+ inload: Post-Sanguinalia hobby +

+ New year and a reboot of the Visualiser Engine +

+ Reboot from start +

The appearance of a new Rubricist/autoscribe miniature (see below) seemed like a good excuse to look again at the visual side of the blog, so today you can see an example of what I'm thinking of rolling out.


Hopefully it's familiar enough that any long time Rubricists will know where things are, but a bit easier on the eyes. I've also restricted the old font (twelve years of which has made me inordinately fond) to the headings and bits of particular emphasis:

+ Like this +

... in order that the overall experience is a bit easier on the ol' occulobes. Happy to hear any thoughts or objections – otherwise, on with the show!

+++

+ Work progresses on my Legio Metalica maniple for Beachhead. Just a month to go, and plenty to paint – yikes! +

Perhaps fittingly for raising God-Engines, it's proving quite the logistical task, as I've opted to part-build them, leaving sub-assemblies for painting. This is further complicated by the need to unpack and sort at the start of every session, and tidy everything away after each session, all of which eats into the available time. None of this is conducive to getting good pict-captures!

However, the good news is that the substructure of each Titan is now assembled and his its base coats applied – as in the example of Old Three Skulls above. I've used various dark metal mixes, broadly a combination of Black Legion Contrast, Leadbelcher, Burnt Sienna and silver calligraphy ink, which gives a nice muted old metal. Over this I've applied a variegated wash of Seraphim Sepia and Druchiii Violet (i.e. I add spots of each colour, and allow them to mix into each other on the surface, without intentionally mixing them too much).

The red is a coat of Mephiston Red over Colour Forge's Sanguine Red. While the spray coats well, a thin layer of paint applied with the brush helps to enrich the colour a bit. I want to keep it fairly vibrant, as I'm planning to apply some oil washes, which will mute things a bit.

+++

+ Lovely gifts +

Blessed fellow that I am, I was very pleased to get a Reaver for Christmas – already assembled, as part of the Iron Skulls above – and these chaps, too:

Regular inloaders may well remember the Throng of Nog, and the new plastic releases for classic dawi are right up my street. Delighted with this kit, which sums up everything I like about dwarfs. I couldn't resist a little conversion work; namely trimming down the headdresses so that the underlying structure of the crown/helms are a bit more apparent for this cyng/thegn.

The bearers are lovely little figures in themselves, with lots of cool details like a the hold's Book of Grudges (visible here on the bearer on the left), and a beer tankard.

+++

...and unrelated to anything except my love of cool sci-fi miniatures, I couldn't resist picking up these two, from the recent Inquisition set for Kill Team.

+++

+ inload: Musings on the Leagues of Votann +

+ Leagues of Votann +

+ A Squat conversion [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – that will now become a Hearthykyn +

Squats are back... or have the Warhammer dwarfs made their way into the 41st Millennium? Or are the Leagues of Votann something else entirely?  

This inload muses on the way that GW are approaching the Leagues, and how they relate to the Squats and other Dwarfs in Warhammer. Thought I'd throw it up here to hear your thoughts (and show off some of my dwarf models!).

+ Aesthetics of the League of Votann +

Anecdotally (that is, from what I've read here and on similar online spaces) the reaction to the aesthetic of the Leagues of Votann has struck me as mixed rather than actively hostile or frothingly enthusiastic (though there are obviously exceptions to this). Although a lukewarm or hesitant reaction might seem a bit of a downer, I think that's actually a pretty good result for GW, I think. Familiarity breeds positivity, and the previews have been met with (again, anecdotally) less vehement opposition than the Tau did when they were introduced. 

I don't want to dwell too much on this, as I want to discuss archetypes, but wanted to head off too much discussion on the aesthetics except where they relate to archetypes – or in other words, how they relate to what we (as painters, gamers and collectors) expect.

+++

+ Dwarfish archetypes +

Dwarfs of one sort of another pop up in folklore all across the world, but I think it's fair to say that Warhammer dwarfs mostly draw from a well filled by the European tradition of dwarfs as small, cunning cthonic spirits – ugly craftsmen elves. Perhaps the clearest and most direct inspiration for the old Warhammer dwarfs are Tolkein's dwarves. European folklore is surprisingly flexible on what makes a dwarf; some were implied to be larger than humans, for example, or more akin to what we'd probably now call 'spirits of earth', rather than physical creatures.

