Trollblood Scrum!!!

Sid's Shenanigans! - 01/23/2012

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:40:00 +0000

I know this is late, but I wanted to make a quick post for the week, as I begin to finish up the last of the MHSF. Here are some pics of a few models left to paint:

I also want to announce for this week's challenge, I am going to paint a model that I should have painted a long time ago. I have been pestered and harassed to paint it, and I finally have begun to do so. I will be painting the Extreme sculpt of a Khador Destroyer! Yeah! I am so excited, and he is going to be so awesome. Not only that I am going to put him up for auction as soon as he is finished, so if you want to get you hands on him, keep your eye on Ebay for him. He could be yours in the near future!
For now, See Ya!

-SlapHappySid

Trollblood Theme Forces - Alpha guide and "To Buy" shopping lists

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

by PG_joedj

Currently there are 12 Trollblood Theme Forces
If you are considering purchasing Trollbloods, Theme forces may be a fun (and financial) consideration!

Notes:
Exact Tier requirements and benefits are not listed (protect the IP). Individual strategy guides when written (by our community) will be linked to the Theme title.
"Recommended buys" are IMHO only. As a PP and Trollblood fan, I expect Trollblood players to have every model!

Borka Drunk and Disorderly
Tier 4 Min requirements: Scouts unit, Skaldi Bonehammer/Champions unit, 2x Winter Trolls
Recommended buys: Stop at Tier 3: Champion Hero, Mauler (-1 or -2 Winters )

Borka Family Reunion
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Champion Heros, Stone Scribe Chronicler, 3x Champions or Sluggers units or mix
Recommended buys: Skaldi Bonehammer, Second Champions Kithkar from PP online store for 2x min Champions units

Calandra Children of Dhunia
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Trollkin Solos (Fell Caller, SSC, Runebearer), Scouts or Pyg unit, 2x EBDT
Recommended buys: Axer, Burrowers (max)

Doomie1 Runes of War
Tier 4 Min requirements: Janissa Stonetide, 2x Runeshaper units, 2 NC Dire Trolls (Mulg ok)
Recommended buys: Mulg, EBDT, KSB, as many Runeshaper units as you can afford/fit

Doomie2 Unbridled Fury
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Scouts units or 2x Champions units or 1 each, Ten Troll Whelps, Mulg
Recommended buys: Runebearer, EBDT

Grim Headhunters
Tier 4 Min requirements: Dannon Blythe & Bull, 2x Scouts or Pygs units or mix, 3x ranged NC warbeasts
Recommended buys: Impaler, Bomber, Pyre or Slag, Burrowers.

Grissel1 Blood of Bragg
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Kriel Warriors units, 2x Pyg units, 3 light NC warbeasts
Recommended buys: Pyre/Slag, Swamp (cheap points), Cabers x6 or as many as you can afford/fit.

Grissel2 Blockade Runners
Tier 4 Min requirements: Horthol, Sons of Bragg, 3x warbeasts (mix of Axer, Bouncer, Impaler, Blitzer, Bomber, Mauler)
Recommended buys: Long Riders, Bomber, Impaler

Gunnbjorn The Big Bang
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x ranged units (Scattergunners/Sluggers/Scouts/Burrowers/Bushwhackers/Sons of Bragg), 2x Thumper Crew, 3 NC ranged Dire Trolls
Recommended buys: Stop at Tier 2: Bomber. Tier 3 requires 2x Thumper, Tier 4 requires 3x Bomber/Blitzer mix

Jarl Highwaymen
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Scattergunners units (free UA!), 1x unit of Kriel Warriors or Bushwhackers or Sons of Bragg, 3x light NC warbeasts
Recommended buys: Sons of Bragg, Impaler

Madrak1 War Party
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Kriel Warriors units (free UA!), 2x Bushwhackers units, Axer, Impaler
Recommended buys: Cabers x6

Madrak2 End Times
Tier 4 Min requirements: 2x Fennblades units (free UA!), Horthol, 2 NC Dire Trolls
Recommended buys: Long Riders

Scrum Painting Challenge Week 1 Submissions!

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:35:00 +0000

Hello again folks, it's time for the first round of pictures in our Challenge as well as a few extras from me. I have been painting quite a bit lately and as a result I have 3, count them 3 Warlocks to show you this week in addition to our other contestants submissions!

Goris
First off over the last few weeks I have had the privilege of painting 2 awesome models, Jarl and eGrissel.

And finally my Submission for the week, pMadrak in all of his pale Glory!

TheGreatBlah
You can tell Blah clearly hates his Scattergunner!

Bakaryu

SlapHappySid
Sid posts his Red pMadrak!

Challengers!

OkieMurse with an amazing Dire Troll Mauler

D.Vader with an amazing Trollkin Champion

JackTesla with the Old Witch

Grimsnik with Saxon Orrik Standing on a Trollblood head. I am not pleased.

Batma with his cool blue Pyre Troll.

Actual with his fierce green Blitzer.

s0ule55 with his mean Helldiver with awesome glow effects.

Lawso with his electrifying Purple Earthborn!

Celedor with an amazing Laris!

Zreef with his LAVA MULG!

Ikras with an Impaler.

SchnauzerFace with yet another MULG!

Kamahin with his red Calandra.

JustNCREDIBLE253 with his sparkly toughalow.

Noghannon with a sweet Caber Thrower.

Somnicide comes with yet another impaler!

Dire Brackets ~ Final Results

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:22:00 +0000

The results are in and it wasn't pretty, but our fair Warlock Grissel Bloodsong takes the cake. Now for the final Exibition game pGrissel vs eGrissel.

Winner of the Dire Brackets goes to Grimsnik, the proud owner of a fancy new car... well not quite.

Now to the exhibition throw down.

Our own Goris, The Death Claw will be driving Grissel Bloodsong, Fel Caller in a grudge match against Mr. Mike 'The Shenaniganizer' Davies who will be driving our newest Warcaster Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels. They will be playing a 50pt throw down to vie for supremecy, one Warcaster an old staple. The other Warcaster trying to prove that you don't need a good feat to win. In their last matchup Goris stole deafeat from the clutches of victory and would like to attempt avoiding a repeat.

Stay tuned for their lists and strategies and full coverage of their throw down. Right here at Trollbloodscrum.

Sid's Painting Service Facebook Page!

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:28:00 +0000

I finally put up a Facebook page for the painting service, for those who like to facebook a lot. For now what I will do is post pictures of past projects into their own albums, and from there I will be able to put up links to the Shenanigans posts.

I will add more cool stuff to it once I think of it, and have more time to invest into polishing the page. Thanks guys for the comments on the models, and we'll see ya around on the interwebs!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sids-Painting-Service/170717729699802?sk=wall

-SlapHappySid

Sid's Shenanigans - 01/15/2012

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Oh snap! It's the first Shenanigans of the year, and it's great to be back on the painting track. I have my schedule finally in order after the wedding and honeymoon stuff. Now let's get down to business! Since we are going to be doing the weekly challenge, I will be moving my Shenanigans to Sunday. Same ol' Shenanigans, different day. I will also be able to paint a little everyday so I can post on Sunday.

I also mentioned on Twitter, that I will be opening up my painting service to all miniature games, and I'll use our current pricing as a reference should you need a quote on models. They will not be exactly that amount for other games, but we'll work something out to get the best price for your models to be looking great!

Today I will be posting some pics of the Mage Hunter Strike Force and my pMadrak. I am not done with the unit yet, but I have been making some serious progress. There was more detail than I realized, but since it is only a table-top quality project, I will be able to get through it quickly. So here are your beloved angry elves WIP pics!

Mage Hunter Strike Force

I have been struggling with pMadrak a lot, because I don't know how I am going to distringuish him from the rest of the trolls, since he is an albino troll. I decided to make his skin darker, instead of lighter, compared to the rest of the trolls. I tried to the yellow/orange skin tone for him, but just didn't look right to me, so I stuck with the darker colors. Without further delay, here is pMadrak!

Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain

As you can see he is not completed yet, just need to paint some areas, and make them look smoother, and much more crisp. Other than that he is coming along wonderfully.

Thanks for tuning in again to the Shenanigans! I am SlapHappySid, and I will see you next week, and good luck withe the Scrum's weekly challenge!

Scrum Painting Challenge Contestants!

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Well folks I have quite a few enthusiastic people joining in on the FUN! We have 23 people participating! Well folks, good luck and the too be announced prize will be determined here shortly once I decide what I can con out of Blah.

So without further ado, here are our Participants:
Authors
Goris - Trolls
Bakaryu - Trolls
TheGreatBlah - Trolls
SlapHappySid - Whatever the hell he wants I guess...

Forumites

Lawso - Trolls
Somnicide - Trolls
D.Vader - Trolls
OkieMurse - Trolls
Kamahin - Trolls
Batma - Trolls
Celedor - Trolls
Actual - Trolls
SchnauzerFace - Trolls
Greggle - Trolls
JustNCREDIBLE253 - Trolls
Nghannan - Trolls/Minions
Ikras - Trolls/Cygnar
Zreef - Trolls/Cryx
s0ule55 - Khador/Circle/Cryx
Komodokeeper - Cygnar
Freaker187 - Cygnar
Jack Tesla - Khador
Angry Elf - Retribution

New Church League Round 5

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

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. 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.

This Round, I played against Menoth with fully-painted armies!

More Scribings!

ScrumCast V.5 Legion of Everblight

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:25:00 +0000

In this episode we discuss how Trollbloods can beat other factions by playing by the rules even when the faction they are playing against doesn't...

That's right, we tackle Legion of Everblight

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

New Church League Round 4

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:25:00 +0000

With EvilFuzzyDoom

My Warlocks for the League are pMadrak & pGrissel.

This Round, my game didn't happen, so I played a 75-point 2-caster battle against Cryx!

More Scribings

Scrum Painting Challenge

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:56:00 +0000

Alright folks. This is where we find out who has the Grit. Where we separate the men from the boys and go ahead and add some other cliché phrase in there. Today I issue this challenge to the Scrum readers and the Trollblood forums.

1 Model Per Week Challenge!

I will be taking submissions from our readers and yes writers every week for this Challenge. The goal, to be fully painted by Lock n Load. I did a similar challenge for myself painting up my hardcore list last year and it was a great way to motivate myself.

Here are the Rules:

1. A commitment e-mail stating your Forum name and faction(non Trolls welcome) stating you will send me a picture of ONE completed model each week to be featured on the scrum. This means even just one model in a unit, but only one model must be completed weekly. Submit to Goris@trollbloodscrum.com

2. Models MUST adhere to Hardcore 2011/12 standards of painting and basing.

3. All submission for the week are due Fridays before midnight(PST). In prep for posting on Saturday.

4. All submissions will featured on The Scrum and all failures to complete will be posted as well. So we will all openly mock you.

5. This Challenge starts January 15th and will persist up until the last week before Lock n Load. I understand this will be a long process, but it's a good way to motivate(guilt) everyone into painting their Trolls.

6. Upon completion those who succeed in the challenge with but entered into a drawing to win a spectacular prize! We don't know what that is yet, but it'll be awesome!

So dive in folks and let's see some of your work and good luck from The Scrum!

Know Your Opponent: eHaley

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Phreaker187 here once again welcoming you back to the wonderful world of Know Your Opponent; this week starring everyone's favorite time mage, eHaley. Now that I thing about it I'm almost positive that I named my first article "Know Your Enemy" hmm, maybe the mods thought it was a little to controversial. Anyway let's jump right into the meat of the article, the list.

Keep in mind that to effectively work eHaley needs to be played at a minimum of 50 points, luckily for us Cygnar players that's pretty much the tournament standard. So here we are...

Major Victoria Haley +5
Stormclad -10
Thorn -8
Squire -2
Journeyman Warcaster -3
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages -6
+Officer -2
+Defender -9
Eiryss, Angel of Lame -3
Strangewayes -2
Stormguard (max) -9
Stormsmith -1

Totaling us out at exactly 50 points of "turn back the clock" goodies. First up for analysis:

Major Victoria Haley: Dubbed by the hypocrite Cryx players as "the most broken caster in the game" eHaley is an all around army buffing machine.

Spell List:
Arcane Bolt: Cygnar's typical all around offensive spell. Good range, cheap to cast, decent damage. On an early assassination run Haley can throw 1 of these babies 24, then 3 more 27 inches down the field, so guard your solo's and warlock's well. Remember that Thorn has an affinity with Haley that let's her arc offensive spells while engaged.

Dead Eye: In my opinion one of the best buff spells in Cygnar's arsenal. For a mere 1/4 of Haley's focus a model/unit gets an additional die on their first ranged attacks this game. Yeah, those gun mages are hitting whatever they want from 14 inches away. And late game, those much needed crits become much easier to get.

Deceleration: +2 DEF and ARM against ranged attacks to everything in her control area, which is her whole army. I'm not sure Troll players know what a gun is, so I wouldn't stress on this one.

Domination: Trolls don't worry about this spell at all. Let's you take control of a non-character 'jack for a turn then gives you the added bonus of laughing at your opponent.

Telekinesis: Oh yeah, she has this spell in case you somehow forgot. Medium range and places a model within 2" of it's current location and you can change the facing. Assassination runs suddenly become much easier with free back strikes.

Temporal Acceleration: Gives target model +2 movement and can make an extra attack. Makes the Haley 'jack missile possible, couple this with Telekinesis and someone is really moving.

Time Bomb: Good grief does this spell list ever end? Good range, Mid sized AOE, big POW. Any model hit gets -2 SPD and DEF for a round. Haley's most expensive spell by far, but honestly you get what you pay for.

Special abilities of note:
Replication: When a spell is cast in her control area with FOCUS you get to copy it. No worries here for Trolls.
Warjack Bond: Here's the scary one. 'Jack in her battlegroup gets +2 movement. Because a 'jack charging 12" wasn't far enough, now it can go 14"
Set Defense: Apparently DEF 16 wasn't high enough...

Feat: Temporal Shift: Dun dun dun. The exact reason why people cry about eHaley being so good. Basically says, "Models/units in her control area activate in the order I choose, then they must skip either their move or action this turn." With Squire Haley has an 18" control area and she only needs to catch 1 Fenblade in it and the whole unit is stuck. No charging, running, or aiming is allowed when under her feat so if you've been waiting for your opponent to take an objective so you can counter charge, you just lost the game.

Down to the buff targets:

Stormclad: Hardest hitting jack that Cygnar has, don't take it lightly, it will kill anything Haley tells it to. Bonded to Haley you'll be facing a 14" Charge (16" with reach), MAT 7, with 5 attacks. If your opponent leaves this exposed for some reason take it out fast!

Thorn: I touched on Thorn in the eStryker post, but there are a few differences you should take note of with Haley. You can arc while engaged. Like I mentioned before this can catch your lock by surprise and he'll eat a bunch of Arcane Bolts for his trouble. In the Stryker post I also forgot to mention Thorn has Set Defense and Imprint: Disengage; allowing you to walk away from missed melee attacks.

Stormguard: I love these guys, they get a bunch of hate on the forums, but don't believe what you read it's just the "doom and gloomers" crying as usual. Troll DEF, reach, electro-leap, set defense, high MAT; what's not to love!? SG can easily go 2 for 1 with electro-leaps to average out the massive amount of troopers trolls bring.

ATGM: One of the most feared units the swans have at their disposal. 3 nasty ranged attacks to choose from, that can move you, knock you down, shoot farther, or do extra damage. Some are dependent on a crit, but with Dead Eye coming in from Haley, there won't be a shortage of those. Officer grants them all True Sight and give the marshaled jack the same choice of ammo.

