Volley Fire, Hashut, and the Missing Hobgoblins
Volley Fire, Hashut, and the Missing Hobgoblins
Sometimes a rules question turns into lore almost by itself.
We were chatting about a unit setup and how, in this formation, they can simply shoot better. And honestly, that immediately begged for a story explanation. If the battlefield effect is stronger ranged fire, then suddenly the Volley Fire rule stops being just a line in the army list and starts feeling like something happening in the world.
Then came the obvious question: if there are theoretically 24 of them in the unit… why does it not always feel like 24 bodies are actually there?
And that is where the answer arrived in the most Chaos Dwarf way possible:
Hashut makes every second one invisible.
Perfect. No further notes. Lore solved.
Well, almost solved — because once that idea appeared, it immediately grew into something much darker and much more fun.
Kushim and the Theft of Shadows
In our version of events, Kushim — Michał’s general, currently still a bit of a rookie, but destined to level up over the course of the campaign — forced two Hobgoblin clans into service.
Which, naturally, led to the most Hobgoblin outcome imaginable.
Half of them ran away in the night.
So Kushim, furious at the insult, performed a ritual: the Theft of Shadows.
The deserters were claimed by Hashut and bound back to the regiment forever — not as living warriors, but as bodiless shadows. Invisible. Will-less. Driven onward only by Kushim’s command and the cruel hunger of the Father of Darkness.
Their bodies are gone. Their souls still march. Their presence fills the gaps in the ranks. And when the order comes to fire, even those unseen remnants of the faithless somehow add to the storm.
Ash for the weak. Glory to Hashut.
Why we love this kind of lore
This is exactly the sort of hobby idea we enjoy the most: taking a weird little table situation and giving it a story that feels dramatic, sinister, and just the right amount of ridiculous.
A unit count oddity? Not an issue. A special rule that needs flavor? Easy. A campaign general who starts as a bit of a loser? Even better, because now he has somewhere to go.
Kushim being rough around the edges at the beginning actually makes this better. If he survives and grows through the campaign, then all these early stories become part of his legend. Today he’s the angry commander stitching discipline together with dark rituals. Tomorrow, maybe he’s a true tyrant of Hashut with a trail of cursed regiments behind him.
The image in our heads
We can already picture the unit on the table:
- a front rank of very real, very treacherous Hobgoblins,
- a back rank that seems just a little too thin,
- volleys landing harder than they should,
- and Kushim standing behind them, pretending this is all perfectly normal and definitely under control.
That kind of explanation is half the fun of a campaign. The rules give us the skeleton, but the jokes, improvisation, and tiny bits of invented myth are what put flesh on it.
Or in this case, perhaps not flesh.
Closing thought
So if anyone asks why the unit shoots so well despite the suspicious headcount, we now have an answer.
Not everyone in the regiment is visible.
Some of them belong to Hashut twice.