A while ago (november) I sent Gav Thorpe a pm over on warseer asking about his thoughts on what he would have liked to have done with Chaos Dwarfs if he had the chance. I actually asked it more in relation to Grudgebearer, but his comments I found particularly interesting…
I sent him a follow up pm that he didn’t reply to, then recently I had to pm about something else and prompted him to reply to my last one. Anyhow, as he didn’t reveal anything else (and imo is very unlikely to) I thought it would be very interesting for people here to read this.
If he had told me something more private I would not have posted it, but as he is out of the game it probably wouldn’t have been what may happen anyway.
Something to bear in mind is that when Gav wrote all this he must have put a huge amount of thought into it, and discussed it with the design team. The body of work he left behind I imagine it would be foolish to ignore when looking at what the Forge world people may do…
If anyone else is thinking of pm Gav he doesn’t always reply, and it may take months. If anyone finds out anything interesting just post it here (or pm me at least!)
Hi there,
Most of my thinking on Chaos Dwarfs was a change to the manner of their war machines; technology-mixed-with-daemons seen with the Hellcannon. This included turning the lammasu and great taurus ‘monsters’ into daemonic constructs rather than living creatures. I also think it would be good to make more of the slavemaster idea, perhaps a special kind of command upgrade for certain slave units. My favourite is still the kolossuss mechanical giant, which could have all sorts of fun possiblities.
In more general terms, I think it would be cool to distort some of the Dwarfish traditions and attitudes into something far more sinister and chaos-y. For example, the love of gold becomes a love of ownership where every thing - animate and inanimate - is considered property in Chaos Dwarf society. And taking the resilience of dwarfs and perverting into a ritualised self harm of branding, tattooing and piercing that Chaos Dwarfs indulge in to prove their fortitude.
We also thught a bit about the sorcerers, turning them into a ruling priesthood divided into sects that oversee the sacrifices to Hashut (much like Phoenician and Carthaginian worship of Baal).
We’ll have to wait and see if anything happens with the Chaos Dwarfs.
Cheers,
GAV
I actually used his comments as the idea for this thread after reading about bael.
Actually, to be fair, I just extrapolated my ideas from what was already written - a lot of it by Gav himself in Grudgebearer (not that I’ve read it, but I’ve seen the relevant quotes).
When I read it the mechanical lammasu part was new to me. I’ve always thought the taurus would be better done as a mechanical mount (a plastic kit with loads of options), but strangely it didn’t occur to me that the lammasu would ever be done like that. It would have been logical, seeing as it could have been made off the same sprue kit. Not that it matters anyway, because if GW do release these they will probably be resin.
The piercing/ tattoes etc would make for a very steampunkish look, with all the warmachine monsters.
I haven’t got round to it yet, but the idea of breaking the sorcerer class into sects was also quite intriguing imo.
Between this and the other rumours in the roundup (plus immortals and maybe the hellcannon and hellfire cannon) it would be possible to put together a sort of list.
Mh, this is indeed a very informative! Makes me think about my project…hm…
My Monsters are still in devellopement and they were usually monsters, but the trend goes more and more to the constructive theme of animated mechanical stuff. So my Lammasi and Taurus need to be more statue-like…
The tattoo and piercing theme is exactly what I want to hear, I consider this is in future projects. I’m to lazy to do freehand tattoos, but piercings are hardcore cool, remember my Gaoler? He has padlocks pierced in his back :mask
I never know if I really want new official CDs, I allways like the fact that we have this kind of artistic freedom that there are no specific CDs in the modern Warhammerworld, so we can just make, whatever we want ^^. On the other hand a fixed background would be nice, too… and new rules, yay yay! ^^
In more general terms, I think it would be cool to distort some of the We also thught a bit about the sorcerers, turning them into a ruling priesthood divided into sects that oversee the sacrifices to Hashut (much like Phoenician and Carthaginian worship of Baal).
I have read what you claim Gav said and I have to admit I hate it. I think the Choas Dwarfs are fine the way they are in the RH and old rule book. Tall hats curly beards that is the way to go. But have fun in your own ideas, I like my guys just the way they are.
This is sort of what I thought should be done with Chaos Dwarfs as well.
The current Ravening Hordes book is an absolute mess. They are all over the place trying to do everything which means they do everythin super well and would be unstoppable imbalanced or that they do nothing well and can’t win. What kind of units an army DOESN’T have access to informs their decission as to how you play the army as much as what the army does have access to.
