The Oldhammer Dwarf Army Part 4 - Pies, Spam Pies, and Logistics

 “Who is in command here!?” Elodain picked his way gingerly through the prostrate dwarfs, lifting up the hem of his long white tunic and his red silk cloak clear of the mud and detritus in the fist of his left hand. 

“If you don’t shut that hole under your delicate little nose elf, I will use a particularly blunt spoon to remove the soft, dangly collection of objects between your legs and stuff them down your slim little throat.” a deep voice muttered.

Longjonssen growled, before turning onto his side, belching loudly and spitting out a small amount of vomit onto the ground next to him.  

Elodain wretched slightly himself and lifted the hand holding up his garment to cover his nose and mouth. He reached across his body with his other hand to the place where his rapier would usually be clipped to his belt.

“Zis time of ze morning iz not ze most sensingables time of ze day to be looking for ze Dux.”

Amongst the hungover and sleeping dwarfs only one was in any state of alertness. Elodain noted the rich quality of the cloth of the dwarf’s clothes, and the well-cut ruffles of his blouse and pantaloons. His tsarouochia were of high quality, black leather Elodain observed, and the toes were particularly ostentatiously pointed. The elf approved.

The dwarf did not look up to pay the elf a reciprocal degree of scrutiny, he was sat on a blanket roll and was frying salt pork and sliced sausage in a small skillet at the edge of a crackling fire. The dwarf ran his free hand through what appeared to be an immaculate black beard, and after an aggressive rummage pulled out a chunk of mouldy cheese which he dropped into the greasy pan.

“Eet iz always ze most difficultz of zings, knowing exactly ven iz ze best time to first bozzer ze Dux zis early in ze day.”
Elodain looked up at the sky, although it was cloudy – he calculated that it would soon be midday. 

The well-dressed dwarf pulled out a hip flask from his cummerbund and poured a clear liquid into the skillet which immediately exploded into a burst of blue and orange flame. 
“Ze cereal liquor.” The dwarf smiled, before finally looking up at the partially terrified elf messenger. “Turns ze simple breakfast into ze breakfast of champions, one can tire of ale for breakfast every day you know.”

The dwarf used a curved dagger to greedily stuff a chunk of charred pork fat into his mouth as Elodain found the courage to quietly speak.

“My Lords Yewtree and Orchard wish to know where your loyalties…er…or at least the intentions of your throng lie. The great War of the Flowers may now finally be over. Will you support the peace and accept the new rulers of Little Abion…or…er…at least not actively oppose them with overt violent opposition?” Elodain stepped back with a small squeal as a beefy mastiff plodded in-between them with a large piece of well-turned wood in his mouth.

“Listen elf,” the dwarf paused as he stopped chewing and pulled a long black hair out of his mouth, “Listen…I do not ave ze official command, I am Captain Pantzov Nutzdowic, trusted lootennant of my lord the Dux Bellendum’s throng.” The dwarf took a long swig from his hip flask and his eyes began to water “Or…az you pansie Little Albion Elves say it…Lyuefftennant”.

The mastiff dropped the piece of wood in front of Pantzov and in one motion the dwarf picked it up and threw it what seemed to Elodain to be an impossibly long distance, where it landed with a boggy splat. The mastiff bounded happily after it.

“Ve az no interest in your silly little florist conflict, ve az a greater mission zan zat, do you zink ve vould come to zis God-forsaken Island in zis time ov ze demon Breakshit? Ze time of ze Nigel Garbage? Ve are ere on a zacred mission. Zis mission I cannot explain to ze likes of you. But you can trust me az much az a dwarf and an elf have ever been able to trust each uzzer…ve ave no interest in ze partisan stupidity and complexity ov your zilly little skwabblez.”

The dwarf gestured with a nod to a grubby tent to his right which until now Elodain had assumed was drying laundry.

“Arzur Pantdragon, Ze Dux Bellendum iz my King. And my vords are iz vords – it iz just that my Lord cannot usually speak for himself until ze sun is on itz vay downz…leave uz be, and ve vill leave you be. Lest we get the smell of flowerz on our viskers.”

Elodain bowed, “Thank you captain, leftenant…Nutzdowic. I will pass on your wise…”
The elf was interrupted by a loud growling noise from within the tent. Followed by a loud bellow.

“SPANKY! WHAT THE LIVING £U<&% ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?”

A muscular pony staggered out of the tent and trotted twenty or so yards before stopping to lap thirstily from what looked to Elodain to be an open latrine. From within the tent came the loudest and longest, flatulent outburst that Elodain had ever heard…or even heard about in an ancient legend.