+ Burly, heavily armoured fantasy Dark Age warriors – who happen to be short +

What we – that is, inloaders here and hobbyists more generally – expect from dwarfs is likely coloured, particularly by Warhammer Dwarfs. A lot of the established imagery has been gradually refined for the past hundred years or so, until nowadays I think you could probably ask pretty much anyone, young or old, to draw a 'fantasy dwarf' and get something fairly similar: small, short-limbed, probably bearded. 

For anyone with a deeper interest in fantasy – be it literature, roleplaying or folklore – I think you could probably refine this to include a gruff, perhaps short-tempered character; greedy and avaricious, with a deep reverence for riddles and rules. They might swindle you, but they'll follow the letter of the law while they do so.

Beyond this, the common archetypes become more refined and specific; less useful in analysing 'dwarfishness', but better for creating something with its own identify and character. What I'd like to discuss is:

• Are there more archetypes? What makes a dwarf a dwarf?
• How do the Leagues of Votann relate to these?
• Is it a good thing for them to be distinct from the Squats?

+++

+ What makes a dwarf a dwarf? Archetypes and peripherals +

I'd argue that all of Games Workshop's dwarfs stem from Tolkein first and foremost. The dwarfs of the Old World show this most clearly. Starting out as essentially 'expys', they gradually developed their own character, but less so than (say) Warhammer Orcs. Dwarfs from the Warhammer world were reliable (to a fault), honour-bound, deeply respectful of age and tradition. They were master craftsmen, intelligent (but not necessarily wise), secretive and defensive in nature, and well-equipped and armoured. Physically, they were short, but stocky; tough and enduring and slow. These are (some of) the refined archetypes of the Warhammer dwarfs.

+ Warhammer Dwarfs – stoic, stolid, (dare I say?) doughty. And with more than a few beards, pipes and tankards of beer scattered about. +

Many of the other aspects that I associate with dwarfs – beards, underground fortresses, a longing for a past golden age, axes, beer, hatred of elves and greenskins, distrust of magic,  etc. – stem from these, but I think they're more peripheral than the core archetypes above. (I'm open to discussion on that, of course!) I'll call these 'peripherals' in the rest of this post.

The distinction between archetypes and peripherals is simple – but I hasten to add that much of my list is purely personal. Beards, for example, seem to have popped up in discussion so much as 'core to dwarfs' that it's very easy to argue they're archetypal. I'd very mcuh like to hear your thoughts.

Why's this important? Well, consider the other Dwarfs of Warhammer – the Chaos Dwarfs and (to a lesser extent) the Norse Dwarfs and Blood Bowl Dwarfs. All Warhammer dwarfs shared the archetypes listed, but the peripherals varied somewhat.

+++

When it came to developing the Squats in 40k, I think many of the core archetypes got a bit muddled, and I wonder if that's why the GW studio ultimately felt a bit hampered in not knowing where to take them. Where the Old World dwarfs had a firm anchor, the squats were a bit torn between their inherent 'conservative scepticism' and the need to do something new. Lots of peripherals were bolted on – the bikes, for example – but the peripherals were torn between pseudo-Tolkein anglo-saxon/norse, greasy-leathered bikers and short Imperial Guardsmen.

Epic seemed to grasp the archetypes a bit better – perhaps because ancient, slow, tough super-heavy vehicles are a good analogue of many of the archetypical elements: essentially beautifully-crafted mobile fortresses. Here, the biker guilds were less obviously distinct – the scale making the aesthetics less jarring – and so the range held together well.

When 2nd edition 40k rolled round, the few previewed 40k-scale squats seemed to have stabilised a bit, refining the angle pioneered by Epic, and leaning back towards the Anglo-Saxon/Norse vibes and away from outlaw bikers – in short, getting closer to the Warhammer dwarf archetypes listed above. Whether this would have turned things around was never to be determined, of course, as the faction faded away.

+++

+ Age of Sigmar and dwarfs +

Age of Sigmar saw a real shaking up of the factions, with many factions taking a deliberate step away from the peripherals of their previous incarnations. This was, to my mind at least, a positive thing. While I very much like the Old World aesthetic, it was ultimately reductive. The accretion of years of real world development (and peripheral additions) had painted the world into a (very cool) corner that made expansion difficult. 

At the root of this discussion is my claim that the peripherals make sense because of the archetypes, whereas the archetypes make sense because they're culturally familiar. To take Warhammer trollslayers as an example, they build on the cultural pressures facing Warhammer Dwarfs specifically: in a world of ultra-reactionary traditionalism and a culture of honour and oaths, if something dishonourable happens, there's no way out for a dwarf. The solution? The ultra-specific trollslayer peripheral concept.

