Light the forges — the Chaos Dwarfs are officially on their way to Total War: Warhammer 3. Developer Creative Assembly revealed the upcoming playable race as part of a blog post and trailer for Update 3.0, which will be released on April 13.
The trailer shows off the race’s three “Legendary Lord” generals, each of whom will lead their own faction within the race: Astragoth Ironhand, Drazhoath the Ashen, and Zhatan the Black. The post also details new units the Chaos Dwarfs will have access to, such as Bull Centaurs and the Bale Taurus, as well as a look into the race’s economy and the Tower of Zharr, a unique campaign mechanic that functions as the stage for political maneuvering and backstabbing.
The Chaos Dwarfs, as the name implies, are the evil cousins of Warhammer’s stout, mountain-dwelling race. As worshippers of Hashut, the god of fire, greed, and tyranny, they value industry and firepower above all else. The majority of the faction’s “Legendary Lord” generals will almost certainly be headquartered in the Dark Lands, their lore-centric home, and a space that’s been suspiciously empty on Immortal Empires’ map since the expansion’s beta launched last year.
This marks the first new playable race since Warhammer 3’s initial release in February last year. A leak from a datamine following Warhammer 3’s release early last year showed lines of dialogue referencing the Chaos Dwarfs, or Dawi-Zharr, as they’re called in the Dwarf language of Khazalid. This prefaced frequent hints from Creative Assembly during blogs and trailers.
At the outset of the Total War: Warhammer trilogy, developer Creative Assembly claimed it would bring every army that had an 8th Edition army book (which outlines the units, abilities, and powers of each faction) to the trilogy by the end of its lifespan. However, the studio has since surpassed that promise by bringing the Vampire Coast, Norsca, Kislev, and Grand Cathay factions to the games, none of which had official army books of their own. The Chaos Dwarfs, similarly, did not have an 8th Edition army book, but rather, an army list in the “Tamurkhan” supplement to 8th Edition. The upcoming DLC, then, will likely be the most fleshed-out version of the Dawi-Zharr we’ve ever seen.
In the blog post, Creative Assembly claims that more news is on the way regarding 2023’s content roadmap.