6mm Dwarves for Fantastic Battles

As I mentioned previously, I'm putting together some 6mm Fantastic Battles armies using minis from my pile of shame.

I have decided that one of my first armies will be dwarves, partly because they are a relatively elite force, so I shouldn't need too many, and partly because I have quite a few already painted; they just need basing for Fantastic Battles (besides, they make great opposition for Bodvoc's Naughty Elves, and my orcs and goblins, if I ever get around to them).

Building the Army

Now Irregular do both Dwarves and Dark Dwarves, and of course I have quite a few of both. The former are one of their first 6mm armies. The detail is subtle, and they are slightly smaller than their dark kin, but overall they fit together pretty well.  None of my Dark Dwarves are painted.  No doubt when I bought them I intended them to be an army in their own right, but Fantastic Battles has lots of options for troop types, and I reckon the Dark Dwarves will provide the elites for my dwarves.  They give me pikes, crossbows and halberds in addition to spears, axes, crossbows, heroes and artillery from the original range.  

Looking at the sample Dwarf Kingdoms list in Fantastic Battles, I  can match a lot of the troop types there.  It does include Outcasts, which are basically berserkers.  I've never been fond of this trope for dwarves, but it would be nice to have something a bit different, so I'll include some Rangers whose job is to keep the trade roads open. These can easily done using a mix of the axe armed dwarves and the crossbows.  I'm not sure about Miners, it would be nice to have something to make use of the new Emerge trait, but I'm not sure what minis to use.

I'll use the Dark Dwarf Halberdiers as Royal Guard and the Pikes as City Watch.  I'm tempted to paint up some of the Crossbows as hunters to guard the royal family and fetch delicacies for the kings' table.

The Dark Dwarf command strips should provide the Warlord (The Dwarf King) and his various Captains, and the older Dwarf range will provide the bulk of the army; Clansdwarves, Clansdwarf crossbows and Militia (using the spear armed dwarves)

I'm short of anything fast though, I did think that the Irregular range included dwarves on ponies, which would give some sort of cavalry, but I was mistaken (probably confusing the 6mm range with the 15mm range).  So I decided that my dwarves, who I'm calling the Dwarves of the White Mountain, ally with the centaurs of the plains.  After all, the centaurs have to get their horseshoes from somewhere, and where better than from the best smiths in the world?  The centaur range gives me centaur archers and centaur spears/lancers.  I'm tempted to go with the Classical image of bucolic wine drinkers and give them the Stimulants trait.

I'm even tempted to make some crude stone constructs for Earth Elementals to add something a bit bigger to the list.

The Biggest Army starts with a Single Company (or three)

I've rebased some of the stuff I already painted (though a lot of it has gone missing - it'll turn up eventually).  This is a temporary measure while I paint up unpainted stuff, and I'll gradually replace the older dwarves, which will then be brought up to the current standard.

Rebased Clansdwarves

And how they looked before.  I think I must have based them for Hordes of the Things at one time, but I've no recollection of that project

So far I've got two companies painted, though the centaurs were already undercoated and drybrushed brown, so just needed a few little details.  As they are light troops, I cut the strip up to make a less ordered company.  The Dark Dwarf halberdiers, which are now the Royal Guard, were fun to paint, and pretty quick too.  There's enough detail to pick bits out, but not so much that your trying to paint belts or buttons on everything.  The White Mountain uses green and blue in it's heraldry, with a white mountain in the middle on flags and standards (where big enough for such detail).  Units get a distinguishing colour as well.  For the Guard, it's their purple cloaks, though of course I haven't shown this in the photo below.

Dark Dwarf Halberdiers (Royal Guard) and Centaur archers awaiting base finishing