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I have been thinking of getting into hordes, but can not make up my mind between Trollbloods and The Circle.  I like the figures for both factions, but I can only afford to do one faction now.

Besides I play Cygnar in Warmachine.

Any thoughts on the subject would be a great help.

Thanks

Well, Trolls are more of an 'in your face buff buff super buff beat-stick' faction while the circle are more of a 'finesse guerrilla denial and board control' faction.

Both are competitive and very fun to play, so it really comes down to how you want to play and which models you like more.

I can provide some info on the trolls, I recently decided to pick up a Troll army about 6 months ago and have loved playing Hordes since. A lot more fun and tactical than 40k or Fantasy in my opinion.

Trolls, like mentioned, are really tough and can take a ton of punishment. While their melee capability is definitely their strong point, they also have a good range support option in the way of the Impaler, who can critically slam things away. But definitely, they won't be like your Cygnar in terms of shooting.

Trolls have really good infantry in the form of the Champions, who are incredibly tough, and can actually put out a fair amount of damage. They also have some cheap but good infantry in the form of the Kriel Warriors. Kriel Warriors make great blockers/throw-away units, and are also good for objective holding. To go with the infantry, the solo Fell Caller is just awesome. He can give them various buffs like Pathfinder, plus to hit, and can stand up all knocked down models in six inches.

Trolls are also all about the animus of beasts and buffs from units like the Fell Caller or the Kriel Stone Bearers (+2 ARM to units within a certain range). Trolls have some of the best animus in the game: Rage, Rush, Far Strike are all great. I especially love Rage (+3 str) and Rush (+5" charge, ignore obstacles and terrain). Both of those synergize really well with all the beasts, and even the Champions.

For casters, we've got a Beatstick (Madrak), Buffer/Melee (Grissel), and caster/beast (Doomshaper). All of them are great casters. I've been using Doomshaper a lot lately because I like going beast heavy, but I just recently started playing Madrak too. Madrak has possibly one of the coolest spells ever, Surefoot, making everyone within 3" ignore knockdown and get +2 def. Couple that with Champions and the Kriel Stone Bearer and you've got the troll "brick." A wall of DEF 16, ARM 19, 8 wounds each, can't be knocked down, and to add insult to injury, they all get tough rolls when they are "killed." The epitome of toughness!

Best of all, the troll models from Primal are, in my opinion the best ones out there. I was also torn between the Circle and the Trolls too, and I ended up going with Trolls and have not regretted it. I may do a Circle army next though, as the models coming out for Evolution look pretty darn nice too!

Warrior 50, what's appealing? The figs or the rules?

I play trolls and will be playing Skorne soon as well. I'm a Khador player, and playing trolls kinda reminds me of that. They are absolutely gorgeous figs and monsters in combat.

You're a Cygnar player already, so my questions are:

1. Do you want a similar playing experience to Cygnar, or totally different?
2. What figs appeal to you most?
3. What style of play are you looking for? Is this going to be for tourneys or 'friendly'/league play?
4. Monsters or troop heavy?

Look at your local metagame, too. Legion does just about everything Circle does better, but trolls slow down alot of Legion's tactics. So if there are lots of Legion players, expect a tougher time (yes, even with Krueger and Wardens).

Hopefully, this will shift somewhat with Evolution...

Thanks for the Advice.

Well as a Cygnar player I like the mix of range and close combat troops.  In my area here we have a good mix of all the WM factions, but it is heavy Cygnar and Cryx.  On the hordes side of things we have several Circle players as well as some trollblood players.  Legion and Skorne are played as well but most are just getting started.

Most players play both WM and Hordes at my local store although there are some who do not.

My attraction to trolls is that they look so cool.  The circle also has some cool figures as well.  As I said I like both range and Melee mix in my forces, Trolls will give me this.  But wolves and magic are also attractive.

Hit and run is a style of play that I used to play a lot in an now dead game I used to play.  The beatstick style of brut strength appeals to me as well as I used to play a Troll army in another minatures game that has also died.

so I guess it comes down to style of play and what I want to build.

Let me know if I have missed anything?

Maybe wait until you see what's coming in Evolution?

Or maybe just play both?

Depends on why you game, I am getting too old to care about winning to much and for the most part just dictate my model purchases on what looks cool. Kind of sucks if you want to win every game though.

No point getting an uber powerful army if you hate looking at the models everygame while you annhilate your opponent.

'eh. I learned to like my little chickenmechs.

I mostly pick my army on what looks cool now as well. Though the nice thing about the Trolls is that since almost all their stuff looks cool, you can't really go wrong with any choices.

The only guys I didn't originally like the look of were the Champions, but after building them and seeing them in person, they are starting to grow on me. I like how they all come with individual beer steins. Anyone that brings their beer mug into battle is ok by me.

Don't worry, Acheron, the frost troll will give us a nice ugly model ;-)