Ursa Miner Bruins – DreadBall Forgefather Team

Ursa Miner Bruins DreadBall Forgefather Team

I painted up a medium sized force of space dwarfs last year and I named them the “Ursa Miners“.  With a Forgefather team to paint for Dreadball I decided to use more or less the same colour scheme simply because it was easier than coming up with another scheme from scratch.  I named the team the “Ursa Miner Bruins” to differentiate the sportsdwarfs from the military types.

Bruin Jacks

Like human (corporation) Dreadball teams, forgefather teams begin with three types of player: Striker, Jack and Guard.  A couple of people mentioned that the models of the different positions are not visually distinct enough, a common issue with dwarf miniatures.  I used helmet markings to help with identification.

Bruin Strikers

As you might expect, forgefathers are tough and a bit on the slow side in game terms.  Its interesting to note that nothing in Dreadball is even vaguely as slow as players can occasionally be in Blood Bowl.  While the Miners here are not as nippy as other Dreadball teams, they are still far more dynamic than dwarfs in Blood Bowl.

Ursa Miner Steel Warriors

When painting the Ursa Miner troopers I added a few bright elements to give a little tabletop pzazz to a realistic scheme (in as much as a space dwarf toy soldiers uniform can ever be realistic).  When painting the sci-fi sports team of the same guys I emphasised the brighter colours.  I made the blue/grey areas significantly brighter and added extra yellow elements.

Bruin Guards

Red is used as a spot colour on the troopers goggles and techy bits, but as the Bruins uniforms dont feature many of those I added some red to the face armour to act as a focal point.  The Bruins look a little like they are wearing tiki masks as a result, although that wasnt particularly the intention.

A few things regarding the painting:

1. The models are sculpted with short sleeves and gloves.  As I didnt really like the short sleeved look I painted them as if they are wearing some sort of skintight, spandex-y, sci-fi undergarment.
2. The highlighting is a bit extreme in places.  I probably should have been a little more restrained although that said, I quite like how the jacks in particular look in the group shot and on the game board, so its probably alright
3. I need to take a break from looking at the Bruins for a while before I can see them objectively.  I finished painting them and subsequently photographed them late last night, so I have been staring at them little guys for a bit too long recently.

Ursa Miners: Jotunn Heavy Hailstorm Cannon

Next off the Ursa Miner assembly line is this artillery piece: the Jotunn Heavy Hailstorm Cannon.  It bears quite a resemblance to a piece of 1980s 40K nostalgia known as the “Thudd Gun” too, not that I am complaining.

The Jotunn is quite a large, chunky piece.  It was a little awkward to assemble.  Nothing major, but I should have plonked the kit in hot water to remove the small amount of bowing/warping in the kit before I started gluing.  It wasnt a big deal though, definitely not something that should put anyone off.

I had a couple of issues with a pot of Devlan mud that decided to misbehave while painting this piece.  Between that and the hassle with assembly I was glad to see the Jotunn finally finished.  If I get another of these models tableworthy it will take me about half the time I reckon.

In keeping with trying to keep the fantasy element reasonably low I chose to avoid the runic script and iconography normally associated with dwarfs/squats.  I decided to add Tau transfers to the Jotunn (the white writing just about visible on the top of the camouflaged shield above) as:

1. I had a couple of those transfer sheets handy
2. The Tau transfers look a lot more anime or sci-fi than the usual gothic/grimdark, roman numeral heavy transfers that I own loads of.

More Space Dwarf stuff to come.

Ursa Miners: Squat Engineer

This cheerful looking guy is the only Squat miniature that Games Workshop has made since they quietly retconned the race out of existence in the mid-nineties.  The figure was exclusively available to White Dwarf subscribers in 2010 and represents an incarnation of the magazines mascot, the White Dwarf himself.

