converting beastmen to trollocs(wheel of time books), advice needed

[rbryce]

hi guys, first fantasy thread, and ive got a biggy. i dont know how many BoLS readers have read the wheel of time(well worth it, though 2 years till series completion), but im a huge fan, and ive been toying with the idea of converting mostly beastmen to make a trolloc horde, with maybe a few other conversions etc. and i was wondering what advice/input peoplle have. ive finally got the will to do it with the release of beastmen coming up, and some of the vampire counts/chaos warrior models could do for drakhar and myrdraal.

[Apollo3]

Well you are in luck because trollocs are pretty much described as how the beastmen look, so you can just use herds straight out of the box for the majority of your army. Just give them a very dark paint scheme and they should fit the bill.
For the others I'm thinking head swaps from kroot, skaven, orcs, lizardmen, pretty much any other similar sized beastie. Also some foot/leg swaps to go along with the shiny new heads, you don't want the lizard head guys to have hooves.
Next, bust out the greenstuff and add scales, dreadlocks, etc. whatever you think looks cool.
Dark elves will be a good option for weapon swaps, also check the DE range of models for a good mydraal! Harpies = drakhar?

Add in some human looking wizards to represent the forsaken and you've got yourself a wheel of time army.

hope that helps!

[rbryce]

close to what i was thinking there. i was gonna use the boxes pretty much as is, just get rid of any chaos insignia etc. for the myrdraal, i thought about some of the vampire counts range as they have sarpentine armour, similar to that descibed for myrdraal. drakhar will be difficult though, maybe harpy wings on a ghoul? they are described as human in form, just really skinny with too-wide, thin lips with pointy teeth. something i was thinking as well was using different types of beastman to represent the different tribes(al'ghoul being smaller than fists tribe etc), along with different banners(the guide nicely tells us the name and heraldry of the different tribes). for the forsaken, i was really shot on what to use, as they pretty much look like normal people, with minor exceptions(Ishamael from early in the series being all flamey mouthed and eyed). i was mainly thinking of dreadlords(renegade aes sedai/ashaman) for magic use, then coming up with some rules to represent the forsaken(they each specialise in different ways e.g sammael is a great general and aggressive channeler, where as moghedien sets traps and is more subtle) as i say, any help appreciated, as i want to do this for the WoT/warhammer community, and combine my 2 great fiction loves. if anyone else wants to jump on the bandwagon, join in, weve got plenty of seats, and im in need of a good flautist lol.

[Apollo3]

WoT armies are definitely cool. I've seen an empire army done up as the Andoran palace guards, and an eternal guard / wardancer heavy WE army done as Aiel. I even had a brief brainstorm of fielding a crossbowmen army of doom to represent the band of the red hand, but that never got off the ground. If you pull this off you really have to keep me in the loop, I'm very interested.

And you have the right idea with the different imagery and insignia of the various tribes of trollocs, that will be cool. Developing unique rules for the forsaken would be awesome as well, but it would make it so your army isn't very playable in a broader sense unless you only do friendly games with people who are on board with your home made rules. Of course, you could just use them as counts-as shamans when fighting other people.

[rbryce]

yip, hope to start on armies of the light at a later date. most peeps who i game with are pretty relaxed, as theyre good mates so rules are nay bother. in terms of playing, i thought itd be a good idea at some point to make it kinda "Stand-alone", instead of sticking to the exact rules from warhammer. like the idea of war-dancer aiel. Far Daeris Mai?

[Cryl]

Add in some human looking wizards to represent the forsaken and you've got yourself a wheel of time army.

I'm not convinced that even the most powerful wizard you could use in a WHFB army would come even close to the power levels of some of the chosen... erm forsaken...

that said it's a great idea for an army, post some pics as you go

[rbryce]

will do cryl, just saving for a digicam, i still use film y'see. i think using wizard models isnt such a great idea, as the chosen/forsaken dont tend to wear the style of clothing that the wizards wear(again, except ishy in books 1-3), so im looking through the ranges for bits to use. Graendals streith gown will be difficult to say the least. and shaidar Haran too, just how do you go about making a myrdraal thats bigger than normal, smiles, and has strange true-power-like abilitys? ill be doing a run-down on which models with which beasty later on, busy from now.

[Apollo3]

You should try to incorporate Padan Fain in there somehow. Maybe use the LoTR Wormtongue model? IIRC he has a nifty dagger.

If you mainly play friendly games then you don't have to worry about using GW models so have a look around on this site: http://fantization.com/ for some alternate models that would be better for the Forsaken, Saidar Haran, etc.

Yes the wardancers were maidens, and I think he said the eternal guard were supposed to be red shields, and his stubborn BSB unit was stone dogs. It was a very cool army idea, unfortunately he didn't execute it very well. He used mostly toothpicks as the spears and his GS work on the veils was pretty sketchy.

[rbryce]

yeah the problem with fain though, is that he doesnt work for the shadow anymore(sorry for spoilers if you havent finished book 1), hes gone "rogue", to use moridins term. Yes he still uses creatures of the shadow, but theyre slaves tortured to his will, not emissaries of the shadow. i may do him at a later date(or two models, as hes majorly schizophrenic).

so far its a mix of beastmen(gors, ungors,bestigors) and chaos marauders for standard trolloc masses, thinking of doing vampire count conversions for myrdraal as squad leaders(representing them forming that wierd link thingy with the trollocs), but only on the larger modelled trollocs, normal for smaller ones. drakhar i was thinking of harpy wings, with dark elf heads(gotta source some with long straight hair, im sure i spotted some) and ghoul bodys minus the mutations. Dark hounds will probably be chaos hounds minus spikes/mutations, grey men can be just about any normal troop dressed reasonably(after all they just look so ordinary you ignore them:). i was gonna do one of the female brettonian models for black ajah(counts as Shamans/wizards). for shaidar haran, i think using the same figure type as the other(doesnt seem right lumping him as just another myrdraal. forgive me great lord *drops to the floor in obeiscence*) guys, but ill try and "truescale" him, and learn how to GS smiles quick(ill probably now end up with dwarves grinning like idiots). ill also think about adding some sorta dark power-y effect somewhere. thats the basics so far, though im thinking ill be needing bitz from other models(sculls, cloaks that dont flow in the wind etc.) as always, help/comments/advice is welcome, ill be starting on sketching banner patterns soon and post them up for comments/criticism.

EDIT: this is of course before reading the dex, gotta get that too!

[Apollo3]

this is of course before reading the dex, gotta get that too!

New book is being released on Feb 6th!

If you are wanting to be a competitive player with this army I'd suggest you don't include bestigors. They're pretty much a 'free victory points' unit. For all the beastmen info and advice you could ever possibly need you should check out the Herdstone: http://z2.invisionfree.com/herdstone/index.php?http://z2.invisionfree.com/herdstone/
I'm a mod over there and I'm sure other members would be interested in your project, I know a bunch of them have also read WoT.

[rbryce]

ill be signing up over there tonight. does anyone know a good place to trade minis? preferably in the uk, or uk based as i got a couple of small armies i can swap for bits for the project.

[rbryce]

ok, quick update, got hold of 1 minotaur last saturday for 2nd in a painting comp at the local store(had to paint a gor in a few hours in-store, got to keep him too), and ive started converting him as a large scale mock-up of what i want to do, so firstly i removed the spikes on his back and replaced them with more spine(greenstuff), and ive green-stuffed some boots on him, as the feet are just nasty, and trollocs usually wear big hob-nailed boots, so it seemed right. ill try and get pics up tonight, but at the moment i only have a camara phone, so they wont be great.