Princess Snow's Dwarf Miner Guard

   A  couple weeks ago I ran a game using my old GW "Skull Pass" Dwarves.  I had a unit of 6 of the Dwarves with pickaxes on the field, and one of the players remarked that there should be seven of them.  To which another replied that, yes, and they should be led by a certain Disney princess.

      That sparked a memory that my friend, Duncan, had found a baggie of Disney monopoly pieces in a flea market a few years ago, and had given them to me thinking I could us them for one of my games.  I had put them aside not having an immediate use, but I thought that there might be a Snow White figure in among them; and sure enough when I checked the next day, I found just what I wanted.    What's more, her hands were clenched up by her left ear, in a pose that looked just waiting to have a 2-handed sword inserted into them.   Now if only the metal wasn't too hard to drill through.

      And to my luck, it wasn't!  It was a nice soft metal and I was able to put a hole through her two hands quite easily.  I then looked through the weapon sprues I had received from the Bones 3 Kickstarter and found a suitable sword, and test fitted it.

      I then glued the figure to a 1" washer, and primed it; and when it was dry, I glued in the sword.

   Next, it was an easy task to Google some images Snow White to get the colors right, and with those in hand I painted her up.

   After painting, I flocked her base, and sprayed her with some Testor's Dullcote.    I'm really happy with the way she came out, and I loved doing her primary color outfit; so much so that I'm seriously considering using it on one of my Reaper Bones female fighters now.

Some Old Skull Pass Dwarf Miners

  A long while back I purchased a cheap secondhand Games Workshop "Skull Pass" set off of eBay.  I painted up a few of the units, but then other projects were pushed ahead of it, and the remainder of the figures were relegated to a shelf.  A few years passed, then recently I saw some photos of someone who had painted a few of the units, and I was reminded how much I had liked the Dwarves from this set.  It had always seemed to me that there was just a lot of character crammed into these simple imaginative single-piece sculpts.

     So, in a bit of a nostalgic frame of mind, I pulled out a unit of the Miners, and prepped them for painting.   These figures are beautifully designed for block painting, (ideal for beginners), with lots of deep crevices to separate parts and colors, so I tried to do a mix of block painting style and  more detailed washes and highlights around the face and hair and a few other places.

     I also had an extra Miner figure, off whom I had borrowed the axe to make my Yukon Cornelius conversion, to which I added a spare Ogre weapon to make it look like some kind of special hero figure.

    I really enjoyed painting these guys, and I just might pull a few more figures from the box to work on this Summer.

Dwarf War Machine Conversion: 25mm to 10mm

  While I was at Huzzah last month, I found this cool old Ral Partha Dwarf  "Steam Cannon" War Machine in the flea market.  It was missing it's crew, but that was fine with me, because when I saw it I immediately thought about it's possibilities as a 10mm Dwarven "Ogre" type vehicle for my Dwarven Army for "Bear Yourselves Valiantly" mass combat fantasy rules.  And the price was certainly right. :)

   The kit itself was easy to assemble.  I then raided my 10mm figures box for some spare Warmaster Dwarf Cannon crewmen to man the machine.  I test fit the Dwarf crew around the deck, and when satisfied, I glued the machine to a 3" x 3" metal base (BYV units have 3" frontage, and I needed the 3" depth to fit the model), and the crew I glued to a tongue depressor for ease of handling while panting.   I then sprayed the vehicle and crew with flat black primer.

        The painting itself was straightforward, and when complete I glued the crew onto the vehicle and then flocked the base.

    I'm really pleased with how this model came out.   For the most part, the parts of the vehicle are scale variable, so the 10mm crew doesn't look too out of place on the deck.

Recent Uncharted Seas Game

I recently hosted a games day for our club, at which I ran an Uncharted Seas scenario. The scenario involved an Orc raid on a Dwarven mining/port facility. For this scenario I constructed out of pink and blue foam scraps three key terrain features: the base of the harbor, where the mines and port were located, and two land arms reaching out into the harbor. I also made two small islands to place in the mouth of the harbor. On the ends of each of the arms, and on each island I put a turret.

The turrets were constructed out of travel-sized dental floss containers with round plastic coffee stirrer guns, and a washer and plastic base for the top. On the top of the plastic base, I glued the back for a pierced earring. This has a small hole in it in which I plan to eventually insert a flagpole and flag.

I also constructed three dwarf ore barges. I traced the hull outline of a standard dwarf cruiser onto a sheet of balsa to form the basic shape. Then used balsa strips to form the edges of the hold. I build up a small mound with pink foam scraps in the hold area, and then glued ballast over it. Finally, I painted them

I did not get to complete the main harbor base in time for the game. Eventually, I hope to add more detailed mining structures and other buildings.
The game was a lot of fun, but turned out to be a bit lopsided in favor of the Orcs. One of the main problems was that I gave the turrets stats that were too weak, and the Orc Ships were able to quickly eliminate most of them at long range; before the Dwarves ever had a chance to fire them.
I plan to revisit this scenario, as the players really enjoyed it and I think it has great potential. I will keep you posted as it evolves.