As described in the previous post, the miniatures required for the army had been assembled. Now it was time to build and paint my new Dwarves.
s the bulk of the Army consisted of Mantic’s Berserker Brock Riders, which are a fiddly multi-part PVC kit and I had been warned that they were difficult to put together, I decided to set up a production line. All the components were removed from the packaging and matched together, each Brock is in two halves which then also have 3 small armour plates to be glued on and there are two variations in pose and armour. There is also a separate saddle front. The Riders come as a body,a head, a right arm with weapon and a wolf cloak with tiny separate heads in two variations.
Once the component parts had been sorted and laid out on the kitchen table I then put the kettle on and prepared to fit the bodies together, having built mantic’s Basilean horses before ( also a PVC model) I was forewarned as to what was required. One half of each Brock body was dipped in the hot water until soft them pressed against its matching half and squeezed until they fit perfectly , then the whole was run under the cold tap to set the plastic into shape. This enabled me to minimize the gaps between the two halves as sometimes the PVC material warps quite significantly as it comes out of the mould.
Then all I had to do was glue the two halves of the brocks together, using Superglue not Polystyrene cement, and then glue the little armour plates on as well.
The riders then had their arms, heads and saddles glued on, initially I glued the cloaks onto the backs as well but then found it nigh impossible to get the little wolf heads onto the cloaks so I did all the cloaks separately (more of this later) before gluing them, en masse, onto the Riders.
Once the Brocks and riders were assembled I sprayed the Brocks with Black Acrylic Primer and the riders with Army Painter Leather Brown primer.
The Brocks were painted with a drybrush of Wargames Foundry Charcoal Black pots B then C and Wargames Foundry Arctic Grey Pot A. The Armour plates are Vallejo Tinny Tin, then Vallejo Bronze, then Vallejo Brass. The white patches on their heads and their Teeth and claws were painted with Wargames Foundry Boneyard triad, the flesh around their snouts painted in Wargames Foundry Flesh Triad and the straps painted with Foundry Chestnut. This enabled me to paint all the Brocks in one production line and pretty much one sitting.
The Riders started with all the metal areas being painted with the Tin/Bronze/Brass combo (apart from the weapon heads) and then the cloaks were base-coated black before being drybrushed with the same combo as the Brocks. The flesh on the Riders was painted with Wargames Foundry Oriental flesh triad. The hair colours were chosen to match the changing hair of my Partner, who is renowned on the Kings of War Scene for her changing and vibrant hair, so Pink, Purple, Turquoise and green were painted on to be as bright as possible, six of each colour to provide the four regiments. The heads of the weapons were painted Cotes’D’Arms Gunmetal then highlighted in Mithril Silver before a wash of Nuln oil.
Once the riders were glued onto the Brocks they were given a wash of Agrax Earthshade on the flesh and armour and the Brocks had their armour washed, also in Agrax Earthshade.
I then prepped four Cavalry ( 125mm x 100mm) bases by gluing a layer of course sand on top and painting it acrylic Burnt Umber and drybrushing with Burnt Sienna and sand color. Once the six Brocks were glued to each Base I place some lovely floral tufts on them to add to the colour, Et Voila ! Four regiments of Berserker Brock Riders.
Next up will be the Artillery and the Rifles.
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