28mm North Star Military Figures - Oathmark Heavy Dwarves - Unit 2 and Heroes

 Ok, the black armor came out better than the former unit, so THIS is the Black Metal Heavy Dwarves unit. 

Most of the faces were visible here, allowing for the corpse white faces, the blackened eye sockets, and blackened lips. The GW/Tolkein take on Dwarves is that they are vaguely Scottish, but another strong theme copies a Viking sensibility. So starting there, but trying a more paganistic angle, I aped the look of black and death metal bands. I'm more of a Thrash guy, but I have some fondness for the early progenitors of the genres that took off in Gothenburg and Norway.  The metal armor here is black, so the only real color is denim sleeves and the surcoat, where it peeks out here and there, all with silver studs - a basic look for metalheads. The flag itself is a giveaway as to inspiration here - more on that below. 

At least for the Dwarves, the "Hero" pack is the most armored of them all, so these are included below as well. The "Champions" seem to fit in with the regular Dwarf Infantry, and the Dwarf King, Wizard & Musician, I'll do when I get to the Light Infantry. 

Easy to do the Black Metal face on the, er face. I probably should have done her hair black too, but I don't see that in musicians of this genre; they tend to wear their hair in natural colors. I have some small regrets about doing her ears in white. I think it's mostly just the face that is painted. Ah well. 

As with the hammer gal, I have one regret - I left the ears flesh colored, but I did his bald head all white too. I also see my brush tips are too blinkered to do fine scratches on the hammer head. 

Armor on everyone was done with ProAcryl Dark Silver, this was highlighted with Army Painter Plate Metal, THEN it was given a layer of Armor Wash from P3. For the first unit of heavy dwarves, I used the armor wash before all the highlighting. All gold was Glittering Gold from Two Thin coats. That is a magic paint, I tell you, very finely ground and just lovely in one coat. It's nice, bright, and punchy against all the darker colors here. 

This is the intended officer - a plastic mini, whereas the Heroes are metal.

There are three swordsmen among the rank and file, and I love the idea of swords being super bright which is more evident in real life than in this pic, but I gotta sing the praises of Vallejo Model Air - Silver. It is the brightest, smoothest silver I've ever used; I'll be using it wherever I can for final highlights on white metals. These particular swords had small mould lines along their lengths that I neglected to eliminate, marring the overall effect, but still: satisfactory. 

If you don't know, the Little Big Men Studios, Shield and Banner set is not intended to work with the Heavy Dwarf set. Yes, the smaller gray banner fits on this flag pole, but the better one (the black one) is twice the height! Too bad, it really would have been perfect for this unit. Where did this flag come from? Google found me the goat on a black field, Google Gemini provided the "dwarfish runes, border and symbols." In Excel, I made three cells with a blue background, then pasted two flags side by side within the blue borders and printed, then cut it out and touched up the edges. Easy peasy! 

This is many times more effective than the Excel flag I made for the Perry Linebreakers in this picture. I really need to go back and redo that. I have transfers and stuff that can make this infinitely better. 

For this flag, here's what I started with. One prompt later:

I wouldn't say these are Chaos dwarves, but they could also just be evil dwarves. Oathmark allows for strange allyships with the way the campaign map works, so these could easily be in alignment with an Undead Oathbreaker faction, or go against other dwarves in a civil war-type scenario. OR they could just be the strange toughs in an otherwise traditional Dwarf army.

Here are all the heavies mopping up a unit of orc archers. Heh, behind those mountainous facades are the assembled, but unprimed knights from Wargames Atlantic I need to get to. 

Building plastic kits, or cleaning up models and priming them up, is fun and rewarding in and of itself. However, I have locked myself in with primed models everywhere, on this table, my former "main" painting table, on shelves, everywhere I look. So instead of not buying anything til I paint up something, I'm not going to build or prime anything new until I get some of this stuff completed and out of here. I've had a good run in 15mm last year and cleared off a lot of old projects, but it's time to get some of this 25/28mm stuff completed. 

Anyone else read Bernard Corwell's Sharpe novels? I've read all but the two latest ones, but just completed Sharpe's Assassin, which has me itching to get some of this Peninsular War stuff into play. Yes, I've tended to focus on Russia, but I plan to do a comparable project for Napoleon's western front in Spain and Portugal. New Perry releases are also contributing to this mania with the brilliant Skirmish in a Box and now a new set of Guerrillas coming out as I type this.

I've daringly invested in more medievals, too. This is a project I never had much love for, but that early side that the Barons Wars era covers has got me in its clutches! I would love to assemble all this stuff from Victrix too, but I'd be forced to carry them around in my hands, having no surface on which to put them down! I need to build the rest of the orcs and dwarves too!