Marshaled Defender: Get's an auto boost to hit or damage from the marshal ability. Don't ever forget that Haley can also cast spells on this model! Temp Accel + Dead Eye + Crit Brutal = much pain and suffering. 2x RNG 16 shot's coming down the field with the potential to do 4 dice of damage each shouldn't be ignored.

Arlan Strangewayes: The original "power booster." Can hand out a free focus to a 'jack, which will usually be the Defender. Has repair with a really high skill level and a sweet spray attack if things get hairy.

Eiryss, JWC, Stormsmith: Everyone still remembers what Eiryss does, she runs around and is annoying. JWC buffs the troops with Arcane Shield, and the SS is a buff ignoring solo hunter.

In summary remember that eHaley is only as good as the army she is commanding. Alone Haley is near worthless, but she can make an army unstoppable with all of the bonuses she can give them. Pick apart her army when the situations arise and she will slowly lose all of her power. Keep an eye out for the Stormclad lining up for an assasination run, even when camping fury he'll have more than enough damage output to force you into losing a few heavies or making a tough roll.

I especially enjoy playing the Stormguard with her, but I've seen versions that run the Stormblades. If you see the SB just remember they hit like a ton of bricks, but can't take a hit to save their lives. I'll have a more detailed writeup on the SB when I feature another caster.

Till next time good luck and have fun!

Bron Hombrew (revisited)

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:11:00 +0000

We have speculated on Bron before, and let's face it, Trollbloodscrum Kith and Kriel might even give up beer for a week to get him... as long as he is cool. Here is another Homebrew version of Bron that we entertain on a regular basis.

As Madrak's plight continues one of his most trusted full blooded Trolls Bron has been with him since the beginning. Having faced countless battles at Madrak's side Bron has shown an intelligence and skill nearly unmatched among Full Blooded Trolls.   With long exposure to Madrak's unique Sorcery Bron has begun to benefit from some of those affects when in proximity to Madrak and has even begun to mimic him to some small degree. Bron wades into his enemies with unmatched fury cutting them down one after the other.

After one particularly difficult encounter with a lesser Skorne Warlock and a pair of Titan's Bron watched as the Titan's trampled Madrak into the earth. Feeling the connection to Madrak break, Bron went into a rage and singly handedly destroyed not only two Titan's but the Warlock as well. Nearly killing himself in the process Bron collapsed thinking the end at come. When Bron came to some time later the connection to Madrak had returned. Bloody and bruised the encounter bonded Bron to Madrak in a way that neither had experienced before.

To repay Bron for his long service to Madrak, and the many times Bron had stepped in to keep Madrak safe. Madrak had Bron's great axe carved with Runes detailing his greatest deeds, imbuing the Axe with Runic Power, granting him even greater power's of regeneration and augmenting Bron's innate abilities.

Bron
Trollblood Character Light Warbeast

SPD 5 STR 10 MAT 7 RAT 3 DEF 12 ARM 19 CMD 7 FUR 4 THR 10
FA: C
Point Cost: 8
Base Size: Medium
Damage: 26 (Mind 8, Body 10, Spirit 8)

Animus                                                                 Cost   RNG   AOE   POW UP   OFF
Crusher                                                                    2      Self       -           -       No   No
The affected model gains Overtake. Additionallly when the affected model destroys one or more enemy models with a melee attack, the affected model can make an additional melee attack. (When a model with Overtake destroy's one or more enemy warrior models with a normal melee attack, after the attack is resolved this model can immediately advance up to 1")

BRON
Affinity [Madrak Ironhide] - While in Madrak Ironhide's control area Bron gains Steady & Retalitory Strike. (Model's with Steady cannot be knocked down. When a model with Retalitory Strike is hit by a melee attack made by an enemy model during your opponent's turn, after the attack is resolved the affected model may immediately make one normal melee attack against the model that hit it. A model can only make one Retalitory Strike per turn.)
Regeneration [d3] - This model can be forced to heal d3 damage points once per activation. This model cannot use regneration during an activation it runs.
Relentless Charge - This model gains Pathfinder during activations it charges
Relentless - When Bron is damaged by an enemy attack, it gains +2SPD for one round

Weapons [Bron]
Rune Carved Great Axe [1x] (<->)                  POW: 5           P+S: 15
Reach
Magical Weapon
Thresher (★ ATTACK  ) - This model makes one melee attack with this weapon against each model in it's LOS and this weapon's melee range.
Critical Grevious Wounds - On a critical hit, the model hit by this weapon loses Tough, cannot heal or be healed, and cannot transfer damage for one round.

Breast Cancer Brawl ~ Thrullg Auction

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:43:00 +0000

When we mentioned we were doing a Breast Cancer Brawl in our local lgs the Hero Clix players got on board as well. This quickly degenerated into a friendly competition to see who can earn more towards the brawl Warmachine/Hordes or Hero Clix. As part of our plan to utterly crush the Clix players we have decided to start a series of Blind Auctions here on The Scrum.

How it works.
1- We will present a model here (and on the side bar) for those of you interested to bid on, including an end time.
2- Bidding will be done via email to thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com
3- Bidders will not know whether they are the highest bid or not untill the end time, though we will happily let you know if you are the highest bidder or not.
4- Bidders may increase their bids at anytime if they feel their original bid is too low.
5- Winners will be announced (unless they wish to remain silent) and upon receipt of the donation and mailing information the item will be mailed promptly.
6- All donations gained from auctioned models will be included in our lgs total Brawl donation to the Hunstman Cancer Treatment Center in Logan, UT.

CRUSH THE HERO CLIX PLAYERS

First up in our line of auction items is our Breast Cancer Survivor 'Thrullg' painted by our own Skywise.

This Pink Bellied Thrullg appears to be coming out of the sewers of a Western Immoren town. Whether they actually live under the cities of Immoren normally, our survivor continues to adapt and press on when lesser Thrullg would perish.

This Breast Cancer Survivor will be available for auction untill Midnight MST January 2, 2012. Send your bids to thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com

Next up the rare pink bellied Croak Hunter, also on our list of cancer survivors.

Merry Christmas from Trollbloodscrum.com

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 06:21:00 +0000

We really love all of you here on the Troll forums and as an effort to spread Xmas cheer and truly make fools of ourselves, we have composed a little number that we think you should hear. This was a submission to Lost Hemisphere for their Xmas special, but honestly it was so hilarious, I want to post it here as well. So, without further ado I present to you, Borka the Snowman.

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday, filled with family friends and a healthy serving of Whelp Ale.

Merry Christmas from the Scrumcast!

Baka's Tournament List Building - Part 3

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:58:00 +0000

Welcome back once again for the third part of my Tournament List Building blog series, it comes about a week or so later than I planned due to my being distracted by Star Wars: The Old Republic (which I probably should apologise for but I won't as the game is that awesome!) but as they say, the show must go on!

In the previous episode I detailed the first of the three lists that I intend to take to the competitive tournament scene in 2012, outlined the basic strategies and looked at the list from the perspective of my three key aspects of competitive tournament list building. The first list looked at was Doomshaper2 and I know that there were a few people who pointed out that in a character restricted tournament I had blown three of our six character choices in a single list, which can be seen as a fair comment.

However many of my opponents know that I rarely take our character models with Mulg being the only one seeing consistent play and that was only with Madrak1 or Doomshaper2, so blowing a large portion of my character models in one list isn't a hindrance to my list building strategy.

The Lists
That point being addressed, it is time to move on to the second of my three lists, if the first list is all about concentration of power in the form of a large number of very powerful warbeasts, this list is all about distribution of power in the form of a large number of models with either high POW or weaponmaster, along with the tools to take that offensive power and kick it up another notch or ten. Therefore as you may have guessed, my second list is led by Madrak2.

