I Painted the Dwarf Allies…And Broke Warhammer Allies (1988)- Part I

From White Dwarf #108: "Eradicated Gremlins GW? More like they lived on for nearly 40 years."

There I was, happily painting up a Dwarf Ally Contingent from the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies Book from 1988. I had a handful of figures left over from my six thousand point Dwarf army, so it felt like an obvious project. This also tied into my larger plan. I have been trying to collect all eleven armies in the book (Norse from White Dwarf #107 eventually too) and every Ally and Mercenary Contingent, each with its own dedicated set of miniatures.

As noted on the blog previously, years ago, I consolidated and rebuilt my Dwarf Mercenary force using leftover Battle for Skull Pass figures from the later editions. Even after that, I still had extra metal models from the period, along with plastic Dwarfs from the old Warhammer Regiment box set. You know how this hobby goes. A few Quarrelers, some Ironbreakers, a hero, and you think you are ready to field a proper contingent. That was the plan, at least. I was wrong.

While I was finishing the Dwarf Warrior unit, the question hit me. “Okay, who can actually take these guys?”

It seemed simple. Open Warhammer Armies from 1988, check the ally lists, match these stout warriors to the army that could field them, and move on with the project.

Except this is where the wheels came off: no one can take them. Not one of the eleven armies in the book.

• Not Empire.
• Not Bretonnia.
• Not even the Dwarfs themselves.
• No Army AT ALL.

That could not be right, or so I thought. But it was. By painting a simple ally contingent, I had stumbled onto one of the most quietly funny and completely uncorrected design mistakes in the entire 3rd Edition era.

The best part? It was right there in plain sight for thirty seven years and nobody ever noticed. ETA (12/3/25): turns out despite my best efforts to source this out, someone else did notice! So no shame here, credit where credit is due! Oldhammer discussion

How I Found the Break Point

After rereading each army entry and its allowed ally list, I decided to reverse the logic.

Rather than asking “What allies can this army take?”
I asked a different question. “Which armies can take these allies?”

I doubt Games Workshop ever approached it this way. I will talk more about that in Part II. I went contingent by contingent and built a full matrix. As the list grew, the pattern became obvious. Army after army had nothing but empty space under the Dwarf Allies category. The Dwarf Ally entry is fully written, fully pointed, and laid out just like every other valid contingent, but no army in the book is actually permitted to use it.

I still did not believe it. So I checked my notes again and kept cross checking online. The result never changed. I even checked the Norse list from White Dwarf #107, which is an official 3rd Edition army. They cannot take Dwarf Allies either.

Then I pulled out both of my copies of the Army Book, the hardcover and the softcover. The same gap appears in both. I will come back to that in more detail in Part II.

Surely This Was Fixed in an Errata?

That was my next thought. I went straight to the web to look for it. This had to be a known issue. I expected to find a long forgotten White Dwarf sidebar, a footnote, a FAQ, a designer comment, or something buried on an old website. Anything at all.

There was nothing.

So I turned to the two White Dwarf issues that are always cited as containing the 3rd Edition corrections for Warhammer Armies from 1988.

• White Dwarf #107
• White Dwarf #108

And guess what?

Still nothing. Not a single word about Dwarf Allies. Those errata entries only address small housekeeping items. They mainly correct point values and attribute scores for Dark Elves and Skaven. The Dwarf Ally issue is not mentioned anywhere.

The only conclusion I could reach is that the Dwarf Ally Contingent was and still is completely orphaned. It is a dead entry in Warhammer Armies from 1988, and none of us caught it. I have handled that book thousands of times and never noticed it.

And now that I see it, the whole thing feels right in line with the era.

The Most Oldhammer Thing Possible

Welcome to 3rd Edition, where Chaos mutations contradict their own points formula, where Fimir somehow ally with Norse in ways no scholar of fantasy biology can explain, where Nippon mercenaries can be taken only by Dark Elves for reasons known only to the gods, and where the best way to understand the rules is to accept that nobody in 1988 was paid enough to cross index the ally matrix.

This is peak Oldhammer. Creative, chaotic, brilliant, flawed, and absolutely perfect all at once.

Why I Never Noticed This in the ’80s, Even Though I Used Allies

I used allies all the time during the 3rd Edition years. Wood Elves, High Elves, Halflings and Norse saw plenty of table time for me, but I never once used the Dwarf Allies. That alone explains why this flaw stayed hidden from me for almost forty years.

There was another reason as well. Everyone else in my group had started playing before I did, and we had a simple rule. No one could play the same army. I took Empire because it was still open. That choice dictated the allies I reached for. When I looked at Dwarfs, my attention went straight to the four dwarf cannons from the Dwarf Mercenary Contingent. That was the obvious path for an Empire player.

