Dwarfs With Hammers

Some more Dwarfs this week; this time it's the turn of the hammer armed troops.

Finished Dwarf Adventurers

I painted these figures at the end of 2011, but only got around to basing them in the last few weeks.

Dwarfs With Crossbows

Some more old school Dwarfs this week - Dwarfs with crossbows

Dwarfs With Spears 2

This is the second half of the Dwarf spear unit. Part one is here.

Dwarfs With Spears 1

I'm splitting this unit across two posts. There are more figures in it than I remembered and cramming them into one post would be too many pictures.

Dwarfs in Heavy Armour

My dwarf units tend to be organised by some common attribute. This can be the type of figure (civilian), or the weapon they're carrying (bow). This week, it's figures in partial or full plate armour.

Dwarfs with Swords

Dispelling the notion that dwarfs are only capable of using axes and crossbows, this week brings some dwarfs armed with swords.

Dwarf Slayers

I posted some pictures of my Dwarf Berserkers a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd follow up with my Slayers.

These appeared when Games Workshop redid all the background fluff, removing the Viking mythology and replacing it with their own. All of a sudden we had Slayers, Daemon Slayers and Dragon Slayers, along with the guys with the axes on chains (I can't remember their name, and I can't find them on the Games Workshop site - perhaps they too have been consigned to the dustbin of history...)

Dwarf Berserkers

Most of my Dwarfs are the solid, steady type of Dwarf. Chainmail or plate armour, helmet, shield and something heavy and/or sharp to hit the enemy with.

The Norse slayers/berserkers, however, take a slightly different approach: as little clothing as possible and loads of things to hit the enemy with.

Dwarf Shortbows

I have quite a few things almost finished, and as I'm on holiday next week, I have high hopes of actually completing a lot of the stuff. Until then, however, it's more Dwarfs from ye olden days.

As mentioned on more than one occasion, I have no gunpowder in my army, and the army is composed of single figures (with a few exceptions). This may cause a few problems ranking them up, but does give, in my opinion, a much more interesting visual spectacle.

Memory is a funny thing. If you had asked me how many Dwarf shortbows I had in the army, I would have said about fifteen. However, on searching through the drawer for them, it turns out I have eight. I suppose with a musician and standard bearer (and possibly a separate commander), it takes the unit size up to ten or eleven, but still fewer than I thought.

Anyway, the archers below are from Citadel and Grenadier, circa 1980s, possibly 1990s.

Some members of the unit

Some more members

In the final group shot, one of the dwarfs appears to be armed with a spear rather than a bow. The picture below shows be does, infact, have both

I'm not sure where and when I got the Robin Hood figure below. According to stunties.com, it was a promotional figure from the Nottingham store opening. I have never been to the Nottingham store, certainly not back however many years it was, so I don't know what route he took to my army.

Finally, the group shot.

Chaos Dwarfs

No Dad's Army news this week. I'm working on the new floor piece, but still have to paint it - yet another fun hour of scribing. I'm beginning to understand why people buy laser cutters: it saves so much time and effort. Sadly, it's not cost effective for me, but, when I win the lottery!!

I've just started painting the Pig Iron command group, wardroids and Imperial Guard Sentinels, so there's nothing to show with them either.

Instead, it's back to my Dwarfs and some more figures from many many years ago. This time it's the turn of the Chaos Dwarfs.

These guys were originally painted as a unit for my regular dwarf army, fighting alongside their less chaotic brothers (and a few sisters). Not sure how that fits with any background canon, but that's not my problem :-)

They go together as a unit as shown below

Being sneaky chaos types, as I was putting the figures away after photographing them, I found another one who'd been hiding (in a manly, Chaos way, of course).

I did pick up a couple of chaos dwarf centaurs at one point. It was during Citadel's "big hat" period, so I decided to replace the giant hat with something more sensible. It never really worked, so I didn't finish the test piece. It's still lying around, so maybe I'll revisit it at some point. If nothing else, it could join the Dwarf Cavalry unit.

Dwarf Wizards

Just a quick post, as I'm running late this week. The end is in site for the Dad's Army figures, and this week should see the civilians finished :-)

The diorama idea has changed slightly - to become more complicated, naturally. I'm still having it set in the church hall, but I'm now planning to put the back wall of the church in as well, rather than simply the floor. Anyway, I've just started thinking about that, so that's for a different post...

This week, some Dwarf wizards. In traditional fantasy canon, Dwarfs are not known for their magic use - in fact, they're considered quite resistant to it and unable to work with it, except through runes. However, this has not always been the case, and Citadel used to make quite a few "proper" wizards.

