What can The Scrum do for you?

In our efforts to provide our Kith and Kriel everything they ever wanted from this blog it is time for a survey/poll.  Please check all that apply on the poll to things you would like to see more of from Trollbloodscrum. 

Battle Reports
Battle Reports w/Fiction
General Strategy Guides
Model Strategy Guides
Modeling
Painting
Fiction
Scrum Cast Podcast
Contests/Giveaways
More Other Factions
Don't change a thing.

If you have more ideas or things you would like to see please zip me an email at thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com

Thanks for you input, please continue on with your general application of 'Axe to Mouth'

Road to Lock and Load 2012

I interrupt my series of Domination Reaction Corners to instead bring up my random musings about my plans for the competitive tournament scene in 2012.  If all goes to plan then next year will be a pretty damn busy one for me in terms of tournament play, first up there is Smogcon in February held down at my local store Firestorm Games in Cardiff, followed by the Welsh Open second weekend of May at the same venue, just two weeks after that then I have the UK Masters in Birmingham and the very next weekend I hope to wrap up the tournament schedule with a journey to Lock and Load way way across the pond over in Seattle.

Admittedly not too much is really known yet about what tournaments will be running at Smogcon and if there was any event that would have to make way due to financial reasons then this would likely be the one.

I have a personal interest in the Welsh Open, having won the event back in 2010 I lost my title to Jamie Perkins last year.  I had the joy of playing Jamie during the tournament but came away unhappy with some of the glaringly obvious mistakes I had made over the course of the match and lost rather tamely as a result.  First off I have to doff my proverbial hat to Jamie, he had a truly astounding year last year cumulating in winning the UK Masters with his Khador.  That said however, as mentioned earlier I have a personal interest in the Welsh Open and will be hoping that I can come up with the goods to take back my title :)

New Church League Painting Weekend

Painting Weekend

With EvilFuzzyDoom

This weekend I got some painting and photography in, and since the fine lads plugged gave me a plug on the Scrumcast last week I figured I'd show them off (especially since I haven't gotten this round's league game in yet!). I also played a 3-man round-robin night and test-drove eGrissel, so I'll be putting in a little bit about what I found with her as well.

Sid's Saturday Shenanigans #8 - 11/26/2011

Hello to all the Scrummers out there, and welcome back to another edition of Sid's Saturday Shenanigans. After a long break due to overwhelming school projects and deadlines. Finally, I will be able to make a post on the final product of the Scythean. It looks amazing, and it will look terrifying on the battlefield.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

In other news here is what's going on right now, future projects down the road, and also some ideas I have been churning in my head to shake up the Shenanigans. You guys are going to love what I have in mind for future posts.

Projects

First of all, the next project that demands my attention is the Magnus pink battlegroup for Breast Cancer Brawl. I have yet to get all the models for it, but there is nothing wrong with getting started right now. After that I have a full unit of Mage Hunter Strike Force and the UA. They will be painted the standard colors of Retribution with a little twist of my own. I am sure that Jason will love this little angry elves once they are done. As for my own models, I have decided to repaint my troll battlegroup and the few other models that I have for them. I was not sufficiently satisfied with the priming job that I did. It wasn't smooth enough to do a quality paint job on them.

I also still have Strakhov to finish, and there is not much left to do for him, and you will soon see pictures of him when he is done. I am very proud of how he turned out, and can't wait to use him on the table.

The Future of Shenanigans

For future posts, I am planning on streaming my painting sessions so you can see what I am painting at that particular moment. I will also be doing commentary on the techniques, that I use to get that top quality paint job. On the stream, you will be able to ask me questions about painting, personal stuff, armies that I play, or whatever strikes your fancy. Please be aware, that this is still in planning, and I need to get all the details flushed out and proper timings for breaks, and when I will be streaming. I hope to get this started sometime next year, when things die down a little after the wedding.

Baka's Domination Reaction Corner - Rok

Welcome to the third installment out of seven of the Baka's Domination Reaction Corner series.  The first two articles gave details, my personal reaction to and sample lists that can build on the strengths of our new Domination model entries.  This one will be no different, and will be dedicated to our new character heavy warbeast, the fearsome (and drunken) Rok.

