So I have been in the miniature war gaming hobby since I was 14 years old and never once have I played in a convention tournament. However this year I will be attending the Nova Open in Alexandria, Virginia 1-2 September and I couldn't be more excited! So with the decision made to go I now have to get my army together and I have chosen to take an all infantry force of Dispossessed Dwarfs made up entirely of EM4 Miniatures plastic Dwarfs (http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Copy_of_Fantasy.html). Now these guys were dirt cheap as I picked up 50 shields and 50 of each pose for $40. I then spoke with the help center for the Nova Open to ensure that my army would be tournament legal (probably should have checked on that first) and much to my relief the tournament organizers not only approved but are excited to see my army. There was one stipulation though, no mini could be used to represent two different types of units. This means I could not use the great ax miniature as both a hammerer and a warrior with a great ax. So what that means is I can only use the base miniatures for three units and will need to convert the rest. So I set about putting together a 2000 point list so I would know what units I would need to convert. With my list complete I needed to convert the following :
2x 20 Dwarf Warriors w/Hand Weapons
1x 20 Dwarf Hammerers
1x 20 Dwarf Miners
1x 20 Dwarf Thunderers
So with this in mind off to ebay I went and scooped up a pile of games workshop dwarf hand weapons for $10. So this covered the Warriors and as for the Hammerers and Thunderers plasticard tubes will be the answer. As for the Miners I haven't quite worked them all out but it will involve me sculpting some candles for their helmets.
At this point I figured I was in for a penny so I should go on and be in for a pound and maximize how many different game systems I could use this army for so I decided to rebase these guys on 20mm round bases and pick up some movement trays.
For the bases I searched and searched until I remember a small company called Proxie Models (http://proxiemodels.com/)
He runs a small ebay store and for $20 I got 200 20mm bases!
Now I was on to movement trays and I found that there was no shortage in options here. What I did find was that most of the companies were really in love with their product and as I was trying to keep things cheap this was beginning to become a problem. Then I stumbled across a company called Warbases(http://war-bases.co.uk) and was able to pick up enough variety of trays to fit budding army. This only set me back $20.
With all that complete I realized I need two heroes and a 28mm mule for the Miners. So I did some research and discovered that Nick Lund was the original sculptor of the dwarfs I had chosen and that a company called Forlorn Hope Games(https://www.forlornhopegames.com/) still stocked some of the old metal minis. They had a two pack of dwarf heroes and as I was checking out their site I found a 28mm pack mule (what luck!). So for $14 my army was complete.
So $104 I had put together everything I needed for a 2000pt army that could be played across three different games. Now that may sound like alot but consider that just one of Games - Workshops start collecting boxes runs $85 for roughly 500pt I think I did pretty good.
