Category: Army-building

Posts related to assembling the miniatures for my Chaos Dwarf army

A Gathering of Might

Up to this point, I’ve done a fair bit of blathering about “background fluff”, reminisced about the fantasy gaming scene in Belfast in the ’80s and ’90s, and even started my own Chaos Dwarf armylist.

More and more it all felt like I was dragging my heels.. Where was I going with all of this? Which figures did I need? How many of them did I need? How was I going to get them? What sort of army did I want to end up with?

Beginning with the end

The first time round, I didn’t have a plan and it showed. I was buying miniatures because I liked them without any idea of what I needed or what I needed them to achieve on the battlefield. I rarely looked at Warhammer Armies and certainly didn’t use the lists to decide what minis I needed next. So although I ended up with a lot of really great minis I had an army with Multiple Personality Disorder, often without the minimum unit-sizes that I needed.

I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

The armylist would help give me the structure I needed but I also had overarching D.A.F.T. requirements:

Destructive: Not in a Herohammer way. I didn’t want invincible heroes striding about the battlefield in god-mode, bashing everything to pieces. I had been an Orc general in the early days and I guess I still had a soft spot for the havoc and devastation that war-machines bring to the table. The Chaos Dwarf army-list gives me access to a whole lot of awesome chopping, mashing, exploding materiel – I’ll be taking all of that, thank you!

Awesome: Maybe above all else, I really, REALLY wanted this army to make people say “That’s the coolest damn thing I’ve ever seen” and with plenty of nice surprises when you looked closer. This meant rare miniatures, some big monsters, some clever conversions and (thanks to the relatively small number of different troops / poses produced by Citadel) sourcing some proxies – all while being true to the original feel of the classic Chaos Dwarf feel. If I ever get to Bring Out Your Lead (a major goal of mine), I want those guys to remember me!

Flexible: I’d read plenty of battle reports where Dwarves sat back and shot up the opposition, who had to try and close the distance as possible. EVERY TIME. Far too boring. I don’t really care about winning battles but I absolutely want to enjoy playing with my army, and for my opposition to enjoy playing against them. To me, this means being able to fine-tune my army selection to change tactics between games – and maybe even during a game – so I can keep the opposition on their toes.

Tremendously big: (OK, “tremendously” is a stretch but I do like my acronyms) I wanted to emulate those 3000-point battle reports in White Dwarf, sure.. but I also wanted to field a bloody huge army, one that wouldn’t look out of place in the titanic clashes in the issues I pored over as a kid. Vast armies with whopping great units. Remember the 33000-point battle “24 Hours at Carik Mound” in White Dwarf 107 or that incredible Magnamund-based “Battle Day 2: The Final Conflict” in G.M. magazine (Volume 2 Number 6 in February 1990) using 1525 miniatures? They are still a great read and exactly what I was after.

Not too much to ask, surely? 🙂

“24 Hours at Carik Mound” in WD 107
The Good, the bad and the smug: Battleday 2 report in G.M. magazine, v2 no.6 1990

A blue-print for my army

Both you and I know what I’m aiming for now, so here’s the early plan:

  • 80 chaos dwarves
  • 40 chaos dwarves with crossbows
  • 20 chaos dwarves with rifles
  • 30 black orcs
  • 40 human slaves

Special troop-types:

  • 20 chaos dwarf beserkers
  • 20 chaos dwarf +1 elites
  • 20 chaos dwarf +2 elites
  • 10 boar centaurs
  • 2 animal-handlers with 2 chaos spawn and 10 chaos hounds

War-machines:

  • 4 bazuka teams
  • 2 mortar and petard teams
  • 2 swivel gun teams
  • 4 whirlwinds or tenderisers
  • 2 cannons
  • 1 juggernaut

Big monsters*:

  • 3 dragon ogres
  • 3 giants
  • Jabberwock
  • Manticore
  • Wyvern

*I make no apologies for my choices here – I just love the miniatures, so I’m getting them 🙂

What do you think, suitably D.A.F.T?

Building from the back – The Chaos Dwarf baggage train

I guess that one of the things I valued most about Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition was the freedom that was given to the gamer to expand the Warhammer universe – there were simply LOTS of gaps in the fluff (and the product lines) that you could fill with your own brand of creativity / insanity.

That’s what I wanted to bring to my new (old) Chaos Dwarf army: colour, fun and hopefully not a little style.

Compared to my old – and long since sold – Orc and Goblin army that had a huge number of miniatures to call upon, the Chaos Dwarves from the 1980s and 1990s had very few figures in the product line but what they had were full of character. The legendary (or even mythical) Juggernaut or Ass Cannon, the volatile bazuka teams and those whirling, bludgeoning wheelbarrows of death, the Whirlwind and Tenderiser.

Still, I’d need to add to the tiny range of figures available from the time if I was going to build an army and those figures would need to be carefully chosen  if I was going to preserve the Oldhammer feel.

Enter the Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train from Old School Miniatures (https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/):

full-set-baggage-osm

I love everything about this set, from the snarling, muscle-bound demon pulling the cart, to the snaggle-toothed driver, to the bound Elfish captive. It really captures the flavour of those old Chaos Dwarf minis and will fits right in to the vision I was building for what this army could be.

I love it so much that I bought three of them 🙂

The cart comes with an entourage, too – four similarly evocative Chaos Dwarves that are equipped with all the equipment camp-followers would need, including a stove, blacksmithing tools and a bound pig:

cd-one-300 cd-two-300

cd-three-300cd-four-300

Not a bad way to start my army!

There’s also the promise of more on the way, with the Prison Cart alternative just having been unlocked in the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/882426675/osm-presents-the-chaos-dwarf-baggage-train/description

Next up, it’s down to some serious work, planning what I want this army to look like and consist of. The baggage train was an impulse buy and that’s the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do this time around, particularly as I’m after some expensive 80s classics.

Plan, plan and plan some more!