Up now are a bunch of Snow Trolls for the Varangur, as well as a new model for Kruufnir!
First up is Kruufnir. I do already have a Kruufnir model, (hobbied up waaaay back as a Troll King in 2018) and I like him, but it’s a GW model, and I ultimately wanted to replace him. I have a lot of Khorne stuff from older gaming dalliances, and figured I might be able to repurpose or resell it down the road if needed, and since I had this other model that I quite liked, I pulled the trigger on the swap now.
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| Less lithe looking, but still full of character! |
The new model for Kruufnir is a fun Reaper mini. I loved the club and was just tickled that he was using a big door as a big shield. I had used him as a Troll Bruiser among the Orcs I pained up over Covid, which never got to hit the table, due to some flaky introductory games that unfortunately never quite happened. When I gave that little collection away, I kept him, as the recipient wanted GW orcs, and he was an oddball troll. I recently moved him to a new base and gave him a new paintjob. He got the blue skin common among my arctic Herd, and bronze weapons. I thought the bronze looked more interesting than the more typical gray iron coloring.
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| The Primes with a small collection of neat rocks they found. |
The new Primes are repeats on a Reaper mini as well, appropriately labeled as an Ice Troll, which is how I stumbled upon them during some idle browsing. Hobbying-wise the minis were a pain to work with, as they have a wide, thin base. I tried the boiling water / ice bath three times to mitigate the warping, but to little cumulative effect. In the end I ended up stuffing putty underneath the troublesome parts, super gluing it down, slapping texture paste around it all, and am just hoping for the best with regards to wear and tear during gameplay.
I painted up the base, then the model, and then added the snow effect last. Reaper minis don’t like to be primed (in fairness, they are engineered to not need priming), but even washing the model several times with dish soap, as well as the aforementioned cold shocks for the warping, it is still a bit tacky to the touch. I hit it with an acrylic spray, so we'll see how they all do long-term.
My Varangur haven’t seen the table much since 2023, but I’ve played a lot of games against a variety of Northern Alliance players over the years. While they are different armies, there is a Master / Theme army relationship here, and still stuff to learn related to my army. Our meta places a high value on nimble, square-based scoring units, and without fail for at least the last year, my Northern Alliance opponents have all been taking as many Snow Troll Primes as they can. These heroes are priced insanely for what you get, and I have come to agree that anyone not running them is probably putting themselves a bit of a disadvantage, from a competitive standpoint. I've got my own trio now, plus Kruufnir, so we'll see how the trolls work for the Varangur sometime!