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Sneaky little Dwarfses

Eyup fellow bunker dwellers, much like Charlie's post this finds me firmly on the home straight of the Dwarfs ready for the (as yet still unnamed) big beard bunker bash - surely there's something in "B4 the Storm" there... Anyway, today its the turn of the Rangers, front and centre lads:


There's a jolly chap in the centre of the unit that some of you will recognise from the Pirate Viking Painting 200th post (link here). While the unit has a champion model I thought any unit of Ranger's should have its own Bugman. I'd even use his rules if I thought the requirements made any sense (who would want Rangers who weren't quarrellers?). Speaking of the unit makeup, it is a bit different to how they're normally assembled:


See? A mix of Great Weapon armed dudes and Crossbow armed dudes. This is for three reasons: First, the unit comes with both great weapons and crossbows (which makes this a brutal unit, 14 S4 stand and fire shots and then two ranks of thumping with S5 weapons anyone?). Second, I think that the usual gambit of just gluing the spare great weapons to the backs of the models looks ridiculous. Really, you need straps to hold things on there guys and that was more conversion work than I wanted to do! Finally, it makes them look a bit more like a band than a unit. This is kinda visually semantic point but I wanted them to look irregular rather than soldierly.


As usual I got excited with the banner. I wanted something to feel kind of like a bridge between the nautical imagery and a more terrestrial feel. I ended up designing a celtic compass rose hopefully calling maps to mind as these lads are scouts and trailblazers. The runes across the bottom are the champion's name as these are Stromni's Wanderers.


To further emphasise the "ranger" feel I painted the cloaks with a weathering technique that I refer to as Ruin of Arnor Ranger. I first encountered it in the Lord of the Rings Ruin of Arnor sourcebook and it works brilliantly. Essentially you paint the cloaks normally (I went for a camouflagey olive green) and then sequentially drybrush a train of paint colours onto the hem. Each colour goes on a little lighter and leaving a line of the earlier one visible. The order (converted to new paints) is: Rhinox Hide; Steel Legion Drab; Mournfang Brown; Tau Light Ochre and a final light but enthusiastic drybrush of Ushabti Brown. Looks great, just don't do it in perfectly straight stripes!


Whoa, that's the three thousand point workometer. It's almost done, dayum. Just one block unit left (and as they're miners I am performing experiments in some fairly extreme weathering), the crew of the cannon and an army standard bearer. That's it. And there are still more zombies in Maiseys army than there are Dwarfs in my entire list. Gulp. Until next time folks...

TTFN

Comments

  1. They look great Jeff. I like the attention to detail you have put into them, I especially agree about the axes across the back. I am a little guilty of this, but usually try to hide this with a shield over the top.

    The worn look, and the sort of rag-tag look to them works really well to their role. I really like that Bugman model, I have it as well. It makes a really good unit filler.

    You know what... I never noticed that about Bugman's rangers. How odd, they all use to have crossbows and its the perfect chance to make them really stand out - longbeard quarrellers. That be awesome.

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