The Trolltooth Wars: A Cold-blooded Lot

Zharradan Marr can have many criticisms laid at his door but not being an equal opportunities employer is not one of them! Along with the many other races making up his living legions are the Lizardmen - one of my favourite creatures from the Fighting Fantasy world.

This, like the Rhinomen unit, was going to be another regiment requiring some modelling to make it just right. Perhaps because Island of the Lizard King was my first Fighting Fantasy book as a kid, the Lizardmen of Titan have been my favourite baddies. Alan Langford's fantastic illustrations are a large part of that too. For me to get Lizardmen on the table as part of this army, they had to be as close as possible to Alan's lovely drawings.

The key features to aim for were the crocodilian features, horns and, if possible the sails on their backs and that lovely spiky armour! I had a good look around at various purveyors of Lizardmen, including Otherworld's lovely but relatively pricey and unarmoured examples. I'm sure it'll come as no surprise but Ral Partha provided once more - and no I don't work for them by the way!

These guys from the Dark Eye range were also pretty lacking in the armour department but they did have the back sails and suitably crocodilian looks. Some paperclip horns were added and hey presto! I began sculpting some texture over the horns with miliput but it was taking too long so gave it up after only a couple of minis were done and painted the horn texture on later!

As there were several different sculpts I could get some variation in the unit with a few weapon swaps.

Having an example of this range in my bits box was a big help in making the decision to go with them. I don't think the top half of the Pterosaur rider I had left over made it in to the unit in the end - his legs were used as part of an old Dr Who project to make a Silurian Pterosaur rider inspired by the Virgin New Adventures novel, Bloodheat.

Ral Partha's Chaos Imperium, from their Fantasy Armies line, also came in handy with these reptilian Beastmen - the cloak obviously hiding their lack of back sail!

For the champion I selected the suitably imposing figure of the Maru from the Dark Eye range and this old Grenadier Lizardmen I had knocking about in my collection became the standard bearer.

A coat of paint in the black and red uniform I chose for Marr's uniforms and I think they work quite well together!

The chap with two swords and the spear wielding Lizardmen are two of my favourite conversions.

One slight problem with all the gesticulating they're doing is getting them to rank up whilst trying not to have the same scuplts next to each other - there is a very specific way this unit fits together on their movement tray!

Thanks also to David Gallagher for providing me with the colour scheme for my lizards with his wonderful cover for Battleblade Warrior!

The weapons I used mainly came from the Fantasy Warlords line that Alternative Armies carry - I got a few packs of the Orc weapons when I ordered the minis for the Human regiment - more on which next post.

As with all the banners I painted for Marr's legionaries (apart from the mixed regiment who felt a bit more like levy troops and who's standard bearer only had a small flag!), I went with a Roman legion theme because - well they're legionaries! The red and yellow go well with their uniforms and Marr's initials make a nice replacement for the usual SPQR to be found on Roman standards. Coming up with a different emblem that reflected the character of each unit was pretty fun too!

So I guess I'd best post up the Human regiment next as I seem to have forgotten them!