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 4 Grunts) (10pts)
* Skaldi Bonehammer (3pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

Reinforcements:
Kriel Warriors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Kriel Warrior Piper and Standard (2pts)
* 2 Kriel Warrior Caber Throwers (2pts)

Very few of you will have seen this list from myself, as its only really been something of a brainchild for the past few months or so and has yet to be given a proper test, however it is a list that I am confident in despite its entirely theoretical nature. The only other caveat about this list is the relative uncertainty of if the Sons of Bragg will be out in time for May (and the Welsh Open and UK Masters) let alone June for Lock and Load. If they are unavailable then they are simply replaced by a Troll Axer.

Scenario Superiority
There are several ways that scenario superiority can be obtained, one is through making your own units difficult to kill and subsequently difficult to shift off objectives. This is a natural strength for Trollbloods thanks to Tough and being medium-based (and subsequently immune to trampling). Another way is to have a lot of units, especially units that are all dangerous and who are all capable of dishing out large amounts of damage.

Madrak2 exemplifies this strategy very well, he can take even our most basic units and turn them into killing machines. What then can he do with an army loaded up with high MAT high POW and/or weaponmasters? Everywhere the enemy looks he will see units who can tear warjacks to pieces and who are easily boosted to have a MAT capable of hitting all but the most insane of DEF values, I could quite comfortably even throw away the Sons of Bragg to kill an enemy unit and stand on an objective knowing the enemy will likely kill them next turn because I have many more units/solos/warbeasts sitting in reserve to hit back in my next turn.

Denial
When it comes to denial the only real thing that Madrak2 gives you is his incredible resistance to being assassinated. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as many warlocks are capable of taking down a heavy by themselves but would be left dangerously exposed in order to do so, Madrak2 is one of the few who could operate near the front without being in a great deal of danger from being reduced to 1 or 2 fury points. This also can be a cunning trap for your opponent, many people who see a sliver of an opportunity to assassinate will usually leave themselves wide open in order to try to pull it off, however this is obviously not without risk to yourself and a cunning opponent can pick off all of your Grim Salvation ablative transfers with minimal effort.

One excellent denial trick the army does have however is keeping Flaming Fists on Skaldi as well as making sure you keep Blood Fury upkept on the Champions. DEF12 isn't great anyways and most things that can deal with ARM20 won't care about that level of DEF (typically a heavy with reach from my experience). Very few people however will risk their heavy taking a countercharge from a MAT8 POW14 (assuming KSB with Stone Strength) Skaldi rolling 5d6. Even an ARM21 Avatar is taking 10 damage on average dice which can very easily tear off his weapon system, most other warjacks and warbeasts however would also have to be very much conscious of losing an aspect or cortex as well as possibly their main weapon system.

That isn't to say that the list is without denial in any way shape or form, the KSB as always is capable of shutting down lists reliant on continuous effects and incorporeal (such as Blackbanes or Soulhunters gaining it thanks to Darragh Wraithe) and a submerged unit of burrowers is always going to give any unit, jack or beast a very very good reason not to get within 12 inches or so, especially with the potential to use blood fury.

Clustering onto objectives is also inadvisable thanks to Thresher, both from the Champion Hero and from Madrak2's feat, allowing the army to clean out two lines of troops when facing the rush and jam style of opponents. The Sons of Bragg are also capable of cleaning out a staggering amount of models thanks to that ridiculous assaulting spray.

Finally the other bit of denial included (and a good reason why I took him in the list) is the Pyre Troll, I have come up a lot recently against Legion lists with a massive amount of shooting (such as Lylyth2) and the ability to take a single 5pt model to shut down ranged heavy Legion force (as well as Menoth spell assassination lists as a bonus) makes him an easily justifiable piece.

List Busting
The most common lists are a mixture of infantry swarm, gunlines, high DEF melee or high ARM. It is not at all uncommon for most lists to concentrate on just one or two of the aspects above, indeed my own list focuses on a mixture of infantry swarms and the odd spattering of high ARM here and there.

What is important though is that the list is capable of dealing with all four of the possible lists above and is also capable of doing so with minimal effort so that the army can perform well right across the battlefield, not only in a concentrated area.

Outside of the Burrowers and Impaler, the lowest MAT in the army is 6 while the average is 7 with that easily boostable to MAT8 or 9 thanks to the Fell Caller. This allows my army to hit DEF15 on averages with next to no effort and thanks to Blood Fury and Killing Ground my army has a pretty much universal access to Pathfinder and POW enough that any infantry model in my army is more than capable of threatening even ARM20 and beyond.

The army is fast enough that gunline lists will have very little opportunity to make telling shots against the army before they are engaged, with Madrak2's feat giving me the option to run and still make army wide thresher attacks that don't hit my own troops. In a single turn the army is capable of inflicting crippling casualties against both high DEF and high ARM over a wide area of the battlefield both on the front lines and even punching beyond it.

Overall Review
All that said and done, stopping to check off how the list does on each of the three factors laid out in part 1, this Madrak2 list ranks excellently on Scenario Superiority, so so on Denial and very highly on List Busting. The list has no heavies at all, but makes up for it with Blood Fury and damage buffs enough to be thrown around the battlefield to make even the weakest models hit like heavies and the toughest models hit like trucks.

For the scenarios which allow Reinforcements, you even have an almost full unit of Kriel Warriors ready to come on to add even more infantry into the mixer. Both Madrak2's feat and Blood Fury on caber throwers are sickening, threshing slams are insane and so are potential POW18 weapon masters with auto knockdown on large targets.

Impact Attacks Explained

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:39:00 +0000

Alternatively if all the models are together you make your impact attacks vs all models you are engaged with, if your charge target is still alive you make the charge attack. If the Impact attack kills your charge target then the charge becomes a failed charge.

Know Your Opponent: eStryker

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:51:00 +0000

     Good evening folks Phreaker187 here once again talking about a subject that I'm much more familiar with than stinky trolls, that would be killing trolls. As primarily a Cygnar player and to a lesser extent a Minions player I like to think I have the inside edge on all things swan related, and Troll players should too.

   How many times have you lost a game because you weren't familiar with your opponents army? I know I've lost many a game after asking the same question, "You can charge how far?" I'm going to write a few short articles on on the ins and outs of playing against Cygnar and hopefully make you more aware of how to beat me... wait a minute... maybe not.

First things first let's start with a typical tournament 35 point list.
eStryker +6
Ol' Rowdy -9
Thorn -8
Squire -2
Journeyman Warcaster -3
Archduke Alain Runewood -3
Black 13 -4
Max Sword Knights -6

Eyriss, Angel of Retribution -3

Reinholdt, Gobber Dude -1
Rhupert Carvolo -2

For a grand total of 35 points of sword to face goodness. Let's start from the top of the list.

Lord Commander Coleman Stryker: Okay so if the name alone doesn't strike fear into you the rest of him certainly should. For a warcaster he has slightly better than average stats, with a DEF stat that will leave troll casters drooling. Average Cygnar focus stat of 6 with an obvious 12" control area.

Spell List:
Deflection - The standard Cygnar ARM buffer, faction warrior models get +2 ARM against ranged and Magic. It's important to note that mercs and jacks do not get the ARM buffs here only warrior models. Cygnar usually brings its fair share of mercs to the table so it's worth remembering they don't get any benefit.

Lightning Storm - Garbage spell, makes 3" AOE's that stay in play for a turn. Also his most expensive spell. I think PP needed to give him an offensive spell for some reason so he got this. Good for blocking charge lanes in a pinch I guess. I've cast this spell about twice in my life.

Positive Charge - The meat and potatoes of Strykers spell list. +2 hit and damage buff on a warjack, faction friendlies within 3" also get the buff (there's that faction only bit again). Think about the first time you saw Ol' Rowdy charge something. Now imagine he's MAT 10 P+S 20 with 4 focus on him. Ouch!

