Building armies without GW

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Marchosias
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Building armies without GW

Post by Marchosias »

As you have surely noticed, the morale among players is low these days. Many are claiming WHFB is a dead game with no chance of a long term survival. One of the reasons often cited is that allegedly, there is no way to build armies without the GW supply. The aim of this post is to fight this thought because it is not true. On the other hand, I make no statements about other arguments regarding rules evolution for example so please, abstain from those topics in the answers as well.

While GW was the biggest company producing fantasy miniatures and the first place to look for basically anything, there are alternatives. Avatars of War, Gamezone, Mantic, Raging Heroes, Reaper, Dark Sword, Russian Alternative, Mierce Miniatures and many, many others. They have their own ranges, sometimes covering whole armies, often of superb quality. We only need to search a bit. And while those solutions are not ideal - the products of different companies might have a different style, one needs to order from several sources, some of the models are old and thus not meeting the recent quality standard - the point is, the solution is here, even before someone tries to fill the vacuum GW has left.

Even now, you can build any army with not a single miniature bought from GW. And it will look good.

And because not everyone is able or willing to search for models for a longer period of time, Rowena did the work for us. The first results are here; other armies will follow but even now, there are Skaven, Beastmen, Lizardmen, DoC and WoC. I think no one will expect problems with elves or the Empire.

If I can ask something, please, spread the word. No one knows us on The Warhammer Forum for example but a link there would be awesome. There are some important decisions ahead of us all and I think this might help to nullify some bias.
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Amboadine
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Amboadine »

Some nice models you have found there. Aesthetics are consistent across the ranges in many cases and a mix and match approach can give the army some uniqueness.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Malys the younger »

Amboadine wrote:Some nice models you have found there. Aesthetics are consistent across the ranges in many cases and a mix and match approach can give the army some uniqueness.


Agreed. I really like what Mierce has done for the beastmen range, especially the Ghorgon.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Amboadine: Thanks, I did try to do as good a job as I could.

Malys: Yes, Mierce miniatures are awesome and they really saved my beastmen range.

Also, I would like to add that if you know of any other useful models, please let me know and I will add them. The blog is still under construction, I am working on the remaining armies and on the design, so stay tuned. :)
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Red...
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Red... »

Surely we can't bring up Mierce Miniatures without at least mentioning that the owner scurrilously took large sections of the gaming and hobby community for a horrendous money ride in which they all got screwed when he bailed out?

http://www.somethingswrong.sg/2013/01/m ... arter.html

Forewarned is prepared. The guy screwed collectors once - if you want to risk it again, that's your choice, but you've been warned up front.
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Marchosias
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Marchosias »

Thank you for mentioning it. The article is from 2013 - any new info about this? Two years of perfect customer service would be a good sign.

Anyway, in this case, it has probably sense to buy from 3rd party resellers. Battlefield Berlin, for example, seems to have most of the Mierce products in stock. And there are probably others.

Or maybe your local shop could make an order that will get paid only when it arrives? Not sure how this works.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Red... wrote:Surely we can't bring up Mierce Miniatures without at least mentioning that the owner scurrilously took large sections of the gaming and hobby community for a horrendous money ride in which they all got screwed when he bailed out?

http://www.somethingswrong.sg/2013/01/m ... arter.html

Forewarned is prepared. The guy screwed collectors once - if you want to risk it again, that's your choice, but you've been warned up front.

Oh, I had no idea about that, thanks for the link. I haven't been able to find much recent, though. It seems they have continued expanding their range through kickstarters and I have seen their models in people's hands on various forums, but that's pretty much it for me. Maybe no highly visible angry threads are a good thing?
But yes, Battlefield Berlin and other similar entities might be a really good idea here.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

I have updated the blog with Ogre Kingdoms alternative list and with a post on individual suppliers, inspired by Red's warning. The latter needs more input because I have never ordered from most of the companies listed, so if you have any notable experience or anything relevant, please let me know and I will update.

Also, I am open to suggestions for the next army on the list. ;)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

I have added Tomb Kings (still going by the strategy of doing the difficult armies first). Also, if anyone has experience (good or bad) with any miniature making company, please let me know, either here or directly on the blog. Thanks a lot!
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Vampire counts added. (And I apogise for slowing down, the rest of the armies will be made, it will just take longer.)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Amboadine »

Rowena wrote:Vampire counts added. (And I apogise for slowing down, the rest of the armies will be made, it will just take longer.)


No need to apologise, it is much appreciated.
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Lord Drakon
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Lord Drakon »

Cool! I am looking forward to the Dark Elves
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Diobarach
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Diobarach »

Very cool effort, thanks for sharing.

