Space Dorf Kill Team

Earlier today, GW put out a video that may or may not be hinting that Squats are returning to 40k. I responded to the community tweet with the truth: Squats aren't "back;" they never left. 

Nothing is really set in stone for 40k—that wibbly-wobbly-ness is why you can have Your Dudes. And for me right now, my dudes are these:

Astra Militarum Rotundus

I haven't worked out all the names and lore for these guys yet; but these Sky Dorfs in space are an elite squad of Tempest Scions (complete with a Tempestor). I have all the optional load outs that I might run in any fire team—including coms, medic, banner, all gunners types, and a healthy number of basic troopers. 

I still have nine spots left on my roster, which might wind up being a unit of basic militarum Squats. These would be built from the bodies of a Blood Bowl dwarfs with weapon leftovers once I build a full Krieg Veterans team. But that is contingent on actually building up a full team from the sprues of the two boxes of Octarius I've picked up on various sales. This seems a big ask—especially when I most likely will play neither Krieg nor the basic militarum (why would I do either over Tempestus Squats?).

In any case, stay tuned as these dudes slowly get names and personalities while they earn their stripes on the tabletop. 

Squats: Sky Dorfs in Space

It's been a while. With the release of AOS 3.0 and the 40k 9th edition I fell off the hobby train for a good long bit. 

AOS 3 hasn't been particularly kind to the Kharadron Overlords from what I can tell. Most of my strategies and build aren't really going to work. The 2k list I had been building ballooned up to 2200 points and lost all the synergy that made it work. Also, with the ban of third-party bits and bobs, I'm not even sure if my Khardron Overlady Arkanauts are even legal at this point. Generally speaking this burned me out on the whole sky dorf thing. I did however go off and paint a bunch of Ork Boyz—at least until that became untenable in 9th edition 40k.

But, then they released the new Kill Team box with some very fun Ork terrain. I wound up picking a box at PAXU for half off with a coupon. I have the terrain and a standard Green Skin team complete. (Yes, I know it comes with the Kommandos, but see above all the Boyz I have laying about.) Just this past week I figured out that the team I really want to run and which has spurred the resurrection of this blog: SKY DORFS IN SPEESH! That's right, your dear professor is going to build Squats.

So here is the plan: I am going to kit bash a Militarum Tempestus Scion box with a Kharadron Overlord Arkanaut box to create a Militarum Tempestus Rotundus Kill Team. One Tempestus Scion box contains all the weapons needed for a full Kill Team of two Scion fireteams, while one Akanaut box contains almost enough bodies. I will need to get a Tempestor body from somewhere—probably a Blood Bowl trollslayer with coat billowing out behind his action pose. 

Speaking of Blood Bowl, I might use the bulk of a Blood Bowl Dwarf Giants team to bash a Guardsman fireteam, just in case I don't want to run double Scions. However, I need to find a cheap source of lasguns with bayonets before I can work on that. Right now it looks like too much money for a fireteam that I will most likely never run.

The basic strategy of the build is based off the guide to Astra Militarum Kill Team tactics posted over at Goonhammer (LINK).

So this blog is back in action, and still dealing with sky dorfs—just now of the 40k variety.

Dagnai Holdenstock

No, I don't have a copy of the aptly named Cursed City. I did however pay an eBay scalper roughly the price of a Jakkob Bugmansson to get a Dagnai Holdenstock.

Part of me wanted to paint this guy in a style that would really set off his coat, but instead I opted to a more muted scheme that fit better with the rest of my army. As evidenced by this shot of Dagnai, Jakkob, and Bjorgen.

I have no idea what role Mr. Holdenstock will have in my current army, but I'm glad to be able to add him to the roster. 

Arkanaut Ironclad

 I finally finished up my Ironclad. With this, I now have a serviceable 2000 point army. I've been working on it between other projects for the better part of three months, so I'm glad to finally put finish her. Here are some shots.

The keen-eyed might notice that I've got one extra Arkanaut on the bridge. He's a special boi I hope to talk about more at a later date. Just wanted to get some shots up of this monster of a vessel.

Kharadron Overladies for Fembruary

Wasn't sure I was going to manage getting these posted in February, but here are my custom all-female Kharadron Arkanauts.

The heads for these Kharadron Overladies are from an Etsy store called FlagshipGamesUS (LINK). They looked a little small when I first got them, but they wind up looking fine when actually on the bodies.
 

In order to differentiate the leader more easily, I used the topknot from a spare Stormcast Eternal I had lying around. 

