Ben’s Chaos Gnomes - The Wrap-Up

OWAC VIII - THE END

"We did it with a Bang"

Another OWAC under the belt! Congratulations to each of you for all your hard work! 

Now that the Six Maddening Months were over, I took some time to reflect. The army was done, clocking in at over 3K in 4th/5th edition points, and I was feeling pretty respectable about the whole thing when it hit me that I still had minis tucked away for this army.

Wow, look at those odds and ends! Some leftover bighats, a bunch of HQ options, a half finished K'daii Destroyer conversion, and some other rabble! I couldn't finish all of it, so I made the bold decision to not bite off more than I could chew.

First I started off with a death shrieker and crew, who could rain terror down upon the enemy with primary yellows and reds! I used some alpine gnome bits for the chassis and an old empire mortar for the barrel, and voila! It's another big bad thing what goes boom!

+75 Pts

Then I added a pair of sorcerers, because you can never have too many. Actually, with the pair of schemes I used when doing this army, I sort of built two smaller Chaos Gnome armies that could then battle eachother if no one else was around to scuffle. This is in part thanks to the lore I'd somewhat cobbled, as well as a growing understanding of Nigel Stillman's ethos, thanks to a well done Dana Howl video. 

+118 pts

Actually thought, there's no reason for them to fight each other, especially when I realized I didn't just have spare chaos gnomes floating around.

I also had leftover Alpine Gnomes taking up space. You remember these friends, from the Battle of Tinyfoot Pass, and also last year's OWAC 7? I'm a wee bit tricky, and so I figured I'd paint some of these chums up for the grand finale as well. A hero is only as good as his villains after all, and so making sure there are plenty of villains hopefully shores up any concern for our stoic smashers.

What I managed to (mostly) paint up from this pile was a tidy little force in its own right and could now be added to last year's force for the culmination of these two OWAC (O-whacks? Owaxen?) worth of effort. On a Sunburnt Saturday in late July, my friend Stephen came by for a match to help discover the results of the rematch at Tinyfoot Pass.

And now for a very small battle report for your reading pleasure.

The Battle of Tinyfoot Pass (Rematch) 

*Deployment*

As is tradition, we broke out the whippy sticks and placed some symmetricalish terrain. Stephen played as the Chaos Gnomes, and organized his line like a champ, making sure to give himself plenty of firing lanes for his war machines. I wanted to give myself room to advance all of my units, and thus put foxes in front of infantry so they could soften the enemy for my pike hordes.

The Chaos Gnomes jn all their glory

*Front Half*

I took the first turn and moved up my battle line solidly. Knowing dwarfs to be a reserved castling force (from two games in 2005,) I had to get my gnomes to his gnomes. As I do this, my opponent softens my lines with his battery of bolt throwers (the most effective of which is crewed by the hounds Vinegar and Salt,) and the one death rocket. Stephen's deft sense of approximation withers my second unit of pikemen (he's very at woodworking, but also games.)

I use Lotti's strategem to remove the swamp from the board's center, and lumber my giant up to his blocks of warriors, and...

The giant falls on its butt, tries to scurry away, and gets trampled by a wall of chaos gnomes. The line advances on the heels of failed panic. In a lucky turn of events, the crossbowgnomes do a phenomenal job of bolting half his bolt throwers back to hell.

*Back Half*

I try desperately to recover, pushing my second unit of pikes up to charge the third anvil of warriors, only to be driven back, and have the firing lane of blunderbusses unleashed up on me. Many units flee in chained panics as the bull centaurs maintain pressure on my left flank, and what's left of my forces promptly collapse. The hobgoblins and alpine artillery crews applaud.

 

*Game End* 

To make matters worse, a giant cat decides the game is over. A Major Victory was earned by Stephen, and by association me, who got to see both of my OWAC armies storm across the table in glorious battle. Truly, it was a masterful stroke of generalship that I would have the better player field the featured army, so that it can have won on its first outing (never mind that this is the first outing for both these gnomish armies.) Hurrah!

Lore Wrap

The chaos gnomes did in fact get their bloody vengeance. They also got shawarma, but that was later.

