(Extra) Spiky Chaos Dwarfs.

 Over the summer I have been concerned with several different projects, dipping into one or another as time went by. One of these has been my 2nd/3rd edition Warhammer Chaos Dwarfs.

Here is a link to the range:
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Chaos_Dwarfs

Whilst making steady progress with others things, I decided to tackle a range of miniatures which I have always liked, Citadel's C16/D3 Chaos Dwarfs from the 1980s. Now I have painted some of these in differing styles of the years, but I have never found the look I really wanted. Anyway, I sat down an thought about them and considered what I wanted from them. I came up with the idea that I wanted them to look dark armoured, spiky, and with some sort of red colour involved, but not to have them too overly detailed.

What I have settled on was to paint them black, with light gun metal/chain mail metallic paint, and any details a deep red moving into a blood red, but it was with the bases which I really wanted to make a statement. First of all I abandoned the 20mm square bases. I have always considered them far too small for the miniatures. So, with the current move to base a lot of miniatures on 25mm bases after the release of the new Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I chose 25mm square bases. These also link nicely to other Chaos ranges of the time. To give them that extra spiky feel, I added cut down cocktail sticks of various sizes poking up from the bases. My idea is that rather than natural defensive stakes/spikes (such as archer stakes) they are some sort of magical mutation of the ground of the Chaos Wastes. To add to that Chaotic feel, and to add that red look, I painted them and the earth red.

I am very pleased with how they look. They were fun to paint, and I have spent the last few evenings after work basing more, and cutting up more cocktail sticks. Also, to add to that Chaotic feel, I am adding some of Citadel's Chaos Familiars miniatures to the regiments.

Enjoy :)

Chaos Dwarf test models.

Kirgund Widowmaker.

Spikes Harveywotan.

Kaaos Armahand.

Scarsol Smashskull.

Rainhard Stump.

'Iron Clad Imp', for Citadel's Chaos Familiars range.

Chaos Dwarf Bazooka.
I tend to base war machines and artillery on round bases, rather than square, as I think they look better, and it differentiates them from infantry, etc.

The other side of the Bazooka.

Next update will probably be on some more of the infantry from Prince Wilhelm's army, although I have been painting a lot of Undead, some it might be some of those!

'The Book of Battalions': Peasants and archers of Prince Wilhelm's expedition.

 Now due to recent family events and other shenanigans, I have been in the curious situation of having lots of time and opportunity to paint, but very little time to actually sit down and blog about it! In fact, I have been painting a lot of varied and eclectic things, and have a backlog of photographing to do.

Now my current distraction is a project which I have wanted to start for a while, which is collecting and painting each of the armies in the 1st Edition Forces of Fantasy books supplement, 'The Book of Battalions'. Now there are eleven armies in the book, ranging from Goblins to Dwarfs to Slann, as well as Giants and Samurai! I have largely collected all the miniatures required, with only a few odds and ends to find, and I have kept true to the era and am using only miniatures from that era (late 1970s to 1984 inclusive). The miniatures are mainly Citadel, although some are from the other adjoining ranges which include Ral Partha, and Chronicle.

Anyway, I decided to start a little while ago with some of the Dwarfs from the Dwarfs of Horrorwell army just to paint some pre-slotta Dwarfs. However, I have started work on a complete army project, namely 'Prince Wilhelm's expedition'. This a a human, Hundred Years War/War of the Roses era human army, with an added (and annoyed!) wizard. It might seem strange to start with what is essentially an historical style human army, but I wanted to paint some medieval soldiers for fun, and so here they are.

As for painting, because I am using Citadels C26 Men at Arms range (still available from Foundry Miniatures), I opted for a War of the Roses look, with a little generic medieval feel about them. Basing wise, when I think of The War of the Roses era I always think of the first series of Blackadder, which was filmed in a bleak, muddy, wintry setting. Added to that is the snowy Battle of Towton. All of this convinced me that rather than go for the lovely bright medieval army fighting in summer pastures, it would be good to paint an army in snow, mud, and a little more shabby. Basing wise, I have opted for the big regimental sized bases, just to give them a good visual look. This is something I plan to do for all of the 'The Book of Battalions' armies. Don't worry, I am still painting other miniatures on 'proper', individual bases as well!
 
Enjoy :)

'The Book of Battalions'.

Prince Wilhelm's expedition: Battalion 1.

