OWAC V - Conclusion

Well, now that I'm close to the 100 painted Marauder Dwarfs, maybe it's time for a few pictures of the mercenary forces collected so far. 

With 40 dwarfs warriors (pikemen and halberdiers) and 20 quarellers, the mandatory troops are done. Regarding the thunderers, I have reached the maximum allowed by the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies book. Two wizards seem more than enough for a dwarf army, and all the hammerers I had are now painted. And of course, any decent mercenary army cannot go out without his paymaster 😎

So, what's left? 

• Warmachines for sure, and their design easily fits with the Swiss flavour of the army
• the army general on his fracking poney. One day I will paint him, I swear 😖
• More wild dwarfs would be nice if I could convert some slayers
• 10 Iron breakers should be OK too if I find the courage (NMM plus shields, double pain)
• More than enough models to align a third regiment of pikemen or a regiment of sworsdmen
  
• Last but not least... Longbeards! The only (but major) problem is that they do not fit at all with their budies. I have a couple of ideas, but it will require time and conversions. We'll see...
  

In the meantime:

OWAC IV - The conclusion

I've already posted my wrap-up on the OWAC blog, but I thought I might share a few additional pictures here.

So, here we are, after 6 months of painting, my second dwarf army of around 1000 points:

I've already mentioned here that I had still a couple of ideas to exploit with the Swiss theme, such as the hot chocolate pot, the clockworkers, or William Tell the quareller, plus a few things I'd like to finish, the general on poney and the Archbishop of Grungni, and of course several tens of Marauder Miniatures that are still waiting for their basecoat...Maybe for the next OWAC edition in 2022?

OWAC IV Mercenary Dwarfs

All right. After the doomed crusade of Pieter the Pious in 2020, I needed to paint some winners in 2021. Yeah, you named them: Dwarves! And to be more specific: the Marauder Miniatures landksnechts.

Illustration by Paul Bonner

To prepare the 4th edition of the Old World Army Challenge (OWAC), I have carefuly read Stuart Mulligan's wise advice on the Painting Landsknechts blog and of course, studied Nico's splendid Dwarf army, as his conversions solved the other issue I have with the Marauder Miniatures: the range is unfortunately incomplete (missing some standard bearers and musicians), and sometimes tends towards Middle-Age rather than Renaissance in terms of clothing. Well, I'll see what I can do...

The army is mainly composed of young dwarfs leaving the Grey Mountains and their impoverished clans to seek fortune in the Empire. They band together in free companies, elect their captain, and offer themselves for hire. Some still carry the colors of their native hold or clan: the black boar of the Frostpeak hold, the crosier of the IronBones clan or the double-key of the SureFoots. 

The current employer of the army is the honourable Guild of Goldsmiths and Jewellers in Altdorf: its dwarf masters are more comfortable contracting mercenaries of their kind, either to escort convoys, protect trading posts, or claim distant lands with high mineral potential. As trust does not exclude control, it is not rare seeing the mercenary captain Borin Steelfist receiving direct orders from representatives of the Guild. In these occasions, the latters are flanked by hardened veterans, handsomely paid to protect the guildmasters with their lives.

Illustration by Dave Andrews (Warhammer Armies)

A few pictures of the preparation phase:

Characters

Halberdiers

Hammerers

Pikemen

Quarellers

Thunderers

I'm still waiting for a few models, and some conversions are not totally finalized... and last but not least... 50 bases to prepare 😣

2000 pts: A Painting Odyssey

Check the first post for this army: October 2012... About 1200 days to paint 114 dwarf miniatures and 4 warmachines: 1 model every 10 days during more than three years... Yes, I'm an authentic monomaniac :)

 

Some of these dwarves were bought more than 20 years ago, when I was trying to make the same army as Wayne England. The funny thing is most of the models I've painted here are the ones I don't like! Initially, my plan was to paint the whole range of Imperial dwarfs, with chain mails and tabards. But since I couldn't find a proper color scheme, I've started with the guys in gambesons (easy to paint: just leather brown), then chainmails (easy to paint: just grey), and in the end, I've avoided as much as possible to pick up the "classic" imperial ones, telling myself that I will build the next unit with them... which never happened. 

Three years and a quarter is a looooong time to keep the painting mojo, even more when you don't plan to play with the final result. Comments posted on this blog, and online painting contests (on BugmansBrewery, MiniCreateurs or Chaos Dwarfs Online fora) have helped a lot to stay focused on the final objective. Thanks a lot to the organizers and to you, readers.

Oh, and before I forget, from my now "old" experience of army painter, I would only make one recommendation: start the job with paint references that are still in stock! I had to find substitutes to GW Chestnut Ink, Elf Flesh, Dwarf Flesh, Bleached Bone, and Devlan Mud inthe middle of the process. For the latter, I've finally replaced it by Agrax Earthshade, but the resulting white tones on the last models are really different from what I got on the first crossbowmen.

Below some attempts to shot the dwarf army as a whole.

So, let's recap this army list:

Characters

• The King (Lvl 20 Hero), double handed weapon, shield, heavy armour: 174 points
• The Spellsmith (Lvl 5 Wizard): 78 points
• The army standard bearer (Lvl 5 Hero), double handed weapon, shield, heavy armour: 104 points

Ranks and files

• 24 crossbowmen: 312 points
• 24 Dwarf warriors, double handed weapon, shield, musician and standard bearer: 332 points
• 24 Dwarf warriors, spear, shield, musician and standard bearer: 308 points
• 12 Troll slayers, light armour and double handed weapon: 144 points
• 12 Hammerers, standard bearer: 208 points

War engines

• 1 cannon, light armour for crew: 75 points
• 1 cannon, light armour for crew: 75 points
• 1 organ gun, light armour for crew: 105 points
• 1 Gob lobber, light armour for crew:  85 points

Army total = 2000 points

So, what's next? A new army of course :)

Dwarf Spellsmith

Yep, "Spellsmith", that was the name of Level 5 wizards back in the 3rd edition days. 78 points, just enough to reach the 2K objective! As you can see, the model also inspired David Gallagher to illustrate the Dwarf section of the Warhammer Armies book.

I have stolen the idea of the magic globe to Darren Latham, who painted an incredible Celestial wizard in 2009 (pictures published in White Dwarf, can't find them on the internet). For the rest, same old colour scheme of black, white and brown.


And that will be all the characters.

The Dwarf King

This is not the initial commander I had in mind to lead my army, but in the end, he will do the job :) (until I finish my conversion of a Lord on war boar...).

I had bought and painted this model about 25 years ago (in the white and blue scheme of Wayne England's army, of course). Now cleaned and re-painted, this model hasn't aged. Great sculpt.

Army standard bearer

OK, a lot of time spent on this miniature, desperately trying to give volume to the army standard, and clean shades to not-so-clean white clothes.

The model is a light conversion based on an Imperial dwarf, using a boar from White Knight's excellent range, a shield from Wargames Foundry, and a flag from a GW plastic sprue (can't remember which one).


Anyway, I'm now 100 points closer to the objective... not sure I can achieve it by the end of this year though :/

The Goblobber

The Goblobber is a gift from my old friend Haekel and it will be the last addition to my rank & file troops. I've just discovered in the Warhammer Armies book that I needed 25 additional points to buy sufficient goblin ammunitions and convert an ordinary stone-thrower into this splendid war machine, which makes the lot 85 points worth, which means I'm closer than expected to my 2000 pts objective. Good news :)

And without the crew:

332 points of Dwarf Warriors

I've started this unit in December 2012... Needless to say that it's a big relief to post the final pictures of this band :)

 

Now back to work...

308 points of Dwarf Warriors

Maybe not as good looking as the crossbowmen, but still happy with the final result :)

Next time, the last models painted to complete my second regiment of Dwarf Warriors.

312 points of Quarrellers

As I said before, the quarellers are done. Proof by picture:

Troll slayers completed

I've realised that I had forgotten to post my unit of 12 troll slayers.

Omission corrected!

One last hammerer for the Black Boar Company

Hammerers. Done.

Now that I count by 12, I've picked up a last model, not my favorite one, but I had already removed the slotta bar... SoMarauder dwarf with Marauder shield:


The "Black Boar Company" is now complete.

A 24-point throng

OK, it's been a while since I've started to build this dwarf army following the 3rd edition Warhammer rulebook, but let's face it, there is absolutely no chance that I play a game with them.

So... plan B: Lion Rampant (or later on, Dragon Rampant). I've picked up the rules, and they seem perfect to me: a few pages, nothing too elaborated, I could even convince my old pal Haekel to play a game or two against my dwarfs, provided I paint his army of course... which gives me a perfect opportunity to change my beard-and-chainmail painting routine.

In Lion Rampant, the recommended size for retinues is 24 points, which means 40 to 60 models to field, grouped in units of  6 or 12. Considering the available units, I see the following equivalencies:

• Hammerers = Foot Men-at-Arms
• Dwarf warriors = Foot Serjeants (possibly upgraded to give them two-handed weapons)
• Slayers = Fierce Foot

So, in the end, these 24 points will consist in:

• 6 hammerers (including the commander) = 6 pts
• 12 upgraded dwarf warriors with two-handed axes = 6 pts
• 12 dwarf warriors with spears and shields = 4 pts
• 12 slayers = 4 pts
• 12 crossbowmen = 4 pts

Luckily, I've just completed my 11th and 12th slayers, which means that my mighty throng is ready for battle! (well, skirmish at least)

So, what's next? Possibly Dwarfs (Renaissance style), or Imperial dwarfs (but with more colours this time), or Chaos dwarfs (the Big Hat ones), or... Chaos dwarfs again (the Marauder ones), or Skaven (Haekel has a weak spot for these little bastards in fur), or Wood Elves, or Dark Elves, or Empire... or Halflings.

With Lion Rampant, it's rather easy to pick a 24-pt retinue... then of course, I need to paint 50 models before starting to play :)

The engineer and the town cryer

OK, I have completed the crew for my heavy bombard. The least I can say is that I'm not happy with the result, especially the dwarf engineer (right column). The sculpt job is ugly and my painting skills too limited to get a nice result.

In the end, they may join the baggage train and I'll try to paint more convincing crewmen for this cannon.


In the meantime, the trio around their war machine.

(trying to hide the engineer)

So, if I add up my painted points:

• 21 warriors with double-handed axes and shields, plus standard bearer and musician (293 pts)
• 20 warriors with spears and shields, plus standard bearer and musician (260 pts)
• 2x10 crossbowmen (260 pts)
• 10 giant slayers with light armours and double-handed weapons (120 pts)
• 10 hammerers plus standard bearer (176 pts)
• 1 3-man organ gun with light armours (105 pts)
• 2 3-man cannons with light armours (150 pts)

I have approximately painted the two thirds of my 2000 points... and I think it's time for a dwarf break.

To be continued!