Jaeckel's Dwarfs: an Introduction

Well, I guess we're back for 6 months of shortened nights, where every day off counts to finish these damn miniatures, and promised, this is the last time I'm doing this! 

In the meantime, puff and slash dwarfs again 😜

For those who followed last year's edition, I had solved my "landsknecht painting issue" by adopting the colours and coats of arms of the Old Swiss Confederation to paint my mercenary dwarfs, leading to very basic color associations (red / black, yellow / black, blue / white) and let's say "reasonnably simple" banners.

So, for OWAC V, the plan is simple: complete the basic troops started in 2021, to reach the 20 mandatory crossbownmen and 40 mandatory warriors, and enrol two new regiments of thunderers.  Thanks to the two characters I wasn't able to finish last year, we shouldn't be far from the 1000 points:

• 10 pikemen with fife player and standard-bearer: 132 points;
  
• 10 crossbowmen with horn blower, standard-bearer and the renowned Wilhelm Tellson (Lvl 5 hero): 194 points;
  
• 10 thunderers with drummer and standard-bearer: 156 points;
  
• 10 thunderers with horn blower and standard-bearer: 156 points;
• the Mercenary Captain (Lvl 20 hero) with lance and mithril armour: 197 points (poney for free!);
  
• the Bishop of Grungni (Lvl 15 wizard): 203 points.

If time permits, I will paint a few extras, including wild dwarfs, new bodyguards for the paymaster, and a "mystery" cart for the bishop (preparation on-going). We'll see...

 

My prepared miniatures so far (I still have the bases to work on):

 

 

without forgetting the offering to the overlord! (never thought I would use Tentacle Pink on a dwarf miniature 😜)

 

See you next year for the first regiment!

JohnR's Estalians - Heroes of Might and Magic (632 pts)

 Leaders (and cannon) Month. 

Born the penniless son of Estalian fruit sellers, Diego Monte decided at an early age that peddling oranges in poverty wasn't for him and ran away to seek his fortune in the New World.

Decades later, Don Diego El Comte Del Monte (as he now calls himself) has returned. Commander of  the Galleon 'War Bastard' and captain of a powerful mercenary company.

Del Monte (pictured here with his army standard bearer Matias) is everything a mercenary captain should be: ruthless and brave but with a strong streak of pragmatism and a keen sense of self preservation.

This month I painted command groups for the crossbowmen and handgunners too:

Crossbowmen

Handgunners

The army has also acquired a cannon - probably from the deck of the War Bastard.

The cannon's name is Isabella. (She's named after the gun captain's eldest daughter). She's powerful and dangerous and the gun crew love her, though they admit she's pretty ugly. The cannon's not that good looking either.

Accompanying the army is the Magister Santiago Espinosa 'The Fray Bentos' and his assistant Pedro.

'Fray Bentos' is an honorary title from the Estalian College of Sorcery, of which Espinosa is a senior member. His years of study have given him great power but recently he has become obsessed with his own mortality and has begun to dabble in the dark arts in an attempt to delay the inevitable. So far Espinosa has managed to keep his new knowledge secret, though it has cost him an apprentice.

Pedro is Espinosa's new apprentice. He suspects that his predecessor might have learned an unpleasant secret about his master and that his death may not have been an accident. Pedro is clever and ambitious and determined not to suffer the same fate.

El Comte Del Monte: Level 20 Human Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse: 114 points
Matias: Level 5 Hero, light armour, shield, warhorse, army standard: 89 points

2x Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 Missile Elite) inc Standard : 36 points

2x Bandolleros Gringos (+1 Missile Elite) inc Standard: 33 points

'Isabella': 3 Man Cannon: 60 points

The Fray Bentos: Level 20 Human Wizard: 240 points
Espinosa knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Leg Breaking, Ignite Missiles, Enthuse, Cause Animosity. Battle Magic 2: Raze, Lightning Bolt. Battle Magic 3: Animate Sword, Cause Fear. Necromantic 1: Hand of Death, Zone of Life. Necromantic 2: Control Undead. Necromantic 3: Life in Death.

Pedro: Level 5 Human Wizard: 60 points

Pedro Knows the following spells: Battle Magic 1: Immunity from Poison, Cause Animosity, Fireball.

Here's how the army looks now:

I've almost run out of stuff to paint. I had planned to add a couple more regiments to the army but they're not Estalians and I'm worried that they won't really fit. Maybe I'll just mulligan June :-)

JohnR's Estalians - Count the Hooves and Divide by Four. (414 points.)

Rank and File Month 4 

My late uncle's go-to joke when we had to count sheep or cattle in a field.

Feel like I made good progress this month.

Estalian Caballeros led by Rocco 'The Tilean Stallion' Sindaco.

Among an army of swaggards and braggards Los Caballeros are the most boastful and rambunctious of the lot. Rumour has it that Rocco shares a certain characteristic in common with his horse. His comrades joke that he's a mutant; but the luckiest mutant alive!

Border Horse - 'Los Escorpiones' led by Estofado De Carne.

Invariably found in the vanguard of the army the life of a cavalry scout can be brutally short. On the upside, with a little luck, you can be the first amongst the enemy's baggage train and first in the queue at the whore house at the next town.

Rocco Sindaco: Level 10 Human Hero, light armour, shield, lance and warhorse: 66 points.

9 Estalian Caballeros (+1 Shock Elite): light armour, shields and lances, standard: 200 points.

Estofado De Carne: Level 5 Human Hero, light armour, shield, spear and warhorse: 40 points.

5 Border Horse: light armour, shields and spears, standard: 108 points.

It's starting to look like an army :)

The plan is to do characters next. Though I'll probably wind up painting more rank and file 😂

JohnR's Estalians - I need re-training (313 points)

 Rank and file month 3

A month is too long. After a couple of days I've forgotten my passwords, how to use blogger, the settings on my camera, what the OWAC rules are, the name of my missus and where I left the dog...

Anyhoo, here is this month's offering:

Estalian Hombres Villanos led by 'El Destello Corazón!'.

Mystery surrounds this infamous swordsman. Some say he's the illegitimate son of the Emperor Karl Franz and an Estalian serving wench. Others that he's seeking the six fingered orc who killed his father. Whatever the truth he's a dashing swords-master: irresistible to women, deadly to his enemies and adored by his men. 

'El Destello Corazón!' Level 15 hero, light armour and additional hand weapon: 83 points

21 Hombres Villanos +2 Shock Elite, hand weapons, light armour and shields, standard and musician: 230 points

The army so far:

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a group shot yet. If I'm not I'm sure The Overlord will delete it. Like I said: I can't remember the rules 😁

JohnR's 252 points, not bad for an evening's work.

Rank & File month #2

 I'm kidding of course.

Actually this month was a bit of a slog so I'm pretty happy to have added 22 mini's to the army:

It helped that the crossbowmen were started in January :)

These comprise the bulk of the army's missile troops and are used as skirmishers, or to support the infantry blocks in battle. As such they don't have their own command groups, though I might add these later.

10 Tilean Crossbowmen (+2 missile elite), light armour and crossbows: 120 points.

12 Estalian Bandolleros Gringos (+1 missile elite), light armour and handguns: 132 points.

Total: 252 points

Onward and upward, bring it on March !

Paul's Border Princes Month Four (266 points)

"Yo back up now and give a brother room
The fuse is lit and I'm about to go boom!
Mercy mercy, mercy me

Boom, shake, shake, shake the room...

 .... tick, tick, tick... BOOM!" (Let's hope that's not a HIT and a MISFIRE)

This Month I've added some heavy firepower to my Border Princes force with a Dwarf Cannon, an Empire Cannon/Mortar, and a Bright Wizard.

First up is the Puff and Slash Dwarf Cannon - this wasn't the one that was stripped and ready at the beginning of the challenge, but the Puff and Slash-ness of the sculpts demanded it be them, so into the dip they went, and I'm glad I bothered as they do fit the force much, much better than the other (more Dwarfy) Cannon and crew who will be saved for my 100% All Dorf. All the time. force.

This is a Bell Bombard from Citadel/Foundry - to be used as Cannon/Mortar depending on what the army list calls for. When planning the project I thought I had something in the lead pile suitable to use as a proxy mortar... turns out this was MUCH smaller than I remembered, and I didn't fancy paying the crazy prices for an actual Empire Mortar, so I bought something that looked somewhat suitable and combined with the rag tag crew men I'd assembled, including two slightly converted/repaired plastic Battle Masters crew, and a classic Empire Artilleryman sculpt.

I was quite chuffed with the tiny writing and diagram I manged to achieve on his note pad :)

Next up is a Foundry/Ex-Citadel 'Time Warped Wizard' who has been painted up in the army colours which suits him as a Bright Wizard. It's a characterful set of sculpts, if a bit pricey, but I enjoyed painting him... except for that damned staff which suffers from a bit of a mangled cast, and my lack of time to try any decent paint effect. In the end I opted to paint a golden orb embedded in the top as this both kept to the colour scheme but also speaks to me of a magical item at rest (as it is in the sculpt) - Gold is a good substance to have made magical staff top out of, even if it is not currently blazing with magical OSL goodness ;)

Month Four Total:

Human Cannon and 3 crew - 100 pts
Dwarf Cannon and 3 crew -110 pts
Human Wizard - 56 pts

TOTAL FOR THE MONTH: 266 pts

Except it wasn't quite all for the month! Having taken it right to the last few hours with the two Cannon, crew, and Wizard, I suddenly found myself with time to knock out one more mini as an extra. He is another characterful, Oldhammer style sculpt from the Foundry Time Warped Wizards collection, who I thought looked the part to join this force either as Quartermaster for the Baggage Train, a VIP NPC for RPG purposes, or, more practically, an extra Cannon Crew member - I like the idea of expensive pieces of ordinance being owned by enthusiastic militarily minded Nobs who then turn up with a goblet of wine to watch it being fired ;)

This is also practical as it frees up the Battle Masters Plastic Artillery Commander to act as a Unit Leader/Champion for the Crossbowmen. to make them up to a unit of ten if needed.

I still have some chunky units to complete before I will consider the challenge completed, but I at least managed to get everything left on my list based and undercoated over the Easter Holiday (about the only thing I did get painted mind you!) so fingers crossed I make it over the line.

Bon courage all.'

Paul's Border Princes -Month Three (428 pts)

Holy forking shirt balls... That's been quite a month hasn't it? After getting loads done in the first few days of March I then stalled completely until March 31st and got these finished pretty much on the stroke of midnight. I'm very jealous of everyone who seems to be getting loads of extra painting done as my all this pesky 'working from home' and 'home schooling' is seriously getting in the way of my hobby plans!

My force up until now has been pretty much exclusively missile based and I knew that I had to add some infantry, so it was the Battle Masters Halberdiers that were set marching for March! Ironmongery on a stick at the ready!

The character figure is a Lewis Collins sculpt and winner of the Oldhammer Sculpting Contest before he retired from private sculpting, it's now available from Ye Alchemist (although temporarily not accepting new orders until UK lock down is lifted) and has a wonderful Terry Pratchett/City Watch type feel to it. I really struggled to get decent pictures of him, apologies for the fingers and thumbs!

The other thing my Border Princes were lacking was Dorfs! Thundering loud Dorfs! Many of you will remember Blue in VTs Puff and Slash Imperial Dwarves from OWAC II and they served as part of the inspiration for including these Marauder Thunderers in my OWAC III force. I have to say I fell a bit in love with these sculpts, and sadly didn't leave myself enough time to do their faces and beards justice. Important lessons learned, as these will not be the last Dorfs I paint, that's for sure!

The Thunderers are also led by a Dwarf Hero. This is probably the mini I'm least happy with. He deserved a lot more care and attention and I may have to go back and tidy him up - not something I normally do with the OWAC I have to say, but I feel like he deserves a bit better. March was a bit of a killer though, and he might not be perfect but he is done, and that is more than he was last month.

The only extra OWAC painting I got done this month were some movement trays to make things a bit easier to manage, but they don't really count. The painting table is looking full for next month though!

We're at the halfway point so here is the army so far:

Month One

10 Human Archers -100 pts
10 Human Archers - 100 pts
9 Human Crossbowmen -90 pts

Total for the month = 290 pts

Month Two

Halfling Hero (Light Armour, Pistol,Handweapon) - 69 pts
Halfling Wizard - 56 pts
Halfling Halberdier Champion - 34 pts
Halfling Halberdier Musician - 13 pts
Halfling Hot-pot Catapult - 50 pts

Total for the month = 222 pts

Month Three

Human Hero (Light Armour, Flail) - 68 pts
11 Human Halberdiers inc. Standard Bearer (Light Armour, Shields, Halberd) - 120 pts
Dwarf Hero (Light Armour, Sword, Pistol) - 110 pts
10 Dwarf Thunderers (Light Armour, Hand Weapon, Handgun) - 130 pts

Total for the month = 428 pts

And here they all are together for the half way muster, plus the bonus Halfling Archers from month two, and the Road Marker scenery piece from month one.

Total so far = 940 pts

I'm quite chuffed with how these are coming along, but there is still a long way to go!

Wishing my fellow challengers well in these difficult times :)

Blue's OWAC 2019 Wrap up Post...Dwarf Reinforcements

Hi all,

After wrapping up the painting of the last few figures, the hand gunners and swivel gun, I was anxious to get some group shots of all the figures that I have managed to paint during the course of this contest.

So I quickly set up some terrain and started gathering my lights, tripod and other assorted Photog equipment.  

...then I spent way too much time arranging...and re-arranging my units until I was happy with how they were presented. 

But here are the results!  
 
A sizable reinforcement to the Grand Army of Strausburg...a thriving trade city on the outer fringes of the Empire. Strausburg is unique in that its rich mountain setting and acceptance of Dwarf refugees from abandoned strongholds in the Worlds Edge Mountains have given it a nearly equal population of Dwarfs and Humans.  In the City the Dwarfs have adopted much of the Imperial fashion (Puff and Slash)...and the Grand Army has adopted the dwarfs love of (and proficiency with gunpowder weapons) and large blocks of sturdy Infantry.

The OWAC 2019 has provided me the opportunity to further expand and refine my Puff and Slash Dwarf Army (which is a component of the mixed race Grand Army)...This is my largest army and the one that I have been working on the longest...literally since the late 1980s...it was the Marauder Dwarf Pike Block that started me down this path to insanity when I was 14yo!

Full Army Shot!

Click to see FULL size

And Some Close ups...

First some much needed reinforcement to my missile troops.  In the past I have always used my Unit of Bugman's Brewers to fill this role...but they are still in their 1988 paint jobs and really fit better, stylistically with my Imperial dwarf Army, so I'm glad to be able to replace them with some more appropriate shooters. And to fill this role there are no better figures than the Marauder Dwarf Xbows...these are all really great figures with a lot of variation to work with.  I decided to build two units of 12...though I fell short of that mark for one unit.  Additionally I added a small 3-man Cannon and a Swivel Gun to my force.

My original plan had been to do one large unit of Xbows...but as I started to cleanup and prime the figures it became apparently to me that there were actually two different "styles" contained within the range.  Half the figures are very much Puff and Slash...while the others have simpler "uniforms" with less puff and slash and feathers.  With this in mind I separated out the figures of each style into two units and added some more figures to bulk them to 12 dwarfs each.  The first unit of Xbows is from Strausburg proper and has fully embraced the Puff and Slash style of dress.  The second unit are recruited from outlying areas that are a little more rustic and not as concerned about being "flashy".  I have the figures ready to expand both of these units to 14 eventually.  (Also note that each unit has a "converted" standard bearer)

As to the Cannon...it is a very old style gun that will also see service with my Bret Army...this crew will transition to the Marauder Organ gun (from whence it came) when I get it painted.

The swivel gun is one of those fantastic White Knight sculpts (now sold by TAG) and is a nice addition to the Marauder swivel gun.

Next is the center piece unit....the PIKES!! (and all the rest...) When I started this challenge I opted to paint a full complete units (like the Xbows) as well as paint some reinforcements for already painted units.  For this reason I painted just two Zweihanders and nine handgunners.  Since these are not complete units and would look odd photographed as individual groups I decided to add them onto the Pike Unit for the photos...

So here we have a 21 Dwarf strong unit of Pikes with 9 handgunners arranged as "sleeves" on either side of the Pike block (they are the "shot" in "Pike and Shot") and they are further protected by a Zweihander on each flank.  This makes for an impressive looking centerpiece unit.

the Pikes are all White Knight sculpts, the handgunners are all Marauder sculpts....as is the Zweihander on the right.  The Zweihander on the left is from the short lived and tough to find Runecast dwarf range.

Points Break Down:
21 Dwarf Pike Block:      381pts
12 Dwarf Xbows:             224pts
11 Dwarf Xbows:             209pts
9 Dwarf Handgunners:  126pts
2 Dwarf Zweihanders:     30pts
Swivel Gun:                        50pts
3-Man Cannon:                 69pts
ARMY TOTAL:              1089pts

So...I guess this is the end! We have survived another OWAC and we have great stuff to show for it.  Congrats to all who stuck with it and finsihed strong (to those in the field of bones...I have only contempt...) :)

Hats off to Iannick for doing the grunt work of keeping this challenge moving forward and coming to a successful conclusion.

Cheers for now!!

Blue