The Dwarf Ally Contingent itself did not help matters. There is nothing in it that you cannot already get from the main Dwarf army list:

• 
  
  1 Contingent Commander
• 0–40 Dwarf Crossbowmen
• 0–10 Ironbreakers (really, what are you doing with just ten???) 
  
• 10–80 Dwarf Warriors (that's like a whole army!)

It is a perfectly serviceable group of troops, but nothing that would tempt a player who had better and more cost effective options elsewhere. 

So What Now?

Well, in my case?

I fixed the oversight in my own matrix I created. Dwarfs are available to Empire and Bretonnia and Dwarfs themselves as Allies (see here).

But the real fun was the discovery itself. I set out to paint a few allies… and in the process, I broke Warhammer Armies (1988). I didn’t just paint Dwarf Allies. I painted a glitch in the game’s original source code.

Not bad for a weekend project.

Warhammer Levies, next to useless, but fun to paint!

"Go and get um' lads! There is only one and there are thirty of us, what could go wrong? CHARGE!!!"

All too often the biggest, the baddest and the most cool units in Warhammer get all the attention. After all that kick ass unit that wins you game after game gets the glory, as it should. But this post is not about those glory soaked units. In fact we are going to talk about the other end of the unit spectrum: levies!

We all know about the High Elf Dragonkin in 3rd Edition Warhammer, the Daemons of Khorne or even the incredible stat lines of vampires (see below) or treemen. So instead, how about levies! In this case a peasant levy from the 3rd Edition Bretonnian Army list in Warhammer Armies.

Before we get into it, first things first, the stat-line for the unit, in this case, Rascals (sorry about the low light photo of the entry):

WS2, BS2, I2, there is no way around it, levies are bad and not in a good way. Their only redeeming feature (if you can call it that) is that they are cheap at 4 points per model. Spears and shields costing .5 points a piece do not really do much to bring them up to even being remotely useful. On top of that they are compulsory troops (yes White Dwarf #137 had a revised page for the Bretonnians, but going with this for now).

Add to this the rules from the Warhammer Fantasy Rulebook on page 99 shows that they have a special mob formation meaning they cannot expand or contract frontage. Basically the unit formation they appear with on the first turn? That is what they are going to go with the whole battle, no changing it.

So the natural question is what are they good for? The answer is really not much. On the battlefield I suppose one could use them to tie up a unit for a round or so, but the opposing player would have to be fairly dumb to get caught up in that. Barring that? They add a lot of character to a game and perhaps that is the best way to look at them.

Painting and unit composition: Aside from one brigand Games Workshop model as the leader, the rest are from the Old Glory Revenge line of medieval miniatures with a fair amount of weapon swaps from various GW sprues like the zombie and empire regiments. In a way these minis capture the look and feel of peasant warriors far better than what I could get from GW when they still did Fantasy Battle in the late 6th through 8th edition days. In fact they are fairly close to the minis of 3rd Edition at the time in terms of look and feel. Hand weapons were a bit too small, perhaps a consequence of GW over-sizing their weapons? But otherwise the proportions are a match.

I especially liked how the "front rankers" and the axe-men came out in terms of painting, and the leader most of all. I imagine him as a brigand who somehow got himself "elected" leader of this rabble and forced onto the field of battle when he would rather be in a tavern! The pitchfork minis all came out well too. Now there is a weapon! The Sword of Khaine, bane of the Elven race??? BAH, PITCHFORK!!!

In terms of color scheme I deliberately kept the color palette limited and muted, trying to make them look muddy and dirty rather than bright. I used a lot of dark washes and slathered it on deliberately. From there it was minimal highlights. Overall I kept it to various shades of brown, tans, a bit of green here and there and black. After I took the photos I noticed a few things and I am touching up the standard/totem banner. It is a bit dodgy in spots and needs a bit more attention in my estimation.

Actual usage: Well... never really on the tabletop. As I was the only "non-evil army" player in the gaming group back in the day, I was the only one that would have conceivably fielded these guys, but as I was just scrapping together models to get a force on the field, I did not. This is in spite of the fact that the first army I fielded was in fact Bretonnians for a few games before I converted over to Empire (in the early days we ignored the compulsory units to a degree for the first few games as we were assembling armies). Fortunately, I kept all the models and added these guys to the force a few years back.

Looking through Warhammer Armies I did actually use levies once, but never made it to the field. As I note here in our forays into Warhammer Siege using my Empire army, I fielded units of Landestrum, (aka Empire levies) for forage and support. I did not have models representing the units at the time though as it was not really necessary: they were only ever on the strategic map.

