War Beasts? More Beasts!

"It's like the four elements, right. You've heard of the four elements? Except here there's only three elements. And those three elements are - Metal, Lightning, and Smashing Things!"

Today we have three more builds for the troll warbeast stable - the Slag Troll, Storm Troll, and the newest heavy option, the Dire Troll Mauler Brawler. Let's dig right in.

Hungry Beyond Mortal Ken

"No recognised school had animated this terrible creature, yet centuries and even thousands of years seemed recorded in its dim and greenish surface of unplaceable stone."

If ever there was truly a flagship model to this army, it would be Mulg. Our crack team of scientific experts have already proven Mulg's potent position of palpable primacy, and we persist to placate your plaintive pleas for a paintjob with plenty of panache.¹

To that end, I present this exposé on what was, in all seriousness, a solid weekend of painting and something I always love to drop on the table to strike terror into the hearts of heavy warjacks.

Old Beyond Mortal Reckoning

1. a Mulg at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless it is acted upon by an outside Food.
2. once compelled to motion, Mulg will remain in motion. 
   Deal With It.
3. when Mulg's body exerts a force on a second body, it dies.

Everybody knows that Mulg is the best.¹  He's got the most toothsome backstory, the meatiest big fists, and the writers give him all the wittiest one-liners.  He's a perpetual fan favorite, a cross-genre break-out character, and the troll softball team's MVP and Home Run Derby winner ten years running.

Mauler: Red and Green

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the Troll, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone. "Dreadfully hungry," answered the Mauler, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click. "Then why don't you eat something?" she asked. "It's no use," said the Mauler sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."  

 

As suggested by my colleague colleague, the first warbeast I wanted to tackle was the Dire Troll Mauler. It offered me the chance to get into summa dat good exposed troll flesh and work on building up some techniques for painting large amounts of beast, muscle tissue, and different textures when compared to the infantry. Aside from that, painting a warbeast is always a genuine pleasure since they can  each quickly become a centerpiece for forces of small to medium sizes.

Gotta Maul 'Em All

"Urcaen has no rage, to match the shaman's zeal.
Nor Hell a fury, like a dire troll 'fore a meal."

The Dire Troll Mauler wasn't the first warbeast conversion I did for this project, but it was easily the most extensively modified of the first batch of models.  I wanted to build one of these for Jack early on, because in addition to being a relatively simple model for a new player to get a handle on, it also ends up being a cornerstone of a lot of lists as you start playing larger games.