Other than the head swap I've left the models as-is. The armour suites that the Kharadron wear are quite padded so any differentiation of silhouette would be hidden by the the padding. Additionally, I didn't really think that the usual "all women in heels" aesthetic that is found in so many wargmaes was something that the no-nonsense Kharadron would really have any time. A lack of beards would be enough. I found the post "Female representation in wargaming" by Between the Bolter and Me really helpful in making these design decisions (LINK).

Finally, as alluded to in the title of this post, this is my submission for Leadbaloony's Fembruary Challenge to paint more female figures. (LINK). 

2021 Hobby Bingo

So in addition to participating in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (LINK), I think I'm going to do Hobby Bingo this year as well. I nicked this one from Table Top Standard (LINK), but it ultimately derives from GW's White Dwarf. 

Completing a boxes 10 points, completing a line is 50 points, and the entire board is 400 points—though I'm not sure if these are cumulative points or not. 

Since the competition technically started on New Years Day, I have several of these I can already check off. Also, a quick perusal of my Twitter feed will show that I've painting a lot of Orks and other various sundry that don't show up on a blog dedicated to Sky Dorfs. I sort of want to make this KO specific, but I don't think I have enough models yet to paint for my army to fill in the card or line. So, I'll probably be more indiscriminate. 

A Plan Brewing

Bjorgen Thundrik took a deep pull from his tankard. He tried to hide his expression, but his eyebrows involutely raised in surprise at the quality (and alcohol content) of the beer he sampled. There was no doubt that this abv in this mug was higher than even the customary Duardin draughts. 

Across the table in the dimly lit back corner of the Blue Drake Tavern, Jakkob Bugmansson XI smiled into his own cup. At this point in his career he had become quite accustomed to the reaction he could read the across the face of Profiteer.

"So, do we have a deal then?" he asked as we swirled the sweet amber poison around in his tankard.

Bjorgen looked the brewmaster steady in the eye as he drained the rest of his mug before speaking. "To give credit where it's due, this is an amazing ale you've got here. But, I'm still a bit cloudy as to why you're coming to me with an offer of exclusive distribution. I'm just a retired Profiteer whose hung up his armour and retired to running a little tavern."

Jakkob put down his mug and leaned closer to Bjorgen before speaking in a voice lower and laced with humour. "O come now Thundrik, we both no better than that! Sure you've got this seedy little bar on the edge of outsider ring here on Barak-Nar, but you've got similarly placed whole-in-the-walls on both Barak-Zilfin and Barak-Urbaz; and you're looking to purchase another on Barak-Zon as well. I don't know what this is all about, but I want in."

Before Bjorgen could protest in surprise, Jakkob then also added, "And I also want to stick it to Grungsson. I know you can't stand him either, so I figure whatever you've got planned will involve ruining his day. For that reason alone I want in." 

With that Jakkob leaned back from his conspiratorial stance and finished the rest of his mug while eying Bjorgen.

"Alright, Bugmansson, you've got a deal. I can't tell you what all you're in for as of yet, both you seem to have your finger in the wind. My tavern will definitely benefit from your brews, and my Gunhauler from your navigational. Pour another round and let's drink to our new partnership."

I recently finished up Jakkob Bugmansson XI. As can be deduced from the above piece of narrative, I plan on running him with Thundrik's crew in a dedicated Gunhauler for flanks and objectives. 

I painted the brewer using the same tones as the rest of the army, but with a less pronounced blue than on the bulk of the Shiny Bois. I figure the brewer would try to keep his armour more or less allegiance neutral, being the savvy business-dorf that he is.

More Balloon Bois!

Just painted up another unit of Endrinriggers for my Kharadron fleet. This is the second unit of these—along with a unit of Skywardens

The tactical plan is to run one of the Gunhaulers with the secret compartment filled with a unit of Thunderers or Thundrik and his lads (if the latter, I'd have room for a navigator there as well given that there's a Skywarden in that unit). This second unit of Endrinriggers will go with that Gunhauler so that they can survive a bit longer. 

Since I've never been able to play a game with this army due to the pandemic, I have no idea if this will work.

A Second Grundstok Gunhauler

It's been a while since I've updated here! I've been hard at work at the hobby since the Solstice, but most of it has been posted over at the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. You can find my stuff here (LINK).

Whilst I've been painting a variety of different miniatures, a second Grundstok Gunhauler has been the big news for the Sky Dorfs:

I still haven't decided on markings or names for these vessels, but I do like the paint scheme.

The general idea is that they are camouflaged for the sky—basically blues and silvers, with only the occasion bits of bronze. 

The official lore is that the Kharadron build most of their tech out of Aether Gold. I've interpreted this as a sort of blueish metal and have thus put lots of blues into the models.

