Back in the heady days of 2010 (July 10, 2010 to be precise) we saw the release of Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition and I got my hands on the gorgeous collector’s edition of the rule book.
There-in lay all sorts of amazing details and inspiration for years to come. Chief among these were the Dwarf Thunderbarge and the Chaos Dwarf-constructed Doom Engine siege towers.
Those were inspiration for my own airship and siege tower builds for my Chaos Dwarf army that can be seen in the first image in my blog:
For a very long time, however, I’ve wanted to go back and study those Doom Engines a little more closely. Had I done this back in 2010 this may have been easier as the images that are still available on-line are few and far between. Nevertheless I’ve scoured the corners for the Internet for the past few weeks and have assembled everything here.
The big introduction to the Doom Engines were in the massive diorama spread over 4-pages in the 8th edition rule book: Bloodbath at Volganof
(
if anyone wants a larger copy just PM me, the source image I have for this is 17625x6082 pixels)
The Doom Engines were built by the renegade Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer of the Forge, Hothgar and it was written that the powerful machines were rare and highly prized for their ability to grind over fortifications and disgorge legions of troops.. oh yes please!!!
The majority of the diorama was on display at Games Day UK on September 26 of 2010 as well, although it was renamed to the Siege of Altdorf for the event. To our great benefit a blogger at the time (ifelix.co.uk) made live-updates to their site (here and here) and followed it up later with additional photos from lots more angles. Here they are for reference:
OK, so let’s zero-in on the siege towers…
Oops, not that one… although I am jealous of the 3rd tier on the Juggernaut!
Here are the Doom Engines, up close and personal and in the best quality I could get:
From the 8th Ed rulebook:
From ifelix.net:
I’m not the best at picking out parts, but there’s a few I think I can identify…
From the top, the upper-most level on at least one of them clearly has Chaos Warrior shields and what looks to be Night Goblin spears pointing straight upward (see the 8th Ed rulebook rules page for the best view).
Some parts are clearly not based on Games Workshop kits, so we’re not going to source everything from there. While the large skulls on the front look like they may have come from the Skullvane Manse, I don’t think these are the source. They look quite different around the teeth and eye sockets - plus it’d be a lot of work to hog out all that thick plastic from the tower walls to free up the front of the skull faces for this. I was also thinking the bay windows from the Skullvane Manse might be what was used on the sides of the Doom Engines, but again, they’re close but not the same design, although there are a few more Chaos Warrior shields on the outer portions that can be seen.
^So I don’t think it’s any of these pieces.
Of the identifiable skulls on the front of the Doom Engines there are definitely a few of the flat skull decoration pieces from the Arcane Ruins set.
So far not too hard to source some of these parts as kits are either still available or were available recently (i.e. Arcane Ruins with the release of ToW).
Moving on down to the lower portion now. The large front wheels are definitely the wheel components of the Skaven Doomwheel kit. Using them in this way the kit effectively comes with two wheels (these are the same ones I used on my siege engine). The kit just requires scraping away the Skaven symbols on the wheel treads and putting some plasticard sheets inside the wheel to give it a solid look. I have no idea what the smaller rear wheels were made from - if anyone can identify them definitely post a response!!
The large cylinders that connect to the pistons on the side of one of the Doom Engines are from the Orc Battlewagon (since renamed to the “Bonebreaka” now for some reason)… but still available!! The pistons are also attached to the front wheels using the spiked circular attachment end intended for the Deff Rolla (that’s the spiked cylinder), but it’s offset to the piston can drive the wheel, and it’s attached to the circular attachment piece that usually goes into the end of the Deff Rolla, which is a nice use of the same kit pieces. You can also see on the other Doom Engine that doesn’t have the pistons that there’s a recessed gear mechanism (scratch built maybe??), but the large front wheel still has the same spiked ‘hub cap’ piece from the kit, matching the other Doom Engine wheel design.
The Deff Rolla piece can be found, only very slightly dissimilar, on MyMiniFactory.com for pretty cheap.
OK, that’s all I was able to identify. I think with 3D printing many suitable replacement components can be sourced at no-cost, or at very low cost, with the rest of the effort coming from good old fashioned scratch building with plasticard and the like.
Hope some folk found this useful and maybe even inspirational!! I’m not saying I’m building a Doom Engine. But I’m also not saying that I’m not saying that…
~N
And m3lvin’s Daemonsmith that’s featured on the banner is this unit was also one of the pieces I etched in brass and still have the parts for!
