Dwarfs of Karak-Mingol (Updated April 22nd; more scratchbuilt mortar WIP)

[Luigi]

This will be a thread displaying the miniatures I paint (and have painted) over the years.
I've been collecting Dwarfs for almost 15 years and it took me just as many to come up with a colour scheme I was proud to share and put on display.
I also wrote a lot of lore on the Hold itself (Karak-Mingol) basing it withing the WHFB universe, I don't know if this is the right place, but if someone wants I'll gladly share the background I've come up with).

Well, let's get started with some pictures.


these are longbeards and they perfectly display the scheme I'm going for' green/blue with as little metal as possible.
Now, I know they are technically warriors, but due to the lore of the hold all, of the SkullPass models have been through so much that they've been promoted to longbeards.



this champion and musician also provide a better example of me avoiding any gold and any non-armor metal on the models.




The warrior with great axe sports an inverted colour scheme to distinguish it from the shield+weapon troops. For some reason he seems really happy about his job.
This is a fairly common theme in the army as well.

The slayer, poor guy, has suffered a stroke, as you can tell from his right eye. I also really dislike orange for reasons unknown, hence the green beard.


this miner instead shows my attempt at a monocoloured model, I've only used green; I'll probably try to add a few blue accents on the next members of his unit.

Pictures are fairly old, with some being even from the start of the pandemic, but this thread provides the perfect excuse to get back into painting 




EDIT:


I'll add some lore and background to this first post, as things get added/modified I'll edit this post accordingly.

Thank you

No I don't have a blog featuring this hold; although it is a good idea and I think it's something I'l ldefinitely approach in the future, as sooon as my situation stabilizes and  I get some more personal time to do things right.


I do, however, have most of the fluff written down, I might go and add it to this thread, perhaps editing the first post whenever things get updated/changed.

Actually Let me do it right now.

Over the years I've had people ask me what hold my dwarfs belonged to. I never thought too much about it untill running into this blog which is when something started moving in my head. a few Warhammer novels later and I had decided to create my own hold and base it where no other "official" dwarf hold existed; in Tilea. I always liked the warriors miniatures from BoSP but I've always only used them as longbeards, my excuse was always that they were a regiment of warriors that had fought and survived the now famous battle and thus were promoted to longbeards.
This formed the base of my background.
The following is what I've come up so far. Just like my collection, this is very much a work in progress. As ideas become more developed I'll add to it.

The dwarven hold of Karak-Mingol
(also known as Monte Trocchio by the tileans in the region)

In Khazalid the name KarakMingol loosesly translates to “tower mountain” this is also what the Tilean name Monte Trocchio means. The Tilean name for the hold is actually the name of a real mountain that I could to see from my window years ago, before moving to Canada.
Geography
The hold is located somewhere in the Apuccini mountains in Tilea. It’s in the southern-central region of the peninsula somewhere between the Island of sartosa and Karak-Borgo. The Apuccini are not a particularly impressive set of mountains and they never reach the mighty heights of more northern ranges. The climate here is much milder and forgiving, making the hold realtively easy to reach for travelers, merchants and enemies. This has pushed the dwarfs of Karak Mingol to develop one of the most extensive fleet of flying machines to patrol the area surrounding the hold.
While there are some veins of useful metals (copper/tin/lead/minor veins of iron) and some minor deposits of precious stone, the mountains offer little in what would be considered the foundation of a typical dwarven economy. This is reflected in the hold unique approach to commerce and banking, as well as its very unusual agricultural practices.

History

Karak Mingol is a relatively new hold, founded by some the dwarfs of Karak Grom, and its main clan Byrnik, that fought in the famous battle of Skull Pass. The fate of Karak Grom is a sad and unfortunately common one in these times of hardship and tribulation. How exactly these dwarfs ended up in Tilea and specifically here is not quite known, although their records seem to indicate a retreat from a massive Skaven invasion. The dwarfs migrated south over the course of a couple of centuries before finally stabilizing themselves where the hold is found today.

The colours of the hold are green and blue, a combination born out of the lost hold blue/gold and Clan Byrnik’s green/silver. The lack of any metal in its symbolism is probably due to the influence of Tilean culture. The Tileans are famous for “piangere miseria”, that is to lament and feign a state of perennial lack of any money as to ward any envy and attract others’ sympathy. In typical Tilean fashion. The richer the person the stronger and dramatic his lamentations will be. The dwarfs have always been wary of disclosing their true wealth to other races, so this curious habit was one they quickly understood and adopted.
More poetic dwarfs see the colours as a reflection of the deep azures of the Tilean skies and the green sides of the low mountains.

