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.

The cook and the return of the Goblobber

OK, this cook is my least favorite member of the goblobber team, and I initially didn't want to paint it (plus the fact that the roasting spit was broken and I was too lazy to fix it).

But comments read on different forums have changed my mind and here it is. As you can see, the fireplace (another piece I wasn't fond of) has been incoportated into a 25x50 base on which I've glued the cook. It works better that way IMO.
 

And now the whole team posing in front of the goblobber :)

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:

Spotter and Commander

Fourth and fifth members of the goblobber crew, here are the spotter and the commander.

The gob loaders

One month without post, but for a good reason: I was trying to complete my last war engine, the gob lobber. Let's start with the loaders. Again, I'm not totally happy with the painting job, I really need to end this army, to renew my motivation (and possibly change my colours).

My favorite one:


And the two other guys: