The dwarfs of the Karndunkrach Garrison

It's been a while but I have another finished army... well, I say that. I'll elaborate on it later.

The dwarfs I envisage as a small clan holed up in a mountain stronghold tinkering with their defence engines. A small but vital piece in the protection of the lands to the east of them. In times of war their aid can be sought to provide firepower support for the infantry of the Empire.

The flame cannon and the organ gun are newly painted, the rest of the war machines you'll have seen as part of my Slaaneshi cult army. I decided to choose a fairly neutral tone for these dwarfs so they could be used for either situation. I think the flame cannon crew may be intended to double as dark/chaos dwarfs with their shoulder pads and masks. A nice touch is the grenadier badge on the leader's helmet. 

These models are both ex-Harlequin/BTD figures. I bought them from a chap at Colours who had a lot of ex stock to sell. The crossbows and hand guns later on were also purchased there. I should say for the record that I have actually just received an order from BTD (in about 6 weeks) so it does happen sometimes...

The mortars were made of large scroll cases from some Warmachine models mounted on RAFM gun carriages. The crew are a blend of Citadel and TAG (thanks Matthew Street for donating your spares!).

'Old' Feld Van Gellis, the master of ordnance. He is carried around his various crews checking they don't mess up his precious machines.

As I am sure I mentioned before, the big cannon are from Broadsword Miniatures. Lovely things they are too.

Grand Dolph the Confuser accompanies the crossbowmen into battle. Alongside him a lovely (if wonky-eyed) Asgard and a Ral Partha Europe model. We won't say too much about Barclay and James on the right there with their harvester... they appeared from somewhere asking to join the ranks. You've got to have pity on a Nick Lund sculpt sometimes don't you?

Magnus the Carter, brewmaster of the keep, accompanies the Thunderers, keeping their spirits up (by keeping their ale down). In the middle of the front ranks of actual Marauder gems is their leader, Pete Bogfaerie. I think he's an old Foundry model, anyone confirm?

King Grimmson leads his sturdy warriors into battle. Mostly Ral Partha Europe figures with a Citadel, and Asgard and a mystery big chap in the back row... Jethro Tall is, like Captain Carrot, an honorary Dwarf nevertheless.

The elite warriors of the keep are Captain Beef Fart and his Magic Band. Not really very musical (they do have a drummer) these old veterans creak as much as their armour and trump as they tramp along, spreading the odour of dread ahead of them. 

You can't have a dwarf army without slayers. No, you can't. I said so. I was going to, but then I spotted some at a bargain price at a show so now I am a convert to the cause. The only regiment to be entirely Citadel... apart from their dog who is every bit as vicious but possibly slightly less rabid than the mohawked stunties.

Now I did admit they aren't finished. I am currently backing The Landdsknechte Mercenary Dwarfs on Kickstarter so I'll have a unit of pikemen to add once those arrive. Having done the rifle conversions for these guys I have to say they're fine looking sculpts (from Alessio) and will fit nicely alongside the Citadel/Marauder/Harlequin mix.
 

The dwarfs of the Karndunkrach Garrison

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Bald Rick's Boomers

 

Ok everyone, you know how this goes...

"Boom boom boom boom...."

These cannon were the inspiration behind this month's 333(ish, 334 I think I worked out in the end) points. They're (we think) previously unreleased Hinchliffe pieces that Mike received among the moulds he purchased when he took on their fantasy range last year. With all those ornate bands and skulls they had to be chaos cannon, Khorne possibly? Well, I'm doing Slaanesh so that will have to do. There are also a couple of nifty catapults which I'm hoping to ge ttogether as Undead and/or Orc/Goblin war machines.

Of course they would require crew. There is actually a kind of alien lizardman crew with the machines but I wasn't so keen on the gunners as on the guns themselves. And, of course, behind big guns you need short engineers...

You can see just how I rationalised my decision and inserted artillery into a chaos army with no war machines in its list in THIS VIDEO.

Here's the crew of the cannon, mostly White Knight/The Assault Group with a couple of Citadel models. Thanks to Matthew Street who donated most of the figures. I am glad I got these done before he got started on his puff and slash dwarves for the OWAC... they will definitely not be able to compare! :D

The mortars' carriages are from RAFM Crecy guns with the stocks cut, shortened and angled to elevate the barrels. I experimented with using the same wheels as on the large cannon but as the mortars are much smaller this looked a bit odd. I think they're similar enough to work with just keeping the colours consistent. The barrels themselves are the scroll cannisters from Warmachine Menoth preachers with one end chopped off and hollowed out. Again a mix of WK/TAG and Citadel crew thanks to Matthew Street. 

The chief bombardier inspects the holy hand grenade, especially blessed ammunition!

I had originally planned to use the bearers to carry the mortar shells, but the one provided was far too large for these mortars. Instead I used them to give a chief engineer some additional height from which to direct operations. Chief Engineer Bald Rick (who wears a helmet to keep his dome warm, with horns to demonstrate there's nothing wrong with his virility) is cobbled together from a plastic Mantic dwarf, WK/TAG arms and a Citadel Fantasy Regiments head.

The 333 3rd Ed Challenge- Bald Rick's Boomers

the Circle of Chaos opens!

Remember this little dude from a while back?

Well, he was done as part of a group project with Curtis from Ramshackle Games, Jason Wiebe from Cargo Cult, Christian Af Bjargo, Andy Atom Taylor, James Sherriff (who may be known to you as Chilled Monkeybrains), Ross Whitehorn and Warlord Paul Mitchell. This project is now live for the next fortnight on kickstarter and is already past funding in two hours so there's something big and nasty (in a good way) looming in the background ready to pounce on all backers later in the week!

CIRCLE OF CHAOS KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

the Circle of Chaos opens!

The BOYL countdown... 3 days to go!

Yikes! We're pretty close now! Took my first load of models over to Harry's yesterday for a game of Oldhammer Ahoy, testing out ship special rules. With the exception of a few crew members the ships are completed so without further ado here's my fleet for the weekend:

 

 

Clan Myeri take to the seas in their black longship. There's been a bit of talk about several Fimir clans converging this year so it will be interesting to see how much love there is for the cuddly cyclopean bog rapists.

The crew are a mix of Nick Bibby and Jez Goodwin classics, Oakbound Marsh Demons, converted lizardmen and Diego's excellent Fimir warlord... complete with his favourite captives chained to the mast.

 

Zee Klindenbourg now has balloons and an extra free-floating Schutzen nest. Test flew this baby last night, and although no balloons got punctured the crew were massacred by hot-shot Wood Elf marksmen. There was also a long-winded but epic conflict between a Goblink and a Nipponese (or Cathayan?) Pirate, swinging wildly at each other as they dangled in the schutzen nests below the airship. Very Johnny Depp.

 



By special request, here's a close up of the Dropper with his boiler suit, gas mask, tanks of perfumed air and bucket of rank Goblink Manure. The Goblinks have hearty meals before taking to the sky and the Droppers have the un-enviable task of maintaining the airship's altitude by dumping (no pun intended) the offensive ballast.

Then there are the Rotors, who provide the forward momentum... when the wind allows!

 

 

OK. That's Ahoy sorted. 4 Cyberpunks for the Electric Goats game and some surprises for Deathrace and I'm done... need to swot up on Rogue Trader rules and Forenrond's last stand too!

The BOYL countdown... 3 days to go!

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?

Little Green Usurpers!

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....

Raw recruits

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.

Right, woss next?!