The flight stand came out quite nice on this one as well. I need to put some vegetation on these, but the Army Painter tufts I bough blend in a bit too much. I'm currently shopping on more options.

I've still got the Arkanaut Ironclad another three Endriggers to assemble for this army before I'm running close to 2000 points. Hopefully I'll have that complete in the next month or so!

A Tale of Krås Krüngle

A Holiday Tale from Chamon:

The Kharadron claim that they believe only in the power of the capital and the cunning of a mercantile meritocracy. They tell stories of how their god told them to fend for themselves, and this was the impetus for them to learn grit and self-determination—how they have outgrown the Old Ways and are beholden to no god, creed, or superstition. However this only the official party line.

In the outer rings of the skyports and the below decks of almost any skyvessel of the line, things are different. The old ways persist, and even new stories and myths have emerged as the Age of Chaos turns to the Ages of Sigmar. 

One of these stories is of a Duardin of old—ancient in years beyond counting. One night a year, he visits all the skyports in a single evening and delivers presences to good little dorf of various genders. His name is Krås Krüngle.

As the days grow short and the nights grow long, and as forces of chaos stretch out their evil tendrils to ensnare all that is good in Chamon, Krås Krüngle calls forth the fallen Duardin heroes of yore and leads them on a yearly hunt across the heavens. He and his host bring light to the darkness, spreading goodness and cheer across all the skyports by giving gifts to the younglings. 

While the Geldraad don't like to admit it, the stories are good for business and so they let the "superstition" go....

 

I haven't had much time to paint as of late, but I've been working on this conversion for the last week or so. He's built off a Blood Bowl slayer model with plenty of kit bashing and modeling added. He serves no purpose in any army or list—just a bit of whimsy as the days grow short and the nights grow cold. 

I will be participating in the Analogue Hobbies Challenge from the solstice to the equinox, and as such I'm prepping and priming more than painting at the moment. Expect a deluge of posts here starting late December! Until then, fiction and meta-thoughts as a build and bash models and get them ready for painting! 

Jakkob Bugmansson XI: Brewmaster-General

The Holidays seem to upon us, and dear old GW has released a limited edition model for the Kharadron Overlords, Jakkob Bugmansson XI: Brewmaster-General. (LINK)

Image from GW

The fluff reads as follows:

The duardin. The myth. The legend. In times long past, the name of Bugman was a byword for quality amongst the people of the world-that-was, a brewsmith capable of producing the very best beverages the dwarves had to offer. Now, in the Age of Sigmar, another has risen to take his mantle – the Kharadron known as Jakkob Bugmansson XI!

This is obvious meant to tug on those nostalgia strings. Bugman is one of (if not the) oldest model in the Warhammer Fantasy line. However, since I have no allegiance to the Old World, I'm not necessarily impressed by the lore. 

What I am impressed by is the sculpt. There doesn't seem to be a War Scroll for this fellow yet (though one can hope). He comes on a 32mm base which works well for proxying him for an Aether-Khemist, Endrinmaster, or Aetheric Navigator. The idea of a drunk navigator sounds amazingly dorfy to me, but we'll see what is needed when we finally get the Chonky Bois to the table.

Female Kharadron Overlords—a Journey

One concern that I have had in building my SkyDorfs is that I didn't want them all to be men. While simple biology points to the presence of women among the Duardin, the art in the most recent codex definitely shows that there are females among the leadership of Kharadron Overlords.

There's a great old blog post over at Between the Bolter and Me on Representation in Wargaming (LINK), that I wholeheartedly recommend. And that post got me thinking on how to bring a little balance to my own army.

My first attempt was to use one of the runners from Kaosball's New Victoria Klockwerks:

It's not a great miniature: the plastic much softer than GW, the pose is problematic, and the sculpt in general has some issues. But, my plan was to use just her head and put it on one my Thunderers. However, I thought her pigtails would read as female even in big, bulky KO amour. Also, the goggles read steampunk. Unfortunately, it didn't quite look right.

Part of this was caused by the hair—it forced me to have her head sit higher and forward slightly more than the eye could take. It just looks off. So, I wound up pulling her head off and slapping the standard helmet on to the Thunderer.

It then occurred to me that maybe Duardin women would want armour more in keeping for their own bodies—complete with stylized helmets that don't have giant beards. With this in mind, I looked around and landed on Clockwork Angels from Warmachine.