“Grrrrr….better out than in…”

A dwarf stumbled out of the tent, naked apart from a kettle helm crookedly balanced on his head. He unsteadily made his way to the open fire and began to urinate. The campfire went up in flames like it had just been sprayed with incendiary accelerant. Both Nutzdowic and the naked dwarf instinctively jerked back their heads from the fireball.

“Thank the ancestors I wasn’t on the hard stuff last night eh Captain Pantzov?”

Arthur Pantdragon staggered back into his tent without even acknowledging the elf messenger’s existence.

Elodain began to walk slowly backwards, carefully picking each step between the slowly stirring dwarfs until he was clear of the camp. He slipped silently past a sleeping picket to the point where he had left his beautiful grey steed tied to a silver birch.

In the distance he could hear the mastiff barking, and then the sound of the dwarf who had first addressed him in camp bellowing:

“HAS ANYONE SEEN MY FUCKING WOODEN LEG!??”

ARTHUR PANTDRAGON

The Dux Bellendum “Arthursus Pantdragon” is the (usually inebriated) commander of my dwarf expeditionary force. It was once described by the Emperor Karl Something of somewhere as a “Contemptible little…really little, short army.”

Adopting the ancient title “Dux Bellendum” which in the ancient language of the savage Albion dwarf tribes kind of, sort of means “Duke of dying well in battles”. It is possible that the name “Pantdragon" links him to the ancient dwarf royal family the “Pendragons” – indeed a company of the Dragon Royal Guard fights in his throng – but it is also equally possible that Arthursus has made this up.

The name Arthursus  comes from the word “bear” in both the ancient Albion language “Arth” and in ancient Tilean “Ursus”. The nickname “bear” comes from the Dux’s notorious “bear with sore head” hangovers which are so violent that troops under his command prefer to ensure he has a near constant supply of ale to ensure that he is rarely – if ever – sober.

Arthursus and his throng (including the legendary Ser Lotzoflance and the Knights of the Rune Table) are searching the ancient land of Albion for a magical drinking vessel known as the “Gral”. Legend has it that any dwarf drinking from the Gral is blessed with everlasting ale. Thus the Gral is known to all dwarfs as “The Holy Ale”.

This model I was lucky enough to get from Lord Bood. I think with the modifications it is a one-off model but obviously based on the Bood Miniatures “drunken dwarf on pony” (You can buy this great range here).

Mrs Street originally wanted a dwarf she could have on her desk at work and for a time this is where Arthursus lived…on a laptop workstation in the office of a Staines-based pharma company. But this was before she realised that she prefers evil things like Chaos and Dark Elves (thanks Darkblade) – and before the office cleaner damaged him about fifty times while dusting him despite her pleading via post it notes not to do so. Mrs Street claimed she wanted this dwarf because it reminded her of me. Which is libellous nonsense to be honest.

The Dux has a fairly standard paintjob and will doubtless be superseded as general as soon as I have a more regal general painted up – in which case I will add him to the Knights of the Rune Table. The unicorn shield is a plastic marauder one.

Spanky the war-pony was painted in oils and the “glass bottle” was painted and then gloss varnished in the same way you might paint a gem. The “terracotta” vessel is painted with Foundry flesh shade paint with a shit load of Tamiya “flat base” mixed in.

Arthur has some special rules for drunkenness or sobriety which involves him either being subject to stupidity or to frenzy and animosity. 

PANTZOV NUTZDOWIC

Pantzov Nutdowic is obviously Lastro Lupital from the Dwarf Lords of Legend set.

Pantzov is a legendary dwarf mercenary from the frozen mountains of Kislev in the far east of the Old World. He is employed by Arthursus as a bodyguard, however due to the Dux’s typical inebriated state – he is usually the de facto leader of the throng, making the majority of the tactical battlefield decisions.

Veni, vidi, Vicious rumours persist that Pantzov really seeks the Holy Ale for his own ends and that when the Dux finally finds the Gral he intends to murder him and escape with his prize. Others say that Pantzov is the only living dwarf to have witnessed proof of Arthursus’ true heritage and destiny – when a young Arthursus pulled a drinking vessel from a large rock – thus fulfilling the ancient “Gourd in the Stone” prophecy.

For reasons I’m not quite sure of I kept my original paint-job on Pantzov. I’ve done a lot of stripping and repainting over the last 8 years or so but I kept him as is. Just gave him a more modern base. I don't think he looks too bad, he might just need a bit of toning down beard-wise. 

The musician below was originally painted for the Raven company, hence his mainly yellow and red colour scheme (although the blue sash kind of dominates the model). He will probably eventually take his place back in the original unit and the guy with the French Horn style instrument will probably end up in a clansmen unit.