Rok
Rok is statistically a fearsome warbeast, statistically identical to a Bomber with +2MAT, +1PC but does boast a shockingly low THR of 7.  Make no mistake, if you leave even a single fury on Rok then he is going to frenzy on average dice, which combined with his animus you might not even feel like you need to care about that.  As well as boasting the standard big meaty fist found on Mulg and the Mauler, Rok also sports a rather tasty POW6 axe giving him a POW only one less than Mulg.  He also packs a SP6 POW14 ranged attack which does frost damage and comes with Critical Freeze.

Give Thanks

The young Dire Trolls all sat around the fire to listen to their Grandpa Dire Troll  called Stone Eater.

"Be Thankful," the old Dire Troll growled, "for all the tasty humans that abound for you to eat."

"Be Thankful," the old Dire Troll snapped, "for all the wonderful things they build for you to smash"

"Be Thankful," the old Dire Troll exclaimed, "for all the tasty creatures in the wilds that try to fight"

"Be Thankful," the old Dire Troll roared, "for our hunger that drives us to glory."

The young dire Dire began their frenzy as the old Dire Troll knowingly guided them toward the battle playing out between the puny humans in the clearing just down the mountain from their caves.



NOTE: Dire Trolls are typically solitary creatures and probably don't sit around a fire talking to their elders...


During this Holiday of Thanks, please remember all the things we are grateful for as we play this wonderful game with our friends.  Here at Trollbloodscrum we encourge you to use this upcoming holiday season to give a little back if you can.  When you are finished, go smash each others armies up at your local gaming store.

Son's of Bragg - AKA SoB's - A quick glance at our first Character Unit

Son's of Bragg - Trollblood Trollkin Character Fall Caller Unit
We have finally been blessed with our first Character Unit and oh what we have been given.  In this article I am going to detail why I think this is perhaps one of the best units we possess in faction.

Starting out there are 3 of them by the names of Wrathar, Tor, and Rhudd.  They are all autonomous with Identical stats lines.

Jarl Skuld Paint, A Step by step Guide - Part 3

Details, details, details.

Details

The Scrum Cast E.3

Welcome to the Domination Extravaganza... As we attempt to provide you high class entertainment you are left with... well not high class entertainment.  Between TheGreatBlah's giggles and Goris' gravelly voice you will definitely be entertained.  In this episode we discuss

Sid's painting service
Breast Cancer Brawls
Domination Releases
Epic Grissel
Rok
SoB's
Storm Troll
and much more...

It's a long one folks 2:24:10.  Continuing our trend of discrimination against those whose ears don't regenerate, you'll be confused if you only use one ear of your headphones.  That or you can listen to just Goris... which is a blessing and a curse.

Those of you who used the old feed it has been fed to Rok, please use our new feed from our new Scrum Cast Page

Despite our tireless efforts to keep the Scrum Cast away from itunes (lets face it, their interface looks a little too 'Retribution of Scryah' for us) The Scrum Cast will be available on itunes in a few days.

Find The Scrum Cast on its new page http://scrumcast.trollbloodscrum.com/

Baka's Domination reaction corner - War Wagon

Welcome all to the second of my planned series of Domination reaction corners, today I am going to be looking at and giving my reactions to the War Wagon, the Trollblood battle engine released in Domination.

War Wagon
Statistically it draws a great many comparisons to the Khador Gun Carriage, with identical SPD, DEF, MAT, RAT and points cost with one less ARM but two more POW on the mount attack.  However the similarities end there, in place of the ranged weapons on the Gun Carriage we boast a Scattergunner spray and the Pounder, a RNG10 AOE5 POW16 gun with Quake and Arcing Fire.

Similarly to the Gun Carriage, the War Wagon is a Cavalry battle engine and also boasts the same Weapon Platform, Trampling Hooves and Power Attack: Trample rules as its Khadoran counterpart.  Similarly the mount attack boasts automatic knockdown, however unlike the Gun Carriage it also ramps up the mount attacks to POW14 and has Horthol's amazing Linebreaker ability.  This ability alone makes the War Wagon far more devastating on the charge than the Gun Carriage while losing relatively little in terms of ranged firepower.

