The Longbeard's Tale

These seven Dwarfs are certainly not dopey, but do look somewhat grumpy.

I've really been enjoying painting older metal miniatures recently, and so I took the opportunity to continue painting some 1980s Citadel Dwarfs: which include some of the very first miniatures I owned.

The range of Imperial Dwarfs were released in 1987 and I think I must have picked up my first pack of three around that time, making them almost 40 years old.

They are great, dynamically posed sculpts that hold up against modern cad designed miniatures. They just seem to have more life and personality about them.

The blue and white colour scheme is a nod to Wayne England's Dwarf Longbeards, featured in White Dwarf #135, which to my mind have always typified how Warhammer Dwarfs should look.

This mailed chap was actually on display in the history of Warhammer display when I went to Warhammer World last week. I'd painted him the night before.

It's a bit of a reminder that you are getting on in years when your childhood toys feature in what is essentially a museum. It also emphasised that I needed to finally get the rest of them out of the paint queue.

One of the downsides of randomly packed blister packs was that you ended up with duplicates, especially when your only supplier was a model shop that only had a single small rack of GW miniatures available.

I took what I could get.

The duplicate Dwarf came in a pack of Norse Dwarfs that included this berserker and an 'ulfhednar' that I no longer have.

I don't think the Norse Dwarfs are anywhere near as good as the Imperial Dwarfs as the sculpting is not as good. The left side of his face is a bit mushed up and the whole miniature is just a lot less crisp.

This fella is the most venerable of the bunch. He's from the Citadel Dungeon Adventurers box (BDD01), part of a range released in 1985 to accompany Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The box featured one of each type of character you could play and name on his tab is 'Dwarf'.

He was one of six miniatures I think my brother was given before I was collecting, and so is probably one of the very Citadel Miniatures I ever set eyes on.

He's great.

Packed full of detail and character, perfectly encapsulating the stereotypical Dwarf D&D character. At some point I'll use him as my PC mini.

The final one of the bunch is the youngest. He's a Marauder Miniatures Giant Slayer released in the early nineties. As such there's a slightly different look to him.

I used to drool over the Marauder army deals that featured in White Dwarf, but I was never able to afford them. However, I believe the metal Trollslayers GW are re-releasing for Warhammer: The Old World are from this same range, and do he might end up with some friends.

I'm not sure if this is going to turn into an army. I do have a few equally old plastic Dwarfs to add, but nowhere near enough to make anything that could be described as an army. However, I am really enjoying painting them so this might be something I add to...slowly.

In other news, it's my birthday.

I think I mentioned in the last post that I took the opportunity whilst at Warhammer World to pick up reprinted copies of the two Realms of Chaos books that I foolishly sold some years ago (although, technically I've made a profit on the exchange).

I also picked up six Questing Knights, and the Green Knight for my Bretonnians as birthday presents as I'm really enjoying painting metal and they are great miniatures. However, this does mean I've technically made no progress.

Finally, it's not a present, but Matt has kindly printed out my V Shuttlecraft from the 7TV 80s Kickstarter, but this acquisition is cancelled out by me giving the Stormcast wizard I had from the first issue of Stormbringer magazine to the Cheapling to encourage her new interest in painting.

It's in her Lead Molehill now.

Acquired: 17

Painted: 243

Lead Mountain: 829