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Warhammer Dwarfs, Chaos or vanilla, both feature beards as one of their primary characteristics. It's only in the style of the beards where they differ.

The CD equivalent of the Slayers are indeed called the Infernal Guard (and their more elite brethren, the Infernal Ironsworn). While they feature significantly more armour, including armoured helms, they still feature epic beards... every last one of them.

 

Fair enough. Could have sword I heard somewhere that they were burnt off, but as I can't remember where, I'll assume it a Miranda Effect. Or a friend who didn't know what he was talking about when explaining the setting to me.

 

The flesh of their faces are seared and burnt underneath their iron helms, but the beards remain!

 

That's dedication to keeping their face fuzz!

"My flesh is nothing but scar tissue, but gosh dang it, my jaw shall remain unscarred so that my precious follicles remain free and true!"

Well, that or they've all got beard wigs to pretend like they can still grow beards.

 

To be fair, the fusilier's weapons are based on historical weaponry. I guess it is meant to show that in some ways the citizens of the Cities of Sigmar aren't quite as advanced as the Empire was.

 

*Longbeard worthy grumbling* Trying to bring logic into my grumblings...

Right... off the top of my head, the real-world weapon with the closest comparison to the fusiliers' weapons, would be the original handgun. To my knowledge, those still fired bullets and not artillery shot. But I will concede that a default rule of Warhammer, no matter which form of Warhammer that we speak of, has a rule of "bigger, badder, MEANER" when it comes to size and calibre of weapons, so I suppose I cannot fault the fusiliers for using literal cannons as their handguns by that token.

If you know of a closer fit, or I'm wrong regarding the original handgun, by all means educate me. I'm not afraid of being informed where I have gaps in my knowledge.

That said though... I still don't like them. They look terrible.

 

Oh I am with you on thinking they look terrible. I dislike much of the overall look of the Cities of Sigmar faction, with the exception of using them as a possible basis for DOW or Bret Exiles conversions.

 

Did anything other than Chaos Dwarfs or Tomb Kings catch anyone's eyes?

 

Speaking of which, someone over on Chaos Dwarfs Online made a mockup of how the new models might look under a different colour scheme...

 

I mean, they can also just be young-dwarves, or disgraced dwarves, or maybe this incarnation of chaos dwarfs simply doesn't care as much about beards, or any other explenation really. With the exception of that one underworld warband model (or whatever it was), I don't think GW has actually stated that they made female chaos dwarfs. So really this whole discussion is just the grumbling of longbeards that the new thing doesn't look like the old thing, and some speculation as to why that is the case

The original handgun was basicly just a small cannon on a stick, so it's accurate enough I suppose.
And since proper bullets didn't really exist yet they just shot small cannonballs. So their ammo seems realistic enough as well, just with some magical options to deal with ghosts and endless spells.

Really, the most a-historic bit is the bayonet. But other than that it falls solidly into "real world, but fantasy".

 

Honestly, it's not so much the colour scheme as much as it is the removal of the glow and shine effects. Without all those glowing bits its a lot more fantasy and a lot less sci-fi.

 

This still runs headlong into the same issue I raised earlier... you're so overly focused on whether or not they could, instead of considering whether or not they should. I can come up with hundreds of ideas to explain it, but that doesn't mean that any of it is good. You could for example design and justify a Warhammer Elven range featuring sloppy beards, acne, beer guts and balding heads, but that doesn't mean that you should.

Is this your attempt at: "tell me you don't know anything about Chaos Dwarfs, without telling me you don't know anything about Chaos Dwarfs"?

Consider yourself fortunate, in some parts of the world you'd be executed for uttering such blasphemy.

Technically true, but it is reasonable to confer that they are female Chaos Dwarfs since they look the same as their Underworlds counterparts. Them being female CDs seems to be the general consensus. Otherwise, GW would just be further muddling the whole aesthetic problem.

 

What? You think a dwarf, Chaos or otherwise, would suffer to be seen without a beard? There is probably quite the market for beard wigs, for those unfortunate dwarfs who lose their beards because some barbarian swung an axe and missed their neck, but instead cut away their precious follicles. Anonymity guaranteed, just give a sample of your hair colour and the wig shall be delivered surreptitiously so nobody shall realise that you are in fact missing the sacred facial fluff. XD

I think the Infernal Guard do in fact have such utterly scarred faces that they depend upon such things. It's like the unspoken secret of the Infernal Guard, shared to new initiates after they realise the burning has also cost them there beard. 'Don't worry, lad... none of us have beards. We get a discount on beard wigs so none shall ever know that your beard didn't survive. Wear it with pride.'

 

Are you suggesting some sort of Warhammer Dwarf equivalent of the Hair Club for Men?

 

Does it change your mind about them? A new army for @Killer Angel ?

 

There isn't anything inherently wrong with their designs. You may not like them, but your complaints essentially boil down to "they're not proper chaos dwarfs". Which is true, but they're also not supposed to be. They're merely a spiritual succesor. You may deem them a failure as they're not close enough to the original in your eyes, but they fit in fine with the broader warhammer ranges. Unlike a beer belly elf, which would only work in bloodbowl, and even by bloodbowl standards that'd be weird.

They're not chaos dwarves though, they are <legally distinct name I cannot remember>. And perhaps <legally distinct name I cannot remember> simply do not care about beards. Maybe it's part of what makes them legally distinct

It's not unreasonable, but I really would like GW to actually provide official clarification. Mostly for the sake of clarity.
Plus, it'd open up some interesting world building regarding the faction culture.

 

I thought they'd look good as a Warhammer: Total War-style army if someone just painted them in red, black and brass and gave them proper square bases.

What's the general consensus about the models over on CDO out of interest? I'd like to think the reception would be positive.