Free Dwarfs of Bowland

At the end of last Years KoW Tournament season in the UK I painted a Brock Rider Army to utilise a copy of Mario Murillo’s army that won the UK Clash of Kings :slight_smile: This consisted of Four Brock Regiments , a horde of Ironwatch Rifles , Ogre Shooters and three Organ Guns.

After the release of Third Edition and the downgrading of the Brock Riders Nerve the Army fared slighty worse and , after a period of contemplation , I sold the Army.

After this I found that I still had a large number of Brock Riders and Dwarfs , so rather than dispose of them I decided to paint them up “in the background” of my normal painting , needless to say as soon as I started again I was hooked on painting the little guys up again. This caused much merriment amongst the KoW Community in the UK as I was painting an army similar to one I had already used and sold , but never underestimate the stubborness of Dwarfs :joy:

So , for your delectation I would like to share with you the Free Dwarfs of Bowland (the Forest of Bowland is an upland area in the North of England where I currently reside, it is providing the background for this army and an associated Blog) and hope they are pleasing to your eyes.

The Army Commander is the Daughter of Sveri Egilax , Bleu Sveridottir , her wild hair is based on that of my Partner ( who also plays KoW and her wild hair colours are well known on the UK Tournament circuit :rofl: )


As it is considered to be bad etiquette for ,even a Dwarven, Lady to be unaccompanied in the presence of so many unmarried males ( even on a battlefield) Bleu is accompanied by a troop of Berserker Handmaidens on Brocks.


I wouldn’t want to argue with these Girls !

The vast bulk of the Army is made up of Regiments and Troops of Berserker Brock Riders , following the Bowland tradition each Regiment picks a hair colour from the palette of their beloved Leader to help identification on the battlefield and allow easy acknowledgement of their valor and prowess. ( also allows their handler to keep track of their artifacts , in this incarnation of the Army I have avoided pink AND purple hair as being slightly colourblind I found I could not tell those Regiments apart on the table lol )

The Traditional “Bleu” regiment

The Mighty " Greens"

The Fearsome “Pinks”

The Throwback “Orange” Regt

As the Troops are formed ad-hoc from the parent Regiments they consist of a mix of troopers all vying to prove their Regiment is best , this makes the Troops the most volatile of the Bowland Troopers , prepared to do the most foolhardy manoeuvres to impress Bleu.


But before You think that the Army of Bowland is all about Brock Riders here are some infantry to support the Brock Riders in the defence of their Mountain Holdfasts.

Brave Rangers patrol the borders of the Mighty Forest of Bowland , keeping the Free Dwarfs safe and appraised of the movement of any hostile forces without.


Helping the Rangers with their patrolling and also tasked to track any rare trespassers in the actual forest are the Mastiffs and Handlers , these fierce warhounds are trained to fight and destroy the enemies of the Free Dwarfs.


The actual Holdfast of Bowland is defended by the Shieldbreakers , these troops have adapted to living on the surface in their destroyed hold and can fight flexibly in Hordes, Regiments or even troops , using their scouting abilities to approach enemies before bombarding them with Mastiffs and following up with their devastating hammer strikes.


To enable the Bowlanders to hold their own against the large numbers of grotesque creatures being arrayed against them these days the Stone Priests of the Holdfast have summoned the fearsome might of Earth Elementals from the smashed rock of the collapsed Dwarven Halls they now live amongst. These awesomely powerful troops bolster the defences of the Free Dwarfs against the new terrors of Pannithor.


These Elementals were summoned using my 3D printer due to not wanting the cost and weight of the official metal models , after a spray and drybrush they look the part and perform equally as well on the table :wink:

Occasionally Sveri Egilax comes to visit his Daughter in Bowland and sometimes leads her forces himself.

But possibly the most flamboyant of Bleu’s followers is the onetime king of a smaller Dwarf Hold in the North , who was driven out by the foul Abyssal Dwarfs and swore to revenge them as best he could. He settled in the Holdfast of Bowland as this gives him the opportunities he craves to fight his dark cousins. Once a Mighty King but now a Berserker Lord with Wings of Honeymaze he is still known to friends and Foes alike as “WINGY KINGY”



As anyone that has faced him on the field of battle knows how irritating he is and how much of a charmed life he leads :joy:

As I finish off more units of the Free Dwarfs of Bowland I will post a Part II on here or you can take a look at my fledgling Blog Here

Thank You for looking :hugs:

14 Likes

Truly awesome :slight_smile:

This is soooooo good!

Oh I dig this!

I have a free dwarf army in the works. How did you sculpt those cloaks and hoods? They look great!

I used green stuff to make the hoods , sculpted on with a dentists tool , the cloaks are already on the Dwarf models , I just picked out the bodies with cloaks . I am working on a step by step of the Rangers for my Blog and will post up when its done :slight_smile:

2 Likes

nice work. Clever use of spare giant heads to make rocky sculps of them too

Must have missed the army post initially - really great stuff all round

Since my last post I have been very busy expanding the Free Dwarfs of Bowland :slight_smile:

I have added another Regiment and two troops to the Ranger Contingent.




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And to lead the Rangers I have painted the Living Legend Herneas the Hunter

And for a bit of Support I am currently working on Banick Kholearm in his new FlamePriest guise :slight_smile:



The Berserkers have not been neglegted , with the arrival of two Brock Mounted Berserker Lords to help control the Brock Rider hordes :wink:






And as part of my quest to develop the Background for the Army and have some fun doing it I have added an allied contingent of Frostfang Cavalry.
I found these TT Combat Armoured Bears online , they are lovely and cheap and look great , I wanted to paint and include them in the Free Dwarfs, but the only way to do that was proxy an existing Free Dwarf unit or utilise them as something different , so the Bears became a horde of FrostFang cavalry :smiley:



And to further expand my selection of choice , I have started to collect and paint some of Westwinds Spear Dwarfs , to me these capture the look of Free Dwarf Spear Levy exactly and with their new boost with the inclusion of the “Tracker” keyword , these wily Free Dwarfs will soon be supporting their Ranger brethren on the battlefields of Northern England :hugs:

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As Ever the task of painting and playing the Free Dwarfs of Bowland continues , It has been just over a Year since I first used the Free Dwarf Brock List and the continueing development and practise is paying off :wink:

I will be posting again soon as I am working on another Greater Earth Elemental and some allied “Centaur” Cavalry to go with the Ranger Force.

7 Likes

Such good work. Those rangers and spear levy look just right and that OSL is spot on.

Sweet work, i love them,