Dreng Tromm's Random Works

2519
The Village of Dowan Moor
near the plains of the Six Spikes

"The church bells are ringing..."

Nikolai Prasnaglava was in the woods hunting for deer when he first spotted several ungor scouts traversing the woods. He knew that these ungors were part of a bigger herd and the fact that they were scouting could only mean one thing: the herd is planning to attack the village of Dowan Moor.

Ever since he spotted the ungor scouts, Nikolai had wanted to vacate the village. He had constantly argued with his brother to break camp and leave immediately but his brother refused to listen arguing that they have not yet finished restocking their supplies but Nikolai knew that the reason behind his brother trepidation was a village lass and it infuriated him no end!

Nikolai had always been their caravan's true leader although that role has, by strigany tradition been assumed by the eldest son of the Prasnaglava clan. The youngest of two boys borne to Pietre Prasnaglava, Nikolai, even as a child had been serious in his demeanor. He is often characterized as intelligent but stern with a proclivity for hunting and a natural talent for the martial arts and the use of various implements of war. He is a realist who loves to work with his hands.

Thus, unbeknownst to his brother, Nikolai had advised the village elders to make preparations to break camp at a moment's notice.

He therefore knew that when the church bells of Dowan Moor started to ring that the attack had begun. His only prayer was that his preparations were sufficient and that he had done enough.

Nikolai knew that the village of Dowan Moor was doomed and had no chance of surviving the attack from the beastmen he saw in the woods. He felt guilty for going behind his brother's back but he had no choice. He had to protect the caravan. That is why the members of his caravan had always relied on Nikolai for protection and leadership instead of his older brother, Vladimir, who is often seen as the dreamer with his head in the cloud.

As a kid, his father would often describe his brother as Vladimir the artist or Vladimir the romantic...

Vladimir the fool... more likely!

"Where the hell is Vladimir?"

"Vladimir, you fool..!" Nikolai snapped himself from his musings as he realized that his brother had left the caravan and had gone back to the village! No doubt, in some foolhardy quest of saving that girl... that baker's daughter..."Helga!"

"Stefan, you go ahead and do not look back." Nikolai instructed his trusted friend and one of the caravan's captains. "I will go back and get Vladimir!"

Vladimir took his bow and a torch and he ran straight into trouble...


"The church bells are ringing... Thank God the church bells are ringing!"

Albert Buchholz had always wanted to be part of the village watch. As a young boy, he had always wanted to be just like his father who had served as the captain of the village watch of Dowan Moor for twenty years until he was slain in an ambush by Ork raiders last summer. In fact, his proudest moment was when he was inducted to the group and served directly under his father's command.

When his father died, the village elders offered his father's position to him and he took it without any second thoughts in order to honor his father's sacrifice and to preserve his father's memory as town protector. Since then, he has tried his best to live up to his father's example and more.Albert has increased the number of the village watch from twenty five to fifty. He has even undertaken several measures to improve the village's security cutting down more trees and enlarging the visible perimeter of the village. He has even implemented a complicated warning and alarm system that hopefully would give the village ample time to prepare for an attack from all of its boundaries. In this regard, he conducted frequent drills with the villagers in preparation for such an eventuality until the villagers performed every practiced measure as second nature. He vowed that the tragedy that befell his father would never happen again!

That is why it is with a certain sense of pride that he stood watch over the villagers of Dowan Moor as they executed every rehearsed movement preparing for the coming onslaught. Every man, woman and child knew what they were supposed to do and as he stood at the gates of Dowan Moor, Captain Albert Bucholtz made a silent prayer to both Sigmar and Taal and prayed for the protection of his ward. He also whispered a prayer for his father and prayed for his father's spirit to give him courage and strength.

A few moments later, Albert hefted his mace and his shield and walked towards the gate of Dowan Moor and waited for trouble to come to him...

The different parts of The Tale add to each other; i.e., the story makes the minis more than little soldiers & the minis give the story substance & color. VERY WELL DONE on all counts.

Minis+terrain+story=great stuff!

Greetings Fellow Travelers of the Old World!

A break from the village of Dolan Moor...

I know that this thread is intended to showcase finished works only and I hope that my friend DeafNala would not take it against me if I use this particular thread to share something rather personal with the TBMF community, which has become like an extended family to me.

After all, the subject matter deals with 1) a finished product; 2) that is a creation of mine; and 3) is practically a miniature... of me!

I am talking about my son, Matthew.

The past weekend was relatively busy for me and my family. My son celebrated his 5th birthday last Saturday and we decided to throw him a surprise birthday party with a Halloween twist. My wife thought that it would be fun so she conspired with my son's teacher and they discreetly invited my son's classmates to the party.

To throw him off the scent, I was tasked with providing my son some activity which was meant to be a distraction. I decided to bring him to the Zoo since I needed to do some research anyway on a color scheme for my beastmen army.

Here are some pictures of that activity:




My son with a new friend.


My son with my color scheme inspiration for Kairos Fateweaver...


...and this beautiful inspiration for my beastmen.

Thereafter, my Son and I proceeded to the venue for his Halloween party and I must say, Matthew was completely blown away by the surprise party and was in such a rush to put on his Pumpkin Costume. Needless to say, he had a blast and, given what happened to me lately, I was glad that I was around to enjoy it with him!


Matthew in his pumpkin costume.


My wife, Patricia, who used to work as a pastry chef in Waldorf Astoria in New York, was the one who personally made all of these delicious goodies...

and yours truly (the one on the far left sitting down with some friends) was the one who paid the bill (OUCH!).


I also bought a new SLR camera from Nikon for this activity (which also happened to have a cool miniature effect function) and I was even able to snag a new toy for me (using Matthew's birthday as an excuse, of course!) that appeared appropriate enough for my on-going beastmen project.