Prince Wilhelm's expedition: Battalion 2.

Prince Wilhelm's expedition: Battalion 3.

Longbows, led by Falstart.
I have based these on two bases suggesting 10 models per base, so I can increase the frontage for shooting, or deploy them separately.
There are lots of little puns, jokes, and references, in the army's description. Here the leader is named Falstart, a play on Shakespeare's Falstaff, as well as maybe 'false start', suggesting the archers shoot to early(?).

Falstart (centre) and half of his Longbowman. I chose a miniature for Falstart who was portly and drinking, like Falstaff. The Longbowman are in the livery of Cheshire, as taken from an illustration in the Osprey Book 'The English Longbowman: 1330-1515. 

More Longbowman.

Peasants, led by Will Nosedew.
These are a big regiment of 38 peasants, divided onto two bases for ease of movement.

Will Nosedew (centre), and some of the peasants.
I positioned the two peasants either side of Will to suggest they were in conversation concerning the dubious merits of them being in the army in the first place!

More peasants.

New update will be more of Prince Wilhelm's expedition, although I am also painting some Grenadier Fantasy Lords rang miniatures undead at the moment as well.

Chaos Dwarf Magma Cannon and Iron Daemons.

 A final and quick update on my 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle/Warhammer: The Old World Chaos Dwarfs. I painted these about a month ago and I haven't had the time to upload them to the blog until now. Since these I have been painted a few old Rogue Trader things, some old Perry Twins/Wargames Foundry C26 Medievals, as well as assembling and basing some Diehard Miniatures Eru-Kin, and Citadel C32 Slann. There's a lot of Slann.

Anyway, back to the Chaos Dwarfs. I love this range now (despite disliking it in the 1990s), and I learnt the appreciate the later Forge World (RIP!) range as well, to which these belong. Again, they are painted in the heavy rusty look with Citadels Typhus Corrosion. I really enjoy the look it has given these models, and how heavy it makes them feel. 

Enjoy :)

Two Iron Daemons and a Magma Cannon.
They are mounted on the Citadel Chariot sized bases.

Left side view with the dangerous looking magma holder.

Right hand side, with crew.
Again, a shocking lack of health and safety at work!

Top view.

Iron Daemon number 1.
Both Iron Daemons were purchased earlier this year, and were not in 100% perfect condition. This one has a damaged top of the smoke exhaust. I also had to disassemble it and reassemble it, and drill and pin it to get a better assembly, as well as re-attaching a couple of the wheels. 

The crew, hard at work.

Another crew photograph.

Iron Daemon number 2.
This one was in a terrible state, not only missing the unnecessary exhaust railing, but the chain linking the wheels. All but one of the wheels had fallen off too!

Rear view.

Next update could be on anything. As mentioned, I have been doing all sorts of things. I am currently basing a lot of Slann at the moment.

Chaos Dwarf Hell Cannon and Earthshakers.

 More Chaos Dwarfs, this time some of the heavy artillery, with two of the 1990's Earthshaker Cannons, and a Hell Cannon.

I mounted the Earthshaker Cannons on 150mm by 100mm bases to simulate the footprint of the Forge World Earthshaker. In addition I borrowed an idea from one of the Chaos Dwarf Facebook groups and added an Ogre loader to each using 'era appropriate Ogres' from the early/mid 1990s. I also secured them all to the bases to give them the look of a diorama. I shall be adding banners to the Earthshkaers at a later date. My plan is to add all of the banners to the army in one go once it has been completed.

As for the Hell Cannon, I mounted that on the same sized base as the easthshakers, but vertically. I purchased the Hell Cannon second hand from e-bay, and it was missing the crew, and some of the chains. I replaced the crew with one spare Earthshaker crewman, and two 1990s Bloodbowl players. I didn't bother adding new chains, I just assumed this Hell Cannon was a little more well behaved, perhaps trained the Barabara Woodhouse way, as older readers of this blog may recall!?

Enjoy :) 

Hell Cannon, and two Earthshakers.

Left side view.
I left off the Chaos star symbols from the wheels as I wanted to have a more mechanical look to it, and to tie in with the cogs and bits on the bases. 

Right side view.

Top, showing the metal daemon skull.

Close up of the tormented souls inside. I opted for a blood red look to tie in with the rest of the red in the army, and to give an icky feel to the cannon.

The first Earthshaker.

