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I am starting a Orcs&Goblins army and I keep looking at Trolls, and pausing. How do you effectively use a Stupid unit with LD4???
I might be wrong but wouldn't they pretty much be totally useless?? I am just comeing back to Fantasy after MANY years away and would appreciate any help here. Thanks

Because you have your Black ork big boss nearby in another unit within the 12 inch range for his leadership... + a BSB to reroll those if you fail it at 9/10 whatever you have then

I do love a good troll thread, especially when people feed them

On topic, trolls are a very good and very cheap unit that hits like a brick. Their vomit attack means they can lunch through high saves and stomps mean they mulch through low saves, they wold be OP as heck if they didn't have stupidity and such terrible leadership. That means that to play trolls effectively you HAVE to have them within the inspiring presence of your General, preferably with a BSB in range to let them re-roll. Take at least a block of 6 in range of there and use them grid down enemies. Taking more then 6 is an option, but I haven't seen it done often to great results.

Trolls also make a really good Fanatic catapult since they have Regeneration and 3 wounds apiece. Have the trolls in front of a unit with Fanatics in it. If the Trolls are charged, send the fanatics through the Trolls so that the incoming unit has a good chance of landing on Fanatic and taking 2d6 hits instead of the 1d6 for the Fanatic passing through them. Alternatively, if you've charged with your trolls already, you can move up behind the engaged Troll unit and shoot the Fanatics through both the Trolls and the enemy unit. For most enemy units, the opponent's unit is likely to take far more damage than are the Trolls.

You all are stupid and smell.

Oh, I thought this was a trolling thread.

Trolls are great. Stone trolls aren't. River trolls are pretty good. If the enemy is super melee that -1 is a lot.

You can even put a hero/lord in the unit. They won't get a look out sir, but just in case your general/bsb moves away. I've seen stranded trolls before and it's always a sad time. Cuz you're like, that's 200ish points of pwn not able to do anything.

If troll models were cooler looking, they would be a lot better. But even the forgeworld ones are kinda icky.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
I've seen stranded trolls before and it's always a sad time. Cuz you're like, that's 200ish points of pwn not able to do anything.

Hah. That reminds me of a time I was playing a friend's O&G against a HE player with the previous book. I had a fat unit of River Trolls (8, I think) charge into some killy unit like White Lions or something. The Regen rolls saved the trolls bacon, who proceeded to nom down on the HE who broke and ran. Not thinking clearly, I opted to pursue. I caught the HE unit with the Trolls, but then the Trolls spent the rest of the game outside of IP radius meandering across the board.

The Hand of Gork can be really valuable in trying to move them back if everyone is stuck in combat. But a smart enemy will try and dispel it.

so keep em close to da Boss and all is well.
thank you
I forgot that rule.

Orkhead wrote:
so keep em close to da Boss and all is well.
thank you
I forgot that rule.

Unless your enemy kills your general and BSB. In that case you're screwed. Which is what I did to my opponent in a game. I'm surprised trolls have such low leadership. They sounds pretty balls to the walls amazing except for that and their super bad initiative. This is a big deal too as cracks call ripped through them like nobody's business. I love how most monsters, monstrous infantry and monstrous beasts are slow initiative-wise. It's very helpful when you have initiative tests or die.

Not screwed. You can always have a hero/lord join even if it's not a general. They become stupid. But your roll is a 6/7/8 instead of 4. The hero doesn't get a LOS and he likely slows down the trolls, but O&G heroes are super cheap. And if your options are perma failing a stupid roll or get like a 50/50 to have a killer unit back in play, I think it's a decent move.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Not screwed. You can always have a hero/lord join even if it's not a general. They become stupid. But your roll is a 6/7/8 instead of 4. The hero doesn't get a LOS and he likely slows down the trolls, but O&G heroes are super cheap. And if your options are perma failing a stupid roll or get like a 50/50 to have a killer unit back in play, I think it's a decent move.

Cracks call could still snipe out the dude boosting the unit's leadership and the trolls. Of course if you have both the general and BSB around as well then you should be ok. Of course my opponent didn't have that. He was also noobish enough to throw his BSB and his general wizard into the big block of night goblins without much in the way of stuff to keep em alive. Normally you put the BSB and general in the way back in a smaller unit so you don't waste points keeping them out of combat. Some situations are different but in the case of a non-killy unit I feel like that was a bad idea (at least without a proper BSB and general with lots of armor and wards). Maybe I'm wrong though.

Okay, but most people don't have cracks call. A million spells and abilities can kill a non-MI hero in a MI unit. Hell, simply challenging him works.

The question was what do you do when your trolls are on a stupid streak with no general and bsb. Those are just models and they will likely die eventually. And even more likely die before your trolls, which the enemy will be avoiding and/or feeding chaff.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Okay, but most people don't have cracks call. A million spells and abilities can kill a non-MI hero in a MI unit. Hell, simply challenging him works.

