A venerable dwarf

 I'll reprise an earlier post:

Dwarfs are villains ... or at least they should be a great deal more.

Dwarfs in Norse myth and Germanic folklore tend to be surly at best and downright wicked at worst.

They issue curses, lust for goddesses, betray heroes, resemble corpses and turn to stone.

They murder sages, work magic, commit fratricide and become dragons.

They are black elves and dark elves and groan before their stone doors.

They are the maggots of Ymir and, through the works of George MacDonald, as much the ancestors of Tolkien's orcs as any folkloric goblin.

These things make them much more interesting than short, brawny Scotsmen or half-sized Vikings.

Dwarf kitbashes in progress

 

Painting time has been scarce (though, with the current weather, who's complaining?). But I've started to explore kitbashing possibilities with the EM4 dwarves. Along with lots of spare Oathmark heads, I've got quite a few GW bits and bobs of a dwarven nature. So, having bought a bag of EM4 dwarves on a whim some years ago, I have an opportunity to use them up. The plan is to make a few Kings of War-style multi-based units. I also have some painted Oathmark dwarves that may very well find themselves rebased for KoW, and I have lots of old Citadel dwarves to use for characters.

We do most of our rank'n'flank gaming in 1/72 scale, but with fantasy games, it all becomes a bit slippery. Because of the Warhammer-legacy basing in Kings of War, orcs have to be significantly bigger than humans to justify 25mm base sizes. Older orcs - like those from Mithril, 80s Citadel and EM4 - fill the bases nicely and look suitably imposing next to 1/72 humans. They're still sufficiently muscular and brutish-looking to justify their KoW 'Crushing Strength' in 28mm, though. So they work at both scales.

And happily, that means that 28mm dwarves like these chaps fit in fine too. Actually, we wouldn't balk at fielding them with 1/72 humans - the dwarves are still a head shorter than the humans, even if they're twice as broad!

Dwarves, orcs, ogres and an eachy for Oathmark

 Some quick'n'dirty paintjobs to allow these fellows to be swiftly deployed in Oathmark, Chainmail, Chaos Wars and D&D.

Dwarfs are villains ...

... or at least they should be a great deal more.

Dwarfs in Norse myth and Germanic folklore tend to be surly at best and downright wicked at worst.

They issue curses, lust for goddesses, betray heroes, resemble corpses and turn to stone.

They murder sages, work magic, commit fratricide and become dragons.

They are black elves and dark elves and groan before their stone doors.

They are the maggots of Ymir and, through the works of George MacDonald, as much the ancestors of Tolkien's orcs as any folkloric goblin.

These things make them much more interesting than short, brawny Scotsmen or half-sized Vikings.