Back in the early noughties, when I seriously started
collecting 3rd edition Chaos Dwarfs, I was searching the pages of
solegends.com. And while browsing that site I stumbled upon a picture of a very
strange siege device. A demonic cannon that shoots cannonballs from its rear
end and which is operated by Chaos Dwarfs (the Petard crew and Dourgrim). It
was called the Chronicle Chaos Siege Gun and was sculpted by Nick Lund.
Even though I own many Citadel miniature catalogues I had
never seen this model. Apparently it was only released through mail order for a
short while around 1989 and promoted with a flyer (probably added to the White
Dwarf magazine). Judging by the looks of the model, it probably wasn’t very
popular (to be honest it’s not a very good sculpt) and no rules were ever
released for it so it was hard to effectively use in your games.
But
I loved the cheekiness of the model, so another chapter was added to my 3rd
edition Chaos Dwarf collecting saga. Even though it is regularly claimed to be
unreleased (because on the flyer it says unreleased (this actually refers to
Chronicle releases), this is not true, it was released but only through mail
order, it is still rare but not that rare.
(The cannon pictured
on the left is owned by a fellow Chaos Dwarf collector, who went to great
trouble sourcing down this miniature. We found this picture online and traced the
cannon back to somewhere in Spain, where he managed to buy it of the owner for
a significant amount)
Chronicle Miniatures was originally an independent company ran
by Nick Lund. Citadel bought out Chronicle Miniatures and Nick Lund went to
work for Citadel. His Chronicle range of miniatures was incorporated into the
Citadel range. Nick left Citadel around 1986 to start working for Grenadier UK.
So apparently Citadel had that cannon lying on the shelf for at least 3 years
before they decided to release it.
The Solegends entry gives the following description:
The image of a cannon
that blows things out of its rear end is supposedly connected to the sculptor's
feeling towards his boss, whom the face may resemble. It is not certain that
the crew were designed for the gun or were for the other chaos dwarf artillery
pieces.
So that probably means, that if this were true, the face of
the cannon resembles Bryan Ansell. The same Brian Ansell that left Games
Workshop somewhere in the early nineties and started Wargames Foundry and the same Bryan Ansell that has the
original Marauder Chaos Dwarfs in his collection (see my previous entry). Nick
Lund disappeared of the radar, and to this day I have no clue as to what he is
up to, too bad because I would really love to ask him about the background of
the cannon.
Now rewind a couple a couple years to around 2007, by then I
still hadn’t found an affordable Ass Cannon for my collection (these things
were reaching prices up to 500 Euros). And the gap in my collection was
hurting, an itch I couldn’t scratch. So I decided to make my own and cast it so
I could help out some fellow collectors.
Luckily there are a lot of good pictures to be found online
of the model and its individual parts. And because the crew was pictured
alongside the cannon I could easily calculate the exact size. So I went to
work, I used clay to sculpt the cannon because it would have cost me a fortune
in Green Stuff. The barrel I made from a White Board Marker. The sculpt was
fairly easy to make, the model is not very complex. I deliberately made a few
changes to the design so it wouldn’t be too difficult to distinguish the
original from the tribute model. The last thing I wanted was that my cannon
would end up being sold as original.
This picture describes the differences:
Then I had to figure out how to cast, of course I wouldn’t
invest in a spin caster and other professional tools, it had to be drop
casting. Since the model wasn’t that complex I felt it was achievable. Finding
the parts and ingredients to do the drop casting was the hard part. I the
Netherlands I couldn’t find room temperature vulcanizing rubber that was heath
resistant. Eventually I found a shop in Germany Berlin, Berliner Zinfiguren:
Great shop highly recommended!
I didn’t feel comfortable having the rubber and other
chemicals shipped to the Netherlands so I convinced my wife to make a short
city trip to Berlin. So in between drinking beer and eating bratwurst I went to
the shop and bought all the stuff I needed and set to work. I first practised
with another sculpt I did, which turned out ok, so then I went to work on the
real deal. It’s a delicate and time consuming process but very rewarding. I had
to make a total of 3 moulds, one for the base plate, one for the two sides and
one for the body and the cannonballs. I casted about 6 of the cannons and sold
them at cost to other avid Chaos Dwarf collectors under the promise that they
would never sell them. Later on I did a second run because of high demand, but that’s
it, if you don’t have now, you will never get one.
My itch was finally scratched! Or was it, to be honest if I
find an affordable original cannon I will still buy it, but on the other hand
it is also nice to have something to strive for, collecting wise.
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