In real life terms this just means that I'll limit myself to a much more subtle palette of blue and green with little or no metal accents. I like the "comfy" look this gives the models and it also provides the added benefit of unifying the look of a whole army. A soft colour scheme, I found, is also easier on the eyes when playing the game and much more forgiving of less than stellar paint-job.



Economy

Karak Mingol is a bit of an oddity in the dwarven realm. The hold lacks access to many precious metals and its geography makes it nearly impossible to grow the typical dwarven crops. Because of this, KarakMingol had to turn to the only resource that never seems to diminish in Tilea; civil wars and mercenaries.
The ever-warring nature of the Tilean city-states means that the nearby humans are always in great need of both money to recruit mercenaries or weapons and equipment to arm soldiers. The dwarfs have thus learned to lend money to the Tileans, well knowing that when a clients somehow ends in power, another rival will soon rise, becoming a new customer.
The sale of armors, weapons and, most importantly, war machines, is also another important part of the hold’s economy. The dwarfs are exceptional engineer and weaponsmiths, their guns rarely misfire and are exceptionally accurate; their artillery is capable of massive destruction while still being reliable and (relatively) safe to use. Even their skill as engineer and architects means that often they’re hired by Tilean lords to erect buildings, build fortifications, design and plan cities; providing both money and prestige to the hold.
The same artillery sold to the Tileans (and built to the buyer's specifications) is frequently used as collateral when approving loans. This explains why Monte Trocchio often deploys cannons that aren't what you'd typically expect from dwarfs; someone couldn't fully repay the interests on their loan and so the dwarfs took back the cannons as payment.


Someone couldn't pay their debt back, so KarakMingol reclaimed some artillery.

As far as agriculture goes, the rocky yet warm terrain of the Apuccini makes for the perfect place to grow olive trees and grapevines. Many, more traditional, dwarfs have often expressed disdain for such a thing as dwarven wine, but even they can’t deny that a dwarf can make better (which often just means stronger) wine than an elf.
And in a sense, both olive trees and grapevines are similar to the dwarfs themselves: they thrive in rocky and elevated terrain, they are slow growing but extremely resilient, require lots of constant attention but yield products of great value and can live for hundreds (if not thousands!) of years.
And while it might have started as a joke, a now typical product of Karak Mingol is durazmakk, a sort pasta of all shapes and forms created by integrating stone powder in the flour mix. Most Tilean dwarfs like to eat their durazmakk al dente.


Guilds

Mining guild: The hold’s very existence is due to the miner’s guild of Monte Trocchio. The miners that survived the gobri attack at Skull Pass were responsible for collapsing the greenskins lair and turning the tide of the battle. after rearranging themselves into their own mining guild they were tasked by their thane to find a suitable site for a new hold. No one is quite sure on how this particular spot in the Apuccini mountains was chosen. The legend of its foundation goes as follow: while consulting the map, the main prospector, still bleeding from the recent fight, had a drop of blood fall where the hold is located today. The prospector swore revenge on that particular mountain and the rest is history. Other dwarfs suggest, hardly containing a smile, that rather than blood that was wine that dripped from the prospector’s mouth.
Since the holds doesn’t have an abundance of metal, the guild focuses mostly on stone work and architecture; as well as providing the labour for the earthwork and terracing needed for the planting and cultivations of olives and grapes.

Engineering guild: When being initiated into the guild, the dwarfs of monte Trocchio are made to choose between one of the two “houses” that form the guild. The two houses are based on its members love or hate relationship towards gunpowder. To become a member of the house a dwarf has to build handgun or a crossbow and fire  it in front of his mates. While there’s definitely a lot of rivalry between the two houses; over the years this has led to an ever-increasing standard of quality and craftsmanship in the weapons sported by both quarrelers and thunderers.

