Armies on Parade 2016 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again, and I now believe I have the plan for my board for 2016.
It will be a flat board this year, but I don't know if Games Workshop will sell single tiles this year or if I have to cut myself a tile from plywood.

On the board I will have the gate section from a Citadel Fortress and then I will make mountain walls going from each side of the gate and to the end of the board. What angle I will use will be decided when I see what else I want on the board and how I can get everything to fit.

Behind the walls there will be a few small scenarios. There will be a mine with two Grudge ponies going in and out of the mine. One will be on the way down with a cart that is either empty or carrying a little equipment, and one will be on the way up carrying a load of rocks of some sort.

There will also be a shaft going in to the thickest part of the mountain wall, and my unit of old metal Ironbreakers will either be on the way up or down from the shaft. These will probably only be visible if one looks at the board from behind.

On top of this section my Badyear Blimp will be placed. I think I know how to make it now. I will use styrofoam balls from Panduro and cut the ends off except from the one in front and in the back, so that it looks fairly blimpy.

Here is a picture of the original Goodyear Blimp. I am going for the sort of medieval version of this.

 This is sort of what the air balloons will look like. I found this pic on Google image search.

The plan is to use styrofoam balls and glue them together (not sure if I will use 3 or 4 yet, will have to see when the compartment underneath is done). The balls will then be coated with strips of plaster, both to add them together and to make a surface I can paint.
The balloon will be given an eye-catching color, and the compartment underneath will be dark wood (probably Dryad Bark).
Then I will make some sort of rudder and either add it to the balloon or to the wooden construction.

In front of the wall on ground level, there will be trees, and among them the Ranger unit will be placed. At the same side of the table, there will also be a small cave where one or two Goblins is hiding, spying on the Dwarfs. They will be hidden by some moss that will appear as bushes on the board so the Dwarfs can't see them.

Starting to look like something

I have managed some progress on the Dwarfs since my last update.
I am well underway with painting my Rangers. I have also started to paint up two Runelords and a Warden King.
As I see it, the Runelords and the Warden King have two layers of armor. I have chosen to paint what looks like chainmail or Gromril armor Stormhost Silver. This will be the color used for this item for all my Dwarfs to make a coherent look for the entire army.
Then they have another layer of armor on top of this, and this is painted Warplock Bronze. The reason for this is to both create a clear contrast to the silver and to the gold details and gemstones they have on their armor.
They also get capes of bright color. The Warden King has a bright red cape, and the Runelords bright green and clear blue. This will hopefully make them focal points on the board when they get there. This will be good both for the Armies on Parade and for future gaming as they are the leaders of the Dwarf community and should be seen on the battlefield.

The Rangers all get a uniformed look, where the only thing that is different is the shape of their beards and helmets and the color of their hair.
I have chosen to paint all chainmail Stormhost Silver, and their shirts and the edges of their armor is painted Elysian Green. They all have capes, and they are painted slightly darker in Castellan Green.
All boots and belts will be painted Mournfang Brown, as this is the standard color for leather in my armies. This will also later be applied to the bolt cogs they carry the crossbow ammunition in, to the cuffs of their arms and to the padding under the helmets.
For the garment they wear under their chainmails, I wanted the leather to look a bit tougher. So I went for Rhinox Hide for that. There will only be a small stripe between the chainmail and the boots that is visible, and to some extent the underside of the miniature where that can be seen, and this darker brown makes a nice contrast both to the boots and the color of the metal and chainmail.

Right now I'm in the process of painting the leather on to the Rangers, and the next step will be to paint the helmets. All helmets will be Warplock Bronze, and the helmets that have detailing will have this painted in Stormhost Silver. My unit Champions all wear the helmets with wings, and the wings will be painted Retributor Armour (gold).For the helmets with horns, the horns will be painted Stormhost Silver like the details. I strongly believe the Dwarfs use metal for their horns and not bone, as they are known for being really good at making metal artifacts.

When the Rangers are painted up, I will prime and paint the arms with the crossbows and glue them on before I wash the minis with the appropriate washes and drybrush the capes.

All bases will be made with Astrogranite texture paint, and the sides of the bases will be painted with Mechanicus Standard Gray as they match perfectly. This is the same way the bases for my Ironbreakers are done, and I plan to make a small scenario on the board with them.

progress is slow but steady...

