied contingents" for Kislev, or by declaring Ogre Kingdoms "Dogs of War" that could be taken in any army as mercenaries. But this approach didn't really work for Chaos Dwarfs; by 6th edition they were reduced to a rump army, no new models coming out, supported by an aging ruleset and dependent on Orcs & Goblins rules which changed each edition. Eventually they had a bit of a rebirth in 7th edition - where they were re-invisioned once again, albeit without the Big Hats, and as hideously expensive Forge World models, before the whole game setting blew itself to hell.
![Image](https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1SlvCHVXXXXauXXXXq6xXFXXXE/Chaos-Hellcannon.jpg)
Leave the beards on.
But that's far in the future! The year is 1994, and the world is your engine of destruction pulled by a dozen slaves. Sorcery crackles at the skull-tipped curls of your beard, and the bull centaurs stomp impatiently at the wasted earth of the Plain of Desolation. You are the Dawi'zharr...the Chaos Dwarfs!
![Image](http://you-happy.ru/uploads/posts/2009-09/1252690482_cd_sorcerer.jpg)