Maciek's Dwarfs - Longbeards march out (195 points)

Rank & File month 1

Longbeards - knights, veterans and unbearable grumblers

To kick off the challenge I start with my all-time favourite bunch of old geezers: the dwarf Longbeards. Wherever they go, they bring some serious martial prowess, incessant grumbling and a faint smell of naphthalene mothballs. In the dwarf hold of Karak Varg in the Grey Mountains they are the royal bodyguard. They have the most experience so there simply is no one better or wiser and the Longbeards make sure other dwarfs know that.

Conspicuously, the command group is absent so I will need to paint it on the side in the coming months. Despite good progress early in the month I only painted 13 rather than the planned 15. Mostly because I generally paint at glacial speed, but also I took my time as the models have a lot character and I wanted to do them justice.

 

The models are the mostly mix of Marauder Longbeards and the Citadel imperial dwarfs from the 80s.  They were selected so that the unit has consistent equipment - inspired by XII/XIII century. To reinforce the knightly vibe I gave them a mix of heater and kite shields. This should tie them nicely with their feudal Bretonnian allies.

I always appreciated how the Marauder minis - despite being highly stylised and fantasy - were historically inspired and grounded. When the clothing and equipment of most Marauder dwarfs were inspired by late XV/early XVI century, the equipment of the Longbeards was several (real world) centuries older and perfectly reflected their background. 

 

 

The colour scheme for the tunics is inspired by the classic Wayne England's dwarfs. I opted to paint them clean and tidy (free of moths for sure), as they would be at the beginning of the campaign. For the shields I wanted a design that is simple and easy to paint in larger numbers for the whole unit but also very dwarf-like. Hence a mountain (Karak Varg) and runes - no brainer!

These minis were a joy to paint. The Longbeards were what convinced me to collect a dwarf  army ~25 years ago and the imperial dwarfs ooze character with their expressive faces and dynamic posing. I did experiment a bit with the couple of shades of blue, beard colours and the silver (gradients on the blades) so look forward to apply the learning in the coming months. To my surprise I found that baking paper makes a good neutral background for photos :-)

The tally of the month is 13 Longbeards at 15 points each: 195 points, by 4th edition army book.

February will be devoted to Marauder crossbowmen, but if I get the time some Longbeards may also pop up. See you next month!

Brennan's Wrap-up Post (1,203 points)

Hello!  Well this is the end of my third OWAC and I'm excited to get through this chunk of the old lead pile.  First I want to thank the Overlord and all the other folks who have supported the challenge.  It has been a difficult year, but this part has been as good as ever and I appreciate that.

On to the final pictures!  Worksite army photo below...

10 Iron Breakers with Musician and Standard: 240 pts

10 Crossbowmen: 130 pts

16 Longbeards with Musician and Standard: 270 pts

21 Warriors with Musician and Standard: 253 pts

2 Bolt Throwers: 120 pts

1 Dwarf Hero Heavy Armor and Double Handed Weapon: 109 pts
1 Runesmith w/ Heavy Armor (under his clothes ;)): 81

So this was fun.  I haven't done a heavily armored force for the OWAC yet and it had been a while since I had done this much armor anyway.  I tried to keep it bright but with one finger on reality.  I wanted a good bit of contrast from the orcs and gobs I have been working on.  I think fantasy, or sci-fi, works best when there is a hint of reality to keep the brain anchored.  Otherwise, you just descend into a computer generated realm of disbelief... 

Well this is me signing off for about 6 months!  Paint well and be excellent to each other...

Mike's Might Dwarven Throng of Karak Blargh May (698 points)

Well here it is the last day of May and I am not desperately basing some models or trying to finish up one last figure. Instead I finished what I needed for the month by the end of last week and also painted some extras, thanks social distancing!

First unit I finished was 8 dwarf miners with command, boy GW got their moneys worth with these sculpts as they were around forever. I always liked the champion shaking his fist at the enemy. I only wish I had Krudd the Mad Mattock to add with my spare miner to make a 10 man unit. 

After that I finished what I am counting as a unit of long beards, The Dwarf Lords of Legend (and two other guys to make it a 10 man unit with command). This has to be the most eclectically sculpted single box set I have ever had by Citadel. But they work well as long beards. I added a marauder dwarf with a umm.. whistling musical flail and a spare banner from yet more Bugman's rangers.

