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So I just happened to pickup a decent amount of models from a friend of mine for next to nothing. I am trying to figure out what I can field currently and what units I should get to expand the list.

I played a little back in Mk1 but found the learning curve a bit to steep for my liking. Otherwise I am a longtime 40k/fantasy/FOW player.

So here's what I have:

Warlocks:
pGrissel
eGrissel
eDoomshaper
Jarl Skuld

Warbeasts:
Earthborn Dire Troll
Swamp Troll
Troll Axer
Troll Bouncer
Troll Impaler

Solos:
Fell Caller Hero

Units:
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes
*Stone Scribe Elder
Thumper Crew

and a random kaber thrower but no Kriel Warriors :/

I was looking at adding more troopers and Warders in particular caught my eye. Whelps also look rather attractive. As far as beast go, Pyre and Slag trolls look interesting as well.

So any suggestions on where to go from here, keeping in mind that while I am new, I am a very quick learner.

Well you've got an Earthborn, the Axer and the Krielstone so you've got a good core. You could certainly add an elemental light, or one of the character heavies and be in a good place with eDoomy. If you want to go in the troop route pGrissel is super solid in that respect, and Warders are crazy good. You'd need a faster element to play to the front better as well, something like Fennblades. To start with you can probably just get some games under your belt with just Doomshaper + Stones + 3-4 beasts, and go from there. Jarl is kind of a niche-caster and I'm not generally a fan of eGrissel.

EDIT: Specific questions or problems would help. Are there areas of the rules you're having trouble with. What you've got is solid and the things you're eyeing are too, but it's hard to get too specific with advice without knowing what your challenges are.

So at 25 points:

eDoomshaper
-Earthborn Dire Troll
-Troll Impaler
-Troll Axer
-Troll Bouncer
Krielstone Bearer Max
-Stone Scribe Elder

How's that look?


*edit: You actually gave me the kind of advice I was looking for. I kind of wanted to gauge my own ability to judge what was good and what-not. Good to hear Warders are a good choice. I honestly have yet to play a game of MkII but want to make sure I'm thinking correctly. I will probably be ordering some Warders and troll whelps before I even start playing.

I'd suggest trying to play Tooth and Claw/Mangled metal at 15 points with what you have. It's a format that allows only caster/locks with their battlegroup. You'll probably only need a few games to get started as the rules are rather easy to learn. After that you can decide what route you want to go with your main warlock and what troops you want to get. I can't really recommend any units as there's only 1 trolls player in my LGS. I'd suggest battlecollege if you haven't already found it to get a good idea of what troops and stuff you want.

*edit*

I didn't see your latest post until I posted. Maybe try some games at 25 points if you have the models for them. Don't go any further until you've learned the rules though.

Battlecollege?

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/mkiiTrollbloods

It's a website that gives an idea of what each model can do. They usually have good info. The above link should take you right to the trolls page.

 gardeth wrote:
So at 25 points:

eDoomshaper
-Earthborn Dire Troll
-Troll Impaler
-Troll Axer
-Troll Bouncer
Krielstone Bearer Max
-Stone Scribe Elder

How's that look?

It works. Given what you've got. You've only got the Earthborn as a heavy, but between rush and the feat you can kind of cream-corn one of their armor crackers from outside their threat range pretty easily. You'd be well-served to pick up another heavy *cough, mulg, cough* if you wanted to take this approach in the long term.

I might even suggest dropping the Impaler/Bouncer and taking it down to 15 or 14pts for something roughly battle-box sized if you're still super new to the game. Warmachine/Hordes has a fair bit more to keep track of in terms of game state than say FoW. Starting small is going to make the learning curve manageable. 5 Games at 15pts, and then feel out what you like and don't like. That'll give you a more solid direction to go in.


EDIT: Be wary of Battlecollege. It's good for getting a very, very basic idea of a models general concept and to a lesser extent what some of it's abilities are. However it shouldn't be taken as any indication of how something will perform in a given role, or how functional/useful it is.

Thanks, I also downloaded War Room and bought the Trollblood stuff. I hate hand writing stuff out.

 gardeth wrote:
Thanks, I also downloaded War Room and bought the Trollblood stuff. I hate hand writing stuff out.

While you're browsing through the model selections keep in mind, this is very much a game of synergy game and Trollbloods are the synergy faction in this synergy game. Perhaps more so than any other faction, the stat-lines on a Trollblood model are necessarily indicative of their performance.

For example the Warders are "ARM 17" but with the Krielstone, that's ARM 19. It's actually rather likely a model with 8 HP and ARM 19 won't be killed in one attack, even from many heavies. Suddenly battle driven and they're ARM 21. This means things that might reliable put 3-4 damage each attack into them at their baseline stats, suddenly barely have just barely over a 40% chance to do any damage at all, and doing 4% damage is statistical outlier.

Or the Earthborn. A lowly speed 5. But after Rush from the Axer (+2") its own movement bonus for terrain (+2") and Doomshaper's Feat (+3) it charges the same effective range as though it was SPD 12. These aren't even the most extreme examples.

Obviously in a very small 15pt or so game, you won't have a ton of interactions. However it's very a good place to put your mind when going forward with this game. You don't want to think about what individual models do, so much as what your list does and how the parts interact to form a cohesive battle plan. If you work from the perspective that you have to start planning at the list-building stage from the very start, you'll have a better go of things.

Yeah, the strategy in WarmaHordes is much more like that of the many card games I used to play rather then other table top games. That of course brings with it the major downside of having to know what everything your opponent has does and how it works together....

 gardeth wrote:
Yeah, the strategy in WarmaHordes is much more like that of the many card games I used to play rather then other table top games. That of course brings with it the major downside of having to know what everything your opponent has does and how it works together....

Well I wouldn't call it a downside, really. It certainly does raise the skill ceiling quite a bit more. That said after the initial adjustment period, so long as you know the big pieces and learn from your games you'll probably be at the same level of general rules knowledge as the other players in your meta.

It's actually something of a natural equilibrium things come to. Your opponents need to learn their stuff, so they play it a bunch. You play it, see it getting played and talk with people who play against it a bunch. If they change things up every game such that you're denied these learning opportunities, they're not going to develop the familiarity with their list that they need to bring out its full potential. Unless you're exclusively playing with players who have a huge experience edge over you, it's not as big a deal as you'd think.