WAGONS ROLL

Outside of the command figures I really wanted some logistical troops. I love a wagon me – and having some supply troops often gives you and extra angle when you want to play scenarios or just to give an opponent an objective in an uneven game. 

I had this wagon knocking about for years. I believe it is by a company called Hinchcliffe which are currently sold by a company called Hinds Models. I can’t find the exact model on their site but they do a lovely range of ECW / Renaissance and Medieval equipment. It was missing the horses but I happened to have a couple of Essex draft horses which fitted in fine. I used the Bugman’s beer cart driver (I hated that stupid high seat) and used some bitz box stuff for the “load” which was again from Hinchcliffe as well as some Battleforge stuff.

I converted the beer cart a little by cutting a couple of bits of basswood to the right width and extending the “seat” of the cart a little so I could fit the adventurer with map and his rather large backpack onto the cart. I liked the idea of the driver being lost and will eventually add some detail to the map. He was needed for the first battle of “Sheepy Hollow” so I rather rushed him out without the map detail!

I thought that the colour of the wagon (Vallejo “blue-grey”) went fairly well with the Bugman’s livery and had a kind of British Napoleonic artillery finish to it.

PACK ANIMALS

When I was a kid in the early to mid-eighties I used to holiday a lot in Hayling Island just outside Portsmouth. My Grandad had been a Royal Marine based in Portsmouth and served as a Commando in several commando units (40, 42 and 44 I think) in WW2, Malaya and Korea. As such my family had close links to Portsmouth and my Grandparents bought a Holiday home on Hayling Island near there in the late 1970s.

My dad worked from 16 years old to retirement for BOAC and then British Airways, and as a family we could literally have flown anywhere, anytime on his very, very generous concessions. However, my mum is a very nervous flyer with a 3-hour limit to flight time. As such, we spent a lot of time holidaying in the UK and the first three weeks of the school summer holidays were usually spent on the South Coast.

Not that I minded one bit. The young me got to spend long days running around the battlements of Arundel castle; running from Viking ghosts through the thousand year-old Yews at Kingley Vale; climbing over massive cannon on the 1860s Portsdown Hill forts; picnicking on the grass of Porchester Castle beneath the Roman and later Norman walls; sailing out to Spitbank, one of the Solent forts out in the sea or marvelling as my Grandad took me over modern warships and submarines at “Navy Days”. Every time there was a diorama or painting of Royal Marines he would point out a chap and tell me that was him. “You see that redcoat at Bunker Hill? That’s me, and that’s Ginger Evans next to me…”

One year the weather was dreadful. Aberdeen in summer dreadful. And we’d visited just about everywhere indoors over the first two weeks that we could possibly visit. My brother and I begged my Grandad to take us out, and while my gran and my mum stayed at home sulking about the rain and sleet my dad and my Grandad drove us to Southsea and “Old Portsmouth”. 

Back in the 80s parts of the docks were very much still hard-drinking, “vibrant” and with the odd “working girl” thrown in. These days it’s all chain restaurants and oyster bars. We sat outside one of my Grandad’s old haunts on the docks huddled under an umbrella (myself and my brother were not allowed inside the pub) loving every minute drinking Canada Dry Cola as my Grandad told us war stories about that time they discouraged “Cornish Alf” from playing his guitar in Alexandria by putting “Scarab Spiders” (I think that these are “Camel Spiders”) in the soundhole.

My dad had bought us two magazines, “Military Modelling” and of course White Dwarf, I don’t remember which, but one of them contained a classified ad for Southsea Models (now Southsea Models and Games – I believe it is still there). We necked our Cola lunch and begged to be taken there. After much searching for a parking meter on Albert Road we were granted our wish.

The store was (and apparently still is) an Aladdin’s Cave of gaming and modelling porn. My father – I think a little upset at being isolated from his hobby for two weeks – bought us both the Adventurers Starter Set, the Monsters Starter Set and a Citadel Paint set. They were  £4.95 each and we used our pocket money to buy some cheap brushes and a couple of additional paints.

That night was the best of the holiday as we huddled under the poor light in the kitchen painting our new toys!

I’m incredibly happy to say that I still have a few of those models. One of which is the pack mule which I simply had to paint up for my dwarf wagon train. A fairly basic paint job I’m sure you’ll agree but I love this sculpt and am very happy with him.

I also painted up this pack-pony at the same time. He’s from gripping beast and a LBM decal fitted the kite shield perfectly.

Next up will be a much shorter and less rambling post regarding the fledgling artillery battery.