New Church League Round 2

With EvilFuzzyDoom

These posts document the NEW CHURCH LEAGUE (named after our regular gaming venue, affectionately nicknamed "the Church"). The NCL has ten participants, and will take place over nine two-week, Round Robin rounds with elimination finals for the top four players. Each player picks two casters for the duration of the League, unless they only own one caster, in which case they can pick their second caster at some point before the 5th Round. The match-ups, scenarios and any special rules are posted at the outset. Scenarios are from the PP Official Steamroller 2011 Rules. We should be wrapping by about mid-march.

My Warlocks for the League are pMadrak & pGrissel.

New Church League Round 1

With EvilFuzzyDoom

These posts document the NEW CHURCH LEAGUE (named after our regular gaming venue, affectionately nicknamed "the Church"). The NCL has ten participants, and will take place over nine two-week, Round Robin rounds with elimination finals for the top four players. Each player picks two casters for the duration of the League, unless they only own one caster, in which case they can pick their second caster at some point before the 5th Round. The match-ups, scenarios and any special rules are posted at the outset. Scenarios are from the PP Official Steamroller 2011 Rules. We should be wrapping by about mid-march.

My Warlocks for the League are going to be pMadrak & pGrissel.

Baka's Domination reaction corner - Storm Troll

OK most of us have had several days now to analyse and digest the spoilers for the Domination releases for our various factions, doubtlessly there has been some twitchy kneecaps out there ready to begin the jerking as some things are branded broken or made of fail, while others manage to slip quietly under the radar as simply being a solid choice.

The Storm Troll's reaction on the forums has been largely of the third category I think, no one has been calling borken and no one has been saying that he sucks.  This will be the first of seven reaction corners I will be doing, as I give a rough review of the model in question, my reaction to it and give a quick look at how the new addition fits into existing lists as well as building new lists around them.

The Storm Troll

Statistically, take a winter troll for every stat, swap the spray attack for a RNG8 electric type gun and cold immunity for electric immunity and you've got his base statistics.   Besides the token regeneration ability, the Storm Troll possesses three other special rules: critical disruption on his fists, electrostatic and lightning generator.

Deployment Basics, Part I ~ by TheHappyAnarchist

So your guys are getting jammed up, all in each other's way for deployment.  Don't worry, it happens to everyone when you start playing trolls.  We have a lot of models that can get in each others way.

I am going to do a series of articles here on the scrum to give some advice and tricks to help you get over that hump and moving smoothly.  They will cover infantry heavy lists, the "beast brick" and even radial scenarios.  That is what is planned for now, but if anyone has any questions or suggestions I may expand them.

With no further ado, I will start with the most tricky, most models and most trouble - the infantry horde.

To introduce our cast, we have the following list.

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender

 Pyre

 Impaler

Runebearer

Fell Caller

Champ Hero

Chronicler

Full unit of Kriel Warriors with all trimmings.

Full unit of Fenns with UA

Full unit of BUrrowers

Full unit of Scouts.

Something like this is how I like to start a game.

As you can see, there is a fair bit of infantry out there, but you are able to get a room by having the AD units.  They are bunched up at the moment, but of course everything will change the first turn.  

Some key things.  Madrak, the Runebearer and Janissa are right on the front line.  This is to ensure they can activate first, get spells out and get plenty far up the field without getting jammed up.  The Runebearer does not always have to be on the front line, but if you want the Harmonious Exhaltation first turn, you will want him there so he doesn't get left behind.  You will also notice the beasts are in the back.  This is for two reasons.  One, to make sure they don't get killed early, and also because that encourages you to activate Madrak first and you will see how much fury you have left.  The Pyre goes on the side with the Cabers, because who doesn't love flaming cabers being tossed into the enemy?

Assassin's Gambit ~ Fiction

The Nyss Hunter crept slowly through the dry underbrush, the harsh heat of the summer sun and the biting flies were still difficult for him to deal with when compared to his cold winter home.  The environment didn’t even register to him at this moment; nothing did the moment before his kills.  Unwilling to attempt to get any closer to his prey the Nyss Hunter quietly placed two arrows in front him and knocked the third taking aim on his target.  He knew very little about this particular target and had no idea why someone wanted the Trollkin killed.  Small for a Trollkin he was still quite large by human standards, compared to most Nyss, Trollkin always seemed slow and clumsy and this one was no exception.  As the Nyss pulled back the first of his three shots he took note of the large maul strapped to the Trollkin’s back, he wondered how effective such a slow cumbersome weapon would fare wielded by a slow cumbersome humanoid when compared to the Nyss claymore he had carried most of his life.  He aimed center mass at the Trollkin and let fly all three arrows one after the other in rapid succession, his practiced hands moving faster than the eye could see.