Choosing a focus like Gav mentioned, particularly one that no one else occupies, makes them a unique choices that isn’t simply “Dwarfs but with light infantry, both light and heavy cavarly and magic” (or “Dwarfs with everything the Dwarfs don’t have on top of that”). Now that would obviously mean that my Hobgoblins would end up being sidelined, but it would do much to fix the Chaos Dwarfs if they lost the Hobgoblins, Bull Centaurs and flying hero mounts. A Hobgoblin list could always be put out as a summer campaign army list or a White Dwarf Dogs of War list since you don’t need very many unique units and you could simply say ‘mix these in with your Orcs & Goblins or Ogre Kingdoms armies’ which is something that just wouldn’t seem quite right if you did it with Chaos Dwarfs.
The current Ravening Hordes book is an absolute mess. They are all over the place trying to do everything which means they do everythin super well and would be unstoppable imbalanced or that they do nothing well and can't win. What kind of units an army DOESN'T have access to informs their decission as to how you play the army as much as what the army does have access to.
In fairness, it was a two page army list in a pamphlet given away in White Dwarf. If you read the other army lists in the same publication, they're pretty much the same - just giving you rules to get your toys on the table in the new edition. Acting like it was some kind of failure is absurd, since it was never meant to be anything but a stop-gap measure.
The Ravening Horde lists didn’t exactly fail to incorporate the majority of what existed in the Codexes already though. There was some loss-- for instance, many of the monster that previously anyone could take in their armies were discarded. The failure of the Chaos Dwarfs as a cohessive army in was apparent in their single existing army book before it was ever transferred over to a Ravening Hordes list. If you were playing straight from the army book rather than that list you had the same problem.
With Chaos Dwarfs, the fundamental idea was to have evil Dwarfs, but somehow that idea transferred over into Dwarfs that could do everything that existed in the game. Even at the time, that idea really didn’t work out into a fundamenally good and balanced army, it was broken even when it was released to my understanding. Over time the idea of army theme spilling over into mechanics has become more and more true-- for instance, Brittonia and Empire have become less and less similar over time.
Every army could do a bit of everything in 4th Edition, actually. The Chaos Dwarf book was fairly typical of the mix you’d find in every other Armies book - the idea of armies have distinct character on the battlefield didn’t really start to evolve until 5th Edition, and even then it was pretty limited. Bretonnian characters, for example, were identical in every respect to their Empire equivalents (except they got Virtues) and their units were only different in that they had less of them.
Remember too that, back then, allies were a fundamental part of the game - didn’t like your fragile Wood Elves? Just spend 25% of your points limit on tough Dwarf infantry and war machines… So, on a basic level, armies that played in a specific way befitting the race’s character was not as strongly enforced a concept as it is now. Yes, Dwarfs were slower and tougher and Orcs were unruly, but most things were pretty much the same. Humans were humans across the board and had access to most of the same stuff - there was a standardised character equipment list for every army and everyone used the same magic items.
Indeed. In a certain sense I feel as though the game could use quite a lot more of that, particularly in the sense of standardized magic items and the allies rules which I think I’d like to see more of. However, between army books it does still feel like quite a lot is standardized in some ways, but even within 4th I am not really convinced that every army could do everything in the same way the Chaos Dwarfs did.
Unless I am mistaken, for instance, normal Dwarfs never had cavarly nor magic nor cheap bulk infantry, yet Chaos Dwarfs got all of these things on top of everything of importance that the Dwarfs got. I’m not aware of any units that armies outside of Brettonians lost since 4th edition, perhaps you could enlighten me on what got thrown away in other armies so I could get a better sense of this?
Empire had Halflings, Reiksguard, their own Ogres, Dwarfs, Kislev units and the requisite monster section. They’re probably the best example, but other armies had their selections of units trimmed down to be more characterful, and had new units introduced that enhanced the themes rather than plugged gaps. Also, it’s worth remembering the army selection rules, which meant you had to take 25% of your army from the “Units” section, and that’s it: that could mean Goblins, but it could also mean Black Orcs or Trolls. You could take whole armies of supposedly elite troops so, even when an Armies book was strongly themed, you could cheerfully ignore it and take the kind of units you wanted. Orcs and Goblins (to continue the above example) were still “rabble” themed, but you could just take Black Orcs and put Black Orc characters in any unit that still had Animosity in order to stop them fighting, making your O&G army as disciplined and elite as any other.
Unless I am mistaken, for instance, normal Dwarfs never had cavarly nor magic nor cheap bulk infantry, yet Chaos Dwarfs got all of these things on top of everything of importance that the Dwarfs got.
Hobgoblyn
Chaos Dwarfs weren't just the Dwarf army plus everything missing. The only commonality was the use of dwarf infantry, and in the CD army it had no unit options at all. Dwarfs of the other hand had many options plus many variations. Then there are the many more war machines with runes, plus regular runes, and the inherent anti-magic. The CD army was much more like evil equivalent of Empire with a more limited choice. Jack of all trades, master of none.
