03 April 2009

Epic Fail Battle Report

So my plan with this army was to bring all of the models/units that were considered by large to be points better spent elsewhere and make them work. Instead of posting another battle report you can read it HERE.

I would like to go over some of the things I learned about what many consider to be the Worst of the Trolls.

THUMPER CREW
So here is the deal, it is actually a decent ranged option for a Troll army. Too bad you HAVE to use Farstrike on it to get it that way, and the random D6 bounce hurts. The pow on the bounce is higher than half damage on AOE blasts but still unreliable.
CONS - No Move and Shoot
No Arcing Fire
D6 Bounce instead of AOE or a fixed distance
PROS - Good Range for Trolls, one of our best actually.
If you do hit with it the pow is decent enough to kill most single-wound infantry and dent higher armor targets.

BURROWERS
As with all the Pygs these guys have awesome fluff. The turn they emerge they are fantastic, but with the low range and small area to emerge in taking a full unit of them is hard to do. Also if the unit leader dies they are pretty much ineffective. They have a very good high pow shot and create some really good board control. In fact, I have even killed a caster with them once because he left them alone thinking they couldn't do that much damage.
CONS - Difficult rules for burrowing and emerging (at least for me)
Very slow when burrowed.
Very squishy when not burrowed.
Very short range making hitting reach targets hard on the emerge turn.
Expensive to field.
PROS - Hit quite hard on emerge turn.
Board control is pretty effective.

BUSHWACKERS
I have grown quite fond of my unit of these guys actually. Especially in my Grim lists they are great for anti-flanking while Grim bores a hole to their caster for the EBDT. Rarely do they get Advanced Deployed in my games, and often do they sit back and cover one or both flanks. Usually my army has 6 or 7 of them.
CONS - Expensive to field
Very Squishy
Short range for a CRA unit
PROS - Fast as far as Trolls are concerned
Pathfinder
CRA
One of the only Advance Deploys Trolls have.

SCATTERGUNNERS
Like the Bushwackers I really like my Scattergunners. The Spray on them is quite effective especially when they are Fel Called to hit better. My rMadrak brick sees 6 to 8 of them in 750 point games and they combo well with Longriders for me. Usually I run them in a conga-line from front to back much like a good Cryx player runs Bile Thralls. It gives the front couple the ability to spray into a unit while the rest of the unit is back in relative safety to be used on the next turns. Often I will use Longriders to screen and I run the LR conga-lined as well.
CONS - Like all the other bad Troll stuff, they just aren't as tough as Kriels let alone some of our better stuff like LR or Champs.
Pretty much that's it for cons for me, an ability like 'Duck' on them would be sweet but not having it doesn't take away from them for me.
PROS - Fast by Troll standards.
Spray Attack - What we lack in AOEs we make up for in a good Spray attack.
Decent, if situational charge ability.

WINTER TROLL
Many a bad thing has been said about the Winter Troll and not without merit. Low PS and high point cost make him much less appealing than the Impaler. Honestly, I bought him about a month ago to complete my Troll collection and have played him twice as of last Wednesday night. It appears to me that he will see more action in the near future to find out if he is worthy to field competitively or not. The biggest Problem when compared to the Pyre is this, the Pyre's ability to buff the army is quite good while the Winter's abilities to defend require your opponent to take action instead of yourself.
CONS - Situational Animus (Can be effective, especially with Borka)
Low PS
High Point Cost
PROS - Rime is fantastic
Spray is decent because you can boost with a beast.
Two open fists = power attacks. No army has more two open fists than do Trolls. If you're not taking advantage of that your doing something wrong.

Really that's it. Good players like the Chronicler, also the Slag and Bouncer, though situational have been good to me when I bring them. So that would be it for me on my rundown of the worst of the Troll army. Let me know what you think and if I have missed anything.

5 comments:

  1. The Scatter Gunners have caused me issues now in two games. This time they cost me the Flying Monk, and last time, along with the Long Riders, they collapsed one whole flank causing me to have to shift my caster away from the main action.

    The Bushwackers did a number on my Choir...and that's never cool. The Burrowers were less effective then they might have been because of Amon's bottle of awesome sauce he brings when he gets into the fight.

    It was a great battle either way and I really look forward to the next time we get to fight.

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  2. I'm a good player and I don't like the Chronicler.

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  3. Yeah but you are a Troll abandoning Cryx playing weenie...

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  4. I simply exchanged one set of trolls for another set of really mean, nasty eat your heart out trolls.

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  5. Trols suck. Yay Cygnar.

    But Seriously... great article. Enjoyed the read.

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