Almost all of my purchases for the Free Dwarfs were done at least a year ago, with the bulk of things bought up two years ago or more, mainly though ebay bundles. However, with 4E revealed, and the Free Dwarfs being rolled up into Imperial Dwarfs (at least for now…), I splurged over Christmas and picked up a weird assortment of pre-built GW Irondrakes / Ironbreakers second-hand. I wanted the Ironbreakers as Def6 Ironguard, as I couldn’t come up with a good Mantic solution but did want to dabble there, but the Drakes were just going to be hanging around or be resold, until I noticed the nifty Flame Belcher. So of course up now are a pair of Flame Belchers for the Free Dwarfs!
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| The scorching duo. |
As-mentioned, the units are GW Irondrakes, apparently a shooty / flame-throwery unit. I only played against the Dwarfs a few times in WHFB, and I don’t recall them being a unit back then, though with a sample size of probably not more than 3 games played or viewed, and all of those well over a decade ago, who is to say. My only tangential experience with them was in some Total War replays (replay #1, and replay #2) from Turin a few years ago. The visuals of those replays stuck with me though, and they seemed quite fitting for Flame Belchers!
Three came assembled and well-painted, and I had enough bits to build up a fourth and copy the existing paint scheme, as I liked the darker, duller metallics that the previous owner had going on. One had a harpoon-like gun that I snipped away, and with some minimal touchups, these were all quickly finished.
Basing for these was done in the first batch, with all the trials and errors, though instead of all greener grasses, I also added some of Army Painter’s darker Steppe Grasses onto the front of the base, to try and mimic some scorched areas from the flamethrowers, while still fitting in with the rest of the army overall.
On the table these look interesting! I’ve always liked the Dragon Fire-Team our resident Abyssal Dwarf player utilizes, and this is in a similar vein, spewing out a lot of attacks, but with very decent hit chances now. If we hold, we can hit on 3’s! They seem decent at area denial, though probably want something else nearby to help them, as they lack Piercing, and at best can only tickle infantry for a turn or two before likely being caught themselves.
It seems like you could stick these with other shooters to create a big no-go zone for your opponent, though with so many shooting things in the Support slot, fitting in one, let alone multiples is probably too tough most of the time, for a more dedicated shooting list. To me, they seem most likely poised to be a mostly-mobile (importantly, war machines can't move at the double!) shooting platform among a more fighty and aggressive list, peppering things before the lines close, or picking them off in the late game while your fighters look elsewhere. We’ll endeavor to explore both potential uses of them sometime soon!
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