NEW WARRIORS OF CHAOS MODELS!!!

In their Summer 2026 reveal that happened last Friday, GW revealed the new starter "Core Set" box that features Warriors of Chaos vs Cathay! The rumormongers on the forums were telling the truth; new models for Chaos Warriors, Knights, a foot/mounted character that has bits to created either a foot or mounted battle-standard bearer (at last!) as well as a grand reveal of a character on 2-headed CHAOS DRAGON! At long last, not since the old Galrauch metal model from way back when has there been an official Chaos Dragon! Also the same for a BSB (the last one being from WFB Storms of Chaos era)!

The Cathay models are completely new too, being around a year or so old. The set also includes other goodies and an updated core rulebook as well as a Battle March booklet (compiling the rules from other Arcane Journals)...but I'll just wax poetic over the Chaos models in this post!

The characters! You can build both a guy on foot and mounted and swap bits to create either one as a BSB. Not since Kordel Shorgaar has there been an official warriors BSB model (to my knowledge).

Kordel Shorgaar, Standard Bearer of the Swords of Chaos (posted on the Warhammer Wiki site)

The bare metal model (from the Stuff of Legends website). Very much in the 6th ed Chaos Warriors design language

The AoS Chaos Lord on Demonic Mount, circa 2022-early 2023

Eternus (Be'lakor aligned character, the alternate build of the AoS kit)

Character models from WFB during 6tth/7th ed I believe...

 

The Chaos Knights...big and imposing, though less dynamic than the current AoS ones. Much more in line with how the old metal on plastic horses Chaos Knights from 6th ed. From the designer notes article its mentioned that the Chaos Warriors' hand weapons are swappable with the Knight lances, which is nice

WFB 6th ed Chaos Knights (tabletopbattles.com formerly goonhammer). This image comes from the old army book as I remember these guys well. I have them in my pile somewhere!

AoS Chaos Knights (circa 2019 I think). Much more dynamic but I read that they are a pain to rank up on squares.

The Chaos Warriors - I like these guys very much as they look like an updated evolution of the old school warriors from WFB 5th ed (in the helmets and shield shape especially). Unfortunately it seems that the initial kit won't have options for halberds or great weapons which is a shame (and similar to what happened to the AoS Chaos Warriors in the (now OOP Start Collecting box with the Chaos Lord on Karkadrak) and the subsequent stand alone box that featured halberd options. Probably some sort of business tactic to drum up repeat sales as they're likely to offer the ToW warriors an extra weapon options sprue in the stand alone box. Having said that, I still pre-ordered this box!

The "pièce de résistance" of the Chaos reveal! What is neat is that, once you have chosen to build the rider as a Chaos Lord or Sorceror Lord, the character bits you didn't use can be assembled on foot! Nice touch (and maybe expected for what you are likely paying for this guy)! I do still like the popular AoS Ionus Cryptborn dragon conversions, but that dragon is much smaller than this guy.

A quick image mockup from a poster on Reddit (MolochBaal on r/WarhammerFantasy) to compare the two models