The response of the community to Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs has been massive and unanimous. With that first trailer and in every release ever since, so many of our collective dreams have come true, it seemed as if Creative Assembly’s talented writers and artists must have been CDO readers themselves.
Well, the Brazen Broadcast lads can now reveal that’s because some of them are!
Hidden among the hundreds of new users on the discord was an incognito community coordinator from CA who approached us to strike a daemonic pact worthy of the Dark Father himself. The four of us were invited to meet some of the leaders on the project, hear their design philosophy, and share our beardy reactions. The only price… was a vow of silence. And to this day, we have not told a soul.
It was with a heavy heart that we signed in blood and kept the secret from the community. But you’ll be pleased to hear the CA team behind Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs are passionate hobbyists who are immersed in the art, lore and models we all love so much.
So many moments from our conversation would have warmed your dark hearts. Seeing them brandish the '94 army book and talk about childhood sketchpads full of chorfy doodles, hearing tales of late nights animating the clanking mechanisms of the Iron Daemon, you could tell this was a labour of love to rival any Golden Hat entry. They praised CDO for our stubborn longevity and thanked us for the deep reference archives of the wiki. It was very surreal hearing them reference the Golden Hat, but they told us they saw the passion people pour into their posts and projects, and worked to do it justice.
So a big thank you to any CA bods reading this, and a tip of the big hat to every CDO lurker, poster and creator for making our community the kind of place professional artists can draw inspiration from.
DMs are open! We have also recorded a short cast about it that will release soonish. And we are doing open chat on discord when we can.
We might have a bit of nuance but lots of what theyve done in the leadup to release - Sotek’s interview about the new language, or the lead devs q&a - is out there. So there aren’t any secrets we have or anything. We just have the time to elaborate a bit more.
It was a great experience. So heartwarming that the CA dudes new about and respected this forum and it’s longstanding contribution to keeping the chaos dwarf flag flying. Specific references to golden hat entries and everything!
Was a privilege to get the previews and to have those conversations and very hard to not immediately tell everyone about it haha
Long time CDO lurker here, is there a ingame reference to the golden hat competitions? Oh man all this years you’ve done an excellent job. I hope you and CDO are mentioned in some kind of post game credits!
For clarity - not to our knowledge. They just talked to us about the Golden Hat competition when we spoke to them. The key thing for CDO artists, sculptors and writers to understand is that the designers and artists browsed your work and soaked it up when they were doing theirs - without ever officially deviating from canon sources.
It warms my heart to think about how they looked at Entry 22 of Golden Hat XXXVIII and just thought “Hot damn, guys we have to make a Chaos Dwarf DLC, this stuff is just so sick, Frank! Hey Frank come over here and look at that guy, damn I wish I could paint like that.” Feels good.
I wrote a lot of drafts of this post where i tried to say exactly this to everyone but the joke doesnt really pass CA press office standards cos of their strict no fan works policy which was TOTALLY clearly universally applied to units like the Immortals which were IN NO WAY INSPIRED BY ANYTHING NON GW AS WE ALL KNOW
Seriously though, CA guys could get in trouble. It’s our responsibility to respectfully protect them.
CA understood the soul of the Chaos Dwarfs and really I think the win for us is the campaign mechanics. There is little to no GW canon on that and theyve done great work.
I think it is great that they put so much effort in to understand the community. I see so many that just ride roughshod over existing stuff to make it unique to them and it invariably ends up causing more bad blood. It clearly helped that they took the time, I don’t think I’ve seen any negativity over the imagery or style - they managed to blend the old and the new, the bighats and the masks, which is no mean feat given the rivalries they have had on the forums of old.
To all of the CA staff that has been lurking and drawing inspiration: thank you. The fact that you have considered the desires and art created by those that have spent so much time devoted to the faction they love speaks volumes. We all appreciate the hard work that you have put into the DLC, and it shows. To everyone else on the discord: KEEP BEING AMAZING! Your passion is what has clearly inspired many others, including myself!
This is so cool! And Im glad me and @Admiral pushed for a move of the forum to discourse during the “dark and stagnant times” and @Xander doing all the heavy lifting to get it set up. And all of you amazing new and old returning members of the community!
Funny thing is that @Jaberoo yesterday was describing to me the beautifully thought-out campaign mechanics of Chaos Dwarfs in Total Warhammer, and I thought:
Either they’ve approached the official material alone and drawn the same conclusions as us on CDO and expanded it true to the spirit of the setting, or they have also read CDO’s community expansions true to the spirit of the setting. Either way impressive work by the Creative Assembly! The campaign is everything to me in Total War games, so it’s great news.
It’s the polish to perfection, the thoroughness and the passion of its makers that make Total Warhammer the best strategy game of all time in so many ways. We could not have hoped for a better adaptation of Warhammer to Total War. The fact that they understand where to find the best of community creations that expand upon the official background only further proves this point. And great spirit with inviting our esteemed Brazen Broadcast crew for a special behind the scenes event!
Big hats off to CA, and twelve cheers for the unrelenting expansion of the dark reach and corrupting influence of Chaos Dwarfs Online and Mingol Zharr-Naggrund the Great and all her ravenous holdings, in that cruel empire of crushing slavery, demented inventions, baleful daemonsmithing, sorcerous mystery, megalomaniac monument building, bloodsoaked sacrifice and monstrous industry, all so heinous and unnatural as to make a heart of stone bleed.
Encountered this event in my Astragoth campaign yesterday. I shall not spoil this piece of beauty with any further commentary (I will, however, tag @Admiral). Enjoy:
). Enjoy:
