Paint. Play. Repeat!: Trolls Under the Bridge Sci-Fi 6mm Miniatures Images

Why

Searching and searching for new 6mm sci-fi miniatures I have found a little company based in Czech Republic called Trolls Under the Bridge (what a great name for a company!). My eyes of course were attracted by the big minis, like Vaader or Solarus, but looking more at other miniatures I started to like them. The influence of Epic from Games Workshop is big (did I forgot to use a capital "B" for "big"?). The price of the minis are not that good, at least for me, but I decided to make a leap of fate and trust my feelings, because I hoped for good quality minis. Were these hopes in vain? You have to read in order to find out...

How

I have prepared the minis (remove flesh, wash with liquid soap and water, prime black) and did some paint jobs depending on the miniature. The Skull Riders where placed each on a round base that does not come from Trolls Under the Bridge. To stick better and fast, I have used little spots of green stuff and super glue. Before and after, the base was painted with Beige Brown 875. Black 950 for the wheels, Gunmetal Grey 863 for the weapons and Olive Green 967 for little spots of green laser and the base coat with Lutwaffe Unif. WWII 816. In fact, the last color was used for all the minis as a base coat.

I have added also some other triangle spots with lighter tones as camo for Solarus Super Heavy Battle-Tank and Vaader Super Heavy Transport. Gunmetal Grey 863 was used for tracks, for little and big turrets. Olive Green 967 for weapon laser (coming from inside turrets). A self-made wash with Beige Brown 875 was "hitting" here and there the minis, for the tracks quite heavily, and later again for tracks I have used a Gunmetal Grey 863 to highlight the higher parts. The wash was used in order to show that the vehicles were having some combat experience. It also helped here to do some "scratches" with a prepared lighter Lutwaffe Unif. WWII 816 drybrushed. Some accidental chipping were left especially after this (not that carefully) done process.

For the front and the back of the rockets of Comet - Haargor Pattern AA Tank I have used Olive Green 967 and a lighter tone of the same color, plus some lighter Lutwafe Unif. WWII 816 for the "wings" of rockets.

For Necropolis Hyxos Stalker two lighter tones of Lutwaffe Unif. WWII 816 were done for the crest and one for the joints. The antenna/radar of Comet - Haargor Pattern AA Tank, Pulsar - Haargor Pattern Infantry Suppressing Tank and Quasar - Haargor Pattern Rocket Tank was done Flat Blue 962 mixed with Lutwaffe Unif. WWII 816 and then washed with a lighter self-made Lutwaffe Unif. WWII 816. All these colors are from Vallejo, Model Color range of paints. This is all and I hope that all that was written made sense and could inspire you to do a great job than me.

Other miniatures were painted in a camo scheme employing Green Ochre 914, Brown Sand 876 and Buff 976 with Andrea Blue 841 where needed.

Results

Under each photo, that can be enlarged so you can observe the details more easily, there is the name of the painted miniature in alphabetically order and with a link that leads you to further images if you are more interested in a respective miniatures. For each miniature I have taken photos from different angles. You can you use the search function to find out more easily when you want to find something in particular, among the miniatures represented - the range of miniatures is small, as the 6mm vehicles from Trolls Under the Bridge amount for 9 miniatures. I wanted to play a little with painting the minis (see the How section) and so they all have the look of heavy worn - heavy battles already fought, and all share the same paint job around the Lutwafe Unif. WWII 816, no matter if in other wargame (Epic, Warhammer 40,000) the minis could represent different factions.
For me, in this paint job, they all represent one faction. This one faction, I realize now after painting, could well be painted according to the Necropolis faction from Heroes of Might and Magic III (did I tell you that I like better HOMM IV - ouch! - for connaisseurs, this is like in the historical and pop culture battle between fans of Star Trek vs. fans of Star Wars, but in the end of the end I like them both...). Observe the sky from the images of buildings that can be constructed in a Necropolis town and also the overall background and atmosphere - dark blue with grey and black and some lighter grey clouds. In addition, there is a miniature with the word ”Necropolis” in name: Necropolis Hyxos Stalker.

Review

The miniatures are part metal (guns and some turrets), part resin (main body of vehicles, some turrets). The resin will need a little bit of cleaning. You have to be a little bit careful when removing unwanted parts (flesh), 'cause accidents could happen, especially for some big parts. See for example how the miniatures come in the case of Solarus and Vaader. The assemble, I found out, is not easy for all the minis, in the way that it can be fast, but you could get it wrong (not the case for other minis, trust me). At least this is my experience with them, for example Quasar - Haargor Pattern Rocket Tank which I got it a little bit wrong (watch carefully for the placement of rockets in what I have achieved and what is on the producer site), also, I think, for Pulsar - Haargor Pattern Infantry Suppressing Tank. Another thing is that you need to spend a little time in order to fix some guns, I did not for mine, in order not to have bending (Yak - Haargor Patern APC, the main gun got a bend) or somehow an unnatural strange look (Comet - Haargor Pattern AA Tank, the four guns are too close of each other).

As for the painting, the minis are easy to paint, and with a good level of details you will easily spend more time than you think you will, because the design of minis is very good, and not because you need to cover design flaws, which saves time that is directed to fun while painting. Invest more in painting and you will see much more from the investment made in minis. In a way the price demands it. The minis are not cheap, but the company is small, so it may not have that many resources to produce the minis in an efficient way.

The minis respect the 6mm measure and the design is good and it reminds of images I have seen of Epic wargame. This is even more obvious from the models no longer available on the online shop (see the image gallery).

Although the range is small, they already have 3 WOW minis which for me are Solarus Super Heavy Battle-Tank and Vaader Super Heavy Transport (the two, not surprisingly in this position) and also Skull Riders which they are soldiers riding motorcycles with front MG and carrying a melee weapon (sword or axe) and from the way they look, they got me thinking they are equivalent of Winged Nazgûl or Morgul Knights (and if we are at this moment: thank you J. R. R. Tolkien for so many incredible and unforgettable Middle-earth experiences!). Another very good thing for these miniatures is that they are very well designed, with good proportions on all their elements (turret, guns, extra guns, very well 3D shaped - some sci-fi miniatures in 1:300 scale from other companies can look a little bit out of balance and not credible, even in a sci-fi environment).

When counting weaknesses of the minis we have to include some of them: minis are expensive, need a little work like cleaning the resin parts, a little more care when assembling is done and it is a range of minis still at the beginning, with not so many options available. In this early developments it resides the silver lining of the Trolls Under the Bridge minis: there are so many great things to achieve in terms of developing more minis, ways to produce them and options for minis (we already have sponsons and doors, and many variants of infantry). The distribution of minis in an infantry pack is not that good compared to prices, similar to Skull Riders, but again, things may improve in the future. Trolls Under the Bridge makes good miniatures to add to your collection, but there are things to improve.

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