My Reader will recognise the phrase in the title, I coined it a while ago to describe the area I had inhabited with the Free Dwarfs of Bowland, squeezed between the Mountains known as the Sorrows and the High Sea of Bari, I populated the Area with Free Dwarfs, Humans, undead, Halflings and Ogres. The Idea being that I could run my Narratives in what was effectively a blank piece of map so it wouldn’t interfere with any of the Lore that was being developed by Mantic. Over the ensuing Years there has been several additions, including the arrival of Abyssal Dwarfs in the form of Azghars Hellforged Legion of Brass, several Blogposts have been devoted to this Army as the Abyssal Dwarfs are really characterful and I enjoyed building and painting and using the army.
The Free Dwarfs settled in Estacarr due to them losing their homeland in the Halpi Mountains, when the combined Might of the Abyssal Dwarfs, Ratkin and Goblins served to capture or destroy most of the Dwarf Halls. The Events of Halpi’s Rift are well documented in the KoW supplement of the same name and more recently the recapture of Cwl Gyn by Sveri Egilax was detailed in the Novel Pride of the King, which also describes a widening schism in Dwarf society due to the apparent corruption of King Golloch by the Abyssal Dwarfs.
Intermingled with this Lore I have been developing the background for the Free Dwarfs to fit in with the Armies I have for Kings of War.
The Original Army was an all mounted Brock Rider Army and eventually I converted and added an entire army of Rangers. The idea behind this was that the area settled by the Free Dwarfs was analogous to the area I lived in at the time. This is an Area of Natural Beauty in Northern England called the Forest of Bowland. The Main feature of this area is a ring of Mountains surrounding a glacial basin called the “Trough of Bowland” and there is a ruin called Langden Castle (actually ancient sheep pens) within the Trough.
Thus the Settlement of the Free Dwarfs of Bowland came about because King Golloch, in a “generous” gesture allotted the Free Dwarfs this area of Estacarr. The Trough of Bowland became a single mountain- along the lines of the Lonely Mountain from one of my favourite books, the Hobbit, and the idea was that it was formally a Dwarf hold that suffered a catastrophe in its past, resulting in the collapse of the Peak, leaving a ring of hills surrounding the roofless ruins of a Dwarf hold. At some point the Humans had built a Castle out of the Ruins but that too was now a ruin itself. Being granted this landhold by Golloch was a bit of a slight on the Free Dwarfs but, in true Dwarf style they have made the best of a bad job. This would also work in my favour as I regularly base my free Dwarfs with broken masonry and statues on the bases, both to make them look good and to provide handles to stop me touching the models, this basing also means that the army fits in with the theme of coming from an area strewn with building rubble, rock shards and crumbled statues. I have an old FatMat called “Tundra” which I have used in the past as my Dwarf Home map, but I now have access to enough scenery building capability to remake all my dwarven scenery to include the ruined Hold and an old mine or two, with some new structures such as a brew house and a forge. All of which will be blogged about I have no doubt.
They have reopened the old mines and underground levels of the Hold while exploring the various outposts and underways of the old Hold, but also they have maintained a large surface presence in the mountains and surrounding Forest, resulting in a larger than normal number of Rangers (I even have two regiments of Ranger Brock Riders that I use as Centaur Allies from the Forces of Nature List) This also led to the construction of both a FoN list and a Herd Army to add to our collection and this was included in the Bloggery as well.
The Original idea was that the Free Dwarfs were all to be one Clan, however as the Lore developed and new models were released for the Dwarfs so the Free Dwarfs of Bowland evolved. This was brought about by, as so many Wargaming projects are, a random Figure painted to try a colourscheme for a new army, which resulted in a full blown Army being created and a whole new branch of Free Dwarf of Bowland Lore being created. All of this being documented in the Blog, of course.
Three Clans are represented within the settlement of the Free Dwarfs of Bowland, the Brock Clan, which is by far the largest of the three, the Raven Clan and the Bear Clan.
