Steampunk Saturday: Trollbloods War Wagon

This week I'm featuring one of my favorite models in the Warmahordes line, the Trollbloods War Wagon. Pictures and details after the jump.

This model has been sitting around for a long time, as it was rather intimidating. Sure, I've painted much larger models for 40k, but this was a challenging assembly, complicated priming process (some parts black, some white), and lots of different stuff to paint.

In game, this wagon is pretty awesome. Its gun is a super powerful, moderate range gun that knocks down if it directly hits. Its RAT is poor, so that won't happen super often except when shooting at low DEF jacks and beasts, but it's fun when it works. Even the blast damage can put a hurt on most single wound infantry. The scatter gun provides a spray template for additional infantry clearing potential. Where the wagon really shines is when charging. It gets boosted impact attacks, so it can barge right through infantry to get where it wants to go with ease. Since it counts as a cavalry model, it gets +2 on attack rolls against what it charged. Or, it can do Trample power attacks. The tuffalo provide moderate power melee attacks, and if the mount attack hits, the target is knocked down. To top it all off, the wagon can still shoot while engaged in melee, without penalty. All in all it's not super amazing broken good, but provides some neat functions and a cool centerpiece model.

There's no caster that immediately jumps out at being great with the War Wagon, but any caster that wants to stay out of the fray, like Calandra, can benefit from huge base. The obvious beast pairing with this is the Impaler, as its animus significantly increases the range of the main gun.

For the metal, I used the same techniques I use on my 40k orks. So, lots of steps of washes and drybrushing. The end results are worth it though. Lots of variation and visual texture helps break up all the bare metal.

The bison (aka tuffalos) were tough. I actually wish they had a little less metal on them to break it up visually. I probably could have chosen brighter colors for their fur too, rather than the light brown I went with.

I added a bit of gold detailing here and there to break up the darker metal. You can see it on the gun shield and the decorative bits on the front of the wagon. You can also see the giant gap in the model that I could not fix. These resin casts are rough. Luckily Trollblood stuff has the same rep as 40 orks, so looking ramshackle is to be expected.

I added the little pyg dude hanging off the back. It's actually a piece that is meant to go on the Dire Troll Bomber. I had one left over from the new plastic heavy kit I used to make the character beast, Rok. Just a neat little detail that I think adds some humor to the model. Also you can see the stitched up arm on the gunner. I liked that detail PP sculpted on there. Little things like that add a ton of character.

I look forward to breaking this bad boy in soon! Thanks for checking it out.