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Thursday, May 19, 2011

Dwarf Banner: Another Swing

Ok, so if you've seen the last project I worked on, I spent time converting a Khazad Guard into Dain and a Dwarf with two-handed weapon into a banner-bearer. Today's conversion (which was actually done earlier in the week, but I've been unable to get to my computer to post this) will involve that same banner-bearer and construct a better banner thanks to the help of my good friend Zorro.

The other day, I went to Zorro's house to play against his Haradrim. We played two small games of 300 points, but unfortunately, neither of us had our cameras with us. What we learned from the games we played is the following:

1) Dalamyr the Corsair is an amazing combat hero when he's fighting one hero or two basic troops.
2) Abrakhan Guards can deal a lot of damage if you let them win.
3) When Haradrim archers are killing more units than Dwarf or Elven archers, the game isn't going to go well.

At the end of the day, Zorro and I had a lot of fun playing...one of these days we need to record a report. BUT, before I left his house, he sent me home with two things: a large piece of wire to fashion into things and the following Games Workshop item...

A hobby drill! It's hand-operated and makes small holes in your models, allowing you to customize them and in this particular case, make a hole just large enough to go inside the hands of a Dwarf Warrior. I also recommend this item if you're looking at doing a lot of conversions...it's really nice and not hard to use.

Here's a look at the banner in the banner frame in the hands of the Dwarf who will be carrying it. The frame is made from a long piece of wire that Zorro also gave me. He's procured a good batch of these wires (about a foot and a half long each I think) and so I took one home with me. This is made of three roughly equal lengths of wire, one for the stem and two entwined for the frame for the rest of the banner.


Here's a look at the finished banner: the banner itself is taped to the frame, though I probably could easily poke holes in the banner and wrap the wire through them. I also drilled a small hole into the model's base so that the banner will rest in it and stay mostly still.
Also new to the army are the last three models to be painted: now the Dwarves are a complete force...what a joy.

You can see here a picture of the army in all its grandeur. In the following picture, I've pitted them off against my goblins...yeah, this calls for another game.