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So i want to start a Hordes army. But the problem I am having is I really can't decide which faction to start with. Unfortunatly at this time I can't afford to just start each one so i have to pick one. I currently play Khador for Warmachine and so i kind of want something that will play a little differently then that. But I really like to play aggresive and love taking that long shot that may either win me the game or assure that I really have lost. At no point do I give up until my caser is dead. Now I've narrowed it down to either Trollbloods, Skorne, or Legion of Everblight. I don't want to start a circle army simply cause my wife is starting one and I see no point in the both of us playing the same faction. The problem I'm having is that I like all 3 of the remaining factions. Love the models, love the fluff, just not real sure which one I want to start with first. I've done a ton of reading about all three on battlecollege and all it has done is make me want all 3 even more. So I really need everyone's help and suggestions here so I can finally get a Hordes army going. Thanks for your helps in advance.

I was going to say Circle, because that's my second faction after Khador, but that's out.

If you're looking for a different play style, Legion might be your go-to alternate faction. From what I know, Trolls and Skorne both have a lot of synergies to keep track of, and like to brick up a lot.
I could be wrong on that, because I've only played against them a few times, so don't take my word for it.

Legion though is supposed to be almost a glass cannon type of faction, so it may fit very well as an opposite to Khador.

Skorne like the Khador of Hordes to me..

Id look at Legion or Trollbloods.

Depending on the manner with which you play your Khador, you might like Legion in that they are really good beasts assisted by a bit of infantry instead of really good infantry assisted by a jack or two.

Here are the play styles:

Legion generally plays for a beast-heavy blitzkrieg. Legion is generally faster and more fragile and expensive than the average. Eyeless Sight on every beast and Pathfinder on most means you ignore the silly forests, rough terrain, and stealth that gives other armies trouble. Typically you do not have the model count or model endurance to out-last your opponent if your first attack is anything less than crippling.

Legion does have some decent infantry, but most Legion casters prefer beasts with beast-centric spell lists and feats.

Trollbloods are an expensive army $$$ wise to field. Almost every model is on a medium base or larger and their three main units, Fennblades, Kriel Stone Bearers, and Kriel Warriors, are relatively cheap points-wise. This adds up to a lot of pewter.

Trolls can play both infantry heavy and beast heavy. Every single trollblood is Tough, so if you can roll '5' a lot then you can rickroll your way to victory. Trolls also are very good at layering buffs, much like Menoth. A base Kriel Warrior is Mat5, P&S10, Def12/ARM 15. Add a Fell Caller shout, a Kriel Stone with UA, a Chronicler, a warlock spell, the unit buff, a UA, and a pyre troll animus and suddenly he becomes Mat9, P&S15, Def 12 (14 vs shooting)/ARM17 with no knockdown.

Troll warbeasts can be equally terrifying with ridiculously high ARM and pretty scary abilities and animi. In short, don't get into a prolonged attrition battle with trolls. You simply won't like it. Infantry is Tough and easy to get bogged down in with medium bases preventing trampling and doing a lot of LOS blocking, and troll P&S and ARM is so high that not only are they hard to kill and can crack any ARM value, but Regen and Snacking on almost all warbeasts mean they have a real easy time healing up.

Skorne are an interesting faction. They are a 'slow' faction, but the amount of speed buffs they have makes them the fastest 'slow' faction that you can play. Skorne warbeast damage output is very high and they also can do some decent buff stacking and combo-building (resulting in the term 'Skornergy') to create strange threat vectors that take people by surprise. Skorne is difficult to make generalizations about as a faction because certain warlocks can play attrition, assassination, beast-heavy, and infantry-heavy. Skorne is mostly about a straightforward crushing melee offense that has a few 'tricks' up its sleeve in spell arcing, non-linear threat ranges, and denial.