Rebuke - Why oh why did they give him this spell? To anger troll players I think. Model/Unit can't do orders or special actions for a turn. Those 13 Kriels don't look that scary anymore now that they can't do anything, but get shot. He can also cast it 3 times a turn.

Velocity - Pay some focus move 2" for each focus you spend. Famous last words, "Stryker can charge how far this turn?"

He has a few abilities of note:
Elite Cadre (Stormblades): I never take SB at 35 points, they're too expensive and you only get 6.
Overload: Remember this ability well, in increments of d6 Stryker gets up to 3d6 STR and takes up to 3d6 damage. However many focus Stryker has on him is how many times you'll need to push or roll tough to avoid dying.
Warjack Bond: First attack is auto-boosted. Yup, "Ol' Rowdy smash!" is right.

Weapons do disruption which hordes players in general could care less about.

Rolling Thunder: A nasty little feat. After everything has activated models in his control get to activate, move a bit, and attack again. This usually means the end of most armies. With some tough rolls 33% of Trolls will survive the first wave only to die after the second.

Next up:
Ol' Rowdy: Needless to say, whenever he charges, something is going to die. Best all around jack that Cygnar has period. Stats are off the chart, high P+S, high ARM, and special abilities out the whazoo. Combined with Positive Charge as mentioned above he will easily pancake even the mightiest of troll warbeasts. Steer clear of him as long as possible.

Thorn: Arcnode, stats better than your average Lancer, he can move after arcing a spell, and hits surprisingly hard in a pinch. Thorn is casting Rebuke or Positive Charge every turn. Don't think just because it's a light arcnode it can't kill your warlock either, watch where they are positioning Thorn. Thorn can charge 9+3 for reaction drive + Reach for some sick MAT 9 Slaps to your locks face.

Journeyman Warcaster: Basically a walking Arcane Shield battery. Toss AS on Rowdy for ARM 23, Styrker for ARM 19, SK for ARM 19. I don't see how people live without this little guy. His hand cannon has killed many a lock/caster in it's day too.

Runewood: One of Cygnar's newest toys, no melee based army is complete without this guy. He's well... a fellcaller plain and simple. Gives pathfinder, stands stuff up, weapon master, and a bonus to hit for a round. His ARM is a little on the light side though, but he has sac pawn: warjack to make up for it. He grants Sword Knights Reform too which stacked with eStrykers feat is some nasty movement shenanigans.

Sword Knights + Piper:   Sword Knights, despite being of noble birth, are the meat shield in a lot of Cygnar armies and this isn't the exception. With buffs stacked on thise guys you're looking at ARM 21 and Flank: Warjack. If Positive Charge is on the warjack they're flanking with these little guys can really be brutal. Piper makes them tough or makes them cause terror. SK are a tough call to deal with; on one hand you ignore them, but on the other they can do a lot of damage. hmm...

Black 13/Gobber: Everyone knows about the Black or "broken" 13, they kill stuff from really far away and they do it very well, I don't think we need an in depth discussion on that. Reinholt is a 1 point filler that lets you use *Lucky Charm every turn to make sure Rebuke hits. 3 dice, discard, the lowest, reroll with squire, no problems hitting DEF Troll.

Moral of the story is this, don't give Stryker, Thorn, or Rowdy a charge lane to your warlock, they will die. Stryker while overboosted will hit a Troll lock for an average of dice +10 and that's without calculating for Positive Charge which he'll surely have near him. Thorn is fast and mean. I will usually arc Positive Charge though him, move his 3", run to tie stuff up, then stampede with the rest of my army for the nice hit and damage buffs. Sword Knights are annoying. High DEF/ARM makes them a great meat shield, with some movement tricks they can charge 9" kill something then reform and Strykers feat to move 6" more and attack again.

I hoped this helped you all learn what to watch for when playing against eStryker at your next tournament. Truth be told Trolls are a horrible match-up for Cygnar so you should, especially now, coast to victory!

Good luck and have fun!

eGrissel vs Garryth 25 points

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Grissel knew Cylena Reyfall and her Nyss Hunters well, which made Horthol's report much more dire. He had caught sight of a member of her band speaking with what appeared to be a mounted elf... She hadn't seen one in person but from Grim's description she knew them to be unfriendly. Not exactly at war with the non-humans they still didn't shy away from fighting the Trollkin whenever they encountered them. Grissel and he band we not very stealthy so they setup in a small clearing around a pond and waited watchfully for any signs the Iosians had decided to set upon them.

Cylena didn't like fighting against the Trollbloods, though it seemed her current contract demanded it of her. She knew Garryth to be quite capable, but having fought alongside Grissel on a few occaisions she knew the Trollkin Fell Caller to be especially tough and those that fought with her fought with considerable toughness even among the Kith and Kriel. He scout returned to inform her that they had found Grissel's encampment and that she appeared ready... they must have seen one of those Destors traveling with Garryth as they were the only part of the band that couldn't blend into the trees with ease. "Report to the Iosian Warcaster," she barked to her hunter and he immediately sped off into the woods. It would be unfortunate if something were to happen to Grissel, Garryth would be paying her a bonus for certain for eliminating one of her best clients.

My List
Grissel Bloodsong, Marshal of the Kriels
>Earthborn Dire Troll
>ImpalerHorthol, Long Rider Hero
Trolkin Long Riders (Min)
Kriel Stone Bearer & Stone Scribes
>Stone Scribe Elder

His List
Garryth, Blade of Retribution
>Griffon
Mage Hunter Assassin
Mage Hunter Assassin
Dawnguard Destors (Full)
Nyss Hunters (Full)

Grissel began her song immediately upon sight on the dimunitive Iosians... compared to her LongRiders even their horses looked to small to be dangerous. That was deceiving of course, for even though she could see the Iosians it was difficult to pinpoint the individuals. The Iosian warcaster Grinned at her with a cocky smiled that send shivers down her spine.

The Plan: The goal here is actually to get our Girl Grissel up into the action. Her Feat will be used after the front line has close to help with defense and to help those that arent quite close enough get up in there as well. Knock em Down and Mop em up, Betwee Grissel and the LR I should be able to knock down what I need to to create lanes for Grissel and the Earthborn to get up intot the mess. Dash should help her walk right up to a caster and end them... we would hope. Janissa and her wall, along with the EBDT and the Stone should help her and the LR wether the storm effectively to do what they need to do.

Weaknesses: Steady, opponents that won't fall down will make this list less effective becuase it will be more difficult to make the necessary lanes. Lots of infantry, if they can Jam effectively I'll be second guessing my lack of scattergunners nearly every time.

The Blade of Retribution almost chuckled at the big clumsy Trollkin, though he knew better. This particular band was nothing more than a diversion from him main target, but good practice for his small force to hone their skills against the toughened Trollkin. He recognized Grissel immediately when she began her song, it was powerful and carried with it waves of Dhunian magic unique to her race. He would relish the opportunity to fight and defeat someone of her repuation.

Setup: There was an eight in forest on the left and right side centered in the middle of the board, a 4" pond right in the center and a 6" long wall to each players left just outside of the deployment zones.

Deployment:
Trolls: I rolled higest and opted to go first. I setup the EBDT accross from the pond with the Lonriders on my left the Impaler, Horthol and Kriel stone on my center right with eGrissel right in the middle of the board.
Retribution: He deployed his destors accross from my Long Riders, with his Griffon right in the middle and the Nyss behind the wall. Garryth took the middle with the Griffon and his two Assassins went up my right flank accross from Horthol.

Grissel signaled the advance and immediately Horthol and the Longriders spurned their mounts on. As they advanced things quickly turned against them as an Iosian seemed to materialize in front of Horthol, missing him with its wicked chain weapon it cut his mounts head clean off. At the same time the lead Longrider went down in a hail of bullets from the opposing Cavalry. Her worry for Horthol passed as she saw him roll to his feet and continue his charge toward the unique looking lone Warjack the opposing Warcaster had brought.

