Thornwood Thursday: Trollkin Long Riders

Back from a busy fall semester and a busy holiday (the first for our twins), I've managed to finally finish some of the coolest Trollbloods around- Trollkin Long Riders.
Trollkin Long Riders are the first (and so far only) cavalry unit for the Trollbloods army. Fluffwise, they come from the cold north. They've long been a thorn in the side of Khador, living in territory the Khadorans consider theirs. Masters of mounted combat, the Long Riders came with Borka to join Madrak's call for unity amongst the scattered kriels.

Whole unit with dismounted Horthol in the front.

In game, these guys are strong candidates for best cavalry in the game. These guys can put a massive beatdown on in melee. They're a bit slow to get there compared to most other cavalry, but higher armor helps offset that somewhat. Their abilities are all about beating face. First, they have Reach weapons with POW 12 and +2 damage when they charge. Their mounts have a POW14 attack with Critical Knockdown. They're Fearless, Tough, and to top it all off they can do a Bull Rush order to Slam models instead of doing normal attacks. Of course, all this comes at a price. The full unit is very expensive. They're even more expensive because you'll really want to take their bro Horthol too.

I'm really happy with the blending I did on the fur. It can be seen even better in the next two shots.

I like to do different tartan patterns to represent trolls from different kriels coming together. Here I did blue with orange stripes.

Horthol is a dragoon mounted solo. This means if you manage to take out his mounted version, you place an unmounted model nearby and he gets to walk and beat face. Keep in mind he's Tough so there's always the chance you won't even dismount him if you do enough to kill him! Horthol is great on his own as a solo, as he has all the abilities as regular Long Riders plus Critical Stagger and of course higher stats. But you want him for what he gives to other Long Riders. This guy seriously turns the Long Riders up to an 11. First, he gives them Follow Up, so when they slam models, they can follow it and keep the slammed model engaged. He also give them Line Breaker, adding an additional die to impact attack rolls. That extra die means they can charge right through small bases (did I mention that's a thing cavalry can do? yeahhh) and be pretty assured they'll hit.

Such a bad idea to paint all those individual studs on the hammer. :-/

His mount's tail broke! We'll say same Legion jerk cut if off. Jerks.

Of course all this facebeating ability is super pricey- 16 points if you want a full unit of Long Riders + Horthol. But in larger games these guys will do some serious work. With a speed buff, they can zoom across the board like crazy. Melee buffs just turn these guys into a complete whirlwind of destruction. Feats like Prime or Epic Madrak's will have these guys chewing through enemy models like there's no tomorrow.

I'm definitely looking forward to trying these dudes out. I can honestly say these were a super tough unit to paint. There's lots of little detail all over. I had to use many different techniques. I also had to repaint things numerous times because I changed my mind or something didn't come out the way I intended. After slogging through these guys I'm taking a slight break from painting for a couple days, then I'll paint some nice easy one-off stuff like a warlock or beast, I think.