Warhammer - A Mighty Fortress...Sort Of...

It is important to first note that this is not that Mighty Fortress.

In fact this castle came about from missing out on that terrain piece back in the day and even recently on eBay... at least at a price that I'm willing to pay.

This Empire style castle originally started out as my attempt at recreating Castle Wittgenstein from Death on the Reik. In the end life got in the way and it wasn’t really going to be practical for anything other than playing the module. I got as far as the part which would become the gatehouse seen above, which corresponds to The Guard Tower (areas 28-29 / page 70 of the module).

While I did not finish the entire castle, I did set aside the work I had done, not knowing what I might use it for in the future. Seasoned terrain makers know this: never throw anything away. You never know when it might be needed.

It is also important to point out the timeline for this particular castle. I built it in January 2025 but have not blogged about it till now. After utilizing the same construction methods for the Guard Tower for T1- The Village of Hommlet I decided to go back and chronicle this one too.

In a way it was an idea to create an iconic castle from the RPG world in the same vein as the Moathouse from the fame of T1 - The Village of Hommlet that has come full circle. From the first attempt at Castle Wittgenstein inspired by the Moathouse to this to the Guard Tower in T1. As the band said, what a long strange trip it has been.

Materials List

• Cardboard
• Posterboard
• Crescent board (it is thicker than poster board)
• Balsa wood
• Thin card (from cereal boxes and cracker boxes)
• Foamcore (this is critical for keeping the weight down; used in the towers and walls)
• Popsicle sticks
• Toothpicks
• Finishing nails (rivets for the gates) 
• 1/2 gallon milk containers (towers) 
• White glue
• Super glue
• X-Acto knife
• Single hole puncher
• Saw tooth pattern scissors
• Coping saw

That’s it. it really doesn't take much more than that to create terrain pieces.

 

Finishing the Gatehouse 

When I did pick this back up the main task of the gatehouse was the upper wooden structure itself. I decided to make it removable and with vertical wooden walls inside and out. The six windows per side were an easy matter of cutting square toothpicks.

Gatehouse under construction

While the removable roof was a long process I actually enjoyed it. The roofing is standard and I have done it numerous times on terrain pieces. The only difference here was the angle. Simply cut some thin cardboard, overlap and glue. When I got to the inside roof however? For some strange reason I used Popsicle sticks and balsa wood to finish it off fully. While it will never really come into play during a game it does have the added benefit of having made the roof very strong and square.

The doors to the gatehouse were a bit of trouble as I bought some small metal hinges to make them swing open. The trouble from this arose in the fact that I had not initially intended for them to swing open. Rather they were going to be a solid static piece that would be removed for access. I wonder if that would have been the better route to go but on any event I made it work.

A special note is the jagged tooth scissors I had worked wonders for the patterns on the front gate. It was a simple matter of cutting them out of poster board and stacking several layers and later painting a rusty metallic color.

Construction

With the gatehouse roughly complete I was able to create the walls and towers easier. In a single night I was able to cut and assemble the foamcore basis of the walls and line up the four 1/2 gallon milk cartons that would become the towers.

Rounding to form

From there I figured out a way to make the battlements easier. Being that the walls were straight I simply made two posterboard templates. One was slightly taller than the other allowing for the angling of each battlement "tooth" echoing the Mighty Fortress kit. The key lesson was to only lightly score the bottom portion of each space between each tooth. This had the practical effect of making sure that each battlement section was a uniform width. From there it was a simple matter of placing the taller template in the back and the slightly shorter one towards the front edge of the wall with a slight overhang.

The overhang was needed for the machicolations which turned out to be easy to do. I simply measured
the length of the wall section in question, cut a piece of crescent board, and then used the single hole puncher being mindful of the spacing. Glued at an angle and done. I repeated this for the other three walls and two small wall sections near the gate.

One thing I wanted to do to add distinction to the towers was create a pronounced arrow loop on each external facing. These proved to be surprisingly easy to do and in the end added a lot of character.

Once the walls were complete I pondered just how to construct the walls themselves to look like stone. As a test I mixed up some concrete with a lot of glue. The results were less than impressive. The mixture did not adhere well and fortunately did not damage the walls. Even before I attempted this I knew I was going to have to cut and glue everything stone wise. I was simply looking for alternatives to the monotony of cutting and gluing.

WIP after the walls completed

About a week later I had barreled through the task of adding "stone" to the walls and towers. From there I tested the fit of each wall section and how they lined up before creating the balsa wood doors on each tower and double checked they lined up again.

Painting

After the failed attempt at the concrete mix I was a bit more alert on painting the castle proper. To start I used one of the smaller wall sections that flanked the guardhouse as a test. By this I mean I dry brushed it in succession: dark gray, medium gray and very lightly white. From there I did another dry brush of a very light mid orange and then washed it with watery black.

Once I had it down the next step was to repeat it on the walls and towers and add grass and rocks to the base of the walls.

In my opinion the color scheme works. I was surprised it was the light orange dry brush that pulled it together to echo field stone rather than plain solid gray. Too much gray makes a castle look fake and uninteresting. By doing it this way it pops more.

Taking Stock and Lessons Learned

Overall this was the fourth castle/fortress/tower I have built from nothing more than the material list above. In each case I learned something new and fair number of ways to not construct things.

The tally of castles, fortresses, and towers stands as follows:

• A castle for Warhammer Siege for my buddies back in our high school days. It is long since lost in various moves from the house I grew up in. I built this one around 1990/91. It was all one unit and not modular. From its bulky nature I learned not to do that again...
• A watch tower I made from a 1/4 milk carton (still have that one), circa 2001.
• The Nippon castle  for my Nippon army in 3rd Edition Warhammer. As documented on the blog from 2012 to finally finishing it in 2020. This is modular for the walls but the central keep is not.
• A Dark Ages fortress that started simply from me noodling around whittling sticks. Finished in 2021.
• In 2024 the simple Watch Tower from page 43 of the How to Make Wargames Terrain book from Games Workshop.
• The Guard Tower  at Area #31 in T1 - The Village of Hommlet, July 2026.

Through all these I have learned three simple lessons: make it modular, keep it light and keep the materials list simple. And again I can’t stress it enough: make it light.

Final Thoughts 

All in all the project came out well considering its stop and start beginnings as an entirely different terrain piece. One of the things I am most happy about is how everything fits together well due to making it modular from the start. That and the fact the long straight wall sections are also useful for role playing games like AD&D.

The color of the whole thing was a surprise but a pleasant one. If it is a bit on the orange side in the photos that is OK. In person it is fairly subdued and works well with the color of the gatehouse roof.

Maybe someday in the future I will try again with Castle Wittgenstein but not now. The scale of Castle Von Wittgenstein which I initially based the terrain off of? It would be massive. Based on the illustration on the cover of the module and the comparison of the maps inside (which do not really match up at all) it was a bit off.

The cover art for Death on the Reik is iconic in fantasy games but the grandeur of the castle does not really translate well to 25mm scale in my opinion. At least that is what I found with the initial attempts.

That said, who knows what the future holds.

The Word of Hashut, A Timeless Legacy - Part IV

 

Parts I, II and III detail in full each step of the way of the journey that was the Word of Hashut.

Perhaps now that I'm older I can appreciate the accomplishment that the Word of Hashut represented. Through Parts I through III I hopefully shed some light onto just what went on behind the scenes and everything that made it what it was. There is much more to it than that but I wanted to preserve a bit of history regarding it.

More so then an ezine, the Word of Hashut captured the essence of Chaos Dwarfs Online at the time: We didn't need Games Workshop, they needed us. We didn't need official rules, we could and would make our own. The talented painters, sculptors, amazing writers and the community as a whole was lightning in a bottle. I'm honored and humbled even now to have been part of it.

Time however for us mortals has cruel pace to it: sometimes a blur, sometime interminably long. The years march on and in come respects when I joined Chaos Dwarfs Online in 2007? Seems like it was only yesterday. A blink and now Ms Willmark is grown and graduated from college, Willmark Jr approaching 21.

Likewise, some of the graybeards like me have stepped back and the joints are a bit stiffer (a sorcerer turning to stone already?) and others have taken the mantle forward with the new site on  Discourse (Chaos Dwarfs Online)

This is entirely proper and how it should be.

The new replaces the old. And the old? They line the main avenue - chaos sorcerers turned to stone on the way to the Grand Ziggaraut in Zharr Naggrund. 