Thinking in terms of the Bolter&Me post above, there are a lot of problems with the sculpt. They are have the standard (and cringe worthy) boob armour comment to a lot of fantasy minis. Also, the proportions are awkward with a shortened trunk and longer legs. And then, there's the curve of two of their backs which accentuates their breasts. However, the Artdeco motifs and steampunk aesthetic are pretty close to the Kharadron; the arms and wings are separate from the body, so conversions should be easier; and the shortened trunk is an asset when trying to compress the model to represent a Duardin.

My test model was to use extra bits leftover from a skyrigger sprue to build up a female endrinrigger. As you can see, I'm just using the body of the Clockwork Angel. I started by snipping off her right leg so that I can use both the legs for the KO. 

The legs look awkward by themselves; but once I added the arms, weapons, backpack and harness, things look a lot better. I use green stuff sparingly to help smooth over gaps—with models this small there wasn't the need to add much. Additionally, the tools and gubbins of an endrinrigger hide a multitude of sins.

All in all, I think she reads as a female SkyDorf without being too weird. I have two more models left in the Clockwork Angels pack—the leader and the other 'grunt.' I've toyed with the idea of an all-female team of endrinrigger weapons specialists, but I might also just disperse them throughout the army as well. 

 

Orctober

 

Morgok's Krushas

While this blog is ostensibly dedicated to chonky sky bois of the Kharadron Overlords, I couldn't help but celebrate Orctober by painting some green skins.

Here we have the recent Morgok's Krushas release for Underworlds. There's much more that could have been done by way of highlighting, accenting, and detailing; but since they are just for the occasional game, I decided that this will suffice.

Ironically, I haven't had a chance to play a game of Underworlds yet; and yet I now have four teams painted up—the two in the Beastgrave box (which I'll post at some point), Thundrik's Profiteers from last post, and Morgok's crew. 

Up on the painting bench next are more sky bois, and perhaps an attempt at a sky gurl as well. 

Painting the Profiteers

Thundrik's Profiteers

I originally picked up these bois because the lot of them cost less than a single Aether-Khemist. I painted the Bjorgen as a basic khemist hero, Dead-Eye Lund as a basic Grundstok Thunderer to add some weapon flexibility to that unit, added the mines to the Khazgan Drakkskewer to make him a skywardent, and then kit-bashed on the Arkanauts into a navigator (because that model is insane price-wise as well)—again, all for less than the price of the official khemist.  However, then I decided to get into Underworlds; and I needed to buy a second box to paint as the crossover unit between the two games. 

The main paint scheme I'm using for my Chonky Bois™ is mostly blue metallic with some golden bibs and bobs. To differentiate Thundrik and his Profiteers, I've basically inverted the colours here.  This lets them tie into the larger army while still looking distinct.

Why would I want that distinction? Well, in AoS, they are stuck as a unit and have to be from Barak-Nar. The colours here are pretty unique since I'm not sure which sky-port I want to run, but I'm sure it will be either Barak-Zilfin, Barak-Urbaz, or Barak Thryng. As such, there won't be any bonuses that Thundrik and his lads will be able to enjoy. 

My current idea is to scratch build a heavily modded Gunhauler, give it Coalbeard's Collapsible Compartments for Thundrik and the lads (and maybe an extra navigator), and then send them off as a commando unit to hunt objectives. This is possibly a horrible idea.

The paint recipe is pretty simple:

• Prime Black
• Heavy drybrush of VMC Gunmetal
• Light drybrush of VGC Silver
• Glaze blue bits with Citadel Guilliman Blue
• Glaze gold bits with mix of Citadel Contrast Iyaden Yellow and Gryph-hound Orange
• Another light drybrush of VGC Silver
• Finish the owl

Best!

Bjorgen's Tale

Bjorgen Thundrik

The titular leader of Thundrik's Profiteers sat in the corner of the tavern nursing a whisky. It was an unusual drink for a Duardin, but then again Bjorgen Thundrik was an unusual Duardin.

Ever since he and his boys had come out of that godforsaken mountain of Beastgrave things had been different. They had gone off to Shadespire in search of treasure and had found themselves separated from their skyvessel and fighting just to stay alive. 

Due to some sort of blasted magic of the place when they did finally emerge, it was in neither Ulgu nor Hysh but out of the living mountain in Ghur. Luckily by then they'd found their ship and were able to fly home with relative ease.

Relative ease is what they thought the rest of their life would be after loading up their with gunhawler with so much treasure it hung low to the ground like a damaged frigate. However, this when they learned that The Code wasn't really all the law their was among the Kharadron. 

Turns out that when you show up with enough riches to destabilize three sky-ports, people get a tad bit miffed at you. All that faux meritocratic bullshit peels off to reveal an all-too-common underbelly of those in power doing whatever they can to maintain control. And so, Bjorgen and the boys were on the outs, even while each could ostensibly buy and sell Brokk Grungsson three times over. 

