The Marshalling of Uzkulak

Done some more work on the ogres, giving them weapons and jewellery and started work on the armour for some.

Done some more work on the ogres, giving them weapons and jewellery and started work on the armour for some.

Only a little bit of work done today; gave the standard bearers standards, added a hand and drum skin to the drummer, drilled out the horn blower’s horn, did a hand swap on one of the rank and file, added a plume to one helmet and altered a couple of faces.

My plan with this project currently is to use the minis to play Irregular Wars’ Fantastic Battles.  For those not in the know, Fantastic Battles is a new mass combat game which is scale agnostic, so can be used with any size miniatures.  What matters for the purposes of the rules is the size of the bases you use, with all measurements being determined by the width of a base.  And so long as all players use the same size bases, they can even use whatever size base they wish.

Currently my plan is to go with the recommended 40x40mm for 15mm miniatures.

While the rulebook does contain a selection of army lists, it also includes rules for creating your own, and the book even encourages players to do so so that they can come up with an army list that fits their own personal vision for what their army should be.

When creating rules for a company, you start by selecting one of a number of base profiles, then add up to three traits from a list of traits.  You can also add a fourth trait to be a racial trait, but if you do so, at least 50% of your companies in your army list must be of this race.

As the ‘Ziggurat Dwarf’ list contained in the book which serves as an equivalent to Chaos Dwarfs doesn’t fit my vision of Chaos Dwarfs, I’ve set about coming up with one that does and already have a first draft, which I present below.

*Lammasu – 106

Fantastic Beast

• Character (wizard)
• Flying
• Monstrous
• Proud

*Immortals – 51

Elite company

• Doughty
• Heavy melee weapons
• Proud

*Flame Bearers – 48

Formed Company

• Doughty
• Heavy melee weapons
• Poison
• Proud

*Chaos Dwarf Warriors – 45/50

Formed Company

• Doughty
• Heavy melee weapons/Shieldwall
• Proud

*Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses – 45

Formed Company

• Barrage
• Doughty
• Proud

*Bull Centaurs – 59

Elite Company

• Berserk
• Mounted
• Doughty
• Proud

Hobgoblins – 20/22

Irregular company

• Long spears/shooting (mixed)
• Unreliable

Sneaky Gits – 23

Irregular company

• Skirmishers
• Thrown weapons
• Unreliable

Orc Slaves – 24

Irregular company

• Expendable
• Furious charge
• Unreliable

Goblin Slaves – 16

Irregular company

• Expendable
• Rabble
• Unreliable

Black Orcs – 44

Formed Company

• Furious charge
• Proud
• Reliable

Hobgoblin Wolfriders – 33/35

Irregular company

• Fast
• Long spears/shooting (mixed)
• Mounted

Ogre Bulls – 42

Formed company

• Monstrous

Ogre Ironguts – 45

Formed Company

• Monstrous
• Heavy weapons

Ogre Leadbelchers  – 48

Formed company

• Monstrous
• Heavy missile weapons
• Shooting

*Death Rockets – 54

Ordnance battery

• Artillery (indirect)
• Doughty
• Heavy missile weapons
• Proud

*Dreadquake Mortar – 58

Ordnance battery

• Artillery (indirect)
• Doughty
• Powerful missile weapons
• Proud

Hobgoblin bolt thrower – 32

Ordnance battery

• Artillery
• Unreliable

*Whirlwind/Tenderiser – 53

Vehicle

• Berserk
• Furious charge
• Heavy melee weapons
• Proud

*War Wagon – 52

Vehicle

• Barrage
• Doughty
• Proud
• Heavy missile weapons

Kollosus – 54

Fantastic beast

• Giant
• Heavy melee weapons
• Proud

Slave Giant – 49

Fantastic beast

• Giant
• Heavy melee weapons
• Thrown weapons

For the Racial Trait I opted to go for Proud, which helps counteract the negative effects of friendly units being destroyed/fleeing, as I think it aptly fits the contempt Chaos Dwarfs have for weakness in general and the ‘lesser races’ in particular.  Entries prefixed with an asterisk are Chaos Dwarf units for the purposes of the racial trait; this includes mutations such as the Lammasu and Bull Centaurs and things crewed by Chaos Dwarfs such as the warmachines.

Note that not all choices with Proud count as Chaos Dwarfs, eg Black Orcs, and as such don’t count towards the 50% required Chaos Dwarf companies when building an army.