Speaking of which I want to thank everyone who worked on it. To list everyone would take some time and I don't want to miss or slight anyone. Best bet is to download copies and see just who did what each issue.

Until the next time we cross paths, just remember we Chaos Dwarfs never forget a grudge, nor do we forgive! For ours is a grudge eternal and maybe just maybe one of the most powerful forces that the Warhammer Community has ever seen!

To close, I know its a cliched saying, but for me it rings true when looking back on the ezine: "Don't cry that its over, smile that it happened."

Truer words have never been spoken.

One last part, I have to share again what is perhaps my favorite example of chaos dwarf miniatures and the corresponding paint job by Harvestmouse!

The Word of Hashut - Part III, In the Trenches

The word I used in Part II covering the Word of Hashut production period was insane. As I look at the word now it is no less true: insane. Looking back, it is hard to believe it has been 15 years since I worked on this. In a way it seems like it was just yesterday.

I think the biggest thing that made it insane? The release schedule. For two and a half years we released an issue every quarter and to not sugar-coat it? It was brutal. No sooner than one issue was out the door and I would have maybe a month to do other things related to the hobby of Chaos Dwarfs Online or for Dogs of War Online. All the while with young kids, two jobs and a dog.

Now with say a quarterly magazine this would not be too bad in the “real world” but this was a gaggle of volunteers delivering a free ezine every quarter. That pace is not sustainable. Do I miss the pace? No, not really. Do I miss the frenetic nature of creating the ezine? Somewhat. Am I proud of what the team and I accomplished? You bet because there is no way I could have done it without all of them. This was me sure, but I had help to get there.

But what also stands out? Around 2011 when Issue #12 was out and a bit before Games Workshop had finally released stuff for “Infernal Dwarfs.” Can we say that we caused it? It is not likely but at the same time GW had to have been watching what was going on and said “Damn, these guys are not giving up.”

If I had to pick a single issue as my favorite, it is Issue #5. It was not that it was a high water mark per se, but it showed everything the fan community could be if we focused. Even the later issues were still quality in my opinion, but #5 was near pitch perfect. The cover was great. The interior art perfect and a great balance of articles: Thommy’s Campaign Pack, a great Battle Report, several ridiculous hobby articles by Tjub and Grimstonefire and Baggranor’s excellent "Shadow and Flame" graphic novel just to name a few.

Likewise Issue #8 was another stand out for me. Swissdictator and I ran the “Arena of Death” and low and behold Astragoth wins? People wondered if we rigged it at the time. We did not. Each round that went by he was plowing through opponents!

In terms of covers and the interior art we were blessed with a ton of talented artists who selflessly contributed to it no questions asked. In fact looking back? I do not think either Maul (our Submissions Coordinator) or I ever had to badger an artist. It was as simple as “we need x by y date.” And time and again the artists delivered.

On the subject of covers? My personal favorites are #6, #7 and #8. But I can not say we ever had a bad one. Each time it was an awesome feeling when it was delivered to me. In a way it felt like the issue was “complete” even if I still had more work to do.

Another thing I am proud of is we hit our stride early and the quality was excellent from the beginning. That is not to say there were not any missteps; there were. But on the balance of it, our successes far out-shined our missteps. The goal from the beginning was to compete with Skavenblight Gazette and I think we did. And if I can be biased (hey I also did Gold and Glory so I think I get a say!) I think we surpassed it. The page count, the variety and the sheer audacity of the project. Add to this we had a handicap that no other army faction had: they were current? Chaos Dwarfs were wandering the Plains of Zharr looking for a morsel from Games Workshop.

It was a wonderful time and a great time to be in the hobby. But like all things it would not last. In the final installment I will talk about some of the overall lessons, and the long view of history. Stay tuned

As a bonus, here are the unreleased covers of what Issues #12 and #13 would have looked like had I continued with the project. Issues were plotted out all the way to #15 with cover artists assigned and themes somewhat developed.

What was your impressions of the Word of Hashut? I'm open to hearing them! 

The Citadel Giant Saga- Part III: Survival, Scarcity, and Why You Rarely See Them

My giant and reproduction box!

There has been a lot of discussion over the years about how rare the Citadel Giant actually is. 

With me being lucky enough to acquire one as I've noted here and here, my mind turned to scarcity and actually how many of these still exist. 

