The Duardin of the Khazalite Holds have sealed themselves away for too long. They have let their enemies get too close, thinking that they were untouchable. But those who would oppose them have been slowly picking away at the protections of the holds, and now the time has come for the Khazalites to settle some grudges. We check out the launch box for the new Duardin in our Age of Sigmar Khazalite Holds Army Set review.

If you want to know more about Age of Sigmar, you can check out our recent coverage of the Sons of Behemat, Ogor Mawtribes, and Cities of Sigmar. Or see where this edition of Age of Sigmar began with our review of the Skaventide launch set.

Oaths To Keep

The Khazalite Holds are a brand new faction of Duardin for Age of Sigmar, and their appearance is more in line with the traditional Dwarves of old. They're also incorporating the Fyreslayers into their faction and Battletome, leaving the Dispossessed as part of the Cities of Sigmar faction, and the Kharadron Overlords as a separate airborne Duardin faction in their own right.

The Khazalite Holds battletome captures this joining of the 2 Duardin factions, starting with the wider Khazalite background and then moving into the lore of why the Khazalites are leaving their holds. The Battletome includes units from both the Fyreslayers known as Grimmdron and their armored cousins, the Kromdron. There are also a couple of armies of renown, drawing from only Kromdron or Grimmdron, or the Throngankor Alliance, which lets you join the Khazalite Holds with the Kharadron Overlords in a mighty alliance with airborne support.

On the battlefield, the Khazalites like to generate grudge marks through their faction abilities like the 'Thorgrim's Beard! There are grudges to be settled!' battle trait that lets you put a grudge mark on 3 units if your general is destroyed. Those grudge marks then enable your units, like the Stonebreaker Mortar, which has Crit (2 Hits) if it has any grudge marks, or the Valayan Guardinas, who can reroll charge rolls if they have grudge marks.

You can take this one step further with the Army of Renown, Valankrom's War Throng, which lets you give the Wrongdoer title to any enemy unit that happens to do anything you don't like near your units, and it means that you can treat any of your units as having grudge marks when they're in combat with wrongdoer units for some serious grudge settling.

Grudges To Settle

The Khazalite Holds Army Set is the first release for the holds, and contains everything you need to start playing with the new faction in Age of Sigmar. The army set contains:

• AoS Khazalite Holds limited edition Battletome variant
• 53 Warscroll cards (which include the full warscrolls, battle traits, and Spearhead warscrolls)
• A full Khazalite Holds Spearhead force
  • Hjulda Drakkblud
  • 10x Clanshields
  • 3x Gholems of Gazul
  • 1x Oathkeeper Cannon

The Drakkblud's Clanguard spearhead force is everything you'd expect from the Duardin. Slow, but durable and hard-hitting. It has a great mix of dependable warriors and the ranged effect of the cannon. The Clanshields are the dependable core of the force, who reduce the rend of attacks against them if they are contesting an objective, and if they have any grudge marks, they reduce the rend of attacks against them while they are in enemy territory. 

Hjulda Drakkblud leads the force with an impressive 6 attacks, with rend 2, 2 damage, and Crit (Mortal). On a 3+ in your hero phase, she can give 1 to the rend of a nearby Clanshields unit, giving them rend 1, or rend 2 against infantry.

The Gholems are your aggressive forward push, with a 6-inch move ahead of the other Duardin's 4 inches. They each have 3 attacks, rend 2 and 3 damage, and if they charge, their Control stat is boosted from 2 to 4. The Oathbreaker Cannon is here to pulverize any enemies ahead of the rest of the forces' advance, with a 24-inch range, and 3 attacks, 2 rend and D3+2 damage. On a 3+ each turn, you can add 1 of 3 runes to the attack, like the Rune of Burning, which adds 1 to the hit rolls of your attacks targeting the enemy that was targeted by the cannon.

Age of Sigmar Khazalite Holds Army Set Final Thoughts?

The Khalazlite Holds Army Set is the perfect way to start playing the new Duardin, containing a thematic Spearhead force to get you started, and then the full Battletome and warscroll cards to let you expand when the full range is released. The Duardin themselves are everything you'd want from your traditional dwarves. Slow, but durable, and hard-hitting, and oh so eager to hand out some grudges, and then smite anyone who even looks at them a little funny.

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The copy of the Age of Sigmar Khazalite Holds Army Set used to produce this review was provided by Games Workshop.