Hobby Update: Varangur Snow Troll Primes and new Kruufnir

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.

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. 

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!

Hobby Update: More Draugr

Up now are some more Draugr for the Varangur!

Hobby-wise, the minis are the same as the earlier regiments, kit-bashing Celts from Warlord Games with Ghouls and Zombies from Mantic. As-before, the most time-consuming and difficult part was removing all the stands from the legs (first using clippers, and then some skimming knifework for shaving off the remains around the feet), and this was done so that I could get the army’s nice snow effect going for the base and just stick the minis atop a finished base. 

The new regiment.

The older regiments were jam-packed with minis, and a handful of minis have popped off during games over the last few years. I used them for painting reference, and then took the opportunity to reshuffle things around slightly, so that each regiment had roughly the same number of models. The units are a bit more sparse, but that’s ok in the grand scheme of things, and they still look fine.

Base blending could be better. I think I did some unusually heavy dry brushes originally.

The 4th regiment is probably too much for typical games, but now that I mention it, I am now curious to try that out too! Alas, I have probably a dozen untested list ideas for the Varangur going back at least a year. I need to organize those thoughts and get to work. The goal here was to hobby this unit up in order to run two hordes of Draugr. The Varangur come off as a very elite force, and two cheap, and cheap unlocking hordes should provide some neat list-building opportunities for me and an unusual way to run the army.

An horde of old Draugr.

One thing I want to try and explore more in 2025 is Master / Theme lists. I’ve run into no shortage of Northern Alliance lists and players, but the Varangur don’t seem anywhere near as popular, despite drawing inspiration from the once-popular Warhammer Chaos Warriors and showing up in the setting first, back in 2nd Edition. 

I wanted to play the Varangur more and see if I could find some theoretical reasons for their lack of popularity, and hopefully spur some online discussion. I have lists dating back to at least January of 2024 for the Varangur, so I’m hoping to sit down, draft some new ones, and play with them more in 2025! Hopefully we’ll see them generally (and the Draugr hordes specifically) on the table soon!