Keep the troll in mind

Another 90s river troll repaired and fixed up with the addition of a new plastic head and hands.

Sadly the priming makes the replacements look really obvious. I could have stripped him or primed the other parts black first like the body, but I figured I could manage without doing that.

Needs a pad and may sell :-)

Book review: Fell Cargo

I have ploughed through a tonne of these pulp fantasy/space opera books set in the Warhammer universe(s) this year, but I figure I will only read one like this, as it is a genre piece about pirates.

Maybe this was part of some GW strategy at some point to try and sell us their gameswith ships in it. I cannot be bothered to check a timeline for that possibility, but suffice to say, I do not recall there being many other books about Sartosan pirates from Black Library. If there are, then kindly inform me. Or maybe Dan Abnett just gets to write whatever he feels like writing these days? That would suit me just fine. I hate it when you can FEEL that the author would much rather have written something else, or indeed that he DID write something else, but the work was changed to fit into some release schedule or even the setting as a whole.

The book is of course riddled with cliches, or "fixtures" if you will, from pirate tales. It reads like a (better) "Pirates of the Caribbean", and it is neat mix of tall tale, horror story and swashbuckling adventure on the high seas. Sea monsters, pirates of any stripe, villains, heroes... The book seemed to have it all, and it is written with the same quality that Abnett usually provides. The only thing that I do perhaps not like as much as the rest of the details in the book is the joy the author takes in naming various bladed weapons and... firearms. Not that I don't appreciate details, and we are not at a Melville level of educational info about something, but I had to look up several of these along the way just to find out what to visualize in combat situations.

There are few surprises in this book, but there probably should not be a great deal of surprises either, if this was to be the pirate yarn it set out to be. While other authors, desperate for a tiny twist, kill off some characters that you might have expected to live or make someone a surprise traitor, Abnett manages to kill off the right ones and at the right time which is something of an accomplishment at this point. Added bonus? No characters who'll annoy the piss out of you as some other books might eagerly provide. The "young lad" who comes of age in this book is not so young or so naive that it becomes painful, and there are no talking parrots or monkeys or what have you to add comedy. The worst? A few one liners that you see coming a mile away.

The books is only 250 pages. Could it have been 400? I doubt it could without getting boring or requiring more meaty subplots.

Over all I give it 4,5 stars. A seafood platter with everything on it.

Troll model

This guy was done ages ago, but primed recently.

The little surreal element of him holding a goblin who in turn holds a teddy bear... it is not really intended to be some higher form of symbolic commentary on anything, but it does still work.

Fine. You WANT deeper meaning? This troll combines Foundry, GW metal and GW plastic. Make of that what you will.

I went with green, not blue. Liking it more trolls these days.

Like a trollin stone

I call this troll 'touchdown!' Even if he is not terribly likely to score one.

This is another one for the challenge from my friend Jonathan. A troll that runs. This one ups the ante by holding a ball! I picture him running for the endzone, ready to spike it. They call that wishful thinking, I believe.

The conversion is more extensive than most of the others. Two hands, head, leg repositioned. Not terribly difficult work, but a little sculpting.

Tro-lolo-lolo...

Trolls can be any colour. I mean... Green for river trolls, blue-grey for stone trolls, and if you want to be old skool "lool at the damn boxes" in a blood bowl way, then dark green... The chaos trolls in Warhammer were often blue as well.

Elsewhere trolls are often brown or blue as well, but let us not stray too far here.

I think they can be any colour. That said, black or white may not work well, and there is always clashes with team/uniform colours to take into consideration as well.

So... this chaos troll is almost pink. Though not in this light.

Head like a troll

This one is another simple conversion on the old chaos troll bodies. The head here is river as well.

The idea for this 'blitzing' troll is not mine so much as it is my friend Jonathan's. He planted the seed at least by stating how sad it was that there are so few trolls running. Well... this was my first attempt. He is almost in the elf blitzer-pose, even if he's no more likely to perform like one for that reason.

There are two more runners in the works as I continue to give my accumulated minis an overhaul.

For whom the bells troll

Aaaaand another one! A fairly extensive conversion, as he has new feet, and of course head.

He is clearly the skinniest troll in my "collection" and a bit of an oddball.

I think the body is Reaper, and the head is of course GW.

Trolls in the pantry!

Here is the surgically enhanced troll from the other day, back to... look more static, as well as creepy.

His two friends I think are much better, actually. Conversion is of course minimal, as both have really just had a head swap.

This larger one is of course the Willy troll which I thought... well, he seemed stupid, and lacked evil.

The other one sees use of the GW head from the stone troll with arm surgery. Why this head swapping? For the hell of it. I THINK it worked well though.

It leaves a head, as you may have noticed, and more trolls will be forthcoming.

Primed blue. Classic. Though I am not sure why.

Trollin on the river

The troll from yesterday who was raising the roof has undergone surgery and is currently healing up. He got cut, glued and pinned, and he ended up quite creepy, and that worked quite well.

Creepy is one thing, but there is something to be said for the mean troll. Like this one. A chaos-river troll, if you want to get technical. I figure he will work well in green, nurgle-ish skin.

Troll with it

The awesome thing about converting trolls is that they have irregular bodies and ugly features with big noses, crooked teeth and so on. Ugly is good. You can have orangutang arms, a big head... it just has to come together and have character, because a bland troll is not worth having.

This one is of course a stone troll from GW. Awesome trolls. Lean, mean and... blue. I stuck with that for the priming. The hands holding a stone were removed, and I recreated bit of the foot which was broken.

The hands are of course added. It is not that easy to find suitable hands for big guys, and I am not even all that happy with these.

Then there is the head. I have used the head elsewhere. You will see, soon. This means I could switch it up and use a Willy head. I am less fond of these than the GW ones, but it still worked well. It is actually the second head he has been seen with, but hey.

They see me trollin...

I have gone on a bit about the feckin ginormous miniatures put out there these days, and I have come up with several ways to combat this...

1. Conversion of said minis into something useful. More on this later... Much more.

2. One upping. Like with snow troll here that I am throwing on my forthcoming norse team to make all other trolls seem puny. Taste your own medicine!