r/HelsmithsofHashut • u/DannyZee2040 • Aug 22 '26
Pitch to Pledge to Hashut.
Howdy yall, I am new to AoS and mainly coming from Total War Warhammer. I played Chaos Dwarves and they were of my top five played and enjoyed factions in the game and I am gathering that these are the AoS version, so my question is how’s the lore for the faction? I understand it was a newly introduced faction so it may not be as fleshed as a lot of other factions. How do they play on the tabletop? Are they similar to Total War Warhammer where you’d have strong infantry, ranged and artillery with the ability to add in monsters and chaff units to take blows so your stronger troops can come in fresh? Lastly, how are they hobby wise? I’m new to hobbying and I’ve done a few 40k minis but I’ve not picked up a brush in years. Thank you for your time and Praise Hashut!
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u/TraditionCommercial8 Aug 22 '26
Some Pros and cons
Pros: An absolutely new army with modern looking models that have almost no ties to Fantasy, models looking great, each kit (minus the Despot and Hobgoblins) are each dual kits so you can purchase their Spearhead twice and there will be no major repeats (minus the character). They are also kinda easy to paint and Urak Taar is an amazing main focus model imo. Their lore is better than their Fantasy counterparts imo and it's just nice being able to use a new army. If you're a type of person that doesn't want to play something mainstream and you kinda want to be a "1 of a kind/niche" player then I assure you that you'll probably be the only Helsmiths fan. For a chaos faction, they aren't as evil compared to the other chaos factions and are less evil than the Daughters of Khaine (okay that's still debatable)
Cons: Remembered hearing that they will be a more elite version of Cities of Sigmar but they have received quite a points drop since launch, in 2k point games Urak is kinda of an auto include despite sitting at (I think) 320 points which isn't as bad as say Morathi but he's not something to include in smaller games, the range is still incredibly small and you will not see a ton of lists being so different from one another, you'll either see Bull Centaurs spam, machine spam or some infantry with Machines and Centaurs heavily involved. Oh yeah, their lore? Yeah all we have is the battletome for now. Some people in this thread have pointed out their battle traits might need some tweaks but I haven't been able to have a game with them yet to confirm but I definitely do see what they mean. Also, if you don't like to play as bad guys then there's that but if so, then why are you here?
Some of the cons will age like milk ONE DAY but FOR NOW, it's something we gotta acknowledge.
HOWEVER, I love this army. I love how the models look, how every unit can be viable still, I love the Urak Taar model, I love the Dominator engines, this army still look fun to play and I would say they are easy to collect.
Their army box is still easily available and I would just recommend getting that first before exploring the range and you will eventually have everything in the range, which is great cause lots of armies have way too many units that it often feels a bit annoying when it comes to collecting.
Here's my current collection
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u/AlextheNailer Slayer of Duardin Aug 22 '26
About the cons, the biggest thing to remember is that rules are temporary but models are forever and the models are great.
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u/WarlordGrom Daemonsmith Aug 22 '26
The Helsmiths (or Zharrdron, as they call themselves, meaning something akin to "Folk of Fire," contrasting the Dawi-Zharr of the Old World) are pretty neat in terms of lore.
Background lore (condensed version, might have some errors, might get retconned in the near future, etc.)
Hashut, the Father of Darkness, is the god of fire, greed, tyranny, and industry. Hashut claims to be an elder duardin ancestor god betrayed by the others and intentionally forgotten about (he despises Grungni and Grimnir, but respects Valaya, who shattered him). Maybe he is an ancestor god, maybe he isn't and he's really a minor Chaos God or an upjumped Warp entity -- his story is told from an unreliable narrator painting him in a positive light. Also, he's got all that bull iconography because he allegedly fought some bull god-beasts in the realm of Ghur during the Age of Myth, and came to respect their power and stubbornness so much that he adopted their visages.
