Age of Sigmar dwarfs finally look like they’re getting the armored shield-wall army players have wanted with the Khazalite Holds!
AoS has had flying dwarfs and shirtless mad dwarfs for a decade, but it’s never really had the ones who plant their boots, lock shields, and refuse to move. That’s always been a strange gap in the range, because the shield wall is about as dwarfy as it gets.
Now a banner that appears to have gone live early on Warhammer webstore (or GW just wanted a little quick hype) is showing off the Khazalite Holds, complete with bronze armor, green shields, and enough beard in the front rank to lose a paintbrush in.
GW has spent the last year giving us refresh rumors and teasers, while they kept releasing other Duardin. None of this is official yet, so there’s still room for details to change.
Either way, GW already gave the Chaos Dwarfs a full range with the Helsmiths of Hashut, and a banner this specific is a lot more concrete than another blurry rumor photo.
- What it looks like: AoS is finally getting a traditional armored duardin army, and the gap it fills has been open since 2015.
- The evidence: a prematurely published Warhammer.com banner showing shield-wall infantry, a full command group, and a towering runic construct.
- What changes if we’re right: the Dispossessed range and every Cities of Sigmar duardin kit go from settled to an open question overnight.
AoS Has Never Had Dwarfs That Just Stand There and Hold The Line
Look at what AoS has actually given Duardin players so far: Kharadron Overlords and Fyreslayers, and not much else. Sure, both factions have their own thing going on, but neither scratches that classic armored-dwarf itch.
The leaked infantry are basically the missing piece. You’ve got round shields, hand weapons, heavy plate, and a command group carrying a runic banner big enough to deserve its own base size chart entry. They don’t just look like The Old World kits dropped onto round bases, either. GW could’ve taken that shortcut, but the different shield designs across the rank make these feel built for AoS, whether those turn out to be unit options, clan markings, or something else.
There still aren’t any warscrolls to tell us how these actually play, so durable infantry, runic support, and slow, punishing melee are guesses based on the models. That’s about as far as we can take the rules talk for now, but even from the models, this doesn’t look like anything else in the current AoS lineup of Spearheads, etc.
This Time, GW Leaked This One on Its Own Website
Most dwarf rumors this year have come from somebody’s phone camera and somebody else’s “confidence.” But this look looks to have come from a Warhammer.com banner that went up early and got pulled. Which is a lot harder to dismiss than the usual blurry leak when the image apparently came from GW’s own site.
The banner also gives us the name, or at least the spelling GW used on the graphic: Khazalite Holds. Plenty of people are already calling them Khazalid Holds, which makes sense when Khazalid is the duardin language and the old civilization was the Khazalid Empire. Until GW publishes the proper reveal, though, Khazalite is the name actually printed on their web banner.
Don’t forget GW’s recent rumor engines have been showing plenty of duardin-looking imagery as well, with Runes and forge fire showing up three weeks before this banner leaked. We’ve all seen rumor engines send people completely the wrong way, so we’re not calling that proof of anything just yet. But three weeks before the banner showed up is still pretty interesting timing.
The Golem Is the Only Thing Here That Couldn’t Be Old World
Most of that banner could pass for classic Warhammer dwarfs at a glance, sure. Then you get to the towering armored thing carrying the two-handed hammer. That’s the model that really plants this army in the Mortal Realms instead of making it look like somebody ported an Old World dwarf force into AoS, and it’s possibly the most interesting piece in the image.
The old Khazalid Empire worked alongside Gholemkind, so there’s already lore for GW to build from if this range gets more constructs. Bigger monsters, elite golems, and centerpiece kits that aren’t just a dwarf scaled up to monster size would all fit what this model is hinting at. That’s still speculation, because the banner doesn’t name the construct or explain what it even is.
At the very least, that construct shows GW doesn’t have to stop at ranked infantry and characters. So we’d much rather see GW keep pushing this idea than watch the construct disappear into the pile of rumor engines nobody has solved.
Every Dispossessed Shelf Just Became a Waiting Game
If you’ve got Ironbreakers, Hammerers, Longbeards, and a Warden King painted up already, this leak is either great news or the start of a very annoying wait. GW hasn’t said whether the Khazalite Holds replace the Dispossessed, absorb them, or sit beside them with some kind of crossover. Nothing about the current Cities of Sigmar duardin range has been explained yet, so anybody with an existing collection is stuck watching for the next reveal.
GW doesn’t exactly have to invent a reason for these dwarfs to show up, either. The Khazalid Empire once stretched across all eight Mortal Realms before the Age of Chaos broke it, the Dispossessed are the survivors who fled to Azyr, and their Warden Kings have been trying to reclaim lost holds ever since. The army in this banner doesn’t look like duardin hanging on inside somebody else’s battletome. It looks like they finally brought enough armor to start taking those holds back.
Then there’s Valaya, whose name has suddenly started showing up again at a pretty convenient time. Recent Helsmiths fiction puts her alongside Grungni, Grimnir, and Gazul, while Hashutite accounts claim she shattered Hashut’s physical form before vanishing. None of that says she’s definitely coming back, even if we’d like to see it. What we can say is that GW brought her name up again right before an armored hold faction appeared on its website. That would also put the Chaos duardin across from exactly the sort of faction you’d expect: daemon-binders on one side and hold-builders on the other.
Final Thoughts on the Age of Sigmar Dwarfs Leak
Now GW actually has to tell dwarf players what they’re actually looking at. The banner gives us plenty to debate, sure, but it doesn’t tell anyone with a shelf full of Dispossessed what happens next.
That’s the big question hanging over the proper reveal: is this a completely new faction, a replacement for part of the current range, or some mix of both?
🔗 Related Reads:
- Updated 2026 Age of Sigmar Roadmap + New Releases Schedule
- RUMORS: Big AoS Refreshes For Ogors, Nurgle, & More
- New AoS Helsmiths of Hashut Pre-Order Releases Now Available
- AoS Spearhead Box Sets: Ranked By Contents & Values
- GW Might Be Hinting at Legacy Armies Again
- Warhammer Rumor Engines No One Has Cracked Yet
What do you think of the Khazalite Holds?
