Brokentooth's Guide to Goblin Greatness: Cowardly Giants. & A Review of Foundry's Giant

What the snag? Huh? Ack! You youngins still here? I'd just nodded off to a nice sleep and some kobold lasses were just about to.. oh nevermind that now.  Small use to be king of the goblins when you can't drift off for a well deserved nap.  I've completely lost my caravan of thought.  

Seeing a few dozen gleaming red eyes looking up at him anxiously, he continued.

Alright then.  We'll talk more about the biggest and best fighters you can muster! 

"Orcs?" piped up a bent-nosed scraggler.

Ack! No! Spit those orcs! They're no good and that's fer sure. You don't want them around unless you want no food or shiny bits for yerself when fightin's done.  They's a greedy lot who completely exaggerate their own worth. 

No, one of the best biggest is giants.

"You already told bout them!" hacked the bright goblin girl.

Oh. Yes, that's right, I did. But I didn't talk about the best giants: the cowardly giants!

"How's a coward good for a fight?" asked an uncommonly dense stupid boy.

Oh someone kick him! And quit interrupting! Cowards are great for fights! Any fool can go charging off waving a sharp stick and caterwauling at the enemy.  A coward knows enough to do what's smart to keep himself alive.  Just threaten them enough so they know it's safer not to run, and they'll fight smart. Now, you don't want all your army fighting smart, or you have to feed and pay them all.. you want a good amount to die so you save more valuables for yourself of course, but you also want to win and for that you need cowards!  

"But won't they be afraid to fight?" asked the uncommonly dense stupid boy.

Brokentooth let out a heavy sigh.

Yes! That's the point! That way they'll kill the enemy before they can get to them to fight! 

Brokentooth figured he'd keep an eye on that boy, and put him in sharp stick caterwauling training.

Some giants are such thorough cowards they've become exceptionally good at rock throwing! 
Like Trolls that throw rocks, only they can throw even bigger, heavier rocks. Plus the enemy can see them a good way off and it scares the breakfast out of them! 

......................................

When I saw the giant from Foundry, and I was ordering some paints, I figured I had to get one to add to my goblin army! 

Technically, it is called a Troll, but they are such big, tall gangling trolls, they're really more 'giant' than 'troll'. 

The one I picked out, to be either a Giant in the army, or a Stone Thrower, was this one: 

So I'll walk you through the unpacking & assembly process: 

Tutorial:

Here are all the parts. It is a very big kit. 

The first thing I noticed as a potential problem is heavy parts with small contact points. 

The connection for the foot however is a very large deep tab.  Nice.

Stands up on his own without a problem.

The waist looks like a pretty deep contact point, but the connection isn't very flush.

It needs to be filled either at front or back, depending if you want him hunched forward or not. 

The wrist: that's not sufficient in my opinion for a solid bond.  The fist weighs more than most minis.

The rock-hand is worse. I'd not advise just gluing and expecting it to hold with a bit of knock around.

There was also some miscast to the mini: part of his side didn't fill, so I filled & resculpted with green stuff.

So I got out the dremel and sank some very deep pins.  

You could use a hand operated pin vice, but that's a ton of work.

Using deep pins also allowed me to extend the head out on a longer neck and angle it to look more where he was aiming his rock throw.

After a pin connects the hand & arm, filling will be required.

Almost done!

All the pinning and gluing has been done, and a base made for him. 

The contact at the waist seemed a poor match.  I bent him forward, so sculpted the gap in his back.

Since I'd made a longer neck to angle around to see where he was throwing, I also needed to sculpt some more to his neck.

All the filling & sculpt work is now done.

Special Delivery! It's a Rock! 

Oh! I ruined the surprise.

And the wind-up...

Posing with his 'little' rock-throwing troll buddy. I love the variety! 

And he'll serve great as an additional combat giant instead of a catapult if I need.

Review: 

This is a massive kit with a ton of character.  I just love the result.

As you probably gathered however, building him was a ton of work.  

I would not recommend this miniature to a novice. If you don't feel confident in pinning and simple sculpting of gaps you might want to practice on less expensive miniatures than this one first. 

I'd also highly recommend using a dremel or other electric drill for the pinning: this would be a serious pain with a pin vice.  I have a dremel flexible shaft extension, model 255, which lets you use a smaller 'pen grip' which makes things so much easier. 

So, it is a miniature that requires extra time & work, but I think it is easily worth it. 

More Goblin Mayhem to come!