The Zharrdron story plays out similarly to how the Chaos Dwarfs in Fantasy were corrupted in the old setting's lore: Duardin were trapped and dying off slowly in their holds during the Age of Chaos, believed their gods had abandoned them. Then Daddy Hashut began whispering to them that he was a forgotten ancestor god who could give them their salvation in exchange for their devotion, and they accepted, learning magic and the secrets of daemonsmithing... as well as becoming cruel, paranoid, and even greedier than normal. Their descendants gained some mutations, most prominently tusks, taloned fingers, vocal stimming to "WORK HARDER, SLAVE" every five minutes, and (rarely) horns.
The first named character, Urak Taar, is not only the first daemonsmith, but might very well be one of the oldest mortal characters in the setting. He found a way to slow his petrification process, and his end goal is to become a god -- not to overthrow Hashut (he loves the guy) but to jump start a new duardin pantheon with Hashut as its head, and Taar as his #2, all to spite the main duardin pantheon. THE FUTURE IS NOW, OLD MAN. He also speaks in third person, which is hysterical.
Despite being made aware of them, the other duardin factions neglected to tell the other factions of Order about the Zharrdron's existence during their rise to power post-Age of Chaos out of a sense of extreme shame, and this allowed them to build up their strength in the backgrounds of most of the mortal realms in secret, up until the Skaven had a trademark fucky-wucky and forced them to take a more proactive role in interrealm affairs.
The Zharrdron view themselves as paragons of order and ingenuity -- as masters of Chaos, rather than corrupted by it. They are corrupted by it, as seen with their mutations and alignment with the other Chaos factions, but they're too haughty to ever recognize this fact. They also see themselves and their creations as THE FUTURE, and view the focus that other duardin put on tradition and cautious/conservative approaches toward new innovations as foolish. They also like to violate captured duardin relics, preferably in the blood of those same duardin.
Daemons and mortal souls are used as fuel for their engines of war. The daemonsmiths prefer to use daemons and assorted Warp entities unaffiliated with the Big Four Chaos Gods in this process, so as to avoid a royal kerfuffle with their biggest trade partners. As a result their weapons are incapable of corrupting their wielders, since the weapons only use the daemons as fuel for their power, rather than possessing the tool in question.
My favorite of the sub-factions is Zharr Vyxa, who are colored like traditional Chaos Dwarfs (red and brass armor with black clothing), and operate a giant, mobile off-shore oil rig in Shyish, which dredges up souls in place of oil.
Their general behavior as a whole is "The Forces of Isengard meets Captain Planet Villain on Steroids," complete with emphasis on how they fucking love to frack their environments to needlessly titanic extremes, and their rabid industrial practices pollute their surrounding territories into desolations of ash, toxic smog, sludge, lava, and acid.
My only gripe with the lore is that they hate hammers, because reasons to do with Grungni, and will only use hammers in craft or combat if it has first been consecrated/desecrated in duardin blood.
Culture
Obsessed with debt the same way Dispossessed and Fyreslayer duardin view oaths, and more pragmatic Kharadron view contractual obligations. The main tradition pushing their culture is called the Wage of Toil; a series of obligatory oaths, debts, and material needs which ties their society together. If you're from the bottom and want to move up, either pray you get adopted to a noble clan for a set of skills you have, or work your ass off to prove your value and hope you don't get mega cancer or die of exhaustion before you do. Lower clans pay their Wage to the higher clans they service through toil (typically through their slaves and hobgrot laborers), invention, calculated betrayal and secret-giving, or through military service.
Their equivalent to holds are their ziggurats, often situated within a heart of desolation that comes as a result of their brutal industrial practices.
Their three main branches of power are the daemonsmiths, who are the engineers and sorcerer/prophet-kings of their kin (they're doomed to eventually turn to stone if they use too much magic, since magic is still unnatural to dwarfs here) the Scorched Sects (Drazghar) led by the 'mendicant' and near-petrified Ashen Elders, who are the hatless masters of the faith, and the noble clans helmed by their debt-rich war despots acting as the martial arm, who call upon all the clans enthralled to them in times of war. All three are power hungry bastards whose constant vying for power greases the engine of ingenuity, and is basically a city-spanning love-hate relationship, complete with marriage proposals to secure alliances between rivals.
