Dwarf Week - Units & Beer

As we're nearing the end of dwarf week I thought it was about time for some core infantry, but then I couldn't resist throwing a few more interesting things in at the end.

This is an old regiment of renown, 'prine ulther's dragon company', includes a hero (prince ulther) as well as full command group.  They're actaully modeled with two pistols each as well, if only I could still feild dwarf infantry armed with two pistols, but I'm really found of this unit and they still make a nice rergiment of warriors.

Here we have a regiment of classic longbeards.

This unit of warriors isn't so much a unit as a collection of metal dwarfs that don't have a specific home, still it seems other poeple like it as it always gets commented on, of particular note is the dwarf on stilts that I use as the units standard.

Now we get to the beer part of the post, the renowned brewmaster joseph bugman in various forms.  On the left the origanal Bugmans bar bugman (theres now a newer version throwing a chair that I've yet to acquire) and then moving left the 4th ed and 3rd ed versions (I actually have units of rangers from the same ranges to acompany both of these).  I think my favorite is the 4ed. one in the middle.



And finally bugmans cart transporting beer to all the imporatnt places, although with a drunk driver by the looks of things.

Dwarf Week - The Engineers Guild

The fifith day in my Dwarf Week and today a quick introduction to some of my models form the engineers guild, this is a very brief look as I have a lot of artillery in my collection.  Way back in 4th ed I used to feild a LOT of artillery typically taking my entire 25% allowed and almost always 4 organ guns (they were 65pts back then), nowadays I play a lot more agressivly and whilst obviously still feild some artillery, now at 2000 I would normally only feild a couple of pieces plus a gyrocopter.  The new edition has made artillery better, but its also made dwarf infantry a lot better, and I'd rather kill things with axes than guns at the moment.



To start off an old 4th ed. special character the guildmaster of the engineers guild burlock daminson, complete with robotic steam powered arm, its shame hes been got a rid of, I thought he was a bit different to the other very bland kings/runelord characters we often get for the dwarves.

Here is a selection of engineer models, the one on the left from 6th ed when engineers became heroes, the other two are a lot older.

This is my favorite artillery piece in my collection, the origanal flame canon.  I used to play someone who got very upset when it killed his high elves because he said it was too tiny and too stupid looking to cause that much damage.  What I love about it is the crew, the way they look as if they know its going to explode at some point.

Here we have two dwarf war machines that no longer feature in the game at all, on the left is a swivel gun, a form of light canon.  Then on the left we have an old dwarf flame thrower, a real shame that they decided to limit them to skaven only.

Now we get to the most important war machine the dwarfs can feild, the frankly awesome gyrocopoter.  Why is it awesome, (not its stats certainly), its because in an army when everyone can only march 6', this boyo can fly 20' and thats an important ability to have.  These have won so many games for me causing havoc behind enemy lines, blocking marches and making suicidal charges to send people off in the wrong direction, I absolutly love these guys.  Never leave home without one.

Here we have the humble canon, the battle of skull pass version.  The models ok, but not brilliant and the crew are a little two dimensional, but you can get these very cheap off ebay.  The dwarf canon has got a lot better in the new edition as it now cuases D6 wounds indstead of D3, which has changed my opinion of them completely and with the new trend of feilding big monsters in warhammer a gun that can potentially kill most of them in one shot is pretty niffty.

And finally the even more humble bolt thrower, these guys are very cheap and whilst they don't reliably hit, when they do hit the right target (say bretonnian knights in lance formation) they can do a lot of damage for the measly 45pts they cost.

Dwarf Week - Miners

So today we're going to look at the miners (and related pieces) from my collection going through in the order they were aquired.   In the current book I think the miners fulfil a vital part of larger dwarf armies, the abilty to launch a suprise flank/rear attack when your army normally only moves 6 inches can really crimp an opponents day, they just add a lot of flexibiltiy to the force that I really like.  the anvil of doom makes them much better as then  you can bring them on and charge in the same turn... oh yeah and they all look cool with their giant picks.



First up the oldest and only metal models on show today, a regiment of the original miners led by the hero Krudd Mad Mattock (from the grudge of drong campaign pack).  These where released in about the second white dwarf I ever got (about 1992 I think) they're that old, only 16 of them (back then a rank only needed to be 4 wide) still my favorite out of my 3 miner units.

Here we have the plastic miners from the battle of skull pass, these guys are ok if not spectactualar models.  On a side note if you were actually playing the battle of skull pass (much more balanced that the island of blood) the small unit of 8 of the guys you got were really good, its amazing the power of a double handed weapon.

My last miner unit aquired not long after the previous one, the current plastic kit.  It's a good kit with loads of extras, but i do feel that sprue space maybe could have contained more dwarfs, like the other current dwarf plastic though I do find the design quite limiting in what you can do with them.  The unit includes a spare standard bearer from the battle of skull pass as I wanted to use a miner for a little vignette....

You really do get a lot of spare parts, barrels, wheelbarrows, steam drills, caged gobbos, anyway I made these little vignettes/objective markers, I think they're kinda cool, although looking back I probaly shoudn't grassed them, especially the one with the drill a hole in the wall, oh well...

And finally you also get one of these cool mine pony's with every 10 of the new miners and one in skull pass (the one in the middle), again I'd rather of had more dwarfs, but a wagon train is a useful thing to have too.

Dwarf Week - Plastic Dwarfs through the Ages & Dwarvish Terrain

A Late post today and a quick look ate GW plastic dwarfs thorugh the ages.  The pics below show the 5 generations of plastic dwarfs in my collection and one of the mantic dwarfs I got the other week from dwarf kings hold.

Ok, so left of the top picture we have the third edition single pose (although with 2 head options) dwarf.  He's not too bad considering his age, the biggest problem with him is that you have to put them in the diagonal slot to be able to rank up into a regiment.  Top pic middle is the next single pose dwarf from the 4th ed, in my opinion the worst of the lot, hes too fat, his beards to short and his hand's are too big.  They still in my army only because I already have them (they where vital to keep costs down back then) but now never get used.  The last model in the top pic is the single pose dwarf warrior from battle of skull pass at the beginning of 7th ed.  I quite like these guys and approve of the fact that when GW do single part models now adays they at least mix poses up on the sprue, which generates a much better looking regiment.

The second pic has on the left the original multi-part dwarf and my favorite out of the 6 models.  I like the options and the heads, and the fact that the seperate arms allow for easy conversions, my only issuse is the slightly oversized hands (which was a weird trend back then).  The middle model is the current multipart kit, they're not bad but the reason i prefer the previous version is that the way the hands take the weapons and the arms are moulded into the body mean that they're just not flexible enough, still maybe I'm just being picky.

And finally in the bottom left we have a mantic dwarf warrior, I do like these, but they don't really mtch with the GW ones, they're a lot bigger for a start, both in height and body.  I certainly wouldn't be happy mixing them in a regiment, if you wanted to use both you'd have to keep them in sperate units, but even then i'm not sure.

Also today a quick look at some of my dwarf themed terrain.

Nothing really out of the ordinary, some of the plastic 'Kings Wall' from battle of skull pass, the cardboard brewery buildings from the old grudge of drong camapaign pack and a rather cool fortified hold entrance made out of a sort of hard foam that I actually got given for free from my local GW (apparently they weren't allowed to use it any more as they had a new rule telling them to only use terrain they sold, which kinda makes sense if a bit OTT).  Its not loads, but its enough to give a dwarven feel to a battle.

Dwarf Week - The Slayer Cult

So day 2 and today I'm showing off some of my slayer models.  Theres something about the slayer cult that I really like, the fact that they're not just wild berserkers, the seeking of redemption and the ludicrous hairdos.  I highly recomend the Gotrek & Felix series of books for an insight into the slayers mentallity. talking of Gotrek & Felix

The origanal versions, both great models and I much prefer them to the newer versions.

