Straight Trollin', a Guide to pDoomshaper ~ by Beckman

pDoomshaper is a Troll. And he's not even nice about it. He wants to deny your opponent the ability to do anything, stop him from moving, strip all his buffs, and take his candy. He doesn't even care if your opponent's a child. pDoomshaper's such a jerk that he even steals from the person who plays with him because in order to play him correctly, you have to drop ~$164 on Runeshapers (retail).


We pretty much stole pDoomshaper straight from Menoth.

His abilities follow:
Feat: Enemy models that spend focus or fury or are who are forced take 1d6 dmg per focus or fury spent or gained.

Tough - All trolls have it, but we don't like to use it on a caster.
Goad - Supremely useful - the ability to force after killing an enemy model in order to move 2" if supremely useful on a caster.
Great Power - One of his upkeeps is free to upkeep! This is a good ability.
Scroll of the Will of Balthazar - Choose a frenzy target for a frenzying warbeast in his CTRL, this overrides the normal frenzying targeting rules. Situationally good. It's good when you have Mulg frenzy on you.

Banishing Ward - Model\Unit can't be targeted by spells & clears any enemy upkeeps on them. Extremely relevant in the Cryx matchup, or any matchup with debuffs or the risk of spell assassination.
Fortune - Model/unit rerolls missed attack rolls.
Purification - Strips all upkeeps and animi in CTRL. Stupid good against Colossals, since they're almost always wearing buffs.
Rampager - Take control of a non-character enemy beast, walk it and make a melee attack with it. It's better-than TK (offensive only) for beasts only.
Stranglehold - make the target forfeit move or action if you damage it.

His Tier Benefits are key also, since his tier is pretty much the best way to play him:
+1 starting FURY on your KSB per Runeshaper Unit or solo that you field.
+1 Wall within 20" of your starting position per 2 units of Runeshapers that you field.
-1 PC on Runeshaper units
+2" deployment.


pDoomshaper is not a frail Warlock when you take him with a EBDT in his tier.
Yes, he's Friday the _____ DEF and (30/2) ARM, but if you're taking an EBDT and a KSB, it's very reasonable for you to be +4 ARM every turn and +4 DEF with cover. Plus you have Banishing Ward which you can put on yourself and be reasonably safe from spells as long as you're not being clipped by sprays or AOEs like Breath of Corruption that are shot at a different target. Rarely does pDoomy have a problem with spell-based assassination lists.

LISTS

When it comes to pDoomshaper, the Tier list is a really good way to go. You lose out on Rok, who is incredible with Goad, but you gain 3 point Runeshapers and a bunch of benefits for taking stuff that's good anyway.

35 pts
Tiers: 4
Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Slag Troll (6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

50 pts
Tiers: 4
Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)


I'm writing these last two lists under protest, since I'm sure that SOMEONE will want to play pDoomshaper as non-tier, even though I told you that Tier was the best way to go with him.

35 pts
Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Ršk (11pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

50 pts
Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Ršk (11pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

here are the pictures of deployment and the first few turns of typical play in my pDoomshaper theme force. The walls are really what make the list here. Note that your Runeshapers are sitting at 16/15 or 16/17, depending on whether you're under the aura and because walls are 3/4ths of an inch thick, you may not melee them with non-reach models from the front.. because you may not stop on the wall. Certainly, it is possible to attack them from the side... but this generally doesn't work out because my Runeshapers are disposable. They're there to jam, get in the way, and spam AOEs. The Yellow circle is in the north-south center of the map and is a 5" AOE. Unfortunately, I thought I had centered it east-west as well, but I did not. Oops. Since it took a while to create these, I'm not going to go back and recreate them unless there's a big mistake.

This is turn 1, after you run stuff up. Your 2" deployment zone extension allows you to get to the walls, since you would be on the 9" line, and the walls are placed on the 20" line... Your stuff runs 10", and the wall is .75" thick.


Turn 2, you move your Runeshapers up, AOE some dudes, and make them come forward. If they overextend, you engage them and pop pDoomy's feat.


At this point, you tilt the wall to the direction that the enemy is and creep towards them. Eventually, if the rewards are good enough, you leave your brick behind and crush them. But generally, you can just jam runeshapers in their face, and sit behind the wall. If they fail to kill them, they stand still and lose to your charge next turn.

The whole game, you'll have walls on the board to be at ARM22 if you stand next to them, even if Janissa has left the board, you can back up and stand next to your walls from your tier benefit.

I played someone awhile ago playing a Rasheth tier... and he said, "This ____ is more annoying than pHaley"

MatchupsAlrighty, so if you're going to play pDoomy, you should know about the strengths and weaknesses of the pDoomy tier. Some of what I'm going to talk about here will become outdated at some point, but I'm hoping that the majority of it will remain applicable for people to read and benefit from.

pDoomy tier has some very bad matchups. So if you play pDoomy tier, you need to know that your second list needs to be able to handle them.Most of the terrible matchups that pDoomy tier has are related to your infantry's dependance on magic attacks. Units or lists that shut down spellcasting make your life miserable. Druids of Orboros make you have a bad day. Certain other popular units, such as Doom Reavers also make you have a bad time, since you have no shooting to remove them from the board. Finally, the last thing I would worry about is heavy shooting lists like Ossyan.

Bad Matchups
1. Most Circle lists (Because most Circle Lists run Druids)
2. Goreshade, Kromac, or any caster that stops spellcasting altogether.
3. Doom Reavers - Their long threat range, plus Beserk, plus Spell Ward is a big problem. One unit you can compensate for, potentially. More than that... you have issues.
4. Shooting lists like Ossyan are actually not a very good matchup for you. Your Runeshapers are in the list to jam, and their threat range isn't good compared to enemy shooting lists. If the enemy can shoot your Runeshapers down and remove a heavy, you can become too bogged down by enemy infantry to stop the enemy from removing your stuff piecemeal.
5. Casters with Psychic Vampire make a matchup worse, but it's not an autoloss.

Good Matchups
1. Low Model Count Lists. With a few exceptions... if you run only a few models then Runeshapers with Force Lock can get into melee range with you. So you stand there while Mulg or another heavy charges you.
2. Lists that are upkeep or defensive animi dependent, since pDoomy purges your buffs or defensive upkeeps. For 3 FURY he makes them pretty pointless, and I imagine that he makes your opponent feel bad.. every time he strips them from his models.


3. Non-reach lists. Walls hurt them pretty bad. That goes double for lists who's main way of dealing with enemy heavies is by using non-reach heavies to do so. I'm looking at you, War Hog.


4. pDoomshaper can make a unit or model immune to magic. This gives him an edge in certain matchups, such as pGaspy. Walk pDoomy near a wall and not near other models.. and at 13/19, he will be hard to bring down. Being able to purge Crippling Grasp is very relevant in the Cryx matchup also. Last, against Rahn and a bunch of battlemages, with Banishing Ward, pDoomy can't be shot at by the mages themselves (WATCH OUT FOR eEIRYSS). Which will save him from POW13s and boosted damage rolls.. And any potential push-pulls from the mages themselves.