That peripheral concept doesn't work quite so well if stripped out of its archetypal context, and I think that's part of why the first Age of Sigmar dwarfs – the Fyreslayers – had (again, anecdotally) a similar lukewarm reaction among the fanbase as the Leagues of Votann are receiving. With the benefit of ten years of hindsight, and with the Age of Sigmar setting built up around them, I think the Fyreslayers have actually made clearer a lot of the links to the archetypes – and that's something that I think GW are doing a bit better with the Leagues of Votann, 'preparing the ground' with lore previews.

+ I converted these Fyreslayers to better fit my preferred aesthetic – but I'm glad there are multiple options for people to choose from. +

Compare the reception the Fyreslayers had with the Kharadon Overlords. The latter took a very different spin on the common archetypes, presenting us with a Ghibli-esque art-deco steampunk aesthetic. On the one hand, that's quite a bold change – but on the other it actually hews very closely to the archetypes. I'd argue that the Kharadon Overlords, while being visually quite radically different from the Dwarfs of the Old World, better captured the list of archetypes below than the Fyreslayers did on release:

'reliable (to a fault), honour-bound, deeply respectful of age and tradition. They were master craftsmen, intelligent (but not necessarily wise), secretive and defensive in nature, and well-equipped and armoured. Physically, they were short, but stocky; tough and enduring and slow.'

To me this suggests that the Leagues of Votann are more likely to get a positive reception if they manage to hit the list of archetypes relates to Warhammer dwarfs, rather than being an update of the rather muddled Squats. Note that this is largely separate from the aesthetics, as I note at the start. There's overlap, sure, but I want to avoid conflating the core underlying concepts (i.e. the direction GW are taking) with the reflection of those concepts (i.e. how that's shown in the models) – there's a separate topic for that, and how successfully that's achieved.

+++

+ ...And back to the Leagues of Votann +

+ Hearthkyn from WarCom +

Thanks to the GW previews, we're starting to get a good idea of how the Leagues range is going to look as a whole. Right at the start of this diatribe post I said that the reaction to the Leagues aesthetic was mixed, but also that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Here, I'd like to draw some lines between what we've seen thus far, and how they relate to my list of archetypes above:

• The Votann themselves – I think these are a brillant sci-fi re-imagining of lots of the Warhammer dwarf archetypes, touching on veneration of age and secrecy, and crafting ability. I also think the fact that they're slowly failing is a good peripheral narrative angle for the faction. It's also a fantastic exploration of 'intelligent, but not necessarily wise'. The Votann have the semi-mythical feel of 
• The Hearthkyn and Hearthguard warriors – definitely hit the 'well-equipped and armoured' angle, and also hit the physical archetypes for me. 
• The Ironkyn are a nice nod to master crafting, and more deeply, I think that they reflect the 'magical craftsmen' concept of older dwarf archetypes too – the sort of dwarfs that make magic items for gods. It's a nice twist to have what are 'far future' concepts to us be 'ancient history' to the Leagues.
• Hernkyn Pioneer – to me, this is slightly at odds with the 'defensive' and 'slow' archetypes that I suggested above, but does hit the crafting angle, if only obliquely.
  
• The Sagitaur better interprets the archetype of 'defensiveness', being a well-armed transport that's rugged and reliable.

Overall, I think the things we're missing, or are less obvious from the list are more about character: reliability, cunningness, honour-bound and intelligent. These are aspects that I'm hoping are explored a bit more in the lore and particularly in the Codex. I'd like to hear how the Leagues relate to the other xenos – while it's peripheral (I'd argue) that dwarfs hate elves and greenskins, it's an angle that was front and centre for the Squats.

This is what's most exciting me at the moment about the Leagues – how closely will they hew to the Warhammer Dwarf archetypes above, how will they explore and expand on that to make a unique creation – and what, if anything, will they draw from the Squats?

+++

+ Conclusions +

So, the ideas are laid out above. I'm very happy to discuss whether my list of archetypes is too broad, or too narrow – or even misses the point – but I hope that it provides a good place to start discussions on what you consider core to the idea of space dwarfs, and what you'd like GW to be more exploratory with. Most importantly, what you'll do with the models GW are presenting to us. :)

+ inload: Diversity and uniformity +

+ Diversity and uniformity +

+ One of the most appealing parts of collecting and painting miniatures is that you can invest each one with character. Part of this character, of course, may rely on uniformity to suggest discipline – but rarely do you want literally identical figures side by side. How do you balance making models look like part of a group without making them boring to paint or look at? +