Thanks for staying awake for the duration. You are much loved.

Warmaster - "Fast" Orc Tutorial

I posted this "fast" orc unit tutorial for 10mm Warmaster orcs on the Facebook Warmaster group this time last year. I get asked about it quite a lot and am told it is a pain to find on the community page so I thought it might be easier to repost here so it has a permanent home: 

The much promised “fast” Orc tutorial. It may not be fast enough for some of you, so some of you may want to cut out some highlighting stages or change/tweak a few things. 

Before we start, a word on brushes. I’m using Windsor and Newton Series 7s and I use a size 3 for almost everything except some detailing. High quality brushes hold a very fine point and at this scale the larger brush size holds more paint. More paint means less brush reloads, which means quicker “batch painting” which is essentially what you are doing for WM, even if you're just doing one or two strips.

I used PVA to attach all the strips to lolly sticks / coffee stirrers with PVA glue. It’s strong enough to hold them on the sticks but not so strong that you can’t easily remove them when ready to base.

With the PVA dry, I sprayed 3 whole units in 3 different brown undercoats. The Colours I used were: Mournfang Brown by GW, and 237 – "Desert Tan" and 29 – "Dark Earth" both by Humbrol.

I know in some countries Humbrol is hard to come by, you can easily substitute in GW “Zandri Dust” Spray for the Desert Tan. Annoyingly, since I first posted this, GW have stopped making Mournfang Brown as a spray. I had a look at the colours at Warfare on Saturday and I think that Army Painter “Fur Brown” would make a good substitute although personally I find citadel spray superior to Army Painter in holding detail.

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Please note (1) that between me doing the undercoat and actually starting painting the things my mother-in-law visited from Africa for 5 or 6 weeks. As such these were somewhat clumsily stored for several weeks under the bed, hence the flash visible in the early photos. The bad clean-ups and mould lines are my own fault.

Please note (2) that I use a dark oil wash as my first stage with thinned down artist oils. This might scare some people (especially if you don’t own any and you just saw how much they cost!) – but a thinned Citadel shade will suffice if you prefer.

STAGE ONE:

Stage One – Over the strips, with a large brush I apply a very thin wash with artist oils. I use a mixture of black and burnt umber thinned right down with turps to give me a very thin wash. Artist oils are very heavy pigment-wise so they keep their pigment while thinned down. I do one side at a time leaving them to dry flat so that the dark pigment sinks into the deepest recesses. Oil wash takes nowhere near the same time to dry as neat oils (which take days) and shouldn’t take longer than a Citadel shade to dry. To be safe, I usually do the washes the night before and start painting in earnest the next day. This stage is optional - but I use it to show my ageing eyes the detail on the strips.

STAGE TWO:

Skin - I basecoat all the orc skin. I’m using a Foundry paint trio for this (though I am only using the darkest (107A) and the lightest shade (107C) here. The colour is 107 - “Austrian Gun Ocre” which gives this lovely Oldhammer orc skin colour. All usual painting rules apply. Two thin coats are usually better than one. While painting the faces and hands I use a semi-drybrush (if that makes sense) to make sure I leave the dark oils is the eye sockets and nostrils etc. In other words I take a little of the paint of the brush with kitchen paper but not as mush as I would for real drybushing. Apply the paint by drawing the side of the brush across the face.

STAGE THREE:

Stage three – from now on I’ll just show the progress on the Mournfang brown chaps so we can focus on them. Stage three is an optional step so please leave out if you wish – but to add a bit of variety to the clothing and equipment I am adding in a couple of other dull shades. I pick out a few pouches, trousers, “tunics” and the odd shield in Citadel “Mechanicus Grey” and “Zandri Dust” – and obviously similar dull shades of yellow/khaki and grey/brown will substitute in easily. I have the Mournfang Brown out to tidy any areas where I’ve got green by accident!

STAGE FOUR:

Metalics. Speaks for itself. Weapons, handles, some bangles painted in Boltgun metal / Leadbelcher depending on how old your paints are! If there is any mail I pick this out with a drybrush.

STAGE FIVE:

The whole model gets a wash with GW Agrax Earthshade. I don’t want to faff about with a black wash for the metal and greys, green for the skin and brown for the cloth etc – so it's one brown wash and done. 

The brown gives the metal a dull Orcish feel and makes the bright green more ruddy and lived-in. It also deepens the shade of the cloth, making the grey look a bit dirty and grubby. I have a habit of leaving washed figures to dry upside down for five minutes on my cunning Humbrol upside down drying platform. I rotate them several times while they are drying to prevent pooling at the bottom of the figure. Use a dry brush to remove any paint that pools on raised surfaces

STAGE SIX:

Highlighting. For me the skin is the focal point so it’s going to get the most attention. I am going to do three quick(ish) highlights to the skin.

