10mm War Trolls

War Trolls

The next addition to my growing 10mm horde is these Copplestone War Trolls.  These are very nicely sculpted figures that were pleasant to paint and I recommend them without any serious hesitation.  I do have a couple of minor gripes though.

The sculpts have nice faces that have a characteristic Copplestone style to them.  The detail on the models is crisp although the designer has kept the figures quite clean: there are not many extraneous details.

Normally I like a minimalist miniature design approach as it speeds painting along.  Extra detail does not always equal more character (Games Workshop please take note).  In the case of these trolls however, I think that it was a minor error.

Because these figures are quite large (as 10mm trolls go at least) and because there are few details on the figures that demonstrate scale other than the occasional skull on their belt (which could be a skull from a fantasy creature of any size really), it is easy to mistake these guys for 25mm or short 28mm figures.

The shields are the main culprits here: the shield looks plain enough to be a 60cm diameter Roman parma rather than the two metre diameter, livestock/vehicle/you-and-your-family flattening piece of ordnance that a creature of that size would likely carry.

Also the fact that the plain shields and weapons look somewhat factory produced is somehow incongruous with the primitive looking trolls.  I know that Mordor and the like seem to have quite efficient production facilities (no union presence is a factor Id say) but the pairing of those weapons and those trolls doesnt sit quite right with me.

“Shhh! I dont think he’s seen us…”

Painting was straightforward.  I considered painting them a shade of green but the scaly shoulders, knees and arse were obviously designed under influence from the troll design in the Lord of the Rings movies, so I went with an approximation of that.  I enjoy painting pale flesh tones anyway.

In Warmaster troll sized creatures tend to be mounted three to a base.  As these figures are being prepped primarily for that game that was the plan.

Unlike when painting 28mm figures, I paint miniatures at this scale separately from their bases and attach them afterwards, so that I can get at the awkward areas while painting.  Thats what I did with these guys too.

Trying to get three big guys like these to stand together on the same base was awkward.  Awkward enough in fact for me to swear passionately when I manged to knock all nine trolls onto the wooden floor while trying to perch them delicately on their bases without cover each other with glue.

Once the tears had dried sufficiently for me to cover up the damaged paintwork as well as I could I finally got them stuck down and based.

20:20 hindsight tells me that I should have simply mounted the figures two to a base and added either scenic pieces or the occasional goblin or orc to add scale, but its too late to do that now.

“RrrrAAaaaARRrrrgh!!!”

Despite all of my whining I still like these guys quite a bit.  Their particularly massive stature makes them look rather threatening alongside the front of my second goblin unit.