Trollblood Battlegroup Unboxed!

As I said last week I have a new Warmachine/Hordes project and I'm kicking off by unboxing the new Trollblood battlegroup!


I've got the gaming bug back a bit lately, since I finished my Trollblood models, back in the spring, the game has gone through a new edition, and I haven't really been playing at all. This has meant a fair bit of change for trolls in the intervening months, so to bring my army back to a half decent level, I needed some new toys and I started with the battlegroup!

I really like the Privateer Press art style and graphics of late, the box looks great:

 It comes with various books, including a basic training guide, which walks new players through several missions, introducing the rules gradually:

 Interestingly this uses special generic casters/beasts to demonstrate the rules:

 There is an A5 size rulebook, which is very neat and compact:

 And dice, tokens and a paper ruler. The tokens are a grey/brown plastic, which isn't ideal, since most players use black markers to identify effects:

 You can just about see the markings on the spell token below, but I do wonder why they didn't use a lighter colour!

 The set also comes with a paper printed play mat (double sided). The print quality is good and one side is setup with annotations to tie into the rules introduction:

 Finally the stat cards for the models and an 'obstacle' card which is designed to be folded to give some terrain for the starter games..

 And now the models! Coming in two bags, one for the Warcaster (Ragnor) and the other for the beasts..

 Rangor is a good looking model in my book, though since this is a PP starter set, he's made of the Plastic-Resin hybrid, based in PVC, which leaves some ratehr massive mould lines:

 This axe almost has two model lines, the main one around the edge (clearly visible here) and another smaller one 90 degrees around the piece (across the spikes). I'm not sure how this happens really!

 Heads for the warbeasts!

 At first glance the beasts bodies and torsos look the same, which I hadn't realised, but in actual fact the torsos are keyed to take the correct arms/weapons which makes assembly easier.

 Finally the weapons and arms for the beasts, I do love that shield on the bouncer!

Next week I should have these together along with some other new Trolls, I'm looking to get them painted up in time for Smogcon in Feburary, hopefully with a painting entry for their competition too!