Gathering the warband! Norse Dwarfs

[Vampiric16]

Howdy.
Recently my brother decided to sell off all his half started armies and focus on his High Elves. Among his collection was a handful of dwarfs, which I happily took off his hands. I'd been looking into starting a viking themed army, but was unsure of which miniatures would be suitable. A quick read through of the dwarf army book and a scan of the models later and I had my norse.
Now, I only had a handful of models, so I decided to use the old Warbands rules for forming them into a playable force. I am aiming for 500pts, then all being well I will get started on a 'proper' army.
So, how will I handle a norse theme?
1) cloaks: they live in the chilly north, so fur cloaks seem fitting.
2) axes: no hammers, just lots and lots of axes
3) shields: I will be using chaos marauder shields minus iconography, they best fit the viking look i'm going for
4) helmets: everyone (bar quarrellers and thunderers) will have horns. 'But that's not historically accuarate for Vikings!'. Indeed, but this is warhammer FANTASY, so I will be going for a more fantastical representation.
Veteran warriors (hammerers, thanes etc) will have visors scuplted onto their helms.

So that's the outline, pics and such to follow shortly

[Vampiric16]

Aaaaaand pics
This is around 300pts of dwarfs, including a thane, longbeards with GW's, warriors with shields, quarrellers with shields, and a cannon. They have yet to be based, but will be once I get the hang of this snow lark.
One the way is another unit of 6 warriors and unit of slayers. Coupled with a few additions to the quarrellers and longbeards, these should bring me to the 500pt mark.
They've already seen action against my bro's high elves, proving more than a match for their arrows and flimsy spears. Highlight was my cannon blowing the elf bolt thrower to splinters in a display of artillery dominance. Bang on!

[Purplebeard]

Nice so far. Lots of people seem to be on with a Norse Dwarf theme atm.

[Griffonclaw]

Ive always liked 'these' I remember an army in WD done the exactly the same, I reckon thats qhere you got the idea from. A good start on a proper representation of it. Keep it going.

[Vampiric16]

Purplebeard: really? Point me in their direction, I'd like to compare
Griffonclaw: Thank you, and yes issue 292 had an excellent norse dwarf army showcased. It was the inspiration I needed

[Vampiric16]

Ok, have set out my final list for 500pts:
Thane w/ shield and rune of stone
6 warriors w/ shields
6 warriors w/ shields
3 quarrellers w/ shields
3 quarrellers w/ shields
6 longbeards w/ shields
6 slayers
Cannon
I have a solid core in the warriors, some heavy hitters in the longbeards and slayers, and some decent firepower with two units of quarrellers and a cannon.

Will be using the standard slayer models for the warband, painted in the usual colours. Will norse them up a bit with tattoos.

[Purplebeard]

Ok - here goes. Most are more 'Norse-inspired' than explicitly Norse. These were all in the first ten pages of Fantasy Logs.

Schlissi http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=302593
Confessor_Atol http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292911
big p from gmg http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=305735
vintagephreak http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295868
Kaos http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168834

And last but not least...
Mine http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266713


There's no reason not to have Hammers btw. Hope this lot helps.

[Vampiric16]

I'm not seeing the norse connection in those armies, aside from the ones which have the old metal norse dwarfs included. Nice armies nonetheless, and I especially like the bugman's throng, very characterful.

[Vampiric16]

Back from a week in france with my gf, and arrived to find my slayers have arrived! So I immediately painted up a test mini (a converted bfsp slayer) and, happy with the results, took a brush to one of the new arrivals. I also finished off three more warriors. I'll probably finish the slayers tonight, paint the last three warriors and build two more quarrellers tomorrow.
Must say, slayers are easily among my favourite models, and it's a joy to finally have an excuse to own some. You may notice that I have greenstuffed trousers and shoes onto two of the slayers: I can't envision nudity being a helpful thing in the frozen north :P

[Vampiric16]

Slayers are done!
Very pleased with the results, the models were a pleasure to paint. Hopefully they'll perform well in my upcoming rematch with the High Elves.

[Vampiric16]

Two quarrellers and three warriors later and the 500pt mark is reached. I am totally sold and will be expanding this to a full size army in short (Ha!) order. They've all been sharpening their axes in anticipation of a rematch with those haughty elves, and I have every confidence in a second victory. But on the off chance things go badly, I have my book of grudges ready to make note of elvish trickery
In the meantime, here are some army shots. Enjoy

[Vampiric16]

Good news and bad news. The good news is that the army is based at long last, and looks very nifty with they snow bases.
The bad news...
Got trounced by my brother. 500pts gave him the legroom he needed to include swordmasters and dragon princes which did to my forces what Justin Beiber did to music. Additionally, my dice rolls were atrocious. I've never rolled so badly in all my years of gaming.
That said, it was a fun game and gave me some good ideas about tactics.

[Vampiric16]

Hi all, long time no update!
Well after a good root around eBay and some help from a few Warseer members, I now have everything I need to reach 2000pts!
Here is my army list and the current condition of each unit:
Thane w/ Rune of fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Swiftness, Rune of Stone, shield
(Painted, same one from the warband)
Runesmith w/ great weapon, Master Rune of Spell Binding and a rune of spell breaking
(Painted)
Dragon slayer
(Converted from the AoW plastic slayers, painted)
25 longbeards w/ shields, great weapons, standard and musician (Assembled, unpainted)
25 warriors w/ shields, standard bearer and musician (Assembled, unpainted)
25 warriors w/ shields, standard bearer and musician (Need weapons and cloaks)
16 quarrellers w/ shields and musician (Assembled, need cloaks)
12 thunderers w/ shields and musician (Previous ed. metals, painted)
20 slayers (AoW plastics, assembled and unpainted)
Cannon (Previous edition metal, painted)
Grudgethrower (Previous edition metal, painted)

I will post pics tomorrow when my camera is charged.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Norse Dwarfs always look so good. Yours are no exception.

[Vampiric16]

Been a while since I updated this log, got bogged down with work and other things. That's not to say I haven't been working on the army though, far from it in fact! The force is up to 2000pts, with only one unit of warriors left to paint.
Included here is an army shot, the slayers, the longbeards, the warriors and the thunderers. I'm quite pleased with the banners in the units. The warriors are the raven warriors, and fly a raven banner. The longbeards are 'the old wolves', and fly a suitable banner. You may notice a metal longbeard in the front rank, makes a great unit champ.

[Vampiric16]

Following on from the last post, here are my quarrelers, my stone thrower 'Hammer', my cannon 'The Furious', and my heroes. The thane and the runesmith lead the two warrior units (one yet to be painted and not pictured), while the dragon slayer joins the slayers. I may base my warmachines, having seen some very good examples recently.
Hope these have been worth the wait, I've certainly had fun putting the force together. My cousins are over this weekend, so a game may well be in order. If so it'll be a good chance to trial my latest army, and see if all the hard work has paid off.
Comments and such are welcome as always.

[Vampiric16]

Small model update:
I've based the warmachines, and finished the final unit of warriors.
Unfortunately, my cousins decided to bring their 40k, so the dwarfs had to look on while my 'Nids ate their way through guardsmen and sisters of battle. However, my brother has made some more progress on his HE, so a we'll be battling it out later in the week.

[Frankly]

Awesome body of work

[Vampiric16]

It's been a fair while since I've updated this blog, and I apologise.
A lot of progress has been made in the meantime, the army has expanded and been added to. So over the next few days I will be adding photos of all the units, along with backstories and my thoughts on painting/modelling them.
Watch this space!

[Loki73]

This is fantastic I love this theme!