I have assembled my unit of twenty Dwarfs with capes now, and decided they will be Rangers.
I did not like to give the musician a drum, so I found a weird looking horn in a Warriors box, and will use that instead. All of the Rangers will have crossbows that are loaded and ready to fire, the only exception here is the standard bearer and the musician, they will have an axe in their free hand, and the crossbow on their back.

Right now I am putting together the first unit of Thunderers for the army. This will be a unit with thirty Dwarfs (maximum allowed according to the new Age of Sigmar General's Handbook), and I plan to add a similar unit of Quarrellers in the future.
The Thunderers will also have a full command with a horn blower, a standard bearer and a champion. The horn blower is from the "Battle for Skull Pass" box, and he looks like no other horn blower I have seen before. I also added three regular Thunderers from the same set in to this unit. All the Thunderers from this box have the same pose, so putting three into a unit of thirty will hopefully blend them in. These three are unpainted, so I can paint them up from the start along with the rest of the unit.
So far I have glued together half the unit, and I hope to put together the remaining fifteen tonight or tomorrow.

When the Thunderer unit is glued together I will prime the units and single minis assembled so far, and start to paint them up. The plan is to paint the bodies, and then prime and paint the arms (and heads for the old Warrior unit) separately and glue it on before wash and highlights are applied.

Planning unit sizes

I was at Games Workshop yesterday, and got a peek at the new General's Handbook that is comming out in one and a half weeks time.
This book gives Age of Sigmar point values, and rules for unit sizes. I just had a quick look at the section for my Dwarfs, but the book covers the entire model range.

I found that the Warriors can be minimum ten strong and max forty. The Quarrelers and Thunderers are both minimum ten and max thirty.

So I will make my caped Dwarfs a twenty strong unit will full command. I'll see later today if I can use them as Rangers as I originally planned, or if they will be an elite Thunderer unit (elite will only count for the fluff, as there are no elite unit as such in the rules).
That leaves me twenty-eight Dwarfs already cut from their sprues (but still missing arms), and twenty-four Dwarfs on the sprues in the remaining two boxes (after I have removed eight caped ones to fill the caped unit).
But I also found some plastic Thunderers in the stash of inherited Dwarfs, so I will add them to the units I am building now.

I will have to see if I need one more box of Thunderers/Quarrelers to get enough weapons to make what I need, but I will arm the different units after I have selected the Ranger unit tonight, and then I'll see how the other units will be.

Games Workshop is running a campaign all over the world, where good fight against evil and the results from all fights in all of Europe will be added together to see how the fight has gone in the end. You can join either by playing games, or by painting units and showing them to the staff at your store, so I plan to get my Dwarf units painted up to boost the good side with painting-points.

Yesterday I assembled my second Runesmith, with a hammer and a rune so freshly forged the smoke is still streaming from it.

just a quick update

I still haven't found my box of Dwarf sprues, and I have really looked everywhere for it by now. I am sure it will pop up somewhere someday, as I know I haven't thrown it away. But luckily I discovered that one box of Thunderers/Quarrellers have the arms to make a unit of both. I feared that the crossbows used the same arms as the guns, but they come separate. This means that with one box and extra bodies, I can make thirty-two Dwarfs and not just sixteen. 

So I will try and count how many different bodies I have and decide how to arm them after that.

I will check how the old metal Thunderers look compared to the plastic ones, and if they can blend in to one unit, I will see how many units I can make. If they don't blend, then I will at least have one full unit of Thunderers in plastic, and split the rest between a Quarreller unit and a Ranger unit.

For the Rangers I will need to do something special as I would like the musician to have  a horn and not a drum, but I will see what I can manage. If arms can be swapped between Quarrellers and Warriors, then there are no problems but I suspect the Warriors are built like the Miners and if that is the case then I would need to do some chopping and then it depends on how the instrument is fixed to the arm. 

I will start to assemble the torsos tomorrow and see how  soon I can have some units ready for painting.

I have assembled the Runelord using the big beard, and the book and hammer. I think I will get one more to assemble with the head that is pictured on the box and the other arms (hammer and a freshly made rune). I also assembled the Warden King, but there were no optional parts on him.

They are both standing in a couple of pieces. The Dwarfs themselves are completely assembled, but they are not glued to the bases, and the Warden King base is in two pieces for easy painting. 

Started with the dwarfs

I have started with my dwarf army for Armies on Parade now. The entry will be a Dwarf hold getting ready for war. I will not use all my Dwarfs for this as I have lots, but I will build and paint enough to show that there is a considerable show of force and that they mean business. At the same time I will get a Dwarf army to use in Age of Sigmar after the parade is over.

A long time ago I started to cut out Dwarfs from sprues to make a unit where everyone wore capes, and this would be my Rangers, the rest of the Dwarfs on the sprues would be regular units of Thunderers or Quarrellers. I have gotten some doubts if the Rangers should have capes or not, as I will need to give them all axes on their backs and I'm not sure how this will look if they have capes. Trying to find this out, I found that I somehow have managed to misplace all the sprues with arms and equipment for these dwarfs. I have their bases, the torsos and heads, (sorted in two boxes one with and one without capes) but all the sprues have been placed in a box when I was moving everything out of my old hobby room, and now I can't find that box. I am sure it is buried deep in one of many cardboard boxes with either Lego or other Warhammer stuff, but I have not managed to find the box yet. I hope I find it this weekend.

Instead I found an old box of sixteen Warriors yesterday and have stared to assemble them. These Dwarfs are totally different from the warriors on sale now. They are just a little bit smaller than the current Dwarfs, but that is not really noticeable unless you mix them in to one mixed unit.
What makes them stand out is the way they are assembled, and how they are dressed and  armed.
These dwarfs are not assembled with a full cast body where you just add a front piece with head and beard like the usual warrior range, they are assembled more like orcs where the legs are one piece, the upper body is one piece, and then you place the head on an outstanding neck.
The regular Warriors have chainmail armor and some of them wear a cape, and that's it. These old ones have other clothes outside of their chainmails. There are a few different patterns of vests, one who look like it is made of sheepskin with the fur still on it (like it's made to be warm) and another that looks more like it is made to look nice (without the fur).
The heads look a lot different too, as they look a lot more well-groomed than the average Dwarf. They all look like they have been to the barber recently, even though I've read that a Dwarf never cuts his or her beard.
The difference in construction also makes the old Dwarfs look a lot thinner, as the traditional Dwarfs look rather bulky.

When it comes to the weapons they have axes and hammers that just look like an older design than the ones in the current boxes, sort of more bulky but this is very typical for the weapons made in that period. The crossbows have a traditional design, but instead of posing them ready to fire these crossbows are posed like they are being carried in to war by  marching unit.
The configuration I will be using is some quite long axes carried on one arm, and then I will use shields on the other arm. This will make them stand out quite a bit from my other Dwarfs.
I will only have one other type of Dwarfs using long axes and that is the Longbeards who will have axes to stand out from the Hammerers who are built from the same box (except I plan to only use old metal Hammerers in my army as I have lots of them). The Longbeards will have both hands on their axes though and I doubt they will have shields, but time will probably show...

I must make some fluff for the old Warriors, and that fluff will say that they are city Dwarfs who live above ground and trade with the humans in the area. They have taken to the human ways of hair and clothing. But facial hair and chainmail is a big part of the Dwarf identity, so they groom their facial hair and wear clothes outside their chainmails to blend in without forgetting where they come from.
So when the hold goes to war they are ready to fight just as hard as any other Dwarf in the clan.

Soon that time of the year...

I have to let the Chaos rest for a little while, but I still plan to assemble the remaining army relatively quick and paint it up.
There are only a few months before Armies on Parade is here again, so I need to get my army started. This year I am doing Dwarfs as last year didn't have any of them in the competition.
So I need to get my gameboard tile, the scenery to go on top it and the figures ready.
I am not sure yet exactly when the date of the competition is, but last year it was held in October.

I think I have talked about the plan before, but a quick recap can't be wrong...
I will use an old Warhammer castle gate as the gates to a Dwarf keep, then I will use some sort of building foam to make the mountain walls and some details.

Outside the walls I will have a forest (might be just one tree, we'll see how much room I get) and in the forest I will have a unit of Rangers.

I will check if I'm allowed to use old miniatures (I think I am as long as they are made by Games Workshop or Forgeworld), and decide what units to use when I see what I have.
There will be Quarrelers, Thunderers and Warriors for sure. If I am allowed to use old miniatures I will also have Hammerers, the old metal Ironbreakers, Thorek Ironbrow and probably also Lord Alrik and his Shieldberers.

There will also probably be a Gyrocopter, a Gyrobomber and my much talked about Bad Year Blimp.
I will also see if I manege to fit in a unit of miners and my Grudge Ponies and minecarts.