Meet Korg Highmountain of World of Warcraft fame...




All in all, it was a wonderful weekend for me and I hope that with these pictures, I could also share the same with you guys!

Hey, that looks great! Awesome "battle report". It was also great to finally see your face. You have a lovely family too.

On a funny note, it's interesting to see how us geeks and hobbyists take any opportunity to collect ideas for our own stuff - like going to the zoo to get ideas for painting schemes!!

Joao

VERY COOL! I have a Matthew of my own...of course he's a bit older; he's my youngest son & just turned 30. The photo of your Matthew & Friend is priceless. Thanks for sharing it.
I'm also VERY IMPRESSED with your lovely wife...a Pastry Chef AND a Witch! That is a fine combination of talents. As one of (partial) Austrian heritage, I view a Pastry Chef as a practitioner of a higher form of artistry. As a Native New Yorker, the Waldorf Astoria conjures up images of wealth & elegance.

Along with Zoos, Botanical Gardens are also a fine source of inspiration. There was one adjoining the Bronx Zoo that was a favorite of mine. Your Beasty Guys look like they're benefiting from the research. WELL DONE!

That looks like a great party and nice family! It is good to see you are doing better, and also nice to see your face!

I'm really jealous that you got to meet such an awesome monkey! What an amazing experience for your boy! I can't wait till my boy is old enough to go to the zoo

Late happy birthday wish to young Matthew. Looks like it was a great celebration.

Cheers!

Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to view my recent post, or as my friend Joao would put it, my recent "battle report."

Thank you also to Joao, DeafNala, Alex and Von Kurst for the wonderful comments!

You guys are indeed like family to me and that is why I decided to share the above-shown photos to all of you!

More power!

Greetings Fellow Travelers of the Old World!

This humble dwarf had recently re-connected with his lost dwarf brothers, hence the protracted absence from our beloved forum. Allow me to make up for my absence with some new photographs of my encounters with the dwarves of Karak Azul:

Here are some Dwarf Artillery:











I hope you guys like them!

Look at that! I love it!!

How did you make the adorned patterns on the stone?

Joao

Greetings Joao8!

I am glad to know that you like these dwarf cannons.
Those adorned Celtic patterns on the stone were sculpted on the old Citadel terrain piece.

The newer Dwarven cannons have a decidedly fortress/ siege gun look to them...PERFECT for your LOVELY setting. Both the cannons & their crews painted up WONDERFULLY, as we've come to expect in your works. VERY WELL DONE!  

Thanks DeafNala. I can assure you that these dwarfs will remain resolute in their mission to protect the borders that lead to your spooky woods and all of its glorious inhabitants!  

Greetings Fellow Travelers!

Some more "dwarves"...

I recently acquired some of these old Citadel Dwarves and rescued them from a relatively poor paint job (an activity which I am prone to do ever so often). The previous owner of these wonderfully sculpted miniatures committed a terrible crime in slapping on huge amounts of globulus paints and it took some time to remove the same especially from the recesses.

Some of these miniatures may have also fallen off the gaming table for a considerable number of times during heated battles because some of miniatures had chipped/ dented and bent features and I had to do some minor restoration with green putty to put back some of the details.

Nonetheless, here they are in their restored pride and glory and due to their armor, I have incorporated these lads to my Empire Army and I imagine them to be Dwarven Ambassadors to the Empire.

I hope you enjoy them!





Incidentally, a lawyer friend, whom I invited to visit our forum, called my attention to my repeated use of the word "dwarves" when referring to a "dwarf" in the plural form. I pointed out that while it is true that the standard plural for the noun "dwarf " is "dwarves", my usage of the word "dwarves" is nonetheless correct as they refer to the little people in the fantasy world (hence Tolkien's preference in the use of the word "dwarves" in his Lord of the Rings novels). In other words, "dwarves" is appropriate when referring to  little people in the fantasy context (Lord of the Ring, Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons etc) and "dwarfs" for everything else.

I hope this this clears any questions on the matter.

Dreng good to see your work again! Excellent work on the Dwarves and their artillery. 

@ Von Kurst:

Its nice to be back and thanks for the postive comments my friend!

I tend to go with "Dwarves & Dwarven" myself; after all, we do have Elves & Elvin.  
That aside, the resurrected Dwarves look TERRIFIC! The brushwork, particularly the metals, brings out all the character of the Little Old Guys to perfection. GREAT WORK!  

By the way, have you ever seen White Knight's Renaissance Dwarves? He has quite a variety in his range now:
http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=22425.0

 

@DeafNala:

Once again, thank you for the kind comments oh most gracious Honor Guard. I have seen White Knight's dwarves and I love them. In fact, I have some in my collection albeit unpainted. My goal is to have the complete collection as well. As soon as I am able to paint one, I shall post them in our beloved forum immediately!

I'm glad you discovered the W.K. Dwarves. They're CHARMING minis that can only get better with your FINE attention.  

Some mighty fine looking bearded ones! Nice work on them.  

Nice old school minis, and great looking empire shields!

Nice work on those old minis, glad they found a better home!

Thank you very much Spectre76, floedebolle and qazbnm for the encouraging comments.  

Greetings Fellow Travelers of the Old World!

Here is another wonderful dwarf from Reaper and sculpted by the amazing Bobby Jackson. Meet Ursula Silverbraid, female Dwarf Warrior...



I am presently using her as a Champion in my unit of Dwarf Warriors who are armed with great weapons. Also, because my Dwarf Army comes from Karak Azul, I have painted her with a rather grim and dour look on account of the fact that like her King, she is hell-bent on avenging the desecration of their hold by the greenskins.

I hope you guys like what I did with her!