Building a Dwarf Army pt.2

In my last 'army building' post, I ran through the models I'd bought, some conversions I'd done, and basically just cleaned everything up to get it ready to paint.

I also mentioned that I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to split them up into smaller batches (i.e. whether I should paint a unit at a time, or split them up into smaller points value forces, and so on) - but in the end I thought I'd probably get them done quicker if I did all the dwarves with the same beard colour at the same time (as I plan on having 3 or 4 different colors).

As such, I decided to do all the blond(ish) guys first, and picked out several models from each unit to get the ball rolling...

 ...and spent pretty much all of Monday evening priming them (I used a brush on primer), and getting their base coats down.

Tuesday night was spent adding some washes (a flesh wash on the skin & beards, and 'sonic tonic' over everything else...

 ...and, as you can see, I also got the shields glued on as well (these where painted and washed separately, and had their backs drilled out where they needed to fit over a 'nub' or a hand) - plus, I also got the next batch primed while waiting for the washes to dry.

On Wednesday I spent a couple of hours tidying/highlighting with the original colours (as washes tend to darken everything down and/or leave tidemarks in some places) - and since I squirted out a bit too much silver paint (well a lot too much really), I also got the silver done on batch 2. 

Now, I did (briefly) consider doing a few more highlight layers to make them look a bit better - but I quickly talked myself out of that... as I am supposed to painting this army quickly after all :)

Anyway, on Thursday evening it was just a matter of varnishing them (again, I'm using brush-on varnish), gluing on the basing material, and then sealing in the basing material with some watered down PVA.

And, as you can probably guess, this did mean that there was a certain amount of drying time between each of these steps... so I also splashed on a few more colours on batch 2 (the ones that are going to have grey beards).

Now, as you can see in the following picture...

...they're not going to win any awards - but I think they look more than good enough considering they're just regular troops in a 'regiments' style of game... and I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.

However, they've still took a bit longer to finish than I would like - but the second batch should be quicker... since I've already got some paint on them. That being said, I don't think I'm going to have as much time to paint next week... so we'll have to see how it goes :)

Building a Dwarf Army pt.1

For a while now I've been toying with the idea of painting up a few (fantasy) armies as quickly as I can (well, I say 'quickly' ...it'll still probably take me a while as I'm not a fast painter - but quicker than I normally do :) ).

As such, I didn't really want to spend a ton of money on an expensive army for, what is essentially, an experiment - plus I also wanted to see how cheaply I could do something like this, and turn it into a kind of 'war gaming on a budget' series of blog posts too.

So, for the rule system, I'll be using the various 'age of fantasy' games by One Page Rules - as the core rules are free (and it doesn't get much cheaper than that). It would also allow me to build up forces/armies for several of their games (the 'skirmish' and 'regiments' variations for example) - plus I could probably also repurpose what I have for other games too (Oathmark, or even The Old World, for example).

Anyway, for cheap miniatures, the obvious choice was to grab a bunch of those cheap orcs and dwarves that are available over on the EM4 Miniatures website...

...as a pack of 48 models will only set you back £14.99 - and if you buy both sets (i.e. the orcs and the dwarfs pictured above), and buy at least one pack of shields as well (£1.99 for 25) that will mean that your order qualifies for free postage too. Nice!

However, the one thing I would like to point out to folks that aren't familiar with these models - is that they do have a slightly annoying nub on the back of each model...

 ...which you'll have to deal with in one way or the other.

For my dwarf army, I'm only going to tidy up the back of the spearmen (and any special models) - as I'll simply add shields to the back of the guys with axes and crossbows... as that will cover them up ;)

Anyway, seeing as how these dwarves only come in three different poses (one with a spear, one with a 2-handed axe, and one with a crossbow), I wanted to add a bit of variety to my army... which has lead to a bit of conversion work on a couple of the models.

The first of these is a simple weapon swap...

 ...just by cutting off the top of the axe and replacing it with some hammers from my bits-box.