+ The modern dwarf models are a great case in point. They are very similar in pose and equipment – they're differentiated by little more than having four styles of heads and four weapon options across two boxes. It's quite limiting – particularly when I've been spoiled by the sheer cross-compatibility of ranges like orks, marines and guard. +

+ Both of the dwarf infnatry kits are, as with most multipart kits of their vintage, cross-compatible within the range. The Hammerer boxed set, for example, also builds Longbeards; but both Hammerer and Longbeard heads fit on the Ironbreaker bodies from the other box. +

+ You can introduce a measure of variety to a unit by including heads from as many different groups as possible. This gives a believable lack of uniformity to the unit – after all, if you call up troops from your lands and tell them to bring their gear, you're unlikely to have them all equipped with the same style of helm. It also adds some welcome variation in faces and heads, something that often makes multipart plastic kits less characterful than their one-off metal sculpts equivalents. +

+ That doesn't get you too far, however, and it can create an additional problem that you can no longer distinguish between different types of units within the army. This is where you can distinguish between functional differences – perhaps the particular weapon a unit uses – and purely aesthetic differences, such as the pattern of Space Marine armour, or design of a shield. +

+ As long as you avoid mix and matching the functional differences, playing around with aesthetics is great for visual variety. It will also hopefully be useful when playing games, making it clear where one unit begins and another ends. It's not just about bringing in elements from other kits, either – such differentiation can be made by intentionally limiting your options. +

+ Here, for example, I've used an ancestor face designs for all the shields, and further linked them with a yellow colour scheme. If you know you're going to be building an army using multiples of the same kit, pre-planning might be worth it. Picking a particular design of shield (or weapon, or helmet, or body style) for a unit offers a nice way to add some subtle character – and if you plan it carefully enough, using bits from different kits doesn't mine your bits stash: you simply use the bits left over from the first kit on the second. +

+ You often don't have to be completely exclusive; there are often sub-variants – the standard dwarf kits include a few ancestor head variants. Similar enough to hang together, but not completely uniform. +

+ inload: Are you a Catachan, or a Catacan't? +

+ If it bleeds we Catachan kill it +

+ No prizes for guessing who this Hasslefree miniature [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] represents. The first of those Rogue Trader-themed models I posted about recently to receive paint, he's proving good fun. The over-muscled arms and chiseled features make it fun to play around with lighting, giving an almost cel-shaded look at this stage. I'll be refining him with some highlights, but it's been good to get some variety in pinks and ochres to – hopefully – give some realism. +

+ Not sure how I'll tackle the fatigues etc. Urban or desert could work, letting him tie in respectively with my Red Hand or Imperial guard; but there's also the option of running with the jungle theme of the inspiration. +

+ The same painting session saw me tackle some beards and skin on the dwarfs – there's only tiny flashes of skin visible, but it'll all add up to a nice effect when they're finished (I hope). +

+ To avoid an uncanny-valley effect of models in particular units all having the same beard colour, I plucked random piles of models from across the army, and used slightly variations on a few 'core mixes'. That allowed me to do a sort of half-way house between batch painting and individualy focus. +

+ Further work necessary, but this is proving a marathon, not a sprint. I'm aiming to have 1,000pts finished for a PCRC 'parade' at the end of May, which is still looking fairly likely. +

 + To close, another shot of our 80s action hero. +

+ inload: painting dwarfs +

+ The dawi begin to assemble +

+ I can't decide whether this week has been productive or not. I was certainly hoping to have more done on my dwarfs – the background of which is being fleshed out on our sister blog The Tallowlands [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] – but I got fed up with batch painting and decided to paint some characters. +

+ The good news is thus that I've actually got a few models done, rather than lots half-finished – and owing to the way Age of Sigmar seems to involve lots of individual characters, I think they should be fieldable as-is. +

Strong features reward traditional techniques.

+ Anyway, I'll chat more about the background and rules over on The Tallowlands; here I just want to talk about the painting. I often find dwarfs really fun to paint, as they have relatively large heads with bold features – great to play around with skin mixes, and to enjoy working wet-in-wet. Assuming they're not helmed, details like eyes are relatively easy to paint in. +

 + All of the figures I've painted recently have used the same colours as the basis for their skin: Vallejo Off-white, Citadel Averland Sunset and a touch of Vallejo Flat Red – the latter is a very intense paint, so you really need tiny amounts, particularly when using a quite subdued yellow like Averland Sunset. +

+ I didn't want to use many washes, as they can flatten the highlighting, and I thought the features of these figures were defined enough to reward good old-fashioned painting. I therefore worked up from a underlayer. For these, I just grabbed any brown I could find – so there's a mix of Skrag Brown and Doombull Brown. +

Variations on a theme – different combinations of the same mixes were used for the skin on each dwarf.

