Kings of War A Veteran Wargamer's Newbie Guide

As wonderful as the Mantic kit for the Abyssal Dwarfs is, there is an issue in that there are no command options beyond some arms for making Darksoul and Decimator leaders (pointing. Standard).

I’d at least like a standard bearer.  Fortunately the kit comes with a hand holding a round object, grenade? Ammunition for the blunderbuss?  Not sure.  Doesn’t matter.  This gives us a hand in a good position to have the fist drilled out and a standard pole inserted.

I had a quick look through the bits boxes and found a few broken Lord of the Rings plastic Uruk-hai pikes.  These were vulnerable to snapping at the hand but that leaves a good length and there is a cruel looking glaive like spear point at the top.  Perfect.

Hands were drilled out with a pin vice and the shaft of what will be the flag pole inserted and secured with a dot of polycement.  Then painting as per the guide in the Part 4 article.  The shaft was painted Noble Skin.

Then on to the flag.  First I needed an image.  Mantic have some very clear iconography for the factions with each having a very nice logo like icon.  The one for Abyssal Dwarfs is a skull with tusks.  Perfect.  I took a photo of this from one of the Mantic boxes I had.  The cellophane was still on it but that provided a bit of a ripple-like look to the black background:

These were transferred into Word and duplicated and arranged in pairs ready for printing.

When I printed them this happened:

So not the plain black I had in mind but whatever my printer had been smoking that day had resulted in this lovely faded light to dark green transitioned background.  The colour reminds me of the box colour for the 3rd edition releases, how apt.  That’s right Bob, a “happy accident” indeed!

So not what I had imagined but as it is so much better I’m sticking with it.  Before my printer decided to start behaving again I ran off another full page so I’ve got a whole army’s worth and more now.

On to putting one onto the flag pole.  I use a metal sandwich method.  This requires a tomato paste tube which has been emptied and washed.  Sections can then be cut off and flattened with the side of a pencil on a flat surface.  When absolutely flat trim to a size slightly smaller than one side of the flag.  Leave an allowance for the paper to wrap around the pole too.

To attach:  Spread PVA on both sides of the metal and the inside of the flag.  Position like this:

Wrap the now rather gluey flag around the flag pole.  Position so that the paper edges meet evenly all the way around and there is no over/under lap showing on either side.  The metal is now totally encased inside the paper.

Leave this to dry.

Did you leave it to dry?  Please do.  If you try this final part and the paper is even slightly wet it will tear and you’ll have to start again.

When it is dry you can start to put ripples into the flag.  You can do this with nimble fingers or you can bend the flag against a paintbrush handle holding it first on one side, then the other to get the concertinaing in.  The metal will hold the bends in a nice even way and the paper won’t crease like it does if you don’t have any metal in there.  Once you are happy that the flag looks like it is rippling in the breeze you are done.

Paint the edge to cover up the white.  Pick a colour that matches the top highlight colour on the flag, I used a pale green on the top edge and darkened it a little from about half way down the vertical side.  Use a standard acrylic, not an ink or Speedpaint as this will seep into the paper and stain it.  Get paint on the brush and then wipe a fair amount off and run the side of the bristles along the flag edge.  If you try to paint it on with the tip you will overrun onto the face of the flag which you don’t want.

All that PVA soaked into the paper will make the flag very resilient for play and the metal holds it in the shape you gave it, even if it is bashed or knocked about.

Ta-da!