The Chaos Dwarfs are done!
It’s taken me a while but I’ve finally completed the team.
This team beats my Chaos Pact model wise as the most diverse taking parts from forgeworld, gaspez arts, WHFB, 40K, goblinforge and AoW.
I’m particularly pleased with the hobgloblins as I’ve always felt those models tend to let the team down in many ranges. They are fodder so shouldn’t outshine the dwarfs, but the grey skin works well to tie them into the team’s colour scheme.
The last outstanding model is the minotaur. After making the clawed chaos dwarfs have a more technological mutation I wanted to carry that technological theme over onto him too. Originally i has envisaged him in a running pose, but the model was already a bit unwieldy for play and that would have hidden more of the interesting detail which is on the front.
I’ve made the left arm a pincer which is a little ambiguous so it can be either a normal arm or a claw. The rider is made from the original top half of the bull centaur with arms from a sentinel pilot and legs from an AoW slayer.
With them done I've turned my attention to the Lizardmen and have got quite a lot done this month. All 6 Saurus are complete, including bases. In keeping with the more realistic look of the skinks they are darker in colour but use all natural colours.
This just leaves the 4 stars and Krox, I have completed 1 of the slann stars already.
Since he is froggy I went for a lighter tone on him and since he's a star he got some gold edging on his shoulder pads but kept the natural colours.
I’ve also been asked to paint up the 1st prize for the NAF Championship. The only recommendation is that it should be tier 1 or 2. This did cause a bit of a rethink as the 5 teams I’ve still not done yet are flings, goblins, ogres, vamps and slann. Even though I have most of the bits, my vamp and slann teams are both quite involved projects which I may not be able to do properly in the time.
I considered a few options but finally settled on Dwarfs, the 1st team I had converted and painted up 12 years ago. The plan is to make a deathroller, 2 blitzers, 2 slayers, 4 runners and 8 linemen. If I have time I’d like to do a display base, some stars and re-roll/turn/score markers too.
Now the observant amongst you will have noticed I’m doing 4 runners, there is a good reason for this as these won’t be ordinary boring dwarfs but frenzied, drunken, pillaging, Norse Dwarfs! I’m aware that Dwarfs are very much a hated team so thought this would give the winner the ability to play 2 different teams with the same models.
So below is my test lineman/longbeard.
The team will be made up as follows
Longbeards/Linemen – A mixture of AoW slayer and ironbeard parts, emphasis on the horned helms.
Blitzers/Berserkers – Same as above but using the ironbreaker heads, maybe with gauntlets and 2 shoudler pads.
Runners/throwers – same as linemen but in throwing poses with winged helm, and gloved hands.
Runners - same as linemen but in catching or running poses and bare head
Ulfwereners/slayers – The AoW slayers converted into wereslayers, bestial faces and lots of body fur!
Snow Troll/Deathroller – initially this was going to be another mechanical beast, but I’m thinking a conversion of the
Dark Eldar Clawed Fiendwith a rider or maybe some bionics.
What really sold me was an article I saw on Warseer about how to do ice bases. So I've spent the last couple of weeks acquiring all the stuff I need. The process is very long winded as you need to leave the material to dry for 24 hours at a time but I think it is worth it.
Test base below.
For stars we already have some crossover
Boomer – dwarf with bomb (or snow balls?) Use the shells from the Dwarf cannon and mask
Flint/helmut – dwarf with chainsaw (or ice saw?)
Zara – Valkyrie, either based on Queen Helga or human sized using saint Celestine or khornate heroine
Morg – A Viking ogre, not really a fan of this as he may look too cartoony
The others are
Barik – dwarf with bazooka, no great ideas for him
Icepelt – a bigger version of the snow troll, again no great ideas
Grim/Wilhelm – a bigger slayer were, either using grim or a more dynamic Garagrim. This has potential.