+ The three colours listed above combine create to create quite ruddy-looking tones, which can easily be varied by introducing more yellow or white, or by using a different underlayer. Very little of the underlayer remains apparent after painting, but it ensures there's a flat, even surface to cover with translucent layers, and a deep value in any visible recesses. In turn, this increases the contrast so you end up with a punchy result without having to go back with washes and so forth to strengthen the values in the shadows. +

+ Working wet-in-wet simply means that I'm working fast enough to wet blend on the surface of the figure. If you're struggling with the speed it's drying, a wet palette will help to keep your palette mixture workable, while retarding medium will slow the paint drying both on the figure and the palette. +

+ I tend to instead use flow enhancer medium to keep the paint workable. It only slows the drying in the same way water does, but it helps to prevent any brushmarks by aiding the consistency. This means that the paint dries relatively quickly – good for repeated layers – but has a crucial few extra seconds of working time so you can work back into it without creating physical texture: something that will quickly ruin the finish. +

+ inload: Taking stock +

+ The Administratum have a lot to answer for +

+ State-mandated time off hasn't proven to be hugely conducive to my creativity, but having such an unusual stretch of time has given me the time to do a bit of housekeeping. When stuck for hobby motivation, I always find a bit of spring-cleaning remedial – you stumble over bits of projects that got put with something else for one reason or another, and taking a bit of time to get things back together is not only a good way to get rid of clutter, but to bring things together so that bursts of future enthusiasm aren't spent in trying to hunt down a vital bit. +

+ I started by clearing through the garage to rearrange my army cases and bits boxes – Guilliman himself would be proud of how well-ordered they are. I then turned my attention to the bureau where I do most of my hobbying, clearing off the desktop to allow space, and tackled the paint drawer. This had got very muddled; and it only took an hour or two to sort things back into a rough order – the spectrum of colours from left to right; black and white on the left; and oddments like inks and technical paints on the right. +

+ I also took the opportunity to check each paint for usefulness; combining pots of washes where I had duplicates, and tolling the great Bell of Lost Souls on Terra for those pots that had dried up or otherwise become unworkable [+bottom of pict-capture+]. A few irreplaceable veterans there... +

+++

+ Epic +

+ Cobwebs expunged, I dived into a small project – in more than one sense of the word – by building a Knight for Epic/Adeptus Titanicus, and constructing some 'forumware' third party Epic forces. These were one of those much-delayed projects that turned up during the tidy-up. Being unconnected to anything else, they were a nice sideline, and a good way to ease back into modelling. +

+ The Knights are nice models, but for whatever reason I can't get too enthused about them – after the pleasure of building their larger Titan kin, these seemed unnecessarily fiddly. This example didn't do too much to reignite my enthusiasm.  +

+ Talking of fiddly, these tanks and infantry avoided becoming tedious because they're just one or two parts. The plywood base toppers were a custom order from Litko, I think. They were ordered at the same time as the models themselves, so my mem-banks have failed, I'm afraid. +

+ Not quite sure how these'll get painted. An expansion for my existing Ultramarines army? A Word Bearers opposing force? Perhaps a mini version of my Gatebreakers? +

+++

+ Betrayal at Calth +

+ Next up in this exploration of enthusiasms was a dive back into the Underworld War between the Word Bearers and Ultramarines on Calth. I continued work on Captain Aethon [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] for the Betrayal at Calth boardgame. +

+ Not a great deal of progress, but the addition of arms and pauldrons makes him look a touch more complete. I'll be popping the pauldrons back off and working up some of the pteruges for the on the upper arms. Bits like this are a pain to kitbash – they rarely drape properly – so sculpting's the best option. +

+ The second angle shows Moricorpus, Aethon's combi-melta. I prefer the over-and-under approach to combi-weapons than the side-by-side arrangement, so used a combi-melta from the Mark IV (possible Mark III) plastics. +

+++

+ Batch-basing +

+ Building itch scratched, I wanted to get back into some painting. I felt the way to make the most of a bad situation was to use this opportunity to do the basing across my whole dwarf army [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. Even with a very basic basing scheme [ref: below], it's proving quite a task. +

Rocky soil makes for a good. quick and relatively anonymous basing
scheme that'll go well with the PCRC's other existing armies –
mainly undead and greenskins.

