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Hello everyone,

I am a new Warmachine/Hordes player, and I think after much thought, that I would like to play trollbloods! However, I really have no idea how this faction plays, besides the fact that I hear that this faction is really tough? Could someone please tell me more about trollbloods so I can really know if it is the right faction for me?

Also, I have read that trollbloods is the least played faction at tournaments. Does this mean that it is the weakest faction?

Thanks,
Daniel

Hawkfury wrote:
Hello everyone,

I am a new Warmachine/Hordes player, and I think after much thought, that I would like to play trollbloods! However, I really have no idea how this faction plays, besides the fact that I hear that this faction is really tough? Could someone please tell me more about trollbloods so I can really know if it is the right faction for me?

Also, I have read that trollbloods is the least played faction at tournaments. Does this mean that it is the weakest faction?

Thanks,
Daniel

It's not the weakest faction (WM/H doesn't really have tiers in the same way that 40k does), but it does have one of the smallest pools of high end options.

Basically, it is a faction with pretty minimal, though not meaningless, shooting, and plenty of tough infantry. Everything in the army has the tough rule, which can be maddening for an opponent, and plenty of models have high armor or wounds, or both. It has a handful of hard hitting beasts, but they tend to be a bit weaker than the skorne heavies.

The army tends to rely heavily on synergy from support units and models.

Also, one of the main reasons why the faction has a smaller player base is because it is a faction that relies heavily on its infantry and that infantry is comprised almost exclusively of medium based models, making it one of the most expensive factions to collect in the game (money wise).

Weakest faction? Hardly.

Trolls won the Masters tournament at Gencon three years ago using all the "bad" Troll models/units. The guy that did it Jake Van Meter, was challenged the year before by Micheal "Chilly" Winters who lost the bet and ended up shaving his hair- JVM lost a bet to him at Templecon that same year and got his head shaved for it.

How do they play? It's a faction with a lot of medium and large based models, and most of the faction has Tough- when the model takes it's last wound, roll a d6. On a 5-6, the model heals one wound and is knocked down. This, along with most of the models having 5-8 wounds, makes them a really hard army to attrition or take out key models.

They can be a very effective shooting army, but Hordes is a game that encourages melee and you pay a "tax" for shooting units (generally, over-costed and inferior to melee units). That being said, Trolls have some VERY good shooting units.

These days, the popular way to run Trolls is as a "jamming" army that runs a bunch of medium based, multi-wound models with buffs straight at the enemy to jam them/tar pit them and keep them from doing anything while the Warlock and Warbeasts take flags/zones to win the game. Another list that is popular is "Meat Mountain" where you take as many buffed up Warbeasts as you can and kill your opponents army.

Like everything else in this game, as a new player, you will lose, A LOT. Like your first 20+ games, and if you win, it'll be because of luck and playing another new player. The game has a VERY steep learning curve. Get the basics down first- small games, like 10-15 points, then move up to 25, then 35, and finally 50 when you think you are ready for tournament play. Master your list first- don't change it every time you play or your learning curve will grow exponentially. Make small changes, a model or unit every 3-5 games, never swap out your Warlock. When you think you have mastered your first list, switch out your Warlock and start all over. Don't use scenarios/Steamroller rules until you get the game down. They add a whole new level of complexity to the game that most new players are not ready for. I.e.; can you play a 50 point game on a chess clock within 50 minutes? How about 10 minute turns? Do I have to win by assassination, or scenario (gotta get those Control Points...)? Just keep it simple at first, and play, play, play.

Good luck!

Hawkfury wrote:
Hello everyone,

I am a new Warmachine/Hordes player, and I think after much thought, that I would like to play trollbloods! However, I really have no idea how this faction plays, besides the fact that I hear that this faction is really tough? Could someone please tell me more about trollbloods so I can really know if it is the right faction for me?

Also, I have read that trollbloods is the least played faction at tournaments. Does this mean that it is the weakest faction?

Thanks,
Daniel

Stop thinking along the lines of gw-think. All the factions in wmh are strong. There is no 'weakest' faction, bar arguably Mercs/minions which by their very nature as a collection of random models and sub factions, will not be at the same level as 'main' factions.

Trolls are solid. But pricey. They have solid builds. Generally they are a defensive-buff based faction that tends to favour heavy infantry and high arm skew, and attrition/jamming play. Thry get Inyour way, and then can't be moved. And killing them is bloody hard work. All this time, they're grinding you down in turn.

Thry have attrition options, control options, some surprising speed options and some solid assassination vectors. They also have some of the most brutal warbeasts (say hi to mulg) that just make people cry. Along with the aforementioned heavy infantry options and solid support.

