Troll Tactica: The Basics

Hello again, readers.  Two weeks in a row?  How did I manage to do that?  Anyways, this week will be the debut in a series of articles I am calling, “Troll Tactica.”  With this series I am aiming to provide to my fellow bloggers a general idea of how my Trollblood army functions.  Not everyone has time, or the desire quite frankly, to read into every faction and see what they do and how they play.  I intend to address everything from individual units / models, tier lists, match ups, and whatever else may pop into my head.  This first article is going to be a snap shot of the faction as a whole.  So, let’s get trollin! (more bad puns may await you inside)

I am going to kick this off with a very brief paragraph on Trollblood fluff.  All in all, Trollbloods draw their fluff from 3 different places.  First, they are trolls (basic, I know).  Trolls are usually portrayed as hard to kill, gruff, voracious, regenerative monsters.  This is no different in Warmachine.  Another place they draw their fluff from is Native American culture.  The Trollbloods are gathered in many different tribes called Kriels in the game. Each tribe is led by a different troll, usually a playable caster.  As war has waged around them, their lands have been stolen, blah blah blah.  While all the Kriels are still technically different the majority of them have banded together and are now lead by Madrak Ironhide.  Look at it this way, each caster has their own war band but now they all pledge allegiance to Madrak, one nation, under Rathrok (Madrak’s possessed axe that makes him hungry for blood).  Finally, Trollbloods are Scottish.  Each tribe has their own pattern of kilt, referred to as Tartans.  They love to drink, fight, toss cabers, speak with accents…ok maybe I made that last part up.  To sum up, Trollbloods are trolls that live in many different tribes who love to fight and drink.

Now let’s get to the crunch.  Trolls are a faction that rely on synergy and buffs.  In every Troll army you face there are going to be multiple models / units dedicated to buffing or synergizing with other units.  For example, the Krielstone Bearers (Stone Jockeys) usually only provide a bonus to armor.  That’s it, that’s the sole reason I bring them.  Another example is when I bring the Long Riders (Tuffalos) I usually won’t leave home without Horthol the Long Rider character solo.  Why?  Horthol gives all other Long Riders Follow Up and Line Breaker, turning an already great unit into a death machine on hooves.  Put the Long Riders under the Krielstone and you have an armored death machine on hooves.  These kinds of buffs and synergies are the basis for how Trollbloods play the game.

Trolls are also a horde faction.  They fall under Hordes rules of course but they also like to field a lot of models.  By a lot, I mean a lot.  It is not uncommon to create a solid Troll army list that has more individual models than the number of points in the army list itself!  This is not to say that Trolls can not be played beast heavy. Trolls do have a couple casters who like to roll with the big boys.  What I am saying is that Trollbloods have some excellent units that are aggressively costed.  Add to this some excellent buffing Solos and UAs and you end up with a battlefield full of Units.

Well that's it for now.  In part two of this article I plan to address each of the model types with a bit more depth.  I will discuss casters, heavy and light beasts, units, and solos.

See you all next week.

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