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Hello ladies and gents.

Well I finally got around to opening my fireslayer starter box and noticed something "this is my first time having a dwarf army btw". All the dwarf models have dwarfism.

I know I know people will say well yes they are DWARFS it is named after them but. BUT.

From what I recall of the lore "maybe it was just lotr movies" The dwarfs altho small had normal per portions not suffering from the usual
Achondrogenesis.
Achondroplasia.
Acrodysostosis.
Acromesomelic Dysplasia (Acromesomelic Dysplasia Maroteaux Type, AMDM)
Atelosteogenesis.
Campomelic Dysplasia.
Cartilage Hair Hypoplasia (CHH) (Metaphyseal Chondrodysplasia, McKusick type)
Chondrodysplasia Punctata.

That is common in real life people with dwarfism. Am I mistaken here, is my lore failing me? Or is it just a case of GW having trouble with per portions?

The proportions on GW Dwarves are intentionally distorted, yes.

You may be thinking of halflings / hobbits. *Fantasy* Dwarves have typically been beefy upper bodies and stumpy legs.

Halflings look like hairy-footed humans, but at half scale.

Dwarves have always had different proportions from humans in all depictions I can think of. Even in the LotR movies, Gimli has a much larger head and thicker limbs in proportion to his size than Aragorn or Legolas (basically, his body is smaller but his head is still normal adult human size).
But yeah, GW dwarves have always been exaggerated in this. Probably a result of standard GW humans already having ridiculous proportions (short thick limbs, huge heads and hands), so for dwarves to look like dwarves these proportions need to be exaggerated even further.
Basically, GW has real trouble with body proportions in general, though I think this may be intentionally as part of what is called the heroic scale.

All of GWs dwarf figures, even the Squats of Rogue Trader 40k days, have the worst proportions ever. They all look like the grandpa from King of the Hill who lost his shins.

GWs dwarves would look so much better if they were proportioned like the Forgefathers from Mantic.

eash to their own, I think they look ok.

However heroic proportioned miniatures only look right compared to other heroic proportioned miniatures.

Yeah, eye of the beholder because they look good to me too. It's just GW's style.

That said, I think their LotR dwarves are spot-on.