Little Dwarves...Great Big Swords!!

Well...after more than two weeks I'm finally emerging from my post-LPL exhaustion and finding the time, and motivation, to think about upcoming projects to tackle.  I still have a few lingering things that I need to finish up for other folks...but my attention this weekend turned toward a new contest that we have just set up over at Bugman's Brewery.  While we will continue with our normal monthly painting challenge there has been some discussion of having a Unit painting challenge as well.  So starting on June 16th members of the forum are encouraged to select and paint a unit of no less that 10 models including a command section.

Luckily for me on almost exactly the same day that these discussions were finalized I received a box in the mail from White Knight containing his latest Puff and Slash Dwarf offering....the Zweihanders!  These little guys are the dwarf equivalent of the Landsknecht Dopplsoldners or Double pay soldiers....who were often some of the largest soldiers...and they were frequently armed with large two-handed swords.

I've have been eagerly awaiting the release of these models and they do not disappoint...they are quite remarkable in the quality of the sculpting (thanks John P.!) and the cleanness of the casting.

The range includes a complete command section...with a dwarf bag piper!...though I have chosen a different leader for my force...as you will see below

There are 4 single piece castings...some may call them the "action" poses

And there are 4 "unit filler" sculpts that have a more static pose and separate heads allowing you to make a variety of different "fillers"  While I love heads that came with the these two-part castings I had one sallet clad head left over from WKs infantry models that I was hoping to use....and luckily it took only a little modification to make it fit.  Here they are as built by me...

The second one from the lest is the pick of the litter IMO...He may be a new member of my top-5 favorite dwarf models ever....he is going to look bad-ass when painted up.  Third from the left...with the Sallet... is the guy I will be using as my unit hero.

I did use a bit of Green Stuff to ease the transition between the heads and bodies...this was not completely necessary but as these troops will become one of the elite units of my army I wanted looking their absolute best....The GS work is most evident on the backs of the models

So...if you have been counting...thats 3 command section figures....4 action poses and 4 unit filler poses...for a total of 11 figures.  11 is an uncomfortable number for a unit...so I decided to add one more great sword wielding dwarf to my unit.  I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that this guy might have inspired this whole batch of figures...he is one of the greatest Marauder sculpts produced in the late 80's and early 90's...one of the coveted MM15s

Despite more than 20 years, and different sculptors, separating this figure from the new WK offerings...you can see that he fits in perfectly....and here is the proof....a shot of the unit as a whole.

So...for the contest I will have to have all these guys painted up by mid August...I think that's doable...keep your fingers crossed!

Oh...yeah...and if you are interested in getting some of these wonderful figures for yourself make sure to stop by White Knights Miniature Imperium and look at all his wonderful offerings...click this link to see for yourself:  http://whiteknightminiatureimperium.blogspot.com/search/label/All%20posts

Cheers for now...I'll be posting WIP shots of these guys when I actually start slapping some paint on them.

Blue