I think this one is a wizard - not sure what else he could be, and he was with the other wizards.

Finally, for the more traditionalists out there, a Rune Lord (I think. Mainly I'm going by the book he's carrying, but he could just as well be a standard bearer...)

That's all for now. I've just downloaded Google Sketchup, to help with planning the Dad's Army diorama layout, so I'd better go and have a play with that...

Dwarf Artillery

There are a couple of rules I've tried to follow when building my Dwarf army:

• no duplicate figures
• no gunpowder

I've stuck to the "no gunpowder" rule (I disapprove of gunpowder generally in fantasy settings), but have broken the duplicate figure rule when it comes to artillery, mainly because of the crew figures.

There are a number of artillery pieces in my army, spanning at least two decades. In ascending order of firepower, the models are:

Heavy Crossbows

I have two units of the old Grenadier heavy crossbows

Bolt Throwers(i)

These are the first generation bolt throwers that Citadel produced. They look quite plain compared to the second generation units, but I still have a soft spot for them. There are four of these in the army.

Bolt Throwers(ii)

I can only find the crew for this one - no idea where the bolt thrower is. From some pictures I found on Google, however, the bolt thrower looks very similar to the original one. At some point, no doubt, I'll stumble across the model in a cupboard somewhere.

Bolt Throwers(iii)

A few years after the earlier bolt throwers, Citadel brought out some new ones. These ones had much more detail, and appear to be modelled after Roman catapulta. I bought and painted up two of these units.

Comparing the original bolt thrower with the latest generation one, the difference in size and detail is obvious.

MadAxe Thrower

I can't find anything about this model on the Internet, so I'm not really sure if I'm using its correct name. It's basically two rows of throwing axes, driven by a belt in the middle.

The engineer with the large spanner in his right hand is a conversion. He was originally holding a gun (or some sort of powder weapon) so I removed it and scratch built the spanner for him.

I built the model (obviously), and painted the crew, but haven't actually painted the model yet or finished basing the crew. I think the prospect of trying to paint the kit put me off, but one day...

Flame Cannon

This is as close as my Dwarfs get to a gunpowder level of technology, and, to be honest, it's a bit more advanced than I'm comfortable with.

When I bought this kit and tried to assemble it, I couldn't get it to fit together. After comparing it to some pictures in the Dwarf Codex of the time (circa. 2000) I found there was a piece missing. After getting a replacement, it went together much more easily (the local GW shop actually let me keep the original model, which I still have. Sadly, with a piece missing, there's never seemed much point putting it together)

It's probably more bronze than it needs to be, but I'm sure there was a good reason for it at the time.

Catapult(i)

This catapult came out around the same time as the Goblobber, although I think the Goblobber was first

Catapult(ii)

Lastly - the original Dwarf Goblobber Catapult, complete with crew and unwilling victims.

I also have the Anvil of Doom painted up, but I don't really consider it artillery, so I didn't include it here.

Joseph Bugman

I actually finished a couple of figures recently (bases and everything). They were fun to paint, but took far too long (not because of a lack of painting time, more because I spent too much time on details that will never be seen).

The two figures were the Joseph Bugman figures that were/are only available from Bugman's Bar at Games Workshop's HQ in Nottingham. I bought the figures when I visited Warhammer World a couple of years ago, but only got around to painting them recently.

The Bugman standing over the spilled pint comes with a choice of stool or axe, and I opted for the axe - much more Dwarfy.

The figures themselves are nice enough, although some of the casting leaves a lot to be desired - there are a couple of places where detail just disappears. Given that I was trying to paint "properly", this proved frustrating on more than one occasion!

I made a floor base for the Bugman standing on the barrels. This was just some textured plasticard that I cut with my compass cutters (I didn't manage to get the whole way through the card, but got enough that I could get the circle out and clean it up). I happily superglued the barrels to the card, without bothering to check how much contact they had with each other. On checking later, it wasn't a lot, so the model won't be leaving the display cabinet. The base and barrels were then attached to a Voodooworx pedestal.

Not sure where the hair across his face came from. Unfortunately I didn't notice it until I was checking the pictures, several hours after I had put away all the photography gear.

The other figure came with a base, so I just glued it directly to the pedestal.

In addition to the two new figures, I have a couple of other Bugman models, painted a long time ago (but in this galaxy).

The first is from one of the later Bugman's Rangers sets (possibly generation two), with his banner pole removed, as it looked silly.

and the one, of course, from the original Bugman's Rangers set.

I'm fairly sure I have Bugman's cart somewhere, still unpainted (I certainly have the horse). I'll need to have a rummage at some point, as it would be nice to round out the group.