I have been a member for some time now, but I haven’t really posted much.
I have always had a thing for Chaos Dwarfs. I mean, who don’t? Finally I gave in and bought a Mantic Abyssal Dwarfs army. Quite a large one, in fact… I love it, I love the models, I love the whole feel and theme of it. The thing is, I love the old 4th-7th ed models more, but they are much more expensive and I really can’t afford it, being a student. I have decided to use my Mantic army and simply spice it up with the cool, wonderful character models from the old range. That’s easier, luckily. They aren’t as expensive and there are plenty of convertion possibilities that don’t take forever (a factor for me, sadly)
Yesterday I started thinking… How many different model ranges will look silly together? A large unit of Abyssal Dwarf Blacksouls or Immortal Guards with a GW Sorcerer in it will look fine, but what if I add a Titan Wargames Lord and a scratchbuild Great Taurus with some sort of character on top?
What I’m really asking, I guess, is for you to give your own, personal meanings and experiences.
Also, a bonus question: If I have the Chaos Dwarf Lord on Great Taurus and Sorcerer on Lammasu, and a space Abyssal Dwarf King and Ironcaster (warrior hero and wizard), would it be a great shame to cut up the riders and the Abyssal Dwarfs and combine the legs and torsos in order to have an Abyssal Dwarf on a Great Taurus and Lammasu? On one hand if I own the model it’s mine so I get to do what I want, but it’they’re also OOP, classic miniatures and I respect them a great deal!
Well, I have a Dwarf army made up of four different releases of models and it all ties in very well. The issues you’ll have with CDs and Mantics is the size. I use Mantic Dwarfs as the base for my Chaos Dwarfs, but I have to cut their legs off to make them the same height. You could over come that, due to the hats, by just using scenic bases for the GW ones. I actually think it could work really well, if you use the Big Hats as elite troops. You could maybe give them ornate shields and gold armour and use them as Immortals? Then, if the elites have big hats, it makes sense the characters would too. You could have fluff for your army that a warrior has to ‘earn’ his hat by killing a certain number of enemies or taking ‘x’ number of slaves…they’d be sign of high status.
From the Mantic range I have more than plenty basic warriors (hand weapon/shield and great weapons), missile troops (blunderbusses), three rocket launchers and whopping 30 of Mantic’s Immortal Guards for use as the elite infantry, so sadly that idea is out of the question, though it was a great idea to use GW CDs as elite infantry.
Which army list are you using? My other idea would be to use them as a Temple Guard unit, and the Mantic Immortals as a different elite. Then you could have a Big Hat wizard and his Big Hat retinue.
I have used ThommyH’s list once (excellent stuff, if he reads it. possibly the best army book I’ve ever laid eyes on). I want to use the Tamurkhan one ,though, but I don’t have access to a trial or leaked version, sadly.
On short: I’m not using any one in particular! I have played one game in total, but I want to use my CD army much more.
I don’t think there would be an issue if you used them as a bodyguard unit, I really don’t. I have units that I’ve converted as Dwarf guilds (brewers, merchants etc) and they all look different…but the colours tie them together.
I feel I’m stating the obvious… but I think when it comes to mixing different models within an army the two considerations are consistency within the unit and then consistency with the army. Obviously the models within a unit must be more similar, model to model, relative to the rest of the army. That means a unit’s models should be of a similar character and generally should be painted to go together. The characteristics of a unit, however can vary drastically between the units within the army. At that level the only unifying theme tends to be color pallet and color tones.
Have units of Mantic’s Abyssal dwarfs alongside Bighats and infernal guard within the same army, just not the same unit… and they should be painted in ways that compliment each other… do that and it won’t look out of place or silly.
My collection is made up of 4th Edition big hats, (slightly) converted modern Dwarfs and a couple of units from Titan Wargames. I even have a unit of Bull Centaurs with a musician from another model range entirely. The trick, as aka_mythos says, is to have a unified colour scheme. You can make pretty much anything work if you paint it right.
Also:
I have used ThommyH’s list once (excellent stuff, if he reads it. possibly the best army book I’ve ever laid eyes on).
Wistrand
Thanks! Would you mind sharing your experiences of using it in the Rules Development thread in my sig?
My collection is made up of 4th Edition big hats, (slightly) converted modern Dwarfs and a couple of units from Titan Wargames. I even have a unit of Bull Centaurs with a musician from another model range entirely. The trick, as aka_mythos says, is to have a unified colour scheme. You can make pretty much anything work if you paint it right.
Also:
I have used ThommyH's list once (excellent stuff, if he reads it. possibly the best army book I've ever laid eyes on).
Wistrand
Thanks! Would you mind sharing your experiences of using it in the Rules Development thread in my sig?
Thommy H
Only if you'll post a link to those alternative Bull Centaurs!