The guild has always adopted an open-door policy towards any engineer from other holds; because of this the guild is very open minded (by dwarf standards, at least). The fact that most of the time innovation comes from a client's absurd requests also helps a lot in somewhat loosening the Dwarven standards.
Technological ideas and innovation combined with the dwarfs’ skill in producing high quality artillery has in fact proven to be a driving factor in ensuring the wealth of Karak Mingol. The hold as a vast arsenal of cannons, bombards, mortar, catapults, bolt throwers; as well as more exotic pieces such as flame cannons and organ guns. The Engineering guild is also responsible for arming and maintain the large fleet of flying vehicles that crisscross the sky patrolling the area around MonteTrocchio.
Additionally, the guild provides the weapons and training to the many regiments of quarrelers and thunderers that make the standing army of Karak Mingol.

Additional bits of trivia.
*The very first cannon of the hold is the same the dwarfs used in the battle of Skull Pass. It’s called McDaddy the slayer of deamons after killing a massive deamon of Nurgle  in a game in real life in which my opponent kept screaming "who's you daddy?/come to papa nurgle" everytime he'd move his Great Unclean One around.

*Twice a year the two houses of the Engineering guild have a competitions in which the members test their aiming skills and show off their craftsmanship in developing and building the finest crossbow/handgun. The competition consists of trying to hit moving targets (often captive goblins or skavens let loose from their cages) and it is divided in two rounds; one before and one after drinking copious amount of dwarven wine.

*Due to the lack of metal in the hold, the dwarfs of Monte Trocchio have special units that pick clean all fallen enemies of their weapons and armors. This equipment is then melted, and the metal used to craft weapons and armors of much higher quality.

[voltan]

Some good looking dwarves there, have you thought about using a red for the slayers hair to give them a better contrast to the rest of the army? Though if you're happy with the green then it doesn't really matter. 

[Luigi]

Some good looking dwarves there

thank you thank you

have you thought about using a red for the slayers hair to give them a better contrast to the rest of the army?

i do have some slayers I painted years ago with red or orange hair. Mine is a conscious decision of having no red/orange/yellow (as well as no gold/bronze) in the army.

but you're correct about the contrast. Maybe I can try with  purple or bright white hair on the next slayers.

[Luigi]

I wasn't wrong, this forum does inspire me to pick up a brush and paint stuff.



This is a dwarf miner.

I believe he was supposed to be a unit champion but I don't think I've ever used a champion without the steam drill.

[Luigi]

This week (this morning, really) sees two more addition to the miner regiment of Karak-Mingol.
In terms of fluff this unit belonged to the original army that founded the hold. The venerable age of its member reflected by the white/ grey in their beards.



So far this is the only unit sporting a single colour (green) in their uniform as opposed to the usual blue/green scheme.

Eventually I'll paint a second unit in blue.

As you can tell from their facial expression

they're both pretty upset that I didn't paint their candle flames. But I have no yellow/orange/red paint whatsoever and they'll have  to wait.

[WuZhuiQiu]

Nice work! Do you have a blog with more background on this Dwarf hold?

[Luigi]

Thank you

No I don't have a blog featuring this hold; although it is a good idea and I think it's something I'l ldefinitely approach in the future, as sooon as my situation stabilizes and  I get some more personal time to do things right.


I do, however, have most of the fluff written down, I might go and add it to this thread, perhaps editing the first post whenever things get updated/changed.

Actually Let me do it right now.

Over the years I've had people ask me what hold my dwarfs belonged to. I never thought too much about it untill running into this blog which is when something started moving in my head. a few Warhammer novels later and I had decided to create my own hold and base it where no other "official" dwarf hold existed; in Tilea. I always liked the warriors miniatures from BoSP but I've always only used them as longbeards, my excuse was always that they were a regiment of warriors that had fought and survived the now famous battle and thus were promoted to longbeards.
This formed the base of my background.
The following is what I've come up so far. Just like my collection, this is very much a work in progress. As ideas become more developed I'll add to it.

The dwarven hold of Karak-Mingol
(also known as Monte Trocchio by the tileans in the region)

In Khazalid the name KarakMingol loosesly translates to “tower mountain” this is also what the Tilean name Monte Trocchio means. The Tilean name for the hold is actually the name of a real mountain that I could to see from my window years ago, before moving to Canada.
Geography
The hold is located somewhere in the Apuccini mountains in Tilea. It’s in the southern-central region of the peninsula somewhere between the Island of sartosa and Karak-Borgo. The Apuccini are not a particularly impressive set of mountains and they never reach the mighty heights of more northern ranges. The climate here is much milder and forgiving, making the hold realtively easy to reach for travelers, merchants and enemies. This has pushed the dwarfs of Karak Mingol to develop one of the most extensive fleet of flying machines to patrol the area surrounding the hold.
While there are some veins of useful metals (copper/tin/lead/minor veins of iron) and some minor deposits of precious stone, the mountains offer little in what would be considered the foundation of a typical dwarven economy. This is reflected in the hold unique approach to commerce and banking, as well as its very unusual agricultural practices.