+ The scheme is:
_1 Texture the base with Golden Acrylic coarse pumice gel.
_2 Paint the base the Dryad Bark.
_3 Drybrush with Calth Brown (I intentionally stocked up on this wonderful paint when it was deleted alongside the other fantastic Foundations).
_4 Drybrush with a mix of Calth Brown and white.
_5 Paint the rims Dryad Bark.

This gives a quick, simple and fairly uniform result that I can spruce up at a later date with static grass, birch seeds (for fallen leaves) etc. 


+ An aside as to why Dryad Bark forms the basis of this scheme: I kept popping into the local shop, trying to find a replacement for the much-missed Scorched Brown, and repeatedly picked this up instead of Rhinox Hide, which (at home) I had thought would be closer to the colour I wanted at the time. For whatever reason, I kept having a mental blank, and assuring myself that Rhinox Hide was the one that I needed to avoid. This happened repeatedly, and checking through my paint drawer (see above), I found five pots of this damn unwanted colour. A salutary lesson in organising properly! Mea culpa... +

+ So far I've managed to get four score based, the majority of which are in the picture above. +

+ This picture shows the remainder of the force. The quarrellers at the front are also based, so it's just the regiment and personalities at the back that need to be polished off. Might even manage it tonight. +

+ ...and to round things off, a quick picture of a game-ready dwarf. A bit more spit and polish needed before I'm happy, but definitely serviceable. +

+ inload: The Throng of Nog +

+ The Throng of Nog +

Draw close, manling, and pass that well-water your brewer flatters with the name of ale.

Hm. 

Passable, after all. Perhaps I misjudge the children of Sigmar.

At the least, my throat is not so dry as it was. While the fire burns still, let me tell you a little. You have been hospitable to my sister in her illness, and my kin do not soon forget kindness. 

Of the Tallowlands, it is said the Star Giants drew their plough across these lands long ago; before even the raising of the Hold. The land buckled and melted in the heat, and the bones of the earth themselves grew soft and flowing. For two wholemoons the skies rained ash and fire as the plough drew slowly through the groaning ground. All who stayed on the surface perished. As the Giants passed, the land grew cold once more, and the mountains set into the soft rolling hills you see now.

Ages passed – of war and terror; long since passed into the myth of man. Then it was that our honoured ancestor, the first lord of the Nog, came into this land. It was hard, then, and bare: naught but thin grasses and heathers stretched across the moorlands, and the wind was chill.

Nog and his household found the great Scars; open still after all those years. Such deep chasms... They glittered with wealth undreamed of – before or since. Striking camp, the First Families staked their claims, and raised Nog to Cyng. An outpost was raised, that became a town, that became a great hold. And none too soon...

Then came the greenskin, and the silver-tongued infidious elves – and with them they brought their war...

+++

+ A little bit of painting last night allowed me to polish off ten more dwarfs for the long-in-preparation Throng. The annual tide of enthusiasm for Warhammer has risen in the PCRC of late – Lucifer216 has polished up a new undead army in the time it's taken me to do these, but dwarfs aren't fazed! +

+ The scheme's a bit of a random construction – suggested as much by the red undercoat I used as by anything else. In between Legio Sumer-Nikator, my Blood Angels and Word Bearers, I've been on a bit of red kick recently. +

+ In that lies a lot of the appeal of a Warhammer army: the chance for variety. These red-coated fellas can happily be a particular minor lord's retinue – The Scarlet Few of the Weartling Cwichelm, for example – without tieing me into painting the whole army this way. While you'd expect a sci-fi army like a Space Marine legion to demonstrate some form of uniformity, the same doesn't apply to a pseudo-dark ages force. Even if the lord dictates his men must wear red, then you'll likely have different hues due to different fabrics and batches of dyes, and even different interpretations of how to show this – from full custom plate armour to a simple scrap of cloth ties to a spearshaft. +

+++

'Who would tend the flocks? Who would nurture and harvest the barley? Answer that, and tell me what sort of dwarf would live wearing only ragarin, or worse, live without meat and bread and ale?

'No, of course not all dawi live in the holds – but nor again are all we hill-dwellers farmers. From the vorns and kazid of the Barrow Hills, the Throng of Nog draws many of its warriors. I am one such. Thrungling, I was; trained in axe and shield, as was my father and his father and his father before him, to the time of the Throngfounding.

