[Hobby] DWARVES! IN! SPACE! | Starting the Leagues of Votann Army

To some, this will not come as a surprise.

I play a quantity of Deep Rock Galactic, because it scratches that live service, weekly goal, log in for an hour or two and piss about itch that Overwatch used to, with a vaguely correspondent style (not aesthetic: DRG is far more dieselpunk). For those unfamiliar, this is a game about dwarves, in space, mining a hostile planet full of 'orrible hostile bugs in all sizes, purple rocks that cut holes in reality, and robots whose swarms of buzzing nuisance drones and huge inverted pyramid boss fight seem... strangely... compelling. 

There's a certain correspondence here, is what I'm saying.

GW's Leagues of Votann take up the less "beards, beer and bikes" aspects of the old Squat background, like the Leagues themselves and the Guilds and the Brotherhoods, and bundles them in with a sense of AI positivism (actual robot friends and helpers rather than the "let's automate the things that bring humans joy and keep humans working at the soulless drudge work" approach our own hyper-capitalists are taking). The Ancestor Lords pick up a Norse aesthetic that sits nicely with the inevitable "Dwarf Slayers, right, in space?" concept, and the Votann themselves - benevolent, declining, in some cases decrepit databanks comprised of an original AI civilisation builder and millennia of uploaded memories and consciousnesses - sit on top of that. And they've still got bikes - the biker aesthetic is still there, it's just less funny little potbellies and more badass bomber jackets, shotguns and revolvers. Sons of Anarchy, but short.

My gut response to this is "what's mainly changed is tone." The original Squats as I recall them from the Codex Imperialis (honour the Codex) were very much a hangover from Rogue Trader - a Rick Priestley under Bryan Ansell game, Warhammer for Adults, tongue very much in cheek, ironic and frankly a bit silly. The subsequent editions were Andy-and-Jervis games under Tom Kirby, pitched to teenage boys (who take themselves and their enthusiasms very seriously but don't admit to taking anything seriously at all ever), and the beer-swilling belly-drumming biker dorfs from Mars didn't really click with that. What we have here is the elements of the old Squat background, retooled so they're not talking about "nadgy bits" in the age of "lore" concerning 'roided up child soldiers wearing a fridge and not talking to their dads.

I kinda like 'em. 

Now, an opportunity has arisen, aligned with the usual way I start my armies. A skill trade with Matt the Kraken: I build whatever of his Old World collection he's not vibing with, and in return, I receive... this.

This is the Leagues of Votann army box from their launch in 2022. Two space dorf characters, two squads of space dorf soldiers, and three space dorf hovertrikes whose crew have those cool bomber jackets. Yes, I do have the heads for them: still on sprue.

 

In terms of the playing of the Warhammer 40,000, it looks a bit like this.

 

League of Vontann (420 points)

Incursion (1000 points)

Oathband

CHARACTERS

Einhyr Champion (60 points)

  • Warlord

  • 1x Autoch-pattern combi-bolter

    1x Mass hammer

    1x Weavefield Crest

Kâhl (70 points)

  • 1x Mass gauntlet

    1x Rampart Crest

    1x Volkanite disintegrator

BATTLELINE

Hearthkyn Warriors (100 points)

  • 1x Theyn

    • 1x Close combat weapon

      1x EtaCarn plasma pistol

      1x Kin melee weapon

      1x Weavefield Crest

  • 9x Hearthkyn Warrior

    • 9x Autoch-pattern bolt pistol

      9x Autoch-pattern bolter

      9x Close combat weapon

      1x Comms Array

      1x Medipack

      1x Pan Spectral Scanner

Hearthkyn Warriors (100 points)

  • 1x Theyn

    • 1x Close combat weapon

      1x EtaCarn plasma pistol

      1x Kin melee weapon

      1x Weavefield Crest

  • 9x Hearthkyn Warrior

    • 9x Autoch-pattern bolt pistol

      9x Autoch-pattern bolter

      9x Close combat weapon

      1x Comms Array

      1x Medipack

      1x Pan Spectral Scanner

OTHER DATASHEETS

Hernkyn Pioneers (90 points)

  • 3x Hernkyn Pioneer

    • 3x Bolt revolver

      3x Bolt shotgun

      1x Comms Array

      1x Ion beamer

      3x Magna-coil autocannon

      1x Pan Spectral Scanner

      3x Plasma knife

As for how I'm going to paint them, there can be only one choice. Before I was a Warhammer kid, I was a Lego kid, and since this was the early 1990s, I was a Castle and Space theme kid. Mainly a Blacktron II kid, for the Lego hardcore in the room, although the very last kit I remember buying was a UFO release that's not a million miles from a Battlefleet Gothic hull I've spent too much time looking at in the last month. 

Anyway, I look at the Leagues of Votann, particularly the vehicles. I look at the M:Tron vehicles. I look at the Votann vehicles again.

 

Corporate, we can find the differences between these two pictures, but there's a clear commonality there. Also, the M:Tron lads were notable for the magnetisation of the kits, and they were pitched (in the United States, at least) as a mining conglomerate, working with their robotic assistants. And I have some Khador Red lying around from my Warmachine years. This seems like wisdom. It's basically the official Ymyr Conglomerate colourscheme, with bright greens applied to the various power weapons. Having looked up the fluff for those lads, such as it is, they're deep into gear crafting, beam weaponry and focused resource acquisition (which is how I roll with strategy games anyway, generate more stuff to build with, always the way forward). Specifically, the acquisition of rare minerals - a Kindred buys its way into the Conglomerate through feats of craftsmanship and/or control of territory rich in resources you can't get anywhere else.

Here we are, on a cracked planet that's leaking crude dioxazine into space thanks to the antics of the Sworn. Here they are, in a ship that presumably resembles a big, red clenched fist of metal, with a lightbulb in its arse and a shuttlecock on the front. This is, after all, how you get into the big League.