Ben's Chaos Gnomes - Month 1

"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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I feel good about this start. Since I'll be doing this for a while (these 21 figures are only the tip of the iceberg,) I'm popping my paints in the post as well. Thank you so much everyone, and see you in the future!

Coming up next in: OWAC VIII - Chaos Gnomes