This is my first attempt at creating a special character and rules to go with him. Actually, I didn't create the character I borrowed him from the Dwarf army book. Ever since I first read through the book I thought the bio. for Burlok Damminson was really cool and I've always thought he would make a really neat, fluffy character for the dwarfs. Then the other day I was in my local hobby shop and noticed that there is a really cool miniature of burlok so I decided to make rules for him. I've tried to make the following rules fluffy and fun to play to add some variety to playing dwarfs. I've played around with the points value to try to make things fair and I will explain how I came up with the points I did but I don't mind helpful pointers if somthing seems out of place. Well, here goes:



Burlok has been an engineer for centuries, and although something of a rebel in his youth, the loss of his arm in an accident and a furious reprimand from his father showed Burlok the error of his ways. Now he is a staunch traditionalist and resists any thought of innovation in the Dwarf Engineers' Guild. His missing arm has been replaced by a mechanical contrivance of his own devising, and over the many years since the accident he has improved it so that it now works better than his natural arm.

Burlok Damminson, Engineer Guildmaster

M WS BS S T W I A LD
3 4 5 4 4 2 2 2 9

Burlok Damminson is the master of the dwarf engineering guild and may be taken as a hero choice in a dwarf army. He must be fielded exactly as presented hear and no extra equipment or rune items may be bought for him. The cost for his eqipment is included in his total cost.

Points: 185

Armour save: Rerollable 3+, Close Combat Rerollable 2+

Weapons: Hand Weapon; Twin Crossbow

Armour: Machined Armour; Mechanical Arm

Special Rules: Artillery Master; Extra crewman; Staunch Traditionalist; Strong Arm; Ballistic Expert; Lay Crossbows.

If Burlok Damminson is included in your army one unit of crossbowmen may take a runic standard worth upto 50 pts. ( I recommend rune of Kadrin).


Twin Crossbow: The Twin Crossbow may be fired in the shooting phase and is a regular crossbow except it fires two bolts which means 2 attacks. These attacks are at strength 5 instead of 4 because of Burloks ability to wind up his crossbow with his mechanical arm.

Machined Armour: The Machined Armour has a 4+ rerollable armour save.

Mechanical Arm. Besides granting Burlok the strength to wind up crossbows and the like the Mechanical Arm acts exactly like a sheild granting a 6+ armour save and combining with his hand weapon for a 5+ armour save in close combat.

Artillery Master: See Dwarf Army Book, page 14

Extra Crewman: See Dwarf Army Book, page 14

Staunch Traditionalist: Burlok Damminson is a Staunch Traditionalist and as such resists all innovation in the engineering guild. Because of this he may join Bolt Throwers, Stone Throwers, and other units as normal however he will NEVER join a Cannon, Flame Cannon, Organ Gun or unit of Thunderers. This does not mean your army cannot include these units, it only means that if you do Burlok cannot join them!

Now for the good stuff

Strong Arm: Because of his Mechanical Arm Burlock is able to crank the winches of a Bolt Thrower EXTREMELY tight, giving the shot +2 strength. This skill can be combined with the Artillery Master, and Extra Crewman rules so the Bolt Thrower still benefits from his BS 5!

Ballistic Expert: Burlok has spent over 100 years studying geological formations and densities and because of this when he is assisting a Stone Thrower crew he is able to point out to them which boulders will shatter on contact along fracture points to explode into lots of shrapnel. His great strength also alows him to help them load bigger rocks. Because of all this any Stone Thrower he is with uses the large 5" template instead of the small 3" template. All other Stone Thrower rules are the same. This skill can be combined with the Artillery Master, and Extra Crewman rules so the Stone Thrower may still take two range guesses.

Lay Crossbows: When Burlok is with a unit of Crossbowmen he likes to show all the beardlings how weak they are by tightening their crossbows till they just about snap! Every turn in the shooting phase the unit he is with gets D6 shots upgraded from S4 to S5.

Of course when he is using the Artillery Master, Extra crewman, Strong Arm and Ballistic Expert skills he may not fire the twin crossbow in the shooting phase because he is to busy with the machine but he may fire it when using the Lay Crossbows skill.

Points Breakdown:

65 pts. Regular Engineer
25 pts. Extra BS+S Based on a r of cleaving and r of striking (although these are actualy worth 30 points)
20 pts. Twin Crossbow Based on a hero class character crossbow x2
33 pts. Machined Armour Based on Gromril armour with r of resistance
2 pts. Mechanical Arm Based on a hero class sheild
/ Strong Arm skill
40 pts. Balistic Expert skill
\ Lay Crossbows skill
I thought that because these skills can only be used one at a time (probably one a battle) they should be of aproximate equal value.


185 pts. Total

I think this is a very good special character, but i am just wondering how he can be a staunch traditionalist and have mechanical armour ;) , but other than that it all makes sense. I particularly like the ability to get d6 of your crossbows with str 5 :D , i will try using him in a few games and will tell you how he played. :thumb:

Sorry to disappoint you but there are already some unofficial GW rules.

http://uk.games-workshop.com/dwarfs/special-characters/3/

However I like your idea.

yes, there is already one, but its fun to create your own variations of them. Things dont always have to be created by games workshop for you to use them. :thumb:

I have seen the official one already but it's so lame. extra strong but no cool engineering rules? come on GW, what were you thinking?

Dont you think he's a little cheap for a special character?
But its a cool character! :thumb:

Aye, I like it, excpet for the following things:

A cannon is not really a newfangled weapon, even king alrik allows them in his army, and if somebody is a tradionalist he is it.

The point costs, The strong arm+lay crosbow skills should defiantly cost points, they are pretty good and thus they neep a point cost, I mean, the balistic expert DOES cost points, while strong arm+lay crosbow, which are practicly the same only with other units, don't cost any points?
A bit strange IMO....

The bottom three skill ALL cost 40 points combined because you will probably ever use one of them per game.

he has a mechanical arm and armor...

and hes a tradionalist?

come on, a real dwarf would go without an arm and make fun of people who have two.

Umm.. care to add something constructive to this? If not, don't post. That's tantmount to spamming.


KU