WFB Tournament Commentary Game One

This was Game one of the tournament that I described in the post here. Unfortunately, I did not take any notes, so I won't be giving you a play-by-play. Having said that it has been about a month ago, and the games are pretty set in my mind and I did take quite a few pictures in the first two games, and I sort of trailed off on the pictures in game three.  It ended up being a long day, but that is for another post.  

 My army that I brought was as follows:

Characters:

Lord(Lord of Pain): HW, GA, S: Runes: M. Rune of Swiftness, Rune of Fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Stone, M. Rune of Spite

Thane: HW, BSB, LA: Runes: Gromril, Resistance

Runesmith(Runesmith of Pain): HW, GA,S: Runes: Rune of Fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Stone, Rune of Spell Breaking

Runesmith: HW, HA, GW: Runes: Rune of Spell Breaking(X2)

 

Core:

Dwarf Warriors (X24) HW, HA, S FC

Dwarf Warriors (X24) HW, HA, S Vet, Mus

Dwarf Warriors (X10) GW, HW, HA, S

Dwarf Warriors (X10) GW, HW, HA, S

Crossbowmen (x10)

Crossbowmen(x10)

Miners (X12) vet

 

Special:

Ironbreakers (X24) FC

Cannon - Rune of Forging

Bolt Thrower - Rune of Penetrating, Fire

Bolt Thrower - Rune of Penetrating

 

Rare:

Organ Gun

 

Game 1:

 

The setup of the game was a take and hold an objective scenario basically the same as scenario 5 of the BRB, but with one major difference. Instead of the deployment zones on the long edge of the table, we had them on the short edge of the table. The were deeper deployment zones, so I only needed the 12" to get to the center of the table. I was playing against an opponent who brought up a very old set of Orc and Goblins from back in the 70's of Ral Partha fame. Here is what we had at deployment:

 

My Deployment:

and I left this out, but I have my miners to the side.

 

His Deployment:

Turn 1:

My opponent had a hard time understanding how the magic rules work it seemed as I had to help him out in determining what he needed to do in order to setup the spells for his shamen.(always a bad idea to ask the dwarf player on this) Once I got that sorted, we rolled for turns and I think that I made him go first. First turn was pretty booring, just moving to the objective. My opponent decided to take his massive unit of trolls and a Giant through the woods for the rest of the game. He had limited magic through. He did drop a rock with his Rock 'Lobba on one of my warriors unit and they fled due in horror. With the General in the unit no less.

I had no problem rallying the fleeing unit of warriors. I guess that they found their balls again. Other than that, I right hooked with with my Ironbreakers towards the objective. Filled in with my GW detachment where the warriors were to begin with. I also moved up the rest of my army. I returned fire at the Rock 'Lobba and hit a crew member. My bolt throwers did some damage to some rank and file(Black orcs?) and I tried to hit at troll with my other one. Green one was the non flaming BT BTW. Crossbows took pot shots at the orcs that they could see. Pretty standard so far.

 

Turn 2:

My opponent kept moving the same routes as before. I don't recall much magic happening this turn either, but I believe that he got of one of his magic missiles and took out a warrior on my other larger unit. His magic was pretty tepid with what I brought to the game. His Rock 'Lobba viered off to the side after trying to destroy my organ gun.

I rolled to get my Miners into combat, which happened no sweat. I posted them up on the flank and got them behind the trolls. I continued to move my unit up with my GW detachment approaching the objective. Ironbreakers continuing with their right hook oblique on the flank. Warriors with the general moving fast to catch up to the rest of the line. My whole right flank got ready to take on the trolls and Giant. I continued to shoot at the Rock 'Lobba with my cannon and I started to score some hits with it, but not enough to kill the damn thing. My Organ gun started to open up but I believe that I misfired on this turn on it. No damage, just miss the turn. My Bolt Thrower killed a Troll and started to whittle down his forces along with my Crossbowmen.

Turn 3:

My opponent once again moved forward, trying to keep all units together as all of his monsters were walking in the woods. He reformed his Wolf Riders to get ready to engage my Miners. Another magic missile on the same Warrior unit that I failed a dispel roll on. His Rock Lobba once again did no damage.

From there I continued moving forward with my General's Warriors, and GW detachment in the center to claim the objective. My Ironbreakers still doing their right hook. I move up with my Miners on the wolves, and my right flank still holding and guarding the forest with all of his monsters. Ever present for a flanking charge, I made sure that my BSB unit is maximizing the frontage that he is in. I destroy the Rock 'Lobba with my cannon. My Organ Gun takes some damage on his orcs in the center. Both Bolt throwers hit nothing, and my Crossbowmen did some damage to his center units.

Turn 4:

My opponent charges with his Giant against my other GW Detachment. I proceed to panic with my Crossbowmen and Bolt Thrower. Ironically my GW detachment were in it to win it. Likewise with my BSB unit. Its good to have the General nearby. He also charged his wolf riders into my unit of Miners. They held and took the charge. Everything else was creaping up to the objective. I was able to roll well and fully stopped his magic this turn burning the last of my Dispel runes on my Runesmith of Pain in the Ironbreakers. My GW detachment stood no chance against this Giant, fled and was run down by the Giant. My Miners put up a good fight but eventually had to run and was run down by the Wolf Riders off the board.

 

From there I continued my plan of attack. I reformed my BSB unit to get into the fight more as I was worried less of the trolls, as they look to be bogged down in the trees for the rest of the game. I continued to advance with my General's unit and my Ironbreakers to the objective. I opened up on the Giant with both my Cannon and Organ Gun. I managed to nuke it completely. I continued to whittle down the center with my crossbows left and my Bolt Thrower did land a hit and took out a few of the far left flank unit which were Black Orcs.

Turn 5:

We were on the last turn as our TO was calling time on us. He managed to bring more of his units closer to the objective, got his Wolf Riders back on the board, and continued to have his trolls bogged down in the forest. No real magic to write about at this juncture. He did not do any charges on his round that I recall. I was not able to take any more pictures as we were focusing on the land round.

At my turn I did charge with my Ironbreakers unit on the flank to his Black Orcs. I managed to take him out with copious CR on my side and good CC from my runesmith in the unit.

The end of the game you calculate who is within the halo of the objective and t and I had over 500 points worth of units with my Generals unit and the detachment of GW close enough to the objective. He had nothing close enough to counter my points. It was one sided, but not as much as it could have been with more points camped around the objective like I could have had.

To be continued for Game Two...

Dusting Off My WFB Books Again

 

So I went to this tournament last weekend. It was quite a day trip from here in Charlotte, but that was due to the back roads to get there. I took a different route going home that lent me a faster trip home, I thought, but regardless it was about two hours to and from.

As far as the hobby store goes, it was nice location. Right in the middle of Aberdeen, NC which is a small town right between Pinehurst and what used to be called Ft. Bragg. It is right off of US1 and a little history of US1 is that it was the first highway stretching from Maine to the Florida Keys in the US. First established in 1025 and most of the buildings around town look to be built around that time period. There was obviously a lot of military around town but overall it was a nice sleepy old town in NC like what you would imagine Mayberry to be.

Hit Points Hobbies appears to have been located in one of these older buildings from before the war.(WWII) I got that impression form the hardware in the bathroom. The lock on the door was an odd chain lock that locked vertical with a "T" connection and two spigot's one for hot and one for cold water in the sink. Honestly I find that to be a novelty these days so I was ok with it. The shop has the usual game products, but instead of what I normally see with comic books, they had a whole room of video games. It was kind of like an arcade but only for more modern games with consoles hooked up to TV's. It was to a varying degree as far as which edition they had available. So you may find something like a Playstation 4 or 3 there instead of the newer editions for instance. I am not into console gaming so I cant tell just by the look. One other big thing that they were doing there that was different was that they offered a 3D printing service there. You could see the printers in one of the small side rooms that they had. They also had a few paint stations for someone to work on some models as well as I would assume advanced tools like an airbrush.

Overall it I thought that it was a fine store to visit. The general atmosphere and people working the store were nice folks. They do have a store cat so if you are allergic to cats, you are SOL. The cat smell was not bad, but it was faintly there. It makes the store smell more of a home rather than a store, and certainly better than some of the stores that I have been in. I guess that a new coat of paint and an annual cleaning would make things better but not by much. Here is their website with a picture section:

https://www.hitpointhobbies.com/

As far as the tournament goes, it was pretty decently run. All of us were rusty as hell in both playing games, but the TO did a good job in resolving disputes and such events. They kept us on track and got us to finish in a reasonable time in the evening. I have may be two critiques of the tournament management.

One was that they insisted that we use communal dice rather than your own. It is not a big deal to me, but who in the hell is the asshole who loads their dice to win at WFB? But who knows they may be down to that level. Another problem with it was that, the dice was weird colors so not easy to read. If this really is a problem, then I would suggest weighing the dice blocks of people and demand that we use Chessex dice, or if necessary give everyone a block of Chessex to use for the day. They had no problem with my artillery and scatter dice however.

The second was that on my last game my opponent and I were on the same table that we played our games on before. Meaning that he played game one and three on the same table and I played game two and three on the same table. It may not have been possible, but getting us on another table would have been nice.

This is their first time running a WFB tournament in a long time, so as far as hiccups goes, it was pretty small. I guess that they put this one out there to plan just as it was posted. They are planning a new event some time in January or February, and they promised that they will get to planning that a lot more sooner than they did this one, so I guess that they are working on it how. They also had trophies where one was a 3D printed dice tower.

The players were nice to play with. Almost all of us had lunch together at a brewery, and had a great conversation about painting over beer and burgers. Definitely about half were either current or former military, no surprise given the vicinity of the base. Overall I recommend the event that they put on.

Inflation: Warhammer Style

First off, I don't want to make this a rant about the prices and break my promise on bashing GW.  I will get to the details on that later.  I wanted to talk about model inflation that we as war gamers experience from edition to edition when it comes to how our models stack up.   I was inspired by a few posts done a few months back that discussed the inflation that their armies have experienced from circa 1999 to now.  We can thank the blogger, The Army Collector, for the inspiration here.  Let me explain what I mean by Model Inflation and then proceed with an example.  It was something that interested me given my professional experience being in the financial world. 

What is Model Inflation:

The best and most plainly spoken definition that I have ever heard for Inflation is that "Your money buys less now than before."  This can be on the supply side of the price i.e. drought, production failures, etc., as well as on the demand side usually in the form the fact that there is more currency and thus more people who want to buy the item.  We usually see demand side inflation when a central bank "prints more money" for the economy.  Despite my academic credentials in Finance, it took me years after school to see this and understand this.  There is also Deflation which is the opposite event.  A rare event, however, it is known to happen even in our time.  The Housing market has experienced deflation in the United States over the past five years for example on the supply side, as well as a central bank reducing the amount of currency in an economy on the demand side.

For the usual gamer we experience price hikes, which we all are painfully aware of, however there is a bit of inflation that existing models experience over the years in that the models are worth less in points over the editions than when they were originally bought. Usually from the switchover from edition to edition your models have smaller point costs.  This usually has been a rather silent cost that no one really complains about on places like Warseer or B.O.L.S. yet can be just as expensive as the usual price hikes.  What I have bought in the 4th edition to play Warhammer, cannot be as extensive of an army in today's edition.(or as many people like to say "in today's money")  This is what I call model inflation.  Allow me to provide an example.

Applied Model Inflation:

Now I have a very good example to see the difference in my Dwarf army book from back in the 4th.(pictured above)  In the book there was a scenario called "Battle at The East Gate of Karak Eight Peaks."  It was a scenario for everyone to get a flavor for the game and the army.  In short, there was two forces lead by General level characters that totaled up to 3000 pts.  A force being besieged and one force relieving the besieged force, opposed by Orc and Goblin forces that are separated based on the four sides of the table that totaled 3000 as well.  The scenario is that the relieving Dwarf Force is being ambushed by the Orcs and Goblins.  The scenario is based on if the Dwarves can break out of the ambush and if not can the besieged Dwarf force get there in time to relieve the relief force. 

Included in the chapter is a suggested army list for the scenario.  A very useful piece of information to determine how GW was making you calculate your armies.  With that force I took the list and tried to match it to the best of my ability with what I could be able to make with the 6.5th edition army book for Dwarves that is still the current army book. (Pictured Below)

I had a few problems with matching exactly list for list.  Unfortunately there were more toys and choices that Dwarves had back then and that made a difference in my calculation.  A Dwarf character was able to take something called the Master Rune of Death, (I don't know why they did not bring it back as a Killing Blow rule!) Runesmith's could take more toys back in the 4th, and Hammerers could elect to not take Great Weapons.  For that I could not make as accurate of an army list as I had wished.  However I believe that I did get close to it.  What I have as follows is a table of the base points for each unit and the differences:

Dwarf Inflation Sheet
Unit	4ed Points	Amendments	8ed Points	% Reduced
King Belegar's Force
Dwarf Lord	505		266	0.53
Longbeards	227		165	0.73
Thunderers	260		244	0.94
Crossbows	278		212	0.76
Total Force	1270		887	0.70
Lord Duregar's Force
Dwarf Lord	410		326	0.80
Army Battle Standard	206		125	0.61
Runesmith	246		145	0.59
Dragon Slayer			115
Slayers	368		114	0.62
Hammerers	222	20	154	0.64
Warriors	271		200	0.74
Total Force	1723		1179	0.68
Total Army	2993	3013	2066	0.69

The total army back then was 2993 but I had to add 20 pts. for the Hammerers to have Great Weapons to bring it up to 3013.  I also gave the top Dwarf Lord a Master Rune of Kragg the Grim in exchange for the Master Rune of Death.  The total army in today's edition is 2066, over 30% reduction of points.  Needless to say there are great differences in what kind of army that I could put together now as opposed to back then using the same models.  I would also point out that this army would be illegal at this point level.  Given the 8th edition rules, you would need to play a larger game to fit the characters in. 

The biggest difference is in the magic items.  We are spending over 1300 points on characters alone in this list, and that is not counting champions which were part of the character allotment back then.  The majority of those points were spent on magic items and not on the character themselves.  If you ever wonder why they called 4th edition hero-hammer, this may answer it for you.  I also calculated how many models in this army which is quite striking as well.  There were 43 in each contingent for a total of 86 models for this army. 

Now it may be just me but an army of 86 feels rather small to me now as it did back then.  Also the units were very small as well.  The Slayers (including Dragon Slayer), Hammerers, and Longbeards were 10 models each.  The missile troops were 16 each, and the warriors came up to 20.  Ironically there were no musicians however everyone had a standard.  Given the lack of troops in the 4th edition list, I was rather glad for the inflation when I came back in the 6th edition.  They actually felt like actual armies rather than just your character and a few beer buddies and hangers on. 

Honestly I could see doing a 3K game using this scenario very easily and I wished I that I was able to find a willing Orc and Goblin opponent to play this with.  However the army that I would be using for this would be more like 140 models or so easily and using two lords.  I would not specifically say that we are going to get significantly more inflation down the line in this magnitude.  Magic items would be what I would be looking at if that happens again.  Given that I am only really interested in playing with 6th edition rules, I really don't care how much inflation happens in subsequent edition. 

Kazad ai-menu! (The Dwarves are upon you!)

As promised a month or so ago, I decided to make a few comparison shots of some of my GW figures over the years.  I am going to start with my first love, the Dwarves.  I started these guys back in the heady days of the mid 90's.(specifically 1994)  In my collection I really have three distinct lines that I have out there.  Given the merging of Marauder Miniatures, I will just characterize them based on the edition that they came out or the closest editions.  What I want to do with these pictures is to help me figure out whether I want to continue with my idea of using the 7th edition (well usually called 6.5 as well given that they came out earlier than the 7th) models in my collection.  If I really have lost interest in that line of models, I dont see a reason why to keep them anymore.  Without further ado here are the models that I brought out based on the edition used.  At the end I did take the caliper to them and have the results of my measurements below as well. 

Dwarves Over the Years

These are some of my 4th edition models.  I have sold off about 1/3 of my collection from that time, mainly from the look of some of the models that I am not interested with much any more and also because of the fact that I have just too damn much of one model.  I did not have much in the form of depth on the bench with this edition.  I really do love these models, but mainly as character models in my armies. For example, that fully painted handsome devil on the near left, is my thane of pain.

These are the models of my main line army from the 6th edition.  I really do like these models mainly due to their functionality and versatility.  I will talk about this later but I have no problem with the "monkey hands" that everyone incessantly complains about with this edition.  When I got a good hold of them, I really liked working with these guys.  From my experience, they fit really well with my 4th edition Dwarves. 

While technically from the 6th edition, they came out just prior to the 7th, and part of the joke in Dwarven circles as Dwarves 6.5.  I have put these guys together, and I am still rather undecided as to whether they will serve as a functioning wing of my Dwarves.  Unlike in the two previous editions, this army is significantly different in looks so much that they really dont fit side-by-side with previous editions.  This means that they would have to be a separate army. 

Now for the Comparison

The following pics are my comparison shots, rather self explanatory so I will leave the repotage out of the pics.  The commentary will come later on. 

Now this following pic is one with one of my Romans from Warlord Games, just for laughs.  I know that there are some discrepancies between historical miniatures and fantasy miniatures, and that Romans tended to be on the shorter side and thus modeled by some to be shorter, but this is rather rediculius.  From my Calculation of the models without the base, a Dwarf is about 4'7" or so.  Just by looks that would make that Roman no taller than 5' or so.  That would make Napoleon a LARGE guy for during the Roman Times.  I really do find that hard to believe that the Romans were that short given that the Greeks were as short if not shorter and they ranged around 5'4" or so last time that I looked.  It really does make me wonder if Warlord made their Romans more for 25mm playing initially. 

Comparison Stats

I also decided to do some comparison statistics with my models.  I dont really know how to import a table just yet onto one of these posts so please bear with me on this one.  Height is self explanatory for the model itself, but I am just measuring top of head gear to bottom of base.  Width was from Arm to arm, and if different the widest part on that axis in parentheses.  Girth is how I measure from front to back  at the widest part of the beard.  I also did the hands with or without a weapon in hand in both width of hand and length of hand.  All of these numbers are in mm. 

Body Dimensions

Edition:                                  7th          6th          4th

Model Height:                        25           25            24

Model Width:                         17(20)    20            16

Model Depth:                         12           11            10

With Hand weapon

Hand Lenght:                           3             4              4

Hand Width:                            3             4              4

Without Hand Weapon

Hand Length:                           4             4              4

Hand Width:                            2.5          4              4

A note on the 4th Edition measurements, they were the most wildly varied of the three whereas the 7th and 6th are very consistent concerning the body measurements.  It is proabably due to me not using any poses that have the arms tucked down in a ready position rather than in a heroic upright position.  Honestly I dont think that I can find one of those models if I wanted to.  I will have no problem standing by the measurements on the hands, which were eaiser to do than expected. 

What did suprise me was the hands being that much different in size, and yet that consistent between the previous two editions.  Likewise how different the variability in bodysize in the 4th edition also suprised me as well.  What also suprised me what the consistency in the height of the models.  I think that the comparison shots show that any variances in height is based solely on the headgear of the models and not on the projected height of the models.  This is odd since everyone bemoans the fact that GW has been making bigger models, which includes me on this.  Perhaps that this is a Dwarf Thing in that the size comes from a thicker and bulkier plastic model rather than a taller model. 

What to Do with the new Models?

Honestly, doing this comparison and subsequent measurements have raised more questions and uncertainty in general than answered any of my questions.  When I was putting them together, I really didn't like the general bulkiness of the model, yet when I did the measurements there was not that much difference.  Admittingly I only measured a few points on the miniature which does not take into consideration other points that could show how bulky the model is.  Unfortunatelly even a milimeter difference can cause a big change in the look of the model, which should make sense on a 28mm miniature.  I know that I hate the look of the warmachines that are in this edition in question, and what looks like a monopose of the rank and file with the models does not help out either. 

 I think that I can kit bash the old 6th edition models for some variety for a Great Weapon that would give me the almost the same thing with a 7th model, but I can actually move the left arm around.  The problem is that it is a dis-continued item so what I have is what I have unless I get lucky on E-Bay.  Also I saw and I believe still have some awesome looking pictures of dwarfs that were greenstuffed to look like Ironbreakers from these guys.  One ray of hope is that I have what looks like four peanut butter jars full of Dwarf parts.  One is admittingly my bit jar, but the rest is all new dwarfs.  It will take me a while to run out of Dwarves when I start getting them up and running. 

The other good news is that may be able to find some 4th ed. miniatures out there that are not as flamboyant and can fit into the unit without looking like a character.  Not exactly the easiest but better than nothing.  Also I have not taken a look at Wargames Foundry, or Mirliton's lines and see if they match the same dimensions as GW.  Bugman's said that Foundry are supposed to be larger, however they are comparing a Slayer to a fat dwarf in the pic.  Unfortunatelly I want to see this for myself with what is supposed to be a regular with a regular.  Nevertheless, hope springs eternal on that front, and I saw online that Militron does have crewmembers for cannons and Stonethrowers.  That is something that I really do want to find since I do lack viable variety in models for my artillery crew.  I cant remember right now if Foundry has any warmachines.  Even if they dont quite match up, it would be better than nothing for a new crew.  I have not been impressed with any other manufacturers out there. 

All in all, it is looking worse and worse for the 7th edition that I do have.  Perhaps one or two of the thinner characters may pass muster for me, but I expect to be selling my inventory when I get  a chance to move them, unless I have a wild mood swing which I doubt will happen.  If anyone is interested, please let me know and I will provide you an inventory of what I have. 

Back to Middle Earth once again.

Well I have to point out that a fellow blogger by the name of Der Feldmarschall gave me this tid bit earlier this week in the following post. 

http://derfeldmarschall.blogspot.com/2011/12/hobbit-unexpected-journey-movie-trailer.html

Thanks a bunch for posting this DF.  Now as a Dwarf guy, you would assume that The Hobbit is right in my wheel house.  Unfortunally stereotypes tend to be right right and this is no exception. The Hobbit, and for that matter LOTR as well, is in my opinion an example of classic fantasy literature ranking up there with Grimm's Fairytales, and even though both of these books may be considered to be geared toward the younger crowd I tend to think that they are still great reads for us adults.  I get a lot more out of these works now than when I was younger, and I can understand the richness of these works. 

Now let me comment about the movie.  While I do like the LOTR movies so much that I have the full DVD set, there are several glaring omissions that I wish that they would have kept in the movie, like the clensing of the shire for one.  I understand that they had a time issue, but some of the issues that I have with the movie do change the storyline that provides a larger message rather than just fantasy entertainment.  The Hobbit had much fewer messages in the book, however the movies are supposed to take a broader view of what was happening in Middle Earth at the time.  I am really looking forward to seeing this movie, and from what I see it will tie into the LOTR movies quite neatly.  All in all it looks like a great movie so far and I look forward to seeing it, which will hopefully introduce a lot of the Dwarven culture to us that we see from the books.  For those who want a link take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSoD4BBCJc

As a side note the singing of the Dwarves in the movie is much better than the cartoon from back in 1977.  I thought that those damn songs were too childish when I was 6, let alone now.

A Few Close Ups

As promised in my previous post, here are a few close ups of the pictures of my Dwarf army.  Lets start with my first group of miniatures. 

These warriors are my first set of dwarves that I painted.  While the paint job leaves something to be desired like some basic shading and highlighting, but the poses leave a lot to be desired as well.  I only started with 20 of these and then added 5 more a few years later.  You proabably cant see them but I have improved. 

After my first unit of regular warriors, I put together these guys.  Once again some basic lessons were leaned by painting these guys, and like above, I did add five more dwarves to this unit.  Unfortunately I figured out that it is not the greatest of ideas to have these guys as a block as large as the warrior units.  You live and learn on all fronts I guess. 

Now this cannon I believe that I came next, it all gets fuzzy after the first two.  As you can see these metal guys are showing their age.  They are first on the block as far as repainting.  I have no idea exactly when I plan on doing that but it will be a long time from now I guarantee. 

As stated in the picture, these are the miners.  Once again a few issues with shading and some of these guys are also showing their age. 

This is my unit of Longbeards with a character that I placed in here.  Usually if I want a Lord he is the man that I use.  A little better shading, but still some painting to be desired. 

My unit of Ironbreakers with a Battle Standard Bearer.  Now I really think that at the time that this was the best that I could have done at the time.  I think that I could do better now on the unit for sure, but not that bad at all.  The armour is my special mix to show that they have Gromril armour. 

I should have put this guy up front because he is the oldest model that I still have that is fully painted.  If I every question my ability I take a look at him and compare what I am painting to him.  It always makes me feel better after that.  He used to be my Runesmith, until I retired him. 

I wanted to put my elite core units out there as well.  The model on the top left is my runesmith.  He is part of the "first wave" of painting that I have done.  The guy on the bottom left is my Thane of Pain when I need one.  He is perhaps one of my best works that I have done in my "second wave" of my dwarfs.  I need to make sure that this guy has the cushioning to make sure that he doesnt become like the cannon crew.  Speaking of the second wave here is the bulk of them coming up next. 

My organ gun.  While you can't really see the shading in the picture, the crew's beards are all shaded and not blobs.  This is one of the first in the second wave of models that I did. 

Now this is my best unit painted up right now.  The runesmith here is ranked right up to my thane of pain in quality of painting.  Some of the shading is not showing up well, but this is the best of my painting job with Dwarves. 

Right now I am trying an experiment with my painting in that I have groups of 40K, Fantasy, and WAB all up on my table.  I wanted to try to paint one thing at a time on each group whenever I paint, in order to break the monotony of painting so much of one unit.  It seems to be working ok on that front, but it is taking forever to get everything done.  I guess that I should rather focus on one group at a time.  I am going to try to finish up my Space Marines and knock them out given that they are the closest to being complete, and try something else.

Mustering the Horde.

Sorry for the long wait on this post.  I have been very busy with other projects and gone every other weekend for a few events, along with housesitting.  Well I decided to take a few pictures of my Dwarf army and post them here.  More are to come, but here are just a few that I have edited so far.

A panoramic picure of my whole painted dwarf army, less a few models.  This comes in at around 3000 pts. last time that I have checked. 

This is the vanguard of my army for the most part.  I don't really count the pair of bolt throwers in this, it is just that I wanted them on a hill and my core looks cool near a hill. 

This is my missle wing of my army.  Notice that my stone thrower lost its wheel.  I just saw that it happened when I took them out of the box.  Apparently this happened after my last move.  DAMN IT!!!!

Not exactly a missle wing or a core wing of my army, but this is what I had left to put on my table so this is what is left.  My next post will have a few more close ups that will hopefully show you more detail.