Hello and welcome back!
A while ago I procured a small box of dwarfs, more specifically, the massive battalion box that GW released for Warhammer: The old World. And a king and thane box. And a cannon box. And some 3D sculpts. Yeesh!
Funnily I got inspired by all the nice armies on reddit on r/bugmansbrewery and posted a few pictures there. These pictures are now my most upvoted post on reddit!
The Dwarfs are one of my favorite factions, along with The Empire and Bretonnia, so this was quite the no-brainer to get. I also got the fantastic King and Thane box, and managed to snag a box of cannons as well.
What you can build with this is quite spectacular. It comes with 64 infantry models (32 melee, 32 ranged) that can in my opinion be built interchangeably with another without much greenstuff. Additionally, some models on the sprue have a cloak sculpted on the miniature, and thus can be used to model one of the best units in the Dwarf range; the ranger.
This box has also another great unit up their sleeve. The Gyrocopter/Gyrobomber is a dual kit that can make either of the units. The current consensus of the rules is that the smaller cheaper Gyrocopter is far superior, but this might change in the future with rules changes or a new edition.
I have also made some 3D printed additions to the army. The Hammerers block and my Irondrakes are wholly 3D printed. Out of scale to boot. Really measure twice kids when doing this kind of stuff. At least it does not show up too much when playing, as they are a bit offset with a lower profile base.
Painting
This army is quite special to me, as I did not use any kind of washes or speedpaints. Instead I opted to use my Scalecolor 75 paints that I got in a used haul on the local marketplace. And boy do I like them.
If you like I can give you the paint recipe, as writing it all would take some time. If you find anything that pique your interest, do comment and I can tell you the specifics.
Army composition
The boxes where constructed as follows:
10 Rangers;
made from the models sculpted with a cloak and arming the with the crossbows from the quarreler sprue. On their back they have Great weapons, because why not.
16 Thunderers;
2 units of 8 with full command, one musican is from their own set and the other from the dwarf warrior sprue. This gives a little bit of variation in the unit.
16 Dwarf warriors;
Modeled with the Great weapons for that little bit of combat Oompf. As they will most often be charged and strike last in the combat anyway, the Great Weapons give them a healthy bit of AP and Strength to give the enemy a serious case of open bleeding, fatal wounds.
2 Gyrocopters;
A great cheap unit, and the fastest one in the roster, it can Fire and flee to increase its survivability and screen the rest of the line. Can also go aggressively and hunt spell-casters. Remember to make helicopter noises when they move and charge!
1 Thane/ king;
Standard Thane/king with shield. Nothing fancy.
1 King/thane;
The Shieldbearers give a chunk of Wounds and Attacks, so a recommended choice for the noble King/Thane indeed.
2 Organ guns / cannons;
The Guns are not glued together and can be assembled as either. The cannons seem to be the better choice, but it might change.
1 Thane and 1 Engineer;
The additional thane is for splitting the warriors in two groups if need be, or if I need another character on the board. The Engineer is Kitbashed together from a warrior body, quarreler pistol and mask and wrench from the cannon crew. Gives boons to the cannons and can be upgraded to multiple shots 2 and 2D3 hits on them. The Thane is considered to be a better platform for this with one better ballistic skill but is 10p more.
24 hammeres;
3D printed too big, and as such they are quite unwieldy to base and align. These are a Dakkadakka sculpt with quite a bit of modifications made by me. The Hammers on the original sculpt were too big, so only my champion wields one of them.
10 Iron Drakes;
2 units of 5 with only a champion to get the trollhammer torpedo. Again Dakkadakka body with a lot of modifications. I didn’t like their flamethrower so found a skyhook on Thingverse and modeled it to my liking. The only bummer is that I should have made them smaller and opted for the rounded helm for them all to make them stand out more to the Hammerers.
This leaves me with about 20 of spare bodies on sprue to still be able to modify the composition further as the need arise. Not bad!
Points
That’s a lot of models, but how many points is there?
Well! This clocks in at 2118p with modeled weapon choices. And funnily enough for a 2000p game, This is not enough points for the CORE requirement, by 3 points. But who takes core without shields?
All in all with Banners, runes, equipment and drilled & veterans rules this should be more than enough to go to 2500p at least.
Quite The exiting army I must say!
Which unit did you like best?
Until next time!
Cheers!
-Marc
Good Enough Hobbies 