Helsmiths of Hashut round table – Deep lore and ’Eavy Metal painting

The Helsmiths of Hashut are nearly ready to claim the Mortal Realms for themselves. We’ve already covered the initial concepts and the design of the miniatures, today the Warhammer Design Studio are discussing lore and ‘Eavy Metal schemes.

Jordan– Background Writer: Hashut is – at least to the Helsmiths – a fully fledged ancestor god who took a different path. There’s a suggestion that the duardin gods are cyclical – a new Grungni and Grimnir came back, so perhaps Hashut might also have returned from the World-that-Was. Has this happened here? We only really have the Zharrdron word to go on, and they’re not a reliable narrator…

Martin – Miniatures Design Lead: History is very much written by the winners – even if they’re a giant flaming bull.

Jordan: It was very nice to have all of the most important elements of the hierarchy represented in the miniatures. Back in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sorcerers were also priests, so differentiating them here was a nice way to add an extra echelon. The priestly caste becomes a third spoke to what had previously just been a binary between the wizards and everyone else.

Max – ’Eavy Metal Lead: Each ziggurat has a head, and the Zharrdron all vie for that power. There are many paths to the top, but daemonsmithing is perhaps the most efficient route. It’s very dangerous, and despite rivalries between all the internal factions, they all rely on each other to a degree.

The subfactions lean into these routes, so instead of a Daemonsmith you can play as an Ashen Elder who has used his position in the temples to rise to the top, or a War Despot who has amassed an army large enough to dethrone a sorcerer. Those three pillars give you lots of intrigue and interest, and then lots of ways to theme your own army.

Jordan: They’re different from other Chaos factions: they’re an oligarchy in the most traditional sense, where each thread is reliant on another. You can’t just assassinate the competition, as you all need each other, so there are lots of oaths and deals and shadow manipulation going on. There’s a lot of energy poured into ensuring those at the top stay there, by having the lower echelons toiling away. 

Martin: If daemons are the pure essence of Chaos, and the Helsmiths can bind them, there’s really no greater demonstration of their strength and power.

Max: Binding daemons is the ultimate expression of their arrogance.

Jordan: It’s a little bit stealing fire from the gods. They generally bind daemons which are not related to the major gods. This links them a little with Archaon, as a faction within Chaos that doesn’t show deference to any one of the pantheon. We know there are unaligned Chaos daemons such as Furies, which suggests there’s much more out there in the Realm of Chaos, but perhaps the avaricious nature of the Helsmiths is why we don’t see many of them now…

Matt: There’s this overwhelming arrogance to them thinking they can control and manipulate daemons, which are really beyond anyone’s control. The cost – the mutations, the tusks, the stone skin – is acceptable to them. It also tracks that they think they can manipulate the other big players in the Age of Sigmar. 

Jordan: Despite binding daemons and building giant ziggurats there’s a real banality to their evil: they’re not trying to destroy all the gods, or bring in the apocalypse. All they really want to do is get out there and control everything, stockpile resources, and spread their empire.

Max: We knew from early on that the flames are bound daemons, and the sculpts express the expulsion of daemonic energy. If we paint that as a red and orange flame it’s just regular fire, the result of coal or wood burning. So we used this green palette to convey what happens when daemons burn. We set up a development team for painting the Helsmiths, and part of that was to concept lots of different versions of the fire, to communicate what was happening.

We wanted a primary colour scheme with a strong visual hook that visually tells you who the Helsmiths of Hashut are. To convey opulence and craftsmanship, we settled on a rich purple, with a lot of coloured metals to represent the specific alloys they might have created rather than plain brass or iron. Using the daemonfire as a spot colour that both complements the scheme as a whole and at the same time feels otherworldly and daemonic in nature, crackling with energy.

We spent a lot of time looking at how different materials burn different colours in real life, but some were precluded. The Chaos pantheon is bound in specific colours like red, blue, pink, purple, and sickly green. If you use one of those colours, you immediately align your miniatures, so we needed a nice colour that looked suitably supernatural, but conveyed something else.

We talked about how Warpstone is a lurid, violent green, and the traditional way to convey manifested Chaos energy. We experimented with a flame that transitioned from a strong green that billows into a black and purple tinge. The crackling lighting represents the daemon energy within, to show that it’s something more than just a strange flame.

Max: From the very early days of Chaos Dwarves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, they’ve worn vibrant reds and golds. The change to purple and green is considerable, but it’s important to remember that all things change and adapt over time – the old Chaos Dwarves have just existed longer with this fixed image because they’ve not had new miniatures for such a long time. The identity of the Helsmiths of Hashut is rooted in the Age of Sigmar, and that’s different to what came before.

There are lots of opportunities for painters out there to come up with their own colours. Maybe your ziggurat is more likely to subjugate daemons from one of the four Chaos powers, or perhaps the process they use to make their weapons has them burn a different way. We painted a few variant schemes for some units and you can see a couple of different approaches to the daemons bound in weapons too. And you’re certainly still allowed to paint them any colour you like, Chaos is unpredictable at the best of times!

Sam – Miniatures Design Manager: I loved the green from an early stage, but did initially wonder whether there was a link to the Skaven. Max explained that when you throw certain metals into fire they can burn in different colours, and I think that unlocked the link to industry to me. 

Max: Subfactions in a way are born out of the underpinning themes of a faction – for Hashut that’s warmaking, industry, temple worship, and daemonsmith sorcery – and focusing in on different aspects. 

One thing we’ve been exploring a little more with the Helsmiths is divorcing their place in a particular Realm from traditional colour swatches. If you make it so that every faction in Aqshy is red and every faction in Shyish is purple, you run the risk of leaning into the Realms a little too hard, overruling the individual culture of each specific army and race. 

It’s more important to find out what’s culturally significant for each army in each realm. Would a Moonclan grot in Ghyran wear green to blend into the realm more, or would they still wear black but actually look grey and leathery because they live so much longer in Ghyran? There are millions of ways to theme your army, mixing a faction’s culture with the influences of the various Realms.

There are four primary subfactions named in the new Battletome. The Forge Anathema is ruled by Urak Taar in Aqshy. Ur-Zorn is the home of the fanatical Scorched Sect based in Ghur. Zharr Vyxa is a sea-bound ziggurat of fierce despots situated in Shyish, while Muspelzharr is home to some of the finest artisans of all the Zharrdron, who extract precious but corrosive materials from Chamon. 

Lethis is a good example for where amethyst purple is a cultural hook for humans – it’s linked to how they plant purple flowers to mark death in Shyish. The purple for the Helsmiths of Hashut is completely different, it represents Hashut in their culture, and they don’t think about the Realm of Death in that way.

It’s cool to wonder why the Helsmiths in Shyish are red, and find out how their lore reinforces those colour choices. We’ve predominantly seen the colour-coding of factions in the Realms from a human perspective, but why would the Helsmiths have the same relationship to colour? In Shyish they’re on a war footing and they show that with their colours more fiercely. It shows how deep and rich the Realms and the people within them can be. That doesn’t mean you can’t have purple Helsmiths from Shyish, but it widens the palette more. 

There’s nothing to stop certain subfactions being entirely rooted in the colours of the realms: you can look at the difference between the Living City and the Greywater Fastness in Ghyran. We can break out further with the Helsmiths as they’re so arrogant and have their own perspective, which lets us explore these ideas further.

Thanks guys. Tomorrow is the final instalment in the series, with a discussion about bringing the Helsmiths of Hashut to life through their rules.