'I served proudly besides my comrades. Firstly, as a road-guard for the caravans to the manling city of Yeld – for the plains and woodlands are full of brigands, aye; brigands and worse – all greedy for the ore and craftings of the Nog-folk. That is how I learned my craft for a five-year. Latterly, then, it was as mariner; on the trading route between kazid-Eo and kazid-Narya.

'Like many of my folk, I was a reluctant – though obedient – sailor, at first. Soon, though, I grew fond of the salt air, and the clear skies, and the many folk I met. It kindled a desire in me to see more. After my five-year was up, my lord the Weartling Cwichelm knew my mind and granted me therefore an akrak-baraz – a bond, that is – to enable me to travel.

'I have wandered since, my baraz a security and a provisioner for my household. I explore, I seek; I write to the Weartling of my encounters; and thus the map of our ancestors is expanded.'

+ inload: Catch-all +

 + Pondering the imponderables and taking stock +

+ No hobby should become a job; so I make no apologies that this inload's a bit diffuse – it's just a collection of odd thoughts and pictures that don't really warrant full inloads of their own. +

+ Combat Arena +

+ Hooray, I thought, as I saw an awesome Mechanicus model previewed last year. Boo, I thought, as I found out it would only be released in the US or Germany. A similar train of thought occurred when I found out – hooray – the model would be available locally after all... but only as part of a very expensive expansion to a game I don't own – booooo. +

+ In comparison to the closed, Stazi-like '**** you, peasants' attitude that GW had during the turn of the century, new GW is doing a great job; but with all the different (and, in fairness, fun) ways they're bringing models to the market, there are inevitably minor annoyances like this. +

+ I had resigned myself to waiting, as I'm sure the sprue will be available in some more affordable way one day, but then stumbled upon a box of the US-exclusive game on eBay for a decent price, and picked it up. I really liked Gorechosen – a very silly, very quick and very fun gladiatorial combat game – and this essentially looked like a reskin. +

+ Lovely delicacy and movement in the stock poses. +

+ To cut a long story short, the models are beautiful. In an unusual move, I decided to build them as the God-Emperor intended, straight out of the box. Since I don't usually do this, I'd forgotten how nice – and quick! – it is to do so. I ended up getting all five built and primed in under an hour. +

+ A Techpriest leads two servitors on techy-shenanigans+

+ The techpriest above was the catalyst for the purchase, but I'm starting to warm to the quick boardgame-style games GW have been putting out. In the past I've regarded them merely as extraneous packaging, but with hobby time disappearing, it's nice to go back to them and find some way to play with toy soldiers that can be set up, played and broken down in a short time. +

+ I think I'll always prefer the spectacle of a tabletop wargame, but with this and Betrayal at Calth [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] under my belt, perhaps I'll have an easy option for when time is tight. +

+ Either way, when I get a chance to play, I'll pop up a battle report. +

+++

+ Speaking of Wargames +

+ Ah, back in the comfort of serried ranks of troops. Age of Sigmar interest has returned to the PCRC, with Warmtamale and Lord Blood the Hungry leading the charge, and a couple of us gathering our forces in the wake of the release of Cities of Sigmar. +

+ With the drums and horns calling the Throng of Nog [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] to war once more, I did a quick squizzy at where they stand. +

+ Being a very mixed combo of swaps, ancient lead and second-hand rescues [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] built up over a few years, they're quite a mixed bunch. Now there's a bit more certainty about what things can be in the rules, I'm feeling more motivated to paint them up. They are, however, perhaps understandably a little mixed. From left, we've got:

• 18 undercoated crossbow dwarfs (their leader and a lone drunkard are on my painting desk).
• 33 dwarf warriors: 10 in the early stages of painting (the red file); 11 undercoated black, including the banner and musician; 11 undercoated grey and one filly painted leader.
• 5 grey-undercoated Hammerers, along with a painted Thane and Wizard.
• Roughly 40 Ironbreakers, around 15 of which are fully painted.
• In addition, there are a scattering of oddments.

+ Not as huge a backlog as I'd feared, but still something that's going to require some batch-painting. +

+++

+ Apropos of nothing +

+ In addition to the KR cases I use for storing most of my finished/ongoing armies (the poor dwarfs above will remain homeless for a little while), I have a small case which houses some more unusual miniatures, united only by being odd one-offs. The Court of the Sun King project is housed in here in its entirety, for example, including a number that I've never got round to painting. +

+ I mention this only because there's really no other reason that I got a pict-capture of the two below. I just happened to have five minutes and wanted to take a picture of some favourites. It's nice to look back, sometimes. +

