I don't know, if anyone is still interested in this stuff, but I translated the text of the article on the german GW homepage.
One guy of the editorial staff of the german GW HQ asked me to translate the text aswell, and so I killed two birds with one stone. Maybe my translation is less confusing than the babelfish version (thanks, nonetheless, Kyle
)...
Here it goes:
How I got the idea?I've got the idea to build a themed army as I read Paul Gayners excellent article in the german WD 98 which presented his awesome night goblin army and gave some inspirations for finding an army theme.
Especially fascinating was the idea to give well known, obligatory and maybe a little bit boring units a completely new and unexpected form (like e.g. the wolf chariots of Paul, shown as huge monsters).
This read, I've got the notion to also create my empire troops after a theme and find alternative but fitting conversions.
Is there a relation to the STORM OF CHAOS?Two things… First I knew that with the beginning of the SoC campaign near my gaming frequency would go up miles and so there was a motive to build a fresh and new army.
Second my darling conversion project was influenced by SoC because I speculated how my own little averlandish barony led by a noble (and slightly crazy) master engineer which was the heart of my budding theme army would fare in the rage of the dawning conflict. There was the vague idea of a newly developed warmachine, but I did not want to play by house rules. So I had to find a new form for a standing unit and the imperial griffon as a war-balloon was born…it was ideal for long, far reaching exploring missions of difficult terrain and the borders of the imperial influence. For the inevitable enemy contact there could be a more aggressive and warlike version with some minor modifications.
All the other ideas, units and conversions more or less simply grew around this central theme.
How and why was the army build in this form?Already I've seen several empire armies with a special theme (like e.g. the witchhunters or the Ulric cultists), but there wasn't one with a carried through engineer theme.
Though there were lots of imperial armies with strong firepower most of them were old fashioned, led by a wizard lord, with much cannons only and without engineer heroes (or they had too much knights to follow an engineer theme.)
A themed army should sometimes use tactical less useful compositions if the first question is: "What suits the theme and should go there?" and not: "What is most effective?"
I wanted to use everything with gunpowder – everything an engineer academy could develop. Every kind of warmachine should at least appear once. A respectable number of handgunners would be the core, plus some pistoliers, heroes with gunpowder weapons, a steam tank (of course a "Von Zeppel"), some conversions (like the war-balloon) and no surprise… engineers.
A wizard (with strictly the lore of metal useful for the building of iron warmachines) simply had to be in the army, nobody can completely go without magic, if he wants to have the least bit of success in a competition.
I hoped to give my opponent an interesting game with my offensive units, like the war-balloon, not only running to the gunline where the only question would be who would be shot in sufficient numbers.
How does it fare?Next question!... Oh, well, like already Paul Gayner wrote, the first games I fought with my new army the enemy wiped me from the table.
In my first game (which took place in a small tournament) I was utterly defeated. The second ended with a draw and the third was my first real victory (getting better with time and praxis). In the end I placed in the low middle of the competition, but more due to my average gaming talent than to my army composition.
Later in some private games I fared moderately well. I managed to defeat different skaven-, dwarven-, dark elven- and greenskin armies.
Till SoC I hope to be getting used to my powder blackened men. *g*
Are that all GW models?
Yes, I'm a purist when it comes to my warhammer hobby and I only use GW models for GW game systems.
The only "alien" materials were balsa-wood, Styrofoam, cloth, string, plastic carton, wire etc.
Which conversions?First there is the war-balloon, centerpiece and eye-catcher of the army, and most ambitious conversion. I used some pieces out of my bitz-box, like waggonwheels, lances, banner poles, shields, choppa-blades, barrels, buckets, the steam cannon turret and more…
A crew of specially trained halflings should declare autonomy in case of the death of the master engineer. Halfling don't use much room and are light weight, so they are perfect for a balloon crew. An old halfling commando unit was sufficient for the conversion.
Another new unit was my heavy cavalry with experimental weapons, because in its orginal form it's hardly suiting my theme. My engineer knights use the rules for white wolves and are presented as a strange cavalry with even stranger weapons (e.g. a horse tormenting, extravagant fighting platform with spring-loaded spear wielding halflings). I used the imperial knight box with some other empire bitz, balsa-wood, Blood-Bowl halflings and Kurt Helborg.
Further there are some little conversions, like my marksmen and engineers with Hochland long rifles and my pistolier marksman with repeater pistol.
I'm planning some huntsmen with light hunting rifles instead of the longbows and a solution for my "pegasus project"…
I could blab on for hours (e.g. about the background of my barony), but the article is long enough and so I only thank you for your interest!
The war-balloon
Cockpit & blade-wheelThe cockpit was made out of balsa-wood pieces glued to each other to create a ship-form (I left in the stern side and the last third of the right rail an opening for the steam-boiler.) Two long and broad pieces of balsa-wood near the middle of the cockpit guaranteed the stability of the balloon. Plastic-carton clasps were used to support the rail on both cockpit sides. A wagon-wheel with choppa-blades served as front weapon. A small plastic rail-wheel (I took one from LEGO) has been glued behind the choppa-wheel for the rope of the propulsion device…
Steam-boiler & propellerA small Styrofoam-ball was used to build the steam-boiler. The surface has been treated with glue (to hide the unfitting Styrofoam structure.) I had to leave some room in the steam-boiler (which was attached on the right stern-side of the cockpit) for the propeller-thread (about 15% of the boiler has been removed to make place for the thread-barrel.) Plastic-carton clasps stabilized the steam-boiler, the head-pieces of two charging poles served as steam-pipes and two straws were used as steam-boiler-pipe leading to the balloon.
The propeller (attached to the thread-barrel) consists of three pieces of balsa-wood, which have been glued in a star-form to another rail-wheel. Triangular pieces of cloth serve as propeller sails. Another barrel was attached with the support of balsa-wood below the cockpit. Two rail-wheels have been glued to both sides of the barrel and completed the rope-circulation – propeller, side-wheels, choppa-wheel…
BalloonA big Styrofoam-ball, with several cloth pieces glued to its surface, was used as balloon. The steam-cannon turret of the steam tank was attached below the balloon (a knightly lance extends the cannon-barrel and serves as front-mast.) Several ropes stabilize the whole war-balloon (one rope divides the balloon into six segments.)
A collection of different parts out of my bitz-box (shields, banner-poles etc.) were used to decorate the warmachine…
