Round Two... Fight!

Round two of the League has come and gone with some surprising results.  This week I was scheduled to face off against Andy (a new Khador player) and Clinton (an old Khador player).  Man, is it just me or there a lot of Khador at the store now?

Andy was first up with his 'jack heavy list commanded by Sorscha which included two Juggernauts, a Destroyer, a Kovnik, a war dog, and Boson Grogspar.  On my side of the table, I fielded Borka with a few changes to his list.  I switched out an axer for the second impaler and dropped the krielstone bearer  for some kriel warriors.  The reasons for both of these changes were pretty straight forward.

The only ranged attack my army has besides the impaler is Borka's bomb which makes the far strike animus very limited while the axer has the thresher attack and a better MAT.  Combine that with the effects of Mosh Pit and you are looking at some pretty potent infantry killers.

For the krielstone I was a little more hesitant.  Being able to bank away Fury just seems like a handy ability and as I mentioned before, in a pinch the scribes can pack a punch.  The main benefit that I was looking for was the larger number of warriors that I would be able to field.  I also liked the idea of fielding the warriors in front of the champions as it would block LoS for most ranged attacks and would make the champions a little more survivable.

Unlike my last game against Sorscha, this game went somewhat differently.  Even during the her feat turn, about half of my army was still able to activate because she couldn't get line of sight to freeze them all.  Admittedly it was just a bunch of kriel warriors but they were really pulling their weight against the Devastator and the Boson and let's be honest; being able to use part of the army is better than just sitting around doing nothing for a turn.  In the end, I had to rely on Borka's bounce to save the day as I just could not get a direct hit to finish her off.

All and all, it was a good game but really, really long, clocking in at just over three hours for a 500 point battle.  Even so, I like the feel of the new list much more than what I had been running and I am looking forward to putting it to the test again next week.

So what about that second game?  Well, Clinton had unfortunately had to leave before Andy and I were done and he said he would just give me the win.  In a way, I am kind of glad otherwise who knows how long I would have still been there fighting yet another Khador player.  Don't get me wrong; it would have been fun but I don't know if I would have been up to dealing with another three hour battle in one night.

I think that these two wins might actually push me up to the middle of the field, which was not something that I expected.  Then again, there are still a few more weeks to get through before the end so we will just have to see what happens.

There Is Ice Running Through Their Veins...

With round one behind me, it was time to start painting!  Looking at my units, I decided to go ahead with the Champions first.  Not only are they a good chuck of my army at 106 points, they were also the only unit that was already primed, making the choice that much easier.

For me, the first step is always to paint and highlight the skin.  This tends to be the messiest part of my painting process so it's best to get it over with before painting anything else.  For a base colors, I have used the Trollblood Base followed with highlights using Underbelly Blue and then Trollblood Highlight, all from the P3 paint line  This gives them a nice highlight but still leaves their skin with a very cold color which is what I am aiming for since they are supposed to represent members of the northern kriels.

I carried this cold feel through with their armor which I painted another P3 paint,  Cold Steel.  This metallic seems to have a touch of silver to it, making it brighter than I normally use for armor but helping to  keep the cold feel.  To tone this down a little, I went over the armor with a Smoke wash which is made by Tamiya.  This stuff was actually recommended in the original copy of Prime as good way to finish off metal parts and I have to say that I love the stuff!  Quick and easy to use and gives great results.  What more can you ask for?

Next, I painted their boots and any leather straps I could find with Bootstrap Leather followed by some Flesh wash, which is produced by Citadel.  This was all of the major parts painted so I went ahead and based them so part of my army is ready to go!  I plan on adding some more details later on but for now they definitely look good enough for table top quality.

So what's next?  Probably some of the warbeasts.  Like the Champions, these represent a good chunk of the army so getting these out of the way will leave me with more time for the rest of the troops.  But more on that later.

Round one... Fight!

And week one is over!  After my first two games with "Borka", I am currently 0-2.  That's right, Borka was owned both times last night.

The first game was against Pat with Sorcha and her Winter Guard elite cadre.  It came down to a suicide run that left Borka dangerously close to the only 'jack on the table but unfortunately it was enough.  After failing to do enough damage to kill her, Sorcha feated and the Jugger walked over and chopped Borka into tiny little pieces.

The next game was against Matt-Matt with Striker and Rowdy and there was just no way to get past Ol' Rowdy with what I have.  I sent Champions, a Fell Caller, and even Borka himself against Rowdy but all of my damage rolls were ridiculously bad.  In the end, Rowdy hit the ground and then proceeded to beat Borka into a Troll shaped smear.