+ Of course, looking back's also good to ensure we don't rest on our laurels. I remember being very proud indeed of these miniatures. Brother Hicks and Hutch (rear row, right and left respectively) in particular saw much battlefield time. Feast your eyes on the awesome freehand on their Legion of the Damned colleagues! +

(Shut up, those are excellent rib-cage patterns)

+ Onwards and upwards with the painting journey, I say; and remember – your hobby's not your job, and no-one giving you marks. +

+ inload: Dwarfs for Warhammer Underworlds +

+ 'Let me sing you the song of our people' +

+  Not being the biggest fan of the 'all slayers, all the time' look of the Fyreslayer dwarfs for Age of Sigmar, a while back I converted the Shadespire warband [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. I finally got round to painting them up. +

+ Not the most free-flowing of painting sessions, these were a bit frustrating to paint. I got there in the end, and painted is better than perfect, as the saying goes. +

+ One of the main stumbling blocks was simply that I don't have a handle on dwarf colour schemes. I keep thinking them through, and changing my mind halfway in, or finding they don't work, and... urgh. In the end, I went for ornamanted but uncoloured metal (as these will probably find a home in my Throng of Nog, made up almost entirely of fully-armoured dwarfs), and picked out the clothing in muted creams, blues, greens and browns. +

+ In addition to letting me experiment with and explore potential colour schemes, this slightly hotch-potch result turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I think the scheme fits the feel of these four as adventurers and treasure-hunters rather than professional soldiers. +

+ With such small faces – and even those mostly hidden beneath helms – I decided to make the beards the focal points of the figures, bringing in some natural variation. +

+ Since I've changed the background to make these proper hill dwarfs rather than the more high fantasy Fyreslayers, I didn't think the embedded gold runes made sense, so I painted them up as tattoos. +

+ inload: Terminators, War Machines... and Dwarfs? +

+ I've been busy recently, with little time (and in fairness, given the lovely weather, little inclination) to catch up on painting. Today's inload is a little compilation of bits and pieces that I've been building in the odd snatched half-hours here and there. +

+ There's no real theme for this inload beyond the fact all the models are new models that have been converted to be updates of old models. All a bit retro! +

+ Devastators +

+ No, not that sort of Devastators... Instead, a bit of a nod to the RTB03 box [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], with field artillery and a Land Speeder. The quad-launcher, or 'thudd gun', was built straight out of the box. I'm in two minds about the oval base I've used. It'll allow the crew to stand closer, but looks slightly awkward... Reckon I ought to swap it to a 60mm round? +

+ The gracious Ilmarinen very kindly picked me up the advanced release of the retro Land Speeder, which I hastily assembled. In order to fit into the army, I had to hack up the crew and convert them using Primaris marine parts. This wasn't as difficult as I'd feared it might be, though it was quite time-consuming. I was pleased with the torso of the pilot [left of the pict-capture], which was achieved by filing down the Primaris torso, then gluing the carefully-trimmed piping from the original pilot into place. This is something I'll likely do for future Mark VI marines – I've got a few left to build for the (actual) Devastator squad. +

+ You'll notice the gunner uses Mark IV parts – I was tempted to put him in Mark VI too, but I'm trying to bear in mind the army as a whole. While the original inspiration, summarised in this inload [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], has marines in uniform armour marks, I've been mixing things up a little, while trying to keep the 'feel' of uniformity. As a result, there are a couple of marines in different armour marks scattered here and there through the squads; and it's this principle that's made me put a Maximus-armoured gunner here. Different enough, but with a similar silhouette to the Mark VI. +

+ Dwarfs +

+ My take on the dwarf warband for Shadespire, I've converted these to fit more closely with my existing dwarf throng – essentially, making them into proper clan dwarfs rather than troll-slayers. +

+ The desaturated image above gives a better impression, but the colour version above makes the conversion work clearer. In addition to a lot of trimming and replacement of the more distinctive Fireslayer aesthetics, I've also used greenstuff to sculpt on tunics, boots and trousers. +

+ Terminators +

+ Truescale Terminators – I've had a crack at these a few times now, but my latest iteration is, I think, the closest I've ever managed to get to the classic aesthetic:

+ Like the Land Speeder crew above, they're deceptively simple conversions; it's really about confidence more than anything else. The Adeptus Custodes Aquilon Terminators, which make up the bulk of the conversions, are expensive models, so its a little nerve-wracking to chop into them. I'll be posting a step-by-step in a future inload on how I've made these, which I hope will take some of the uncertainty away for anyone attempting a similar conversion. +

+ The obligatory scale picture, using a Primaris marine for comparison. +