However, whether they are known as Dwarfs, Squats, Fyreslayers, Kharadron Overlords, or the Leagues of Votan, they can all trace their lineage back to the same ancient heroes.
Technically, the first multi-part plastic Dwarfs were made of the amazingly named 'psychostyrene' and came in blister packs of three for the amazing price of 75p.
Yes, I absolutely did pick up a pack with my pocket money, but sadly they disappeared long ago.
What I do have though, are these guys...
These are the Dwarfs from the Fantasy Regiments box, which boasted of 60 miniatures for £9.99 and contained 10 models of some x fantasy races: Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, Orcs, Goblins and Skaven.
Calling them multi-part was a bit of a stretch, given that this boiled down to two head options for each pose, alternate weapons for the Orcs, Skaven and Dwarfs, and optional shields for everyone except the Wood Elves.
As, you can see, I haven't retained any of the hammer options to replace the default axes, and a couple of the shields aren't original, but I did manage to make use of some spare Dark Elf crossbows to offer a bit of variation.
The cunning 'strapped-to-the-back' kitbash trick has allowed me to put together four rangers as well as the five clansdwarfs and also give a better look at the whole models.
To be fair, for almost 40 year old models (they were released in 1987) l, the hold up pretty well.
Yes, they are pretty much monopose and only rank up diagonally, but they are characterful minis that paint up.well. aldo, slight changes like the heads, weapon options and positioning of the shields (and crossbows) make for just enough variation.
The decision to use the crossbows was driven by a couple of factors. Firstly, I genuinely thought they were for the Dwarfs as I do not have any of the Dark Elves. Secondly, several of the Dwarfs had scarring on their backs from prior assembly and painting.
In fact, the guy with the shield on his back is hiding a pretty nasty gouge which had been made by a somewhat corrosive glue.
They'll look perfectly good when mixed up with a few more interesting metal miniatures, which leads me to...
This chap is not of the same provenance as the rest of my Dwarfs, being a 90's sculpt. He's also clearly a Ironbreaker (a heavily armoured Dwarf) and so can't really firm a unit with my hand weapon and shield crowd.
However, he was remarkable easy to paint.
Due to the amount of armour on display, I did all of this batch with a silver undercoat, hit them with a wash of Nuln oil and then worked up the other colours, allowing me to get them done pretty quickly.
Finally we get to these two heroes.
On the right we have Sven Hammer helm, the Dwarf hero from Advanced Heroquest. As it was released in 1989, Sven is a touch more spritely than the rank and file, and shows how quickly Games Workshop were moving forward in their development of plastic miniatures.
On the left, with the unfeasibly large axe, we have the Dwarf from Warhammer Quest from 1995. Already you can see an aesthetic change towards massively long beards, comically large weapons and more dynamic poses, something that would ultimately result in Fyreslayers balancing on their bizarrely unburnt beards (no, I'm not a fan of them).
These two, along with the Heroquest Dwarf, went on plenty of adventures with me as I tended to play the Dwarf in our games.
Looking back it does seem odd that I never got around to building a Dwarf army, but I think that the immobile gunline of Warhammer Fantasy Battles wasnt really appealing. Also, by 4th edition I could get a wider range of plastic Skeletons, High Elves and Goblins more easily, prompting me to focus on them.
It's a shame because I've really enjoyed painting these and so I might have got more Dwarfs for niahed at the time if I'd known.
As it happens, I now have the very beginnings of a Dwarf army by mixing my metal and plastic miniatures together. It is only a beginning as the entire force is currently less than 500 points in Warhammer The Old World.
I am.very tempted to keep going, but as with my Nurgle Warriors of Chaos army, I'd want to keep it strictly Oldhammer.
Alternatively, I might just have enough to think about old scenarios such as those from Terror of the Lichemaster or Bloodbath at Orcs Drift. It's something to think about.
Acquired: -73
Painted: 447
Lead Mountain: 325
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