I also did a couple of weapon swaps with the spear guys (note that the banner is from an old space marine kit)...

 ...which involved drilling out the spear to replace it with the toothpick and hammer that you can see above - though the axe guy took a bit more work as I swapped out his entire arm and head - which required a bit of cutting and re-sculpting to make it work.

And, as for the crossbows, I've only done the one conversion so far...

 ...which again, was another head-swap (note that both of these heads are leftovers from Northstar/Oathmark kits).

Now, the original plan was to only use the EM4 Miniatures for this army - but I also found a couple of metal dwarves from Black Tree Design (or EOE Orbis as it's now known) in my pile of shame...

...and these particular ones are a pretty good match (with regard to size and style) for the EM4 dwarves - and so I thought I'd use them for my heroes/champions (and sacrificed a couple of the plastic guys to get them on matching bases).

So, that's pretty much all I did with regard to conversion work - though that, combined with cleaning up the models (getting rid of the mouldlines and 'nub's for example) probably took the best part of a weekend.

THE PLAN GOING FORWARD

The next job is, of course, to start slapping some paint on them - and I had thought to split them up into several batches.

The first would be a 150 point force for the 'skirmish' version of the game...

 

...which would feature a champion, a ranger, two 'hammer elites' and one group (of 3) mountain warriors.

After those are done, I could expand that to a 250 point force...

 ...which includes a champion, two marksmen, two hammer elites, and three groups (of 3) mountain warriors (one of which has a banner).

From there, I could then expand on these - bringing them up to full unit size for the 'regiments' version of the game (perhaps completing one unit at a time))...

...until I get up to a full 750 point (starter) army (note that I'm thinking of painting the shields separately - which is why they're not shown here).

However, I'm not sure if it will be faster to just batch paint one complete unit at a time -OR- separate them out into four random piles (as I'll be using 4 different beard colours)... and do that instead (i.e. batch paint all the blond guys first, then the guys with brown beards, and so on).

Whatever I decide, I'm hoping to get started on them this week... and see if I can get them done by the end of the month (though the end of next month... or even the end of the year, is much more likely :) ).

25,000 Subscribers!!!

As of today the YouTube channel has surpassed the 25k subscribers mark… which might not be much when compared to the big channels out there – but it’s a pretty huge milestone for someone like me :) :) :)

So, as you’d expect, I’ve made a short video to acknowledge that fact…

...and in that video I also announce another giveaway.

Now, the giveaway isn’t anything special (mainly just a $100 gift certificate for DriveThruRPG)… but it’s a small token of my appreciation nonetheless.

I’ve also used this as an opportunity to (re)release the ‘modifications & requests’ pdf…

...as I removed that from google drive a while back – due to the fact that (apparently) my exclusive deal with DriveThruRPG means I shouldn’t really be sharing modified versions of the files in other places. As such, it’s now available over on DriveThru instead (though I did spend a bit of time making it look a bit more presentable before doing so – hence the delay ;) ).

Anyway, I’ll finish this post by saying thank you to everyone for their support over the years (it really is appreciated), and here’s hoping you’ve managed to get some good use out of some of this nonsense of mine :)

New releases/projects

Well, I’ve finally got them done… the dungeon cards & tokens (that I first tested out in THIS old blog post) are now available for download :)

As you can see in the video, there’s also a sample solo dungeon included with the cards – but the encounters detailed in the pdf could just as easily be used in regular (i.e. a GM plus several players) game as well.

I’ll also add that, if anyone does give the solo adventure a run through (using the cards and the 2D dungeon tiles), I’d love to hear how it goes!

In addition to the new video, I’ve also started up an e-mail newsletter – one where I can do monthly recaps of stuff I’ve released, things I’m working on, purchases made, and other gaming nonsense. I also hope to share pictures of projects that people in the community have built using some of my textures too – as those are always cool to see.

So, if that sounds like it might be of interest, you can sign up for it HERE.

And that’s it for now… for my next project I’ll probably getting back to making more terrain… but more on that if the prototypes work out as planned :)