On one of the Facebook groups someone used this Marauder Ogre as an Ogre loader. I thought this was a fantastic idea and looked good. The scale armour really ties in with the Chaos Dwarfs.

Chaos Dwarfs carrying the shell.

The corroded gun barrel.
I wanted to keep the rusty theme of the army with the gun barrel, but didn't want to have it look like rusty iron, which I didn't think would make sense for a cannon. I didn't want a verdigris bronze either. So I painted the barrel Typus Corrosion, lightly painted it Retributor Armour, and then, before it dried, wiped some of it off to leave a pitted mix of the two.

The second Earthshaker.

Another Marauder Ogre being used as an Ogre loader.

More crew.

The other gun barrel.

Next update will probably be some more Chaos Dwarfs. I have been painting a lot of different things recently, and so have a backlog of photographs to add to the blog, so I shall started with the last few Chaos Dwarf items I have painted, and then update on the other things through July and August, mainly Rogue Trader, and 2nd/3rd Edition Fantasy Battle stuff.

Chaos Dwarf Axemen with big hats.

 I have finished painting my 4th edition Chaos Dwarf Axemen. There are five regiments of 20 in each, each with a leader, standard bearer, and musician. Four of the regiments are made up from the plastic axeman miniature, with metal command figures. The fifth regiment is purely metal, with a mix of the metal axemen and command. Three of the plastic regiments leaders are one each of the limited release Warhammer Quest Chaos Dwarfs. The remaining plastic regiment, and the metal one both have the widely released leader miniature with curved sword and shield.

Painting them was pretty easy to do, and quite fast. This meant I wasn't bogged down in painting and didn't get distracted by other things, and that I enjoyed painting them a lot more. The four plastic regiments were all painted in the rusty style I have chosen as an army theme. The metal regiment I painted a dark bronze to differentiate their look the from other regiments as they are supposed to be wearing Black Shard armour. I kept the paint scheme simple, rusty (or bronze) armour, red clothing, red axe shafts, and black (but dusty) boots.

Decoration wise I used a pile of old 1990s Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors box set shields which I have had laying around for many years. I think that the shields suit the Dwarfs and look good with the rusty look. There are three regiments with the various skull and bones decoration, and two regiments with plain shields one with normal sized shield. the other with smaller ones. I did this so I would not have any duplicates shield designs. I will be adding flags photocopied and painted from the Chaos Dwarf book once the whole army has been painted.

Enjoy :)

All five regiments.

All five regiments, in a battle line.

First regiment.
This is the regiment entirely composed of the metal Chaos Dwarf miniatures and will represent a regiment equipped with Black Shard armour.

The first of the plastic regiments, with a Warhammer Quest Chaos Dwarf Leader.

The second of the plastic regiments, with a Warhammer Quest Chaos Dwarf Leader.

The third of the plastic regiments, with a Warhammer Quest Chaos Dwarf Leader.

The fourth of the plastic regiments. This regiment has the more widely released Chaos Dwarf Leader armed with a curved sword and shield. The regiment also contains the converted musician.

Next update will probably be more chaos Dwarfs.

4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle / Warhammer: The Old World Legacy Chaos Dwarfs.

 With the release of Warhammer: The Old World, I have turned my attention to two of my more contemporary armies; Chaos Dwarfs; and the Tomb Kings. Now leaving aside the Tomb Kings for a while, my focus for the last few weeks has been the Chaos Dwarfs.

Basing was the first port of call. The new Warhammer has most of the infantry mounted on 25mm bases. I love this as I have thought that most miniature look better on 25mm bases. I always consider the 25mm round bases were a slightly cheating way of basing miniature on what I considered a better sized base. Anyway, now 25mm square bases are the norm, I was faced with re-basing the Chaos Dwarfs from the rounds with square. I didn't need to do this, but I like it better, and they look a lot better on them in my opinion, with more room to pose them.

Other items which required re-basing were the Bull Centaurs, which now have 50mm x 75mm, and the various artillery. The 1990s Bull Centaurs look a little small on the bigger bases, but with a little bases debris I'm not too worried. The Rocket Launchers are meant to be on 50mm x 75mm, with crew separate crew, but I just put them on the base together as it looks better to me. There is also an option for tinkering with the base sizes to make little dioramas, so I did this with the Earth Shaker and Hell Cannon, basing them on 120mm x 100mm. 

