Archer's Chaos Dwarfs - Part of a massive modelling project

Pure class mate.

I love the lurching, painful looking postures. Definitely sells the tortured imprisoned demon thing. These look fantastic.

Not very Chaos Dwarfy, but they will see use on the battlefields with the Chaos Dwarfs…


These were laser cut buildings that I have textured, painted and thatched. The plan is to have enough for an entire village.


They are in pieces to allow for gaming inside them should the need arise, although I would like to see a Bull Centaur try to get in…


I used the same texture painting technique and thatching as previous buildings so they hopefully will blend together as a cohesive village.


Some models for scale, these are pretty big buildings. The smaller building on the right is one of the previous buildings I have done (I now have 6 of the small ones). With the addition of these two larger ones and I am awaiting for a huge three level hunting lodge to complete the village.

I also have some scatter terrain like fences, a cross, fountain and some Gibbets to complete the village scene. Oh and a castle…which I will have done soon I hope.

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These look brilliant!

The roof is amazing! Great idea.

Where did you get the buildings from please? I could definitely find use for a few of those…

First of all, I am in Australia so the laser cutting companies that I used are located in Oz, not sure about if they post overseas.

The large buildings came from https://www.lasersharkdesigns.com.au/ although they have been having serious trouble (read it is stuffed and needs replacing) so I am not sure that they are cutting at the moment. Which is a pity as I am still waiting on some stuff from them (including a truly enormous hunting lodge that will complete my fantasy village).

The smaller houses (which are a far more intricate build) come from https://miniaturescenery.com/ they do some truly amazing things with MDF and I have purchased a fair bit of stuff from them and have never been disappointed.

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So after a 2021 that nearly broke me (if you want to sift through my ramblings look up my dakkadakka blog where I have all of my painting shenanigans) I am back to painting and that means some progress on the Chaos Dwarfs as they are the current army on the menu.

For some reason (possibly the events of last year) I lost all motivation for the Bull Centaurs and they languished on a shelf needing some love and attention. So with my new year and new found enthusiasm I got stuck into them.


First up are the rank and file, they are really big boys and I think I actually would have preferred them to be cavalry sized rather than monstrous cavalry as they look a little silly sitting next to the Chaos Dwarf infantry…ah well, at least they are done.


Of course I needed a Standard Bearer so converted one to carry the inner part of a pen with a suitably large and oversized icon on top.


My musician was kitted out with his drum courtesy of an Imperial Guard searchlight…I think I like him the most.


Finally is the unit champion, to better highlight who he was he has been collecting shields as trophies so I hung a few over him. I think it works quite well without being over the top.


All ranked up and nowhere to go…hanging out to get back to face to face gaming…

Thanks for reading and next in the painting queue are 56 Infernal guard with various weapons…stay tuned its good to be back posting.

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Amazing command group conversion, awesome!

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Great looking unit! …and glad to hear life is better. :slight_smile:

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Amazing work in these guys, love how you’ve brought in the addition of those shields and such like trophies. These are amazing minis and you’ve done a great job on them

Thanks guys, I am pretty pleased with them and am not sure why I lost interest in painting them, perhaps it was just events around me sapped my motivation. I think they are very cool models and am glad to have them in the army.

However, a gripe on my part is I feel that they are far too large, they look a little silly next to the regular infantry and I personally would have preferred them to be cavalry sized (like the original ones) as I feel the Chaos Dwarfs are well stocked with monsters (Iron Daemon, Hell Cannon, K’Daai etc.) and could have used a nice Cavalry unit.

But they are complete and will be an intimidating unit to deploy on the field, far more intimidating than my Empire Knightly Orders Demigryph Knights…

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They are beautiful and intimidating! Love the drummer and standard bearer particularly

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So I have been at the hobby grindstone so to speak and wanted to show off my latest progress. Took a slight break from the Chaos Dwarfs to get some of the scatter terrain I have had lying around for an absolute age out of the way. I really want to try to clear the terrain backlog this year and feel it will also help to break up the army painting. So without too much more prattle:


Fences and Gibbets. A couple of in progress Flash Gitz to give a sense of scale.


There is enough fences to make a 9"x9" enclosure as per this photo. Unlikely I would do something like this for most games, but then again maybe it could serve as an animal paddock as I do have some well’s and food troughs floating around somewhere too.


When I first built them I thought they were a tad low, but with the Ork next to them they are about right I think (the Flash Gitz are pretty beefy).


Three different styles of the Gibbets, so i dressed a pair of them up with some well and truly dead occupants. Or are they?


