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A unit costing over 800pts and afflicted by Stupidity feels like a bit of a gamble. But I really, really loves my Trolls, and really want to build a megahorde of all three types.

In my case, I'm a Night Goblin purist. In games of 2K or less, I suppose I'd be having one unit advancing next to a NG unit with BSB and general for a reasonable crack at passing Stupidity tests, and in larger games I'd be looking at both hordes flanking Skarsnik's unit for steamrollering fun. As for using all three units... well, now we're looking at massive games where pretty much anything goes.

Of course, I'd mostly be fielding more reasonable unit sizes, but I do love the idea of a Troll army with a couple of Night Goblins coming along to yell encouragement.

It would certainly add more punch if you were doing a mostly goblin army. I agree that if you keep them at the center of your lines near the BSB you'll minimize stupidity. The bonus point for it is they are effectivly immune to psychology. It would make for a good theme for your army with a large unit of trolls being goaded into combat by their goblin allies.

If I was doing an army like that I'd also do horde formation/large units with many ranks goblin units so you can pretty much bog down enemy units and hold them in place for the trolls to come break apart.

And Kudos on the avatar by the way. Daria is AWESOME.

In an army with re-rollable Ld 9, sure why not.

In an army with only Ld 8, even with the re-roll, you're going to fail almost one in three tests - its too large an investment when that can happen.

Sorry.

I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Lexx wrote:

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Standard of Discipline? That only works for the unit, and it can't use Inspiring Presence. IIRC, non-monstrous models can't join monstrous units?

lindsay40k wrote:

Lexx wrote:

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Standard of Discipline? That only works for the unit, and it can't use Inspiring Presence. IIRC, non-monstrous models can't join monstrous units?

Why not put your BSB on a jugernought and give him standard of discipline then. He is now mosterous cavalry and has the good banner.

Back to OP, I think that a troll horde would be too risky in a Goblin Army, but in a WOC army it would be much more viable (especially as chaos trolls can be core with throg and I don't know if goblins have a character that can do that).

Cool idea and would probably be a lot of fun anyway though.

Yes, but if you're just taking the regular O&G trolls (not river or stone) then they're only 35 points, and under Special (which you have a 50% allowance for, rather than 25%). Not as survivable, but the 10 point savings makes a horde only cost a measly 630 which is pretty scary.

I know that unit would be huge, so I honestly think the biggest challenge would be manuvering it to do what you want around all of those goblin bodies. That would be one hell of a unit to crack.

The Foot wrote:I know that unit would be huge, so I honestly think the biggest challenge would be manuvering it to do what you want around all of those goblin bodies. That would be one hell of a unit to crack.

It would also look great on the board. A huge troll unit amidst a roiling sea of goblins.

Troll units like that are why i take the ruby ring of ruin. I have seen them work extremely well. Just look out for Karl Franz, he will do about 6 wounds a combat to your trolls.

My biggest fear is Tomb Kings, y'know. Easy target for burning Skulls (which'll then cancel regeneration against arrows), burning attacks from Lore of Light, and four Heroic Killing Blow hits a turn from the Destroyer of Eternities.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

UNREALPwnage wrote:Troll units like that are why i take the ruby ring of ruin. I have seen them work extremely well. Just look out for Karl Franz, he will do about 6 wounds a combat to your trolls.

Ruby ring is great. Every army should have some sort of firey option.

As a note... you're only promised one, maybe two Heroic Killing Blows from Destroyer of Eternities, and that's if you take the auto hits. TK is 20mm, Trolls are 40mm. You are not hitting 4 Trolls with the auto-hit.

And biggest problem with Trolls is probably that they lag behind on low-frontage units. They're great versus hordes, yes... but against low frontage units? You miss out on a lot of attacks. Also very weak against flaming attacks, for obvious reasons.

Oh, another nerfing for my TK. Didn't notice that :/

lindsay40k wrote:

Lexx wrote:

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Standard of Discipline? That only works for the unit, and it can't use Inspiring Presence. IIRC, non-monstrous models can't join monstrous units?

The trick last I saw was that you put your BSB with the banner (or just in a unit if you can) in the same unit as your General. Your General gets +1 Ld because he is in the unit, and ONLY the unit with the Standard of Discipline can't use the General's Inspiring Presence, which is fine, because he is in the unit and they can just roll on his Ld as normal. So basically you get a +1 Ld to Inspiring Presence and the unit gets the Ld bump off the General anyway. Yay.

Wehrkind wrote:

lindsay40k wrote:

Lexx wrote:

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Standard of Discipline? That only works for the unit, and it can't use Inspiring Presence. IIRC, non-monstrous models can't join monstrous units?

The trick last I saw was that you put your BSB with the banner (or just in a unit if you can) in the same unit as your General. Your General gets +1 Ld because he is in the unit, and ONLY the unit with the Standard of Discipline can't use the General's Inspiring Presence, which is fine, because he is in the unit and they can just roll on his Ld as normal. So basically you get a +1 Ld to Inspiring Presence and the unit gets the Ld bump off the General anyway. Yay.

Yes this was the dirty trick I had in mind. Huzzah!

lindsay40k wrote:Oh, another nerfing for my TK. Didn't notice that :/

No. All attacks mabe by a King with the DOE have HKB and +2str
The special attacks only hit once per model, and he has to be in b2b. The nerfing was to only hit once with the model since last editoin. It drives me nuts that the king must be on foot... 1 hit per anything he wants to ride in, or 2 hits manditory on foot seems right for the weapons points cost.

