Without many games played recently I've lost the drive to post, though I have been hobbying slowly on some things. Catching on on some March hobbying efforts, here are some Snow Trolls for the Varangur!
The Snow Troll Primes seemed like a must-take these days, so they got moved to the front of the painting queue. However, it seemed weird to take Primes but not normal trolls. Wanting to paint some up but also on a bit of a budget, I sourced some large orcs from a foreign toy company selling on Amazon.
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| The first horde. |
I think it’s a Russian company, and they’ve got a variety of offerings. I’ve used stuff from them before for Undead Barrow Wights, and considered these for Herd Guardian Brutes, but they do have a surprisingly-wide offering. If you need large or monstrous infantry on the cheap, consider checking them out. They are mono-pose, but you do only get one of each, so it’s not that bad.
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| The second horde. |
Hobbying-wise, the models are cheap plastic, so they needed quite a lot of cleanup to remove the mold lines. I got most things, but honestly should have been even more diligent here, especially around the boots. There are also some circular injection sites on the rear of the models that I could have puttied over or something. If I get serious about paint scores and tournaments, I could fix these up, but they should be fin on the table for now.
They were primed and then painted up, just like usual. Coloring was a bit difficult, as I couldn’t settle on a tunic color, so opted for khaki and then off-white. I can redo this later as well, and could even add some heraldry, if desired. The primer wasn’t sticking the best, and surprisingly, things did flake off a bit while handling and painting. I thought I had washed these prior to starting on them, but perhaps I did not. To try and salvage things, at the very end I hit them with an acrylic spray, which should hopefully protect the paintjob a bit. Afterwards, they were all glued to finished snow bases.
The Snow Trolls have been neat to see across the table the last few years, and so I wanted to check them out myself. We’ve seen them most often from Trevor where they operate alongside a Naiad horde for a super-strong regenerating center, which can be hard to deal with or engage effectively. With CS2 they can grind decently, but they hit on 4’s though, so charging through terrain or into Ensnare really limits their offensive output, and I think of these more as anvils. Trevor recently dropped them in favor of the more fighty Hearthguard for better damage output in his lists, but as an anvil unit they definitely seem worth exploring in my own endeavors with the Varangur. Hopefully we’ll get them on the table soon!