History

Karak Mingol is a relatively new hold, founded by some the dwarfs of Karak Grom, and its main clan Byrnik, that fought in the famous battle of Skull Pass. The fate of Karak Grom is a sad and unfortunately common one in these times of hardship and tribulation. How exactly these dwarfs ended up in Tilea and specifically here is not quite known, although their records seem to indicate a retreat from a massive Skaven invasion. The dwarfs migrated south over the course of a couple of centuries before finally stabilizing themselves where the hold is found today.

The colours of the hold are green and blue, a combination born out of the lost hold blue/gold and Clan Byrnik’s green/silver. The lack of any metal in its symbolism is probably due to the influence of Tilean culture. The Tileans are famous for “piangere miseria”, that is to lament and feign a state of perennial lack of any money as to ward any envy and attract others’ sympathy. In typical Tilean fashion. The richer the person the stronger and dramatic his lamentations will be. The dwarfs have always been wary of disclosing their true wealth to other races, so this curious habit was one they quickly understood and adopted.
More poetic dwarfs see the colours as a reflection of the deep azures of the Tilean skies and the green sides of the low mountains.

In real life terms this just means that I'll limit myself to a much more subtle palette of blue and green with little or no metal accents. I like the "comfy" look this gives the models and it also provides the added benefit of unifying the look of a whole army. A soft colour scheme, I found, is also easier on the eyes when playing the game and much more forgiving of less than stellar paint-job.



Economy

Karak Mingol is a bit of an oddity in the dwarven realm. The hold lacks access to many precious metals and its geography makes it nearly impossible to grow the typical dwarven crops. Because of this, KarakMingol had to turn to the only resource that never seems to diminish in Tilea; civil wars and mercenaries.
The ever-warring nature of the Tilean city-states means that the nearby humans are always in great need of both money to recruit mercenaries or weapons and equipment to arm soldiers. The dwarfs have thus learned to lend money to the Tileans, well knowing that when a clients somehow ends in power, another rival will soon rise, becoming a new customer.
The sale of armors, weapons and, most importantly, war machines, is also another important part of the hold’s economy. The dwarfs are exceptional engineer and weaponsmiths, their guns rarely misfire and are exceptionally accurate; their artillery is capable of massive destruction while still being reliable and (relatively) safe to use. Even their skill as engineer and architects means that often they’re hired by Tilean lords to erect buildings, build fortifications, design and plan cities; providing both money and prestige to the hold.
The same artillery sold to the Tileans (and built to the buyer's specifications) is frequently used as collateral when approving loans. This explains why Monte Trocchio often deploys cannons that aren't what you'd typically expect from dwarfs; someone couldn't fully repay the interests on their loan and so the dwarfs took back the cannons as payment.


Someone couldn't pay their debt back, so KarakMingol reclaimed some artillery.

As far as agriculture goes, the rocky yet warm terrain of the Apuccini makes for the perfect place to grow olive trees and grapevines. Many, more traditional, dwarfs have often expressed disdain for such a thing as dwarven wine, but even they can’t deny that a dwarf can make better (which often just means stronger) wine than an elf.
And in a sense, both olive trees and grapevines are similar to the dwarfs themselves: they thrive in rocky and elevated terrain, they are slow growing but extremely resilient, require lots of constant attention but yield products of great value and can live for hundreds (if not thousands!) of years.
And while it might have started as a joke, a now typical product of Karak Mingol is durazmakk, a sort pasta of all shapes and forms created by integrating stone powder in the flour mix. Most Tilean dwarfs like to eat their durazmakk al dente.


