Army Focus - Warhammer Fantasy Dogs of War

 

It's been over a year since I last dug out one of my collections of painted minis for a photo-shoot (although there has been a couple of looks at some prepaints inbetween), this time I've settled on my Dogs Of War army for Warhammer Fantasy.

 

Dwarf Slayer Pirates, my favorite unit in the army

I started this collection back towards the end of 5th edition when the Dogs of War army book was released.  At the time it was a great innovation, a selection of wacky units that could either be fielded as a complete army of mercenaries or added to normal armies to add more variety (although I won't deny it was open to some abuse).  GW also continued to add more of the 'Regiments of Renown' in White Dwarf.  I enjoyed fielding this army at tail end of the 5th edition period, but one thing that always bugged me slightly was the lack of 'generic' mercenaries, everything had to be special unit, almost always led by a hero.

 

Spikey!

Then came along 6th edition, and all the previous army books were thrown out in one go and the game radically reworked.  A couple of PDF's were released with what ere supposed to be 'get you by' lists until the books were done.  Dogs of War never got a new book and I'm stuck using those lists to this day, however, the lists aren't actually that bad.

 

Heroes and Wizards

Inevitably with such an old list Dogs of War sit low on the power curve, but there's a lot you can do with these flexible lists.  They provide the best of both worlds, the 'Dogs of War' list is a generic list featuring normal unnamed regiments, such as heavy cavalry, light cavalry, dwarfs, marauders, pikemen, crossbowmen etc.  Then you have the 'Regiments of Renown' list which features all the special regiments from the previous book and White Dwarf, and you can use these regiments in an army based on Dogs of  War list.  It's good because you can theme a Dogs of War army however you like, but still add the wacky (and sometimes powerful) Regiments of Renown.

 

One of the 6th ed changes was to take the Halfling Hotpot out of the Empire army and put it into the Dogs of War army

There are two painting eras shown in this army, as easily seen by the two basing styles, the older style ones were painted when I was about 16, and the flocked ones after I returned from university.  I'd like to find the time to repaint the older part of the army, but it's not on the current priority list.  I'm not really planning on adding anything else to this army either, but it's still a collection that I enjoy and wouldn't want to part with.

 

5th edition; when two giants and a wizard was a suitable regiment

When being used this army is often joined by Dwarfs from my Dwarf army, Marauders from my Chaos army and any cavalry I can lay my hands on to represent light cavalry in particular, but occasionally some heavy cavalry can add a little punch.

 

Flying crossbowmen

From The Painting Table #14 - This Month I have Been Painting.......

All sorts of random things really, none of the stuff belongs to specific projects or armies/warbands that needed work, I just fancied pulling a few models I liked the look of out of the pile and painting them up.

 

First up is this pack of 'Hollywood heroes' made my warlord games for the anglo-zulu war of 1879.  Of course based on the main characters from the awesome film 'Zulu', now I don't normally hold with minis of bona fide historical personalities being given a Hollywood makeover, but Zulu is such a fantastic movie I'm willing to make an exception in this case.  In case you needed telling from left to right we have; Private Henry Hook, Lt John Chard, Lt Gonville Bromhead & Colour-Sergeant Bourne.

 

 

I've also painted a selection of what would have been termed 'Imperial agents' back in the day (like 20 years ago I know) for warhammer 40K, after painting them I did think they would make a nice little inquisitorial warband, I might have to dig out the old rouge trader inquisitor I have in my collection and give him a lick of paint too.

 

 

This is a classic Adeptus Arbite armed with a bolt gun, rather than their characteristic shotguns.  I've been trying to get hold of a full squad of these at a reasonable price for ages, but have failed miserably, seems I'm not the only one who likes them.  I'm not sure what it is about them either, they are old and very flat posed, and technically not very good models, but something about them still screams cool to me.

 

I'm rather proud of how this callidus assassin came out, I think one of my better paint jobs.  Vindicare and callidus are my two favourite assassin temples, who doesn't love polymorphine.

 

An Imperial Guard colonel here, painted to match the rest of my Imperial Guard detatchment.  Although it started as an allied contingent I've managed to acquire enough Imperial Guard for them to form a small army on their own now, if only I could face up to painting another 50 or so guardsmen.

 

And finally for the Imperials this Inquisitorial scribe.

 

Some more classic citadel now, this time for warhammer fantasy in the shape of these 3 classic Norse miniatures.  These were spares I had when I picked up a whole lot of classic Norse minis for a Mordheim warband, these didn't find a place in that warband, but again I just really like the models and they've found their place on the shelf.

 

 

 

And finally another random Airfix kit that I bought, this time a British Bofors 40mm gun and tractor from WW2 in 1:76 scale.  I like these little airfix kits with more than one element too them, it makes for an interesting build and looks good on the shelf.  The tractor was a slightly more challenging build than I was expecting as well.  I've painted this one for action in northern Europe after D-Day, not for north Africa as it is on the box, just because I prefer it in green!

From the Painting Table #10

Another collection of recently painted unrelated figures today that didn't quite warrant their own blog post.

Starting with this Eldar Wraithlord for 40K.  This is the second wraithlord I've painted and I like them a lot, both the model and the concept.  I still haven't quite got the hang of painting yellow though.

Another 40K model next with this Nurgle Plague Marine lord, I have a small squad of plague marines in my mostly Alpha legion Chaos space marine army and I always like to have a leader to sub-sections of my army.  It will allow me to field the plague marine squad as troops as well, which will be potentially useful.

These three Ogres come from the mantic crazy Christmas box I got a couple of months ago, they were one of my favourite items from the box and have been a joy to paint.  They come with the option for hand weapons or these double handed weapons that I've armed mine with.  They fit in really well with my classic citadel Ogres as well.

And finally this Zvezda Soviet T-35 tank in 1:100 scale from their art of tactics range.  It's an absolute beast of a tank, dwarfing even the mighty panther, it proved to be rather impractical in the end though.