Warhammer unit request: Chaos Dwarfs & Hobgoblins

[aaglo]

Thank you both for the enlightening info

Last thing, aaglo, did you see the Slayer Axe-Throwing machine at the bottom of the final page linked by Lusikka? Any chance you might be able to pull that one together??

Yes I saw that - it is the goblin hewer I mentioned earlier. And I'm quite sure that embryodead (or someone else in the WH2.0 beta group) once suggested that thing for the dwarfs. Certainly it would be a fun machine, but I have no serious intentions on doing that - it seems to be a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very complicated unit to model & animate .

 

[Mr. Do]

The goblin hewer's no biggie- there's only one of them in the whole WH world anyway! If you're going to do a bolt thrower, might as well only do dwarf crew rather than spend too much time doing another one with chaos dwarfs, since they don't even really crew the machine (Probably consider themselves above playing with such a low-tech toy, leaving them to the hobgoblins).

Chaos dwarfs may return in the distant future, but after the Ogres, there's the wood elves to put out, and a new expansion (Read: hey, a new book with three, yes, THREE new rules! That'll be £20 please, suckers) for a start. Personally I think certain GW employees were turned off by the big hats and beards and tried to bury them, but they'll be back...

A neat first-era CD as well as Kinboat's would be a boar centaur trooper, which would upgrade to a bull centaur. I don't really like when "valid" units get lost in the upgrade chain (E.g. Longship -> Kingship), but if inferior boar centaurs went extinct after the more powerful bull centaurs became popular, that'd fit in with the mythos (And what actually ahppened with the models). Of course, any such unit should be a very low priority in terms of making a playable civ...

 

[aaglo]

I think I'll just skip the goblin hewer then

Here's a version 0.1 of the dwarf bolt thrower. Still missing/unifinished things are at least:
- hat
- colouring

Any suggestions/comments? And could this become also a bolt-thrower for chaos dwarfs?

 

[Drift]

Looks great... for dwarves.

Sorry about that, but I feel chaos dwarves should get a similar device with some extra touches. Of course only if you feel like doing the extra work. It's just that the two races are quite different in their appearance and this thing sticks out like a sore thumb among whirlwind machines and evil sorcerers.

 

[Mr. Do]

That'd do for both races, but definitely do not have the beard orange. Dying your hair that colour means you're becoming a slayer to the dwarfs, and you don't get Chaos Dwarfs with bright orange beards either.

[Edit: I don't think it'd stick out too badly for the CD's, as the beard looks quite CD-ish at civ scale. Certainly, there's about as much to differentiate the two races as there was to differentiate between the high elf and dark elf bolt throwers aaglo made. It doesn't even really make sense to make a bolt thrower specifically manned by chaos dwarfs given that the hobgoblins man them]

 

[aaglo]

That'd do for both races, but definitely do not have the beard orange. Dying your hair that colour means you're becoming a slayer to the dwarfs, and you don't get Chaos Dwarfs with bright orange beards either.

Ooooh, a slayer operating a bolt thrower... - right, the beard colour should be changed: to what? Dark Green?

[Edit: I don't think it'd stick out too badly for the CD's, as the beard looks quite CD-ish at civ scale. Certainly, there's about as much to differentiate the two races as there was to differentiate between the high elf and dark elf bolt throwers aaglo made. It doesn't even really make sense to make a bolt thrower specifically manned by chaos dwarfs given that the hobgoblins man them]

Maybe I should just make this unit a bit smaller, so the differences between dwarfs and chaos dwarfs 'blend in' . And as Mr.Do said, the high and dark elves have the same unit for the repeater bolt thrower - that's why I suggested the dwarven equivalent thing - even if this unit would stick out like a sore thumb .

 

[Drift]

Ok, I'm in the minority. I would have just liked seeing this with spikes and some cool anims (maybe have the thing firing itself with a sorceror chaos dwarf operating it via magic).

BTW if you had asked me about the bolt thrower thingy, I would've suggested separate units there as well.

But I really do understand about not doing excess work. This will do fine for both races.