Anyway. King hits on 3's wounds on 2's against trolls anyway.. so that's still one maybe 2 HKB's you can get (In larger games, King can get to a 4+ HKB.. bwaaahahahahah)

A guy at my local GW does this quite often. It actually works out quite well and is awesome to see on the table. I say go for it. I would never bring it to a tourny, however.

lindsay40k wrote:Oh, another nerfing for my TK. Didn't notice that :/

As Ragnar said, all attacks have HKB and +2 Strength. However, in this book it's only one hit per model in base-to-base instead of two hits per model in base-to-base. I would never use the auto-hit on anything greater than 20mm, but on 20mm it's definitely the best option as therein he's making three auto hits as opposed to 2.66 hits out of four attacks. Hm, actually, it works slightly better on 25mm if you're at an equal or lower weapon skill to what you're fighting (as statistically hitting two models can, at times, be worse than promised two hits on two models).

Just bad to go for auto-hits on Trolls, regular Trolls you'll get about 2-3 hits (of which at base you have about a 33-50% chance of a single KB), and for River Trolls you get about two hits on average (Due to the To Hit penalty) that reduces HKB odds even further. With Auto Hit, you will always get... either one or two hits, depending on if your King was well positioned or not.

Oh yeah, and the other problem with a Troll horde is that it's at least six boxes, meaning you're shelling out at least $270USD assuming no online discounter / eBay or the like ($270USD plus tax, so in MD for instance you're only about $15 shy of $300 USD on the unit).

Lexx wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:

lindsay40k wrote:

Lexx wrote:

RiTides wrote:I think it's as viable as it is for WoC (who usually are rocking LD 8) and I've heard of people using it to great success. See this thread .

Plus you can always give the BSB the +1 leadership banner to really minimize risks.

Standard of Discipline? That only works for the unit, and it can't use Inspiring Presence. IIRC, non-monstrous models can't join monstrous units?

The trick last I saw was that you put your BSB with the banner (or just in a unit if you can) in the same unit as your General. Your General gets +1 Ld because he is in the unit, and ONLY the unit with the Standard of Discipline can't use the General's Inspiring Presence, which is fine, because he is in the unit and they can just roll on his Ld as normal. So basically you get a +1 Ld to Inspiring Presence and the unit gets the Ld bump off the General anyway. Yay.

Yes this was the dirty trick I had in mind. Huzzah!

At first I was like 'Oh, that is so going to be nerfed by an FAQ and rejected by argumentative opponents'

Then I was like, 'Oh, wow:'

Warhammer Rulebook FAQ wrote:Q: If the General is in a unit with the Standard of Discipline will he gain +1 Leadership and then be able to pass it onto his unit (because he is in it) as well as other units in range of the Inspiring Presence special rule? (Reference)
A: Yes.

Only issue left is the choice between a generic Lord, or Skarsnik. Not being a fan of second rank characters, and Skarsnik having a triple width base, that's forcing his unit to have a frontage of seven to accommodate him, the BSB and FC.

I'd rather not make his unit too wide, as I want to make it easy to keep four other units within range of him and the BSB - and to maximise its ranks, since I suspect being Stubborn will be more useful than becoming a Horde for the sake of a few extra S3 attacks...

Biggest problem with Skarsnik is intense vulnerability. He's now Killing Blow vulnerable, and I don't believe he'll ever get Look Out Sir in a unit he's in. In other words, "Ker-SPLAT!"

Minsc wrote:Biggest problem with Skarsnik is intense vulnerability. He's now Killing Blow vulnerable, and I don't believe he'll ever get Look Out Sir in a unit he's in. In other words, "Ker-SPLAT!"

Killing Blow? Gork'll fix it

As for Look Out Sir... unless I'm missing something, not only does there appear to be nothing in the BRB disallowing it for infantry characters on large bases in infantry units (Skarsnik is infantry, albeit with a six-times-the-size base as a Goblin), it also seems to me that characters that the cavalry, monstrous cavalry or monstrous infantry can also join an infantry unit and get LOS?

They have to be the same unit type in order to get a LoS So if he is infantry, then congrats he gets LoS.

I'd appreciate page refs on these?

Its on the LoS page under who can receive the bonus

Pg 93: 'A "Look Out, Sir!" roll cannot be made if there are less than five rank-and-file models (including the musician and standard bearer, but not the campion) left in the unit.

P9 97 specifies that a Lone Character needs to be within 3" of a unit of the same type to receive a 4+ LoS, but then goes on to say a character can join any unit that isn't Monsters, Flyers, War Machines, Swarms or Chariots. I can't find anything else in the rulebook that specifies that you have to be in a unit of the same type to get 2+ LoS. And the only mention of LoS in the current FAQ is on an unrelated matter regarding spells.

zemanjaski wrote:In an army with re-rollable Ld 9, sure why not.

In an army with only Ld 8, even with the re-roll, you're going to fail almost one in three tests - its too large an investment when that can happen.

Sorry.

No, with LD 8 and a reroll from the BSB you can expect to fail 8% of the time, which is a lot less than one in three.

I think that even with leadership 8 and a reroll those odds are workable for an army. Leadership is always going to be an issue in Orc and goblin armies. But that provides a pretty good chance of sticking through to the end.