Haven’t gotten much work done since my last update.  I ordered an old plastic orc Bloodbowl team to expand the slave ogres.  As you can see from the second pic above, they’re a close match for the old Goffs so will mix well as a unit.

The Black Orcs from the team will serve as the unit champions and have been given some ogre weapons.

The blockers from the team will become the standard bearers.

For the musicians I’ll be using two of the Goffs.

I plan on using the Throwers from the team as warmachine crew.  Pictured above with the Admiralty Ministures rocket.  The ball the thrower holds looks close to the rocket so my plan is to alter them to look like the ogres are holding extra rockets.

Been trying to make the faces of these guys less orcy by giving them noses.  I’ve also tried to add variety by altering the expressions on some and changing the horns/spike on the helmets.

Started building the lammasu’s wings today, using paper and glue to build up the basic shape of the feathers

Ordered the Irregular Wars’ Fantastic Rulebook last night and in a break on working some more on the minis I had a quick sort through the 15mm minis I currently have; until the IWFB rulebook arrives I won’t know how many bases I’ll need to create an army, but using the guidelines of 15mm going on 40x40mm squares I predict I’m going to need plenty more minis, which is exactly why I want to do a 15mm project – mass battles are actually mass battles!

My plan is to mount everything on 40x20mm bases which can in turn go on the 40x40mm bases. That way I can also use them for 15mm Warmaster if I do fancy. 😉

Might have to play around with how many minis go on each base, but I think I should be able to comfortably fit six dwarfs/eight hobgoblins/two ogres per warmaster base.

Recently snapped up these old 2nd ed WH40k Ork Goffs to use as 15mm ogres.  I’ve gone with these old orks rather than try to find something that fits the more recent GW ogres because I think that stylistically they work well as 15mm versions of older GW ogres which I think over all I prefer to the more recent tubby ogre look.  These might be a tad on the big size for 15mm ogres, but not so much that I can’t rationalise it away as the effects of the Chaos Dwarfs breeding them to create a larger/stronger slave stock than standard ogres.

Two Hobgoblins, two Chaos Dwarfs and a lammasu.

The two assassins are made from regular sneaky gits with the addition of cloaks.  There’s also a chieftain and shaman, but they somehow managed to ninja themselves out of shot, lol.

The Chaos Dwarf Lord is largely sculpted by myself, while the Sorcerer is pretty much standard.

The lammasu is a WiP scratchbuild using the body of an AoS gryphhound and the head of an old school plastic Chaos Dwarf Warrior, with the horns made from putty.  Undecided on how I’m going to do the wings; I could either do ‘bat’ wings like the old GW mini or feathered ones like historic depictions of lamassu.  One idea I’ve got is to only make half of the wings and then use cotton wool to make smoke to shroud them to represent the sorcerous miasma of a lammasu.

Admiralty Miniatures Tjubgobs.

A mix of archers, sneaky gits, spears and swords.

I’ve strung all the bows and added arrows using paperclips.

The banner on the swords and spears is made from paper and I plan on sculpting fur onto it to make it a wolf pelt.

Admiralty Miniature Tjublings.

A weapons team and a rocket team.  Like the infantry the standard minis lack armour.  I’ve also added masks to them like those worn by the crew of the 5th ed Chaos Dwarf Death Rocket.

Admiralty Miniature Tjublings.

Two units of warriors, one of blunderbusses and one elite unit.

The standard models are unarmoured, but I’ve added armour to bring them inline with old school 5th ed Chaos Dwarfs.  The shields of the standard minis are round, but I’ve glued a square of paper, reinforced with putty, to them to make them closer to the shields used by Mesopotamians which the Chaos dwarfs draw their inspiration from.

Admiralty Miniatures don’t have a blunderbuss champion, so I made one by giving a standard champ a scratchbuilt triple barrel shotgun.

Would’ve named this entry the ‘First Marshalling’ but my first attempt got swallowed by the internet; ditto for why it’s not the ‘Second Marshalling’. :p

This entry would’ve been called ‘The First Marshalling’, but the internet seems to have eaten my first post.

I started work on these minis at the beginning of the year, but I’ve spent most of the year in a hobby funk.  Slowly pulling myself out of the funk by starting work on this again, partially motivated by the #lockdown-leisure-league .

This is my first time building a 15mm army; haven’t firmly decided what system I’m going to be using them for yet.  Earlier in the year I was considering Battle Valor Fantasy, but the other night I stumbled across Irregular Wars’ Fantastic Battles and am leaning towards that.  Will probably purchase the rules soon and decide after I’ve taken a look at them.