Finally, in terms of the armies that can field levies, out of the 12 (the 12th being the Norse in White Dwarf #107) they appear for the following: Empire, Bretonnia, Skaven and Slann in Warhammer Armies. In the case of the Slann, there are the Jungle Braves listed as a levy and the human slave unit which has the same stat line as humans, but a point cost akin to levies. Skeletons and zombies have comparable stats in the Undead army, but their special rules make them different in terms of play. One could make the argument that goblins and snotlings are close in the Orc and Goblin list, but not quite exactly levies per se, certainly with the snotling rules. Gnomes with their crappy Toughness of 2 for the Dwarf army are likewise close, but I do not think I ever even saw a single gnome miniature from GW. As such highly unlikely anyone ever fielded a unit, definitely not in my Dwarf army which grew to be quite substantial.

In the mercenaries and ally contingents section, the pygmy allies for the Slann are close with their S2, T2. The halfling ally section is similar as they likewise have S2, T2 in their stats, but make up for this with a BS4. If I ever get around to a Slann army and ever get around to a pygmy ally contingent, I would bump their BS to 4 just like the halflings, makes sense to me for the same point values. The fact that levies are not a fixture of that section stands to reason: whether hiring mercs or getting allies to your cause, one is usually not getting the dregs of a society's warriors; certainly not in the case of spending coin on mercenaries.

NOTE: From above, vampires in Warhammer? Forget sparkly Twilight vampires; check out the stat lines in 3rd Edition Warhammer, holy crap! Even the Level 5 ones kick ass, wow. Perhaps a post for another time.

3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Dwarf Mercenary Contingent

The Entire Dwarf Mercenary Contingent

But looking at the backlog of minis I have on my painting desk I have made a conscious effort to complete and clear it. I took stock and noticed I still had a lot of dwarfs to paint. And this was after painting 8,000 points of Chaos Dwarfs! So with that in mind and my plan to have separate minis for each ally and mercenary contingent in the 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army book I got to work.

My Warhammer Fantasy Battle Dwarf army grew out of the need for me to be my own ally. By my own ally I mean as I have noted on the blog before everyone in the gaming group back in our 3rd edition days already had all the "evil armies" picked. That left me to start with the Empire. So when we played really BIG battles like Jeff's Orc and Goblins and Dave's Skaven vs my Empire I needed allies.

As a result I had to purchase and then paint a lot of minis. I bought some of Dave's dwarf crossbowmen and that was the nucleus of my Dwarf army that is now probably close to 5,000 points.

So rather than keep adding to that army I decided to use the minis for a dedicated Dwarf Mercenary contingent. I get the Army Rulebook was designed so that the Allies and Mercenary contingents could be used via just allocating minis from the main army one might already have. I also think it was a strategy to sell minis for armies that a player might not otherwise buy. With this in mind I have set out to create Ally and Mercenary contingents for all of them listed! A tall order I know.

 

Back to the Dwarf Mercenaries. The minis themselves are mainly from the awesome Battle for Skull Pass boxed set which I had bought two of between 2008-2010. Mainly, these were for my 5th-8th Edition Chaos Dwarfs. I also got a great deal on a Dwarf box set at Games Day 2008. Thus between these two sets I had enough left over to utilize for the mercenary force even after being used for four units of Chaos Dwarfs. This accomplished another part of my goal: clearing the painting table.

As I assembled the mercs, I realized I had everything I needed to fill out all units listed from odds and ends

 

The Dwarf Mercenary Force 

•  1 Dwarf Mercenary Commander (I used a leftover metal Hammerer model I had lying around.
•  6 Mercenary Dwarf Sappers (Battle for Skull Pass miners. These guys obviously fit perfectly.)
•  19 Dwarf Mercenary Warriors (Battle for Skull Pass warriors.)
•  1 Dwarf Mercenary Artillery (a cannon from the Milton Bradley 

Dwarf Mercenary Warriors & Commander

While a separate force from my Dwarf army, one thing I did consider was the color scheme. My larger Dwarf War Host is primarily green and yellow for colors. I decided to do the same with the mercenary force so if I wanted to use them as part of the larger force I easily could do so. Despite being a separate force I like the flexibility. In fact with almost all of my armies and contingents I make them so they can span multiple editions as much as possible.

I have talked about it on chaosdwarfs.com before in my chaos dwarf blog about how sometimes units "fight" and the painting can be a pain, or chore. That was definitely the case with the crossbowmen. They were also originally assembled as Chaos Dwarf crossbowmen. So not only did I have to modify them, but had to do a bunch of green stuffing and scrounge up enough pieces to make a unit. The painting was painful and seemed to take forever.

In contrast the dwarf warrior unit went together easily from assembly to painting, likewise with the miners who function as sappers and the cannon and its crew. All of these guys were enjoyable to paint.

