The Throng of Zanzuhf Kazad

Alright, I finally managed to get some pictures of my painted and unpainted Dwarf army, and finally have time to blog about them. Oh, and the name, Zanzuhf Kazad, it's kazalid (that's Dwarf tongue) for "Bloodriver Fortress." Yes, there's a backstory there. If you have an hour, I'll tell you about it sometime. Anyway, here it is, the Throng of Zanzuhf Kazad!

Not overly impressive, is it? Well, not yet. I have a batallion and a few odd dwarf kits here and there sitting unassembled in my nerdery that will expand this force greatly. And yes, with the exception of the Hammerers, Battle Standard Bearer and Lord on Shieldbearers, these are the models I've had for seven years. They were once fully painted, but I stripped them all in Simple Green (a horrendous project which still gives me nightmares) about two years ago to start anew. The only survivor from the original paint job is this bad boy right here. . .

That's right, almost no highlighting, one coat of paint not watered down. . .ah, early painting projects. I was totally stoked back in the day just to have stuff painted. Of course, I didn't have the luxury of starting in the old RT days, when everything was one thick coat with no highlights. Anyway, compare this to my latest project, my unit of Hammerers.

The front rank is, for the most part, finished, although I have to go back and paint the musician's horns, and the Hammerer second from the left has a gem on his helmet that also needs to be done. Oh, and you might have noticed that these aren't the standard, one-pose, metal hammerers. I'm not a huge fan of those models, and also not a huge fan of spending that much money on one unit. So, instead of shelling out about $6 a model, my cost was closer to $2. Of course, it would not have been possible without a LOT of extra hammers. The main difficult lies in the fact that the new warrior/longbeard kit comes with only two-handed axes as great weapons. Since I had already assembled a full dwarf army (with great weapons), and had a lot of spare warrior sprues kicking around, I had plenty of hammer heads. Then it's a simple matter of clipping off the axehead and replacing it with a hammer and voila! Cheap hammerers that don't weigh eighty pounds. Also, here's a look at the cloaks on the command section.

I still have a little bit of touchup work to do, primarily a wash of Thrakka Green, which will help redarken the recesses where my less-than-steady hand could be seen with it's messiness. It also helps to smooth out sharper highlights, which I think will really help. I should have a chance to take care of that tonight and get a new picture up this weekend.

Moving away from my latest project, here are some pictures of other units I have painted, in order from oldest to newest.

Some quarrlers, about two years old. These guys are two of the first units I re-painted after the great army stripping of 2008. They need a coat of Matte Varnish, which should kill the gloss, and to have their bases cleaned up, but the lion's share of the work is done.

Some last-edition Dwarf Warriors. These guys are pretty much done. I'll have to paint the base edges black to match the rest of my army, but then these baddies are done. This, by the way,is the first unit I ever assembled.

Lastly, the Gnollengrom, my last-edition metal longbeards. I love the look of the old, metal 'beards. . .but I never want to paint a unit of them again! There's so much detail for a rank and file unit of, in this case, nineteen.

Anyway, that's the portion of the army I have painted. As a last item to include, here's my general, Lord Dargrimm Hammerfist, The Beardling King.

And that's about it. I'll definitely get a picture of the Hammerer cloaks after a Thrakka wash. And as I still have five primed black Hammerers, so I'll be able to get some step-by-step painting shots of them, hopefully this weekend. I have a 40k tourney to run, and those long rounds should afford me some time to paint. Oh, and if you want to see full-size versions of these pictures, head to my photobucket album.