In all the Cities and Counties of the Old World, Dwarven ex-pats live and work alongside humans.  They labour in smiths and mills, in mines and guardrooms.  They put together militia and regiments for their communities.  They live alongside humans, as friends, colleagues, and comrades.  But in every human pub, inn, bar, and tavern, everywhere that dwarf and man drink together, the same complaint is heard… “this beer tastes like piss”.  In order to keep the dwarf diaspora in beer, hundreds of carts leave the mountains every year, travelling across the extent of the Old World to reach eager customers sick of the watery human brew.  In order to protect these carts, guards are hired.  Occasionally a slayer or two might join the wagon, in the hope that a thirsty troll shows up along the way.

Aside from the Hero Quest miniature a few years ago, when I first started painting, these are the first Dwarfs I have done.  I’m quite pleased with them, particularly the beards on a couple of the Ironbreakers.

The Bugman’s Cart came out of my bits box incomplete.  I used a couple of bits of sprue to remake the yoke, ordered some wheels from Ramshackle Miniatures, and used a random pack horse from the leadpile – if you know where the horse comes from, do let me know!  I am happy with the conversion work, though I think I could have done better.  I’ve painted the carter to look like he’s wearing denim dungarees and site boots, though I’m unsure how obvious this is.  To paint the horse I followed some instruction from WD 197 (I think), which mostly looks ok but I think I need some more practise.

The guards are from a variety of ranges and represent all the dwarfs I could find in the leadpile.  There’s a plastic dwarf, which I thought came from the PBS3 Warhammer Regiments Box, but checking now shows that I’m wrong about that.  Can you recognise the plastic dwarf with axe and shield?  Three dwarves are mid-90s Ironbreakers.  Two are 00s LOTR dwarfs – one was missing his hands, the other had lost both arms along the ways.  The dwarf missing his hands was easy enough to repair, but the dwarf sans arms was a bit trickier.  I have plenty of dwarf arms knocking about, but only in heroic scale.  I hope that the banner helps to disguise this a bit!  If anyone asks, its because he skips leg day.  Finally there is a 90s Trollslayer and a Hasslefree dwarf.  Both are lovely models that I really enjoyed painting, but it is with the Hasslefree dwarf that that the scale difference really shows between Kev White’s realism and the Citadel heroic.

All in all, this project took a long time, and I’m pleased with it.  Some bits could have been done better, but I learnt a few new idea and techniques and hopefully the next lot will be better.  I hope you like this unit!