Various internet sources hysterically claim that the figure is not a Squat but the White Dwarf in a Halloween costume, as evinced by the grey alien costume wearing gretchin (the Black Goblin?) that features as part of the model.  ”Its not a Squat, its a joke miniature!” they cried, oblivious to the fact that every single miniature in the WH40K range is inherently a joke miniature by concept and definition.  A dwarf in a spacesuit manufactured by Games Workshop is a squat as far as I am concerned and thats that

Seeing as dwarfs in space suits are the toy soldiers du jour at Sho3box Towers I tracked this peculiar but beautifully sculpted and cast miniature down on Ebay a week or two ago.  I painted the figure to match the colour scheme used for the rest of the Ursa Miners.

The contrast in the photo did something weird to the figures beard, it looks less chalky in real life, honest.

Ursa Miners: Stormrage Veterans

The second squad of my Ursa Miner space dwarfs finished are more Mantic Forgefathers.  This time its the veteran troopers, busily stormraging-it-up with their heat cannon and large calibre projectile weapons.  And astro-hammer thing.

Unlike the plastic Steel Warriors and just like the veer-myn, these guys are made from Mantics “plastic resin”.  Im not sure what makes the stuff plastic resin rather than simply resin, but the net result is that its rigid grey stuff.  I found it far easier to work with than the rubbery texture of GW Finecast.

These guys look a little stylistically different to the Steel Warriors.  In particular the designs got some online flak regarding the armoured “beards”.  Considering that a number of genuine real world cultures take facial and head hairstyles very seriously I am fine with the notion that these guys do too.  With that in mind I dont really object to the figures featuring beard armour, but I didnt feel the need to paint those elements different colours to ensure that they stood out either.

Then after all of that reasoning and justification, I ended up having to paint the mouth region of the helmets with a little silver anyway in order 1) to tie them in with the Steel Warriors and 2) to give the dark colour scheme a few more areas of visual interest.

The scheme used matches that used on the Steel Warriors.  If I paint some more similar squads its possible that I will come back and add squad markings of some form or another.  Maybe.

Ursa Miners: Huscarl, Hound & Objectives

Huscarl Max and Freeway the cyber-mastiff

My Space Dwarf mini-season continues with a leader and his trusty mecha-mutt.

The leader is the off-the-peg Mantic Forgefather leader figure: he is pretty boss I am sure you will agree.

The pooch is from the Mantic Dwarf (the non-spacefaring variety) command sprue.  The dog is armoured and has a handle on his back (they cant keep up with marching dwarfs on foot apparently and therefore have to be carried.  Apparently the dwarfs also use the handles to lob the dog at their foes).

Undeterred by this already absurd miniature I decided to push the envelope by adding goggles from the Forgefathers sprue too.  I regret nothing.

One of the aspects of painting toy soldiers for gaming with that I enjoy most is preparing little oddball figures for use to further the in-game story.  Painting and modeling Maguffin figures gives me a disproportionate amount of satisfaction for some reason.

So while I worked on my Ursa Miner project I made sure to add in a few goofy bits and pieces as I went (such as the dog).

The guy in the middle of the photo above is a Mantic plastic piece that is supplied with their plastic fantasy dwarf range.  Like the mastiff above, COM had a drunken dwarf that he was willing to part with.

The drunken dwarf was unmodified.  As Mantics Warpath miniatures are often retooled versions of their fantasy figures it came as no surprise that the dwarf fits right in as a Forgefather.

These two tied up trollslayers were supplied in the Warhammer “Skull Pass” starter box from a few years ago.  I wouldnt have had any in my possession only that I bought a few of the tents from that set off Ebay a few years ago and two of these trollslayers were included.

I figured that I would never use these figures at all, but I remembered them while painting the Steel Warriors, so I decided to include them in this project.  Their hair is goofy and their hopping-while-80%-tied-up look is absurd but I think that they will be fun miniatures to use in rescue themed games.

Ursa Miners: Forgefather Steel Warriors

Recently I decided for vague and uncertain reasons to start painting some space dwarf figures.  These Forgefathers were the first little guys off the painting conveyor belt.

