Dwarves of Khazad Dum

The faction I decided to work on today was the Dwarves. As can be seen from the picture below, there were quite a few figures that needed to be made up in readiness for undercoating.

There were actually a few extra figures in addition to those featured in the photograph above as I did a bit of eBaying after the photo was taken, to round out the army - Balin needs a lot of warriors to reclaim Moria!

Although I have a Durin and a Dain miniature, I may use them as just ordinary dwarf lords/captains (Ori and Oin?) to go with the more generic dwarf lords in the collection. The reason being, from my (probably very shaky) recollection, is that Durin had died when his people delved too deeply and released the balrog (Durin's Bane) and Dain was busy rebuilding Erebor after the untimely deaths of Thorin's line (Thorin, Fili and Kili) at the Battle of the Five Armies.

Dwarf Lords...

I have quite a few dwarf lords and leaders, perhaps too many to be represented on the tabletop at the same time? As you can see from the top photo, I have some dwarf command, Gimli, Floi Stonehand (?) and a very old Citadel pre-slotta called Thorgrimm (according to the imprint on his base). I have to admit I don't really like that King's Champion and attendant shield/banner bearers, but had bought it at the time to round out the collection. The miniatures were not slotta based which makes me wonder if they were just some old minis GW had lying around not doing anything and some bright spark suggested they be utilised (and therefore make money) as LotR minis.

The second photo shows a few Iron Guard and four dwarf kings. I actually like these miniatures for all their plainness. The less is more approach really worked on these for me and they can be used for any other named dwarf I want them to be if necessary.

Dwarf Warriors...

Whilst I was building the army I discovered that I didn't have that many actual Dwarf Warriors. I have lots of elites and so forth but only a couple of sprues of Rangers and a few metal miniatures. I think a couple of sprues of plastic warriors may be required to round out the force when I can get access to some funds.

The first photo shows off two sprues worth of Dwarf Rangers. Unfortunately, one of the twin axe wielding warriors is sans an axe in his right hand - he was also almost sans hand too, but a nifty bit of work with the plastic glue put that right (I hope). I will have to try to find a similarly shaped axe from my bits box and see if he can be salvaged.

The lower photo shows off the original metal Dwarf Warriors blister sets. I have two each of the ones armed with axes and with bows as well as the Murin and Drar set which I will utilise as their named captains.

Dwarf Elites...

I guess the Iron Guard minis above in the Lords section should have featured in this section but I took the photos before worrying about how I was going to lay out the blog post. I have plenty of Khazad Guard but noticed there was a subtle difference in the posing of two of them with their axes raised over their heads (last two warriors on the right, back row in lower picture). I will have to see if I can eBay those last two poses again so I have two full sets of Khazad Guards.

As can also be seen from the lower picture, I have a Dain and Balin miniature to lead each troop with a spare Balin to be painted or converted slightly to maybe make Ori or Oin? The Thorgrimm mini could double as either one of those two as well.

In addition to the standard troops, I also have Durin and Mardin as well as a ballista with crew. I don't have any Vault Warden teams - shall I get one or two? Not sure yet but will wait and see how the points totals for this army turn out once I have also got a couple of boxes of plastic warriors and how my funds are holding up.

Again, this army is rather large, especially if/when it gets the additional plastic dwarf warriors, so I will try to see if there is a Dragon Rampant and saga army list for them on the web somewhere. If not, I guess I could always create my own when the muse takes me (probably whilst painting I will begin to procrastinate and end up designing armies for several rules sets).

I have decided to add an additional tally to the blog where I will list probable and possible additions to my LotR armies. These numbers will be nowhere near what I originally had envisioned for each faction, but will now just cover the basics required to round out my armies.