Monthly Archives: September 2015

Reaper Miniatures 02828: Thornback Troll

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Azazel: Today’s post comes from Marouda, who I’ve convinced to start up her own WordPress account so that she can add the odd post to the blog. Her last contribution was adding her thoughts and perspective to the review of Dungeon! back in Jan 2013. This model is Reaper’s Thornback Troll by Ben Siens, Released in 2004.

Anyway, over to Marouda:

I selected this model to paint for a Reaper Miniatures painting competition in 2011. However I never got him finished in time, so he sat unfinished for a while. Originally he had a bright orange yellow loin cloth, which Azazel suggested that I tone down. The shading and highlighting on the muscles took ages to do as it involved many, many layers.

I enjoyed painting his club and his pimples. I am very much a beginner painter, but it’s very handy having Azazel who has been painting for most of his life coaching me through the various stages and layers of painting. Last week I decided to finish the model and further highlighted his belly brows, jowls and muscles with a pale highlight. I did all the painting on this model myself apart from the very fine detail work of the pupils of the eyes, some of the teeth and the base.

This is the second model that I have ever started and just recently finished apart from some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I painted more than 10 years ago. I also started and finished a water unicorn model at the same time I started this troll. I have a female Entwife figure from Mithril Miniatures that was started some years back that I should really get finished. I also really like the GW Tomb Kings models although that involves some very fine work and a very steady hand.

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Azazel: I did the basing so that the model remains consistent with the rest of the miniatures. The model was based on a round back when this model was started, and since it’s as much a display model of Marouda’s as a gaming piece, I’ll leave it on the round instead of rebasing to square as the other trolls are. Tufts of course tie the model in with the other trolls in the collection, so this purple guy can fit in nicely enough in a unit with the various others.

Citadel TL13 Talisman Troll (1986)

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Another blast from the past today. The Talisman Troll. Remember when Games Workshop used to make boardgames? No, not “Specialist” (a title that came much later) minatures games that started in a big box, like Battlefleet Gothic or Necromunda or even Dark Future, but actual self-contained Board Games. Talisman was one of these, alongside things like DungeonQuest, Chaos Marauders (which was a card-based game about Orcs & Goblins), Block Mania (set in 2000ad’s world of Dredd), The Fury of Dracula and so forth. There really was quite a variety. GW was quite a prolific producer of both original and licenced boardgames for a bit of time back in the 1980’s before they went fully-Warhammer focused.

Citadel's TL13 Talisman Troll (1986)

Citadel’s TL13 Talisman Troll.

I had a few of the old metal Talisman figures, but I never really liked any of them especially. I think the Space Marine (from Timescape) got rolled into my RT-era models, though even that was an unimpressive sculpt. I’ve probably got a few of the others still floating around somewhere, I recall a man with a top hat in his hand, a woman with a small cauldron, and the Ninja being in my collection. They probably still are. In a container of junky old lead. Somewhere.

Citadel's TL13 Talisman Troll (1986)

TL13 Talisman Troll shows off his trousers.

Anyway, this troll was the one of those old figures that has gotten painted and not lost over the years. I painted him with a flesh tone rather than green as by the time I got around to painting him I had no intent to use him as a Troll or in Talisman. Instead, he was recruited to my small gang of old-school Beastmen. We’re talking old-school Beastmen, before the entire race had been retconned into the Broo-inspired Goatmen and Satyrs that dominate to this day. Not that I dislike modern Beastmen. I actually think they’re ace. I just happen to also like the variety found in the older RoC-era ones as well. So this guy fit in with the mixture of malformed miscontents quite well. Or well enough.

Citadel's TL13 Talisman Troll (1986)

Rear View of the TL13 Talisman Troll.

I gave him old-school warhammery stripey trousers and dirtied him up a little. I could obviously use him as something like a half-orc or even a more D&D-styled orc for roleplaying purposes. Whichever way, he looks very much the demi-human style thug. I’ll probably roll him back into the old-school beastmen unit for KoW that will be very much Warriors of Chaos-aligned, as the more modern Beastmen will be their own thing.

Talisman Troll Character Card & Standup –  Talisman 2nd Edition.