SO, AFTER ALL THAT FUFFING ABOUT

The Spoils of Time Well Spent

THE LIST 

 Chaos Dwarf  Gnomes 4ed - Unnamed list - [3002 pts]

# ++ Warhammer Fantasy 4th Edition ++ [3002 pts]
## Regiments [1704 pts]
Bull Centaurs [357 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Light Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 5x Bull Centaurs [41 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Light Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Blunderbusses [140 pts]: Blunderbuss, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour
• 10x Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Blunderbusses [14 pts]
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf  GnomeWarriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Chaos Dwarf Gnome Warriors [348 pts]: Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 20x Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Warriors [14 pts]
  Champion (Double Handed Axe, Heavy Armour, Shield)
Hobgoblin Archers [55 pts]: Hand Weapon
• 10x Hobgoblin Archers [5.5 pts]
Hobgoblin Warriors [108 pts]: Hand Weapon, Shield, Musician, Standard Bearer
• 15x Hobgoblin Warriors [5 pts]
  Boss (Hand Weapon, Shield)

## Characters [1055 pts]
Chaos Dwarf Gnome General [360 pts]: Lord (Monster (Lammasu))Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [59 pts]: Sorcerer (Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [59 pts]: Sorcerer (Hand Weapon)
Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Sorcerer [369 pts]: Master Sorcerer (Monster (Cockatrice))Hand Weapon)
Hero [104 pts]: Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Hero (Hand Weapon)
Hero [104 pts]: Chaos Dwarf  Gnome Hero (Hand Weapon)

## War Machines [243 pts]
Death Rocket [75 pts]: Hand weapon, Heavy Armour
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon
Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower [42 pts]: Hand weapon

There's probably more possible points than the list implies, but just nudging over 3k is better tv.

AND NOW, REFLECTION

Its not every day that you bring a project to completion. I'm terrible at it, but find myself able to rise to the occasion a little better when its in the company of such good souls. I had a lot of fun sourcing this army, planning it out, and getting stomped by it. I think most of all, it reminds me that I'm still capable of making cool things when I color mostly within the lines. Its an official(ish) army, that's mostly bang on for representation, that I can bring to most places and not get the dreaded side-eye flung at me.

Moments Before Disaster 

As they say in the biz, "no army is ever finished," and having now gotten in a match, I've got some ideas for where I might take things next time I put brush to chome. For now though, I'm just happy to arrange them on the coffee table until my pals de-mothball their models. 

 

Have a great summer everyone, and see you next time! 

Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 6

Sometimes, things come to an end, and you can tell the person responsible for the thing let out a huge sign of relief as if to say, "finally, I am free of this burden."

I do not feel this way, what with it being the last month of OWAC VIII and my penultimate post, but I thought that was a funny way to introduce my own beasts of burden, these baggage trains for the chaos gnomes. 

They're made with dog pack masters (the gnomey part) and old lead ponies I painted like donkeys (the ponky part?) All of the baggage is hand sculpted by yours truly, and the bases are old cavalry 25*50 glued poorly to a 25*25, because I like the long footprint that exists in its own space. Once I found a website that let me pick my own base dimensions, and I had printed a 10*200 oval, which is to say that this is incredibly tame by my standards (the oval is another story altogether that I promise to tell someday.)

I also gave one of the donkeys a hat so that the other donkey could be jealous of the donkey with a hat. I'm sorry... Ponky with a hat.

There they are...

I also ground out another unit of warriors. I regretted not having more red gnomes (many of them were night lords blue,) so for my last complete unit of the year, here are my red skulls.

Are they part of a cult? Who knows! They've got their own flag, does that count?

Finally, we have two very angry dogs. Last time when I said "I don't think I'll sculpt an entire unit's worth of hats," that was because I'd sculpted these hats, and it helped me decide that maybe I had better ways to while away my time on this earth than the making of 20 little big hats. These though, I've no regrets on whatsoever. These hat dogs have big personalities, and like the geese of last time, will serve as unit filler, or honorary champions if none are brave enough to step up to the challenge. They need names however, but I'm still much too crispy to come up with anything good. If you think of something spiffy, put it in the chat and if it's good, maybe you'll see it in next months role-call.

And here's the month's haul all together, 24 bases of badly behaved bellyachers.

+++

TOTAL

20 chaos gnomes warriors, great weapons, shields, full command

2 baggage trains 

2 pepperoni petzas

348 pts 

+++

Man, I can't believe it's the last month of OWAC VIII. 2025 has been a bit of a nightmare, but it's wild that we're halfway through it already. I guess the only thing between us and the unknowable future is the wrap-up huh? 

Well, I hope we're all here to enjoy it. 

Congrats to everyone who's made it this far, and condolences to those we lost along the way. Fingers crossed we'll all read each other next month.

Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 5

 

Well my fellow fanatics, another month has passed, and that means it's time to assess the harvest.

First off is a pair of hobgoblin heroes, who I couldn't light to save my life. They might work well as unit champions or accompanying heroes, although I doubt the points they'd cost would be worth it. That said, I counted them as heroes because the math makes my brain light up.

Probably the thing I'm most excited about right now is the Gamers Grass tufts I decorated their bases with. This army's base situation has been kinda plain, so I got some Alien Turquoise and Pink to liven things up. They certainly look otherworldly, and add a bit of pop I'm not sure I'd realized was missing. Being that I'm so happy with the results, I'll likely go back and add some of the tufts to the rest of the army to tie it all together.

Then since it's a rank and file month, I cranked out the penultimate unit of Warriors. Skull masks are all the rage with this band of evil gnomes, but I kinda wish they had big hats too. Even though they didn't hit the spot for me aesthetically, I still think they turned out well. I've decided that I'm going to leave the banner til later, when hopefully I'm more inspired. We've still one month to go and then the grand wrap up, so there's plenty of time to make beautiful things happen.

2 hobgoblin heroes, hand weapons

59 pts each

20 chaos gnomes warriors, full command, double handed weapons, shields, heavy armor

348 pts

+466 pts for May

2763 pts total

Ben’s Chaos Gnomes - Month 4

(Hey Kiddos, April has been an absolute gauntlet. No story time this go around, just brass tacks and pointy hobgoblins. Actually though, have y’all checked out the new Hobgoblin rule set from Mike Hutchinson? It’s great, just trust me.)

Something I learned last month; a hobgoblin bolt thrower only requires 2 crew members, so I began this month with four homeless spearmen. This inspired me to dig into my tacklebox of junk, and pull out all the hobgoblins I didn’t think I’d paint for this project.

Over the course of April, I managed to paint up 20 of the nerds; 10 more spearmen and 10 archers. I like how faux-motley they turned out with their alternating red and yellow outfits. Part of me hopes that with all the red bows and spears that this batch speaks to the red period, but if not I still think it’s fun to have so many primary colors in one place. Much of my miniatures background is in the INQ28 community, so it really is a breath of flesh air to paint with such bright and simple colors.

Anyway, these guys cost points, so why don’t I break them all down for you?

Hobgoblin Archers - 55 pts

Hobgoblin Warriors with boss, musician, and banner bearer - 119 pts

Total - 174 pts

Total Total - 2297 pts

While it’s only 7.5% of the army’s current points total, I’m glad I decided to give these guys a little life. They weren’t in the original army proposal, but they’re here now, and I think we’re better for it. They’re mean, they’re green, and they’ll stab-poke your spleen, (and be great screens for units that actually matter.)

And on that note, back to the paint table. See you in a month!

Ben’s Chaos Gnomes - Month 3

 When the ground began to thaw, Kazar ordered his axes to clear a field’s worth of timber, and that a mine be sunk in its place. The wood and the ore would help to resupply his troops, and rekindle the war engine.x However, there are some who have little appreciation for mining and forestry, and thus the industrial effort attracted the ire of an ancient elemental.

Before too much harm could come to the work, a pair of gnomish lords on great beasts appeared and in short order, they turned the elemental into kindling. Kazar met with them, and learned that they too had come for the pass, but had expected it cleared by now so that they might wage their wars on the other side of the mountains. After a long haggle, both lords had pledged their strength in the taking of the pass, but the terms of the agreement were not shared among the occupants of the tower. Whispers began about what consequences the parley would have, since the only gnome you can trust less than a stranger, is a stranger that shares your allegiance. Whatever was to come, it would have plenty of hammers and axes pledged to it.

+++++

Instead of making a new army this month as I had in January and February, I decided instead to bolster the combined force with some heavy hitters. First was a battery of four bolt throwers, manned by scale appropriate hobgrobles. I did not enjoy painting these as much as I’d hoped to, but a thing I’m learning this year is that you can paint toys like toys and not get in trouble. As long as I’m not unhappy with how they turned out, their paint job is alright by me.

