Greetings Terrans, how goes it? On my last RoW post I promised I’d have some Chaos Dwarves to share with you… I am a man of my word:

I am absolutely delighted by these – there are only two modern Chaos Dwarves that I know of (one in the Spire Tyrants set, and one in the Iron Golems set), so I knew I had to be creative. I first looked at the Warcry book for the forces of Order to make sure that Fyreslayers were in there. Happily they are, and so I got myself a set of 5 Fyreslayer ‘Hearthguard Berzerkers’ as my start point. I cut down the heads & replaced the original helmets with the top sections of various Chaos Space Marine helmets, (I’m not a fan of big-hat Chaos Dwarves, so this more classic look is perfect for me). A bit of Greenstuff was needed to create hair, add noses back in and so on, and I changed the belly-plate glyphs for skulls, but overall, the conversion work was actually pretty straight forward.

I went with a very pale flesh, and made the Fyreslayer runes look a bit more Chaotic and infected – very satisfying work. Here they are individually:

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I am beyond pleased with how these four turned out – this is exactly the kind of thing that got me excited about the project in the first place. Riding that wave of excitement, I did another write:

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The Tale of Scynir the Architect – Part 3

Scynir’s warband rested in shattered temple, warmed by the campfire, and feasting on the food and wine of the vanquished band of hunters. Her injured warriors had been patched up, and baring a few scars, all would make a full recovery. The Beastmen were in particularly boisterous form, and, delighted with the rescue of the shaman Gorshag, they were already drunk in celebration.

Scynir did not join in the drinking – she was unsettled. For a while she had been sensing a strange source of power, and it was growing closer. The captive elf sat next to Scynir, and the quiescence of her bovine skull indicated that there was no danger in the vicinity, yet still Scynir felt uneasy. She closed her eyes and meditated on the sensations. The power was sorcerous, but it was unlike her own power or that of Gorshag, which relied on the winds of magic. Instead, this power seemed to be self-contained, bound to objects that somehow gave the magic form. The magic itself was structured and ordered, but had the distinct taste of corruption and chaos. It was intriguing! She felt the whispers of her Lord Tzeentch caress her mind.

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“Relax little one, I have a gift for you.”

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She was drawn out of her meditation by shouts of alarm, and the angry bellowing of Beastmen. She looked across the fire, and saw that four Dwarves stood impassively in the midst of all the clamour. They all carried exquisitely crafted axes, and were clad only in loincloths, belly plates and horned helms, and of course, the full beards common to Dwarves everywhere. Their otherwise bare flesh was pallid in the firelight, and the unmistakable runic implants of the Fyreslayers were hammered into their heavily muscled flesh. Scynir had met this kind of Dwarf and their marvellous golden runes before, but these were not of the pure gold that she had previously seen… Rather they were of a dark blue steel, and they hummed with chaotic power.

One of the more hot-headed Ungors leapt at the Dwarves, the firelight glinting on the flint dagger that it held in its clenched fist. With a yell, it stabbed at the nearest dwarf, but instead of cutting through flesh, the blade shattered with a crack as it touched the skin, and the steel runes flared with a baleful blue light. The Beastman barely had had a moment to register surprise before a blow with the flat of the Dwarf’s axe blade sent the poor creature crashing unconscious to the ground. Scynir stood and shouted at her warband to hold any further attacks, and once order had been restored, she addressed the Dwarves.

“You are bold fellows to march into my camp unannounced… Who are you and what do you want” she demanded.

One of the Dwarfs stepped forward and held up a fist that clenched the long hair of four severed heads. Scynir recognised them as some of the hunters who had ran when her warband attacked the camp. The Dwarf spoke:

“I am Hathorn, called Oathbreaker, and we caught these worms out in the hills… We teased a merry tune out of them with fire and blade, and it seems that we have a common purpose. These are my brothers, Gurlaff, Figurt and Gorf, and we are exiled by our kin for following the word of Tzeentch and experimenting with the ancestral runes of our people. We serve the same master as you do, and we would join you if you will have us.”

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“See? Some delicious morsels of power for you to study little one – see how I reward your service?”

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Scynir nodded to the Dwarves and indicated a place at her side:

“Greetings Hathorn, our Master bids me to accept you and your kin into my warband. Come, sit with me and tell me about these experiments”

The remaining warband members settled down as the Dwarves made themselves comfortable. From just four warriors, the band had grown to fourteen plus Scynir herself, and was rapidly becoming a force to be feared.  

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I hope you enjoyed that folks, more to follow.

Oh, and one other thing – I had a message last week that my Blog has just had its 8th Anniversary!! I don’t think I would’ve believed anyone if they had told me 8 years ago that Leadballoony would still be going strong in 2022, but here we are… Funny old world eh? :-)