Turn 1:
Trolls:Grissel loads up the stone keeping a fury and charges a Destor to get closer to the pond. The Earthborn tramples up to Grissel and casts his animus on her. My Longriders run at the Destors with one out front and two behind. Horthol moves up to block the Assassins lane and the stone pops his aura and charges a Destor to get up close to Grissel. The Impaler hangs back a little to lend some support.
Retribution: He moves his Destors up and takes a bunch of pot shots at the front longrider eventually killing him. One Assassin unhorses Horthol the other one runs around the flank. Nyss move up to the wall and hide behind in in triangle clusters of Three. The Griffon heads toward the pond to threaten Grissel and Garryth hangs back leaning towards his Destors.

Garryth nodded in satisfaction as the first two Bison riders seemed to fall and signaled the Nyss to move up and fire. The thought crossed his mind that this would be a quick easy battle, but that though immediately was replaced with a grin as he saw a Bison rider roll to it's feet and continue it's charge as if nothing had happened. Grinning he moved up and took aim on the remaining Bison riders.

Cylena moved up to begin her attack when Grissel's and her eyes met. Then Grissel sent a blast of sonic energy at her and Garryth. As she ordered the Nyss closest to her to scatter the stone wall in front of them erupted as peices of it shattered, she saw three of her Hunters fall shortly before the large stone peice clipped her in the side of the head sending her into blackness. Grissel then sang a song of protection to her forces helping them shrug off blows that would normally lay them low.

Turn 2:
Trolls: The Impaler steps up and Farstrikes Grissel and then hangs back to catch an Assassin in case he keep running around the flank. Grissel goes next casting Dash then moves up into the pond a lobs the 4" AOE that stays in play at Garryth, missing him due to stealth but drifting onto Reyfall killing her and four other Hunters, she ends her turn by feating. The Stone Scribes pop aura with strength and charge one of them getting into range of the Assassin engaged with Horthol two others bloking the charge lane for the other one. They end up rolling the 9 to hit killing the assassin mixing it up with Horthol. Horthol charges the Griffon and misses but ties it up nicely. The reaming two Longriders Charge the Destors (thanks to Dash they have range) Between some Impact attacks and the charges two destors lay dead and the remaining destor is knocked down. The Earthborn steps up next to Grissel and casts his animus on a Longrider.
Retribution:His Destors start by trying to kill longriders and succeed in forcing a tough roll on one of them but he makes the roll. He remaining assassin runs all the way to behind my battlegroup (man those babes are fast). His remaining Nyss step up and shoot some Scribes killing one but a few of them die also thanks to the cloud. Griffon wails on Horthol but doesn't do too much damage thanks to the Stone and Unyeilding. Garryth moves over and finishes off a Longrider and feats.

Impressed at the Durability of the Bison riders Garryth took matters into his own hands felling the closest of them with his pistols then unleasing his latent magic ability to disrupt spell casting from the oncoming Trollkin Warlock. He urged his Griffon to attack the stubborn Bison rider now on foot to no avail, the burly Troll just shook off the hit as if it didn't even hurt him. The remaining Hunters fought on dropping some Trolls around the rune carved stone and he smiled, his other assassin was closing in behind the Warcaster and she would soon be pinched between himself and his assassin.

Turn 3:
Trolls: Horthol wacks the Griffon and Critically Staggers it, the Impaler Farstrikes Grissel and then stabs the last assassin to death. The Scribes charge the remaining Nyss and the Griffon and kill the Griffon and a Nyss tieing the rest up. Grissel goes next and AOE's the rest of the Nyss to death (along with a Scribe), she then sprays at Garryth but fails to hit him. The Last Longriders takes out the remaining Destors Giving the Earthborn a lane to Garryth, I choose to move in an attack boosting to hit (instead of using the fury to buy a charge) it only takes one hit to do the job after missing the first two attacks.

As Garryth spun and took aim at the singing Trollkin everything started to fall apart. The burly Trollkin fighting his griffon hit it so hard that he temporarily lost his mental connection to it. His last Destor fell to the final Bison rider as the Bison and Troll stood up from a blow that should have ended them. The singing Trollkin Warlock used the power of her voice to rip apart the reamining hunters and his Griffon. Thinking to take one more shot he changed his mined as the largest Troll he had ever seen stomped trhough the pond right up to him. It swung a few times missing him but it's third attack send him careening back into the the woods. Injured he slipped away once again reminding himself that his battle was with the humans... the Trollkin could wait.

As Cylena came to she realized her injuries had been tended to and she was sitting by a campfire, she looked up to see Grissel watching her intently, "I have work for you, though you will need to find some more Hunters to join you to get the job done..."

Khador Journeyman

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:11:00 +0000

Did you know that it sucks when your hard-drive crashes? So thanks to Druidsandstuff for letting me use his laptop to post with.This week I want to talk about the Journeyman League. Just as a little bit of preamble, I tried a Zerkova list and it was terrible. She just doesnt work at low point costs. So I restarted my record with the following list.
The Butcher of Kardov (+6)
-Devestator (9)
-Berserker (6)

It is a tight, slow moving battle-box that does one thing. Smashes really well. Basically the turns go the same ever game. Full-throttle, charge smash. Butcher usually ends up getting the iron flesh, +3 DEF to a def 10 'jack doesnt really tip the scales very well. Fury goes almost exclusively to the Berserker. Turning his POW 16 axes into POW 19 makes all the difference in the world. And the bonus to his free headbutt is pretty nice too.

But that was week one. I played all four games and won them all.

For the second week of the League all I did was add the Great Bears of Gallowswood and Wardog. Theyre five points of awesome. POW 12 MAT 8 weapon masters with a whole slew of extra abilities makes them a rough group to deal with. Plus on the Butcher feat turn they can easily wreck two heavies.
For week three I kept the weapon master theme going. I added Fenris, a manhunter, and Yuri. Fenris got added because Ive always been a big fan of the crazy horse cannibal. Hes a great fig to play, relatively cheap for his effectiveness, and his scuplt is one of the coolest things in Warmachine. The manhunter and yuri were a bit of metagaming on my part. Druidsandstuff is one of the guys I go to when I need a league game and he plays Baldur. I got so tired of running around the stupid forests that I added Yuri for his treewalkers Cadre. Treewalker gives my models hunter and the can move through modles in forests and gain +2 DEF against melee attacks in the forest.

Im thinking for the rest of the last week of the league Im going to add Drago and another manhunter to the list rounding out the 35 points.

So far in the League I havent lost with the Butcher. Hes got a lot of tricks and hes relatively forgiving. Ive been keeping track of the number of warcasters/warlocks that Ive killed with one attack by the Butcher. Butcher is one of the hardest hitting casters in the game. With Fury on hes a POW 19, hes a weapons master, has reach and is a MAT 9. Yeah MAT 9. With his feat he charges with five dice. Most casters that like dice plus 3 or 4.

As for the list of OHKO. Barnabus, Sorscha, Morgul, Baldur, Xerxes, Striker x2, With two games down for week three Butcher has personally netted more than half my wins with his big crazy axe. It just goes to show that Khador dont need no stinking arc nodes. We have the best node in the game. Butcher casts axe to face better than anything else in the faction.

So heres' hoping that Butcher carries me the rest of the way. Ill let you guys know how it goes. Oh and I havent played against Trolls yet and Im not looking forward to ever doing it. Theyre way to gnarly for this list. It takes a specially Khador list to beat the Trollbloods.

Sephiroths_Khador

"Your life is your own, rise up and live it."