Dwarf Mercenary Warriors armed with crossbows

The armies in 3rd edition Fantasy Battle that can utilize Dwarf Mercenaries are much what one would expect: The Empire & Bretonnia. High Elves are too snooty to use mercenaries and Wood Elves do not employ mercenaries at all. All the rest either do not employ mercenaries or are "evil" and thus the Dwarfs would not hire out to them. Oddly the Norse Armylist (as featured in White Dwarf #107) does not allow for Dwarf mercenaries either. Now of course it is not like I am breaking any rules for an edition and it is usually just Willmark Jr and I playing but I could see them used for Norse. It is also odd that the Dwarf Army itself cannot hire them. Personally I would hand waive that one if the battle called for it.

Because of this, in practical terms it is not the most useful mercenary or ally contingent on the tabletop in terms of utilization, but one I wanted to complete to "clear the desk".

Further afield I have now a fairly large Old Worlder Mercenary contingent (using some Old Glory minis, do not tell GW!) that is nearly complete in terms of collecting the minis. Likewise the Old Worlder Ally Contingent is rounding into form. Dwarf Allies, Dark Elf Ally and High Elf Ally are all likewise underway.

Nippon Castle for Warhammer Fantasy Battle - Part V – Seven Years in the Making

The completed Nippon Castle

Note: Parts I, II, III and IV of the construction of the castle.

Also of note here is the real world castle this was inspired by: Kakegawa castle 

Boom, and just like that…well, not really just like that, as this was a lot of work; the castle of the Army of Nippon is finished. What started back in the winter of 2013 is complete, seven long years later. When I say complete, there is still some more stuff to add here and there (mainly the moats), but it’s ready for warfare.

In terms of the moats, I’m working on getting a darker shade of blue/green to make it look murky rather than the “bright” blue it currently is. An old broom is providing the rushes that I’m gluing down with my hot glue gun in small dabs.

In all, it’s fairly practical as the roofs are removable in the manner of a dollhouse and the interior is painted.

One of my oldest friends and one of the people I gamed the most against in the 3rd Edition days brought up a great idea of running some smaller games where ninja have to fight samurai! This is a great idea as I have plenty of both (although the last two samurai of my quest are surprisingly frustrating to get!)

Now that it’s finished? It’s time to clear it off the gaming table as Willmark Jr. and I are looking to get some 3rd Edition Warhammer games in over the upcoming holiday break!

As I noted previously, next for terrain is a more traditional European-style castle in the vein of the Warhammer Mighty Fortress (good write-up on the Games workshop kit here). It’s going to be a bit smaller in terms of footprint to fit on the table and more utility for siege games.

Like drawing inspiration for an actual Japanese castle for the Nippon one, I’m drawing from England for the next one — in this case, Harlech Castle in Wales.

Also of note, this will be the 2nd traditional-style castle I made for Warhammer. The original one was the one we used for our games of siege way back in the day. It’s long since gone. It survived many moves over the years and various storage closets/rooms when I was living in apartments. Somewhere along the way from my last apartment to my first house it was lost or damaged — or maybe both. Sadly, no photos exist of it either.

So on wards to the next project. Toothpicks, foam core, cardboard, masking tape, glue, hot glue, thin cardboard, milk cartons, scotch cartons, Popsicle sticks, and patience are all that are required. Hopefully this next one doesn’t take me seven years to finish.

So, how did I do on creating a Nippon castle set in the world of Warhammer?

Inspiration for Warhammer Nippon Armies – Shōgun, Ran, Seven Samurai & More

Inspiration for actual Games Workshop Asian-inspired materials was hinted at in the mid to late 1980s, but never delivered on. Nippon and the East in general is mentioned in the 3rd Edition Rulebook and had an ally section in Warhammer Armies, but it ended with the advent of 4th Edition Warhammer and the changes it entailed. It is important to note that 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay did have a Nippon list that, with a few tweaks, is quite usable.

Fortunately, the world of the internet allows for this constraint to be eliminated.

In Warhammer, Nippon (Nihon) is analogous to Japan of our world. What it is not is mythical China. This can’t be overstated because all too often in Warhammer circles I hear suggestions about a Nippon army that would make it more like Cathay. If I wanted to create a fantasy Cathay army, there are a number of resources out there, but that’s not the point of this blog post.

So, in no particular order, here are two of the best inspirations for a Nippon-themed world and Nippon army that can help, in my opinion of course.

Shōgun — The book written by James Clavell and the TV series are both excellent. It is a pseudo-historical telling of the late 1500s and the unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first Tokugawa Shogun, in the form of “Toranaga.”

