Infamous dwarfs!

You know how my dwarf army was finished? I lied.

To be fair I had always intended to add a unit of Longbeards. The Marauder Longbeards have a special place in my heart since a mate bought a blister of them when we were kids. They seem like the ultimate depiction of dwarfs  and are very much what was in my mind when sculpting my own Cavern Guard (of which more to come). Just before Christmas Harry and I met with the most excellent Mr Matthew Streety in Reading Wetherspoons for a day of sheltering from the storm and playing board games. Both fine gentlemen had little lead gifts... Longbeards! Christmas painting coming up. But how to get a decent unit of the little guys? They're not exactly easy to pick up, people are understandably holding onto such treasures.

Fortunately another packet arrived before the holidays... the Infamous JT dwarf Kickstarter! Long awaited this one, not that the fulfilment was slow- one of the fastest turnarounds I have had the pleasure to witness. No, these guys were a long time getting to KS due to a few issues, but I have kept my eye on the project as they're absolutely beautiful models. They'd do nicely as the rest of the Longbeard unit.

You may notice the old Marauder gentlemen have wildlife perched on their heads. Well, much as I like the flat helmets, I wanted them to match the heraldry of these swanky gentlemen. Fortunately I was able to find enough small critters to squat on their bonces. Meant to do a hare on one but somehow couldn't find a spare, oh well, a couple of duplicate beasts no terrible thing.

I'm keeping these photos smaller than usual. Back at the end of November my DSLR has some issues and it's currently off being (hopefully) fixed. However, around the same time my phone also started having problems so I got a new one with a fancy camera. I've been using that instead for these pictures. Not bad, but the autofocus, autoshutter, autoaperture etc. meant I didn't have an awful lot of control. Plus I had to get the camera really close so haven't been able to take a unit or comparison shots that I would like. Maybe when my real camera comes back. 

There were a few characters in the Kickstarter which I wasn't really bothered about since I was looking for troops, but I enjoyed painting them anyways. A festive fool which I decorated in the same colours as the Longbeard heraldry to keep it bright but complementary. He'll be called Merrylion.

A female dwarf without a beard... maybe she shaves. In the army she's going to be the cousin of the general, King Grimmson.. so she's Lady Grimmsniece and the other dwarfs call her Mortissue. Apparently she likes her cosmetics.

Then there's this elegant gentleman. The second wizard in the force now, let nobody say the dwarfs don't know how to magick. Merlin would be an appropriate name.

As well as the Longbeards I picked up the dwarfs with bows as a small ranger/scout party. All the models are great, with just the right level of detail/kit to give interest without being too busy. They scale really nicely with the Marauder, Macrocosm and Assault Group models. One day I'll be able to do a side-by side shot.

Infamous dwarfs!