This Sorcerer on Lamassu however was a hoot to do. I got to replace a lion’s face with a Muppet head, which is an automatic win in my book, and then I got to blend the rider to its steed, which was a second win if ever I had one. It occurs to me that this might be the army’s centerpiece model, with it being the most costly hero character my force can field, and that epiphany is fine by me. I’m proud of the conversion and the paintwork on this one, and so I’ll happily find room on my roster for the chonker 

Lastly, we have the Hero on Cockatrice, who is the king of “guys who barely fill out their bases.” To me, this epitomizes the army, where we try to manage the precarious balance of serious threat and little dog energy. In theory, the Chaos Dwarf list is very versatile, but to my understanding, the way I have built my roster is very goofy. My goal hadn’t been to build a “come and get me” brick, but when building with minis I’d gotten thanks to the rule of cool, that’s exactly what I did. Anyhow, I also like this hero and how top heavy he is; that poor Cockatrice is really putting in the work keeping its ride’s bulk from gracing the ground.

This Month’s Additions

Sorceror Lord on Lamassu - 528

Hero on Cockatrice - 254

Hobgoblin Bolt Thrower x4 - 168

Total: 950

With those additions, we now wield the current war host:

Chaos Gnome General - 165pts

10 Chaos Gnomes with Blunderbusses - 140pts

20 Chaos Gnome Warriors with full command - 348pts

5 Chaos Gnome Bull Centaurs with full command - 357pts

Chaos Gnome Sorcerer - 59pts

Chaos Gnome Hero - 104

Chaos Gnome Sorcerer Lord on Lamassu - 528

Chaos Gnome Hero on Cockatrice - 254

4 Hobgoblin Bolt Throwers - 168

Total: 2123pts

It’s likely not a legal list, but that is a huge chunk of dudes right there, with room to adjust for a 2k point game. Wild to think that three months into a six month challenge, I could be completely finished with this force (I’m not, but the end feels awful close.) I had a plan at the beginning of the challenge, and for the most part I stuck to it (despite my best efforts,) but now I’m faced with the fact that I only have 30 some-odd models to go until that’s a wrap.

That said, I did manage to pull out another 20 man unit of warriors from my bits bin, so hopefully I’ll be occupied until the end. My to do pile is now two more units of warriors, and maybe a unit of hobgoblin archers, so I can promise at least that much more to come. Who knows? I’ve still got to sort out the baggage train, so there’s still some opportunity for things to go off the rails :)

Anyhow, thanks for another lovely month! Keep up the good work, and see you in the next one!

Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 2

"The First Winter was harsh, and Kazar's band of marauders could only backtrack so far up the warpath before retracing their steps became impossible. Snowbanks taller than the biggest dwarf encroached on all sides, and it seemed that every gnome would have frozen to the bone were it not for a miracle produced by the smallest of the lot, a blunderbusser named Ghakath. In the shimmering dark he produced a flame from his palm, which shifted like a compass. Kazar was said to have recognized this as a sign from their patron, and bade Ghakath and his compatriots to follow the flickering fire. After hours of trudging and numbness of limb, the trees before them parted to reveal a small stone outpost from which sprung a merry tune and wafted smells of a feast. There were other gnomes here, no doubt allies of those from the pass, celebrating the shared victory over Harthack's shattered legion. Rage and indignation boiled within the heart of Kazar as he thrust his mentor's hammer skyward. The storm raged too loudly for any to hear his exact words, but all understood the oath. They would take the tower, and later, their revenge." 

+++

The Siege of Stoney Top

 +++

This month I made another very small army of Chaos Gnomes (who also happen to be very small.) Technically this month could fight last month, but for lore reasons that won't happen.

10 Chaos Gnome Warriors with full command - 208pts

5 Chaos Gnome Bull Centaurs with full command - 357pts

A Sorcerer - 59pts

Ghakath, a Chaos Gnome Hero - 104pts

Points this month: +728

The other reason they won't do battle is because it wouldn't be a fair fight. Neither side dislikes having an unfair advantage, but neither force would sign up for being the underdog without having a dirty trick up their sleeves.

+++

And now here's the army, so far, in full. I could actually run this list in a thousand point game if I made some cuts here and there. 

Chaos Gnome General - 165pts

10 Chaos Gnomes with Blunderbusses - 140pts

20 Chaos Gnome Warriors with full command - 348pts

5 Chaos Gnome Bull Centaurs with full command - 357pts

Chaos Gnome Sorcerer - 59pts

Chaos Gnome Hero - 104pts

Total: 1,173pts

It's wild to think that only two months in I'm already so far through my initial proposal. Given that, I'm in process of planning what happens after I run out of pink pests. 

+++

My Tribute Model was received not long ago, and now exists in the home of one of our esteemed organizers. The model is an old Bryan Ansell sculpt I'd originally gotten to commemorate his passing, but in the spirit of appreciating hobby heroes

Coming up next in: OWAC VIII - Chaos Gnomes