Here is my new painting and modelling log, something I’ve been meaning to share for a while now. I’m over half way through the army as it stands, but I’ll be adding more units to it once these are completed. Chaos Dwarfs are by far my favourite fantasy army, I also have Skaven and Forest Spirits, so I want Chaos Dwarfs to become the biggest.
I’ll start by sharing the pictures of what is there so far and a little fluff on the units I like to create. My painting may not be the best but I’m very restricted for time when I do paint so I’m only looking for gaming / tabletop standard. Later on I’ll include pictures of the themed Dark Lands board I’m working on, I’m still collecting scenery for that.
Kazgar is an exile and was cast out to walk the Dark Lands near Zorn Uzkul on his own several decades ago, a fate which should have been his death sentence but for his endless will to survive. He was cast out not for his own mistake, but by the curse of the blood that runs in his foul veins, a fate he can not escape no matter how far he runs or how hard he fights it. His father, his name now spoken only as a curse on the lips of several high Prophets, lost his honour at the head of a vast army in defence of an outlying outpost to Zharr Nagrund, great city of the Dawi Zharr, the Chaos Dwarfs. The outpost was overrun in a slave revolt during an attack by a wandering ogre tribe, and it fell to others to come to their aid, put down the rebellion and slay the last of the invaders. The Castellan had died, a hobgoblin knife in his back and an ogre club cleft in his skull, but unfortunately for them his sons had survived.
As punishment for the stain now on the family honour, each of the remaining sons was dealt a separate punishment. One was flayed alive and hanged from the outpost gates to look over the fallen of the battlefield outside, watching the carrion birds feeding on his fathers corpse before they came for him too. Another was sent to the fires of the sacrificial forge, a direct offering to Hashut to atone for the failure of the defence that day. The third was shaven and thrown in with the hobgoblins, to show that his line was no better than the slaves they failed to keep under control. The last, Kazgar, was beaten and thrown from the outpost wall, and when he survived the bone breaking fall the gates were closed and a Sorcerer Prophet addressed him from the walls. Kazgar was ordered to walk into the great skull land, Zorn Uzkul, and join the bones of the fallen there, for he had no honour left to live for.
Kazgar did wall, starving and broken, until his legs collapsed from under him and the arid desert air and molten smog cooked his flesh until it cracked and was forever scarred as memory of his family’s fallen honour and the worthlessness of his continued existence. That was when, the air in his lungs not far from leaving him, a tall figure approached him from out of the swirling ash. The creature was cast in the image of a monstrous bull, towering over the fallen dwarf, and trotted over to look down on him. Thinking this was a vision of Hashut himself, Kazgar forced himself to his knees and then stood before the great beast, showing his defiance at ever having been associated with so weak a father. The bull, a great Taur’ruk by the name of Azkarag, wandering the bone wastes in search of monsters against which to pit his might, snarled and lifted his great axe to strike this wandering weakling to the dirt. But lift his axe was all he could do, for in his sheer defiance Kazgar froze the Centaurs’ huge arms in place with naught but his will. As a battle of strength ensued, not physical but mental instead, Kazgar told Azkarag how he would never suffer defeat again until the stain on his honour was removed, his old standing recovered, and his enemies struck down if they would stand in his way.
So impressed was Azkarag by Kazgars’ show of magical fury not even the Chaos Dwarf had known he possessed, he chose to follow Kazgar from that point on.
Today Azkarag is head of Kazgars’ warband, second only to the Sorcerer Prophet himself.
Kazgar spent the first few years of his exile wandering the great skull land with Azkarag never far away, getting more accustomed to his newfound power and learning to control it. With discipline and a strong will, Kazgar taught himself to control fire, bending it to his will and eventually creating it from thin air. He learned next to shape metal, not with the smiths hammer he had grown up with but with the raw power of the arcane. He could also strip the life from lesser creatures that assailed him without as so much lifting his weapon, a blade he had forged from his magic and dark steel taken from the dead. Eventually, Kazgar began to feel a greater communion with the Father of Darkness, Hashut, and learned to control the ash clouds of his homeland and call forth his Gods’ ever hungry wrath.
With his developing powers, Kazgar began to build himself a following. Chaos Dwarfs respect power most of all things, and even amongst the exiled, the lost and the damned there was a struggle for power as well as survival. Immolating with Hellfire or ripping the soul from any who resisted his command, Kazgar began to subdue a following of other wandering Dawi Zhar. Not willing to risk another amongst the warband making a bid for control, Kazgar made sure the warriors that now served him exactly where they stood. Claiming he would remove the shame of their past and grant them each a new name and identity, Kazgar then pressed a searing hot mask onto each of the warriors faces. He also enscribed a different name rune on each of their shields.
The Faceless still form the backbone of Kazgars’ army.
Nice fluff and army:cheers Just a couple of points: you should dull coat Kazgar he’s too shiny, and touch up your Taur’ruk’s beard (looks like you got some silver on it when painting the skulls). Can’t wait to see and read some more.
I have lots more pictures to upload today. Thanks for the above advice, I have actually bought some dullcoat spray to do my heresy stuff in so I’ll give some of the shinier chaos dwarfs a coat of that. I like the magma to look shiny, on the bases it actually has gloss varnish over it. I’ve used nuln oil wash on the rest of the model though I think that’s what made it shiny.
Next up are the Dragon Bones Tribe. WIP.
After creating a small warband from the Faceless, Kazgar continued to roam Zorn Uzkul and was constantly harassed by a band of wolf riding hobgoblins, losing several of his followers in their lightning quick raids. Eventually the Sorcerer laid a plan to catch one of the riders, using his magic to pull one from the saddle and drain the life from its wolf. The rest panicked and fled, leaving the lone hobgoblin to suffer Kazgars’ torturous wrath. This began earning him the title of Kazgar the Cruel, the hobgoblin quickly telling of his tribes location and any other secrets Kazgar wanted from it.
Kazgar then marched straight to the location he had been told, finding a small group of goblin huts in the shelter of the ribcage of a long dead magma dragon. The hobgoblins formed up up repel the attackers, but in the battle that ensued Kazgar set their huts ablaze and turned the fury of their namesake upon them, gouts of arcane fire pouring from the dragons skull which terrified the hobgoblins, who worshipped the dragon as a God, into total submission. Thus did Kazgar also gain himself the title of Enslaver, for the Dragon Bones Tribe were now his to control.
Welcome! I’ll take the time to read through your background thoroughly when studies allow, but I can tell you I like what we see so far, both fluff and minis.
Thank you. The hobgoblins are mantic goblin spitters and the raiders are mantic riders on fenrisian wolves.
Next up is Grilk
Grilk made a name for himself amongst the growing warband when he led his band of hobgoblin wolf raiders ahead of the nomadic column and caught sight of another chaos dwarf warband roaming the wasteland towards Kazgar. The quick witted Khan led a lightning raid to remove the other armies scouts, before sending a rider back to Kazgar to tell him what was coming. Grilk then led a flank charge against the warband, a hit and run charge before harassing them with bowfire so that they turned around to try and pursue him. Concealed in a cloud of ash, Kazgar and the Faceless then charged the other warband from behind, breaking their morale and letting Azkarag and the wolves run down and capture the survivors who tried to flee.
