The Troll Slayer - Borek Rognisson

Tales told of a wandering Dwarf, from Karak Hirn to High pass. Sightings of which people claim he is so tall that he stands taller than any man. Almost a myth amongst the high mountains where few dare to tread, there has been witness from travelling merchants, miners and roaming war bands where tales of this mountainous dwarf have spread amongst the taverns littered around the feet of the black mountains "He's as big as a bear!", "I thought he was an ogre", "we only saw him stalking through the trees but he was monstrous and flames were leaping from his head", "I saw him, chasing after two of them chaos scum".

Any Dwarf when asked just shrugged their shoulders "Tall tales for stupid human folk!" they would say with a shrug of the shoulders or a dismissive grunt.

For years the outcast Borek Rognisson wandered the mountains of the Old World in fulfilment of his sworn slayers oath, to seek a great worthy death. Unfortunately for him, half of the tales that spread of his existence were and still are true. For Borek is a mountain of a man, for a Dwarf!

Having sworn his oath to become a slayer from a very young age, he was exiled by many of the Dwarven clans. No Dwarf ever mentions his name or even acknowledges that this young Dwarf, who even from a young age stood taller than most of the battle hardened Dwarven warriors even exists.

The tales drifted from town to town yet few ever saw this dwarf. Those that did and those that met him were ridiculed for spreading such stupid tales. "A tall dwarf?" often met with a raucous of laughter amongst many inns and taverns.

Until one day that is, Growing bored of not finding his true death amongst the mountains, Borek decided that down on the flat lands might bring him his true death.

A dark rowdy night at the Crooked Arrow. Sitting on the outskirts of Nuln, Traders, Hired swords, Nobles and Adventurers alike had gathered away from the cold blistering winds coming in from the grey mountains. Much ale and wine had passed the mouths of the patrons inside the tavern. Singing, debating, scuffles and flirting from the tavern girls all joining up into a mixture of noise that could be heard through the walls outside.

The door opens. To which nobody notices. Until one of the nobles sitting by the door stares silently at the doorway as this hugely muscled dwarf adorned with tattoos and the normal fiery headed Mohawk of a slayer steps through the door. A huge double bladed axe slung in his ham fisted hand. Another smaller throwing axe glistened in the light as it hung from his belt. The noble quickly grabbing the nearest persons arm in order to alert them to the presence of the dwarf. Quickly the tavern falls silent all but for a few whispers as all eyes remained focused on the broad frame of the Dwarf as he lumbered through the crowd silently. Patrons stepping back in awe to allow the dwarf to walk wherever he wished. Trudging up towards the bar, people step aside to allow him access to the innkeeper. Reaching down as he pulls a glistening gold coin from his purse and slapping it down on the wooden bar, "BEST ALE!" he says in a simplistic deep voiced tone. The barkeep nervously pours the dwarf a beer into a large wooden tankard. Silently the dwarf picks it up, glugging it back in one. Slamming down the mug with a thud. "ANOTHER", again the dwarf slams back the drink. "Weak man beer" he thinks to himself.

The tavern was still silent as the whispers bounced amongst the groups sat around the tables. Nobody wanting to make eye contact with the dwarf. Was he a dwarf? The rumour may not have been true. But he surely was the biggest dwarf anyone had ever set their eyes on. His shoulders as broad as two men. His arms thicker than most tavern wenches thighs. His huge hands dwarfing the empty tankard as he asks once more for ale. His tattoos reminiscent of that seen on many other slayers. His axe glinted in the dim tavern light as it rested against the bar.

"Is that the bear man?" they said. "He’s not that big" was whispered nervously so to not be heard.

The dwarf smirked to himself, for dwarfs ears are much keener that humans.

Turning around quickly to look around the tavern, instantly all eyes avert away from him nervously. Nobody would want to upset a dwarf that big!

"Go ask him" the dwarfs head turned to look where the words were coming from, huddled around a table sat a large muscular human, a fellow dwarf, an elf and a young wizard, the wizard was urging the dwarf to go speak with Borek. "Here we go" though Borek as he decided to save the party a journey, picking up his axe and ale he walked over to the group sat around the table..........................

the rest as they say. is history.
and we have also just cleared up. that i will never be a writer lol but thats the story of 'Big' Borek Rognisson

OK so I've gotten the fluff out of the way. I've spent a few weeks on this guy. and i like to kind of kick out a back story when i do anything i do. the doors, the furniture. i always tried to show some sort of extra life was going on there.
here. the fluff was to actually get around the fact that the scale of Scibor miniatures is a little...well lets talk about that later on....

Having read a lot of the Gotrek and Felix novels over the last year or so. i was obviously influenced by the Gotrek character. being the stereotypical grumpy slayer type. I wanted to somehow pay homage to that. but at the same time give him personality of his own.

these two images below are probably the best representations of Gotrek based on my own imagination from reading the books.

so i know i wanted something that represented the sheer bulk of the character as per the 2nd image.
a short solid built beast of a dwarf.
having searched all around i landed at scibor miniatures door.

searching through some of their ranges i finally settled on the following mini

he carries the same amount of bulk that i wanted from my slayer. A mixture of muscle and fat somehwhat like the build of a power lifter or a strong man. a pure bulked up strength to the character.

i didn't want a dwarf with 2 axes. but this mini carries a pose that had potential for adjustment.
so i ordered this guy and about a week later he turned up in the post (not too bad for international shipping)

now back to the scale. Adverstised as a 28mm/30mm miniature was always going to be a gamble.
if they don't know what scale it was made to. then god knows how big he was going to be.
i would say the average 28mm dwarf stand at around the 22mm mark or there about.
this guy stands at 31mm in total height. 26mm excluding the mohawk.
so thats where my "biggest dwarf" story came from.
i think its probably safer for Scibor to advertise at 30/32mm rather than 28/30mm
as i would imagine some people may be slightly pee'd off at spending their hard earned cash on something that doesn't fit into their games.

that aside. its a great miniature. it did require quite a bit of shaving and filling to get rid of the mould lines, but i can live with that.

so now i had the mini in my hands. i could finally decide what i wanted to do.
i always intended on him only having one axe. so i had to decide which was going and which was staying. also i didn't like the axe to decided i would be making my own.
finally i settled on keeping the right handed axe.
the left arm i chopped away the axe and drilled a hole through his hand then heated the mini slightly to squeeze into a fist. trimmed the arm a bit and fitted it in place so i could give him a "pull down the sky" 80's rock ballad power fist.


i then snipped away the axe from the right hand to leave just the handle. after digging through my bits box i found an adequate axe head. to which i then decided to sculpt a star design onto to give it more of a troll slayers axe look.

a few more bits to attach to his belt to give him that 'adventurer' look
a gold pouch and throwing axe and a small satchel. as well as a dwarf emblem as his belt buckle

then trimmed and re-sculpted his moustache as i didn't like that curly moustache of the original.

now more recently i have been wanting to do more free hand designs and well i always intended that this guy was going to have tattoos, he's a troll slayer after all. the final result i wasn't that happy with, but im going to blame my shaky hands mixed with the necessity to actually go out and buy some new brushes. but all in all. it didn't turn out too bad.

you may notice he is on a custom 'lower' base. an obvious compensation for the large scale. but he doesnt look too outlandish in comparison to these rather short goblins.

so all in all i think ive wound up with a pretty bad ass troll slayer.


based on my severe lack of posts i will wish you all a very merry xmas. as my next post will no doubt be in about 3 months time :)