EDIT: there is some pretty awesome looking dwarf ranges out there.
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Rowena
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Thanks, everyone. I'm glad to be helpful. :)
And I look forward to Dark Elves as well, ll those pretty Raging Heroes models I can put there. That's why I'm waiting for the already overdue update on their KS.

r530: Thanks! I actually came here to post about the update, good to see it was noticed anyway.
Chaos Dwarfs are next, I have found some cool ranges when compiling normal Dwarfs and as they are in the ETC table I'm working from... :)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Diobarach »

No problem, if you are doing chaos dwarves next, I thought about doing a chaos dwarf army and previously bookmarked this:
http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/wiki/index.php?title=Alternate_Chaos_Dwarf_Models
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

r530 wrote:No problem, if you are doing chaos dwarves next, I thought about doing a chaos dwarf army and previously bookmarked this:
http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/wiki/index.php?title=Alternate_Chaos_Dwarf_Models


Thanks very much, this helps a lot! :)
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Rowena
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

I think I have overestimated myself with the Chaos Dwarfs. I can find alternative ranges when I can look at the official models, but in this case I have almost nothing and no idea what the stuff should look like. Forgeworld has something, but the rest would require more research. I have downloaded the Tamurkhan book (haven't opened it yet), but if anyone here could sum up the units for me, I would be very grateful. I just need the overall style and weapons something to guide mw on my search.

Anyway, I have made Orcs and Goblins instead, to give you something else than just a plea for help. :)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Vulcan »

Well, the Forgeworld book isn't a full army list. It's more than a bit one-dimensional and lacks true depth.

Having said that, here's what was in there. (And bear in mind, this is from memory; I don't remember all the actual unit names and I might be slightly off on some of the options.)

First off, all chaos dwarves are very heavily armored. They range from heavy armor to a semi-magical full plate type armor. Even chaos dwarf sorcerers wear 'full plate'.

There's only one Lord choice, a sorcerer-warrior. If I recall right there's a random roll for a magic HW, and shields are an option.

There's two chaos dwarf heroes; a fighting hero that doubles as an engineer type, and a sorcerer. Both can take HW+S, the fighting hero can also take either a blunderbuss or a fireglaive (more on those below). There's also a Hobgoblin Khan option, which can be mounted on a wolf, comes with light armor, and can take a spear and/or shield.

Core has two options.

There are Chaos Dwarf Warriors, with three weapon loadouts. One is basic HW+S. Two is with a Blunderbuss - just what it sounds like, a musket with a belled-out barrel. These can also take shields. Three is a 'fireglaive'. Imagine something like a short Halberd with a musket replacing the shaft.

The other one is Hobgoblin infantry, with either bows or spears and shields.

The rest is either special or rare... and I've forgotten what goes where. I suppose it really doesn't matter for you purposes....

Hobgoblin wolf riders, outfitted like the Khan. Basically they're the only real screening/maneuver units in the army.

The Iron Demon; basically a steam locomotive that doesn't need tracks. It has a light cannon on the front. There's a variant called the Skullcracker, which is basically the same device with a bunch of power tools on front for crashing through walls. It generates lots of impact hits and stomps.

There are several warmachines mounted on carriages the Iron Demon/Skullcracker can tow around, although they cannot fire if they've been moved. There's a HUGE mortar - the crew includes a slave ogre to load it! - a flame cannon, and a demonic rocket launcher.

Then there's the K'dai. Fire demon things. I forget if the basic K'dai are infantry or monstrous infantry. The K'dai Destroyer is a big monster not unlike a Balrog. Indeed, Balrogs have been commonly used as stand-ins for K'dai Destroyers.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Thanks very much! :)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Dark Elves done, the rest of the elven armies about halfway done. And then only Empire and Chaos Dwarfs remaining until all the armies are finished. :)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Vulcan »

The tricky part of both Empire and Chaos Dwarves: the steam tank/train. Who else makes something like that?
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Rowena
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

I have actually found some steam tank alternatives. Chaos Dwarves will be a problem because they seem to have great many similar machines, but I've decided to keep them for last, as they will probably be more complicated than the rest.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Vulcan »

Might be simplest to hit up 1/48th or 1/35th scale steam train and military model kits and give a brief conversion guide.
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

Vulcan wrote:Might be simplest to hit up 1/48th or 1/35th scale steam train and military model kits and give a brief conversion guide.

I'll try that, thanks for the suggestion! :)
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Re: Building armies without GW

Post by Rowena »

High Elves are up :) And sorry for the long wait, I'll try to finish up the few remaining armies and then start upgrading the blog, quite a few things have been suggested to me.
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