Sid's Saturday Shenanigans #9 12/10/11

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:23:00 +0000

Announcements

Welcome back to another episode of shenanigans! At the behest of my fellow authors I have been "persuaded " to make another post. It has been a while since I have last painted and I feel a little rusty, but once school is over I will have more time to paint, and get things done.
I have begun to paint the Magnus battlgroup, and I will not post WIP pics of them, because I want y'all to be surprise when you see the final product of what I will be donating for the Breast Cancer Brawl (snicker snicker). I have been wanting to make my shenanigans more...shenanigany, so I have looked at my previous posts and see what I could do better to make it these posts actually worth reading. After some severe critiquing by yours-truly, I am going to make a few changes in how I post.

First, I am going to post what paints I used this session to get the look of the model. This will help those that want to use the same colors I did to get the scheme that they want. Second, I am going to list step-by-step what was done to the model mixed with pictures from the model. Just in case someone wanted to copy how I painted the model. I hope that y'all enjoy this new format, and that you will want more shenanigans!

The guinea pig for this will be my buddy Jason's Mage Hunter Strike Force! I had to think how I was going to paint these guys for the typical angry elf colors. So, I decided to just get as close as I could and go from there. Alright, people let's git-r-dun!

Retribution - Mage Hunter Strike Force

Paints Used:

Skin:

Ryn Flesh, Flesh Wash, Khardic Flesh, Morrow White

Cuffs, Armor Bits, Collar:

Morrow White, Trollblood Base, Pig Iron, Armor Wash

Cloak:

Umbral Umber, Gnarls Green, Morrow White, Greatcoat Grey, Ironhull Grey

Painting Phases

Phase 1:

Base coated the face Khardic Flesh, and then applied a thin coat of Flesh Wash. Highlighted with a mixture of Khardic Flesh and Ryn Flesh with several stages of highlights. Applied two coats of Flesh wash, and then highlighted again with a mixture of Khardic and Ryn Flesh, and painted a final highlight of Ryn Flesh.

Phase 2:
Carefully brushed several coats of Morrow White on the collar, cuffs and little armor bits. Mixed Trollbood Base and Morrow White and slowly painted in the crevasses of the hip armor piece. Finally, drybrushed Morrow White over that same piece. Painted the eye-patch Thamar Black.

Phase 3:

Base-coated the cloak Gnarls Green. Drybrushed a mixture of Gnarls Green and Ironhull Grey over the "peaking" parts of the cloak in stages, and applied a light coat of a Gnarls Green/Umbral Umber mixture to the "valley" areas.

This is just the beginning for this unit. I should be able to paint it very quickly, because Jason asked only for a table-top paint job. I plan on doing a little bit more than that, but either way they will turn out great.

I appreciate any comments or feedback on how I present shenanigans. It will help me run things better in the future, and so that you all can get your fix of painted models. I hope that you enjoyed this issue of S^3, and tune in again when I will attempt to paint the rest of the model, and begin "assembly line" painting them. Have a Merry Christmas, and bash some heads in with Trolly goodness! Peace!

-SlapHappySid

Scrumcast V.4 Circle of Orboros

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:24:00 +0000

Episode 4 of our Scrum Cast is here for your pure listening enjoyment.

In this episode we discuss:

The Destruction of all the new Circle of Orboros models listed in Domination
The Glory of Goris's Fel Calls
The application of Axe to our local Circle Player's Mouth
The expertise of one of the most competitive Trollblood players around JoeDJ
And the sweet sounds of our smooth talking Welshman
Find The Scrum Cast on its new page http://scrumcast.trollbloodscrum.com/

What More Can The Scrum Do ~ Results

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:02:00 +0000

After some great input from many of you it has become apparent that only 4 of you think we are doing a good enough job and that nothing should change. While that might seem like a good number, when you know that at least 3 of those 4 votes were by authors of the blog it changes the perspective a little bit. So you our readers have spoken, and dutifully our scrummers have altered their game plans, sharpened their pencils and cleaned out their keyboards with canned air.

All with the ultimate goal in mind, to possibly do our best to almost give you everything you might want nearly as much as you are getting close to thinking you certainly nearly need.

Everything that more than 20% of you voted for is listed below

General Strategy Guides	57 (68%)
Model/Unit Strategy Guides	57 (68%)
Battle Reports	47 (56%)
Scrum Cast Podcasting	29 (34%)
Painting	24 (28%)
Battle Reports w/Fiction	19 (22%)

You, our readers, our kith and kriel, brothers in arms and comrades. We will interpret you desires for the scrum in our own way and deliver to you something that will hopefully satisfy. If it should happen that an article or two leaves you wanting for something different. Just remember... you asked for it.

New Church League Round 3

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000

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.

This Round, I played against Cygnar!

Round Three of the New Church League

This round took place between 19 November and 2 December.

For the third round, we are playing Capture the Flag, one caster, 15 points, Highlander (Armies must include One Warlock/caster, one Warjack/beast, one unit, one solo).

Lists:

We both take fairly straightforward lists. My opponent is a Cygnar player whom I haven't faced before but I know is running Kara Sloan or Constance Blaize. I end up not going with anything new or outlandish, instead running with pretty much what I know (exception being the Kriel Warriors, whose Cabers' smashing power I couldn't resist trying out in a league game). The list is fast, can hit hard, and has some shooting mitigation in the form of the SSC & Steady.

Grissel Bloodsong (*5pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
Kriel Warriors (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
* 3 Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3pts)
* Kriel Warrior Standard Bearer & Piper (2pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)

My opponent takes a shooty/denial list - what the Long Gunners can't kill, the Cyclone can discourage.

Captain Kara Sloan (*6pts)
* Cyclone (9pts)
Long Gunner Infantry (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Gun Mage Captain Adept (2pts)

Battle Report:

I won the roll-off and decided to go second, figuring that the extra 2" deployment would be worth it for getting to the objectives quicker. My opponent deployed his Long Gunners in two ranks between some forests with a good field of fire about the central open area; Sloan and the Cyclone went on the flank closest to his target objective, while the Gunmage captain advance-deployed on that side as well. I deployed in a brick in the middle, Grissel in front so she could act first while the Warriors fanned out in front of her.

On the first round Cygnar moved up his long gunners and ran Sloan, the Cyclone and his solo around in a wide arc to go for his objective. I ran up, putting eleven Kriel Warriors in the midfield with Tale of Mists on them for a bit of protection.

Second Round, Cygnar moved Sloan & the Gunmage up, and kept the Long Gunners static to fire four big CRAs at my KWs, taking out three of them (I rolled pretty poorly for Tough), including one of my Cabers. The Cyclone dropped his Covering Fire templates to keep me away from his Caster. I JAMMED, using as many movement shenanigans as I could to engage all of the Long Gunners with Kriel Warriors and prevent them from shooting. The other KWs lined up behind what cover they could find in order to prevent the Cyclone from doing much shooting the next turn, and I ran the SSC onto my flag. With no enemy models within 4" I got a control point and, unless Cygnar could kill the SSC, I'd win the match.

Third round, the Long Gunners did their very best to get a clear shot on the SSC; they managed to kill two of the three Kriel Warriors engaging them (including my second Caber), but couldn't kill the SSC due to some poor rolling - one shot missed, one didn't punch through his armour and one only did three points of damage. For a final grasp, Cygnar took some shots at Grissel but I had a lot of Fury left on her and she either took the damage like a champ or transferred it to the Mauler (who was probably feeling a bit left out by now).

Realising I'd won, but not wanting to just end the turn and let the game fizzle, I Feated- since I really wanted to see what my last remaining Caber could do (just because he was the proxy'd one...). I put Rage on the Caber, Calamity on the Cyclone and used Fervor for the KWs' prayer. The first KW alone took out half the Cyclone's damage boxes, and the Caber turned it into scrap metal. My turn ended, the SSC was still on the flag and I got the control point to take the match.

