Hobby Update: Free Dwarf Earth Elementals

A bit surprisingly, I have got a lot of hobbying done here in early November. I had a few work from home days to deal with some other crises, and was able to use some of that time to wrap up a number of much-languishing hobby projects, cleaning out a fair bit of space in my cramped and disorganized little home office space. Up now are some Earth Elementals for the Free Dwarfs!

Regiment, the first. With a Castellan Green base.

The models are from what I think was a Russian-based company, previously found on Amazon as the generically named Fantasy Battles. They had made some generally really nice larger models from a variety of offerings for incredibly cheap, though browsing things, it looks like their selection is much more limited now, and gotten more expensive. Shucks. The dwarfs here are no longer offered from what I can see, so unfortunately, I can't properly link or recommend them.

Still the first regiment.

The models are very cheap plastic, and tend to need some significant touchups for the injection sites or for the mold lines, but even still, they tend to be a bargain, all things considered. These got more work than usual, as I didn't like one of the katar-like weapons (replacing it in both regiments with a shield made from a Citadel base and some coffee stir sticks), nor the model with the flail (replacing the one in the first regiment with a kanabo-like weapon, and the other kept as-is, due to laziness). 

The bag of models, for any internet sleuths. 

These have languished basically for nearly the entirety of the Free Dwarf project, as I liked the idea of them (that is, Dwarves carving facsimiles of others dwarfs to protect the living), and picked them up long ago, but was struggling with unit sizes and such. Ultimately, despite my penchant for interrogating units at every size I can, smaller Troops of these are not really appealing to me in the new Edition right now, so in an effort to tidy up my space, we are just sticking with the fuller regiments and getting them done.

Regiment the second. With a Death World Forest base coat.

These are normally Specialists, which is a very important and competitive slot for Dwarves, already having popular Brocks, Rangers, and the also-Def6 Ironguard (as well as the lesser-used Berserker infantry, and the potential for slot-swapped Stoneclaws too). With Specialist slots capped at 4, what you take is very impactful on the rest of the list. Notably, while there is a potential slot swap the Elementals to Core using Banick Kholearm, this (unlike the Forces of Nature swaps for Elementals) only works on the larger Regiments. 

And the second regiment, again.

On the table, the regiments are obviously sturdy, with both Def6 and good Nerve. As Elementals, they have Fearless over the typical Dwarf Headstrong, and with Speed 5, they are also quicker then normal Dwarf infantry, though Shambling constricts their movement, prohibiting moving at the double, and some pivots. 

While they have Brutal 1 and CS2, and have some parallels to the potent Ogre Siegebreakers, they are no where near as powerful on the offense as the Ogres. The Elementals fall victim to the 4E Large Infantry adjustments, which knocked down the attacks of all Large Infantry - excluding Ogres - a smidge. With just 14 attacks hitting on 4's here, the damage output from the Elements is a going to be lacking. Despite some decent stats, they are not hammers (which seems like it could be a refrain for the blog), and will need either additional units or turns to try and win out in their combats. 

They should be good anvils, though the builds are probably going to be niche, as the Elementals do not have wide support in the rest of the roster. As-mentioned, Banick Kholearm has a nice slot swap, but  oddly, as a spellcaster, he doesn't have Surge. Indeed, the only Surge-caster for the army is a Stone Priest, which is a good caster, and can even grant them TC(1) with a Surge cast, but in these instances, you are forgoing a normal, sure-thing charge move and trusting the dice instead, which could lead to some missed connections.

The main issue I see with the Elementals right now are is that the Earth Elementals have some direct competition with the Def6 Ironguard, and the latter are just better supported in the roster and with Commands. That said, I could easily see this issue dissolving after their eventual book update, with Free Dwarfs getting stuff like Earth Elementals and Greater Earth Elementals, and Imperial Dwarfs getting Ironguard and the Steel Behemoth to fulfill similar roles in each list. Only time will tell if the Free Dwarfs will actually return as a distinct army, but regardless, these are ready for the table!