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

Cold Wars 2026- Saturday Morning Observations

 I made a point of checking my expectations before Number 2 and I headed out into some of the most unpleasant chills in years to see what was happening at Cold Wars Saturday morning. Since I've noticed the quality of conventions declining steadily, I wanted realistic expectations going in, so I wouldn't end up frustrated or bringing in a lot of negative energy. Expecting a small but friendly con, we stepped into the short line at Registration.

And since I first started coming to HMGS conventions over 25 years ago, I've always been a day tripper. I think I've spent the night once at a Historicon one year, but generally, I like to swoop in, hit the dealer hall, poke around Wally's, then get some inspiration from the best tables. I'm typically done by afternoon. Imagine my surprise when admission for the two of us for said purpose was over 80 dollars! I don't think I've used a single swear word in this entire blog, but fuck off. I can't imagine a better way to kill participation than this foolishness. In fact, I don't think I'm gonna bring any family members ever again. I may skip Cold Wars myself. Purest enshitification move ever: offer markedly less, and then charge significantly more. This follows trends seen in so many aspects of American life, from onscreen entertainment, publishing, music, to restaurants and grocery stores. I hate to see my hobby go this route, so I say again, fuck off. 

Of course, there are two possibilities. One is greed. Could be. The other is worse, the math doesn't math. Not enough demand. Folks who insist the hobby is as strong as ever need a check. On the historical side, it is in trouble. The growth seems to be elsewhere as there are tons of new paints, new Sci-Fi, and Fantasy stuff. In my lifetime, I've seen the embrace, then the utter rejection of a whole scale - 15mm! I've not even seen a Warlord Epic Game that wasn't put on by the manufacturer. Was there a 15mm vendor in the dealer hall? Maybe some buildings? Wally's is full of 15mm armies at every convention.

Too bad, as there were some great conversations and great tables - Cold Wars is a fun place to be for a few hours. I'd put it at a $30 dollar value for the two of us. Number 2 doesn't game or paint, but inexplicably still likes to hang out with her dad on these excursions. She's an extra pair of hands, too, when the credit card begins to buckle as it frequently does three times a year, But, because of the size, we had shopped and seen everything there was to see by about 11:30 and were done. Brigade Games was the only real draw for me this weekend, and I spent some at Your Hobby Place too, a  regional chain with a location some 20 minutes from my home. Indeed, the online pictures of buildings at Diabolical Terrain exactly matched the ones on display. About half the time, a vendor will tell me they didn't bring this and that, so go ahead and order it online when you get home, bah!  

Because of the cold, we didn't go down to the barn to see the tournament games. They have mostly been the same kinda thing every year.

The mood was positive everywhere, like I said, lots of friendly conversations. Lots of enthusiasm around existing tables, too, but I think overall it felt very underattended. Maybe less than at the Eisenhauer last year? Super Bowl weekend must have suppressed turnout to some degree as well, I'll wager.

I'm glad to see Pillage maintaining a foothold. Wally's was so underlit that it was easy to move through it quickly. And as is typical, my documentation only covers Saturday morning, so there may have been some games/events I never saw. 

Still wrankled by the admission charges, I was less enthused about documenting everything I was shooting. So this will be a more potpourri presentation with less captioning than normal. Grats to all the GMs and players - lots of beautiful and fun-looking games! In no particular order, here are the tables that caught my eye: 

Some Blood and Plunder - always cool!

I love this, but I'm gonna do it in 15mm!

Planters! Love it!

This table greeted us as we entered the Ballroom

I'm sure I've shot this teddy bear fur mat before but it's so excellent. And it has my favorite Crescent Root Studios stuff on it. Let's linger a spell ...

ahh ... wasn't that nice? 

I love the aridity of this presentation - I need an icy glass bottle of Coca-Cola just looking at it. You know, the kind with condensation all over it, the sun shining through its caramel-y goodness!

Are these those kits from Sarissa Precision?

You remember the Alamo, don't you? This is one of two Alamo games set up for Saturday.

Pillage with 12 players! I couldn't get in close enough ...

Quite a few 15mm games going on - that's one reason I like going to these smaller cons. 

This may be my favorite of the show. Really well done!

Not my cup of tea, this one, but I am attracted to shiny lights!

This is a Russo-Ukraine battle! Too soon? They even have little drones in play.

This year's theme was Wild Wild West! Tons of great set-ups - much to enjoy, but not at these prices. Looking back, I wrote about Cold Wars last year, and then not until 2012. So I missed it for over a dozen years in the past and will likely do so again in the future. It's an almost three-hour drive, and if I can't bring the girls, I'm gonna skip the whole thing entirely.

What did you all think? How do you rate this Cold Wars compared to past ones?

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858