In celebration of the season, a nice little diorama of dwarves welcoming in the Yule Beer. I dunno about you, but I always loved seeing the little Christmas Village scenes at the local hobby store when I was a kid. Seeing model trains run through intricately detailed miniature landscapes was probably one of the things that spurred me into our hobby.
I played WHF before breaking into 40k, and the dwarves, as an army and a miniatures choice, will always be near and dear to my heart. Having missed out on the first few incarnations of the White Dwarf himself, I picked this one up on the anniversary of WD magazine (which, coincidentally, I no longer buy b/c of the price and poor content quality):
Their "official" paint scheme for the model is anything but white, so I immediately painted him grey-white as appropriate. Not the most contrasty paint scheme, but he's called the White Dwarf, which I assume doesn't refer to him being an albino pygmy dressed in reds and greens. All three figs and the shield were painted separately, and the shield required some major pinning to make it structural. If I ever field a WHF dwarf army again, this model will stand for my general. The published rules for the actual legendary trio are pretty unbalanced (and fun) but I don't see ever using those on the battlefield.
The beer cart I made for use in playing the first part of the magazine campaign Bugman's Lament, in which you have to defend a beer shipment trundling its way across the battlefield. I'd always hoped the dwarves would gain a beer cart as a chariot choice when the codex was rewritten, but oh well. I still had a lot of fun making this model from bits and bobs, not to mention forgotten minis found in the dark recesses of my local game store. The cart and barrels are from the Mega Miniatures Dungeon Decor line.
Sharp eyes will notice the dwarf as converted from a standard bearer, with the mastehead cut off and shaft bent back into a whip. I cut and reposed the feet, too. The strongbox beneath his bench came from a Grenadier ogre, I think. Those horses were packaged in loose baggies and sold for $3 apiece, and the yoke connecting them to the cart is made of sprue. The stowage hanging off the sides came from the Mordheim Dwarf Treasure Hunters, among other things.
Because this photo series was done on my kitchen table instead of the lightbox, the lighting here isn't choice, and the colors are getting a bit washed out. Mea culpa.
The idea of the scenario was to get as many beer carts as you could past the intervening goblins and off-board. I went beer cart-light and escort-heavy, opting to blast as many gobbos as I could with Thunderers, and block off any trolls with heavy-armored fighters and a Slayer or two. The special rules for the scenario said you could mount a Thunderer on the cart and fire his weapon in addition to the drover's while on the move, so I did just that. It was touch-and-go for a couple of rounds, but I managed to pull off a win, thanks to the low leadership of the gobbos and the stupidity of the trolls.
The supporting cast for this little diorama is a nice little cross-section of my dwarf collection. Another Bugman is in there, accompanied by Malakai Makaisson and a bunch of artillery crewmen and clansmen. The two female dwarves are from Reaper Miniatures fantasy line, not to mention being out of the ordinary as dwarf minis go. You don't usually see a buxom dwarf rogue, not to mention a firey Runesmith (Runesmithstress?) in GW armies, and more's the pity.
Lastly, the buildings. Made from styrofoam, modelling tallus, sprue, and dozens of other bits and bobs. I plan to do a detailed post about them later, since I love working on terrain and don't do it often enough (mostly because I have no place to keep it).
Merry Christmas to all of you and your families. Hopefully this holiday season you're getting together and crashing your armies against one another over some spiked eggnog :)
2 comments:
And you! I'm sure you know, unlike most readers, that GW did once release female Dwarfs, as they did female Orcs...I may have some I can try and find. Be interesting?
Were those campaign rules in a very old WD? Or more recent? I distinctly recall such a campaign in the mid90's, but that doesn't seem to be what you mean.
It's from the mid 2000's. I think I may even have the issues somewhere; the beer cart run was the first part. The second was a 1500 point assault on a dwarf keep, and the 3rd was a 2000-2500 point assault on Bugman's Brewery, and came complete with updated rules for the old Firethrower models. My old buddy Bryan and I played the first two, (in which the dwarves got a win and draw, respectively) but he moved to CA before we got to the third :(
Female orks? Yeek! The only female dwarf I remember from the older range was the Queen Helgar one. Did they make others?
Post a Comment