25 August 2010

Captain Gunnbjorn @ GTM




Game Trade Magazine Issue #127 has on its cover today Captain Gunnbjorn and inside the front cover his actual book entry from the Trollbloods book. The full entry can be found HERE .  For your pure reading enjoyment, go take a look.

16 August 2010

Grim Angus Tier 3 vs Lord Carver

Grim had to admit he was liking his new Swamp Troll.  He and it seemed to have the same ideas about how to track and capture prey.  Much to the frustration of his long time Impaler who repeated attempts at making dinner out of the Swamp Troll failed.  As he chuckled at the Swamp Troll taking another shot at the Impaler with its tongue one of the woodsman appeared at his side.  Grim had to respect them, not very many things could get that close to him without his notice. "We found him," said the Skinner, "Gudrun and Alten both seem to be working for them."  Grim chuckled, "their man posing as Alten is our bounty, we will hold them off as long as possible while you help sucure him."  Blythe and Bull are here to help as well, Alten is sparing no expense for the capture of his would be doppleganger.

14 August 2010

How To Burninate: The Pyre Troll and You ~ by DHRayne

The pyre troll is one of my favorite models in the Trollblood army, so i thought i would do a little write-up on him so other people might be inspired to give him a try. If you already play him with regularity, then props to you! By the way, I named mine “Torch” before that lame Khador Jack came out...so there...anyway, lets get into the good stuffs.
Stat Line
SPD: Typical Troll beast
STR: Bouncer
MAT: Impaler
RAT: Calandra
DEF: Typical Light
ARM: Imapler
CMD: Impaler
Fury: Typical Light
Threshold: Winter Troll
Cost: 5pts; one less than the Slag
Immunity Fire: This is nothing to scoff at. With the large amounts of fire in the game, he really increases his survivability by leaps and bounds with this alone.

Nothing overly impressive on his statline, he’s very similar to the other elementals and he shares many of his stats with the Impaler (who I find to be one of his best friends, but more on that later).

12 August 2010

Grim Angus Tier Spoiler

Thanks to our friends over at Bell of Lost Souls we have the Grim Angus Tier List Spoiler.
The Skinner being hugely unpopular on the PP forums doesn't bother me a bit, I'll be buying a few of them because I like them.  I always take Alten Ashley so that is gravy for me. Add in the Burrowers and Bushwackers as well as some Bomber's and Blitzers and we're good.  Dannon Blythe & Bull are new to be as I have only played them once or twice since they came out.  The mystery for now is the Scouts... they'll probably be good, and we all know I'll buy them.

08 August 2010

Gunnbjorn Experiences ~ by Sevwall

Just played two games with him.

BACKGROUND: I played vs my friend, and the best player I know. I usually lose to his circle, so that doesn't play into my thoughts on him. I have Gunnbjorn's cards in front of me, so all the info is based on real stats. Caste Kill first game, No Man's Land second.

Played two games, First list was:
Gunn
Bomber
Slag
Winter
Impaler
Bushwhackers
3 champs

vs

Kaya
Wilder
Stalker
Gnarlhorn
Druids/UA
Stones/UA
Stones
Blackclad

I got stymied by blackclads (clouds on them is crazy, DEF 18... blech), then wrecked by druids puling the bomber into the waiting arms of a stalker, who got teleported back. I focused mainly on guided fire, got some nice kills, but was unable to kill all that much. I got worn down, attritioned, and killed. I haven't played my friends circle in almost, hmmm, 6 months now, so it was a relearning experience, and a bad way to learn Gunnbjorn.

Second game
Pygs -> Dygs/whelps
Champs -> Runebearer/Feral/Fellcaller

vs

Morvhana
Stalker
Guardian
Stones/UA
Druids/UA
Bloodtrackers
??????

A little better. I focused on rock wall (which I hadn't even cast the game before) to keep my trio of lights safe, and the game was a longer grind. In the end, it came down to regrown (and regrown, and regrown) bloodtrackers overwhelming my ability to kill them.

Thoughts:
He's no Grim, thats for sure. While his spell list is more powerful, he lacks the same mitigation that Grim does with is feat, his spell that provides Hunter, and natural True Sight, its much, much harder to shut Grim down. Gunnbjorn makes his beasts shoot great, but none of our shooting beasts are all that great in melee, so if you fail, its over. You can survive a bit, but the grind will get you.

I'll have to play more games vs less capable opponents. But right now I'm hugely impressed with how fun he is to play, how new his style is, and how solidly in the middle of our casters he is. Not someone I see myself taking to tourneys I want to win, but definitely someone I will be playing with in friendly games.

I'm looking forward to the champs with guns. If they provide durability and ranged firepower, as well as a capable melee presence, I will be taking them. Even possibly over burrowers, who don't work particularly well with him, and who can't provide the tough wall he needs. Or I might just focus less on guided Fire, and take out a beast and the whelps for full fennblades.

He's promising. Just not better than what we have.

How to Roll with Stones, A Pocket Guide to Kriel Stone Bearers ~ by Beckman

Kriel Stone Bearers.
People range from loving the unit to never touching them. The most common reason that I hear for them not being taken is: They don't fit my playstyle. In this guide, I'm going to try to make a case for the following two points.

1. Kriel Stone Bearers can be a worthy addition to many lists.
2. They shouldn't be cramping your style as you play with them.


I think the Kriel Stone Bearer and Stone Scribes have gotten an unfair stigma from MK1 brick lists as well as the first games that people play against casters such as pMadrak. The stacking of buffs creates extremely hard to kill Champions. Because the pMadrak style of play results in a very clumped army, the Kriel Stone Bearer is blamed as the culprit for this. I'm going to try to set the record straight here.

Old Doomshaper, the troll that deals out hate much as he recieves ~ by Hellictic Mojo

Lists and Strategies

Whenever I consider Shaman of the Gnarls list, I must consider two things. "How do I protect him" and "how do I assassinate with him?" If you are lucky you will have models that can do both.

My usual 35 list goes like this

Hoarluk -7

Bomber 10 (The animus protecting from blast damage is so good for someone so fragile and pow 16 AOE)
Mauler 9 (Cheap beatstick for those hard stuff.
Bouncer 5 (Shield guard from direct shooting)

Scattergunner 8 (best fortuned infantry clearing option for us)
Fennblades 8 (Fortune works on vengeance)
whelps 2 (manage fury and heals while blocking charge lanes)

the primary strategy with this list is that you use the wall of medium and large base as a wall as you run up the field. and when the beasts charge/trample use goad to position your beast to the caster and kill. Or grab and smash with the Mauler while you use your reach and shooting to finish the job. This list is far from perfect. I'll admit that this list has very low success as Doomshaper is a very needy man that functions best at 50pt games, but it incorporates the best targets for fortune and two powerhouses that can take down anything in game with little work. The Bouncer is a dedicated body guard and a transfer battery.

This army building philosophy can alter depending on how you want your army to function. Some people see Hoarluk's defense as utterly hopeless lost cause and focus purely on offense.
If you seek this list know that shooting will utterly demolish him and any incorporeal and "place" movement based armies will reach around quickly. The quick offense army is really best against other glass cannon armies using your own toughness while you push your way through. Anything with spd 6 or more is the key for these armies and so is capitalizing on the pathfinder of Earthborn and the axer. Any model with steady rule is also viable for this.

The other army building philosophy is the quintessential brick. This doesn't work no where near the level of Madrak or even Borka, but do note that unlike those two , the army is the one that supports the warlock. This list basically constitute cramming much body and survivability increasing stuff and blocking LOS. Models with steady, chronicler, the kriel stones, whelps and bouncers are great choices for this theme. Things will be tough to kill and you basically use it as a meat wall. Heavy density shooting will put a dent into your plan if they play keep away. make sure to have somekind of ranged element that they can't ignore so you can force a closer encounter.

Old Doomshaper, the troll that deals out hate much as he recieves ~ by Hellictic Mojo

Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls
Warlock that makes Ninja Gaiden and DMC3 look like a child's play.

Hoarluk Doomshaper is the most maligned warlock in troll arsenal. If you win with him, you should lament, because you should've used your luck to buy a lottery ticket. His fragile nature and lack of any really dedicated ability or spell lists really means that you are always playing with a hand tied around your back.

Statline
As an old man, his stats are rubbish. even Nemo outranks him in command and Def. His slow movement speed also means that he is horrible at running away from any threat against him. His fury stat is quite good however, boasting a whopping 7 that is a rarity in hordes.

Trollblood Lexicon: A Guide to Shorthand, Acronyms, and Conventions

The Trollblood Lexicon ~ by Saerko

Some of us post around here often. REALLY often. It gets hard to type the full name of everything all the time, so we resort to acronyms. Listing lots of acronyms every time we talk about a broad class of things starts to get old too, so there’s some slang that’s thrown around to refer to certain groups of models and abilities. Hopefully, this will clear some of this up--feel free to keep it side by side when reading some posts until you catch on.