TROLLOLOL

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game…

THIS WEEK

Ever been in the right place at the right time? I seem to have a knack, the observant may notice a nice new lamp on my desk. Yes, that is indeed a $160 Ott-Lite. This particular model has a 13w bulb and adjustable magnifying glass, now those that know me know I didn’t pay $160 for it. I never would’ve bought the thing if I’d had to pay that much to get it, no I found it on clearance – for $20.

You may also notice the new paints to the left, I’ve been working on transitioning from Games Workshop to Vallejo paints. A satisfying move I must say, the bottles are a lot easier to work with in basically every conceivable way. And I can fit even more Vallejo paints on my paint racks than I can the GW variety.

THE SHILOH SLAUGHTER

Earlier this week the announcement was made, the date has been set for this year’s local WHFB tournament. The Shiloh Slaughter will take place on January 25th in Fayetteville. So, things are kicking into high gear here, my goal is to finish all of the painting and converting on my tournament list before the baby gets here in November. I’ll be talking more about this process in greater detail in the near future, but you can follow along in my thread on [url=s4.zetaboards.com/cotec/topic/9686028/1/]Chamber of the Everchosen – Going to War[/url] as I detail the preparations I’m making along the way.

So far, I’m actually a week ahead of my proposed schedule so I should be fine. My big concern is getting in plenty of practice games, I want to know my army inside and out before the tournament starts. I’m hoping for 20-40 games between now and then…

MALEVOLENT CREATIONS

This week I had some converting to do, I’m not entirely sure if I’m going to use Trolls or Dragon Ogres in my tournament list. So, I figured I’d better have both on hand just in case. Also on the block this week, a unit of Warriors that will definitely be hitting the table at Shiloh.

TROLLS

I like trolls, I’ve played against them and seen how tough they can be. They have a habit of tying up units effectively, that regen save coupled with multiple wounds can be a real pain. Throw in their special attack and you’ve got a versatile unit, the price is even pretty good. But there’s problems, just like the Dragon Ogres I don’t care for the models. For starters, the Chaos Troll models from GW are sculpts that are over a decade old – the same models that looked goofy when I got into the game 15+ years ago. The newer River Trolls look better, but they’re River Trolls. Paint them however you like, there’s no escaping the fact that they’re River Trolls in a Chaos army.

My solution of course was to convert some Chaos Trolls using the Vampire Counts Crypt Horrors and River Troll heads. This didn’t take much in the way of Green Stuff, a few spikes and tentacles here and there and I ended up with some very theme appropriate Trolls.

WARRIORS

I’ve actually got something like 250 Warriors in my collection, most are unassembled. But some are at varying stages of completion. Since I have decided to change my army color scheme, to stick with a scheme that goes across the army rather than different colors depending on deity I suspect many Warriors will be assembled and painted before long. I had expected to take 2 weeks to finish this first batch for the tournament, instead I finished them in 2 days. This is a 15 man unit with full command, halberds, and shields. All of the weapons have been magnetized, I have a set of hand weapons painted up as well so I can switch them on the fly as needed. The Champion is a repaint, I swapped his head for that of the Lord on Manticore, the same place his sword comes from. The shield is from a Chaos Knight. All of the bases are magnetized and I’ve added a unit filler that represents 4 Warriors.

The filler was converted from a Lizardman Stegadon Engine of the Gods. I glued in some trimmed plasticard then drizzled super glue over that, sprayed the glue with accelerant to quick freeze it and attached the spawn bits. I added some trimmed spike bits from the 40k Chaos Rhino sprue and a Pink Horror of Tzeentch to the base. The base also got some cork stones and the unit was ready for paint.

WET PAINT

Recently I’ve made the transition from GW paints to Vallejo, this week I really got my hands dirty with the Vallejo stuff. Between that and the streamlined paint scheme my production level has gone up significantly.

TROLLS

I went with my own take on the traditional Chaos Troll colors, I decided to go with the same shade of pink I use on Horrors instead of the red/orange that’s normal. And for the blue I went with a dark shade akin to that of Nightcrawler from the X Men. I played with the water effects on these guys, I wanted them to have slobbering gobs and in one case gore stained hands and base. I’m pretty pleased with the results, the water effects are a bit fiddly but looks good when you get the hang of it. The best part though, I don’t think anyone will mistake these for River Trolls.

WARRIORS

As I said earlier, I streamlined my color scheme. My warriors are primarily Silver and Blue now, I’m using Gunmetal (Boltgun Metal) for the base metallic color and Magic Blue which is the Vallejo equivalent of Enchanted blue. In the case of the blue, it’s much more vibrant than the GW equivalent, it’s certainly one of the things that’s really driven me to make the change so enthusiastically. I opted for brown fur to break things up a bit, something different from the greys.

The standard has been painted in the same blue as the cloaks and shields, but I added a Chaos Star and distressed it with a bit of fine grit sand paper before hitting the whole thing with the ink. This gave me a weathered looking banner, an effect I’m quick pleased with. The unit filler took a lot of work, but most of that was just waiting. I was going for an effect something like the Abyss or Stargate. So, the running glue lines + water effects seem to have done the trick.

All in all, I’m very happy with both the trolls and the warriors. I do believe I’ll be sticking with the Dragon Ogres, but it never hurts to be prepared for eventualities – especially when it’s a highly converted unit like the Trolls. I just had no idea how long it would take to finish them, so best get them out of the way now.

COMING SOON

I’m working on a guide to preparing for tournament play, there is also likely to be multiple battle reports being posted during this training period. And of course, plenty of little painted dudes. Chosen are likely next on deck, with Marauders to follow. After that I will “technically” have the army painted, but there are a few things I want to redo before the tournament, like my Chariots. I’ll be rebasing the Warshrine as well. And redoing both my independent characters (BSB and Disk rider). And when I get all of that finished? I’ve got a display board and turn counter to think about. So, don’t fret – there’s still plenty to keep me busy.