Rather than relying on vague statements like “very rare” or “hard to find,” it is possible to build a structured model that explains both how many were likely produced and how many still exist today. This is not about claiming exact numbers. It is about building a model that matches what we actually see in the hobby.

The accepted starting point is that roughly 1,000 Citadel Giants were produced. There is no surviving ledger or official production record, but this number aligns with long standing collector consensus and is a reasonable baseline.

From there, the real story is attrition. Over more than forty years, these models were not preserved with future collectors in mind. They were used, broken, discarded, and in some cases intentionally destroyed.

Attrition Buckets (40+ years)

• Melted for scrap or recasting: approximately 150 to 300
  Large metal models had real scrap value, and hobbyists also melted miniatures for home casting projects
• Catastrophic damage (unrecoverable): approximately 100 to 150
  Snapped ankles, failed joints, corrosion, and early adhesive failures often rendered examples unusable
• Lost or discarded (moves, cleanouts): approximately 150 to 250
  Entire collections were thrown out or abandoned, especially during the 1990s when early Citadel models were not valued
• Unknown or inaccessible (attics, estates): approximately 75 to 150
  Not destroyed, but effectively removed from circulation

When these categories are combined, the result is a surviving population of approximately 150 to 300 Citadel Giants in any condition worldwide. This is the core number that matters.

From that pool, further filtering is required. Not all survivors are meaningful to collectors. Many are fragments, incomplete, or heavily damaged. When those are removed, the number of recognizable Giants falls to roughly 120 to 200. From there, collector grade or restorable examples likely fall in the range of 50 to 100.

High completeness examples are rarer still. These are models retaining most of their interchangeable components and structural integrity. That group likely numbers between 20 and 40 worldwide.

At this point it becomes useful to break things down into tiers.

Tier I – NITB (Museum Tier)

• Original box
• Complete contents
• Untouched
• Estimated: 0 to 10 worldwide, likely closer to 0 to 5

Tier II – Full Component Survivor

• All five heads
• All three right hands
• All three victims
• Estimated: approximately 10 to 20 worldwide
• North America: approximately 3 to 8

Tier III – High Completeness

• Four or more heads
• Partial hands
• Most victims
• Estimated: approximately 20 to 40 worldwide

Tier IV – Standard Survivor

• One to three heads
• Limited parts
• Estimated: approximately 60 to 120 worldwide

Tier V – Fragment or Wreck

• Broken
• Partial
• Parts only
• Estimated: remainder of the surviving population

Geography introduces another layer of scarcity. By the time Warhammer began to gain traction in the United States, the Citadel Giant had already been out of production for nearly a decade. This created a structural imbalance that still exists today.

In the United Kingdom, the Giant was part of the original ecosystem. It was produced, sold, and used there. In North America, it was largely absent. Very few were imported during its production run, and most examples seen today arrived later through secondary market transfers.

As a result, North America likely has only 40 to 65 surviving examples across all tiers. When broken down further, the number of high completeness or full component examples becomes extremely small. It is realistic to estimate that only a handful of top tier examples exist across the entire continent.

There is also a simple way to validate this model. If more examples existed in circulation, we would see them. There would be more listings, more restoration threads, more parts trading, and more casual mentions. Instead, each appearance is an event. Years can pass between meaningful sightings. The same examples are recognized when they reappear. There is no steady market, only intermittent visibility.

That absence of chatter is not coincidence. It is evidence.

Of approximately 1,000 Citadel Giants produced, it is likely that only 150 to 300 survive in any condition today. Of those, perhaps 10 to 20 retain full component completeness, with only a small number located in North America. This is not a claim of precision. It is a model that fits what collectors actually observe.

And that is what matters.

(More details on my quest for the giant can be found here and here on Oldhammer.org.) 

Have you quested for this legendary model? if so, let me know your expediences. 

The Citadel Giant Saga- Part II: The Citadel Giant That Shouldn’t Have Been Found

 

Every collector knows the feeling:
“If I’d been five minutes later, it would’ve been gone.”

This was not that.

What happened with the Citadel Giant wasn’t a near miss, or good timing, or even great luck. It was a sequence of events that—taken together—should not realistically occur in the normal life cycle of a collecting hobby.

Here’s why.