Shōgun is the quintessential TV mini-series of the 1980s and consists of six parts. Richard Chamberlain stars as Pilot-Major Blackthorne. Blackthorne is based on the real-life exploits of an English sailor who was shipwrecked in Japan in 1600, William Adams.

Shōgun covers nearly all aspects of late 1500s Japanese life — from the peasants to ninja, the start of the geisha, betrayal, honor, bravery, as well as romance. The ambush of bandits at night in a village, ships, ninja! The only thing it lacks is the actual Battle of Sekigahara , which it all leads up to.

The rising tension of the plot makes an excellent backdrop for Nippon vs. Nippon battles or, perhaps more likely as I do, reasons for mercenary Nippon to go and plunder the Warhammer World.

Ran (pronounced “Rahn” to our Western ears, at least mine) — the movie by the legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Ran is essentially King Lear, but far richer in the telling. Ran is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. I agree. Any Top 10 movie list in the All-Time category that doesn’t include it is no Top 10 at all.

Ran is rich in its visuals and massive in scale. I think perhaps the only true way to do it justice is to see it in a movie theater (which I never have, but would love to).

A side note is that Ran has one of the best soundtracks for any Asian-inspired game. I listen to it often when working on one of my Nippon army projects.

Ran is indispensable to a Warhammer gamer interested in a Nippon army, as it has literally all the right army units on display throughout (remember I use the 2nd Edition Nippon list for 3rd Edition Nippon armies).

Other Good Sources Include (but are not limited to):

• Oriental Adventures by Zeb Cook (1st Edition AD&D). Some folks have a hang-up about this work — tell them to pound sand. A lot of people seem to want it to be “epic China,” which it’s not. I think the rules are quite well done, especially considering the timeframe. 
• Kobu of the Two Strings. This might seem surprising, but I found this extremely well done.
• The Seven Samurai. Many people don’t realize that they have seen this movie — in the form of The Magnificent Seven. The soundtrack of The Seven Samurai is great too. Oh, and it also inspired George Lucas with the droids in the original Star Wars trilogy.
• Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire — a documentary narrated by Richard Chamberlain. It’s too short (I wish this was 40 hours long!), but it is excellent. It’s not really a secret, but meh… it’s just the title.

Endnote: This should not be taken to mean that I dislike a Cathay army or its inspirational sources — far from it. I think epic China is a fine topic, and if I ever did an army inspired by it I’d go with something like Kung Fu Panda! Panda bear warriors would be very cool. Clay warrior golems, river dragons, etc.

Let me know your thoughts! 

Dragonerune Minatures- Marauding Ogres

For some reason I seem to have an affinity for ogres in Warhammer. I'm not sure why this is mind you as I haven't set out to collect a lot of them, it kind of just happened. A few months back I was able to procure these ogres off of eBay for about $20 less than the going price after having my eye them since around 2001. What are they? Dragonrune Miniatures Ogre Marauders.

Dragonrune Miniatures was in operations from 2001 to 2003 and closed down in 2003 (source). The minis in question were sculpted by Felix Paniagua and obviously look very much in the vein/style of the Warhammer miniatures at the time; his orcs also are very much same style-wise. While Dragonerune went "belly up" they were acquired by Armorcast and you can still get the miniatures. This makes sense as Felix also worked for GW.

As you can see I have all seven of the minis from the ogre line. I have mixed feelings about these guys, not the minis mind you. They are packed with details and a proliferation of skulls, heads, chests, pouches etc. In fact in a way they echo the Citadel miniatures of the mid to late 80s which I cut my teeth on as it were (In fact the left hand most ogre has orange and white haircut akin to the the ogre on the cover of the 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy Role-play book). And yes I know the troll slayer on the cover had the orange hair...

Sorry about the digress, I was saying mixed feelings? This was one of those units and/or minis that gave me a lot of grief when painting. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked. By grief I mean they just did not come together in terms of of the colors as I expected. The skin tones were better than I expected, but overall as noted the whole experience left me somewhat perplexed. I'm not sure about you, but this happens to me every once and a while when painting a unit or miniature, it either is a case where it doesn't come out quite like I intended or wasn't as enjoyable to paint.

I did get to work on my black lining of technique to give them a more oldhammer feel and the washes went well. I also gave the weapons a rusty bloodstained look which on the ogre with the orange/white hair and the ogre with the hammer looks good.

Regardless of the outcome I now have yet another unit of ogres for Warhammer and here is what is in my collection at the moment:

• A unit of three ogres for my 6th/7th Edition Chaos Dwarf army.
• A unit of three ogres for my 6th/7th Edition Chaos (Undivided) army.
• A unit of eight ogres for my 3rd Edition Armies which are detailed here.