Guilds

Mining guild: The hold’s very existence is due to the miner’s guild of Monte Trocchio. The miners that survived the gobri attack at Skull Pass were responsible for collapsing the greenskins lair and turning the tide of the battle. after rearranging themselves into their own mining guild they were tasked by their thane to find a suitable site for a new hold. No one is quite sure on how this particular spot in the Apuccini mountains was chosen. The legend of its foundation goes as follow: while consulting the map, the main prospector, still bleeding from the recent fight, had a drop of blood fall where the hold is located today. The prospector swore revenge on that particular mountain and the rest is history. Other dwarfs suggest, hardly containing a smile, that rather than blood that was wine that dripped from the prospector’s mouth.
Since the holds doesn’t have an abundance of metal, the guild focuses mostly on stone work and architecture; as well as providing the labour for the earthwork and terracing needed for the planting and cultivations of olives and grapes.

Engineering guild: When being initiated into the guild, the dwarfs of monte Trocchio are made to choose between one of the two “houses” that form the guild. The two houses are based on its members love or hate relationship towards gunpowder. To become a member of the house a dwarf has to build handgun or a crossbow and fire  it in front of his mates. While there’s definitely a lot of rivalry between the two houses; over the years this has led to an ever-increasing standard of quality and craftsmanship in the weapons sported by both quarrelers and thunderers.

The guild has always adopted an open-door policy towards any engineer from other holds; because of this the guild is very open minded (by dwarf standards, at least). The fact that most of the time innovation comes from a client's absurd requests also helps a lot in somewhat loosening the Dwarven standards.
Technological ideas and innovation combined with the dwarfs’ skill in producing high quality artillery has in fact proven to be a driving factor in ensuring the wealth of Karak Mingol. The hold as a vast arsenal of cannons, bombards, mortar, catapults, bolt throwers; as well as more exotic pieces such as flame cannons and organ guns. The Engineering guild is also responsible for arming and maintain the large fleet of flying vehicles that crisscross the sky patrolling the area around MonteTrocchio.
Additionally, the guild provides the weapons and training to the many regiments of quarrelers and thunderers that make the standing army of Karak Mingol.

Additional bits of trivia.
*The very first cannon of the hold is the same the dwarfs used in the battle of Skull Pass. It’s called McDaddy the slayer of deamons after killing a massive deamon of Nurgle  in a game in real life in which my opponent kept screaming "who's you daddy?/come to papa nurgle" everytime he'd move his Great Unclean One around.

*Twice a year the two houses of the Engineering guild have a competitions in which the members test their aiming skills and show off their craftsmanship in developing and building the finest crossbow/handgun. The competition consists of trying to hit moving targets (often captive goblins or skavens let loose from their cages) and it is divided in two rounds; one before and one after drinking copious amount of dwarven wine.

*Due to the lack of metal in the hold, the dwarfs of Monte Trocchio have special units that pick clean all fallen enemies of their weapons and armors. This equipment is then melted, and the metal used to craft weapons and armors of much higher quality.

[Luigi]

I've been painting quite a bit of miners, but they all look similar to those from earlier posts so I doubt that people would be interested.

I finished this


an engineer/artillery crew, I'm particularly pleased with the helmet, I might try a few helmets painted with no metal whatsoever

[majorsmith]

Nicely painted dwarves!

[boneio]

Lovely classic dwarves!

I hadn't realised so much of those mins was beard 

[Luigi]

Thank you guys, much appreciated.


And yeah, I also hadn't realized just how much of the miniature beards actually do take!

[Luigi]

Some WIP pictures this time.

I experimented a bit with the helmets.


I tried for "less metallic" helmets.
I like 2/3/4 better than 1. I think I'll keep most helmet from being completely in metal from now onward.
As far as metal/color combination go, 2 is ok, but I prefer how it looks on the engineer from the other day (with the rims in metal and the centre in green or blue).

I definitely like 3 and 4, I might alternate a few in each unit.

[Luigi]

It's been over a month since the last update, but I've finally managed to sit down for a bit and get some painting done.








And a final shot with the detail of the engineer



The more I proceed, the more I'm pleased with the colour scheme.

[Luigi]

Latest addition to my Tilean hold


Rodomonte Collera, _somethingSlayer of Karak Mingol.

Even before taking the slayer oath, Rodomonte was quick to anger and easily upset, which granted him his name (Collera) when working as a trainer and commander for the militia of a Tilean village. The name stuck and, after taking the oath, the sight of his bright blue crest instill fear and terror into the hearts of his enemies.

No one is quite sure why he took the oath, or why he painted his hair blue, but no one - dwarf or otherwise- has had the balls heart to ask him.

[WuZhuiQiu]

Nice work!