THE Citadel Giant after the first pass of paint removal.

 

Not One Improbability — A Chain of Them

Most rare finds hinge on one unlikely thing going right.

This required many, and every one of them had to succeed for the outcome to happen at all. Miss any step, and the chain collapses. 

Think of them as “gates.” If even one stays closed, the Giant is never found.

I should add I was doing these in real time in about 20 minutes start to finish. Checking and referencing sites, is this a legitimate sale? What should I offer? All the while what amount I should offer as I raced the clock knowing that someone else might find it and get a claim in before me.

Primary Seller Gates (Shipment 1)

These gates describe everything that had to go right before the Giant was ever discovered.

Gate 1 — The Giant Had to Exist in the Wild

This was not a standard retail Citadel Giant. It was an internal-cast example pulled from legacy molds—never sold through normal channels and almost never seen publicly. Most collectors will never encounter one at all.

Gate 2 — The Owner Had to Let It Go

Owners of items this rare typically keep them, trade privately, or pass them quietly to other collectors. In this case, the owner chose to sell it openly instead.

Gate 3 — It Had to Be Listed in the "Wrong" Place

Rather than appearing on eBay or a specialist forum, the Giant was listed on Bonanza, a low-traffic marketplace that most collectors do not actively monitor.

Gate 4 — The Search Had to Use the “Wrong” Engine

The discovery depended on using DuckDuckGo instead of Google. DuckDuckGo indexes and ranks obscure listings differently, often surfacing results Google suppresses or ignores.

Gate 5 — The Listing Had to Sit Unnoticed

The Giant needed to remain unsold long enough to be discovered — not snapped up immediately, but not hidden forever either.

Gate 6 — DuckDuckGo Had to Index It at All

Low-authority marketplaces are not always indexed consistently. DuckDuckGo had to successfully ingest and surface the Bonanza listing.

Gate 7 — The Result Had to Appear in a Narrow Visibility Band

The listing landed deep in the results — far enough down to avoid early interception by other collectors, but not so deep that it was functionally invisible.

Gate 8 — A Nonstandard Search Phrase Had to Work

The search phrase used (“The Warhammer Giant 1983”) was conversational and imprecise. It did not match catalog-standard naming and would normally fail to surface an obscure Bonanza listing.

Yet it worked.

Gate 9 — The Timing Had to Be Right

The discovery happened late on a Friday night — a low-competition window when fewer collectors are actively searching.

Gate 10 — The Search Had to Be on Mobile

DuckDuckGo’s mobile search behaves differently from desktop, favoring natural-language phrasing and long-tail results. The search was performed on mobile, not desktop.

Gate 11 — A Deep Scroll Had to Happen

The listing appeared several pages down. Most users never scroll that far, but in this case, it happened.

 

Interlocking Market Gate

Gate 12 — No One Else Could Find It First

During the narrow window when the listing was discoverable, no other collector ran the same search, using the same engine, at the same time, and scrolled deep enough to see it.

If anyone had, the story ends there.

THE Citadel Giant, stripped down of paint.

Secondary Seller Gates (Shipment 2 — The Parts That Shouldn’t Have Appeared 

Together)

After the Giant was secured, a second, unrelated sequence unfolded — one that depended entirely on the first.

Gate 13 — Another Seller Had to Have Loose Giant Parts

A separate seller happened to possess multiple loose components from the same rare kit — something that is itself uncommon.

Gate 14 — A Casual Purchase Had to Spark a Question

A non-rare head variant was purchased, which prompted a simple follow-up inquiry: “Do you happen to have any other Giant parts?”

Gate 15 — The Rarest Head Had to Be There

The seller’s unlisted inventory included the Feral Beard head, the rarest of all Giant head variants.

Gate 16 — Multiple Rare Hands Had to Be There Too

That same unlisted inventory also contained both rare non-club right-hand variants — parts that almost never appear together.

Gate 17 — The Seller Had to Respond and Agree

The seller replied, confirmed the parts, and agreed to sell them — rather than ignoring the message or declining.

Gate 18 — All of This Had to Happen Quickly

The entire secondary sequence unfolded within six days of the original acquisition, before circumstances, attention, or availability changed.

And if this weren't enough? Two different sellers, two different locations and shipping methods. Two separate paths through customs and two different sets of delays in shipping? Both arrived at my door within hours of each other on the same day.

