Hobby Update: Free Dwarf Berserker Troops and Berserker Lords

Arguably rather on-theme for the Free Dwarfs, the first units ready for my new army are a variety of Berserkers. Surprisingly, a majority of them are Mantic-made!

Free Dwarfs!

The Lords here would have made ideal test models for the new army, had I been thinking ahead. However, many units were actually painted up well before these, and these were just based up at the same time as a handful of other units. Oh well. It’s a sprawling project, but finally making some real progress.

A Berserker Lord.

The first model up is a Wizkids dwarf, picked up long ago as the pack also had a kind of cleric, which I thought should work out well as a Stone Priest, eventually. This model is as-is, with no conversions. He was rinsed, primed, and painted up, though we won’t get into the weeds here on the paints, and will save that for some of the unit discussions. He has a rocky stand and for the grasses, I just tried going around it, and it turned out well enough.

Da'vid. A second Berserker Lord, due to very old purchases.

The second model is a Mantic Berserker Lord. It is a metal model with a stand. I was not thrilled with metal or the stand, but didn’t want to clip away anything, out of concern for stability. On the base, I just tried working around the stand with milliput, then popping the mini out, so I could paint the mini separately. With just the one model, that approach worked ok here, and once all painted, I glued the Lord back to the base, and then applied the grasses and such. I like him. His nose and unkempt balding crown reminds me of my dad, so we’ll christen him Da’vid, the dwarf Berserker Lord.

On the table, these Berserkers Lords are probably going to be rare, excepting perhaps in smaller-sized games. The overwhelming majority of my purchases and planning were done in the middle of 3E, and cheap fearless combat lords looked like fun to have around for flier defense. In 4E, now, these are full-fledged Warlords, and with only 1-2 openings per army maximum thanks to the new slot system, plus significant points hikes. While I’ll pledge to give them a go as I explore the army roster, I don’t think these will make the cut very often in larger games, and likely never sharing the table, unless I am really bonkers.

Dad-bod Berserkers.

Next up for this post are the dad-bod Dwarf Berserkers, also Mantic, snagged for cheap (I think $10 total?) second-hand, and these got one weapon-swap each, as I didn’t want to mess around with the tall metal banners that came with the unit. Besides the swap, they are metal, but I do really like the look of them.

Foolishly, I was hobbying these up at the same time as the Mantic Lord. Due to weight and stability concerns, I also decided that I didn’t want to try and snip their stands either. Hobbying these up at the same time as the Lord, I tried the Milliput approach here too, and that was not the right call for the multi-model units!

Early basing attempts for the Berserker units... it was bad.

The first attempt was wrapping a coil of milliput around the edge of the stand and pressing that down onto the base… but the coil never stayed put. I then tried putting a coil down and pressing a model into it, but it was just a mess, and these sockets turned out a bit haphazardly. This all had to be done prior to painting, as the milliput needs some water to work well, and could create streaks while handling the models. When it came time to glue them back in about a month later, I didn’t have a reference for what model went where, so most of the connections were very poor, and it was a struggle all around. I think rolling a layer of milliput onto the base and then pressing these in (popping them out once dried) might have been a better approach. Oh well. The grasses and such were able to hide the joins well enough, and these turned out rather nice!

An angry Lord atop a Giant Brock!

Last up is a bit of a centerpiece model, formerly Sveri Egilax on a Hellbrock… now just a Berserker Lord on Giant Brock. He does all the things the infantry Lords do, but has better Nerve, more attacks, TC1, and greater speed, thanks to the mount. This unit cares about getting flanks, and will probably get the nod more often than not over the footy Lord equivalent.

It’s a hefty model, as it is a full metal one from Mantic. He’s a little cumbersome, but table-ready, and with what I’d say is an above-average paintjob for me. These are all ready for the table, but there are numerous touchups I want to make down the line, mostly with adding more bushes and flowers. I want to get more of the army to this point, before I tackle those "extra" bits though. 

We’re kicking off the Hobby Updates with these units, as well... they are the first done! But I also think there are a few design sins with 4E and within the Dwarf list, which these units showcase well. And it's my blog, and so we'll suffer a tangent as I try to organize my thoughts.

The first design shortcoming is overlapping slot-swapping from the Warlords. Messing with slots is a neat avenue for list-building in 4E, but the Dwarfs get a ton of versatility and redundancy for no darn reason. Both the Lord and Lord on Large Beast work with Ironguard, and both the Berserker Lord and Large Brock do all the same slot swaps to Berserkers, Brocks, and Stoneclaws: a bonkers 3-in-1 swaps coming from them. It would be more complex, but I think it would have been better to make each Warlord do one swap (ie Lord on Foot swaps the Ironguard; Berserker Lord on foot swaps the Berserkers; Giant Brock Lord swaps the Brock Riders). By limiting slot-swaps, your list is actually making meaningful choices.

The second shortcoming is incomplete swaps, particularly with the Berserkers. The Berserker Lords will swap the Regiments to Core, but Troops of both the Berserkers and Brock Riders are still Specialists, not Auxiliaries. This has to be a conscious choice, as Stoneclaw Rider swaps function for both Troops and Regiments. Unless a unit is obviously chaff (eg. Northern Alliance Snow Foxes, Abyssal Gargoyles, Forces of Nature Critters), it is hard to justify taking auxiliary slots so far. It would have been nice to flip the various Berserker troops over too, and give the Dwarves some interesting options in this slot.

The third shortcoming which I want to point out is unit limits, or the lack thereof. Most grumbles I had and heard against the (Imperial) Dwarfs was their ability to plop down an rather unfriendly, grindy list with all Def6, even in Ambush games. Expressly limiting niche units like the Berserkers and Rangers while leaving the door open to unfettered Core Ironguard is bad design. Unit limits existed previously, as did Irregular units, and is something I would have rather seen rolled out more, rather than the wacky unlocking system we have now. Heck, even having limits of [0] unlocked by Champions or Warlords, like we see with the Northern Alliance / Varangur, or the Forces of Nature / Brotherhood would have been neat to see, but having both slot swaps and limits is just really clunky here.

I still don't like Mantic's current pseudo-codex approach, but hopefully these oddities get recognized and smoothed out across all armies as respective books do eventually drop. So many armies feel woefully half-baked, even if we exclude the Command Order aspect.

Bringing this lengthy post back to the minis themselves, my approach to hobbying has generally been to do what I can now, and come back later as-needed for touch-ups, or to add things as my hobby skills (hopefully) improve over time. The grasses are done, and these are all table-ready, but again, not quite where I want them to be. I want to add in a number of additional flowers and tufts and little adornments to these units still, but want to tackle those across a fuller army. While my collection is very lopsided with respect to slots now, thankfully I have a few thousand points of stuff all at about at this level of completeness. In short, more to come from the Free Dwarfs very soon!