Little Green Usurpers!

Chaos Dwarves have pretty much been forward in my hobby mind of late, but just this week I received this little beauty in the post:

Now, he's set aside for a special project, but since I was dancing around the room in excitement over the thought of a Snotling my good lady said "why don't you make an entire Snotling army?". Of course, some people have done, and of course all the things I immediately thought of (rat cavalry, bat-riding snotlings etc etc...) have been attempted, but the lists I can see don't look all that exciting so I thought I might try something along these lines:

Cave Snotling Army List:

Lords: Big Momma Snot (4,3,2,3,3,6,6,5,7, 30pts) on 40mm base with a retinue of 3 snotling guards
          Tribal Chiefling (4,3,2,3,4,6,6,6,7, 35pts) on 40mm base with retinue of 4 snotling guards

Heroes: Big Snot (4,3,2,2,3,6,5,6,6, 25pts) on 40mm base with retinue of 4 snotling guards
            Shaman (4,1,0,2,2,4,3,6,6, 25pts) on 40mm base with entourage of 3 wierdling apprentices
(Note- of course, snotlings dislike and never use magic. The snotling shaman instead has several potions at his disposal which produce random, comical effects each turn- on a realm-of-chaos-style massive effect generator. If the shaman dies, as a result of his potion or otherwise, one of his apprentice wierdlings steps forward.)

Core: Tribesnot base (4,2,0,2,2,5,3,3,4, 15pts)
         Huntsnot base (4,2,2,1,2,5,3,3,4, 15pts)

Special: Snotling Brave base (4,2,2,2,3,5,3,5,4, 20pts)
            Ratlings (rat:6,3,0,2,2,1,4,1,6 snotling rider:4,2,2,1,1,1,3,1,4, 4pts) 20mm base
            Pump Wagon (2d6,-,-,4,4,3,-,-,- crew:-,2,-,2,-,-,3,3,4, 45pts)

Rare: Batling (bat:1,3,0,2,2,1,1,1,3 snotling rider:4,2,2,1,1,1,3,1,4, 6pts) 20mm base
         Sawmaster base (4,2,0,2,2,5,3,3,4, 25pts) - based on the classic 'snotling sawmaster and dwarf with inferiority complex' figures... special rules for popping up from holes to take down warmachines!
         Wild Squig (4,4,0,5,3,1,3,2,3, 8pts) 20mm base

What do people reckon? I've made the price of snotling bases cheaper because if they're the mainstay of the army there need to be plenty of them... plus I think they're overpriced anyway. Not sure whether snotling characters should be individually based (or how that would work ranking them up) so I've gone for swarm bases for all now, with the option to upgrade Big Snots and Chieflings and their retinue to rat/batlings- not sure how that would work then mixing the stats together, might have to make them individual characters that come with free 'retinue' snots. There also needs to be a whole lot more mushroom action in the army! Ideas?

Raw recruits

So here's my base for a Chaos Dwarf army.

 

BFSP dwarves with some Mantic Ironbreakers thrown in as a basis for some Infernal Blunderbusses. 

Dwarf Thunderers with Mantic Dwarves as a base for Infernal Fireglaives.

Copper pipe as the start of my Magma Cannon.

Steam Carriage (acrylic and wood beading) beds for the Dreadquake Mortar and Shrieker Rocket Battery.

Iron Daemon.

3 Citadel Minotaurs being converted into K'daai.

Sorceror Prophet, Daemonsmith, Castellan and warmachine crew will be scratchbuilt.

Also on the way, a ton of Wargames Factory Orcs to use as Hobgoblins and something to drastically rework into a K'daai destroyer... a nice little 3000 pts worth!

The Iron Daemon in progress. The body is the motor from a cordless drill (heavy beast!) with various bits from the junk box built around it. I've also reused my mould for wheels from my Fimir chariot: http://gamesorkshop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/fimir-marsh-chariot.html
which are fine for the engine but I want to take casts from my old Ork battlewagon for the steam carriages.

The K'daai in progress, with green stuff flames.