One thing to keep in mind with WM/H is that models have too stats: DEF, which affects how hard the model is to hit in both shooting and melee, and ARM, which affects how hard the model is to damage.

Trolls have a flat DEF of 12 on nearly all models (warlocks can be a bit higher, and IIRC the huge based stuff is lower), but are all slightly higher in ARM, and have the Tough rule to compensate. Nothing in WM/H can simply shrug off all damage, but Trolls are harder to bring down than most. They are one of the great brick factions, with Skorne and Menoth.

As a Troll player, I will echo what everyone has already stressed. No one faction is the Eldar of WMH. All the factions and most of the units/models within each faction are playable. I started out playing WMH with Borka as my caster about 6 months ago. He brings a keg to work, what's not to like?

My first list with him was 25 pts (coming from 20+ years of 40k I was able to grasp the scenario idea quickly) and had 1 warbeast (a Mauler), Fennblades, Champions, and the Krielstone. I played probably 15 games with this set up before subbing models/units in and out at the same point limit. Finally I moved up in points as my grasp of the game mechanics and other armies increased.

I still play Borka exclusively but do own 3 other casters that I am eager to try out. I have expanded into a number of other units to swap as well.

WMH factions are meant to revolve around your caster. Borka has low fury and thus doesn't support warbeasts very well. His spell list does two things well, makes your infantry harder to hit, and makes opposing models easier to hit. His feat makes up for Trolls lower speed and Borka's fury issues. If you can identify the strength of the caster, you can accentuate that strength with the appropriate models.

Finally, if you are set on Trolls then PM me as I have some duplicate models that I got in a trade that you can have for cheap which includes the Krielstone and Elder (pretty much in every list)

Cheers and good luck!

Hawkfury wrote:
Hello everyone,

I am a new Warmachine/Hordes player, and I think after much thought, that I would like to play trollbloods! However, I really have no idea how this faction plays,

Without knowing how Trollbloods plays, how do you know you want to play Trollbloods?

So here's the thing, every faction can generally create at least one list that fits everyone's playstyle, but if what you really enjoy is one particular playstyle, some factions are a lot deeper than others for delivering it.

Trollbloods, for example, do not tend to run a lot of warbeasts [well]. There are one or two lists that is capable of spending half or more of its points on beasts, but that's about it, so if all you want to field is Heavies then Trollbloods may be a poor faction choice overall.

-Trolls are expensive to collect, because they are larger miniatures.
-Trolls are expensive to collect, because they are a 'collectors faction'. To be successful with them will require you to collect a pretty wide selection of their available models. Often, you will need to own multiple models/units of the same type.
-Trolls are an infantry faction. Their warbeasts are there more for support than they are for smashing faces in, though they can do that too.
-Trolls are a light warbeast faction. They have heavies, pretty good ones at that, but their light beasts provide more utility to the faction.

In general, Trolls are a synergy faction. A lot of their stuff looks very meh when you take it by itself--but it's when you start to add up the buffs that they can apply to each other that things get impressive.

For example, Warders are a decent heavy infantry unit by themselves, with a fairly average armour of 17. If they're in the aura of the Krielstone Bearer unit, they get +2. If a member of the unit takes damage, they gain another +2, and are suddenly very hard to remove in any reasonable amount of time. Under Grissel-2 on her feat turn, they gain another +2 when in melee, and can move towards enemies whenever they take damage, making them possibly the most resilient infantry in the game Equally, the beasts are weaker than other factions in terms of raw stats, but are balanced around the idea that you have the tools to pump them up to pretty frightening levels.

Troll beasts aren't actually weaker IMO. All their melee heavies being fury5 is a pretty big deal when most heavies are fury4. They're also pretty durable, with average pow and speed. And all around good animi. Only real downside is they're expensive.

I just started playing WMH about 3 months ago and I went in whole hog with Trolls. I have found them to be VERY capable and just completed my first 50 pt steam roller last weekend (going 2-2). If you want to be competitive they have several lists that are top notch. Meat Mountain, which is not as as Tamwulf described, but is instead generally 3 or so units of our 8 box high armor weapon master infantry units, backed with a support caster (usually Prime or Epic Grissel) and a couple of beasts. Another is Doomshaper1's tier list, Runes of War. This list is almost always fielded the same way, Mulg, Earthborn Dire Troll, DIre Troll Mauler, Axer, Janessa, Full Krielstone unit plus Elder UA, and 4 units of Runeshapers. And the last one I have been seeing all over the place is Calandra's Evolutionary Elementalism Tier list. Which is essentially, a tied of light war beasts.

Trolls are fun, and they can be frustrating for an opponent (we do high armor VERY well) and they have tools to deal with most situations, but they aren't as easy to use as some other factions (Cryx/Legion).