The Dwarf Army Completed - A Warhammer Journey

 The Entire Dwarf Army is now Complete!

It has only taken 36 years to complete the army. Yes, that is most of my life.
I purchased my first dwarfs in 1988 in a blister pack, (Norse Dwarfs by the Perry twins), and little did I know that it would eventually turn into the throng you see before you.

At this stage I wasn't collecting armies, oh no, I saved up my pocket money and a little from my sales job and bought some models, enamel paints and began what would become a life-long hobby.

I mostly bought minis I liked, but never considered collecting a Warhammer army.

...until..

I walked into a Games Workshop store in Hornsby, Sydney where I found this guy.
He reminded me of a Slayer dwarf I used to roleplay in D&D called Slade.
I bought him and painted him terribly in enamels, using a pinhead to make the tattoos.

That was really the catalyst, as I then began, very slowly, collecting slayers, then other dwarves, and when unable to afford any, made my own using sculpey.

I scored at second-hand copy of 3rd edition as well as Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned and this became the first edition of Warammer I played and the first time the dwarves would enter the tabletop battlefield. 

  

I never played 4th edition, and only had a few games of 5th edition, including a dwarf vs dwarf battle. I'll always remember to check to see if my slayers have an additional hand weapon next time.
I very much preferred the Marauder style dwarves over others and hated the 4th edition monopose warriors. So ugly. Yes, I have one. It is not in my army, but the shields are.

I didn't mind monopose in my  other armies, growing as they did with boxed sets of Battlemasters, but for the dwarf army, I wanted individuality in every model.
I converted models that I had duplicates of, and that was fine for many years, but then I was buying small batches online and duplicates became necessary if one wanted to field larger units.
There simply wasn't enough variety in the citadel range for a large unit, so I ended up painting them differently rather that converting every single one.

By the time 6h edition came out, I was well on my way to painting up proper units and had a nice range of war machines too. I liked 6th edition rules as they had a lot of 3rd edition feel and made things a lot smoother and I also liked that magic was back in the rulebook rather than a card add-on.

I purposely skipped a few of the GW miniature range editions, not liking the aesthetic, but when BFSP box came out I decided the scuplts were mostly acceptable and would not only boost my dwarf army, but the goblin army too. I also had a good paying job at the time and so I snapped it up, even though it would take me years to paint the dwarf models, and yes, I still have a lot of the goblins with base paint only. Not every single dwarf made it into the army, but most did.

 

It was really the Battle for Skull Pass that got me painting matching uniform schemes too, as individuality often meant a massive rag-tag look for the unit once they were all lined up.
While this was ok when I only had a few units, it also took ages to finish painting models, so when the box came with units, I started speeding up my paint times and finishing whole units at a time.

With the end in sight and Warhammer the Old World due for release, I put my head down and gathered up the last of my dwarf models, finished off the Longbeards and then finally the last unit - Bugmans Drunken Quarrellers. I had been collecting every dwarf with a tankard that I could to make the drunken dwarf unit, and finally, I completed it the week TOW launched.



After that, it was down to a few warrior stragglers, a handful of alternative sculpts that only had undercoat and then finally basing with flock, updating the flock on the old models as well.

The last stage was moving them all to 3D printed movement trays, and finishing off the final cannon crew from the BFSP boxed set which took only one day.

Time to arrange them and take the photo.
A total of 297 dwarves.

For Valaya!

Barbs vs Louie McFly

 It was some time ago that Sluggaz the Chaos Thug was abducted by the Lamian Vampires to be their slave and ultimately a Thrall and personal bodyguard of Barbs herself.

Louie McFly, Chosen of Nurgle and fly mutant, decided that it was high time that this foolishness was put to an end and that Sluggaz needed to return to the service of Chaos.

Louie and his warband track the vampires down to a remote graveyard and Barbs picks up the rotten stench as they draw near, summoning the dead to fight them off.

Louie's entourage consists of a unit of choas warriors with the burning banner, a unit of Chosen - including himself, a unit of mounted chaos knights and a rogue minotaur.

Barbs and her familliar, Felix, raise a unit of skeleton spears, and a skeleton sword unit, as well as skeletal cavalry with a hell knight champion.
From the woods, dire wolves and rat swarms are summoned. 

Things kick off with Louie summoning a vortex of chaos which wanders around dangerously close to his own unit before heading to the unit of warrors. He ends the spell before it consumes his own troops as the undead begin their advance.

Barbs summons a few zombies from the graveyard and the wolves burst from the forest.

Louie casts Demonic Vitality on the Minotaur, who speedily runs to the graveyard wall, setting an ambush for any that would come close. He orders his warriors forward, saying "fzzt. bvvszrt, frzzzpp."
Blessed by Nurgle, the warriors understand because they can speak fly.

Barbs is not fooled by the ambush and halts the advance of the wolves, sending in the rats first and manouvering the cavalry, wary of the chaos knights, who howl insults and curses into the night air.

Barbs summons more and more zombies from the earth to join their rotting brothers and Sluggaz joins them, spinning his magic sickle of speed.

Louie summons another vortex of chaos, this time consuming one of the three rat swarms.

Barbs uses her vampiric powers to turn into a giant bat and fly into the middle of the graveyard where she cannot be attacked, and charges the rats into the chaos warriors. The rats do not get past the armour of the warriors and are in turn mashed to a pulp.

The warriors turn to the other side of the battlefield as Louie and Barbs dispel eachothers magic.
Sluggaz and the zombies charge the Chosen and manage to kill a few of their number before many zombies are also cut down.

Barbs once again changes into a giant bat and charges the Chosen Chaos Warriors, dispatching a few with her Bloodrinker sword. One of the Chosen, his skin deathly pale spits at Sluggaz, claiming "I too have vampiric blood, whelp!" before Sluggaz slices his head from his neck with his sickle.
The battle rages as the remaining zombies are cut down and crumble.

The chaos vortex, moving randomly around the battlefield, clips the unit of skeleton spears and rips their bones apart. The rest continue slowly toward the rest of the battle, too far away to assist their fighting masters.

The othe side of the graveyard becomes a mass attack, as the rats, wolves, cavalry, hell knight, minotaur, chaos knights and chaos warriors all charge together in a miasma of fang, claw, metal and bone. The rats are instantly eliminated and the chaos warrios make short work of the skeleton sword unit, while the hell knight and chaos knights smash into eachother. The roar of battle fills the night. 

One of the Chosen swings at Barbs with his mace and breaks ribs. Annoyed, Barbs thrusts Blooddrinker into the warrior's torso and exsanguates his body till it is a lifeless husk. Using the blood, she heals the wound. Using the flat of his burning blade, Ulchin the Horrid, Champion of Chaos slams it down on Sluggaz's skull, rendering him unconscious.

Horrified, Barbs screams at the champion, but Louie, whilst yelling, "bzzfft bvvt svvfftz",  swings his Headsman's axe with great precision, lopping off Barbs' head.

Her corpse falls to the ground and the rest of the undead warband begin to crumble.
The wolves retreat back to the forest and the skeletal horde falls to piles of skull and bone.

Louie McFly picks up the vampire's severed head and holding it high, exclaims:
"Fzzbrt, bfzzt wrzzzt bvfrrzzt!"

Gargoyle

 

Way back in 3rd Edition, Warhammer had gargoyles.

In Heroquest, we had a Khorne style gargoyle.

Where did they all go? I want them back.

I never did like the interpretation of the harpy for the Dark Elf army roster; not the concept, just the metal models. I like them, don't get me wrong, but they look like gargoyles to me rather than hapies. Harpies were meant to be half hag-like old woman and half vulture.

I had a DE harpy from somewhere but the wings ended up on some other model - perhaps the furies acting as vampire bats, and I had a Heroquest gargoyle wingset spare. The two had to go together and the painting took all of about 15 minutes to finish and then base.

Isn't he sweet?

Deadcember - Necromancers vs Vampires

Deadcember is upon us and what better time for the undead to rise.... against eachother.

The Cult of Necromancers had been hard at work, researching the location of the elusive unholy relic, the skull amulet of Krell, its true powers yet unknown.

They have tracked down the most likely hiding place in an old forgotten graveyard and the three, Roderich, Mortimer and Faust, set out to retrive the item. When they arrived, it seemed they were not the only ones to learn of the relic's whereabouts.

Upon reaching the graveyard walls, Faust curses as the three vampires, Barbs, Whiskii and Ghoulia have also made an appearance, obviously acting on information from spies. They bring with them vampire bats, ghouls, and skeletal contingients of spears, swords and cavalry.

The necromancers are not ill prepared, having raised a small zombie horde, their own skeletal contingents, a gargoyle they constructed and have enlisted the service of two harpies.

Both sides advance to the graveyard, eager to begin searching the tombs, but also willing to put a stop to their opponents similar efforts.

The first to attack is the gargoyle, swooping down to smash into the cavalry on the flank, tearing bones and ripping through armour.

The vampire bats seize the opportunity for a rear strike and descend upon the gargoyle, scratching and gouging at its stony exterior with razor sharp talons of their own.

The necromancers flank cavalry waste no time in charging the vampire bats in the rear, outright lancing one of their number through spine and rib. A massive furore ensues, with all sides stabbing, clawing, shredding and tearing, bloodless but for the bats.

Barbs, followed by her undead cat familliar, Felix, summons a swarm of rats from the catacombs beneath the graves and sends them to harrass Faust. Swarming over him, they bite and gnaw his flesh and he curses again, stomping and slashing them till none remain moving.

Ghoulia marches her skeleton contingent into the opposite side of the graveyard and heads for the nearest tomb, while Whiskii searches a grave to find it empty. 

Whiskii summons a restless spirit, but Roderich blasts the ghost with his skull-artifact of life draining, turning it into ethereal nothingness.

As Barbs searches the first inlaid tomb, she discovers it to be devoid of the relic and orders the spear skeletons to charge the zombies. The zombies prove to be no match for the spearmen, adept at striking the head and destroying the brain.

The harpies descend upon the sword and shield skeleton unit as Ghoulia is careful to stay behind her boney protectorates. With several losses, the skeletons eventually cut down the harpies, leaving their corpses on the ground in a pool of blood-soaked feathers.

Enraged by the loss of her summoned spirit, Whiskii fires a chilling missile from her staff at Roderich, whose flesh ices over instantly, causing him to topple face first into the ground and shatter into large, frozen chunks of dead necromancer.

Satisfied, Whiskii then summons another ghost, who rises from the vault and begins to claw at the zombies. They being to freeze and seize up at the touch of the ghost and though they try to claw and bite, the zombies physical attacks pass right through the ethereal being.

Mortimer searches the vault and then another grave, but alas, no relic is to be found.

On the flank, the gargoyle is finally destroyed, crumbling into chunks of stone, and the vampire bats are vanquished, leaving the skeletal horsmen locked in a final combat that would see the last three standing belong to the vampires. 

On the other flank, the necromancers cavalry win their engangement, with two remaining.

As the battle rages on, it is Barbs who finally discovers the relic in a dilapidated sarcophagus. She truns to Felix, her cat, and ushers him on home.

In the middle of the graveyard, Faust drinks a healing potion and challenges Whiskii to a duel. With zombies and ghouls on one side and skeletons on the other, the altercations begin. 

Faust wounds Whiskii with his necrotic sword, but is in turn wounded by her staff. Whiskii casts her life draining frost spell, but it is diminshed and absorbed by Fausts' proctevie ward.

The ghouls make short work of the zombies, tearing them limb from limb and feasting upn their rotted corpses. The spear skeletons outclass the sword unit, but cannot defeat them. The ghouls round the vault and smash into the sword unit, destroying them.

With a final blow, Whiskii jabs Faust in the head, which begins to freeze down through the rest of his body. Licking the blood from her wounds, she kicks him over and watches as he breaks apart into frozen pieces.

On the flank, the skeletons fight back the sword and shield contingent, and Ghoulia overreachers her fighting abilities and is pierced through the heart by a spear. She collapses to the ground, screaming, her body turns to ash, blown away by the wind.

With his fellow necromancers dead, and the army defeated, Mortimer attempts to flee, only to have the ghost claw at his robes. He uses all his strength to summon a second spirit and orders it to fight, escaping only to be chased down by the ghouls.

 He makes his final stand, fending off all the attacks, blocking filthy claws and corpse-meat jaws with an amazing display of quarterstaff prowess.

Seeing this, Whiskii lets loose another chilling blast from her staff, caring not a jot for the ghouls, for as the bolt of magic strikes, the surrounding grass and moss and creeping ivy turn white with ice crystals, and both ghouls and necromancer freeze in seconds. With the wave of her hand, all explode into icy fragments.

With the Necromancers defeated and the relic attained, Barbs, Felix and Whiskii return to their haven to sip on nobleman blood from golden chalices whist laughing in the moonlight.

"I never liked Ghoulia anyway." said Barbs, patting Felix gently on his half expsoed skull.