[Archive] I have just drawn a blasphemous conclusion

Ronshank:

I was thinking about this a while back an it occured to me that its over 5 years since I found this place and everyone was so enthusiastic that new CD lists or CD armies might be done as Ravening hoards was in full swing and Chaos Dwarf armies were table legal and active members of that campaign. And way back then stright from people within GW we were getting the same story…in the next 2 years or so, well it’s getting closer to 6 years for me now so I’m frustrated.

As someone who likes to play with others at actual meets and events not having a current legal army is just sooo annoying you get so many people who won’t believe you about abilities, lists etc because ‘I’m using old stuff’ or worse ‘i’ve near seen it before’ tantrums. And thats when I use the old Ravening Hoards lists (Much better as with the GW seal way more people will play you and be happy about it). Using the Indy GT list is a issue for me. It’s hard to find people that will happily accept it were I am and I don’t have the luxury of a nice group of gaming friends to meet and play with me regulary, So Raving Hoards is still my list.

I really NEED a new offical update army list for the newer editions. I will take what ever GW will give me warts and all. I have never been one to go with the masses and if I don’t like the style of CD’s that GW prefurs, well thanks to all the practise I’ve had i’ll probably just convert them to something I like anyway. Don’t hate me because I do love the game but lets face it; It’s just adult toy soldiers it can be whatever we want it to be. We just need rules thats all and seriously if all I got was that it would be like extra Christmas. Plus personally I like they way they seem to be taking the CD’s which is why I love the demon smiths in the Indy list. While the green skins are fun I can live without them and a purely evil magic welding, non-yielding, siege weapon happy army sounds awesome to me even if the writing is not all la-dee-da. As for GW new writing style, reading the greenskins book to me gets irritating as the ‘accent’ of the greenskins while fun at that start becomes irritatingly illegable so having the empire tell me what I want to know saves me from tring to figure out what a mass of letters could possibly mean.

Its selfish for people to say ‘I don’t want a book they will stuff it up’ all that means is that a whole lot of people who would have given Chaos Dwarfs a go would never try it and eventually as less people remember the army and more fan army lists come into being there will be no central idea for new people to grasp onto. You see it on our intro boards all the time people looking for ‘offical rules’. They want offical rules to build around, they need point values, and guidelines, undisputable lists that others will recognise as valid. That is the point of offical rules to give you your compass to build your army around. If it was that easy to just write your own list get it universally accepted and convert away you’d see a whole lot more fringe humans armies like the Nippons or Fishmen on the table. That old Ravening Hoards list and the mention in the 7th ed book is what keeps us noticable and out there. If they were to truely diasappear and get lost without a new list or army- well it worries me what might happen. When ever they want to beathe new life into this army is fine with me. Childish griping over details only serves to make us not feel so bad when we are overlooked for yet another year which I have no doubt will probably continue to happen for a while yet. Whenever I think on it too much I think about how happy a friend of mine was when they reintroduced his favorite army Woodelves. I’m waiting for the Chaos Dwarfs to have that day too.

Swissdictator:

If we stay fringe too much longer and people won’t let you play at friendly games, let alone tournaments. There were a few people recently telling me that they should be squatted, basically.

So lest you want all that hard work to go wasted, you better hope we get rules eventually…

Nazhur:

A good point Ronshank and I think you are right in much. Specially that new people won´t know what a chaos dwarf is and less how a army of them are. So you are right that if chaos dwarfs shall survive then GW should do something for us, like aupdate in WD, a new army book or more. In the new 8:ed it seems we get very little of stagetime :frowning: So I agree with you even if I´m at the same time a bit afraid what GW will do to it if the someday will give us a update.

Zuh-Khinie:

Indeed Ronshank… I didn’t think further than my own current situation.

I have loads of friends who play warhammer, and they’ve all been playing for over 10 years (with a few exceptions ofcourse).

We all remember CDs, and noone has a problem with me using the indy GT list.

That being said… you are right when you say GW should do a revamp for all your above mentioned reasons.

It’s not because GW said I had to paint all my bretonnians in different colours that I did so… I chose for an army based on a lord and his retinue, and while they all retain their heraldry, they have the same piece of cloth draped over their horses.

So, stretching this further… it’s not because GW says something is canon that we have to adhere to it, or even buy the miniatures they make to fit their new (or old) background.

Shakhorth:

I completely understand Ronshank. If it wasn’t for the Ravening hordes/Indy GT list and the CD community I might never have started with the CD’s. Afterall it’s nice to construct/paint/collect an army, but in the end you need to be able to play with it. This becomes ever more difficult if you haven’t got an ‘official’ list or miniatures.

So, stretching this further… it’s not because GW says something is canon that we have to adhere to it, or even buy the miniatures they make to fit their new (or old) background.

Zuh-Khinie
What my buddy Zuh-Khinie says is true. It’s not because GW launches a new ‘trend’ we all have to jump to it. If they would bring out a new CD list and you don’t like… Don’t buy it. Same goes for the miniatures. But atleast it would give some options to the new and veteran players. Plus it would solve any issue involving ‘legal’ games.

Forgefire:

As an avid black library reader (though mostly 40k books) i agree with the original post, maybe 50 percent of my black library books are a quality read everything else is barely readable. I wish Abnett and Dembowski were responisble for all warhammer fluff… But lately reading “Legends of space marines” gives me new hope in the form of two new names, namely Paul Kearney and Richard Williams. Ofcourse  that was 40k but still…they just need more talents such as these.

implying that Beastmen always tramp about in huge hordes capable of laying waste to whole nations, and further that these tremendous aberrant monstrosities are lurking behind every damn tree between Tilea and Norsca.
This makes me so angry :mad. They lost every point that made beastmen interesting.

wallacer:

If we stay fringe too much longer and people won't let you play at friendly games, let alone tournaments. There were a few people recently telling me that they should be squatted, basically.

So lest you want all that hard work to go wasted, you better hope we get rules eventually...

Swissdictator
If worst came to worst I could still use my CD as counts-as Dwarfs.
Hardly an ideal solution, I know, but at i'd still be able to have my CD figures on the table.

Krulgar The Black:

From taking a look at the new rulebook I spied a particular line with direct reference to Chaos Dwarfs, something along the lines “The blacksmiths from beyond the Great Skull Lands prepare for war” or something to that effect, but blacksmiths hardly make an army now do they? Which makes me wonder if they may spin a new look on CDs, as it has been mentioned before that Chaos Dwarfs rely on slaves and thus launch raids to nearby lands and so forth, but if they (GW) go down the path of Chaos Dwarfs as a race of cruel slavers, then that kinda leans towards the Dark Elves, having the penchant to launch raids from their spindly boats of evil.

As well, with the Chaos Dwarfs being credited for the invention of Chaos Armour and such devices like the Hellcannon (Boom boom nom nom, gribble etc) then from my perspective it seems we’ve been put into the position as the fuel for the furnace of the Chaos Warriors, of course, if GW decided to go down the route of Chaos Dwarfs featuring twisted chaos sciences and highly experimental weapons and things like the Kolossus then would that be too close to things like the Skaven’s themes of bizarre and crazy technology? Granted it would be a interesting reflection from the ‘Traditional’ Dwarfs relying on tried and trusted machines, whilst Chaos Dwarfs would steam forward with their dark machinations and newfound weapons fused with daemons, which now that I think about it would be kinda cool having the CDs taking a host of mad weapons, refined through Dwarf stubbornness and inventiveness (no doubt practising upon slaves in the bargain) to the battlefield in their goal of slavery/appeasing Hashut and so on, that being said, if they did that then I would NOT won’t them to turn into this Army of World Dominating Potential :mad, because if CDs were… then how come they hadn’t teamed up with the Chaos Warriors and flattened everything? Although I can’t speak for the new beastmen book (which sounds disappointing about the MONSTERS BEHIND EVERY TREE AND IN YOUR SOCKS factor rather than the fairytale-esque idea of the beastie in the woods :(), if these three/four chaos armies of CDs/Warriors/Beasts/Daemons were to invade, and maybe some orcs into the bargain…

