Dark Hammers Hardened Veterans Chaos Squats Preview

Dark Hammers Hardened Veterans Work In Progress

Pirate Vox Operator and Mutated Pirate Trooper

 Banner Bearer Chaos Squat with Tentacles, with Extra Tentacles

 Dark Hammers Commander Gygax and Flamer Trooper Adventurer 2

 Dark Hammers Commander is the Maxxev Space Dwarf with Added Bits

Melta Gunner Kyuss, Pirate Bismarck Devotee and Over-Accessorizer

 Adventurer 3 and Plasma Gunner with Horns and Spikes

Pirate with Hook-Arm and Slicey Additions

 Last Hammer, another Squat Pirate

This Hungry Ghosts post brought to you by American Pickers

Thunder Chiefs Rough Riders Number 10: Trollo Foutengeur

The Hungry Ghosts Thunder Chiefs Rough Riders squad is finally complete with the addition of Trogoth "Trollo" Foutengeur, a shameful 19 months after his primordial gestation in the bits box. Trollo here raises the question, though he is clearly 1 miniature for gaming purposes, what does he score as for miniature painting progress? 1 base = 1 mini? Trollo's bike's wheels are sliding over the edges, and our Pit Slave is barely hanging on. Vehicle + Driver = 2, Pit Slave is large angry base-flocking? Vehicle + Driver + Victim = 3, and we have a mini-diorama on the cavalry base? Is this best left as an argument for Legolas & Gimli?

Anyway, we've gone completely Road Warrior with this Biker. Like a spiky bat out of hell, Trollo is waving his shotgun in the air in a mad attempt to plow down his foe from the Cursed Earth using his bike's engine pipes before getting his head blown off by what even our Chaos Squats must recognize as a freakishly large pistol.

Trollo's Land Rocket starts with the very-pointy Spiked Skull Battering Ram from the Warhammer Siege series. To maintain the round shape, the rear section of the Ram is surrounded by 2 curved toothy jaw-plates from the Ogre Hand with Bear Trap, by getting rid of the hand part. To maintain proper skull levels, the gap in the top was filled with the Skull with Spike bit from the GorkaMorka Wrekka Trukk.

The front part of the engine was made to spread out to the sides, similar to the handlebars, Trollo's arms, and his seat back, with a tilt upward for a triangular shape. The central dome is the rear cover of the plastic Dwarf Cannon with a nice curved spike from the decades-old Skeletons sprue. Once again, smoke launchers are called to duty as exhaust pipes, this time a double-stack of the Space Marines Dreadnought launchers.

The bulk of the front engine section, wheel, and axle is made from most of the Seat from the 2nd version of the Blood Bowl Dwarf Death Roller (minus the long pipe). As we can see, the Seat provides a nice set of pistons and pressure chambers, while the front wheel fits into the bottom gap between the Ogre-trap-jaws. On the other hand, substantial regions of the Seat have a wood grain pattern which needed to be hidden with a nice Shovel (metal from the old Dwarf Miners Equipment sprue) and some greenstuff to strap down the shovel and attach the front an rear halves of the motor-trike.

Trollo from the right, with Dwarf Beer Stein close at hand. The curved studded engine pipes about to pummel our Pit Slave are from a 1990s Chaos Warriors Musician Horn bit. Both hide the wood grain pattern on this side. The rear wheels and chassis under Trollo are from the Ork Hop-Splat Gun. The handle bars are the top half of the Ork Bike Front Wheel part, with the front wheel and spokes used for fellow Thunder Chief Ken. With a similar rivet pattern, a conveniently sized curve, and a reasonable amount of skulls, Chaos Terminator Trophy Racks have been placed behind the rear wheels.

The Trophy Racks also fit right in between the wheels and the rear section of the engine, which is a Space Marine Servitor Heavy Bolter Backpack with some plastic bits to make it more interesting - ribbed thin tube from the Rogue Trader Eldar Arms, thick tube from RT Ork Power Axe, curved canister from IG Flame Thrower Backpack; Explosive Tipped Axe from the usual source, the Empire White Wolves sprue.

Trollo's fearsome-but-luxurious winged skull seat is from 1990s Vampire Counts Lord Melkhior, bent to Squat-height with the bottom nicely sliding under Trollo.

