Hammer time

It’s been such a long time since I played or painted any Lord of the Rings, but having recently got a copy of Oathmark, I have been dusting off my Mordor collection. We have played just one game so far, using basic blocks of troops to get a handle on the rules. The next step is to introduce characters and more specialised units, which for Mordor means trolls. 

I only have one painted troll, so it was the perfect time to dig out that plastic troll languishing in a cave somewhere at the back of the drawer. I made it straight from the sprue to begin with, but decided it looked a bit similar to my old metal figure. So I changed the helmet a little by chopping off the horns and putting one back in the centre, rhino style. Then I replaced the plastic hammer head with a metal bit, from an ogre butcher I think. Two small changes which make a nice, unique model.

I must have painted the first troll about 15 years ago. At the time I made some changes to the pose, to calm it down a little, rather than wildly swinging the hammer. I entered this figure in Golden Daemon, and though it made the final cut, it was easily vanquished. It’s not hard to see why. It’s a brown blob with very little contrast. I always said I would remedy this at some time, it’s only taken 15 years or so to get round to it.

At the time I was influenced by the film palette, but this time around I want to go back to the original source. In the books, trolls are usually described as black or dark skinned, so that’s a potential palette. I will probably go for a grey skin with blackened  armour, but am still pondering. It’s good to be back in Middle Earth again, with the fire of Morgoth in my belly!

Mierce Miniatures Troll

There are so many trolls available to the gamer, from grimdark to goofy, from man sized to gargantuan. I have quite a few in various armies, some Warhammer examples, some Reaper, some Lord of the Rings figures, even some ForgeWorld. They are all joined by this absolute beast from Mierce Miniatures, and it's probably the best troll in my collection.

Aesthetically, it's at the "realistic" end of the scale - and that's in quotes for an obvious reason. What I mean is that the proportions are real, the details are fine and lifelike, the sculpting is top notch. If you like realism in your figures, I cannot think of a better range to collect than these figures.

Figures? Well yes, there's only one at the moment, but there's another two underway and a handful prepped. And there are many, many more on the Mierce Miniatures website. I bought them years ago because I was wowed by them when they were first released. I thought I might use them in a chaos Warhammer army, but since then things have changed. I now play other games, and have started to develop my own setting for my collection, so I can use these beasts standalone, as a force by themselves. The beasts of Trollberg are born!

Trolls Going Cheap!

I have had these Mierce Miniatures trolls for such a long time, I thought it was about time they came out of the box to see the light of day. They immediately turned to stone - sorry, bad joke. They were pretty easy to put together, resin models with no air bubbles and few mould lines to scrape away. The joins are good too, I will probably run a coat of liquid green stuff over them just to be sure, but you could probably get away with priming from this point. Lovely models they are too, highly recommended. There is a brief sale on the website, get on there now and enter the discount code NEW-YEAR-2017. Be quick - the sale only lasts until January 2nd. I have ordered a couple more trolls to add to this little force, which I see rampaging through viking settlements and beyond some time in the new year. Much more in the same vein to come in the new year.