 

[Mr. Do]

The catapult unit has a human manning it, then there's a dwarf manning the bolt thrower, then when there's the really tasty stuff you get custom chaos dwarfs operating them. Why, it's like the units get more chaos dwarf specialised over time, horrors

I've no idea how a dark green beard would look, but I'm sure that we'll end up with a great-looking unit in the end in spite of that

 

[aaglo]

How about a spectre (not for the chaos dwarfs - but generally for the undead factions)?

 

[Drift]

Hmm. How about with rags in place of the breastplate? Also, those civ colored shoulderpads kinda stick out... yes, like a sore thumb. However, apart from making them smaller, I'm out of alternative ideas for including the civ color.

Idea is a good one.

 

[aaglo]

rags.. yeah, maybe. Well, this one was just an idea based on the dragonlance's Lord Soth (a cursed undead knight) - basically a ghost with breast plate. The civ-coloured shoulder pads do stick out like sore thumb , but I think it needs some civ-colouring. I think that the shoulder pads will look better, when unit is scaled to unit-size (which the preview is not).

 

[IamsoUBER]

Regarding the Dwarven Bolt Thrower, I think the bald-headed dwarf looks fine. No need for a helm of some sort. And while I know it'd be easier to just use the dwarf as a Chaos Dwarf, I'd just like to say pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease have a hobgoblin man in. Of course, I'm not even competent enough to make units, so I'll be perfectly content with whatever wonderous unit you make.

That spectre looks great. The Sylvanian vampires definately could use a ghostly unit like that. Very cool how you have the body all etheral like that.

I definately would second replacing the breastplate with rags, but that sounds like it might be difficult. If it would be easier to use the armor body, maybe giving it rust and having one or more jagged holes in it would give it a 'fallen soldier's armor' look. As for civ colors, perhaps it would be best to not have them, since I can't really think of a subtle way to include them. In all reality, how would people tell whether the undead spectres served one haunted realm or another? So the unit could have its civ hidden, and the civ colors wouldn't be necessary.

Maybe an etheral, semi-glowing sword could be added? And if you did that, perhaps the civ color could be used as the color of the sword's glow? That might not be possible to do though, so I dunno. Just tossing out half-baked ideas.

 

[Drift]

I always imagined Soth had legs. An armor with a skull inside an open helmet and bright blue eyes inside the eyepits.

I think the breastplate is ok, I'd just make the shoulderpads smaller and perhaps give the armor some additional detail. In its current state it's a little bare.

Edit: I like IamsoUBER's ideas about rusty and broken breastplate.

 

[aaglo]

I also like the rusty & broken breastplate-idea. (it has also shining blue eyes... )

 

[Drift]

Lookin' good. The spectre could be a touch more dense though. Not as dense as in the first preview though. Also, the spectre's "lower body" should IMO be one blob of mist that narrows as it goes down, not two leg like clouds as you have now.

Edit: and the eyes should IMO be a cold, light blue.

 

[Mr. Do]

Wow, a spectre from nowhere... I have absolutely no idea how ED would implement them. Maybe a "flying" style high-defence unit. I must say I didn't even see the ghostly bit of the spectre until I read Drift's post, so he's probably right that it needs to be thicker...

 

[aaglo]

Oh, that later 'spectre' looks very different at home (where I'm now) as opposed to the place I did it (at work - during lunch break )

Well, I tried some things with that ghost knight, and it's quite annoying thing to pull out. I think I'll leave it (consider those previews as suggestions to someone who wishes to tackle such abominations )

Now, on with the dwarfs. Well, here's the bolt thrower for regular dwarfs. And I'm going to do my best to make another this kind, with a hobgoblin as crew (so it's usable for the chaos dwarfs too).

See the strange ogreish skull, where the bolt comes from

 

[Drift]

If the hobgoblin bolt thrower doesn't work, that one fits IMO chaos dwarves really well too. Looks menacing (and really cool).

 

[Mr. Do]

Haha, yeah, it'd definitely fit Chaos Dwarves as well, what with the Ogre Kingdoms being the CD's neighbours and having one of their skulls adorning the firing chamber

 

[aaglo]

well, here's one with hobgoblin crew