Stew

Welcome to part two of my project log. The difficult thinking part out of the way, it’s time to get over last month’s indecision and start my journey towards next February’s tournament.

I was recently asked which hobby project I was most proud of and was a little lost for words. My mind went blank. I couldn’t think of anything I’d ever done, and then the perfect answer came to me. This one. Clash of Kings has given me the chance to do something a bit special, and I’ve got the time to make the effort. I’m not going to throw this together at the last moment for the sake of getting a game in, I’m going to go about it more carefully. Hence the length of last month’s post. Hence the amount of waffle it contained. I’m doing it again aren't I…?

Unboxing - Decimators
Without a finalised list, I wanted to start with a unit guaranteed to be in my army, and I knew that I’d have at least one troop of these guys. Blunderbusses are cool. So what do you get?

The basis for these is five Dwarf Ironwatch sprues. To ‘Abyssalise’ them, there are four heads, six helmet extensions, and ten guns. Five of these are complete sets of arms in two different poses, and the other five are separate barrels. Every piece is exceptionally detailed and characterful, with helms depicting dragons, skulls, and all manner of strange paraphernalia. They are a very simple way to completely change the look of the plastics and give the Abyssal Dwarf army its own feel. The sprue itself, although economical, has a surprising number of combinations, especially when you consider that the parts are interchangeable with the full range of plastic Dwarfs.

The metal components have few mould lines, and the few chunky bits of flash were simple to remove. The majority of the excess metal is attached to parts that are unseen on the finished model, such as the bottom of the heads and the shoulder joints, to avoid unsightly flat areas where it’s been removed.

At this point I must warn you that the Abyssal Dwarf army in its current form requires some rudimentary modelling skill. Before assembly parts of the heads and shoulders on the plastic dwarfs need to be cut down to accommodate the metal accessories. This is nothing major, but expect to spend a little extra time to get them looking their best. After assembly I used some putty to fill the gaps between the joins, but again, this was nothing too complex. I didn’t have to sculpt anything, merely had to brush on some liquid green stuff and smooth it down to hide the joins.

Unboxing - Immortal Guard
As I said before, I’m looking for Immortal Guard to be the core of my army. However, they are a little expensive for my budget, and so I will be combining Immortal Guard and Blacksoul figures for mine. One’s attention is generally drawn to the head of a model, and these are the same in both regiments so I will differentiate between the two with my paint scheme instead. I will not be assembling the Immortal Guard at this point – I'll wait until I have some Blacksouls and get kitbashing. This is what the set contains:

The starting point is two sprues of Ironclad command and two of Shieldbreakers to provide enough legs for the metal torsos. With clever use of parts, I can actually get more than ten figures from the set. The metal components are: eight torsos, four of each pose; ten heads; two helmet tops; a standard pole; and thirteen shield/banner icons. Even with just two torsos there are plenty of options. The armour and helms have intricate, ornate detail, and like the Decimators the beasts sculpted onto the shield icons and helmets give a strong character to the Abyssal Dwarfs. After a quick dry-fit, it seems that a bit of putty will be required fitting the metal torsos to the plastic legs, depending on the combination, but I’m sure it will be nothing too difficult. At first I was a little unsure about the price compared to the Blacksouls kit, but having seen the number of chunky metal pieces you get it makes a lot more sense – this is well worth the money, as is the whole army set.

Unboxing - Katsuchan Rocket Launcher
What a gorgeous piece this is. It’s as if the rockets are being launched through the skull of one of the great beasts of the Abyss. Here are the components:

The war engine itself is based on an Undead Balefire Catapult, with Dwarf Cannon crew. There is a faceplate for the machine, as well as a rocket, two big spiky hubcaps, and new heads for the crew. I can’t tell you how nice the design is. Once the new book is out and I’ve had some siege games, I might have to pick up a few more copies of these components to mount on siege towers, rams etc. My one gripe is that one of the crew has just the one pose and he’s holding a shell. Not a problem when he’s firing a cannon, but for this war engine I would prefer for him to be holding a rocket instead. However, as I said, I will have more than enough spare parts from the Immortals to make a new crew member.

Painting
The Decimators are done! You may remember that I wanted to try something different, and go for a light colour scheme. Well it took a couple of attempts, but I got to something I’m happy with. If you’ve seen my Forgefathers, you’ll know that I have a thing for painting short people yellow. However, with the background that I’m formulating, my dwarfs think rather a lot of themselves and therefore need ornate, golden armour, but I thought that may clash with the yellow. Looking at the other armies where I’ve used gold or bronze, it also seems far too warm a colour for an evil army. I wanted something colder and dirtier. The answer? Tin Bitz, drybrushed up to silver, with a couple of coats of sepia wash. I was very impressed with the results – gold without using gold. The mustard colour was built up from ochre to yellow, and then again given a sepia wash. With the two main colours out of the way, I used light, earthy browns to pick out belts, boots, pouches and gloves, and painted all the beards white so they’d really stand out. Finally, I picked out the eyes and crests on the helmets in Warlock Purple. Although this is barely noticeable on the Decimators, it will feature much more on some of the other units in the army. It’s a nice contrast colour for the yellow, and it’s about time I found a use for it!

Overall a very simple scheme, but that’s a good thing. I have a deadline to complete this army, and if I can achieve good results in a short amount of time it makes my life a lot easier. It means I’m less likely to get bored while painting and I’ll have more time to focus on other aspects of the army, including getting some playtesting in!

Basing
As I said last month, I’m going to be multi-basing this army, for many reasons. As such, I didn’t attach the miniatures to their bases before painting. In fact, I didn’t use the normal bases at all. There have been comments flying around about various companies that make unit bases, but none that I’ve seen are a: customisable enough, and b: cheap enough. It seemed the only solution was to make my own.

First step was to purchase some 2mm MDF cut to the right sizes, i.e. 40mm x 100mm for a the Decimators. I laid out the assembled models onto the base to see where they would fit and marked the positions. At this point I decided to reduce the model count of the unit and only have eight models per base. The whole piece looked less crammed, the figures ranked up easier, and it gave me the freedom to put scenery in the gaps. The leftover parts will make conversions a lot easier too. The beauty of Kings of War is that doing this makes no difference in the game.

Once I had the positions marked up, I used a 16mm drill bit to cut holes for the bases of the models to slot into, and then glued another piece of MDF to the bottom. If anyone’s seen the unit bases sold by PK-PRO, the result was similar but at a fraction of the cost. I’d estimate that this base cost about 25p (and half an hour in the workshop, but what’s time when you’re having fun… and playing with power tools…).

I said I was going to mount some sort of damage counter into the base, but in my haste to get the unit finished I forgot. Luckily, having fewer models on the base has left a convenient space at the back, enough room for a couple of dice. Perfect!

When it comes to decorating the bases, I’ve gone for simple drybrushed sand to represent bare earth. I will then accessorise with rocks and dead grass and trees to give the impression that the presence of the Abyssal creatures taints everything nearby. I also used the piles of bones left over from some Skeleton sprues. For the trees, I scoured the garden for suitable looking foliage and returned with a few twigs and twisted bits of ivy, but it didn’t quite work. Then I found it: the gooseberry bush. The lower branches had died and been affected by some sort of grey and yellow growth. Looked rather awesome. You were waiting for the title to make sense weren’t you? Results below:

Until Next Time
So, I hope you’ve learnt something today. With luck it will even have been from this post… What are your thoughts on my progress so far? Comments and questions are welcome below.