EvilFuzzyDoom - Chronicler of Trollblood exploits

This is my "About Me" article, of the sort which contributors to publications have always written. It's a traditional sort of thing. I'm an Australian, so you can expect the occasional curse-word & odd spellings, to go along with my upside-down view of the universe.

Age: 24
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Factions: Trollbloods, Khador

I'm a long-term wargamer, having played Warhammer 40,000 since 1997 and dabbling in Warhammer Fantasy or historical wargames once in a while. I've not been playing WarmaHordes all that long, just since early 2011; a few of my friends had begun playing and talked about it regularly and I would regularly get that feeling where you think you should understand what's being said but don't. It was like everybody was talking Dutch or something; very close, but not quite the same when you listen to the actual words.

So, one month of browsing the Privateer Press website later, I picked up Trollbloods. To be honest my first choice was almost Khador but we had an unwritten policy of not doubling-up on other friends' army choices. This ruled out Cygnar, Khador, Menoth & Cryx so I started looking at Hordes. Legion looked like Tyranids bred with play-doh, so that was out. Skorne was tempting but I once collected Khornate Space Marines and I don't think I could name a paint scheme I've had more trouble with than red and brass. A few models from the Circle range grabbed my eye but the rest I actively disliked. Trollbloods initially didn't strike me as fantastic, but at some point I realised I could field Obelix, trench machinegunners and Scottish samurai in the same list and that this was the best thing ever (I did eventually pick up some Khador, though).

My group meets in and runs League games out of a venue affectionately nicknamed "The Church" which is actually an excellent geeky share-house with a large living area and reverse cycle air conditioning.

Sid's Saturday Shenanigans #7 - 11/05/2011

Hey everyone! Welcome back to another edition of S^3. This time I have a little more to show. It is taking me a little longer than planned to paint the Scythean, but it has been a fun experience. I am almost done with the table-top phase of the painting, and will move on soon with the fine details.

I have been asked to donate my painting skills for our Breast Cancer Brawl, and I will be painting the Magnus Battlebox to be auctioned off in January. It will be a challenge, but I am honored to paint this for a good cause.

These past couple of weeks have been very stressful, but I have been doing my best to keep the Shenanigans going. Thanks for all of your support to keep it up.

-SCYTHEAN-

Dire Brackets Round 2 Closing/Results

Grim takes down another Madrak this time eliminating his epic form and eMadrak destroyed most of Grim's army.  Pair of Bombers negated Grim Salvation allowing Grim and the Blitzer to shoot madrak to death.

pDoomshaper proved too much for Gunnbjorn's winter troll swarm thanks to rampager and Gunnbjorns own Earthborn taking out Gunny.

and Finally Grissel's song annoys eDoomshaper so much he overextends and finds himself face to face with Grissel herself.  Yup Grissel's army is faster than Doomy's

Scoring update and Round 3 Analysis TBA

Caster's Currently eliminated
Jarl 0-2
pMadrak 0-2
Gunnbjorn 1-2
eMadrak 0-2

Caster's Fighting elimination
Borka 1-1  vs  Grim 2-1
pDoomshaper 2-1 vs eDoomshaper 1-1

Caster's with No Losses
Grissel 3-0 vs Calandra 2-0

Warmachine All-Stars

In our hankering for the new IKRPG we have started up our own version.  Only with our point system you literally make a character that starts at the 2pt point level and works its way up to being a caster or a super solo.  It's probably not very balanced, but lots of fun.

In our first night test running it our party of dudes (each with a stat or two in dire need of assistance and one focus/fury to use) Fought off an onslaught of Trollkin.  They Pygmy Trolls nearly wiped them out early, but once they figured out how to revive each other they started getting the hang of it.  Our party of six had some close calls, but in the end they managed to take down a couple of Skinners, some Champions a Swamp Troll and a Blitzer.

Next fight is on as they will go head on with a few lesser warlocks and jack marshalls.  Will they survive to become full fledged Warcasters and Warlocks... we shall see.

Stay tuned for our homebrew rules and how to make your own Warmachine All-Star