Tamunrkhan; The Throne of Chaos

Ok, so.. when I first started playing WHFB way back in the mid 90s, I had seen this really nicely painted up ( for the 90s ) army of Chaos Dwarfs. When asked about if I could buy some of them, I was informed that they are no longer being sold and are already collector items. This was pre-ebay of course, and so anything that was that OOP, was indeed very difficult to acquire, and thus very expensive ( though probably close to what a box of 10 plastic Skeletons cost today ).

Fast forward to about 2 yrs ago, when the Indy GT Chaos Dwarf Book rumors start kicking around, and the hype for CDs return begins anew. I have to say that I jumped on the bandwagon pretty quickly, and begun to dream up a Chaos Dwarf army of my own. Though mine would be heavily converted and mostly plastic. After a few games however, it was clear that not everyone was happy with a fan made codex, and thus the amount of games I got in were few and fair between, and the drive to finish said Chaos Dwarfs died with it.

Super fast forward to today.. where Forgeworld has gone and done what hobbyist all over wanted.. they made an official GW sanctioned Chaos Dwarf codex. Albeit inside the tome concerning the Chaos Wars and included in the back of said book. But then again, who cares.. we have an official codex now, and a direction to move forward. Plus lots of shiny new models from Forgeworld that I will never be able to afford the shipping let along the cost of the models themselves. But it has given me some inspiration to continue on with my Chaos Dwarfs army once more.

As far as the book goes.. its good.. yeah its also really expensive ( again from Forgeworld ) but considering the quality of the book itself, I think it is worth it. Just in size, it is almost as thick as the 8th edition rulebook, but quite a bit larger in size. Not going to be fitting on the shelf too easily anytime soon. Though when placed on the gaming table alongside the army itself, I am sure it will raise an eyebrow or 2, and also draw in some curious people to understand all the good tidbits available inside.

So.. onto the meat of the book.. and I have to say I am impressed.. although not as many units as I would have liked to have, especially looking at past versions of the codex, it is still good and there are some big nasty surprises available also.

Things I was hoping to see were more of the Greenskins such as the Slaves, Black Orcs, and more Hob Goblin options, especially spears since they seem to be the best option to take in large blocks. Now I know it is strange to asking for greenskins in a Chaos Dwarf book, but considering the fluff and such, the greenskins have their part to help reinforce the slaver relationship and ideology that exists within the Chaos Dwarf realm. Unfortunately, none of those wishes came true, and the list comes out to be the core Dwarf list instead. Not bad, just would have liked a bit more variety.

Not to get too deep into it as I just received it this week and am still going through all the fluff.. things that stick out are.. the Iron Deamon Train.. I keep going back and forth on if this is an effective unit to use, but can see plenty of opportunities for campaign or scenarios built around it. K'Daai's and the 2 different unit types for them.. now to think of how to create such items or where to pull inspiration from..

Core troops being just Chaos Dwarfs and HobGoblins is not so bad, though the options seem weird. Such as no spear option for HobGoblins? And plenty of special rules concerning the CDs themselves and their new weapons. Will take some getting used to in order to remember all the different aspects based on unit size prior to shooting.

Best parts of course comes from the warmachines.. which just have so much character to them, and will make me spend too much time looking into how to make them considering that I will probably want to have multiples of each, so need to make enough to have a full compliment of each type. We also have a TRAIN!!!! Though how effective it is, that is still to be determined.

The fun part now begins, where I work on trying to make some lists that could be playable, and understand what might sync up nicely on the field.

More to come on this topic in the future for sure..
Cheers