I don’t think the Empire has THAT many guns.

or Valtens. :mad

Maybe because GW hadn’t had a solid idea of what they wanted Chaos Dwarfs to be, might have been a factor in their decline, but then again, Ogres, Idea? big fat monsters stomping around and smashing and eating people, granted they are kinda fun, but surely a army of scorned chaotic dwarfs embracing a chaos power (you can’t really beat the classic title of FATHER OF DARKNESS now can you?) and shunning their traditions to fabricate all manner of demonically infested/powered weaponry to fuel both the Warriors of Chaos and their own war efforts, and maybe even a chance for some Bull-esque daemons or creatures fashioned from obsidian spewing lava or something to that effect to broaden the Chaos Pantheon, which they have said consists of more than the usual Four Powers, heck Hashut is testament to that.

Plus we have a Kolossus, which is awesome in itself like the Fantasy equivalent of a Titan, but more old-school.

And no doubt there are probably a few other routes they could take down that idea as well, or something, who knows eh? :hat off

Methinks this turned into a leetle bit of a rant. :o

Ahem beats hobgoblin

Rant PT2: Speaking of armies forgotten, Dark Eldar anyone? :mad

Drychnath:

It is true that not wanting Games Workshop to ruin my conception of Chaos Dwarfs with shoddy execution is selfish.  As a longtime casual player and newcomer to Chaos Dwarfs, I cannot fully empathize with the issues that Ronshank and other old tournament hands are having, but I concede the point in particular vis-a-vis legality in competition.

I should perhaps make a little clearer the limits of my sweeping criticisms, gripes, and complaints - I don’t want them to produce a Chaos Dwarf army book right now, because of my aforementioned concerns.  That being said, I would be very happy if they were to produce an official FAQ, a White Dwarf update, or a handling from Forgeworld.  I, personally, would be satisfied with another round of White Dwarf Presents treatment, which would allow the army to maintain its unique position in the schema of armies overall.  Further, I see no reason why Games Workshop couldn’t produce a new series of models with a niche market; by way of example from other games, they produced several different Imperial Guard boxed sets, but I only saw one Tallarn Desert Raiders army, outside of a GW publication, in 10 years.Similar goes for Regiments of Renown.  And given the new style of moulds and their ability to put a great deal into one boxed set, they could effectively resuscitate the entire army with one Chaos Dwarf boxed set (including blunderbuss option), and one monster boxed set (including a head/wing swap for Lammasu and Great Taurus).  I am not saying that’s all that could be done, only that those two strokes would solve most of our pressing issues.

I would view a new army book with trepidation, although this last round does not leave one entirely without hope, depending on the writer.  By way of example, I was extremely impressed with the treatment Wood Elves got in their last army book - they revamped the theme, established its potential without limiting it, left lots available for players to explore, and produced rules for an army that was different but not intrinsically broken.  If the Chaos Dwarfs were treated with similar care, I would be very pleased.  I think the odds are against it though, so I would rather a get-me-by measure until such time as the culture changes again.

On a related note, does anyone know if there are any old Chaos Dwarf players still lurking around the development or White Dwarf parts of the shop?

Grimstonefire:

I have it on pretty good authority (Gav) that about a year ago when I asked him there were still CD fans in the main GW studio. Of course Alessio and Andy have left since then, so I don’t know if that changes anything.

On the FW side, yes. From what I gather there is a lot of support there for them.

Nazhur:

Yes, I also read a interview with Gav where he said that chaos dwarfs are not dead, it´s just that they are not 100% sure what they want to do with it and that it takes a lot of resources to make such a army (and we do know that GW had a couple of rought years even if it now looks better). And that we still get mention here and there is a sign that we are not forgotten. Just intersting if it will any time be anything more then that.

But I don´t complain, played yesterday two games againth a tomb king and a high elves player and got two solid victories against both :slight_smile: