Pictures of the female troopers

Thought I would share pictures of the two female Imperial Guard soldiers before I start painting them. Since the pictures were taken I have done one modification on the sergeant, and that is that I have glued a rifle on to her back as I felt she was missing something with only a chainsword and grenades.

Female guards, deamonettes and more

My first three Plage Drones are now completely built and waiting for warmer weather so I can prime them before painting. Before I start with the paintjob I will have a look at pictures of other peoples work to get some impressions of how I can paint them up. The minis need to look nicely painted but nurgly at the same time and that is a challenge I have not faced before. I have also found the second box of drones and will put that together in the near future so when I start to prime and paint there will be six drones to do as a batch job.

I have also assembled a unit of ten Deamonettes of Slaanesh with full command. I was not very happy with the musician, because the instument didn't stay in the air as I had planned. But that's what you get when you're not watchng the minis dry. I think it was quite fiddly to get the arms to sit right on the tiny sholuders, but apart from that it was a nice and fun little box to assemble. And I am quite sure that the unit will be expanded in the future. I have a few ideas about painting these, and I will go for purple and black clothes with gold details.

I have just made a conversion I've been wanting to do almost since I started with Imperial Guard, and that is to make female troopers. First time I thought about it was after seeing Starship Troopers. I've read the old fluff that says that only very few women join the Guard, but I feel some need to be represented. And with the spares from the Deamonettes box right in front of me I had the perfect start.
While assembling the Deamonettes I had this plan in my head, so I saved two heads that didn't look too deamony (is that even a word?) and today my first two female troopers were born. One of them is quite inspired by one of the characters in Tanya Huff's Confederation series. A non human with high purple hair (don't remember the name).
I might call her Sergeant Kerr in recognition of the series, as she will get a "normal" hair colour in my army.
The other female trooper have a pony tail of the hair she has left, and she is a regular trooper. I sort of figue most enlisted men to have very short hair, so in that way the deamonette heads with hair only in the middle of the head will fit nicely. You can't see that the enisted men have mohawk hair too, as they have kept their helemets on...
I had originally thought of using elf heads earlier, but on those heads the pointy ears were too visible.

I have also made snow bases for the entire six man unit of Ogres, and I will use some time later today or tomorrow to drybtush the technical paint with white to make it look even more like snow. On other bases, like cavalry and monsters I will try and add some grass turfs to break up the monotony of the white, but I don't think I will do that on these bases.

I also assembled Cypher - The Fallen Angel yesterday for my Chaos Space Marines warband. He is a metal mini but still quite nice with some nice details. This will give me a choice to field my Chaos Marines as fallen Dark Angels if I like, or if I choose to have my own chapter Cypher can have joined them for a duration as he is known to do such things according to the official fluff. This also says he attract fallen Dark Angels, so we'll see what I end up with in the future. But since all my Chaos Space Marines will be Dark Angls Green, then they might be fallen angels...

Merry Christmas to all...

I didn't get any Warhammer related stuff for Christmas, but I had not expected to get any either. I have so many kits on the shelves already, waiting for some tender love, glue and paint.
I did however participate in a Secret Santa event at Games Workshop, so yesterday I was in the store and got a present from another participant.
Everyone that wanted to participate bought a set from any of the modelranges. The price should be 250NOK or more. For about 250-280 NOK you get boxes with troops and units for most of the armies, so that is a good price. Then the staff members wrap the presents, and yesterday we were allowed to choose one present each.
I got a box of Plage Drones in my present. They are from the Chaos Deamons range, and can be used with the same bases both for Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40.000. In the earlier days you had to mount the flying stems on square bases for Fantasy, but now I can just use the flyer bases on them for both systems. The box came with enough stems to make both kind of bases though, so it was not much job to use them for both system earlier either.
Now I have three flying stems that I can use with my future plans for my Dwarf airforce. I have been inspired to make a few balloons to use as observation platforms as well as the Badyear Blimp.

I built the three Plage Drones as a command unit, and then I will build three more as regular Plage Drones to make up a unit of six. If I happen to come across a single model in the future, I will add it to the unit as seven is a more Nurgly number, but I'm not buying a box just to build one of three. If they work great on the battlefile though, I might add more units, and then one box can provide the seventh drone for three separate units. Only the future knows what will come...

A little time ago I bought the Games Workshop backpack (known as the Munitoruim Battlepack Case Harness), and this can be used as a regular backpack, or you can open it to hold either one crusade case, two battle cases or three skirmish cases in a harness behind the rooms of the pack itself. I bought it as a bundle, and saved some money getting the Crusade case at the same time. This can carry a lot of models, so I felt it was stupid to just carry three ork Killa Kans and a Cannon. So I went down in my hobbyroom and found a lot of other projects that needed some love and care and brought them along as well. Now I have them in the case, so I plan to finish them all (not a lot of work left for many of the units) and get them ready for the display shelves and for future battles.

So the plan for the next few days is:

- Wash the unit of six Ogres that has been standing ready for the final touch for a long time. I see that I spilled some paint on a couple of pants, so I will need to repaint those. But apart from that it is a matter of washing the models. I have put this out because I've been a little worried about how the skin will turn out, but I think I am ready to give it a shot now. I also got some wash advice from the GW staff yesterday...

- Wash the unit of Slaanesh Chaos Warriors (The Shining ones). This is fairly easy as they all just need a thin coat of Nuln oil to make them look a little bit dirty, but not too much. I might also use a little drybrushing on the armourplates to make them shiny again. After all, the unit is called The Shining...
Then some time in the future I will paint up Sigvald to lead them. And right now I am also putting together a unit of ten Daemonettes of Slaanesh to fight alongside them on the battlefield...

- Wash and drybrush a unit of Dwarf Ironbreakers. They need the same care as the Chaos warriors above.

Then I have a cannon with crew that needs washing, and I need to finish painting (and then wash) my Grudge ponies. I wanted to put them on bases, and with the help of Mats at Games Workshop we decided that the square bases that came with the Plage Drones are perfect for this task. Since I have two boxes of Drones I have enough bases for all the ponies, so I will try and make these bases look like a trail of some sort, and add some turf and some technical paint to them as I do get a little room on each side of the ponies to work with. If this works out nice, I will use some of them on my Armies On Parade board next year...

-Finish paining my Killa Kans, the Kustom Mega-kannon with crew and a lot of Boyz for my 40K Ork army. I had not primed the Killa kans, so I gave them all a good dash of red paint to use as a base. The plan was to paint them up in the store yesterday to use them in a game at noon, but I ended up building Plage Drones instead.
The Killa Kans will be red with yellow details, just like my Battlewagon, and the Kannon will be yellow like my Trukk with both red and black details. I will paint the crew so that they can be used on other wehicles as well. There are five crew to each cannon, and I have four of them, so I thought I migh use some of the crew for other projects, as all grot helpers can be switched betwewn sets, and it will give a bit more life to the army to have a little variation. Besides, all of the different cannons won't need five crew to operate. And I might need one or two crewmembers on my Stompas.

Pictures of the finished projects will be shared here as units are done.

Unboxing the Relicos Militarum set

I thought I would try something I haven't done before, and that is a picture presentation of the unboxing of a set. I have made a new tag for this, simply called "unboxing". I will not do this for regular small sets, but I will do it for sets that I feel deserve it either because of their size or because they are special in some way.

First out is the quite large scenery set called the "Relicos Militarum". This deserves an unboxing post because it is the biggest senery set in the Games Workshop scenery range (at least so far), and it is combined from parts from many other existing sets (I'll come back to that further down in the post).

The set is a big sacred building that has been bombed and damaged by war, but it still holds some secrets. It comes with its own rules for use in games.
I plan to use this as a center piece for games or displays, so I could wish it came with better assembly instructions or at least better pics of what the designers have used where...

This is the front and back of the box. The back is the only place that really show how everything is supposed to look when built, so do not throw the box away until you're done building...

This is what meets you when the lid is taken off. Lots of sprues with lots of parts...

One sprue contains a broken Aquila and some rubble. This is half the set that is sold as the "Honoured Imperium". The parts that are missing, are the ones you use to build the statue of a Space Marine.

There are four sprues with the walls with the eagle heads. These are some of my favorite wallsections for Warhammer 40K scenery, and I look forward to combining them with regular wall sections unlike how it is done in the Shrine of the Aquila box where these walls originate from.

Here are the last parts for the walls above, the two head parts of the eagle and the stairs. There are also two tall ruined wall sections on each sprue, one large an one small. Four sprues in total. These are also the same sprues that are used in the Shrine of the Aquila box.

Then we have four whole cathedral walls. Two sprues with two walls on each, the total of four walls. Just like the two previous sprues, they come from the Shrine of the Aqila box.

There are four sprues with floors. These are standard floor secctions that comes with all the existing buildings. If I like to use more than there are in this set, I can always borrow some from some of the other scenery sets I have.

There are also four sprues of these wall setions with nice support collumns. These are the nicest collumns of all the existing scenery sets, and these sprues comes from the Basilica Administratum set. The wall sectons here are very detailed, with lots of sculls and other little details that needs extra attention when painting it up.

And Finally there are two sprues of double doors and wall sections from the Santcum Imperialis set. These are also nice walls, but their details are not so complicted to paint as the ones above.
The support collumns on these sprues have been used in different places on my buildings before, both as collumns and as wall decor. I also love the lamps on these sprues, and I might add some from my spares to use on this building as this will certainly be a center piece.

I don't have very high hopes for a quick assembly and paint process for this set. I will need a lot of space and a lot of time to get this done to the high standard it deserves and demands. As a center piece I really feel I should put an extra effort in to all the little details, and give this set the tender love and care that it needs to be the best I can make it. I will need to prime it, and that might have to wait for some warmer weather.

Betrayal at Calth, Dwarfs, Armies on Parade, and the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum

I got me the Betrayal at Calth boardgame. The big plan is to paint the Spacemarines up to match my Gatekeepers. Since they have a base so far away, the thought is that they also have lots of old wargear that they maintain and use. So I will paint one box up as the Gatekeepers and another box up as my Chaos force.
I am still hoping that Games Workshop will release more of the old style marines from the Horus Heresy, and rumors says they might come up with an expantion pack to the Betrayal at Calth if it sells well enough. That would fit with the way they did with the Dark Vengeance box. First we got a box with Dark Angels and Chaos, and then we got expantion boxes for both armies. This is also the way they have done it with the starter set for Age of Sigmar.

My plan is to paint up as much as possible and see if I can't participate in a game at Games Workshop Oslo on January 2nd with just figures from the Heresy. I may also use regular marines, but they must be in the correct armour. So I will try and see what I have.

I also plan to work on my Dwarf army. I have been thinking about them for a long time, and my first plan is to paint up a unit of Rangers. Then it will be Quarrelers and hopefully I can start working on my blimp. The idea is to use a dwarf army for next years Armies on Parade, so I plan to paint up a lot of dwarfs during the year, and then use the best for my parade entry.
The idea is to have the entrance to a dwarf keep, with the big doors, then the dwarfs marching off to war. I plan to have a mine entrance with Miners and Grudge Ponies, my blimp hovering above, and hopefully a few trees with Rangers walking among them.
I don't know the setup yet, but I do have a board from this year so I have exact meassurements of the board, and that means I have a good chance of doing a good job planning it up a long time before the competition.
I made a tag for updates if anyone is interested in following the progress. All the 12 posts from this years competition, and the furure posts now have the tag AoP.

Another plan is to get several tanks painted up for my Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum as it is known now). I need a lot of troops as well, but I have built several tanks and they need some love, care and a good paintjob. I have the scheme, but I am always looking at ways to make it look more interesting. I have a box with one super heavy, three Leman Russ tanks and three Hellhound type wehicles and I would like to get those painted up and the box off my shelves.

Armies on Parade - Part 12

As promised, here are the blogpost with pictures of my board.

I did not win (as expected) but I reached my goal. I got a few votes, and it was not from me as I did not vote for myself. So now I'm looking forward to next years event, and I will plan a new board with a new army. Next year I will have the board ready earlier, and use more time on creating it. Then I will try even harder for a top 3 placement. Now for the pictures:

This is a shot of the entire board with the army lined up. 

Here is the first unit of devastators lined up behind the tank barriers. In time this unit will be extended with five regular marines to make a ten man squad.

Here is the second squad of Devastators. They will also be buffed up to ten men using five regular marines. In the background is the bunker complex. The tank barrier in the front got a little too much rust.

Here is the top of the bunker with a ten man scout squad and the Scoutmaster in the middle. The Scoutmaster is Sergeant Telion, but I have removed the Ultramarines insignias on him.

Here is a better picture of the Scoutmaster. His base is painted up just like the floor of the bunker, but now that the event is over, I will redo the base with Martian Earth like the other scouts.

The bikers are speeding down to take the fight to the enemy. On each side of them the ten man assault squad is moving forward as well.

Here is a detail of the tunnel between the bunker and the tower. This is as described earlier built with plasticard walls and the roof is made of walkways from the Manufactorum set. The ladder and lamp is also from that set. I just had to add a lamp, and I might add more of them to this base in the future...

Here is a detail of the big bush and a trio of snakes. The bush is climbing up the wall to hide that there is a hole behind there as there was so many angles on the tower that I couldn't get the wall to fit 100%.

As promised this morning, here is a pic of the full pipe section.

On the top of the tower the Captain of the 3rd company is standing with the Chaplain to get an overwatch over the battlefield, and with their jump packs they can get in to the fighting where it is needed in a very short time.

And finally a pic of the Hunter standing at the tower base. The Hunter sends out rockets to kill off as many enemies as possible before they come to close.

Armies on Parade - Part 11

After one and a half hour of detailing, everything is now ready for the big event.
I am just waiting for some of the last wash to dry before I start to box the units for transportation.

As a teaser for the next post with all the pictures, I am adding pics of two details from the board, taken this morning.

The first pic is of the pool of pollution. The barrels are one barrel cut in half, painted black and then weathered with rust. The end of the pipe is a pipe from the Promethium pipes scenery set (the smallest pipe in the box). Will take a picture of the whole pipe section later today. Notice also the rat standing on the barrel far away from the camera, it might be planning to jump over in to the pipe.

The second pic is of the bush where the rats have made their den. Some of the rats are eating at the remains of a poor soul that once died here. The sculls in the back are the bottom of the tower.

Armies on Parade - Part 10

With just hours left until the event, I still have a few small details left to fix.
I need to wash my chaplian and captain, and I need to paint Tuskgor Fur along the side of the building I scratchbuilt to cover up the brown where I used texture paint to hide that the bulding didn't go exactly flat with the surface of the base. I had hoped I could do that tonight, and just wash it tomorrow morning, but the texture paint was still too wet, so I will have to do the paint early tomorrow, and add the wash just before I leave.

I met a few snags while adding the buildings to the base but I think I have worked them all out now, to a satisfactory level.

I will add pictures tomorrow, both of the board with just the buldings, and the board with a full setup of troops looking the way it will be when people can start to vote.
Like I think I said in an earlier post, I don't expect to win at all, but I hope that I at lesst will get a few votes as a sign that some people like what I have been doing.
I have gotten nice feedbacks when I have been sitting at the painting table at Games Workshop working on my troops, so I am hopeful...

Armies on Parade - Part 9

It is only two days left before the big event now, and even though I'm not completely done yet I am quite certain that everything will be ok before Saturday.
Everything except from one bit is assembled, and most of the painting is done. I am doing weathering for everything it is worth at the moment. needed a little time off now because my workspace is full of things tht need to dry before I can make the next step.

The board itself is painted and washed, but I went in the classic trap and used too much wash. I tried to fix some of it with a drybrush, but not sure exactly how it turned out. That will be for the voters to decide. I've done everything as good as I possibly can, so I am happy either way.

Unit status:
Bikers: Attackbike is 100% done. The other bikes needs to have the rim around the base paintes, but I won't do this before the paint is done cracking on the top. The bike bases need to be washed after that.

Devastators: All painted except for the engine on the chainsword of one sergeant. Then they and their bases needs to be washed.

Assault marines: All painted except for the engines on the chainswords. Need washing of Marines and bases.

Scouts: all painted. Needs to wash them and their bases.

Scout Sergeant Telion: a little cleanup needed, then needs wash on him and the base.

Captain and Chaplain: almost done, just a few details left. One of these details is to get the axe glued on to the captain, and this will be done later today. Then they need wash, and I need to paint and wash their bases.

Hunter: The Hunter is painted and cleaned, and I added some technical paint to the support anchors for keeping it steady when the rockets fly. I will add just a little bit of rust to them, as the only part of the wehcle that will have rust on it. I think it is fitting as these anchors goes down in the eath, so they will get a lot of wear.

Scenery: Buildings are almost done, the tower just need a wash, and the low building needs a few digits and screens painted, but apart from that just a wash.
Then I will take them down to the table and glue them on along with the middle section.

The pipe is alredy glued to the board, and the puddle with the sinking barrels are in place and looking good.

The tank busters are assembled and washed, and I have added the first layer of technical paint to them. Will add the rust a little later doday, and then they are all done.

The bushes are painted and washed, but I need to place them on the board before I can glue them together. I will have a trio of snakes partially cowered in one bush and rats running from the other and down towards the pit.

The lamp is painted and washed, and just waiting to get the base of it washed along with the marines and bikes.

The good thing about wash is that I can apply that even with a little dim lighting, at least on bases and buildings, so I think I will come quite a long way further before I call it a night.

Armies on Parade - Part 8

We're one week away from the main event, and things are slowly (painfully slow as a matter of fact) comming together.
The scouts have been glued togehter, except for the one with the rocket launcher, since I discovered I had forgotten to paint the inside of his arms. I will do that, and glue his arms to his torso tomorrow.
Thursday and today I have been sitting for several hours at the Games Workshop store in Oslo to get as much painting done as possible. Sitting at home, it is so easy to get sidetracked to do other stuff like watching tv series or sit by the computer.
Thursday I found the perfect way for making headlights on my bikes, and I will use the same technique for the lights on the Hunter and on the buildings as well as a lamp post I hope to attach to the base.
The mid building is based and painted, both walls and roof, and only missing a final wash before assembly.

I based everything but the characters today, and I managed to make a big mistake with the scouts. My idea was to have them in the low building, and because of that I planned to make the bases similar to the building floor. But instead I managed to base them all with the same paint as the Assault Marines and Devestators. So I have thought up a scheme to make it plausible that they are standing on sand even when they are standing on the building floor. When adding the floor to the structure I had to use a lot of greenstuff, and some of that is visible on the top of the floor. So I will paint that in sand colour instead of trying to hide it, and the story is that there is a lot of sand flying on the planet surface, so there are a lot of sand on the floors. Since it is only on the ground level the wind are as crazy, there are no sand in the high tower.

The bikers will soon be ready, I will paint red stripes on their shoulderguards, so that it is possible to see that they belong to the 3rd company, and then glue them on to the bikes, wash both bikers and bikes with Nuln Oil, make the bike bases and glue them on there and they will be all done.

All the Marines carrying a chainsword will have the black stripes on their swords after the next session with them. Mats at GW Oslo showed me a very nice trick to get straight stipes on the words, so I will find a ruler and a sharp pencil and make stripes to paint along. This will fix my problem of straight stripes of equal size. Then it's just the Nuln Oil wash and they are also done.

The Snipers and Sergeant Telion will have Nuln Oil wash on their blue pats, and Agrax Earthshade (brown colour) wash on their "white" parts.

The Hunter and the buildings will also get the same wash of Nuln Oil, and the low builing will have the few details left fixed.

Found a lovely suprise looking for something else...

I was looking for some Ork pieces and stumbled across two plastic bags of Space Marine parts.
Been looking on Forge World now and found out what I have.
One bag is a Space Marine Apothecary set, with two apothecaries with a lot of details. One of them is a MkII Crusade-pattern power-armour, and the other is a MkIV Maximus pattern. So both are older than the standard Space Marine power-armour.
I would really like to build them so that they look great, as they will stand out from the rest of the marines. I'm thinking of grey-white armour, but with blue backpack, boots and helmets. Then I will repaint the one apothecary I have started on, to give him the same look.

The other bag contained another Forge word set, a Legion MkIV Recon Squad with five Marines. They can be armed with shotguns or sniper rifles, and I plan to make three or four with sniper rifles and at least one with a shotgun. Might end up with three sniper rifles and two shotguns, I'll see when I start to assemble them how it will look. I know one of them must have a shotgun as he has one hand down his side so the sniper rifle will look weird.
If I had found them a month ago, I migh have replacesd the scouts with them as they are something that is rearly seen on the tables. But I will not have them painted up to a standard in the time I have left. 

But they will no doubt be a squad in my force for the future. Not sure of what company to put them in though, the logical part would be to call them 1st Company with their MkIV armour, but I'm not sure they will look good with white helmets. So I'll see where I end up when I start to paint.

In the early night the light on my table isn't good enough for painting since I'm sitting on the living room table to work now. So I have taken with me some of the old Ork trukks that I wanted to convert, and I plan to make them in to weapon platforms. Three of them will have launch platforms for the rockets I have bought earlier. The Grot Bombs will fly from the back of the trukks into the enemies they are fighting at the time.
I also plan to use spare guns from Leman Russ tanks to build some guntowers on the backs of some of the trukks but I am struggling with finding a solution for making the walls to make it look "solid".
I need to hide the fact that the guns will not be "attached" to something inside, so I will try and find a solution.

Armies on Parade - Part 7

I am really starting to feel the clock ticking now. One and a half week to everything must be ready, and nothing is really done yet...

I have done most of the tower, just need to clean up the outside and paint som small details on the inside of the top. The other building misses a lot of details, but are based and details are starting to come along.

I have assembled the small piece of pipe that I can fit to the board, and will prime it and start to paint it tomorrow, along with the parts that will make the connecting bulding between the existing two.
I will prime that in parts and assemble as soon as I can. I might need to do some greenstuffing to get everything to fit snugly, but I must try to get most of the board painted first, as the buildings take up a lot of room.
I started with the stone on the board today, and plan to do the hill tomorrow, and maybe also start on the cracked surfaces. I also started on my pit of slush with a layer of 'ardcoat.

I am still stumbling over how I can paint the black stripes on the powerswords, but I will bring them with me to the Game Workshop store in Oslo on Thursday so maybe they have a few tips to make it look great. I will also try to get some help with the backpack for my Chaplain, as I don't get it to fit right, and they think we can fix it with greenstuff so I will bring it in to get some assistance. Might learn a thing or two along the way too...

The Devastators are 95% finished, there are a few details that I need to finish, and then they will need a cleanup and a wash. It was a smart move to glue the arms to the weapons first, as they fit quite nice. 

A little trouble with the melta, but not a big thing.
I am painting up the shouderguards for the final five, along with all the shoulderguards for my bikers.
The bikers themselves are getting there. The bikes are complete, but the bikers have some details remaining. I will need to do a little cleanup on the bikes and bikers as well, but nothing much. 

I also need to do the bases, but that isn't very hard.
My scout sergeant is almost done, and his ten scouts will get their assembly tomorrow. I will need to do a little bit of greenstuff on a some of them, so I might as well do that on thursday as well.

Armies on Parade - Part 6

There are some progress, but it should probably have been more.
I have started to paint up the tower, and that is coming along nicely. I have to paint gold and copper, and find out what color I want to use on the sculls on the bottom of the tower.
Then I need to paint the smaller building in the same style later.
I have primed the remaining five Devastators, and I will begin painting them tomorrow. This time I tried a different approach. I chose weapons that felt solid, one multimelta and three plastma cannons.All the weapons had one arm already attached, so I test fitted them and glued the other arm to the weapon. Then the backpacks are glued together, and with these weapons they are all just two parts.

I still haven't decided what captain to use, so I am still painting them both up.

I have decided to drop the Kastelan robots for now, I don't think I will have them done to a high enough standard and I know one of the other great painters will bring a Mechanicum army. So I rather paint them up in due time and use them in my Mechanicum army when I get the chance to sit down and work with that.
I have enough Marines to add some more of those instead if I feel I need more models on the table.

By not using the Kastelans I will get more room on the table for some Promethium pipes and the sludge pit I have planned to use.I still need to see how they will fit on the table, but I think I will need something to add more details to the board.
I have not decided on how I will make these things look on the board yet, but I will try and find that out as I get the buildings placed on the board so as I can see how everything fits together.

Armies on Parade - Part 5

Today I primed the bikes for the Armies on Parade board. Unfortionately the glue haven't set as it should and some of the riders arms fell off when I removed the riders from the bikes.
Apparently the process worked well for the first three bikes, but the riders on the attack bike lost one arm, and on the bike I built this morning both arms and he was also stuck to the bike. This bike was something I bought on eBay quite cheap, and either during transportation or during storage the kit had gotten some rough handling. Because of this there were some extra stress with getting all parts to fit like a glove.

This morning I assembled the alternative miniature for my captain. The mini is called Lord Executioner, and he might be a better choice as he will fit with the assault marines. He wears a jump pack, but according to the fluff he should be the commander of the eight company. That company is a reserve company with nothing but assault squads, but I think it will be a long time before I start filling that up in my collection. At the moment I'm working on the first four companies, and I will not fill up new companies until these are filled with the forces needed.
I plan to paint both captains up as far as adding the company colors on the rim of the shoulder guards, and then I will decide what mini to use.

The next step now is to assemble the last batch of Devastators needed for the parade board, and I plan to use three plasma cannons in the squad. If I remember correctly, that was the best weapon configuration to assemble, and they pack a mean punch on the battlefield. I love the plasma weapons as they add a little color to the units, and breaks up the monotony of blue and red. After the Armies on Parade is over, I will take a regular tactical squad and build the remaining five Space Marines needed to make the Devastator units into ten man squads for future use in games of 40K.
This unit will also have a commander, and I will arm him a little different than I did with the commander for the other five man team. I plan on giving him a grav pistol and he might also get a chainsword.
I have not yet decided what to arm the fifth man on the team with. I'll see how the other weapons I didn't use last time fits, and if I find something I like I will use it. If not, he will probably end up with a missile launcher.

I also need to assemble a Kastelan robot with phosphor blasters, as I plan to have two of those on the board.
So far I have one with each weapon option, but for the display I think phosphor blasters will have the best effect. I might build the second robot as well, but I think I will wait a little while with the handler, as he has so many small and intricate parts that will take extra time to paint and will need to be stored while painting. So to make sure I get everything ready for Armies on Parade he might have to wait as I have come a long way with the handler I have already started to assemble.

Armies on Parade - Part 4

I have managed some more progress on my forces for my presentation.
I have assembled all my bikes as far as I think I can before painting.
This means I have built the bikes and then built the rider, but I haven't glued the two together. The result is that I can take the rider off for painting, and make sure that both bike and Marine is painted to a good standard.
I assembled the rider while he was sitting on the bike, so I know that the arms will fit perfectly round the handles and the backpack will fit on the seat.
I had hoped to prime them yesterday, but due to heavy rain that was not possible, looks like it's going to rain all day today as well, so I might not get to start the paintjob until this weekend.

I have also assembled the attack bike. The bike itself is built just like the three standard bikes described above, then I've built the side wagon but not attached it as doing so will prevent me from painting that side of the bike to a good standard.
The Marine sitting in the side wagon has his legs attached as part of the seat, so I had to glue that on to the side wagon, but in order to paint the back of the seat, I have not glued his torsos to the legs. But it is complete with head and arms, and then I just need to put the heavy bolter up on the rail and glue it tight and glue the other end to the arms. I have checked that this will be a good fit.

I have also built two finecast minis to go on the board.
The first is a Space Marine Chaplain with jump pack. I'm just a little bit disappointed with that mini as it doesn't look like his jump pack will fit well over his shoulders. It looks like the mount is a few millimetres too short to get the jump pack to fit as it does on the Assault Marines, but with the right amount of glue I'm sure it will fit one way or the other...

The second finecast mini is my Captain. I chose the one who is reportedly is a Devastator Captain, but since my Marines will be from 3rd Company I am just 95% sure that I will use him. I might replace him later in the process, but still it is a very nice mini to have painted and ready fro the gaming table.

I have some good reasons for using him.
1. He will fit nicely to the task at hand. With his specialized gear I think he is perfect for  coordinating the firepower of the Hunter, the Devastator squads and interface with the handler for the Castellan robots.
2. It is a very cool looking miniature
3. As the Devastators will be placed at a very visible place on the board, having a commander that looks good with them will be a plus.

Then the only reason for not using him:
1. The Marines are part of the 3rd Company, and this would not usually be led by a Devastator captain. It would be more natural to have a captain that is more mobile.

More Sylvaneth

Little update on the Sylvaneth this week.
I have primed the Treelord, and will start painting him in the near future.  And I also managed to build a box of Dryads, so now I have 16 Dryads ready for priming, and I still have the origial 12 Dryads that I am re-painting.

The Lord is comming...

Treelord that is...
I have just finished assembly of my first Treelord for my Sylvaneth army.
As usual (unfortunately) with big models, the instructions from Games Workshop is a little hard to read. If I din't have some experience and common sense (the last is probably debatable) it would not have been assembled in a good way.
I'm still not sure if all the joints are set just the way they are intended, but I glued them in the position that felt and looked best.
This first Treelord is a regular one, and the first of two of this kind. I then have one Ancient Treelord and Durthu to assemble as well. So the grand total of four Lords. Durthu will probably be the commander of the army, unless he is so crazed up after nearly being burned to ashes that he isn't thinking too straight. In that case the Ancient Treelord will be the leader. I will have to talk to the staff at Games Workshop Oslo about that as some of them knows the background for the woodelves very well, and the Sylvaneth used to be a part of the woodelves army in the earlier editions of the game.

The four Treelords will lead a force of sixty Dryads, and one Branchwraith. Then there will be two Wyldwoods. One of them will be autumn colors just like the warriors, and the other will be different shades of green (as I have already painted some of the trees in that forest).
If I'm not tired of painting walking trees when this army is painted up, I might add a little unit of one or two Treelords and perhaps thirty two Dryads in shades of green and a bit lighter brown bark.

Our basement apartment is being rented out for some days, so I had to move my workshop upstairs to the living room for a little while. Because of this I bought the Citadel Project Box to keep everything tidy, and I filled it up with all the equipment I need and used it while assembling the Treelord. I see now that it's possible to get a palette and cutting mat and I might get them to see if I can get an even better use for the lid of the box. So far I only used it to store the parts for the Treelord while putting it together, and it worked good for that. But I think a cutting-mat will make sense to cut into when cutting out or cleaning small or frail pieces.

Armies on Parde - Part 3

I have finished painting the Devastators, and glued them together.
There will be need for some cleanup-painting later, but I will do that as I make the bases.
I have to say that this kit was both very enjoyable and utterly terrible. The models look great, and all the weapon options are great. Plenty of spares, and a multitude of ways to assemble the troops to make sure that no two units look exacly the same.
But they were a real pain to glue together, as there were so many parts that needed to fit together when it came to positioning of arms, backpack and weapons.
With normal Space Marines you might need to get the arm to fit with a weapon and then get the two to fit with another arm. Here you needed to get the backpacks to fit in with two arms and a loose weapon, and with all those parts it was hard to get everything to fit right without making a mess with the glue.
The easiest fit for me was the plasma cannon, so for my next unit of five I will see if I can add more plasma cannons.
The hardest was the grav cannon, so that will only be in the one squad I think, then I will add grav pistols for commanders instead, if I want more grav weapons (and experienced players tell me I will like that).

I still have several packs of the old devastators on my shelf, but I will not bring those to the Armies on Parade board. They will find their way in to the army though.

The next unit for the Armies on Parade now, I think will be the Space Marine Bike squad, and a chaplain and captain. I seem to land on using the captain that looks like he belongs with the Devastators.

Found a colour scheme for the Sylvaneth

I have found my basic colour scheme from my Sylvaneth army.
The main colour will be Dryad Bark, with Baneblade Brown as a contrast.
Then I will try to find one dark brown and one light color to use as highlighting or just contrasts to give the trees some more life.
I will wash them all with Agrax Earthshade, and use Warpstone Glow for eyes.
On the Treemen I will see if I can use the Warpstone Glow for some of the magic runes as well, but for the small Dryads I will let the runes have the same color as the bark. At least for now.

I also plan to add as many ethereal spites as I can in the army, to add a little color and break up the monotony of the trees.Not sure how I will divide them up yet, but I will use a few on each Treelord, and spread the remaining on the other units in the army.

what is going on with the fantasy part?

When I inherited a lot of dwarfs some time ago, I also got some trees that I connected with wood elves and just put in a box.
They are now out of the box again, and added to my growing list of things to fix.
Game Workshop just released the old boxes in new Age of Sigmar packages and with round bases, so for the first time in my life I rebased models yesterday. 12 Dryads went from square to round bases, and it appeared to go without damage to the models.
In Age of Sigmar I can field an army of trees without having any wood elves, so I think I will do just that.

I have some Dryads and Treelords to assemble and paint, but first I will use the re-based Dryads to find some nice color schemes for the army.

They are originally painted up very nice, but I would like to have painted them myself, so I will re-paint them but try to keep the things I like with them now. One of the things I like the most is that they have autumn colored leaves, and I plan to do that for the entire army.

Armies on parade - part 2

It is now official, I entered my name and board on the list at the GW store in Oslo yesterday. There's no turning back now...
I have not finished any more models for the board, but I have done some more on the ones I had started before the first update.
There are still some details to fix on all troops, but they are coming along nicely.
After the next session I will start to assemble the arms and weapons on the devastators, and the assault squad is only missing the paint on the chainswords. I am still debating with myself if I should have plain black swords or the black and yellow stripes. Black is easier to paint to a good result, but the black and yellow will fit with what I have painted before and also look more old-school. The other weapons I paint is quite old-school too, so I think I will try my luck with the stripes.

The scout are now so far in the painting process that I will glue their torsos together in my next sitting. Then I will do a little more details before adding the hands and weapons.

I think I have found out how to build the tunnel between the buildings, and I hope to start that quite soon.
I will also start to paint the board, so that I can add the buildings to it and find out where to make the little pool of pollution. I think the pool is one of the things on the board that will take some time to finish, because it might be hard to get the edges right.

Armies on Parade - Part 1

Every year Games Workshop have a worldwide competition they call Armies on Parade. The rules have differed a bit from year to year, but the purpose have always been the same. Show off one of your armies.
Some people show an army, some build a big diorama showing an army in battle, and some do other things.

This year the competition is set for October 24th, and I have decided to participate for the first time.
I have been to Armies On Parade for two years and seen what people bring, and I would like to give it a go myself this year.
I do not think I will win anything, but hopefully some of the people in the event will like what I do, and more important it forces me to paint up my army and that is perhaps the biggest motivation to take part.

I plan to bring a Space Marine army (or part of it to be exact), with a little support from the Mechanicum.

I bought a base tile from Games Workshop at an event they had a little earlier, and also got to use their bit boxes to assemble what I would like to have on the board.
I chose a tile with a hill on it, and the idea is to have a tower on the hill, a bunker-like building below it and a partially underground passage between them to show that it is part of a bigger complex.

We were two people on the tile event, and while I was building buildings, the other man was building a big bridge, so I made my tower of the high tower from the Fortress of Redemption, and my bunker-like building from the curved wall tiles, while he made his bridgehead from the straight walls.
The passage between them will be made with plasticard, and the roof of the passage is floor tiles from a manufactorum set.
I'm also thinking of adding top wall tiles on the passageway, but I will see how it will look. If I do, I have plenty in my bit boxes to use.

In the tall tower there will be one or two chaplains (the one I know I will use is an Interrogator Chaplain that came as a special character in a Dark Angels box. I don't have the box, but I bought him on Ebay just because he looked so mean). Since I am leaning more and more towards that the Gatekeepers have some Dark Angels working with them, and not as part of the chapter, I will let him keep all his Dark Angels symbols. Then I might add another chaplain who is clearly a part of the Gatekeepers. And I will need a captain. I will see if I can fit three characters on the tower, hopefully that should be possible. if I have to sacrifice one, then it will only be one chaplain. I haven't decided what captain to use yet, but I need to decide quite soon.

On the roof of the bunker, there will be 10 scout snipers, and their leader Sergeant Telion (with a new name and without Ultramarines symbols). Looks like 9 sniper rifles and one rocket launcher, with the new rocket-bit with a rocket being fired (from the new devastator sprues).

Beside the tall tower on the hill, a Hunter will stand aiming for targets, and three bikes and an attack bike will be on their way down the hill in some manner (if it gets too much I will sacrifice the attack bike), to take the fight to the enemy.

On the flat surface, or maybe partially in the slope, there will be a 10 man strong assault squad lead by their sergeant. They will have two marines with eviscerators (big two-handed chainswords), one with a flamer, and one with a plasma pistol. The sergeant also have a plasma pistol. In accordance with the idea of the Gatekeepers, I used as many beaky heads as there was in the boxes for these units, and two marines also got studded shoulderpads.

Also on the ground there will be two five man squads of devastators. These are in the process of being built, so I have not sorted out their weapon options yet. But there will be beakies in these units as well, and they will be as heavily armed as possible, That is why I went with two five man squads instead of one ten man squad, as I can have eight heavy weapons instead of four this way.

Behind a barricade (hopefully in front of the bunker) will be two Kastelan robots and their handler from the Adeptus Mechanicus. Their presence hints that the base might have something to do with the Mechanicus as well, and I just wanted them on the board because they are really cool models. Both robots will be armed with phosphor blasters and their Cybernetica Datasmith will wear the robes of the Tech Priests from Mars.

I am also thinking of adding a Venerable Dreadnought of some sort from my collection to the board, but I will see what I end up with in the end.

I will also add some small details to the board to give it some feeling of a wasteland, like a small cestpool with some chemical spill (a small pond of Nurgle rot and barrels floating in it) some barricades here and there, and some rats on the slope. The rats are from some Skaven sprues that was available to raid when planning the table, and I will make one or two small bushes on the slope as well.

So far the table and buildings are primed, I will have to make the passage from plasticard (bought and in planning). The 10 man assault squad is partially painted (missing weapons and the final details), the first devastator squad is being assembled and painted, the 10 scouts is partially assembled and partially painted, and the Hunter is assembled and primed. The interrogator chaplain is also primed and partially painted.

Pictures of Da Big 'Un (pic heavy)

A promised, here are some pictures of the big tank that I won on the Games Workshop Oslo Birthday.

Had to take pictures from a distance to get the entire tank in the pitures...

And now for some detail pictures... The front is from the Battlewagon

Four Vulcan Megabolters shreds away whatever infantry is sent to storm the tank, this is on the left side of the tank.

And on the right side we have the first big gun. I'm not sure exactly what kind of gun it is.

The right hand turret is the main gun from the Baneblade, and on top of that is the big turret from the Battlewagon.

The left hand main turret is armed with another big gun of unknown origin.

Then we have some pictures of some of the details that is added to the tank.

And finally a crew member, also armed with a big gun...

Happy Birthday Games Workshop Oslo

The Oslo Store had a birthday party yesterday. There were candy, soda, baloons, banners, events and gifts. Everything a birthday needs...

We were so lucky to be invited to bring one or two tanks and take part in a mega tank battle, to try and take down the huge store-built Ork gargant that the staff had built. To help us we were given full access to all the store bitz, and we could improve our tanks any way we liked.The staff would help make up rules for the vehicles when they were done.
I brought with me a Leman Russ Demolisher with plowblade, took the turret off and added the top plate from a Landraider as a base. I then added a walkway from a building, and added cannons on top of that. I used parts from Chaos Space Marines, some Ork bits, some Astra Militarum bits, and some Necron or Tau (I think). I also felt like making a few servitors for close combat, so I chose two mech looking Ork heads (one with a gasmask, and one looking like Robocop) and added them on to Ogre (yes Warhammer Fantasy ones) bodies and found some big weapons originally made for the Ork Lootas box and added them to their right hand side. The left side was Orge arms with weapons mounted instead of hands.

The entire thing doesn't look like anything to use in a regular game, but it might be possible to use it for a crazy friendly tank fight or something, as a Loota wagon. I will post a pic here in the near future.

The store also had a lottery/auction where tickets were gained throughout the day, and in the end you could use your tickets to bid on items they were giving away. No money were allowed at the auction.
They had prizes like Eldar and Space Marine boxes that was out of production, the Island of Blood (or what it was called) starter set with Elves and Skaven (if I remember correctly), and some big store built models. One of them was the mega tank that we fought in the mega tank battle, and another was the Khorne Lord of Skulls. They also auctioned out the store employees for 4 hours each, where they would do anything you like with your models (painting, assembling, removing mold lines, teaching, what ever you wanted).
I was really lucky and managed to get the mega tank, partially because some of the others that was interested wanted the Lord of Skulls more, so they saved their tokens for that. I did not have enough tokens left to win 4 hours with a Store employee (would have used it for them to teach me some painting techniques) but I am sure I can get some help with that anyway.

The mega tank is assembled with parts from two Baneblades and one Battlewagon, and it looks awesome. Not all the parts were used so it was several of them on the table for the tank assembly event as well. But they crammed as much shooting power on the vehicle a possible, and it looks really amazing. I will post some pictures of it in the near future.

I left the store a very happy gamer yesterday!

Long time without painting

There's been quite a while without painting now, and I don't really know why. Life has just gotten in the way I guess.
Yesterday I finally got to sit for a little while, and got a little painting done.
I painted almost everything on my heavily modified Nurgle Chaos Lord. I need to do some cleanup and detail work, but everything except for his hair got the first layer of paint yesterday.
He is modified away from Nurgle, but I am not sure if he is modified away from chaos itself or not.
The idea is that he is a blacksmith (or the son of one), and that he's been fighting and lost his left arm in battle. His big axe is replaced with a staff that should be easier to work with one hand.
If all works according to plan he will lead an Empire flagellant warband to battle, at least for diorama purposes, as I don't have an Empire army.

I worked on my dwarf fence, and got the stone in the right color, so now I need to wash and do a drybrush or a careful layer to get the details to stand out.

I also did some more work on Grimm Burloksson, and my next step with him now is to glue his head to the torso. Then I need to paint his metal arm and special gun, and his entire backpack-thingy.

I got some paint on my two assembled Rangers for my new Ranger unit as well. They have gotten a little bit of paint from before, but yesterday I painted the skin, so they are slowly coming along. I plan to paint them up as test models for the unit, but it will be a few challenges as they are glued up and ready. The rest of the unit is just ready to assemble, so I will not get as many problems with reaching the details on them.

For 40K I think I know how to detail my Chaos Terminators, and I will start that very soon. It will be detail work to avoid getting green paint on all the silver bits, but I will just have to take my time.

I have a plan for the base of my first Ork flyer too, and I will try to detail both the plane and base according to the tips I got from the Games Workshop staff after the last painting competition I attended. I will also try to give the plane some details, where the entire plane is lightly washed and highlighted, but the parts that needs to be worn or grimy will be heavily weathered and washed.
If it work out nice, I will use it for my competition entry for the flyer category when that comes later this year.

One week later...

A week have passed, but there hasn't been to much of an update on the miniature front unfortunately.

I have done a bit more on two of my Dreadnoughts, but they are still not done.
Both the librarian Dreadnought and the first Grey Knight Dreadnought have gotten their legs painted except for their tubing and feet.
I have added and painted the leg shields on both of them, as the pistons behind the shield are painted now. I have also glued the head to the torso on the Grey Knight Dread (the Librarian already have a head attached) and cleaned up the painting on the head. I now need to paint the eyes before I can add the sarcofagi. I plan to have light blue eyes on all my Grey Knights, so I will experiment a little bit with that the next time I sit down to paint.
I have also started to paint up the force weapon for my Librarian, but I am still not 100% sure of how to do it. I am debating with myself over what color to have in the recesses of the blade. Right now I have painted it gold, but maybe a light blue or the green I use for Plasma weapons would be better to imply there is some sort of force field there...

I have also done a little bit on my new Dwarf army.
I started to paint the wagons for my ponies, I have painted the inside of the open wagons, and the idea is to use some typhus corrosion and some rust on the inside. Not too much, as the Dwarfs maintain their equipment well, but just a bit to add some detail. After all, the wagons get filled with ore every day, so some wear and tear must be expected.
I've also started to paint the outside of the wagons, and the outside will be a combination of copper, gold and metal. So far I have started to paint the copper.

The 30 strong Ranger unit is ready for assembly and painting, I have all the torsos and bases in a box, and a lot of sprues with arms and extras in another box... I have plans for one unit of 30 Quarrelers, all the minis are just waiting for a spare box to go into, and then I have 20 caped dwarfs to be assembled as Thunderers.
I bought a new clear blue base paint on Saturday that I plan to use a lot on my dwarfs, and I will use that on the capes of my Thunderers if it looks good on a test subject.
I have two dwarfs that are already assembled that I will use in the Ranger unit, and I am using them as test subjects for my Rangers. They are slowly coming along, and the next step for them is to get a face.

My dwarf Engineer is coming along. The torso is painted up, and I have started on the beard and helmet. I think it's smart to paint that before I glue the parts together to avoid paint splatter on already painted parts.
I will also paint his very special gun and the creation on his back separately for the same reason.

In the Battle for Skull Pass box there was a stone fence thing, with three dwarf figures carved in stone, and chains with shields attached between them. I have painted the metals so far, and done the base color for the stone. Next sitting I will finish painting the stones, and then I can do detail work after that.

Status update

The desk is flowing over with projects at the moment.
I have started to fix some of the dwarfs I got for free, and some of the ones that came based.
I was at Games Workshop on Saturday, and apparently the magic number for dwarf units are 30 if you want them to pack some punch in combat. So this means I have to rethink my units from the last post. I have started this work, but it will take some time to complete as I need to see what I have, and how to mix boxes to build the optimum amount of dwarfs and the right kind of units.

I have started to make a Ranger unit that packs the right kind of punch. They will be 30 rangers, have a full command, and all will have crossbows in their hands, and axes strapped to their backs.
To make this unit I will need 2 and some boxes of Thunderers/Quarrelers as I need 30 dwarfs. There are 16 in each box, but 4 have capes and it won't look good with axes on the outside of their capes.
The caped dwarfs from these and some other boxes will go in to a separate unit that I will build as Thunderers.
Then I will make one unit of Quarrelers, also with 30 dwarfs. Then I'll see what to make with the rest of the dwarfs, but probably Quarrelsers in an unknown unit size.

I also plan to make 2 units of 30 dwarf Warriros, one unit of 30 Longbeards and a unit of 30 Irondrakes (or if that gets too expensive a smaller unit of Irondrakes and a big unit of Ironbreakers).

While working with my dwarfs I also try to complete the Dreadnaughts. So far I have painted quite a lot of the first Grey Knight dreadnought and also of the librarian dreadnought. The idea is to paint both dwarfs and Dreadnoughts until they are done. I will also try in between to finish the washes of my Chaos Space Marines, the Grey Knights and my Imperial Guard units. The plan is also to paint up the Imperial Guard tanks.

Looked over the dwarfs some more (warning, long post)

What a find!
I have gone through my new lot of dwarfs. Unfortionately most of the metal dwarfs are missing their shields, but I bet there's shields to be found for a cheap price at Ebay.
Many of the miniatures were beautifully painted, some not that beautifully, some partially painted and some were unpainted.

But first, I checked the Vampire counts box, and found out I have 10 skeletons, 20 zombies and 10 crypt ghouls. Also there were some sprues with spare parts.

And now dwarfs...

Starting with the miners, I got 16 old metal Miners and 8 plastic Miners including a musician and a standard bearer. Miners should be 10 or more in a unit, but I have other plastic miners, so I will make two units of them, one metal, one plastic. The plastic Miners are painted a bit like I have painted the ones I already have, so I don't think I will have to repaint them. The metal ones will need to have their helmets repainted, but apart form that I hope to keep them as is.

27 metal Hammerers will be split up in to two units I think. I might add one standard bearer that I have spare, and that will give me standard bearer for both units and a musician for one unit. When I put things in to units I might have a Lord or at least a character with slightly different armament to use as champion. These dwarfs do need some painting as some dwarfs are partially painted and one is not even basecoated. This is one argument for making two units as I then can keep one unit with Hammerers that don't need paint and then repaint/paint the ones for the second unit.

The next units are Gunmen. 20 in total, where 8 have a gun pointing forwards, while the remaining 12 have a gun pointing partly upwards I've looked at some lots on Ebay, and it appears as that these Thunderers are used mixed together. It also seems that I have a champion for this unit, but no standard bearer or musician yet.

I also have 10 plastic dwarfs armed with what looks more like long pistols, and I also have a musician, a standard bearer and a champion included in the group.

The guy I got the lot from had some skills modifying, and I have a group of dwarfs modified to look like men of the forest. If I bring some minis that looks the same (without the modifications) we're looking at 13 plastic and 1 metal Ranger. I might call them two units when it comes to fluff, and claim that they fight together to give more punch when their scouting function is no longer needed. Hopefully I don't need to do any painting on these, as they look über-cool the way they are right now. The metal fits nicely with the others as it is one of the ones modified, only way to find it is not the same as the others is to lift it and feel that it is alot heavier than the others.

I have 5 cannons in all, 2 Organ guns and 2 regular cannons in metal, and 1 plastic cannon that came from the Skull Pass box. One of the organ guns have been given plastic wheels, but one wheel is missing... Again, I'll see what Ebay can bring. Shouldn't be too hard to find something that is cheap but has two wheels (or one if it is the right kind).

For the cannons I have something between 10 and 15 crew depending on what some of the minis are, this gives me some room. There are some lovely metal dwarfs with a lot of character that probably is cannon crew. One is brushing the sweat of his forehead with his arm while he holds the helmet in his hand. Another one is obviously working with what appears to be a measuring device or compass and I expect that is to find the right angle for the cannons to hit the target.
I also have 2 dwarfs with weird looking sticks, and it might be that these sticks are wicks to light the cannons with...

One of my dwarfs that I need to identify is a dwarf drinking beer (or at least so it seems), and he has a helmet with feathers in it. All I know about it is that it looks like a really old model, but I will have an Inquisitor find out a bit more...

The group also contains one metal slayer, but this is is the one conversion I don't like. His axes are replaced with a chain with three swords on the end of it. Originally I think he had a chain with a disc on the end in the other hand but that is broken off. I do want to have some slayers in my army, and I have the newest one on the shelf. Hopefully I can find a way to convert him back to an ax slinging slayer. But no matter what he will be a part of the Throng.

I have 2 plastic dwarfs that looks very old. They have hammer-like weapons, and the hammers are pointed on the back and look a bit like mining hammers really. I am not sure what unit to put them in, but they might go in to a unit of regular warriors or something like that. They look really cool, they just don't fit naturally in to a specific unit.

There are 6 dwarfs that I have categorized as Ironbreakers because of their flat helmets. They are metal, and 3 have axes, 2 have hammers and 1 have a double edged axe. These will need repainting because they stand out a lot from my other Ironbreakers and they also have some chipped paint. With these Ironbreakers and the metal ones I already have (both painted and still on the shelves) I think I have enough of them. That means the two plastic boxes (yes, they come in plastic now) can be made in to Irondrakes. Still, I might make one box as Ironbreakers just to get a feel for building them...

I also have 5 dwarfs with hammers (one has an axe instead)that looks a lot like Ironbreakers except that their helmets are pointed like the regular dwarf helmets. In some pics on Ebay I see them mixed in with the Ironbreakers, so I think I will use them as that.

There are at least 2 lords that I have identified in the group. 1 metal and 1 plastic, both with double edged axes. I hope these don't need much painting as they are beautifully painted as they are. I might have to change the wings on the helmet of one of them, but hopefully that's it.

Warriors are a big part of all dwarf throngs, and in this group I got 2 types.
6 warriors are metal, and 2 of them are a little older than the rest with 3 points on their helmets instead of the regular 2. They mix good together, and will be one unit. They need to be repainted as they are painted in different colors now, and one of them is just partially painted.
I also need to repaint the 14 plastic ones for the same reasons. This unit includes a musician, a standard bearer and I also have a Champion with a sledgehammer to go with this unit.

I have 4 standard bearers that I haven't placed with any special unit yet. 2 metal and 2 plastic.
There is also 1 carrying a banner (only banner in the lot for some reason) and he is only missing his base.

The last complete figure is a metal dwarf armed with a stone hammer and carrying some sort of scepter in his other hand. If dwarfs had wizards or priests I would say he was one of those, but probably this is a Runelord or something like that. It is a very nice model, and if I don't find any chipping on my final inspection I plan to keep him exactly as is...

I also got 1 pony with a mining cart with a lid on. This is not glued or painted.

The final dwarfs are 2 plastic ones with just one arm. They are both missing their left arms for some reason, and in their right they are carrying an axe and a crossbow respectively.

If I have managed to count correctly I have 150 new dwarfs and 1 mining pony, all for free.