This is my main slayer regiment, quite a mix of slayer models from throughout their history.  Its 30 strong and normally has the job of holding a flank of my battle line, love their slayer axes rule and find in 8th ed I end up using double handed axes a lot more.

Here we have father and son, on the left Garagrim Ironfist, the War-mourner of Karak Kadrin and on the right his father Ungrim Ironfist the Slayer King of Karak Kadrin.  Another 2 great models, with a great background story.

Another 2 interesting models, on the right  is my favorite daemon slayer model which was recently inducted into the citadel hall of fame.  On the left we have Malakai Makaisson a slayer engineer from the Gotrek & Felix novels, what I like about this is how it demostrates that slayers aren't frothing loony's as a few of the models suggest.

Here are 2 doomseekers from the storm of choas slayer list, it took me ages to get hold of these at a reasonable price on ebay (should have just bough thtem when they came out) and they can't even be used in a regular dwarf army, but they do look awesome.

And finally one of my favorite regiments in my whole collection, my dwarf slayer pirates, a different aspect of slayer culture and really good models.  This regiment was the whole reason I bought a dogs of war army, although the regiment no resides in the cabinet with my dwarves.

Which opens up the question, where do poeple stand with dogs of war? are they still allowed to be played? We still use the army and haven't had any issuses translating the 6th edition lists to the 8th ed warhammer.  We only really allow dogs of war units in other armies with opponents permission, but I've never had anyone refuse to let me use my slayer pirates in my dwarf army.

The other thing I wanted to say today is that Avatars of War are releasing a plastic set of Dwarf Berserkers (clearly slayers) that look awesome and are at a sensible price point, I can't wait to add some to my army.

Dwarf Week - A start

So this week I'm going to be showing some of my dwarf army, its by far my largest army and by far my favorite, I just love all things dwarvish.  My army stands at about 16,000 pts and ranges from old 3rd ed models up to the latest plastics.

This is a battle from two years ago when my dwarf army (on the left of the 8' table) stood at 15,000pts and took on the combined might of 2 chaos armies, a skaven army and 2 orc and goblin armies.  It was a solid win for the dwarves.  The army currently contains 325 painted dwarves and 24 war machines (+ around another 40 unpainted dwarves), I'm going to spend all week showing a parts of my army, so if you have no interest in dwarves check back next week.

To start I'm posting today some of my limited edition dwarf models.

These are two different white dwarfs, the first is the current subscription model and the second is an older model released with (i think, please correct me if my memory's wrong) the 300th edition of white dwarf magazine.

Another white dwarf this time form the 30th anniversary of white dwarf magazine and borne aloft by the two other great iconic dwarves Gotrek Gurnisson and Joseph Bugman, this is one of my favorite models and one of the most expensive models ever made in points terms.... 1000pts to use these 3 together (if your opponent will let you) I've yet to try it, maybe one day.

This standard bearer was in from an army set that was the only way to get it from GW, I got mine off ebay in a job lot however.

This is the golden deamon slayer, a dwarf slayer on top of the head of the golden deamon with his axe embedded into him, this is a properly cool model, no gaming use (maybe as a slayer unit filler acually) really, but I just love the in reference to GW.

Now this isn't a limited ed. model this is an old(from the late 80's i believe) dwarf model that I use in warhammer quest, he represenst my level 4 dwarf Thangrim.  I really love warhammer quest although I never seem to get past level 6 before drifting off and coming back to it later and starting again.

Tomorrow my favorite dwarf subculture, the slayer cult.

More from the Desert

So today we have the latest editions to my British army in the Sudan (1880's) in 1:72 scale

My first new addition is my naval brigade gatling gun

This is made from a HaT Gardner Gun with the Gatling gun from a Hat Gatling Gun set.  I'm not entirely sure on the accuracy of this, but it was easier to convert the gun to fit the naval carridge than to convert the sailor to fit the Gatling carridge, if anyone does know wether this is right or not please let me know.

Next some dismounted Camel Corps also from HaT, not sure why but I never got around to painting them when I did the mounted ones.

The rest of the figures in todays post come from Waterloo 1815's Anglo Egyptian Army.  First off some Egyptian Infantry

And finally the man himself, General 'Chinese' Gordon

From the Painting Table 2

Some more models I've just finished today, first off we have two dwarf heroes from mantic, a Warsmith and a Berserker lord

I didn't buy the dwarf kings council boxed set as I'm not so keen on the King and the Standard bearer, but I think these two models are fantastic, although I do find it a bit weird that they don't really match with the mantic plastic dwarves.

Next a HaT colonial Gatling gun in 1/72 scale painted for the zulu war.

And finally some more historical figures, some WWI ANZAC infantry again in 1/72 anad again from HaT, these are for my Gallipoli project (which has been developing slowly) which I started after discovering that my great grandfather fought there.

Some Conversions

So today I'm showing some conversions I did.

First off a Chaos Terminator Lord.

This is based on the Abbadon body that I got in a job lot off ebay.  It was missing its head and sword arm, a simple search through my bitz box and hey presto what I think is a good result. 

Next we have my Blood Knights

I had a totally differnet motivation for converting this unit, unlike the chaos lord who was a 'conversion of opputunity' this was planned as a money saving exercise.  They're based on plastic Bretonnian Knights with the simple addition of one of the vampire counts metal sheild packs and lance arms from the old hybrid chaos knight models (just to make them look a bit more menacing and give them a bulkier look).  The standard come from the plastic zombie sprue with another sheild attached.  I like to imagine my vampire lord has corrupted a group of bretonnian knights, one day I'd like to try and make some bretonnian themed black knights to go with them.

Something I haven't done in an age..

So yesterday I did something I've not done in 7 years or so.  I played somebody new at warhammer (new to me that is, not new to the game).  It was a bit of a revelation. 

My normal game group consists of me and 3 other people, we've all know each other a long time and we know what models we have (the odd new thing gets added of course, but a whole unexpected army is rare), and I think we've developed our own style of playing, not so much in rule variation, but in army selection.  We tend to play low powered armies.  Me and my new opponent played 2 games, one at 2k (his ususal level) and one at 1k (my ususal level due to time contraints and wanting more than one battle).  Both were close games he won at 2k and I won at 1k, which I found interesting, at 2k I missed the importance of the anvil of doom until it was too late (I now have an urge to use my anvil again for the first time since 5th ed) and at 1k my opponent missed how every small unit and a concentartion of force were vital.  It was just so obvious how stuck in my ways I'd become.  The other thing that shocked my opponent was when I deployed an army without and magic items,  I thought nothing off it and  I rarely play with more than a dispel scroll.  I've had a relook at the magic items and I think I've been missing out on some fun.

I really must endevour to do this more often.  I wonder what else I'm missing out on.

From the Painting Table 1

So again I'm showing some pics of my latest finished projects.  I don't normally manage to crank out models quite as quickly as I have in the last week but I've had some time off work and have spent a large chunk of it painting.

First up we have the skeletons from dwarf kings hold

So we have the 12 skeletons and 2 extra ones rising from the ground that are also on the sprues (which to my mind is 14 skeletons).  I'm pretty impressed with these boyo's all round, I think they're great models and highly recommend them.  I've bought another 10 with command groups to bring them up to a proper seized regiment.

Next we have these 2 rat ogres I picked up on ebay originally form the island of blood set to add to my rat ogre regiment.  I plan to use my regiment of 6 to provide the 'punch' in my 1k skaven army.

And finally these 2 servo-skulls for 40k.  I don't know why but I love floating mechanical skulls.  I have no real gaming use for these I just think they're cool.