Matakishi's Tea House

Just been browsing the EM-4 website and see that they are selling the old Grenadier plastic dwarves and orcs at ridiculous prices.

How about £7.50 for 50 figures and an extra £1 if you want shields as well? True they are not exactly state of the art, but if you want a large number of rank & file miniatures to fill out your regiments that are well sculpted and well cast you could do a lot worse.

I recently got in hot water over on the fora at The Bell of Lost Souls for daring to suggest using non-GW plastic miniatures to play W40K and WFB. At one point I was accused of calling the many GW-Loyalists "Nazi's" (something another forum member had actually said).  It appears that many GW-Loyalists would not play me if I should field a single non-GW figure in an army.

I don't care honestly, I'm married with kids and a mortgage so anyway I can increase my range of armies without bankrupting myself is good by me.

So what do you guys think?

Cheers,

Craig.

Well the die is cast and I've just ordered 150 Dwarves from EM-4 for the princely sum (including shields and P&P) of £28.70p!

Added to those I have left over from The Battle of Skull Pass and other old stuff (mostly RPG Dwarves - but good for champions/lords)  I reckon I'll have over 3,000 pts - woohoo!

I also have four cannons left over from my Ogre Kingdom's army. All I have to do is cut off the Ogre hands, add a carriage made of sprue and some old train wheels I have (my wife used to work for a casting firm that supplied Hornby) and I have a Grand Battery to add to my regiments of Dwarves.

A noble opponent for my Ogres indeed

I'll let you all know what they look like when they arrive and my progress with them.

Craig.

who cares what company they are Craig,if it saves you money and time does it matter.

These "GW loyalists" can say that now and spend their pocket money on flash figures,but when they are kicked out the house,need a real job,and get a girl friend.I would like to see them spend their money on "figures".

I love reality when it kicks in,bloody muppets ha ha ha they are in for a shock !!

Cheers Tony:)

And by the wat thanks for the heads up on the orcs:)

Yup, there's nothing quite like a mortgage or kids to reprioritize your life

Btw the figures arrived within 24 hours!

They are just as I remembered them: flash free, single mouldings (no poseable arms or anything). The bases are a couple of mil larger than the standard 20x20mm preferred by GW. This is not a problem as I'll be putting them on decorated movement trays.

They still have plenty of character though and I'm looking forward to batch painting them as well as converting a few for standard bearers, musicians and officers.

The standard bearers should be pretty easy, just swap out the weapon for a banner pole and then drape a flag from it.

Similarly the officers just need a decent weapon and slightly different paint job.

The musicians though present a challenge. I always imagined that Dwarves would have little truck with fancy music and would prefer to march to the drums. Thus I'm going to have to knock up either some snare or bass drums for them.

One thing I am thinking of adding is Roman Legionary-style shields to the Dwarves with spears. It just seems right for a Dwarven Phalanx to have big, imposing shields.

I'll have to photograph them as I do them and link to here.

Pictures! I demand pictures!

I's not literate, I be visual. 

You be a pain in the a*se Denny

OK, when I get home at the weekend I'll get some piccies done ok?  It's the least I can do having run off at the mouth so much about them.

Craig.

I would be realy interested to see the size comparison to WH BoSP for the dwarfs.

Ty

I shall try and get that done, they are fairly similar in height but not in sheer bulk.  GW Dwarves are definitely big eaters...