Debrief:

Not an awful lot to discuss here; my list was solid, I used (ignored) terrain well, kept to the scenario and didn't make any screw-ups. Lots of practice with jamming Fennblades has put me in good practice for sacrificing my tarpit unit for advantage; the main difference being that instead of Vengeance I get +1 ARM and Steady - which is neat. The Mauler was almost pointless, doing nothing except supplying his animus and generating Fury. I've also learned that Cabers are fun,

The Stone Scribe Chronicler, on the other hand, took man of the match. I was thinking of not taking him and a third Caber and bringing a Champion Hero instead, but I really think I made the right choice in bringing DEF 14 ARM 15 KWs to the fight. AND he took the objective, which I probably wouldn't have through to do with a non-support solo.

We played another game as well (practice for next round), at 25 points, theme forces, caster-kill; again, jamming took me the match as massed bodies prevented Cygnar's Warjack gunline from getting through to Grissel, but opened up a charge lane for me to take down Sloan with Resounder. My Scattergunners actually did nothing all game except serve as meat shields, while my light Beasts failed spectacularly to do much damage. Lessons learned for next time...

My first scenario victory puts me at 8 points at the end of the third round, equal second on the ladder.

Next round, I am facing Retribution of Scyrah (Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper or Dawnlord Vyros), playing Incursion, one caster, 25 points, Blood Sweat & Tiers (Armies must be at least Tier 1).

Baka's Tournament List Building - Part 2

thegreatblah@trollbloodscrum.com — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Welcome back for the second part of my Tournament List Building blog series, in the first part I discussed the weaknesses that Trollbloods had in the past, the reasons why I didn't take them to the UK Masters last year and what I think has changed with the release of Domination in regards to those weaknesses. I also outlined what I felt were the key aspects that have to be taken into consideration with any competitive tournament list building strategy, especially as the competitive meta evolves and seems to increasingly lean towards Character Restrictions and a tri-list format.

This second part will look at the first of the three lists that (barring some minor tweaking based on playtest games) I intend to run for the competitive tournament scene throughout 2012. Not only will I be outlining my first list, but also how it matches up to the three key aspects outlined last time out; namely Scenario Superiority, Denial and List Busting.

The List
The first of my three warlocks that I intend to take will be Doomshaper2, I have long avoided the "power casters" in our faction as they have been referred to in the form of Madrak2 and Doomshaper2 in the belief that working with our lower tiered casters will help give me a deeper insight into the strategic depths of our faction and hopefully help take my play level up a notch or two when the time comes to take my best and dirtiest lists. Without further ado lets get down to the actual list:

Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (*6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Kriel Warriors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* 3 Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower (3pts)
* Kriel Warrior Standard Bearer & Piper (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

Reinforcements:
Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)

Those of you who have read my Domination Reaction Corner series might well recognise this list, it is the sample list included in the Rok review plus the 10pts of reinforcements permitted for a 50pt list, and it is one that I look at and struggle to find a way to improve upon. So how does it match up to the competitive play criteria?

Scenario Superiority
One area that could be looked at in this list with concern is the relatively small footprint that it occupies on the table, just two units, two solos, a warlock and three heavy warbeasts is not a particularly large force. Admittedly one of those units is purely support however the other unit is a particularly meaty 15man unit that also packs Steady. Overall this list I will be the first to admit is not designed to grind out scenario victories, it's strengths lie in the other two strategic areas, but does that mean that it is weak in scenarios?

No, because to score scenario points you still need to be able to take zones uncontested, and what eDoomshaper does is give you a lot of high ARM, high health killing machines that he can use as pseudo arcnodes and who are all capable of limited movement after destroying enemy models. This is one thing that is absolutely massive in scenario play, if you are able to move after destroying enemies then this so often makes the difference between just killing an enemy that is contesting a flag and both killing the enemy and then moving to contest it yourself (or even better score).

Denial
While not as good as Doomshaper1, Doomshaper2 does possess some very powerful denial tools himself. First of all you have the ever useful Agitation, so many times I have rolled badly and seen my warbeasts frenzy even when they had just the single fury point on them, especially at key points in the game which have sometimes cost me victories. This spell just being on his card forces the opposing warlock into a catch 22 situation, if they are forcing just enough fury to be able to leech it all then they are potentially opening up multiple beasts to frenzy checks, if they force enough to leave themselves short on fury leeching then you can opt not to use Agitation forcing the opposition warlock to cut himself if he wants to have his full fury allowance.

Refuge is similarly great for denial, combined with Goad this could see some warbeasts (especially on feat turn) pull back far enough to avoid being countercharged next turn. Alternatively refuge can also be used to ram one of your heavy warbeasts down the opposing caster's throat, the amount of casters out there capable of taking down a full health heavy (especially once a whelp pops out to push DEF to an effective 13) without any degree of risk are very small, potentially either diverting his own heavies to deal with the threat or forcing the caster to face the choice of a free strike or take the risk of being able to kill the warbeast.

Similarly to Agitation, Doomshaper2's feat also serves as a deterrent to enemy casters about getting too close to him simply by being on the card. Many of the more experienced players out there will have seen the 15" trample and double goad Wild Aggression trick on his feat turn and will always do their best to make sure that they keep their casters well away from Doomshaper2's beasts until you have blown your feat. The great thing about this feat is that against jack/beast heavy lists you can go to town and pop it for the alpha strike, or against infantry heavy forces you can save it as a counter punching tool after the opponent has had to commit the bulk of his infantry trying to kill the beasts.

As for assassination denial, this is predominantly taken care of courtesy of Janissa's wall, the KSB aura and the Earthborn's animus (that he always casts on himself for free except when going for the kill and fury is needed elsewhere) which all combine to push him to an extremely impressive DEF17 ARM19 against ranged and magic and typically DEF15 ARM19 versus melee. On top of that the job of the Kriel Warriors is predominantly to tie up opposing infantry and maintain a Steady infantry screen in front of Doomshaper which cannot be trampled through, Cabers are certainly capable of inflincting heavy damage but are again there to force the opponent to make the decision to commit his heavies knowing they will likely die to the counter punch.

List Busting
Finally we come to the final aspect, how well does this list deal with massive ARM and DEF? While admittedly the Mauler never really gets to come into play in half of the games, the lack of Rage is partially offset by Primal. The main purpose of Primal is of course for the MAT buff, in most cases ensuring that Wild Aggression is only necessary when aiming for caster levels of DEF (Doomshaper2 himself not withstanding) and beyond, even then with the combination of Primal and Wild Aggression Mulg and Rok are capable of hitting a staggering DEF19 on averages and packing a POW of 20 or beyond leaving them more than capable of turning any heavy into scrap in record time.

Admittedly the list itself doesn't really synergise so much as every aspect compliments each other and covers for their own relative weaknesses. There are no buffs for the Kriel Warriors outside of the Krielstone aura and in half the games the Mauler's Rage animus. The use of Primal needs to be weighed carefully each turn, as you effectively take one of your own beasts out of the game for a turn by taking the chance on using it when the dice might mean you would have scrapped whatever you were attacking anyway.

As far as assassination potential goes however, Doomshaper2 is probably as good as it gets for Trollbloods, he is capable of slingshotting warbeasts an unfathomable distance, and if the assassination is on, the combination of Wild Aggression and Primal pretty much means the end of just about any caster in the game, especially when used on Mulg or Rok.

Overall Review
When you stop and look at every factor and all the conditions that I laid out in part 1, this Doomshaper2 list ranks as so-so on Scenario Superiority, very highly on Denial and very highly on List Busting. On top of that, it has the advantage of having three heavies, meaning that you could easily afford to throw away one taking out a key piece, maybe even afford to throw away two and in half the scenarios you will even have the Mauler coming in as reinforcement as well as a Feralgeist to try to help keeping your warbeasts around for that precious final attack.

On top of that you have Kriel Warriors and their self sufficient awesomeness, simultaneously serving both a defensive role in the protection of Doomshaper2 and an offensive role in jamming up the midfield and helping to create openings for the warbeasts to punch through.