Planning

Criteria for the colour scheme chosen were as follows:

1. It had to be very quick to paint.  I find it important to minimise the number of places that can cause a project to stall and an overcomplicated colour scheme is a big trip hazard for me.
2. I wanted the colour scheme to stand out a little bit on the table: there is no point in painting up a gaming piece that doesnt have enough contrast to make it pop some bit at least.  That said, gaudiness isnt really desirable either.
3. Colours used had to reflect a sci-fi rather than fantasy setting: while these guys are undeniably science fantasy, I didnt want my space dwarfs to look like Gimli holding a gun all the same.  Therefore I wanted no earthy tones in the uniform.  I also wanted to avoid using a lot of metallics.  Many painters seem compelled to use multiple metallics on sci-fi dwarf figures, which suggests fantasy more than I want.

Half of the figures shown have capes.  As far as I was concerned it was crucial that these obvious fantasy elements were toned down a bit.

I checked out a few photos of camouflage cloaks in various online places, often those used on sniper and scout miniatures.  I figured that with these being interstellar rather than subterranean dwarfs that painting the capes to look like they might have a function on a sci-fi battlefield was the way to go.

With that in mind I did a tiny bit of research into urban camouflage and I came up with the colour choice and pattern shown on the figures above.  I dont know the first thing about real camouflage, but the above effect was reasonably fast to apply and looks believable enough for my purposes.

The blues in the cloaks contrast nicely with the yellow shoulder trim.  The pseudo-urban camouflage pattern definitely doesnt suggest fantasy to me, so I am happy enough about the look overall.   I am interested in what any of you folk think about it.

Execution

The figures were sprayed black and then drybrushed dark grey all over.  The weapons were then quickly drybrushed gunmetal while the magazine/ammunition was painted in copper/bronze.  Flesh, ochre (for the yellow) and red areas were blocked in.

The capes and tabbards were painted in a dark blue-grey, followed by roughly geometric areas blocked in in a mid-grey, followed by more areas added in black.

The whole of each model was then washed with GW Devlan Mud.

Every colour used was then given a quick highlight/layer in an appropriate colour.  That was these guys finished bar varnishing and basing.

Comparison shot next to one of my Sin Eater Chaos Space Marines. The Ursa Miners are short little guys.

Conclusions

Pretty quick stuff overall really but a decent enough result.  The figures themselves are a little old school looking, reminiscent as they are of GW kits from decade or so ago, but as filler grunts for gaming with they paint up fast and give a pretty decent result I reckon.  After painting up a lot of delicate, finely detailed Wyrd miniatures recently it was pleasant and productive working on a durable set of chunky, fun little guys to plonk on the table.

If I could change anything about the end product it would be to find a way to add some of the blue-ish camouflage to the front face of the miniatures, which are possibly a bit too drab.  Curiously, these guys are possibly the only miniatures that I have ever painted that are more interesting to view from the rear (insert joke of your choice here).

More Ursa Miners will be showing up here soon.

The Ursa Miners: Space Dwarfs

I have recently started painting some space dwarf miniatures from various sources.  I didnt really plan it: it just sort of happened.

After I came back from Salute I immediately painted up eleven veer-myn over a week or so.  Generally I tend to avoid batch painting like that as it often causes me to burn out.  Surprisingly however I found that getting a decent number of miniatures painted in a relatively short period (by my standards at least) was more enjoyable than I expected.  Therefore as soon as the veer-myn were finished I hunted around through my many assembled but unpainted miniatures for a suitable project to get stuck into.

Being both small and not very heavily detailed miniatures the Mantic Forgefathers that I got in my Warpath starter box last year seemed to fit the bill.  I picked a very simple colour scheme that wasnt too labour intensive and managed to start firing out little bearded guys from space.

The Brotherhood of the Bear (the “Ursa Miners” to their friends) will start showing up here from time to time, starting on Wednesday 

Edit: starting on Tuesday actually