Black Annie & The Trolls of the East Bank Toves...

In the high flood of spring, the Black River overthrows her channel in many places, drowning the willow thickets that frown upon her eastern banks and turning vast expanses of the countryside into trackless marshland for months at a time. On the Eastern shore, a little north of the Flea Fell and approximately opposite the the dread Tulgey Wood which lies upon the western bank, there lies that region known as the East Bank Toves.

The East Bank Toves, or Slithy Toves, are a region of sand bars, gullies and willow thickets.  High and dry in the heat of summer, The Toves are transformed by the rising waters of late winter and early springtime into a wilderness of swampy waterways shadowed by dark and twisted trees .

For scavengers, The Toves are rich country, for as the swollen river retreats in summer, she leaves many pools and pockets of herself in the shadows amoung the sand bars and tree-roots, and here many creatures find themselves stranded every year...fish, frogs, eels and far larger, stranger and more sinister things struggle and thresh amoung the waning waters...easy pickings for the hungry and the enterprising.

The dread Troll Queen 'Black Annie' has lived in The Toves of the East Bank for as long a time as any folk tale remembers. Before the Dwarves settled on the Thunder Mount, before men colonized the West Bank, long before the coming of the Chaos Lord Buzzgobb Phesterlick, or the Black Orc Warlord Big Blackie, Black Annie was the undisputed sovereign of The Toves.  For centuries beyond count the Dark Queen of The Toves has nourished herself and her offspring on the rich pickings of the river pools in the dry months, and gone raiding amoung the surrounding communities to 'fill da pot' during leaner times.

In the days since the coming of men to the Black River country the tale of Black Annie has traveled far...women who have never dwelt within a hundred leagues of those dark waters terrify their children into good behavior with blood curdling tales of the cannibal Queen of the marshes, who hunts misbehaving children like a wolf hunts rabbits, and whose dire thirst for pain and blood can never be quenched.  Black Annie's crew will sometimes latch on to a neighboring Orc or Chaos war band, but usually only if the pickings in The Toves are slim or if they're really desperately bored and in need of a great smashing and killing of random things.

I love all the minis of this group but I'm particularly fond of this fellow.  I've named him 'Neil' after the despondent and rather stupid hippie of 'The Young Ones."  Go ahead.  Try to tell me there isn't a striking resemblance.

Always loved this fellow.  Note the frog feet sticking out of the net.  He's had a good day's picking down at the pools.

This is a splendid figure.  Paint job didn't come out so well.  Didn't do him justice, really.

                                Yeah, he's got a nobby hairdo, but e got a big stick wiv a bloody great rock on, so ye  won't make fun of im if ye knows what's good fer ye, eh?                                          

                                                        Annuva big Troll wiv a big stick...make way er we'll smash ye good!

Ready fer some fightin'!  A strong new addition to Big Blackie's Orc and Goblin horde....should be at 3k points very soon!