Converting some cheap dwarfs (EM4)

Hobby Ideas & Advice
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I always admired the BFSP conversions that I saw on here (like Xander and others). Of course, those are long OOP and stupidly expensive these days. But I figured the plastic dwarfs from EM4 may be the next best thing.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I mean these ones:
Dwarfs Assorted x 48 – em4miniatures

They’re one piece, monopose models. Not the most inspiring. But they are cheap (less than £11 for 48 models). And I have seen people convert them up to look a little better. For instance:

Combat Zone Chronicles : Sincerest Form of Flattery

I wondered whether I could do something similar, but with a chaos dwarf theme.

Now, I should say that I’m not a sculptor, so I won’t be giving them scale armour, curly beards, or tusks. They may not fit any of the traditional chaos dwarf aesthetics. But, still, I thought it might be fun to see what I could do with these guys.

As in the last link, I’m planning to add some extra bits to the basic models, but I haven’t decided what just yet. Here are some musings. And opinions or comments welcome…

Heads
I’m not sure how easy a head swap would be. I have seen it done on here. I do have chaos warrior heads (both the recently re-released plastics and the older 5th edition hunchbacks) or Oathmark dwarf heads. But I’m not particularly inclined to try this. I think it’s probably too much effort and too likely to go wrong.

Shields
Adding shields is easy. I have some GW chaos marauder shields, but not sure whether I have enough of those. I also have GW dwarf ones (mostly from the warriors, but some from the longbeards). I’m currently more inclined to use the dwarf ones.

Weapons
I’ll likely be replacing most of the spear/axe heads. Again, I should have some spare GW dwarf weapons somewhere, but haven’t been able to find them. I do have chaos weapons that I could use. I think the dwarf ones are probably the better option, if I can find them.

The one problem, if I go with these ideas, is that the end result would be pretty much all dwarf bits. Besides the paint job, how else do I make them look like chaos dwarfs?

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There are far more knowledgeable fellows on the forums than I. However, I had a few immediate thoughts when I read.

The dwarf models on their own look excellent, so they just need some chaotic flair:

  • Spikes glued onto their backs asymmetrically
  • Spikes on their shoulders
  • A random tentacle glued on, if you’re feeling particularly chaotic
  • Axe heads replaced with mancatchers
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I converted a few at one point, i meant to do more. Someone on facebook did a load of em4 cd conversions once.
Interested to see your results!

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I’ve had a go at making a test model. This guy originally had a weird crossbow thing, but I snipped that off and replaced it with the barrel of a GW thunderer gun.

2024-09-12 dwarf gun (5)
2024-09-12 dwarf gun (5)1673×1688 172 KB

There’s still some more work needed, but I just wanted to get an idea whether this was likely to work or not. I think it does.

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It looks good, takes more than a glance to tell. The hands seem to be near enough the right scale.

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I have started a few more conversions, though haven’t taken photos yet.

I’m trying to decide on basing. I put pretty much everything on 25mm round bases these days, but I was wondering whether to go with 20mm for these. That means they would still work if I ever wanted to play WFB or something like that. If used for another system with larger bases (The Old World, Oathmark, etc) then I can always space them out a bit.

For context, this is probably academic. I’m mainly a collector. I haven’t played any rank and file game in years. If I were to use them for an ‘army’ game, it would probably be Dragon Rampant, where basing doesn’t really matter.

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I’m sorry for the question, but why have you decided to build your army round these models? There are literally hundreds of alternatives to them, and this test model doesn’t even have any face features at all. I think they are really bad sculpts. Just asking out of curiosity.

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Probably because its only £10 for 48 of them, GW equivalnets you could get maybe £1 per model on ebay. I do agree the sculpts arent great though.

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I love the old Nick Lund models! I use them as a SAGA army.

I think some new heads from the GW Chaos Warriors will look awesome.

You can also get Nick Lund metal models from Mirliton or Forlon Hope Games.

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I did a few em4 conversions a couple of years ago. Meant to do more…

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I see. With a lot of effort they can look nice.

Nice work Zodd!

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It’s really only the face that lets them down. Easy enough to sculpt a mask or turn the helmet into a full-face helmet. They are so cheap, a good way to bulk out your army.

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“why have you decided to build your army round these models?”

That is a good question. Cheapness is part of it. (I wouldn’t have bought these models if they weren’t cheap.) But I think there’s more to it than that.

First, I don’t do 3d prints and much prefer to plastic to metal/resin, so that cuts out a lot of options that I see in other threads.

But also there seems something nostalgic about these guys. My own interest in chaos dwarfs goes back to the big hat era of 4th(?) edition WFB, when monopose plastics were common.

And my continued interest comes from seeing people like Xander converting BFSP dwarfs into chaos dwarfs. That just seems far more interesting than buying some readymade chaos dwarfs.

I wanted to see what I could do with these guys. Think of it as a hobby challenge of sorts.

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I mentioned in the original post that I’d seen some on here. I think they must have been yours. Sorry I didn’t dig out the link.

I do have chaos warrior heads (both old hunchback ones and the newer plastics), but I thought it would be too much work to headswap all these guys. How difficult did you find it?

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Easy. But you have to match the trailing beard, so green stuff required.
The newer cw heads are easier to use than the hunch back ones

I cut the feet off and reduced the height too and stuck them back on. Trying to reduce the height of the model. The bases were cut totally away from the feet. Its soft plastic, easy to cut…compared to heroquest anyway

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With the old BFSP dwarfs I just cut off the face from the models. Then I split the CW helmets i half and glued the front onto the dwarfs. But that is because I was going more for the “LoA”-look than 3d edition. It was quite a lot of work though…

In the end I passed them onto @GLaDD who has done a swell job giving them life and colour. :wink:

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Here’s an update:

2024-09-20 dwarf heads (4a)
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Left to right, we have:

The original one. I did a bit more since first posting him.

One where I tried a chaos warrior head swap. It wasn’t too difficult, but I’m not sure whether I like the result or not. It does at least make him look different from a ‘vanilla’ (non-chaos) dwarf.

And another one where I did the gun a bit differently, keeping both the original hands. It was a bit more fiddly than the first one, where I swapped the hands, but it avoids the different sized hands.

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I like the new head, looks cool! :+1:

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This is an honest post, I see promise.
Carry on…
PBH

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These are turning out great. Assuming the grid is 1cm, they should fit on bases and rank up perfectly as well.