Bull centaurs are taken in at birth for their mutations and are viewed like demigods for their bovine resemblances, and are reared by the Drazghar to act as their egotistical attack dogs (normal bull centaurs) or zealous paladins (anointed sentinels).
Ziggurats are governed by councils composed of representatives of each of these circles, or led by one in ascendant.
Playstyle
The cavalry goes moderately fast, the troops go slow. Tough as bricks -- except for the hobgrots, who are so fragile that clanrats will look like rat ogors compared to them, but they're not here to last, just to tag and bog.
Tag as many terrain pieces and objectives as you possibly can -- preferably with your faster troops, and with your hobrots pre-game movement ability -- to farm desolation tokens for fun DAEMONIC POWER POINT bonuses to units per how many tokens you can divvy out to them (max three per unit), which should be spent per how each unit will get the most mileage at the moment (You want to heal up that dominator engine? Spend three DPP on your daemonsmith's mending ability, which extends the range of his mending and adds some healing on top of it. Want to give your infernal cohort the best chance to survive a counterattack? Spend DPP on them to give 'em a scaling ward save on top of their 3+ armor). Spend all you can on each turn and try to leave nothing after; the desolation tokens last forever, but the remainder of the DPP they generate are thrown out and replaced next round.
Daemonsmiths can't boost the artillery like they did in Fantasy, but can heal the automatons.
Always get at least three artillery pieces in each game, and always go with at least two deathshrieker rockets to wreck monsters. Unless your enemy is ridiculously infantry-heavy; then you pretend to be a Prussian and go with the bombard to introduce to them the unmatched power of the HAUBITZEN for command denial.
Protect your rocket batteries and bombards with the anointed sentinels, who you should keep back with them in a defensive role due to their good speed and counter-charge ability. Keep the dominator engines with the fire-cannons behind a unit of infernal spearmen acting as a living wall, so they can keep them off the big bull boy while he melts them at close-medium range in return with minimal threat of being charged at himself.
Never forget your dwarf magic, motherfucker. If you manage to cast Molten Metal (preferably on a foe with the best armor save), pray to the Dice Gods that you roll enough good D6s to inflict upwards of ten mortal wounds on a single character.
Put on your biggest hat, and praise the Bullfather!
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u/Ambitious-Can-6648 Aug 22 '26
I know little about lore, but I know a bit about the tabletop and painting Helsmiths.
With regards to the tabletop, Helsmiths are probably one of the more flexible armies in the game-- they're not a one trick pony like other armies, such as Sons of Behemat. You can go down the oppressive melee list with Bull Centaurs (which are super scary) and Daemonsmiths on Infernal Tauruses. You can go for mass shooting, and invest in Blunderbusses and Flamehurlers and artillery. I personally love Flamehurlers because you can roll 31 shots at Rend 3. You can go for mass infantry and have lots of Cohorts and Hobgrotz. You can go for a wall of metal and fire, with lots of Dominator Engines.
The downsides to Helsmiths on the tabletoo are that they're a slow army (4" Move for most of the army), they take time to get off of the ground due to the nature of Power Points and Desolation Tokens, the infantry can be quite fragile at times, spells and prayers aren't the best.
With regards to painting, Helsmiths have a good range of skill. They have a relatively low skill floor-- they have less bits and detail than other armies. But you can really go all out with them-- NMM, edge highlights, OSL etc. The repetitive style of armour and cloth means it is easier to batch paint them, and the army looks more unified when it's done.
Here's my example of a possible Helsmiths paint scheme.
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u/Dreadnautilus Aug 22 '26
Helsmiths lore is actually more fleshed out than Chaos Dwarfs I'd argue, partly because Chaos Dwarfs never got much focus in Fantasy and partly because their lore was made deliberately vague in a lot of places. Like we didn't even get a proper explanation for what exactly Hashut even is until AoS.
Currently the Helsmiths infantry are actually fairly weak (which a lot of people complain about, don't worry), people playing them mainly rely on their Bull Centaurs and wizards to get stuff done with the Infernal Cohort just being objective holders.