Thanks again to all for the great complements. Just glad others are enjoying checking out my little project.
Let's finish off the construction:
The Four HorseTotemMenDwarvesFor the crossbow operator, and his fellow crew member, I used the same pose of Legion Warrior. For the crossbowman, I used the Dremel to shave metal off the bottom of the figure to make him stand "flat". Drilling a hole would allow him to be placed on the pin. I also needed to remove the sword from his hand as I wanted his hands free to use the crossbow. This involved just breaking off the two parts...the blade above the hand, and the handle protruding form below. I re-used the blade to put the sword on his back. I used a section of the previously-broke-apart standard to add a handle back onto the sword. Finally, I had to bend the arms forward a bit. That accomplished two things. One, it made him look more like he was operating the crossbow. Two, it prevented them from interfering with the mounted Totem Warriors..
Original Legion Warrior used for Crossbowman and other crewmemberSword removed, based "flattened", and arms bent into positionThe original sword, plus a small bit from the dissembled standardCarefully repairing the fellow's weaponThe other crewmember only required one conversion step: "hollowing out" the area between his legs (what a brave little dwarf!) with the Dremel in order to allow him to straddle the back of the Totem. No need here to change anything with the weapon. I tossed around a few ideas for how to mount this fellow, mostly centered around the idea of building him a sort of saddle to sit on. But in the end, I just went bareback. It was a combination of not being able to come up with anything better, and the fact that I was close to finishing the project and picked the quickest option!
Crewmember with his "Dwarfhood" still intact (barely)The creation of the Totem Warriors was more involved. As mentioned previously, I used Legion Warriors for them as well, but a different pose than the crossbow operator and the other crewmen. I used the pose that was facing forward a bit more, and had the horn on the shoulder. Like the crossbowmen, I flattened the bottom of the figures. The shield arms needed to be bent forward a bit...again to avoid crowding the other dwarves while riding the totem. But the trickiest part was replacing the swords with axes. Again, scouring the many boxes of miniatures I had laying around, I settled on some axes from a Reaper Warlord Reven blister pack (#14293). I carefully drilled small holes in the top of the Totem Warrior's sword hands. Then even more carefully I shortened the axe handles to an appropriate length, and shaved down the ends so they could fit in the holes I drilled. Some careful gluing later resulted in 2 converted Totem Warriors.
Totem Warriors after flattening base, removing swords, and drilling holes in hands for axesTop down view of Totem Warrior ready for new weaponA "before and after" view of getting the axes ready for battleI guess I don't have a picture of the Totem Warriors fully constructed, prior to painting, so you'll have to go back to the first post to see them glued together!
Gotta run, but still to come is building the bases for the Dwarves, and some pictures of the painting in progress.