Aesthetically, I built up the bases a little with milliput, and many of them have a varying degree of GW skulls or watch parts added. I have done this to suggest the industrial wasteland of The Dark Lands around Zharr Naggrund and the plain of Zharr. In the painting of the Chaos Dwarfs I have kept to the colour scheme I chose when I first looked at this project a few years ago. I chose a rusty, industrial looking scheme. I think this fits with the evil industrial background of the Chaos Dwarfs, and it's quite unusual. I have tested it out on the Iron Daemons and it makes them look heavy.  Finally, I have change the Chaos Dwarfs flesh colour from the green I originally used, to a more pallid Caucasian tone.

Enjoy :)

A selection of infantry in the rusty look.
I will do proper updates on these a little later.

Wizards and Daemon Smiths.
The Sorcerer on a Lammasu was started ages ago, but I have never finished him. I quite like the 'newer' Daemon Smith miniatures.

Heroes.
I started the General on a Taurus but didn't like it and paint stripped him.
The chap on the right is going to be the Army Standard Bearer and is converted from a broken standard Bearer.

1990s plastic Axemen/ Infernal Guard.
These are a core bulk of the army, and were really quite quick to paint. I have used spare 1990s Undead shields for several of the unit to differentiate them from each other.

Metal Axemen/ Infernal Guard.
These will be normal Axemen/ Infernal Guard but equipped with Blackshard armour.

Test model for the above regiment.
I have used Warplock Bronze for the armour as it's meant to be more magical, and not really rusty.

Blunderbuss army Chaos Dwarfs.
I have organised these into regiments of 15. These were already largely completed some years ago. I have however re-based them, repainted the flesh tome, and given them a Nuln Oil wash since.

Infernal Guard with Fireglavies (WIP).

These too have Blackshard armour.

Bull Centaurs.
As can be seen, I have two regiments of 5, a Bull Centaur Taur'ruk, and Shar'Tor the Executioner.
I have painted a test model front row, second from the left.

Earth Shaker Cannons.
In the Legacy Army List these can mounted on a steam carriage, as per the later Forge World model, or not, as per the 1990s models. There is no base size for these, so I used the bases size closest to the Forge World model footprint, 120mm x 100mm.
In the new list you can also add an ogre loader. I saw someone on the Chaos Dwarf Facebook site who used the early 1990s Marauder Miniatures ogre with scale armour as he fitted the look and era of the miniatures. I used this idea for one, and used another Marauder Miniatures ogre from that time for the other.

Hell Cannon.
I love this miniature, and didn't realise how much of a beast of a miniature it was until I bought one second hand from e-bay. My one was missing the crew, and the securing chains, so I have just added 1990s Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarfs as crew. I didn't add the chaos stars to the wheels as I didn't want it to obscure the wheel details, and I didn't think they really needed to be on there.

When I took the Hell Cannon off of the base (none of the artillery are secured to the bases as of yet until they are painted) this is what I was left with. I looked at this and thought of the Chaos Dwarfs arguing:
Officer: "Well, where is it!? Where's it gone!?"
First Crewman: "I don't know, it was here when we broke for lunch"
Second Crewman: (shrugging) "Don't ask me, I have no idea. Lets just follow the trail of destruction and screams".

Death Shrieker Rocket Launchers.
 The far launcher was missing its wheels so I added some spare solid wheels.

Magma Cannon, and two Iron Daemon (WIP).
I have gone with the rusty look for these as with the rest of the army. I think that the Typhus Corrosion paint really gives them a heavy metallic feel.

Close up of one of the Iron Daemon.

Close up of the Magma Cannon.

Hobgoblins.
I have two regiments of 20 Hobgoblin Warriors, one regiment of 20 Hobgoblin Archers, 20 Sneaky Gits, and a Bolt Thrower.

Hobgoblin Khan and 5 Hobgoblin Wolf Riders.

10 Hobgoblin Wolf Rider Archers.
I shall probably split these into two units of 5 and use them to ride around harassing particular targets.

Ghazak Khan, and 8 Oglah Khan's Hobgoblin Wolfboyz.
These need repainting. I might just use these as normal Hobgoblin Wolf riders rather than Dogs of War.

The Chaos Dwarf book!
Despite working from the Legacy Army list, and painting the Chaos Dwarfs rusty rather than than 1990s red, it is always great to refer back to this book for fun.

Next update will be more Chaos Dwarfs.