And so, Bjorgen sat in the corner of the tavern nursing a whisky and nursing a grudge against the whole damn system. The whole blasted thing was a house of lies, and he was beginning to feel like the big bad wolf.

Meta Thoughts on GW, KO, and Gaming in General

Time for a bit of thinking out loud.

The Chonky Bois are my first foray into anything GW. I've played around with Malifaux, Kings of War, Wrath of Kings, Warmahordes, and Infinity; but I avoided GW largely because they seemed to spend a decade or so being complete shits to their base. And as a result, not many people locally were playing their games. Additionally, I'm not a huge fan of the whole Grimdark aesthetic, nor did I care for the game style of the Olde World of WFB. I simply had (and have!) no time for trays of rank and file. 

So, what's changed? Well... quite a bit. First, GW seems to be being better to their people. The culture of the company is changing. I also enjoyed their statement on tolerance published earlier this year. There was way too much cock in GW. They seem to be actively encouraging their base to put biases aside and create a safe place to play their games. 

Added to this are recent attempts to diversify the models and not just have hyped up white males and girls in chainmail bikinis. I say attempts, because even some of their recent models are a bit of a head scratcher; but I feel the need to give them an 'atta boy!' on this rather than be too critical. I want this trend to continue in all parts of the gaming hobbies. 

Additionally, I have to say that I really like parts of the aesthetic of Age of Sigmar. The Kharadron Overlords in particular, as this blog will attest, are a faction I can get behind. I don't particularly like KO lore, such as is—it literally makes no sense from a sociological perspective. I intend to change that a bit for my Bois here. But, I picked up the Start Collecting box largely based on the look of the models.

And then once I bought a box or so of the stuff I can see why people put up with the abuse from GW for so many years. The models are stunning: logical in how they build up; beauties to paint. I am borderline astounded how good they look with a few simple painting tricks and completely understand why the competitive painting circuit seems to gravitate towards GW for their bread-and-butter. Part of me wonders why it took me so long! But of course that came down to no one playing locally.

Which brings us to the last big change: players. A few friends during the tumult of 2020 have challenged me to build an army in the hopes that we can one day battle in-person. The one is quite keen and has actually finished a 2k army of StDs and is starting in on Gloomspite Gitz. The other friend has eschewed all decency and is building an entirely custom army of Fyreslayers—with custom weapons that we'll collectively have to design mechanics around. Indeed, we might wind up running One Page Rules rather than the actual Age of Sigmar given these issues. Custom work all around!

That last bit got me thinking of the sociological problems in KO lore and how to fix it with my Chonky Bois. I've been reading a lot of Death of a Rubricist, specifically their custom world building ideas. My hope is to do some of that here in this space coming up with some custom lore for my bois that makes more sense of how people actually act. That custom lore, along with pretty pictures, is what you'll see a lot of here in the future.

First Steps

The Great Work has begun. Whilst I've painted a few miscellaneous fellows for the Chonky Bois, the real work in an army of Kharadron Overlords are the skyvessels, and the process has been daunting. This Grundstok Gunhauler is my first real foray into painting these large models

Basic procedure here has been to work in sub-assemblies. The bois themselves were painted individually. The endrin (i.e. the dirigible) and its riggings were another assembly. Finally the whole gondola was painted in one go. Still a bit cumbersome, but undoubtably better than in one whole go.

As far as colours, I'm using a mix of old and new here. I prime black then dry brush with Vallejo MC Gunmetal & GC Silver. After that, different areas get different treatments. The blues are done with glazes of the old Citadel Guilliman Blue; but the golds have the more complex recipe of layers of Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde, followed by Citadel Shade Reikland Fleshshade, and then finally Vallejo yellow ink. This is then all edge highlighted with Vallejos MC Silver (which is slightly brighter than the GC to my eye). I really wish I could simplify this recipe—if I can find a pot of Citadel Contrast Iyanden Yellow, that might be close enough. 

Simplification is necessitates by the fact that I plan on running a flotilla of Grundstok Gunhaulers with a Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit as the admiral and endrinriggers for support. I might also include a squadron of grycopters (or gyrobombers) as well. DEATH FROM ABOVE! HUZZAH! 

 

New Year, New Blog

Why hallo!

Today is the first day of 5871 according to the Jewish Calendar—and who doesn't want to live in a world where it isn't 2020?!

Welcome to this new blog dedicated to my chonky bois: a custom Age of Sigmar Kharadron Overlord army. This blog is dedicated to the hobbyist life related to these sky dorfs. I hope to post pics and custom fluff as I bring these bois to life.