Dwarf Militia

Dwarf militia unit for Kings of War. Hard to believe I started this project three years ago then let it languish, but that's very me. One benefit of the KoW system is not having to remove casualties from a unit, so creating dioramas for units is viable and that really appealed to me.

I wanted it to feel ragtag, as though they're throwing armour on to protect their village, so it's deliberately a mix of various companies' models. There's old GW dwarfs and a ton of the Mantic ones, and some resin scenery from a terrain kit. There's no unifying paint scheme, with different shields and patterns on display, and even painting approaches differ, with NMM used on shields and smaller details, and metallic paints on weapons and helmets. With that said, cream and blue are the overall army colours, and present here in greater quantity than others, which would make sense for smaller family houses in a larger kingdom.

There's a limited number of poses with the Mantic dwarfs, and they're oft maligned as a result. I think the kits are well made but it definitely takes a little imagination to create sufficient differentation to avoid monotony. That will be an ongoing challenge through the army, but I welcome the challenge ... or at least I do at this point.

You can see multiple dwarf casualties propped up on the floor, with their fellow militia protecting them. There's a couple of dwarfs at the back ready to leap into the fray, or just looking after their stalls!

Dwarf Cannons

Another project lurking on my desk is my Dwarf army for Kings of War. The cannons are fun models, but the wood housing for the guns is very flat has almost no detail or grain pattern.

I painted up the three cannons and tried to make them a little more interesting by painting it as though it was a heavier wood grain on the front panel and wheels. While the cannons are all identical, the centre gun has some foliage atop it, as it though it was rushed out of a barn to defend the town. Affectionately known as Ol' Mossy now, it's my favourite of the three.

The Mantic studio paintjob (below) demonstrates how boring the housing is as a sculpt. I'm surprised they opted for brown and more brown as a colour scheme as it does nothing for the model, which is a shame as it's quite nice. How brown? I feel like I've loaded up Age of Conan again after all these years.

Happy new year

 Here we are in 2024. We made it, well done.

2023 was probably the worst year of my life from both a personal and professional perspective. I won't dwell on the negatives, other than to say we're through it and I hope never to repeat the experiences, but it was a year where I was reminded how fortunate I am to be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

With that done, let's move onto the goals for this year ...

40k: Saim Hann Eldar

Yes, it's finally time to get these moving! After spending time in 2020 and 2021 collecting all the old metal Eldar, I started them in early 2022 then put it on hold in a fit of pique when GW released new plastics and suddenly everyone was excited by Eldar, and I sulked. Apparently I'm a grown man.

Kings of War: The Midden, Dwarfs

I spent a lot of time building these but painting halted and I'm excited to get round to finishing them. They are repetitive sculpts, but with a few donations from good friends I've mixed up a few elements to break up the monotony of the seven sculpts in the box. The fact you can field a legal unit of 20 with only 16 models, and don't remove a model from the unit, gives great scope for vignettes.

Age of Sigmar: Hammerhal Aqsha, Cities of Sigmar

I was enamoured with the release, and ... well, you know the story. Man buys box, man builds box, man stops and moves to another project.

I have other plans as well, but with far less structure currently. So let's start here and see where it takes us.

Rank and file dwarf army

Recent quietness is simply that. Quiet. Work has been time consuming, as have a number of real life activities. While I've been working on projects, there isn't anything finished to share yet. But in the spirit of posting something so I don't forget ... I've started a dwarf army for Kings of War. The system appealed to me for a few reasons:

• I had a hankering for a rank and file army, and with no Warhammer Fantasy system available at the moment, this came to the fore.
• The rule set is well regarded for pick up and play - it's one rulebook for everything.
• The units' damage isn't measured by removing models, so every unit can be its own diorama! How exciting.
• Last point is worth reiterating again. Every unit can be a fun story.
  

This is the progress to-date of the unit bases (and spares) and the scenic bases they'll all sit on when not in play. It's going to be a ruined dwarf town. Here's my work in progress in reverse order and you may wish to scroll to the bottom and walk up to the latest.

Bottom left corner is my test piece that's usally a step or two ahead of the rest to try out ideas before committing them to the rest of the pieces.

Browns on the earth. There'll be a lot of static grass added later, but it still needs colour underneath that.

Zenithal priming just to help with tonal variation.

I love the Rubble City basing from Fenris Games, but wanted to add a little more detail on steps and around bases to make it feel integrated. Lot of cork, gravel and sand thrown on over PVA and superglue.

With the display bases done, onto the unit bases. Also a few spares made up.

There's a simply joy to priming everything and unifying the materials. Also helps to bind the finer textures together.

Keep adding PVA and sand until happy. With hindsight I went a little OTT here, so a lesson for future display boards.

Can't have too much PVA!

More texture with cork and gravel to hide the flagstone edges.

Texture and different surfaces is important, so I used a patterned roller to add flagstones.

Found some nice civilian fantasy village terrain pieces which will make an appearance on the board when everything's finished.

Balsa wood edging around the tiles to keep them in one piece. 123 blocks just to get nice neat edges. You can see me testing a couple of the unit base sizes to ensure they'll fit properly.

PVA the whole surface then glue the resin scenery on top and leave overnight to stick properly.

Basic foam squares of 24x24cm contstructed. Three will fit in a nice row on a double-width bookshelf.