Firstly with the Gun Ocre light. I am using the paint thinned with water but with the side of the brush as if I was drybrushing. I want to cover most of the flesh but also leave the brown to darker green transition in the skin creases.

For the second highlight I am using GW “Krieg Khaki” Edge Paint. They call it a brown but this does perfectly well for the purpose I want. I am now highlighting the top edges of the skin. Tops of heads, shoulders etc anywhere where the light would hit. Alternatively you can use a 50/50 mix of your last highlight and white (or Ivory colour)

For the third and final stage I use the last highlight colour mixed mainly with white. With this I am going to “edge” highlight the skin. I do the this with the side of a brush and now finally I’m swapping to a smaller brush – a 1 or a 0. I only want to catch the extreme edges. Eyebrow ridge. Nose. Maybe tops of hands / fingers. I leave the skin there.

At this stage you may wish to detach the strips and glue to bases. This stops you from over-painting the backs of the front row and the fronts of the back row. I haven’t done this because I wanted to tackle the basing all in one go in a later “stage”.

STAGE SEVEN:

More quick highlights. On the brown I am going to firstly do a quick semi-drybrush with a 75 / 25 mix of Mournfang Brown and Zandri Dust. Again I want the raised areas. I also paint a wide “stripe” / “splodge” around the middle of the wooden weapon shafts and highlight the tops of the wood and shields. I doing this as quick as I can without obsessing or taking it too slowly.

Finally with the browns I use a mix of Mournfang Brown heavily lightened with Zandri Dust. I use this to “edge” the wood. The tops of wooden shafts, tops of shields and extreme raised edges of brown clothing.

I do a similar top highlight to the grey and Zandri Dust in the same way. But there’s no need to go overboard. Hopefully the green skin is going to get the most attention.

I paint in the odd shield detail in red and here and there an orcish red eye - you can edge highlight the metals with your lightest silver if you wish but don't drybrush it. You're looking for poor orc smithery or stolen weapons remember.

 

STAGE EIGHT:

Sticking to the base. My Dad used to say the modelling / Wargaming holy triumvirate was “Faces; bases; flags”. Actually. He’s not dead. He still says that at 73 years-old with his x10 magnifier on his head as he builds 1:72nd WW1 French ambulances and O-scale model railway trees. We’ve done the faces. We can save flags for another time. Now on to the bases.

Get out your fine sand and have the box open and ready. Trust me. And don’t sneeze.

I use thick Gorilla superglue gel. And I deliberately use too much on the bottom of the strips. I place the back strip as close to the back of the plastic base as possible and place the front strip as close to the back strip as possible. This is because I find that having a big gap between the ranks both looks bad and is also impractical. Also – having as much room at the front of the stand as possible allows you to do some nice basing.

Because I’ve used too much glue, when I splat them down on the stand – lots of superglue excess splurges out of the sides. I wait a few moments for the strips to glue to the stands and then I plunge into the sand (the stands, not myself). This means that unless you have OCD, there’s no need to use filler between the bases and the stand. The excess gel creates a ridge around the base of the strip and the sand covers it.

Use a scrap of paper towel to remove sand or glue that has splurged down the sides (unless you like that sort of thing).

When this is dry I use brush-on superglue (£0.99 from Wilko) to sand any gaps.

STAGE NINE:

Basing - When the glue is completely dry I paint the sand with a thinned down layer of Mournfang. I drybrush this with Zandri Dust.

DO NOT SCRIMP ON BASES! Apply a couple of tufts, tiny rocks if you like but DO NOT JUST APPLY SOME UNIFORM FLOCK TURF TO THE BASE! Don't let your hard work be ruined with a lazy base.

I used some coarse grass by woodland scenic for the other two patches of grass. Applied with superglue brush-on. And finally a little citadel “dead grass”.

I left the shield 2nd from the right blank as I will most likely paint it white and apply a home-made decal.

Remember. At this scale it's about contrast from darkest dark to lightest light. Leave subtlety to the larger scales!

FINISHING TOUCHES:

To finish off I freehanded a simple moon (or is it a sun?) design which I painted over lines I made with both black and brown fineliners. The design is copied from a (much bigger) LBM Studios decal designed for a medieval Polish knight. I used another two decals, one which I took from the new Blood Bowl set of a white eye and a second red moon face which I hand made myself and painted over.

A second unit of black orcs painted in the same way but with red weapon hafts and a home-made oldhammer decal which I have painted over.

Hope that was useful!