Why This Matters

Any one of these gates opening would be unremarkable. All of them opening? In order is not.

Add to this all of the gates are not weighed evenly. Some like 6,7,8,10 and 11 are beyond absurd that they worked out that way. Gate 6 in particular? I found the giant on page 5 of my search results. DuckDuckGo had indexed it just enough, but not too much to get to a "Goldilocks" zone for me to find it after being diligent enough to drill down.

This is why the story of the Citadel Giant isn’t just about finding a rare miniature. It’s about a fragile chain of conditions that almost never align, aligning once.

And then closing behind it.

Part III will deal with the math behind such an unlikely turn of events. When I said at the onset this "should not realistically occur in the normal life cycle of a collecting hobby?" 

That's not even close to the true. You could run this time after time and the numbers become astronomically rare. I lived it and I still don't believe it really happened.

Note: His restoration progress will be taking place at Oldhammer.org for updates. 

The Citadel Giant Saga- Part I: Or, How Probability, Patience, and USPS Collided

There are purchases, and then there are events.

This was the latter.

"The BIG Giant!"

What began in late November 2025 as a straightforward (if ambitious) acquisition of a 1983 Citadel Giant turned into a multi-week exercise in probability theory, logistics archaeology, and patience-testing uncertainty, capped off by an ending so absurd that it deserves to be documented properly.

This post is that documentation. A follow-up post will contain the mind bending series of improbabilities that led to me finding the giant, but that is for a last day.

Now, because the story needs embellishment, it really doesn’t, but because it illustrates something collectors understand instinctively and outsiders rarely see: the journey matters almost as much as the object.

The Find

The giant itself needs little introduction to Oldhammer collectors. Early Citadel giants are iconic, heavy, and un-apologetically of their era: full of character, strange proportions, and sculptural craziness.

 

What made this one unusual wasn’t just condition or completeness, but the seller’s claim of provenance:

• Cast directly from original Citadel molds

• Not a retail release

• Produced long after normal production had ended

• Originating from a former Games Workshop staff member

That combination alone put this piece firmly outside the normal collecting pipeline.

I made an offer.

It was accepted.

And then… shipping in late November/early December “happened.”

The Waiting Begins

Once the package actually entered the shipping system, things accelerated — and then immediately became opaque.

There were two shipments tied to the giant:

• Shipment 1: The giant itself

• Shipment 2: A secondary shipment containing rare hands and two heads including

the feral bearded head; the most difficult of the five to acquire.

 

Tracking information oscillated between “in customs,” “shipping,” and “somewhere that definitely exists, trust us.”

At various points, both packages appeared to be:

• in New York,

• not in New York,

• cleared customs,

• not cleared customs,

• and possibly sitting on a pallet that both existed and did not exist simultaneously.

Schrödinger’s pallet, if you will.

The Absurd Resolution

Then, on a quiet Saturday morning, reality intervened.

At 9:19 AM, right within my normal USPS delivery window, the giant arrived.

No warning.

No accurate tracking update.

Just… there.

A fleeting phone notification earlier that morning hinted at something “giant”-related, then vanished. The databases hadn’t caught up, but the truck had.

Later that same day — while we were out shopping — Shipment 2 arrived as well.

Both shipments.

Same day.

After weeks of uncertainty.

The system didn’t announce victory.

It simply delivered the boxes and pretended nothing unusual had happened.

Perspective

The giant is really cool. The heads and hands are fantastic. The odds involved were absurd enough to be memorable. But in the end, this was a good problem to have, and one that resolved without loss.

Before paint removal but having safely arrived.

Actually when I say the odds were absurd? That’s an understatement. Part 2 of this story will contain the roughly 18 steps of improbability that I successfully navigated to come out the other side with a complete giant…in six days. This shouldn’t have happened even once, but it did.

Epilogue: The Name

The giant has been named:

Duncan the Drunken.

He currently resides downstairs in the man cave, awaiting his turn on the painting table. There will be tartan. There will be red hair. There will be decisions made slowly and deliberately.

For now, though, the saga is complete.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s a simple one: Tracking is advisory. Reality does what it wants. And sometimes… it’s just Saturday and an ultra rare citadel miniature shows up at your front door.

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.