No Mercy From Old Men

The Dwarfs are a kinda backward looking people. Their glory days were in the past, (although I really, really like the new fluff of the High King looking to reclaim it rather than decline) old techniques can't be replicated and past secrets are lost. The Dwarfs revere their ancestors and respect age above all else. Among humans this can be over conservative and cautious, humans decline in extreme old age. Dwarfs... well, they become hard as coffin nails.

These are the latest addition to the Stormborne host, 30 Longbeards make a real dent in anything they hit (WS5 and S4 rising to 5 on the charge is really no joke) and their mere presence stabilises a battleline. No one wants to look bad in front of the Elders. Readers with long memories will recall that I already have some longbeards. This is true. I did, but then GW brought out some properly lovely new models to represent them. Barely blinked before replacing them. But then I needed to do something with the former models. So hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Karak Timotai we go for a youthening:

Three more members and a greater range of beard colours later and I had a shiny new unit of basic Dwarf warriors. They've become the Wardens of the Outer Halls. The newer warrior box looks a bit more high status than the old ones so these are formal guards rather than a citizen militia. But enough of basic beard stuff, back to longbeards!

Modelling wise there's only one thing to mention about this superb kit. Compare and contrast the champion and the drummer. While building them I mused that there wasn't a whole lot of difference in the appearance of the Ironbreakers and the Longbeards (the kit does both). Given that I wanted Ironbreakers in my army I wanted a clear visual distinction. So I left the shoulder pads off everyone I could. Now it just looks like heavy scale armour rather than the gromril ultra armour that the Ironbreakers wear. Love the champion by the way, always, always like this sort of pose on Dwarfs. The "I've got all day, come get it" attitude. Painting wise, they were fairly straightforward - lots of armour - but my lord are the details fiddly. The shields especially needed about 8 layers of back and forth sharpening of the details. Expect to be working on them for a while if you take them on.

Scarily, I'm one very straightforward (if massive) unit of 50 warriors with great weapons and a few artillery pieces from finishing 5000 points of Stormbornes. I've decided that's where I'm stopping with the clan. The next dwarf project would be an Undgrin Ankhor force full of Irondrakes and Ironbreakers and a pair of flame cannons. But I really, really need to do something else before that. Too. Many. Dwarfs. Empire I think.

TTFN