[Archive] Tuomas Pirinen's Chaos Dwarf book

tvandyke:

I’ve just started taking a look at the Indy GT Chaos Dwarf list so this may already have been discussed, but I was wondering if anyone ever had a chance to playtest the Chaos Dwarf book that Tuomas Pirinen wrote at the end of 5th edition and, if so, were any of the rules in the Indy GT list inspired by that book? Obviously, if you didn’t get the chance to play test it, you wouldn’t even know what he had in it. For those of you that don’t know Tuomas, he was the head Warhammer Fantasy rules developer at GW for a few years and IMO, the best they ever had. He’s who is responsible for the rule changes in 6th edition. Gav Thorpe took over for him when he left GW. Anyway, his favorite army was Chaos Dwarves and he was always pushing for a real book. At the end of 5th edition, he had a new book in the works (and I think he even had some new models in the works as well) which I had the privilage of being able to playtest. I still have it after all these years. I think it got put on hold when he was tasked with rewriting Warhammer Fantasy (6th edition) and left the company shortly after 6th was released. Here’s some tidbits from the list: Keep in mind this was written just prior to 6th edition so was a 5th edition book.

Here’s some tidbits:

Chaos Dwarf Alchemagi (some fluff about these guys is there as well)

Expertise on War Machines: The Alchemagi may join any war machine, if he does, the war machine will ignore the first misfire result.

Slave Experiments: The Alchemagi may choose one of the Slave regiments at the beginning of the battle. He will have experimented on these unfortunate Greenskins. Roll a D6 and consult the table below.

1. Lunacy - Subject to Stupidity.

2-3. Psycotic hatred. Hatred.

4-5. Toughened. Unit causes Fear.

6. Frenzy.

The Immortals (0-1 Units)

Hand-picked warriors of the Chaos Dwarf House of Hargan (lots of fluff about the house).

Special Rules.

Stat line is same as regular Dwarves except WS=5, S=4 and I=3.

Unstoppable Assault: Ranks are not negated by enemy charging in the flank or rear. Being masters of the assault, the Immortals also ignore defended obstacles (opponents gain no bonuses for defending the wall, rampart, or other obstacle).

Ashodar Enslavers (fluff included)

Basically just dwarves that carry scimitars that are Strength 4.

Golem

M=5, WS=4, S=6, T=6, W=5, A=5, LD=10

Immune to psychology and break tests

Metal Body: Armour save of 5+ that can never be reduced by strength of attack (was this the old ward save?)

Crush: A Golem can make a single Strength 10 attack on an unmovable target such as building, chariot body, war machine, etc. This hits automatically and inflicts D6 wounds.

Upgrades:

Lavathrower = 50 points (breath weapon, S4 -2 save modifier)

Great Hammer = 20 points (+1 Strength, you can buy two and get an extra attack)

Daemon Crystal = 50 points (2+ save against the effects of a spell, nowadays would probably be MR 3 or something)

High Powered Engine= 40 points (Gains +1M, +1S, +1A, but will suffer double wounds from enemy attacks because the machinery is more delicate)

Furnace of Hashut = 50 points (May use the Furnace at the beginning of each turn. It gains +2 M and +D6 attacks, but suffers D6 S6 hits in the process)

Armoured plating = 35 points (Gets an unmodified save of 4+ instead of 5+)

Rest of the army is the same as what’s available now. I have point totals (5th edition point costs), etc., but the book is a hard copy, so I’d have to type everything. I would have included the fluff but I didn’t feel like typing an entire book.

1 Like

Grimstonefire:

Do you have access to a scanner?  Seeing as it never came to print I don’t think there would be a problem loading it up. Pm me if you do, I can put them into a pdf format.

Alchemagi, like an alchemist magician.  Cool stuff.

It is interesting that Tuomas Immortals thing predates Gav’s mention in Grudgebearer.

Bearing in mind it is 5th, where rules were a bit… strange, having a slave unit that causes fear is just silly!  Stupidity and frenzy are more understandable.  Hatred with a bit of magic maybe.

The golem crush thing, is that once per battle?  Having a single high strength attack is quite a good idea for a mobile siege unit.

Who has access to all those upgrades?

What are all the hero and lords?

Welcome to the site btw. :wink:

two_heads_talking:

with Tuomas gone, the CD’s lost their backer within the studio. And while GW won’t admit it, from 4th ed- 6th ed, if there was noone in the studio who fancied the army, it would end up getting the boot. Tuomas was a great asset to the company.

tvandyke:

I think the Golem always has the option of using the high strength attack as long as he has more than one immoble object to attack during the game. Those upgrades are for the Golem only. As far as the alchemagi is concerned and slave units causing fear, keep in mind that they’re the result of experiments so the result could be some scary looking orcs for instance. Remember that Black Orcs were the result of these types of experiments.

Do you have access to a scanner?  Seeing as it never came to print I don’t think there would be a problem loading it up.  Pm me if you do, I can put them into a pdf format.

Alchemagi, like an alchemist magician.  Cool stuff.

It is interesting that Tuomas Immortals thing predates Gav’s mention in Grudgebearer.

Bearing in mind it is 5th, where rules were a bit… strange, having a slave unit that causes fear is just silly!  Stupidity and frenzy are more understandable.  Hatred with a bit of magic maybe.

The golem crush thing, is that once per battle?  Having a single high strength attack is quite a good idea for a mobile siege unit.

Who has access to all those upgrades?

