Forthammer Clan Throng - Hammer Co. (Hammerers)

Nobody smashes your foe like Hammer Co.

Catchy mottos aside, this is my newest addition to my Forthammer Clan Throng. Ever since seeing the new blood bowl dwarf team, I wanted to use them in my army somehow. A conversion to fit them in. I love their dynamic action poses, so instead of using them for a defense line unit (like longbeards, warriors, or ironbreakers), I should go more for the damage dealing assault type troop. This really only left Hammerers, and I took the challenge. And these guys did prove to be a challenge.

The most difficult part was getting them to hold hammers 2 handed. All the models are posed with a really wide open stance, meaning I was going to have to do a lot of cutting and reposing to get their arms close enough for holding the hammers. Of course the easy route would have been to let them just hold the hammer in one hand, leaving the other open, but after doing 5 of them like that, I realized I wanted the remaining 5 to properly hold their hammers. I figured the best way to show the effort put into these guys is to show them side-by-side with the original models, using pictures from the Warhammer Community site.

This is the tanker of the unit. A lot of my duardin units have some sort of tanker. There is a keg on his back, and I tried converting the dwarf football into a smaller backup keg. It works quite well. As you can see, the heads tops were lopped off and I stuck on Hammerer helmets, which were lopped off their original pieces as well. Most of the model have at least had this done.

Some of these bloodbowl figures had alternate heads/beards. I want to make sure each and every figure in this unit is unique in a way, so having that helped on some. Again, replacing the helmet top with the Hammerer one helps convince the look that these guys are Hammerers.

This is the Standard Bearer. The original banner is too big and unwieldy to be used by a dwarf in such a pose, so I opted just for the topper. It conveys what he is well enough. The football in the original model is attached to his arm, so I had to carefully shave it off and have him hold his hammer higher up on the haft to create a better balance.

The Keeper of the Gate, or unit champion. I wanted him to stand out from the difference of the pose. I shaved off the slayer mohawk to give him a bald head (what is it with me and bald heads?), and it took quite a lot of effort to get his arms to hold the very ornate hammer above his head like that. One thing I challenge myself to do is never let a mono-pose model prevent me from reposing it.

I would have to say this is the most difficult one of the batch to do. Rather than having another dwarf held up in a leaping pose with his beard, I wanted to convey the sense of 'smash' with these guys by actually having a hammer smash down into the ground, feet raised in the air. I cut this guy to pieces, swapped parts with spares, greenstuffed a lot of weird space, it was quite extensive and I was really doubting it would work the whole time I was doing it. I am really proud however of how he finally turned out! Because of the nature of the pose, there is a single pin running throughout the entire model, from the hammer head all the way into his beard and torso. So really his arms are not holding the hammer in place, but his beard. Very dwarfy. The base is also weighted, it had to be.

One of the more simple conversions. Just replaced the helmet top and used one of the open hands to hold the hammer.

Another easy one. But this time he his holding the hammer low on the shaft so it looks like this one has just taken a really long wide swing.

The Throng Musician, using the original Hammerers horn. With this model I took advantage of its head posed more to the side so it would be easier to position the horn in front of it. This model did not have an alternate head, and since I needed the right arm free to hold something, I went ahead and just used the original hammerer head. A few of them are using that. Again I tried not to use the same heads twice if I could avoid it.

This guy took a lot more posing effort because it's not easy to hold the hammer like that, especially since the original Hammerer kit doesn't have the hands that far apart. Most of this model's arms and hammer parts are pinned together because the glue joints would be too fragile otherwise. Again I didn't want a repeat of beards, I used a hammerer beard/head, and the next model used the original model's beard.

To get this one to do a 2-handed hold, I had to cut into his beard so the shaft looked like it fit more closer to him, otherwise he would have held it out too far. Sometimes those beards really get in the way.