"After a blistering defeat at the Battle of Tinyfoot Pass, the army of Harthrak Hammerblow was scattered to the woodlands beneath the mountains. Winter rolled in the morning after, as though the fire in Harthrak's heart had been the only thing keeping its chill at bay. Amid the cutting winds and icy chills, few of the chaos gnomes claimed rights to the remnants of the horde, but among those who did, the loudest claim of all was Kazar Ambraz. When he revealed Harthrak's warhammer and swore vengeance on their mountain cousins, it is said that the winds howled like wolves, and that the very ground turned black. Such signs could only mean that Kazar's claim was truest of all, clearly approved by the dark gods, and beyond reproach of his kin."
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For the first month of the challenge, I decided I wanted to muster a playable force. Setting my sights on 500 points, I pulled out just enough models to have a few units to push around on the battlefield. Thanks to the lower starting unit numbers, I wound up with four 5-man units and a general, who I imagined to be the ragged survivors of an ill-fated battle. This isn't reflected in the minis, since I wanted to be fairly clean, but I enjoy the framing narrative. That, and I think its important to give your elements a relationship or two with the elements that already exist in that setting.
I'm still experimenting with what the chaos gnomes are; being as they're not quite chaos dwarfs and not quite imperial or alpine gnomes. The fun thing is, gnomes are mostly considered mythic, and so their world is briefly glimpsed by human record, and then largely made of rumor and dust. They are known to dwarfs, since they're cousin-races, but they don't cohabitate (to the knowledge of the dwarfs anyhow,) so how could these gnomes have picked up the chaos dwarf culture? Also, where in the Old World are they? I don't know that I'll have all the answer by the end of the challenge, but these are the kinds of details I hope to consider in the coming months.
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Chaos Gnome General w/ heavy armor and two-handed weapon - 165p
2x 5 Chaos Gnomes with blunderbusses - 70p/ea
2x 5 Chaos Gnome Warriors - 70p/ea
Total: 445
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So small... and so nasty... here they come !
ReplyDeleteI like 'em! Even though they are evil*, I can't help it. I like 'em and would allow them to live in my shed :)
ReplyDelete* are they really evil, or just quite grumpy? I still reckon they can deal with my rat problem in the shed.
Bonus points for the picture of your paints. I note the use of pro artist acrylic white. I've recently swapped to something similar as I was so fed up with granulation in hobby paints. Was it something similar for you?
Soooo cute! They remind me of something but I can't quite put my finger on it. Hopefully it'll come back to me.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see your paint selection. My paint collection is heavily biased towards Citadel, but also has a bunch of Vallejo and Reaper colours in it, too. I possibly use the non-GW paints more for my individual RPG characters than for my armies (where one coat coverage is important to me) but the more options, the better.
You are off to a great start! I like your focus on creating playable forces. And two thumbs up for the freehand details on those tiny shields!
ReplyDeleteAwesome - love the background consideration, and how neat they look, ideal!
ReplyDeleteInteresting stuff, am sorry but they just make me thing Micheal Bentine
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