Introducing the Dolgans

I wrote in my last post that I have been preparing some minis for the old Dolgan Riaders-scenario from Citadel Journal for this year’s Hoisont Con. The con is now passed but before I show you how it all went down I want to do a few posts about the minis and the scenario first.

As you probably know the scenario describes the attack on a hobgoblin caravan by the tribe of Dolgans. And what you see here is basically the Dolgan tribe constituted more or less by fierce nomad warriors as well as the centaur Maramseth.

The Dolgans are led by Ivan. The scenario model is rather fun – a barbarian with the hair somewhere between Joey Ramone and Buzz Osborne clad in a short breastplate stopping just above his navel and G-string underwear.  Note also the quite elaborate scabbard.

The second in command among the Dolgans is Terek. I used my Pan Tang Tiger Handler as Terek which seems fitting as Terek leads five war hounds into battle. For the Horisont game I used my Hobhounds as the dogs to add a little flavor and exoticism to the game.  I have the old scenario model but did not have the time to pant him in time as I had to finish the two units of bloody tribesmen you can see below.

Two champions also accompany the Dolgans on their raid. Firstly there is Stephan. A spectacular miniature with patriarchal looks. The mini is quite large and I really grew fond of it while painting the ol’ chap. He’s clearly one of my favorites from this whole scenario. The thing about Stephan is that he is a Were Bison or Were Bull, as I interpreted it for the sake of convenience. In order to represent his bull-form I used an old Prince August Minotaur. The mini is small compared to what you normally see when it comes to a Minotaur and it has been left unpainted in my lead mountain for quite some years now. But I think he fits the bill perfectly as the beast form of Stephan. In order to tie the two models together I gave the Minotaur a sword.

The second Dolgan champion is Yuri – another splendid miniature that frankly reeks of the old comic book version of Conan.

 

Then we arrive at The Storyteller – the shaman and spell caster of the tribe. I have been trying to get hold of the scenario model for some time now without any luck. He’ll probably show up some day but until then this cleric, quaintly called Mao Living-Mo in the Citadel universe of named models, is my Storyteller. A fun little fella which grew on me while painting it; as he lacks a name in the scenario I have called him Kepek.

To this we then can add Maramseth the Centuar – the close friend of the Dolgans. I’m not sure what miniature came with the scenario pack. At least I don’t remember seeing any centaur looking like the cut-out token which comes along with the scenario in Citadel Journal. Perhaps some of the Citadel scholars could elucidate on this? I used the Talisman Centaur as Maramseth. A classic sculpt. It was important to me that he should not look like a chaos centaur.

 

Finally we have the two units of Dolgan troops. One unit armed with hand weapons – in this case spears – and the other unit armed with short bows. The Dolgan tribe and indeed the whole concept of nomadic tribes roaming the Northern Wastes clearly takes a lot of inspiration from the Mongols which we already see in the drawing accompanying the text about these tribes in the Bestiary from Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2ed.

To represent the Dolgans I chose to use Mongol warriors from Old Glory Miniatures. They are crude, came with huge amounts of flash and mold lines and are a bit on the small side when compared to their Citadel kinsmen. However, I like their look and once painted it all came together nicely.

And speaking of painting – these two units were speed painted at frantic pace during the last week before the con. I absolutely hate to speed paint miniatures and I hate to paint more the five models of the same kind in a row. It was in other words a rather tiresome and frustrating experience to finish these 40 Dolgans, but once done I could sort of look at them with a sense of achievement.

Almost all together

I my next post I’ll introduce the hobgoblins and their caravan.

Cheers

Martin   

 

         

      

 

The Dolgans soon to raid again

In two weeks the annual Horisont convention is held in Odense, which undoubtedly is the best and most interesting Danish war games convention. Like the two previous years I will be hosting a game of Oldhammer with my ol’ buddy Claus and this year we decided to run the famous “Dolgan Raiders” scenario from the Second Citadel Journal published in 1985. We will be using the 2ed WFB rules and more or less stick to the scenario as presented with a few small tweaks. More about both the miniatures and the scenario later when I’m done basing the minis we will be using.

The Second Citadel Journal published in 1985

In this post you can see the table on which we will be playing the scenario. We just finished the whole thing this weekend. Basically the action of the scenario takes place on flat grasslands which of course makes the terrain fairly simple if not even boring, so we decided to spice things up a bit by letting the confrontation take place on a slightly slopping hill and included some small features which breaks the monotony – a burial mound, an ancient stature and the remains of some gigantic thing which once wandered these plains. For those of you who know the scenario, which undoubtedly is most, you will remember the three wagons pulled by lobotomized ogres (sic!) which of course also are going to be a very dominant feature on the battlefield.

 

The styrofoam boards put in place and ready to be attacked

Cutting the slopping hillside

First stage done. A lone dark elf mini is used to test if the slope is not too steep

Statue and burial mound added

We initially were toying with the idea of having a road crossing the battlefield but this idea we soon discarded

Them the whole thing was covered with white glue mixed with brown paint and sand

And a giant skeleton as well as some smaller bones was put into the wet sand and glue mix

The statue is a some cheap religious kitsch with just the right flavour

The giant skeleton is the last remains of a rabbit a found a while ago which I had soaking in bleach for a while

More rabbit bones strewn across the battlefield

Once dry we gave the whole thing a new layer of dark brown

Once the brown layer was dry we took the whole thing outside and highlighted the boards with brownish yellow and khaki spray paints

Back inside the last details – such as the statue was painted and patches of reeds and large bushes was added.

And done. Ready for the Dolgans and their hated Hobgoblin enemies