Games Workshop Accidentally Leaks New Khazalite Holds Dwarf Faction for Age of Sigmar

Games Workshop is usually the tightest ship in the hobby when it comes to guarding its own reveals — leaks tend to come from factory workers, freight manifests, or an over-eager retailer, not the company itself. So it was a little funny to watch GW do the leaking this time. On September 13th, the Irish Warhammer Store briefly posted product images for a brand-new Age of Sigmar duardin faction called the Khazalite Holds before someone in Nottingham noticed and pulled the page down. Too late — the screenshots were already everywhere.

What actually leaked is a lineup of armored dwarf infantry: shield-bearing rank-and-file troops carrying traditional runic and knotwork designs, a squat, heavily armored construct described as “stout as all hell” and built around a greathammer, and a towering leader figure with plaited hair, an ornate cloak, a great axe, and an elaborate headpiece. No pricing, no product codes, and no official word from GW — but the aesthetic told its own story. This is pseudo-Nordic knotwork and rune-etched shield-wall styling straight out of Old World Warhammer Fantasy, just rebuilt on modern Age of Sigmar proportions and bases.

That gap is exactly why this leak landed the way it did. When Games Workshop rebuilt the old Dwarfs faction for Age of Sigmar back in 2016, it split them into two very different directions: the steampunk airship raiders of the Kharadron Overlords and the magma-cult berserkers of the Fyreslayers. Both are fun factions in their own right, but neither one scratched the classic “grumpy dwarf with an axe and a shield” itch that a lot of longtime fans never stopped asking for. The Khazalite Holds look like the faction built specifically to fill that hole.

This also isn’t coming out of nowhere. Speculation about a classic-style duardin return had been building since earlier this year, when a character named Drolf Ironhead showed up in the Warhammer Quest: Darkwater board game — a name and design fans immediately clocked as a hint toward exactly this kind of faction. The leaked images are the first real confirmation that people were reading those tea leaves correctly.

Games Workshop hasn’t officially acknowledged the leak or the faction by name, and there’s still no release window or pricing to go on. But according to Tabletop Gaming News, the company has confirmed a full reveal is coming during a live announcement event this Friday, with lore, rules, and additional miniatures on deck. So the wait to find out whether the Khazalite Holds are a full standalone army, a Kharadron/Fyreslayer-adjacent expansion, or something else entirely should be a short one.

If you want to get a head start on Age of Sigmar’s existing duardin lineup while the rest of the reveal shakes out, the Kharadron Overlords Battletome is a solid, currently-available entry point into the faction the Khazalite Holds are being set up to complement rather than replace.

This is very much a developing story — we’ll follow up once Games Workshop makes it official on Friday.