Trollo himself is one of the Squat Pirates with no official name. His cyber-arm and shotgun are from the Necromunda Pit Slaves Chief. His wooden peg-leg was replaced with a metal peg of long-forgotten origin. Aside from his fat belly, we gave Trollo some more 3-dimensionality with another Eldar Guardian Arm tube added to the Pit Slave Arm, some little belt pouches, and a Khorne Berserker grenade conveniently placed right below the lit cigar.

Armless Trollo was supplied with a right arm from the Confrontation Human Bare Arms sprue (hurray for GW proportionality!). It has been made less bare with the addition of an armored shoulder plate from a WFB Empire something-or-other, supplemented with a small backpack bit from the Mordheim Accessories sprue and some cloth-streamers waving in the wind, chopped off of an Empire Knight Head.

Trollo also violates the all-Citadel regulation with an Antenna attached behind his ear, from a very old Dark Horse Miniatures Robotech Veritech mecha. His foot pedal is just a lump of greenstuff.

A closer look at Trollo's prey - this one is Necromunda Pit Slave 2. That pistol is bigger than his head (huzzah for GW proportionality!).





Oh, I also added a
big-ass Horn in the
center of Trollo's forehead -
Look Mommy, Unicorns do exist!
















Trollo versus the Eldar. The inclusion of an action-posed enemy on the base makes things a little weirder on the table-top, compared to the usual use of corpse-position additions. This Eldar War Walker appeared in White Dwarf 323, as part of the new round of Eldar made for 40K 4th Edition (eBay, not painted by me, color-scheme is not nearly complex enough).

More Col Iron Beard Command Squad Chaos Squats: Slag Zwartwaal

The next 3 Hungry Ghosts from the Col Iron Beard Command Squad have no significant conversions. They were painted a while ago as a break from painting Eldar, before I became obsessed with the Space Dwarfs, and realized that their smaller surface area made for faster painting. So these bearded-battle-brothers will appear in the heat of battle for extra excitement.

First up is Trooper Slag Zwartwaal. He is one of my oldest Squats, the only Bob Olley sculpt in a Space Dwarfs blister pack of 5. Here we see Slag from the front, ambushing a Space Pirate with his autogun. Zwartwaal is one of the Bob Olley designs that are hard to convert- the man doesn't like non-textured surfaces, and usually keeps any weapons or other gear in a position that makes it tough to swap them. But I can't promise that I won't give in to the urge to convert him at some point.

The ungulate skull on Slag's base is a metal bit, not from GW, but I can't remember where. Our Space Pirate is a GW model, and is an old Space Marine wearing Mark 3 Iron Armor. Iron Beard's warriors are facing a mixed band of pirates, including Orks and other less well-defined entities. And let's recall that Col Iron Beard himself is from the poorly-publicized Squat Pirates series.

Col Iron Beard and Zwartwaal from above, showing the integration of Slag's gun with both arms, chest, and beard; a strong thwart to the would-be mutator. Zwartwaal already comes with strange cybernetic additions to his head as well.

In this picture, the Hungry Ghosts face off with Rogue Trader era Eldar. The commander Lessei Moondancer is not merely pointing his waybread-stained finger at Col Iron Beard, but is armed with a Jokaero Digital Weapon. Made by strange orangutan-like aliens that were strangely re-introduced as an elite option for the Grey Knights army last year (with a similar miniature available from Reaper), these tiny versions of powerful guns could wreak havoc upon the playability of a carefully planned scenario under the Rogue Trader rules (when a Games Master was part of the 40K system).

Iron Beard's team is joined by some fellow Khorne Renegades, an Ex-Tech from the RT601 Adventurers series, and Hacker Harris and Catachan Luke from the RT7 Mercenaries series (which featured Squat No.1 Irn Bonce). Here they face the nefarious mutant champions of Tzeentch and Slaanesh.

Zwartwaal has one small addition, a skull with nails driven in it placed snugly in the gap at the back of his belt between pouches and pistol (from one of the Inquisitor-scale Arco-Flagellants).

What is Catachan Luke looking at?

Sneaky Harlequins!