And who would live on a base like this? Something extra special and fluffy I have up my sleeve for later on....

Fimm Shielding

Finally got round to some (round!) shields for my Fimm unit. These are Wargames Factory shields from their skeleton warriors box set, designed to look straight out of Jason and the Argonauts methinks! My good lady has the skellies in her Vampire Counts (mexican day of the dead style) army but didn't want the shields so they have been reclaimed by the Fimir. Designs are an assortment of celtic and Brian Froud-inspired patterns, hopefully complementing the unit banner. I've gone for vibrant colours to liven up the unit a bit and try and nod a bit more towards the shield designs of the 3rd ed armies.

Now I really must finish their bases off soon!

Right, woss next?!

Never one to constrain myself to just what's at hand I have done some scouting out for my next warhammer project. Seeing as I tend to pick armies which GW suddenly takes an interest in as I'm halfway through the army (Vampire Counts, Redemptionist Crusade, Fimir...) I thought I'd let the boys take the lead for once. I managed to pick up a copy of Tamurkhan recently, about the same time as I noticed Mantic's Abyssal Dwarves and remembered seeing the old marauder Chaos Dwarf Hero set and thinking 'these boys are cool'. So, gonna get me a little dwarfy army I reckon. Managed to pick up a load of BFSP dwarves pretty cheap, along with a lot of classic citadel minotaurs which I'll be turning into my K'daai and the ogre for the Dreadquake Mortar. Also got some Mantics, but not the Abyssal dwarves, their crossbow/handgun normal dwarves which I reckon will convert nicely. The faces are broader than the GW ones but most of them will be covered up by helmets and masks anyway. Originally I wanted to sculpt and cast the whole army as I'm doing for my Necrons but heck, the plastic dwarves were there, they were cheap, they can be played with and that'll give me more time to pay attention to sculpting my Sorceror Prophet, Daemonsmith and Infernal Castellan. There will be much sculpting and casting action though across the board as I have an idea for the look for my army.... and it's not the typical CD look (no, there won't be big hats... sorry. Well, alright, maybe a couple, if you're good!). Very much going to be influenced by the old school Chaos Warriors.

Those painted ladies....

I had that rarest of things yesterday, a genuine day off! As a result four of my Bansidheia got painted to a reasonable degree. I have 24 to do in total so a long way off finished yet, and I'm basing each individual model on a separate picture from the 'Sword Song' and 'Dragon Song' so-called-art-books. Since the Bansidheia are collected from many different tribes that have had contact with the Fimir it doesn't bother me that the unit is going to look somewhat mismatched, with an assortment of figures from different manufacturers and painted to different schemes. In fact I think the ladies will add a nice touch of variation to an otherwise pretty uniform force. I've tried to pick models which suit the mood or attire of the subjects in the paintings, I think I've managed to fit all 24 quite well. Apologies for the poor quality photos of the pages from the book, couldn't find digital images online.

 The first four Bansidheia

                                                                              
The unit standard gave me the opportunity to work the dragon's colours into the model. Plenty of gold which doesn't show up very well here. The hadow around the eyes helps make the model look more mature, it looked a bit too 'teeny' before.

Only had head and shoulders to work  from for this lady, but her hair was done perfectly!

More subdued colours here. Tried to go for a design on the sword which gave some impression of the one in the painting but it hasn't really worked very well.

A frightening sight to be sure!

Meargh!

Realised I haven't put up photos of the Meargh painted. Here she is, courtesy of my good lady who did the brushwork.

Easton Arts Trail

Freshly back from exhibiting at the Easton Arts Trail here in Bristol, here's a quick peep at the cabinets... more details on some of these projects to follow.

 Sculpts for an upcoming Giger-themed Necron force. Cryptechs (top left), Flayed Ones (top and bottom right), Wraiths (bottom left) and Necron Warriors (scattered around).

Eldar Pirate Jetbikes based on the paintings of Ian Miller.

Characters inspired by Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

Squid-headed Cthuloid personalities.

Genestealer Broodlord, a birthday present for a friend last year.