What are all the hero and lords?

Welcome to the site btw. :wink:

Grimstonefire

cornixt:

I’ve only ever heard stories of the list, I’d be very interested in reading it even if it is quite a bit behind the times now.

tvandyke:

I've only ever heard stories of the list, I'd be very interested in reading it even if it is quite a bit behind the times now.

cornixt
If I get time tomorrow, I'll type up the list (at least the fluff). It's actually a cool list. I was thrilled when I first read it, and disappointed that it never made it past playtesting.

wallacer:

I’ve heard of the list but have never actually seen it, and would very much like to do so.

Thanks for joining the site and bringing us some good news.

Xander:

What is the nature of this play-testing material? Printed copy?

I’d really like some affirmation of its existence before I place too much weight in it. But it sounds awesome, and I’d really like you to to get a digital copy of this so that all might be able to see it, and benefit from its contents. As Grim said, if you don’t wish to do that here, send me an email:
davidjclarke@gmail.com

Welcome aboard!

tvandyke:

It’s a printed copy that was emailed from Tuomas. It’s 33 pages long, so I’d have to find a scanner to scan the whole thing. I’ve had it since 1999.

What is the nature of this play-testing material?  Printed copy?

I’d really like some affirmation of its existence before I place too much weight in it.  But it sounds awesome, and I’d really like you to to get a digital copy of this so that all might be able to see it, and benefit from its contents.  As Grim said, if you don’t wish to do that here, send me an email:

davidjclarke@gmail.com

Welcome aboard!

Xander

clam:

Hope you’ll be able to. I’ve seen a few talking about such a list for years now - but no one seems to actually have seen it. Glad to hear it’s not a myth - but an actual list - and that someone have a copy of it.

And then of course, welcome on board

:cheers

Kera foehunter:

that great that you have the list !! i wish you luck getting it uploaded

Xander:

Dude, where have you been for 10 years! lol

This will be a great asset, and I think I speak for everyone in saying we’d greatly appreciate you scanning all the pages!!

Cheers!

Kera foehunter:

When you want something bad its funny , That you get something out of the blue!

Lundi:

I remember all the rumours and hearsays about Tuomas’s old CD list. It would be fantastic to get to finally see it.

The thing about the Chaos Dwarfs that not many may know, is that the army is a parody of Games Workshop itself. Think about it, a giant foundry that makes millions of metal objects, has uncountable amounts of slaves whom are treated worse than slime, dabbles in experiments that may or may not succeed and are one of the richest factions in the Warhammer world.

With this in mind, it’s perfectly understandable that nobody at Games Workshop supports this army, it’s a direct insult to some of the top brass.

Grimstonefire:

Do they wear funny hats though? :slight_smile:

I always thought that they could play on the changing era’s in CD design in their background if they were clever, and having them as a ‘forgotten race’ etc.

Thommy H:

Why would they do that? Almost no time has passed in the actual Warhammer timeline since Chaos Dwarfs were fighting High Elves in the Plain of Bones and so on.

Grimstonefire:

Which could be when they were rediscovered…?  

Bear in mind that the whole timeline will be rewritten anyway, and CD are rare, it would be possible for the vast majority of humans to have forgotten they exist at certain points in history.  We would be legendary, but rarely seen.  The survivors of battles certainly wouldn’t be telling anyone if there were enough CD left to enslave them…

There is also the time lag between creation and finally being known to the worlds edge mountain dwarfs etc. So a long time lag of realisation for certain races.

Shame Toumas book doesn’t have a complete timeline, it would have given us some indication of their thinking at the time.

dedwrekka:

I think background changes in an unpublished list are about as helpful to us as the unpublished background saying Hashut was a Bloodthirster.

theblackmage:

where can I get my hands on this list, it sounds realy, realy interesting and a good read:)

Thommy H:

Which could be when they were rediscovered..?  

Bear in mind that the whole timeline will be rewritten anyway, and CD are rare, it would be possible for the vast majority of humans to have forgotten they exist at certain points in history.  We would be legendary, but rarely seen.  The survivors of battles certainly wouldn't be telling anyone if there were enough CD left to enslave them...

There is also the time lag between creation and finally being known to the worlds edge mountain dwarfs etc.  So a long time lag of realisation for certain races.

Shame Toumas book doesn't have a complete timeline, it would have given us some indication of their thinking at the time.

Grimstonefire
I think that works in a geographic sense, but changes in the game are not usually reflected so directly in the Warhammer world. When Daemons of Chaos came out, they didn't pretend that they'd been allied with Warriors for centuries and only just started appearing independently. A new unit type is not usually presented as "new" in the background and new armies are usually slotted into the background as if they'd always been there.

The Warhammer world is a setting, not a story - it's largely unchanging, so people don't have to game in the "present day" if they don't want to. Having Chaos Dwarfs reappearing in the story would be difficult, because they'd have to move things along to have it happen, and right now most of the books show the world ar "zero hour" before the Storm of Chaos. So unless there's a massive retcon to include the Chaos Dwarfs in the Storm of Chaos (beyond the Hellcannons), they'd have to admit that Archaon got defeated and is now cowering in Brass Keep (or wherever it is) and that the Warriors of Chaos book is therefore essentially outdated. Plus what about people who want to game against historical characters? I'm thinking about the Vampire Counts with all their different generations of Von Carsteins - if Chaos Dwarfs just show up in the 26th Century, what do gamers do when their opponents show up with historical characters from before then?