 While doing these I also had just finished stripping some very classic yet horrible red and green paint from the Anvil Doom, that I then had to start painting. I actually finished this before the units that were actually in my list. I only had one of the guards so a fellow hammer wielding dwarf has stepped in.

 Then because I finally got a baggage cart I had to paint that as well. I love the running dwarf in this unit. This will hopefully be used as extra victory points in a 4th edition game soon.

 And lastly as I was magnetizing all the dwarves so they can be kept on movement trays in my storage drawers (and help keep my son from knocking them over), I had time while the glue set to finish one of my favorites, the dwarf with no name. He will probably be a hero with light armor and pistols for now, but may join the lords of legend at some point.

So and incredibly productive month has left me with everything on my list plus a hero, anvil, and the baggage cart completed for a total of 698 points, . Now on to a stress free June!

Brennan's January Post (240 Points)

Well, these have been different than the Slann I did last year!  The Slann were blue, with lots of earth tones and neat fabrics.  These dudes are all metal and hair.  I felt like I was painted the aged remains of a hair metal band....

Anyway, I'm trying to keep a couple of distinct colors as themes for this brigade, but you will forgive me if I refer to this collection of dwarf companies under one leader as a 'battle'...  It just seems proper.  In this case I chose to use a nice medium green and brighter light blue as contrasting colors.  I sprinkled in a few more tones as I worked through the figs, metal painted orange on a helmet as an example, to get some variety.  I wanted continuity but not a uniform.  These colors will repeat in a variety of ways throughout the battle.

What I like about the imperial style of Dwarves is that they have those nice surcoats on, which break up all the armor.  The problem with the Long Beards is that they have so much hair that it makes it hard to see the nicer designs on the surcoats, so I went for some nice taping on the edges.  It's much easier to see from the back.

I did the beards in a couple of different ways.  Sometimes I used just a multiple level dry brush and in other cases I used a couple rounds of inking with a dry brush.  Frankly, I think the results are similar, but I was hoping to get enough variety to create a slight visual variation to break-up the uniform aspect of the figures and the painting.

For January I did...

14 Long Beards with a Standard and a Musician which would be 240 points in 4th ed!

The astute may notice that I had planned to do 16 Long Beards but alas, when I did my count I failed to notice the two short beards that had snuck into the ranks....  They will just have to go somewhere else!

Brennan's Dwarves - Intro Post

Hello! 

Well I'm back again for another round.  I had a very hard time deciding what to paint this year.  I debated doing another round of Slann.  Which would be fun, but the two other painters local to me, were painting up 4th ed armies.  I thought about doing more with my Orcs and Gobbos, which is great army in 4th, but I also had other projects that were calling out for my attention.  That landed me on Dwarves.  I have a third ed dwarf army that I have played with off and on.  I really enjoy dwarves in third because they aren't as slow as they are in other additions, primarily due to encumbrance rules and how they affect other races.  However, in 4th dwarves reward players who use the special troops types, this is mainly because clansmen can't have heavy armor and are not required troops.  BUT they will feature heavily in my list because, I like the figs.

So, I'm going to be doing an army with a fair number of imperial dwarf figures from the Citadel range and Marauder dwarves that I hope match the theme well.  I'm not going to have many puff and pike dwarves, not because I don't like them, but I'm hoping that this army will have a consistent look, like a separate brigade in the army.  So there will be a consistent color scheme but, hopefully it won't look like a uniform.

We will just have to wait to see how that turns out!

10 Iron Breakers with musician and standard: 240 pts

10 Crossbowmen: 130

16 Longbeards with musician and standard: 270 pts

21 Warriors with musician and standard: 253 pts

2 Bolt throwers, with light armor for the crew: 120 pts

1 Dwarf Hero Heavy Armor and Double Handed Weapon (109) and 1 Runesmith w/ Heavy Armor (81)

All together now!  For 1,203 Points!

Kober's Longbeards, and extra expeditionary force reinforcements (350pts)

Units:
Baggage Train/ Trophy cart. Points : Free
Long Beards Points : 350
3=man bolt-thrower Points 54. X3 Total Points: 162
2-man fire throwers Points 56 . X2 Total Points 112
Gyrocopter (50) with lvl 5 Hero (48) Points 98 X2 Total Points 196
Baggage Train - Anvil of Doom. Points Free