The Dwarfs of Whatever

So despite my opinions on the Oathmark Dwarfs in my previous blogpost I soldiered on and assembled the whole box of figures. The problem was I had no clue what rules I'm going to use with these figures. Now the actual rules doesn't matter as much as the army lists for said ruleset which dictates how many figures you need in a unit and how many figures you can have a maximum of.

My top contenders for the rulesets are, in alphabetical order:

• Dragon Rampant
• Dux Britanniarum (with the unofficial Dux Arda mod).
• Oathmarks
• Warlords of Erehwon

I'm actually not counting Games Workshop's Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game because I think they sort of jumped the gun with the Hobbit movie rules, and I have no interest in forking out £35 for the new rulebook to see if they have changed anything, and then £35 for the army book of each army I want to play. (I'm not criticising their business model but I already buy the big expensive books for 40k so I'm thinking enough is enough.)

I arranged the figures into units while assembling them.

Oathmark Dwarves, a review and some thoughts.

As a long time dwarf afficionado -- the fantasy literature kind of dwarf -- I was very curious when Northstar brought out a set of plastic dwarves. The set is in the same vein as their Frostgrave plastics, but geared towards unit building rather than skirmish warband. Thus it contains a whopping 30 miniatures (compared to the 20 in a Frostgrave box) but with more limited equipment options.

The box art. Nice innit?

Apparently the nice Mr McCullough of Frostgrave fame is writing a set of fantasy battle rules for Osprey, due out later this year, but the figures were released in 2018 already. There are also goblins, elves and human sets out already.

Snow White and the other eight dwarfs

I hope I don't get sued by Disney over this one :-)

The end of the year is fast approaching and it's time to finish those nearly completed figures and get them up on the blog for the end of the year tally. First up is eight dwarfs from Avatars of War to go with the first eight I painted a while ago.

Insanely hairy vertically challenged homicidal hammer wielders

Gearing up for Kings of War

Well, after getting the finger from GW in the form of their Age of Shitmar ruleset I have been thinking of other rules to try out. Open Combat seems like a good and well produced skirmish set, but I like to maneuver blocks of troops around as well. Fantasy mods of Saga or Hail Caesar has come to mind, but as I don't play very often I don't want to have to tinker and house rule a lot. I downloaded the free Kings of War rules and they seemed to be what I wanted. Some novel ideas - to me at least - like no figure removal enticed me further and I bought the gamers edition of the rule book. This is without all the background of the hardback book but with complete army lists compared to the free rules.

A unit of Dwarf Shieldbreakers for Kings of War. Why do leaders have to stand in that come at me bro" pose.

I have been playing Dwarfs since Warhammer 3rd edition but Games Workshop essentially killed off my interest in them with their latest army book and figures. Too silly for my taste. I still don't like Mantics bucket-headed dwarfs, but the GW figures are worse IMO. Getting blasted by magic in every game without any effective countermeasures also helped, so I turned to Chaos. But my love for short, hairy things didn't end there, and I continued to buy Dwarf figures from other manufacturers like Avatars of War instead.

So long and thanks for all the fish - being a rant of epic length.

(Disclaimer: Some of the pictures on this page is (c) Games Workshop and is used without permission for discussion purposes only. No challenge of copyright is intended.)

I guess it hasn't escaped anybody that Games Workshop are doing a new version of Warhammer. Like Microsoft they have dropped the numbering system (except that Microsoft is counting again, just not correctly) and gone for a brand name instead. Sort of like Ikea.

Funny cause it's true.

But instead of Warhammer Bönkfjordnurpur it's called Warhammer Age of Sigmar and is a big change from the previous version. (If you haven't heard about it, go check it out, the link is above.) Now it has divided the internet gaming community in two halfs, each about as rabid as the other. It's hard to say which group is the largest though, and I don't doubt that GW will sell tons of boxes and call AoS a success.

The new Logo.

First, I understand why GW is doing this. I'm not opposed to change, I'm just opposed to stupidness. And change for change's sake. I think GW are grasping after straws. They need to reinvent themselves. The Hobbit license has failed so miserably that GW didn't even put out a boxed game for the third movie and hardly any models. Most of GW's sales are related to either the hobby in general (paints, etc) or Warhammer 40k. So something needed to be done with Warhammer Fantasy.

Spare a coin for some poor dwarfs, guv?

Just a quick note about this funding campaign from Avatars of War. As you might know Avatars of War is a miniatures company making some beautiful and evocative 28mm fantasy figures. The ranges are compatible with the Warhammer imagery but in my opinion often superior to the official Games Workshop figures. This is probably very deliberate as Avatars of War was started by former GW sculptor Felix Paniagua. 

The backstory is that he sculpted a couple of very nice character models but GW wanted him to sculpt lots of rank and file models without the level of detail he wanted to put on them. I'm sure there were other issues such as time/workload ratio and not being allowed to work on the subjects he wanted. In the end he left GW and set up his own company, much like some other very talented individuals that have left the GW stable over the years.

Anyway, Avatars of War have been releasing mostly character models, but have made a couple of plastic box sets, such as plastic slayer models and a couple of plastic "not-Chaos Warriors" boxed sets. Now Avatars of War is looking to launching their own army level game called "Warthrone of Saga" or something like that. First up is the dwarf army and they are looking for funding to be able to start up the whole range. The whole thing is done through Indiegogo.com, which holds onto the money until the project either is funded or the time runs out. If the funding fails you get all your money back, so no risk there.

So go to http://www.indiegogo.com/aow-dwarfs and have a look at the concept sketches and see if they tickle your imagination. Or go to http://www.avatars-of-war.com/ to check out all the awesome models already available. Oh, and sign up to fund the project so I can get some sweet and hairy stunties for my army.

May your beard grow long and your axe-arm strong.

Helga, Queen of the Dwarves

Well, I do confess I have a thing for short hairy bearded axe-wielding maniacs, but I'm equally a sucker for a short, hairy, beard-less axe-wielding maniac. So when GW at the end of the nineties released their first female dwarf figure since before the slotta-base was invented, I had to buy her.

"My, what big... braids you have."

Liten dvärgiska med stor hammare söker stadigt städ för varma hemmakvällar.

Tjipp! Första posten på nya bloggen. Den här bloggen är egentligen fortsättningen på en annan blogg i ett forum, men jag ska försöka att skriva så att det blir förståeligt även för nya läsare. Välkomna :-)

Eftersom jag drabbats av WW2 overload (jo det går faktiskt) har jag fundilerat lite på andra projekt. Jag har bl.a. beställt Shock Troopers till 40k att använda i min Imperial Guard-armé, köpt lite moderna zombies till Halloween och börjat måla lite dvärgar. Igår var jag iväg till ett par kompisar som spelade 40k, och satt och målade vid sidan av när de spelade.

Figuren heter Svala och är från Hasslefree Miniatures, mycket rekommenderbar. Jag tänkte använda henne som en lågnivå-Runesmith till mina dvärgar, så hon har fått en blå tunika för att passa in. Huden är målade med Foundryfärger enligt deras system, men jag eftersom jag inte målade klart figgen hemma så fick jag hålla tillgodo med de färger som fanns. Förutom en Privateer Press-färg (den bruna på handväskan) är alltså allt målat med GW-färger. Jag har fått blanda och matcha och punkt-washa med Devlan Mud för att få till det, men slutresultatet tycker jag blev rätt så bra ändå.  Ska basas också förstås, men jag ville visa hur hon blev. (På fotot ligger ett litet stenkorn i halsvecket som jag inte såg, det är bortpetat nu.)

Jag gillar Hasslefree jättemycket, det är jättefina figurer som inte drabbats av den uppsvälldhet som GW-dvärgarna fått på sistone, så de passar in bra med mina äldre figurer. Jag har en till dvärgiska från Hasselfree med mycket större, öh... lungor, som ska bli champion i en av mina enheter.