Metal Beards - Anvilborn Warrior Model Review

The recent Metal Beards kickstarter from Titan Forge has just ended with great success, achieving just under £31,000 and funding two new ranges, the metal beards and their evil cousins, the sons of Kashan Vra. Once these fellows are released, it will be possible to build an entirely mechanical dwarf army, not to mention the wonderful new models that are on the way for those of us with chaos dwarf armies.

I can only rub my hands together in anticipation, though I did get a little sneak preview of what we might come to expect on release.Titan Forge were kind enough to send me some of their anvilborn warriors to take a look at for the Mumblings, so here's the low-down on these diminutive mechanical dwarves.

The five metal beards in the pack came with a choice of two heads, two bodies and two hammers. There are four head options in the final release, as well as hand weapons and shields and two ranged options. As you can see, there are seven elements to each model, which may take a little longer to assemble than some models, but opens the way for huge conversion potential.Those heads would make fantastic helmets for regular dwarves, for example.

Two of the four head variants

Front and back of one or the bodies

These miniatures are obviously pre-production. The parts are extremely crisp, with a lot of detail to keep the model interesting while painting it. If the final production versions are this good there will be negligible clean-up before assembly. The pieces are quite robust, nothing is overly thin, so breakage should not be an issue.

As to assembly itself, they go together very easily due to the ball and socket fit for the joins. The two-handed hammer requires a little consideration to attach to the arms, but a dry fit before glueing will avoid any problems. Once the model is together you can either attach it to the scenic base the final models will come with or go your own way. As to scale, the model below is on a 20x20mm base, so they are essentially equivalent to current Games Workshop dwarves.

For painters, these models will be a chance to go to town on metals. There are elements like the head that can be painted like lacquered armour, but the boilers, valves, dials, cogs and exhausts will reward some research on different metal surfaces, as well as some OSL effects coming from eyes and boilers. You can see on the back of the model above there are a lot of details there to go to crazy on. It might be worth attaching the arms after painting to let your brush into the various areas on the body. The exhaust on the top begs for some models to have smoke effects added. This would look pretty superb in a unit. That said, they would paint up very well with two or three colours and some washing and dry brushing too.

I can see a lot of dwarf players adding a unit of these to their army, or even going full metal. They will definitely be a show stopper army on the tabletop. Titan Forge have a history of producing amazing themed ranges and this one looks to be another winner. The kickstarter release is in April, so full release will probably be sometime this Summer.