Looking at Dwarf Warriors for a New Army Core
Looking at Dwarf Warriors for a New Army Core
Sometimes army-building starts with a grand plan, and sometimes it starts with a very simple question: “what are these?”
That was basically us this time, staring at a unit of dwarfs and trying to figure out what exactly we were looking at. The answer came quickly: Warriors. And from there, the discussion immediately went where every good Warhammer: The Old World conversation goes — bases, scale, stats, and whether the points cost is secretly amazing.
Wait, are they really on 25x25 bases?
Our first reaction was that they looked surprisingly big. Big enough that the obvious question was whether they were actually standing on 25x25 bases. The answer, after a moment of back and forth, was basically: yes, probably — and dwarfs only really seem to have one infantry base size, with the other size reserved for things like war machines or flying contraptions.
Then came the correction: no, actually, they looked small. Which honestly feels very on-brand for dwarfs.
The funny part is that close-up photos can really mess with your sense of scale. On a zoomed-in image, even a proper little stuntie can suddenly look like an absolute brick of a model. But in the end, the conclusion was simple: dwarfs are dwarfs — they just look larger when the camera gets too friendly.
Statline comparisons start immediately
Naturally, once we got past the “how big are they really?” stage, we moved straight to comparing profiles.
What stood out right away was how close these Warriors seem to be to Infernal Guard, at least in broad terms. The big difference we noticed was Strength 3 here versus Strength 4 on the Infernal Guard.
That may not sound dramatic at first glance, but in army-building terms it matters a lot. That one point of Strength can really shape how a unit performs and what role we expect it to fill on the table. A cheaper, more basic warrior block is one thing; a tougher-hitting elite core unit is another.
So even if the statlines look similar at a glance, that S3 vs S4 split is exactly the kind of detail that changes how excited we get about a unit.
The points cost is what really caught our attention
And then we got to the really juicy part: 10 points already with shield and great weapon.
That definitely made us stop for a moment.
Because when a unit comes in at that kind of cost, fully equipped in a way that already sounds useful, it starts to feel like a very practical building block for an army list. Not flashy, not weird, just solid. The kind of unit that can form the backbone of a force while still leaving room elsewhere in the list.
Even more interesting: for one extra point they can become veterans, which in our discussion got summed up as rerolling every Leadership test.
If that reading holds up in practice, that sounds very attractive.
Reliable infantry is one of those things we always appreciate more once the games start. A unit that is merely decent on paper can become much more valuable when it consistently sticks around, holds formation, and does the boring but essential work of being where it needs to be.
Why this matters for army-building
This was one of those very classic hobby moments where we started from a tiny rules-and-model question and ended up thinking about the shape of an army.
A unit like this raises all the right list-building questions:
- do we want a cheap, dependable infantry core?
- is Veteran worth the extra point?
- how much does losing that point of Strength compared to Infernal Guard matter in the actual plan for the army?
- and maybe most importantly: are these just efficient, or are they our kind of efficient?
That last question is always the real one.
We love finding units that are not necessarily the most dramatic entry in the roster, but quietly make the whole army work. From this little exchange alone, Dwarf Warriors are starting to look like exactly that kind of unit: humble, compact, and maybe a lot more efficient than they first appear.
First impression
Our first impression is simple: they look small, solid, and surprisingly interesting once you start reading the details.
The close-up made them seem huge, the statline comparison brought them back down to earth, and the points cost made them interesting again.
So yes — what started with “what are these?” turned into a proper little army-building rabbit hole.
And honestly, those are some of our favorite hobby conversations.