While all of these guys are assigned to an army and in some cases painted to match the armies or their bases/movement trays they could also be used for Warhammer Fantasy role-play or for other Warhammer armies in Warhammer Fantasy Battle proper.  In the case of the Dragonrune ones I just finished above they are painted with the more neutral brown scheme I use for mercenary forces in my collection. Another use could very easily be in my ever so slowly evolving Dogs of War army.

In the end, I recommend these guys, they are excellent miniatures with a very good amount of fine detail to them. In fact if you didn't know you might be forgiven for assuming they were unreleased GW miniatures.

As a final note I think these are the last ogres I will be procuring for quite some time, although there are still some giant ogres from the Marauder line which I quite like along with some more of the classic lines from Citadel. Perhaps I need to switch to the classic giants! So many choices, limited $, but we'll see. Maybe The Warhammer Giant, but only 1,000 were produced...

3rd Edition Warhammer Chaos Dwarf Army list

Special thanks to orlygg for the scan and the ones that appear in the "army book" below.

Being the Mad Hatter that I am I decided a while back to post my "back-port" of a Chaos Dwarf Army list to 3rd Edition rules. I've been on the periphery of the Oldhammer movement, but felt compelled to give back by standing on the shoulders of those who got the ball rolling as it were.

For those not in the know, back in the 3rd Edition days the Chaos Dwarfs only appeared in two sections in terms of armies in the game and then not even in their own army. They appeared in Warhammer Armies: as part of the Chaos Ally contingent and as part of the Khornate army listed in Realm of Chaos- Slaves to Darkness. Even then, the Chaos Dwarfs were different than what would appear in the 4th Edition rules in their own "Army Book". From there there, the uncertainly of 5th through 7th editions until Chaos Dwarfs Online spearheaded a resurgence and brought them back from the brink of disappearing.

So with this in mind I attempted to create an army listing in the same vein as how they were presented in 3rd Edition, but using the organizing concepts of 4th Edition and beyond. That is to say I combined orcs and goblins into the list, even though in 3rd Edition they are listed as hating all dwarfs including Chaos Dwarfs. Oldhammer is what you make it and I'm not too worried about the 3rd Edition Warhammer police breaking down my door by breaking a rule. Then again, with Games Workshop Legal? Who knows...

Knowing a fair amount about graphic design and having produced both the Word of Hashut and Gold and Glory ezines it was a fairly easy task to replicate the look at feel of Warhammer Armies. The problem wasn't the design but rather it is my illustration skills which have atrophied over the years. Sot it was a lot of scans were in order, namely from White Dwarf, Realms of Chaos- Slaves to Darkness and Warhammer Armies.

Be warned, this has NOT been play tested so who knows how it will work! You'll also note that there is space for adding rules for the Chaos Dwarf Juggernaut. Strangely, Games Workshop created the model back in the 80s, but never created rules for it. The production run of the mini was limited and goes for quite a bit on eBay. At some point I'll add rules for the miniature and its accompanying crew.

For more details on Chaos Dwarfs in the 80s and early 90s, be sure to check the excellent site Realm of Chaos, a leading light in the Oldhammer movement.

The 3rd Edition Chaos Dwarf Army list can be downloaded here, let me know what you think.

Warhammer 3rd Edition- Old Worlder Mercenary Contingent

One of the coolest things about 3rd Edition Warhammer are the rules for Allies and Mercenaries. While not perfect, I think they are the closest they have ever come to being truly playable in the various iterations of Warhammer.

This post is about the Old Worlder Mercenary Contingent, but first a bit of backstory.

As I noted here, my very first step into Warhammer Fantasy Battle was in 3rd Edition. Since the other guys had already picked armies and we didn't want to duplicate any one army I had a few choices to go with, all on the "good side". I had always liked knights back in the day so Brettonia it was. A few stops at the local games stores left me with the following for my very first games (around1988)

• 10 Chevaliers D'Honneur
• 22 Archers
• 1 cannon and crew
• A bunch of assorted models I recall fielding as Brigands. 

I only ever recall playing against Dave's Skaven before converting them to an Empire force which would become my first real army. Jeff had some he sold me some Empire halberdiers I think to bolster the force and aide the conversion of the army. As knights of the Empire I used epoxy glue to add aluminum foil to paint barding! Ugh. The lengths we went through to make the models WYWIWYG. Nowdays I could pull it off with green-stuff but back then my skills at modelling werent so good and no one knew what green-stuff was.