Very nice Odatria. One suggestion if i may. If you give your bases one or two highlights and keep the edge of your bases black, I think that would look better. Maybe a little tuft on them as well
The warband Kazgar had overrun turned out to be the Blackshards, another nomadic group of Chaos Dwarfs, though these were not exiles but a patrol from Zarr Nagrund itself. Relishing the opportunity for revenge, Kazgar offered the survivors a simple choice. They could join him, be branded a new identity the same way the Faceless had been and turn against the great City that they served, or he would show them the true meaning of his name, Kazgar the Cruel. Many of the Chaos Dwarfs resisted, and Kazgar spent weeks torturing them until their minds and bodies gave out, leaving them nothing more than empty husks and bones to join those littering the ground in every direction. Those that survived were sealed in face masks and given shields, but rather than joining the Faceless Kazgar kept them as a separate regiment. The warband had it’s name not only from the blood forged armour they wore, but also the ammunition they shot from their fireglaives. Knowing these weapons would be of great use to him, Kazgar allowed the continued use of them by the Blackshards, giving his growing army a means of winning battles from afar as well as Faceless to face.
I’ve just reached my upload limit apparently, so I’ll have to sort something else out for getting these pictures up now please bare with me.
Many thanks for the criticism and feedback. I do need to touch up some details like the Taur’ruks beard admittedly, I’d like to get the rest of the army brought up to the same level then go back through the characters to do more detail if I get time. I still have a lot of unpainted stuff and I need to get colour on it because me and a friend have just decided to start filming battle reports. I’ve set up a YouTube channel and ordered a camcorder so I’ll post those too when it takes off.
Regarding bases, they could definitely do with a highlight I see that now. The edges however I did the lava streaks to make it look like the ground has magma under it. A lot of the bigger bases which I’ll get round to posting next have much larger areas of lava on the base and some of these are spilling over the sides as if into cracks in the ground. Perhaps it’s personal taste, but so far I’ve only received good feedback on the base idea. A highlight will definitely improve it though.
I hope you don’t mind that I like to give each unit some background which is slowing me down.
Next up… Durgath the Cursed
The leader of the Blackshards that Kazgar had defeated long resisted his authority, refusing to bend his knee before the Sorcerer when Azkarag dragged him through the dirt after the shattering of his own warband. Long after his followers had all succumbed to torture and death, Durgath still endured defiantly no matter what evils Kazgar wrought upon his battered form. The dwarf was left scarred and bloody from months of torture, before finally he could take no more of the cruelties inflicted upon him after Kazgars’ final attempt to break him, binding a flame daemon into his body so that his skin was constantly burning as his soul slowly turned to charcoal. When Durgath finally begged for death, Kazgar considered giving it to him, but then thought up a better use for the Cursed warrior now kneeling before him. Kazgar released the daemon from his flesh and made Durgath swear loyalty to him, impressed as he was by the other warriors sheer stamina and defiance to withstand so much pain for so long. Kazgar gave him command of the Faceless, promoting him to rank of Castellan in his growing legion.
Durgath served his new master willingly ever side, and was eventually awarded the honour of carrying Kazgars personal standard for him. The banner was woven from the skin of each great warrior Kazgar had killed on his quest for vengeance, and dyed red with the blood of their slaughtered followers. Onto this Kazgar burned an eight pointed scar with his dark sorcery, a sign of dread for all who looked upon it as well as one of the many signs of Hashut, for there was much darkness to be found under the shadow of Chaos. More than this though, the star also represented the eight Lords and Sorcerers who had cast him out into exile, and was a promise of his quest for vengeance. This dark path would take him many centuries to achieve however, for one such Lord that cast him out was the ruling voice in all Zarr Nagrund, Asrtragoth himself. Ambitious but not a fool, Kazgar would not challenge these lords outright, but start by trying to reclaim his lost honour and position guarding an outpost of the capital.
Several months after recruiting the Blackshards and continuing to roam the great skull land in search of followers, all Kazgar had achieved was fighting off several failed attempts to ambush him by wandering hobgoblin tribes and the occasional beast of the wasteland. The Sorcerer was starting to get restless and considered heading for the capital, but he knew his army was still too small and lacked the key assets that would lay siege to the outpost. With no shock troops, war machines or bound monsters, Kazgar needed to find and claim, bind or enslave such troops to his legion. Unsure of which direction to follow, the Sorcerer began to pray to Hashut, offering up several slaves in sacrifice and looking for a new heading on which to march. The answer was long in coming, but eventually Kazgar was filled with a strong urge to head south. This would take him away from his ultimate goal to the east, but Hashut was not too be denied.
Kazgar marched his legion south for weeks without finding anything of use, and began to consider that he had made a grave mistake as a storm rolled in which isolated the different parts of his army and buffeted them with a hail of ash and falling fire. Visibility was utterly lost, and great magma rifts began to break the ground and geysers of molten destruction burst from the ground to light the dark air in flashes of red and burning orange. Lost in the confusion, Kazgar called upon his powers and began to clear the air, the ash that had enveloped him swirling around and beginning to blow away. The Sorcerer had only created a small clearing though when he realised this was no natural unheralded ashstorm. The wind of Hashut had brought with it his riders, bovine monsters with muscular torsos and burning yellow eyes. The grey skinned Bull Centaurs charged at Kazgar as he stood alone, his army scattered around him and lost in the storm.
With magic, steel and the sheer defiance he was becoming renown for in the legion, Kazgar fought off the relentless charges of the Centaurs as they ran in and out of the swirling storm, striking at him with every pass. For an hour the Sorcerer withstood the assault, before in his rising fury as his body weakened led him to call upon the lore of metal he had begun to master, and with an effort of great will he dragged the Centaurs armour and weapons down to the ground, forcing them into submission all around him. Kazgar kept them pinned in place long enough to proclaim his ownership over them through show of strength. As if in answer to his bellowing claim, the ash began to clear and his scattered army soon recovered formation and surrounded the Bull Centaurs. It was Azkarag who strode forth and bid them stand, and that any challenger to Kazgars’ will would have to beat him in single combat first. And thus did the Bull Centaurs, Blessed of Hashut, join Kazgars’ legion.
I would second the comment on the bases needing a highlight. The colour you’ve chosen is quite muddy.
I don’t know what the current equivalents of this is, maybe Ushabti bone? Just an off white very, very light brown.
It would really pick up the details and help distinguish it from the grey of your bull centaurs.
Another thing worth bearing in mind, magma is lighter the hotter it is, and for it to be as light as it is on your bases I think the ground should be much darker.
So I’d be tempted to say a thorough highlight and then a watered down wash of black over it. That should improve the contrast with the magma.
Shortly after gaining control of his new shock troops, Kazgar continued to explore in the southern regions of the Dark Lands, deciding he would return to reclaim his honour only at the head of an army so vast that the outpost would surrender to his rightful return out of fear of utter destruction. For this he would need warmachines and daemons, so that is what he set his sights on next. He fought and defeated several smaller warbands as he travelled, giving his army plenty of meat to sustain it and slave labor to do the dirty work and carry their wargear. Eventually he came across an army led by a dark engineer, who was in the process of setting up a firing line at Kazgars’ approach, his own scouts having alerted him to the danger. What he didn’t know was that while the Sorcerer seemed to be walking straight into a trap, his own forces were poised to strike a crucial blow.
Grilk and the hobgoblin raiders had circled east and Azkarag and the centaurs had circled west, and as Kazgar marched his foot troops forwards and the engineer sent his own troops out to meet them, he left himself dangerously exposed. Before the warmachines could fire a shot, the wolves and centaurs were upon them, and Kazgar immediately ordered a well planned retreat. His own troops rallied back out of the maximum range of the machines, forming a wall the enemy regiments could not flee through as Azkarag ordered the now surrounded war machine crews to open fire on their own comrades. Those that tried to resist were quickly stabbed to death by eager hobgoblins or crushed beneath the hooves of the Blessed. Within just a few short and bloody minutes of fire, Kazgar had his victory and his prize. He used the skull of the engineer to make a chalice in which he could bind even more magical energy on future battlefields.
