Painting, Irondrakes and Convic Lists

The last week has been a bit of a blur for me, having gotten sick and then taken a long time to recover after getting ahead of myself and regressing. I think I'm on the mend this time though, which is good - because I suddenly seem to have a lot of work to do. 

I haven't entered a tournament in almost 6 months now, however I have been planning to enter Convic. I say planning, but really I gave it little thought until I realised that lists were due yesterday, and then had to suddenly scramble to work out what I was going to do. I did indeed enter, and started to think about lists. If Face Off is anything to go by, there will be about a million Wood Elf armies at Convic, and plenty of other Elves as well. I didn't want to be part of the problem, so decided against using Elves. I also figured I would be likely to get shot at a lot, so wanted an army that wouldn't just get picked off as it jogged across the table. That ruled out the Ogres I have available, and Orcs were not likely to be much better. And then I didn't want to use Empire again, because I've done that enough for now. 

So I am using Dwarfs. This feels ill-advised given that the only other time I took Dwarfs into a tournament, it put me off using them again for years. But they do have a new book and some new tricks, and it seems that plenty of people still don't really rate them. And I'm busily painting them anyway, so why not?

Turns out the answer to that "why not?" question is that I am an idiot, and incapable of fielding a list that makes use of the hundreds of painted Dwarfs I have already accumulated. So I've submitted a list for a tournament in 3 weeks, and it has 40 unpainted models in it. What is wrong with me?

The army as it currently stands.

Here is the list:

• Dwarf Lord with Shieldbearers, Gromril Armour, Great Weapon, 3 Runes of Warding, Rune of Stone
• Thane with Battle Standard, Gromril Armour, Great Weapon, Master Rune of Grungni, Strollaz's Rune
• Grimm Burloksson
• Josef Bugman
• 20 Quarrellers with Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Dwarf Crossbow, Full Command
• 20 Thunderers with Heavy Armour, Shield, Dwarf Handgun, Full Command
• 12 Miners with Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Standard, Prospector
• Gyrocopter with Vanguard, Steam Gun
• Gyrocopter with Steam Gun
• Cannon with Rune of Forging
• 12 Bugman's Rangers with Dwarf Crossbow, Great Weapon, Throwing Axes, Heavy Armour, Shield, Full Command
• 16 Irondrakes with Full Command, Strollaz's Rune

Total Army Cost: 2398 points

It's a slightly weird list, and I don't know how it will go or be received. Almost all the regiments are carrying missile weapons, so it looks like a gun line. But there's only a single war machine, and half the army has unusual deployment rules, so I'm hoping it will be more interesting than an average Dwarf gun line. 

Given how much painting I have to do, I have no intention of playing a practice game with the list, so the question of whether it actually works will have to wait until the tournament itself. I've been challenged in the first round by Daniel Bird, who will be running Wood Elves. He tells me he's never played Dwarfs before. I haven't played a game involving the new Wood Elf book yet, and my experience with the current Dwarf one goes back all of maybe 3 games. So between us our mastery shall be complete...

In other news, when I realised that I was probably going to take Dwarfs to Convic, I started assembling Irondrakes. These are one of the more interesting additions in the new Dwarf book, and I figured I would want some. But I'm not a big fan of the uniformity of the models, so I tweaked them where I could. This included using Ironbreaker heads instead of the Irondrake ones, and trying to adjust their poses with the guns where I could.

Turns out Ironbreaker beards are not compatible with big, fat two-handed guns. Hobby knives, files, and Dremels were engaged.

It now fits, more or less.

I've decided to go for just a single shoulder guard on each model, in an effort to break up their ridiculously rounded silhouette.

Oh, and I painted the second wave of Crossbowmen for my Duelling Gamers June quota. Whether I will get around to the final 5 models will depend heavily on how I'm feeling about my Convic preparations. I fear they are going to make a mess of my other painting for a while.

5 more painted Quarrellers.