After a while my dislike of all things Bretonnia grew as well as eventually creating three 10+ units of Empire Knights which the need for Brettonian knights standing in as Imperial ones diminish. Even so, I bought some 5th Edition Bretonnian horses a number of years later repainting and remounting the knights; and then promptly did nothing with them. I was fortunate in that I did save the original horses having a vague idea of using them as steeds for a paddock and stable terrain piece. A casualty of them sitting at the bottom of various bits boxes for years was that almost all were missing their tails. No big deal as I recreated them with green-stuff that came out quite well. Moral of the story: never throw anything out!

Now this brings me to the present. A month or so back I stripped down the archers and primed them just for the Hell of it. But in doing so I got to thinking. About six months I have reassembled one of my Bretonnian cannons that I saved the frame for 20 years (the barrel was part of a crappy home built steam tank, now since destroyed). Did this mean I was going to reassemble my Bretonnian? No. With a perusal through the 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies book it became clear it would be more fun to paint them up as scummy mercenaries! This has the added benefit of the fact that I'm the administrator of Dogs of War Online, homeland of mercenaries!

A few nights of stripping paint, redoing horse tails and finding shields and were all set. Note the shields will be repainted; some of them sport their crappy 1988 paint jobs. Paint jobs reflective of me not knowing what the Hell I was doing back then..

Snooty Bretonnian knights on the way to becoming scummy mercenaries!

So now the force becomes:

• 10 Tilean Condotieri or 10 Estalian Caballeros
• 22 Archers now equating to 20 Frieforstjaegers*
• 1 cannon and crew (probably will just end up as a small diorama type piece)
• 9 crossbowmen I've had for odds and ends to form a small unit of Tilean crossbowmen. 
• Going to add 20 pikemen from either the Pike and Shotte range or the Perry Miniatures range*. 
• 20 Bretonnian brigands. I did have a few here but foolishly traded them, I'll need to reacquire these guys.
• I also was able to rehab 10  unarmored 3rd edition horses; I'll be looking for more knight figures on eBay sans riders to fill them out.
• Still need to decided on a mounted contingent commander.

* Yes, the rules say a maximum of 20, but I'm not too worried about the 3rd Edition Warhammer police breaking down my door at 2 AM for rules violations....

** Perry miniatures obviously, seamlessly integrate with the other minis. Minis from the Foundry line are another possibility.

Free Foresters at the ready!

So with that I'll have a nice, tight Old World Mercenary force. In a pinch they can shift to an Old World Ally Contingent as needed or even a small Bretonnian force (yuck). The only downside is that only Empire, Bretonnian and Dwarf armies can field Old Worlder Ally and Mercenary contingents...

As an aside, I also now have enough minis from the various armies to field almost all outside of pygmies, Skaven (I have some but not a lot) and Fimir. My ultimate goal is to have enough to field all these! But for some reason Old Worlder strikes me as cool as I haven't really seen any truly dedicated forces on the internet. And that's my goal to have enough dedicated minis rather than always pulling from the main army.

Last part for those wondering- yes I'm still working on my scale Castle Von Wittgenstein and my Nippon castle. In fact I'm working on a ton of stuff and going wherever my muse takes me! Its a fun ride, updates over at Chaos Dwarfs Online and Dogs of War Online.

Warhammer 3rd edition, back to the best edition- Part II

As I outlined here I've really returned to my roots as it were in regards to Warhammer. Unlike the ass-hats of the OSR movement on the D&D side however I bear no malice or ill-will towards anyone who plays a different version of Warhammer than I do. I find their "your fun is wrong" statements amusing if nothing else. And with the demise of the traditional rule-set of Warhammer Fantasy Battle this is more pronounced with folks going either the Age of Sigmar route, 9th Age or Return of Kings.

For me its why bother? Yes its cumbersome, but with the good olde' orange rule book and Warhammer Armies you have all you need to play a great game.

Talk about value on this thing: It has 11 of the 12 armies contained within (Norse appeared in White Dwarf #107). In addition there are new rules for war machines, and great rules in my opinion for allies and mercenaries which Warhammer always seemed to struggle with to find a good balance for.

So with that in my mind here is where I stand for each of the armies and potential future plans:

Dark Elves- When complete they will total around 4,000-5,000 points. Details on the progress of the army can be found here. For the most part I largely have all the minis needed and just need to round out a few here and there to fill up certain units rank and file. They also have 25 hobgoblins as allies which I'm looking forward to painting (see below).

Wood Elves- As I've been outlining here on the blog they will come in around 4,000 points when complete. Like Dark Elves these pointy ears are a repaint of my existing models. As I also noted, they originally served as allies for my Empire force, but over the years I collected enough to field a force in their own right.

Almost all the models are 3rd edition ones with a few 4th edition ones mixed in like the Glade Guard serving as Kin Band warriors. 

