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.

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). 

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.