The Brock Clan – rather obviously named because my first free Dwarf army was an all mounted Berserker Brock Army led by Sveri Egilax and Wingy Kingy, are the original settlers of the Forest of Bowland. They provide the warriors to defend the Holdings and it is patrols of Brock Riders that keep the borders clear. The Normal Dwarf folk of the Brock clan provide the builders and Artizans that are helping to restore the Hold and they grow the crops that keep the Hold supplied, they are also the Traders that deal with the Humans of PriestTown and Tyrsis to keep the flow of goods and foodstuffs back and forth.
The Raven Clan were a later addition to the Free Dwarfs of Bowland when the Stoneclaws were released by Mantic, they started life as a Northern Alliance army which grew into a Northern Free Dwarf army of combined arms, eventually breaking off to return to the Halpi Mountains as fulfilment of their Oaths of support to Sveri Egilax, this opened a whole new chapter for the Free Dwarfs of Bowland when the Army was being built and also allowed an expansion of the Narrative campaign we run to include the Clans return to the Halpi Mountains and their subsequent fight against Goblins, Ratkin and Abyssal Dwarfs.
And there is also a bit of an in depth dive into the Military Might of the Raven Clan , as I can get carried away with my background info sometimes.https://www.bleufish.uk/post/a-little-bit-of-background-again
The Bear Clan are the newest addition. They are, perhaps the least Free Dwarfish of the Free Dwarfs as the Lords on Large Beasts I use for them, coupled with the Ironclads they field are straight out of the Imperial Dwarf List and it takes no stretch of the imagination to see them fighting in a more “Traditional” manner than the rest of the Clans. But that is something I may develop as the Narrative continues. https://www.bleufish.uk/post/bear-clan
The mass movement of the Raven Clan Northwards gave us an opportunity to expand the Narrative to include the Northern Alliance army we have been working on into the story. As the Winter months approach we will get more battles and stories into the campaign and it will allow us to expand MLCOP a bit more and hopefully it will be shared with my Reader.
As the Narrative Campaign expanded so did the descriptions of the areas outside the Free Dwarfs domain. The Abyssal Dwarf outpost had a story that introduced a couple of new characters and the idea that it is a forward post for Ratkin Slaves was introduced as was the presence of “Free” Ratkin.
The Gallia Barbarians were introduced as our Varangur army increased in size and as the Undead forces took shape a background was created to provide origin stories for both these races in MLCOP.
The Free City of Tyrsis has been introduced as a way of introducing some of the more exotic races into the Narrative, https://www.bleufish.uk/post/a-little-bit-further-afield Salamanders are my Partners favourite Army and it seemed a good idea to fit them in. Their entry into the Narrative is coming soon. Tyrsis also allows us to include Kingdoms of Men or League of Rhordia into the campaign if we wish and the idea of Halfling Tinkers that travel on huge Wagons across the great grass plains (which came about after reading about Hussite War Wagons) was born, their intro story has already been included in the Blog and the first of the “Land Trains” is under construction. The short story introducing the Halflings also introduced the idea of large bands of fierce Goblins roving the steppes and raiding Caravans, which will lead to the inevitable, you guessed it, Goblin Army.
The city of Tyrsis has also allowed the creation of a New set of Ogre Mercenaries which have a themed link to both the City and the Merchants https://www.bleufish.uk/post/albillo-s-black-band-la-banda-negro-de-albillo
Various Characters have been created along the Way and some models have already been converted to bring them to life. The most visual of these so far has been Lord Osric of the Raven Clan, who led his entire Clan Northwards from Estacarr into the Halpi Mountains in fulfilment of an Oath made to support Sveri Egilax in the liberation of the Free Dwarf Homelands. https://www.bleufish.uk/post/who-leads-the-raven-clan
A Whole new branch of Narrative has been created by this and even underground battles have been fought in this campaign, it also led to the creation of the “Greys” underground Ranger troops that prevent the invasion of Dwarf Holds from below.https://www.bleufish.uk/post/drums-in-the-deep
The Narrative aspect of the Games we play is ideal for small points games at home and is a great break from the grind of Tournament development. Units that would not usually get on the table at Tournaments can be fielded in Ambush games and provide a great opportunity for modelling as well. I have always been involved in Narrative play even during my early days playing Historical Wargames and through Warhammer Fantasy. There used to be several Narrative events available for Warhammer and I am hoping that some form of Narrative campaign weekend events could be possible for Kings of War.
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