One of my most heavily converted dragons, circa 2006

High Elves- This will be tougher. Not because I don't have minis but because I have a force of at least 10,000 points of High Elves painted and another 4,000 points unpainted... But they are a 5th edition force in composition and models. This isn't a problem per say, but I'm not going to convert them back to 3rd, but rather leave them as is. Easy enough to play 3rd edition games with them, but unlikely to get a lot of the 3rd edition/4th edition range save for two: one being that ever elusive Elven Attack Chariot (for me).

The Empire- Actually my second army in 3rd Edition (more on that in a bit). Like my High Elves these guys are more configured for 4th-7th than 3rd edition. The good news its easy enough to use them in 3rd edition which I did in a battle around December.

Bretonnia- When I first played 3rd Edition I played my initial force as a Bretonnian force... Now I I can't stand Bretonnia due certain posters on a website that promotes them (you know the one). Ever wonder why the Word of Hashut #10 is the way it is? There you go. Right now I have a mixed force that is probably around 1,000 points. I don't really see my doing anything with them anytime soon.

I will be finishing up a Bretonnian canon however as it was one of my first mini purchases ever. Maybe even a small scenic base too. 

Chaos- My chaos force is largely done. it dates back to 1991 and sports a lot of original paint jobs from that time. As of late I've been splitting out the 5th/6th edition minis from the earlier ones. One "new" unit is a repaint of chaos warriors on foot. Right now I have 16 and have been scoping out the remaining 4. Highly unlikely to field 20 at once as the point cost would be over 1,000 points, but they will look cool none-the-less.

A unit of 25 Beastmen with some gors from 5th/6th and Talisman plastic Beastmen is also "under the brush", but back burner right now. 

Skaven- As my buddy Dave collected them way back when he got all of them from the joint plastic regiment boxes. As a result of this over they years they never had much appeal. I'd say I have 10-20 plastic ones. I could see a unit or two for allies, but I'm highly unlikely to gather a full force especially when one considers the amount of minis needed to field a Skaven force.

Orcs- From my Chaos Dwarfs force I've got more than enough to field a Orc and Goblin force but not too many in the way of 3rd edition minis. If I did I'd be looking for the orc and goblin war-machines to round it out. Hell I might just get them anyways as the minis are so cool.

Dwarfs- Like the Wood Elves the Dwarfs are an outgrowth of needing allies for my Empire force in larger battles (as I was the only one playing the "good armies".) The Dwarfs are the force I've changed the least over the years. What I have done is add more minis to them. The leftover from the Battle for Skull Pass box set have also made their way to the army. Right now I have four units to go with the 6,000 points of painted minis I already have. They were also the first force I thought of painting in a coherent scheme rather than individuals except for one unit where I purposely painted each mini different. As a result the unit is a miss mash of colors but the army is predominately green and yellow. All in all the force works.

Slann- Ahhh Slann. I have zero Slann minis unfortunately and I think I only ever actually saw a few in person painted (Dave had some). For some reason they were fairly hard to come by in the States in the late 80s and to try and collect them now? $$$

Undead- This will be a bit easier. Due to summoning spells in 3rd edition WFB everyone had a Undead plastic box set. Because of this I have one unit of cavalry, one unit of infantry and some extras. Coupled with the zombie plastic box set from 6th means I have the nucleus of a small force but needs some touching up on the first two. At some point I envision a small force along the lines of the ones presented around White Dwarf #142ish.

"Extras"
Norse- Only appeared in White Dwarf #107 and I have to say it let me with a meh feeling for the army. I have a few scattered Norse minis, but don't see myself undertaking this task for another human army largely composed of  infantry. Don't get me wrong the minis are cool, but where are the Norse riding war mammoths???

Nippon- My attempts at Nippon have been on again and off again as the mood strikes me. Now not a 3rd edition force the army list for 2nd could be modified to work with 3rd. I have a sizable force but its going to take a lot more time and a lot more lead. I do have almost every ninja model from the range which is kinda cool!

I think if I could get 1-4 of those damn Temple Dogs it would help!

Mercenaries and Allies- based on having so many armies I can usually field any allies needed. In terms of the mercs? I have the following:

• Chaos Allies- both chaos dwarf war machines, a mortar and multiple bazukas!
• Old Worlder Ally contingent- toyed with the idea of converting my Bret force to this contingent.
• Halflings- Got a fair amount of these for a small ally force. 
• Giants- Two giants, one old school.
• Ogres- Unit of 8 detailed here.
• Half-Orcs- this is going to be a quest. I want the 2nd edition range which goes for $$$ on eBay. 
• Hogoblins- 25 old school hobgoblins including Baron Brightgore on the painting table!

That about rounds out where I stand in Oldhammer, a lot done, quite a bit to go by that's the fun of it.