I had some skeletons left over from the Tomb Kings army and they fitted just about perfectly. Quite happy with how they look.


They wouldn’t stand up on there own too well and definitely would have been a pain during gaming. I made the bases from a couple of pieces of cardboard laminated to give a little extra thickness.


All the fences will give a nice ability to dress up the table, I think they will work very well in a small and dense Mordheim game with all the houses dotted around as well.

Thanks for reading and the next post I hope will have something large in it…

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I must be motivated, another post so soon after the last one. So I had hoped to post a “large” update and it looks like I was successful. Bear with me as some of the photos are a tad iffy. It is a wonder that I can get any painting done in our home as the lighting in the rooms is utter trash.

I have had this model kicking around for decades and really wanted to get it done. After dragging it out of a box and evicting the resident spiders I assessed the damage. I am not sure what my younger self was thinking, but it needed some TLC. But you of course have no idea what I am prattling on about, so here are some photos of where I ended up…


I present the Games Workshop Warhammer Fortress. After having spent years being ignored and abused I have managed to repair it will enough to paint and I am pretty happy with how its come back together.


It is truly a massive piece of kit and will dominate any table that it is setup on. I do like the idea of it being modular as even the towers could be used on their own or with only a couple of sections of the walls to stretch across the table.


Anyone interested in how long this terrain is this photo has a tape measure next to it for reference, those that need the conversion it is roughly 5’ 6" long…I think it would see more use dividing a table than being the square fortress.


One of the sins of my younger self is the placement of the ground floor doors, they made no sense and for some reason I had placed them all on the outside of the fortress when it was set up… Quick escape perhaps? So I carefully remove them and a portion of the wall and swapped them around so that when assembled it makes more sense. Amazingly the brick work lines up really well when I was moving the doors so I had little work to do.


The next major issue was that I some how had lost one of the front gates entirely and the other one was in two pieces… I have a pretty good memory, but I have no idea what happened. The door on the left is my scratch built replacement and the one on the right is the repaired original. I ended up using springs to mount the doors as the original hinges were not going to last.


A look from the inside, now the scratch build is on the right. I used cardboard to make the cross pieces. It matches close enough for this modeller to be happy. Still want to have a chat to my younger self…


To add some extra interest to the walls I add some “moss” growing, I tried to keep it sensible as I wanted the feel of a “lived in” Castle so I kept the moss away from areas where I imagine the inhabitants would bother to clean it off. So no moss inside except for hard to reach places.


Using some in-progress models to demonstrate price (since painted once migrate out to the Hobby part of the shed once finished). Here we see an almost complete Chaos Dwarf Infernal Guard with a Fireglave examining the gates.


While more of his friends have already mounted the walls and are enjoying what its like to be the height of a giant.


This cheeky fellow has even managed to climb up to the top of one of the Towers.


I am getting slight Helms Deep flash backs and wonder what Gimli could have achieved with a rifle…


Wide shot of the Castle “swarming” with Chaos Dwarfs.


Much better light in this shot. I really need to see if I can find some nice siege equipment now. Battering Ram, ladders, boiling cauldron of oil and some piles of rocks…


My wife’s Ugg boot clad feet for scale. Don’t tell her she made it into the photo, I would be a dead man walking.

It is a pretty simple paint job, but I think it works well and was easy to do on a large scale so that was nice. I was a little worried that the castle was a little warped, not sure that this was a design flaw or my terrible treatment of it over the years. My solution was to brace it internally and then fill the whole thing with expanding foam to stiffen it up. I am glad I did and it has made it much more rigid and has taken most of the warp out of the pieces to boot.

All in all, it was a long process but am very pleased with the results.

Thanks for reading and my next update may just have those Chaos Dwarfs finished off.

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I have the same castle and its printed in the sMe way and its glorious!

We use it for sieges a lot!

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Great job on the castle. I like the moss on the walls. I also have one of these castles in an attic. Never painted or used it. Feeling bad about that now…

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This is beautiful. I have the castle but never painted. Perhaps I should. Would be good BatG progress

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its so easy to do!

black primer, gray drybrush, pick out some stones with red and blue, another gray drybrush, paint wooden doors and metal studs, wash.

With a large drybrush the stone is painted in an hour or so

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I sprayed the whole thing with a plastic specific etch primer (which was fortunately a dark grey) and then made my own black wash and pretty much hosed the stuff on. Once dry I then used some triple zero steel wool to rub the whole castle back and then do the timber parts and moss.

After having it kick around for many years overall it only probably took about 4 hours (not including drying time) to knock it out. Should have done it ages ago.

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