Thursday, 19 September 2013

Let's Talk About.... The Troll Games!

The first anyone heard of the Troll games was this wonderful advert in White Dwarf 114. To this day however, I still know nothing about them! Can you help!?
This ad has always intrigued me. The crazy artwork. The tapes of 'troll music'. The bizarre sounding names of the games. 

So much so, that I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of one of these games for over twenty years and I have yet to managed it. I still search on eBay from time to time but have never even seen a copy of any of them listed.

So in truth, I know very little about the Troll games. I don't know what they were like to play. What the tapes sounded like. Or even who designed the games/produced the artwork in the first place!

Well, wider gaming world and the thousands of folk who read this blog everyday - did you own or indeed play any of these games? Do you know anything about them? If the answer is yes, then please comment or email me as I would love to know more about these quirky footnotes in Games Workshop's history!

If you have copies to sell I would be very interested too!

Orlygg.
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29 comments:

  1. Just John19 September 2013 at 11:31

    Have you looked on BoardGameGeek? Theres a copy of Squelch for sale for £11 http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5689/squelch and there is a bit of info on a few of the other games: Oi Dat's my Leg http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5690/oi-dats-my-leg and Hungry Troll http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5691/hungry-troll-and-the-gobbos

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    1. Orlygg20 September 2013 at 07:41

      Thanks for the links mates! Looking through the info about the games I am quite surprised there were no spin off troll minis to go with the releases, but then again, we had no such releases with Chaos Marauders or the Combat Cards so its not that surprising. I am after some good copies for my own kids to play one day. My son, who is 3, is ver au fait with modern technology but I am sure that the old style cassettes and tape players will fascinate him.

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  2. Goblin Lee19 September 2013 at 11:59

    While we never played the game, they once put the tapes on at our local GW for the fun of it. If memory serves me right the voices were singing in fuax cockney with splogey, splating sound effects.


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  3. May19 September 2013 at 13:27

    My buddy had a copy of "Hungry Troll" and it was pretty lame. The game itself was written for ten year olds. The tape sounded like the game designers got drunk and recorded themselves.

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    1. dmchodge20 September 2013 at 06:21

      As I understand it that's exactly what happened. (Rumour heard whilst working for GW when the games came out.)

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    2. Orlygg20 September 2013 at 07:43

      Perhaps Simon Cowell would be interested in hearing this, or perhaps the producers of the Big Reunion? Ha ha (;

      Delete
  4. Stygianheart19 September 2013 at 13:40

    At the back end of last year I had managed to get complete copies of each game after a long time hunting them down.

    I saw the ads for them in the back of the first White Dwarf I bought as a child (issue 123), I wanted them very much, but alas, they were no longer available when I actually fully got into the hobby.

    I'd hunted down a copy of that issue a couple of years back and seeing those ads again brought back such a feeling of nostalgia that I decided to find them.

    I was going to write an article for my blog about them, but it kind of ended up on a back burner.

    I no longer have a tape player, but a friend of mine has some studio equipment and has offered to convert them to MP3's so I can listen to the goblin songs at last.

    I've only played hungry Troll and the Gobbos so far with my kids and some of my gaming group. It was a good laugh, my kids keep asking to play it.

    Hungry Troll plays a little like top trumps. It contains a deck of large format cards that each show a goblin or the hungry troll himself, all painted in a psychadelic/cartoon style just like the box art and each has a speech bubble with several sentences written inside. Instead of numerical values to compare you read out the name on the cared and one of these sentences, each ends with words like:
    Silly, hungry, naughty, noisy, etc.
    The "strength/power" of the sentence is ranked something like this:
    Extremely, very very, very, sometimes, not very and not. (I may be off on a couple but it's close enough).
    You are encouraged to read out these sentences in different silly voices to add to the fun.

    Here's a quick example:
    The players draw a card from the deck and the player who's turn it is chooses and reads out a sentence, "My name is WARTNOSE and I am VERY VERY NAUGHTY..!"

    The other players would then look at their sentence ending in NAUGHTY and clockwise around the table each would read their sentence.

    In this particular example the only sentence that would beat it would be EXTREMELY, whoever wins takes all the cards that were being played.

    The Hungry Troll is the wildcard of the game, because he is EXTREMELY EVERYTHING!

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    1. Orlygg22 September 2013 at 02:40

      Thanks for that breakdown of one of the games. I teach six year olds and they were certainly enjoy the game you are describing, and would adore the artwork for its own sake.

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    2. The Donald16 November 2013 at 09:50

      I have just located and mastered my copies of the tapes from Squelch and Hungry Troll and the Gobbos. I would dearly love to hear Oi Dats My Leg again, and Trolls in the Pantry (which I never had). Any chance you could upload mp3s please?

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    3. Orlygg16 November 2013 at 10:01

      http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_EjtVlqQ04R9HFahWJeiw?feature=watch

      Try this link!