@ sourclams: while your general explanation of the Skorne play style is pretty good, i would like to point out, that the term "Skornergy" is in fact not about combo or buff staking. It actually means the lack of that, or abilities that should work together, but dont. Examples:

Immortals: they are terribly slow, until you add a ancestral guardian, but the immortals provide no souls for the guardian, so the ancestral guardian wants to be with any other living infantry unit

Hexeris: Feat + Soulfire: Hexeris cheap attack spell removes models from play and therefore wont trigger his feat, so his only way to trigger the feat himself is melee or the fury intensive obliberation
Also his feat stops his abilitys Life drinker and vampiric reaving and on top of that berserk from the nihilators

Krea: The kreas shooting attack lowers the DEF of an enemy model, but the kreas RAT is so poor, that the only things it will hit are low DEF enemy's anyway

Mordikaar: Hollow lets him get the souls of fallen soldiers, but hollows provides said guys with tough and therefore makes them less likely to die and therefore keeps mordikaar form getting their souls
Also essence blast only works from living models and since hollow makes them undead, you cant use them for essence blast

Rasheth: He's got Nihilators in his theme force and carnivore to buff them to MAT 9! But Carnivore also stops berserk

Important note: That does not mean that Skorne are not competitive or weak, but for some reason they seem to have the highest amount of abilitys that for some reason or the other don't work well with each other

Alright well thankyou everybody for your help. I think I'm going to go with Trollbloods. I just really like some of the models more then I do some of the others. Legion may very well be my second Hordes faction. Now what would be your suggestions for running a fun competitive list with Captain Gunnbjorn. I'd like to also include a Dire troll Blitzer in the list if at all possible.

Not at all intended to dissuade you from Gunny, but he is largely considered one of the least competitive warlocks in Trollbloods (beating only pHoarluk, my personal favorite warlock, in polls).

So I don't know if 'competitive' and 'Gunnbjorn' necessarily go together form an internet groupthink perspective, although good players make anything work.

Gunnbjorn, Bomber, Impaler, and either another Bomber or a Blitzer would be your battlegroup in most cases. Add Fennblades/Kriel Warriors and key support units like Kriel Stone+UA and Janissa.

I can understand that. I'm not looking to really be winning any big tournaments with them. I just want a fun list but one that once I learn to use it correctly will be able to give my opponent a run for their money. So that way the games are fun.

Your biggest problem will be matchups. Gunny and his shooty beasts have absolutely no meaningful way to circumvent stealth. Blast damage drifts simply won't cut it against certain massed stealth lists like Bane Thrall spam or eLylith. Certain warcasters (Cygnar, mostly, but also Gorten in Mercs and some Menoth) can meaningfully buff armor or give immunity to blast damage so that your bazookas turn into sniper rifles unable to kill more than 1 model at a time.

If you typically play against 1 person, and that person is a gentleman and doesn't intentionally take matchups that can neuter your game, then you should really have no problems in general.

If you really want a shooty warlock, Grim is incredibly competitive and Jarl is also well rounded and less matchup prone. Grim could also work well with a Blitzer, although Jarl probably not as much.

The first question is are you going to try and stay in his tier list or not.

If you do go with
bomber
impaler
whelps
janniessa stonetide
scouts
sluggers


If you do not mind going outside of his tier
impaler
bomber
axer
long riders
the long rider solo
champions

I don't think I'd try to mix Champs and Long Riders. As those are both fairly elite units, you're left with a very low model count that can be easily neutered by enemy debuff spells. This makes your list even more matchup prone, exaggerating one of Gunny's main weaknesses.

Stick with investing in a Fennblade screen. It's hard to go wrong with a Fennblade screen, and then use either Champs or LRs as a follow up 2nd wave or a screenbreaker to clear out enemy models for the Fenn charge.

I have not had experience with Gunny and I am about to start a trollblood force so I was just giving a suggestion that i thought would work/good starting point of reference to help him figure out which models would be good to get

Although champs look rock-solid on paper, most people regard them as more of an 'advanced tactics' unit. They cost a lot, their model count is low, and they are slow and generally out-threated by other infantry. They are also eminently killable, even with ARM20 and 8 boxes of Tough.

The go-to unit for Trolls is Fennblades. If you don't know what to take or are a new player wondering what you should buy first, or simply having a matchup issue, a good kneejerk response is Fennblades with the UA. At 8 points it's cheap, it has good damage output--more than necessary for killing off infantry, and Set Defense+Vengeance + Reach make them both a brilliant screen and give them extra offense.

They respond well to troll support, boosting up to ARM16 with Kriel Stone, causing knockdown with the Chronicler, and become Mat8 with the Fel Caller.

TLDR: Fennblades and UA. Just do it.