The question was what do you do when your trolls are on a stupid streak with no general and bsb. Those are just models and they will likely die eventually. And even more likely die before your trolls, which the enemy will be avoiding and/or feeding chaff.

No but a ton of armies have I test spells esp. with the access to rulebook lores. It's still more common to face strength tests as it's more useful on units but on monstrous infantry I tests are king.

Really it's just one example with the skaven army. I'm sure if I played a lot of armies a lot of the time I'd figure out good combos against all armies. The spell is just what I use (since it's one of the only effective skaven spells vs monstrous anything).

I wouldn't know what to give trolls. I was more offering ways to counter them.

Trolls are good in combat and I think more people are focused on getting 'dwellers'. However trolls have significant weaknesses. Low initiative, low leadership, stupid, regeneration is awesome until hit by flaming attacks (which isn't unlikely to see anymore). They're good but you probably wouldn't want to throw out too many.

Keep in mind I'm no O&G player but I have faced a few in my time.

--------------

This is also a bit un-related but how are squigs? I've faced them and they seem to do a number when there are enough of them.

Yeah, but those spells are usually lvl 6. So you got a (good) chance to dispel and they have a (decent) chance of miscast if they do get it.

About the MOST expensive you will see a troll unit is 210pts. Often half that or less. So it's not a slam dunk call to make. I'd guess a very small % of armies you face will have an initiative dooooom spell. They might have another one, but it could be final trans, or dwellers or whatever. Especially now with HE and DE redone and their silly high init. If someone knows they are playing you and knows you like trolls, that's another thing.

I still think they are amazingly good. But it's not just cuz of their stats and abilities, but because they are so cheap.

Trolls are the only way to make a general on warboss marginally viable.

Park your warboss behind the trolls so that they block any cannonballs going their way, and they get the warboss leadership.

You're pretty flexible with a 18'' leadership bubble and a warboss + trolls combo charge can wreck almost anything in the game.

Trolls are also your best tool against high armoured targets, a resilient anvil and a hitty hammer. Just make sure to steer clear of anything with flaming attacks. Hands down the best special choice in the O&G book.

One of my favorite moments is when my opponent has spent minimum 210 points on trolls and i troll him back by adding the 10 point flaming banner.

KeyserSoze wrote:
One of my favorite moments is when my opponent has spent minimum 210 points on trolls and i troll him back by adding the 10 point flaming banner.

Just as much as when that unit with the flaming banner in turn gets trolled by a 60 point boss on wolf with dragonhelm or gem.

When you play with trolls you make an art of picking the unit with the flaming banner.

A 10pt banner merely means you're facing 210 points of sorta-Ogres. They have less armor, but more Strength and can puke.

Troll puke is a game changer for OnG armies. Being able to nuke armor saves is a rare thing across the army and it allows trolls to be very flexible (attack and stomp infantry or puke on knights, MSU elites, etc.).

Keeping them inside the general's range is not that tricky and frankly if people are wasting time sniping out your warboss before the trolls hit combat you probably have already won.

Once the trolls make combat, stupidity goes out the window and the puke starts to fly!

Ok so what trolls do I choose, Stone, river or basic???? And how many troll do I take in a unit?? Are there any good cheaper third party models??

Not stone.

Basic trolls are the cheapest. River trolls can be okay but they impact your ability to get other Rares.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Not stone.

Basic trolls are the cheapest. River trolls can be okay but they impact your ability to get other Rares.

Pretty much this, cheap is best but if you can find the rare points for river trolls (not spending them in lobbas, doom divers and pump wagons, that is) that -1 to hit can be massive in a WS3 model.

On the rare occasion that the opposing unit fails their fear test they're hitting river trolls on 6s!

Reading the new Dorf book, they got like 2983498 ways to get Flaming Attacks, so IMHO, Trolls are a little worse.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Reading the new Dorf book, they got like 2983498 ways to get Flaming Attacks, so IMHO, Trolls are a little worse.

I'm still happy if that means the end of the S5, laser-guided grudge thrower.

No.

It can still get 5(10) and reroll scatter. For 155.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
No.

It can still get 5(10) and reroll scatter. For 155.

What's the rune combination? I thought the second rune of penetration was a single re-roll to wound?

Oh, it's S4 with a reroll to wound. Which is better anyway.

For trolls S5 once is 66.67 of wounding and S4 reroll is 75% chance of wounding.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Oh, it's S4 with a reroll to wound. Which is better anyway.

For trolls S5 once is 66.67 of wounding and S4 reroll is 75% chance of wounding.

It's a single re-roll for all game.

S5 vs S4 is a massive difference for a template weapon. And if you take the 2nd rune for the re-roll, then it's one of either flaming, accuracy or forging.