      Delete
  5. Orcyboy19 September 2013 at 15:20

    I've got three out of four of these games when they were new back in the day (still have them). Great for kids. My little brother and I spent hours killing time with these, especially on those long cross country vacations we used to take.

    I posted a few of the songs on my blog a while back:
    http://oldorcsneverdie.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-seem-to-have-had-upsurge-in-followers_25.html

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  6. Orcyboy19 September 2013 at 15:30

    I've always wondered if the art work for these games was by the same guy that did the Gobbledigook comics in White Dwarf. It has the same feel and humor.

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  7. Dai19 September 2013 at 15:32

    I have Oi, dat's me leg and Trolls in the Pantry and my 8-year-old loves playing them.

    They are super fun and bring back memories of when I were a young'n in the 80's.

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  8. Fimm Mc Cool19 September 2013 at 16:08

    Is it true this was the origin of the Squig, or "Squiggly Beast"?

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  9. thekelvingreen19 September 2013 at 16:29

    A friend of mine had Oi! Dat's My Leg and one of the others, I think Trolls in the Pantry. In contrast to Goblin Lee I don't recall ever listening to the tape but we played the games once or twice. I remember them being very simple, so probably more fun to play for -- and likely aimed at -- the young or inebriated. The components did look good though, much better than they do in the advert.

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  10. Timmy Crabcakes19 September 2013 at 16:44

    After listening to the songs on Tartar Sauce's blog I find I'm a bit sad. They're blatantly silly and crude and kind of fun... certainly not the sort of thing GW would ever do today.

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  11. Tony Hough20 September 2013 at 01:42

    I seem to remember attempting to play one of these games with Martin McKenna at Fantasycon one year. But I may have been a little drunk...

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  12. Rick Priestley20 September 2013 at 04:37

    IIRC the Troll Games were one of our periodic attempts to produce games for customers like WH Smiths, Woolworths, and such. I believe it was Andy Jones (GW licensing last I heard) who created and produced the games at our studio on Low Pavement. The artist was Bil Sedgewick as far as I remember. There is a bit about him and the Troll Games here:

    http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/Gobbledigook-td3961232.html

    The tapes were put together by and feature Andy Jones and Tony Cotterill (now Forgeworld) and assorted GW musical talent I imagine! Name and shame I say!

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    1. Orlygg22 September 2013 at 02:42

      Thanks for that insight Rick. Its always a pleasure to hear it from one of the 'architects' so to speak. Assorted musical talent from GW, you say? Are you sure that you were not one of them!? (:

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  13. Jeff20 September 2013 at 05:09

    I have all four games. As others have said, they're a lot of fun to play with kids.

    this guy has uploaded 4 of the cassette sides on YouTube:
    http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo_EjtVlqQ04R9HFahWJeiw?feature=watch

    Jeff

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    1. Orcyboy20 September 2013 at 15:34

      Hmm... I wonder what dirty little bugger posted those on youtube? (-:

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    2. Orlygg22 September 2013 at 02:42

      I'll edit the post to include these. Thank you!

      Delete
  14. Warlord Paul20 September 2013 at 06:38

    I recall getting sent a few Troll games while working in retail in 1997(ish). They must have dug out half a dozen copies from some corner of a warehouse along with some WHFRP stuff and a few other obscure bits and bobs. Needless to say we cracked open a copy and tried it out. I seem to remember (in my youthful arrogance) being distinctly unimpressed, no doubt they make a great party game for snot-nosed little'uns though!

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  15. Chris21 September 2013 at 14:11

    I've got a complete (last I checked) copy of Trolls in the Pantry if you are interested. Happy to send pictures if you want to see it. Drop me a message if you would like to purchase or trade for it!

    Cheers
    Chris

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    1. Orlygg22 September 2013 at 02:43

      I certainly would be interested. Message sent (hopefully)

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    2. Chris22 September 2013 at 03:23

      Actually, I'm not sure of my privacy settings (have not had a message so far in any case!).

      Try chriswalkley at hotmail dot com.

      Cheers
      Chris

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  16. Don Hans21 September 2013 at 17:54

    I actually come across these recently on ebay and they are available with seller brittainsfancies: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/brittainsfancies?_trksid=p2047675.l2559
    /Hans

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  17. Rivo10 November 2014 at 13:37

    My brother had a copy of Hungry Troll & The Gobbos, and I think the cards are still around in a box somewhere either at my Dad's house or at mine. The tape, sadly, went missing, but I used to love listening to it!

    It wasn't a very complex game, but it was good fun (and to this day lines like Hungry Troll is Extremely Everything are trotted out by my Dad and me as one of those family in-jokes that no-one else understands

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  18. Unknown19 June 2016 at 08:36

    I'm putting it on ebay today, should be there at 20:00 -- great game! Real laugh!

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