The only question left is what went wrong?  In the first game, the medium bases caused me some trouble.  Maneuvering around each other can quickly get rather cumbersome if you are not careful.  There were also two mistakes made regarding free strikes and the thresher special attack for the axer.  After looking through the rulebooks and checking the errata, it turns out you can make a free strike against any models that moves out of melee range, not just one of them.  This makes mosh pit that much more dangerous because now the Trolls can attack everyone instead of just one target.  As for thresher, it turns out you can make special attacks on a charge, just not power attacks.  Combined with his animus this makes the axer that much deadlier.  Still, it was a fun game and a definite learning experience which is always a good thing.

The second game had some different problems to contend with, specifically my lack of heavy warbeasts.  This was not much of an issue against Pat with his one vanilla Juggernaut, but when Matt-Matt put Ol' Rowdy on the table it was a different story.  With my current list, it is very difficult to deal with heavies effectively.  The incredibly low rolls that I was making for my damage didn't help but having something that could have gone toe to toe with Rowdy would have helped.  The only question is how to best address the situation.  Matt, the owner of BattleZone, recommended that I get a dire troll blitzer.  I told him that I didn't want to because I don't like the model but after looking more at his stats, I am thinking that maybe I should reconsider.

Similar in many ways to the mauler, the blitzer also has a gun on his back with a 12" range.  Put the animus from the impaler on his and suddenly you are looking at a 16" POW 13 weapon that fires d3 shots.  The RAT is quite low but I can still see some serious potential there.  Have the dire troll slam or throw and then light up the knocked down target with the gun.

Overall, both games were a lot of fun and a great way to start the League.  Of course 0-2 puts me in a pretty bad position as far as winning anything but that's not what this tour is about for me.  A lot of the "old crew" are playing and that makes it worthwhile for me.  Winning or loosing doesn't really matter, as long as I can have some fun butting heads in the process.

The First Steps to Raising the Kriel

And it's official!  One of the medals for the last tour will be based on painting!  Huzzah!!!  Another shiny medal = even more motivation for me to paint up my Troll army.  Further proof that I really am a geek...

But back to the point at hand...

The first step to putting together an army is to do just that.  Since I already have a good number of Trollblood minis, I want to use those first when I put together my list.  The first step is of course the warlock, in this case Borka.  That part is easy enough but what should I put with him?

I am fairly limited when it comes to my warbeasts as I only have axers and impalers, but thankfully these are still pretty solid beasts.  Since Borka does actually have a ranged weapon, I decide to go with two impalers and one axer.  Having the impalers means that I will be able to use their animus to increase Borka's range which could be handy with the bounce special rules.  Hit something with a low DEF and then bounce it into a high DEF target for an autohit.  Plus the impalers will give my army some heavy ranged punch as well since that is something that my list is lacking.  Meanwhile the axer is just there to beat the crap out of things, a role that he seems well suited for, plus I love the mini for it as well!  Big old troll with a big old axe, great combination in my opinion.

Next up are the actual troops for my army.  Trollblood champions are a give for any Troll list so they go right in.  To back them up I am also including a fell caller.  His fell calls give me easy access to boosts for the champions and he is not a slouch in melee either, making him the ideal support for them as they charge into combat.  To round things out, I decided to add a full Krielstone bearer unit to get the added protection that this unit can offer, not to mention the ability to store up fury.  This is probably not going to be too much of a problem with Borka considering his spell list but it's better to be safe then sorry.  As an added bonus, the stone scribes are actually pretty good warriors in a pinch so having them around serves double duty.

And there you have it!  500 points of Trollblood goodness, ready to smack down all comers.  I actually have used this list before with Madrak and was not too happy with it but I was also playing it differently.  Then I had been using the old Troll block with the champions in the front, then the krielstone, and Madrak in the middle of them.  This formation used to drive me nuts because there is no maneuverability at all and it really limits how you can activate your units.  To get around this, I am going to try something a little different.  The champions will go in the front by themselves with the fell caller following close behind.  Meanwhile, Borka will hang back slightly with the krielstone behind and around him.  This will let me charge the champions forward while the rest of the army advances as a block with Borka in the lead.  The champions will probably not be able to benefit from the additional protection of the stone but since they are some of the toughest troops in the game I think they will be okay.  Will this work?  Well, we'll find out soon enough as the League starts on Saturday.

Welcome to the Kriel!

Hello and welcome to the Kegslayer's Kriel!

This blog is all about my Trollblood army for the Hordes miniature game produced by Privateer Press and all of it's exploits. So why blog about this? What makes it so special?

Some of my Trollblood minis have passed through several hands on the way to mine, and to be honest I had even tried to sell them myself! After listing them twice on eBay and there being virtually no interest in them whatsoever, I decided to break out this army for the last tour of the Mark I rules at my FLGS, BattleZone Comics.

The Trolls have a bad reputation locally as being a very bland army which is ironic when you consider how full of character the minis are. I also think that the fact that the only Troll player in the store was also one of the worst players didn't help the situation. He managed to take rules lawyering to a new level by loudly arguing about rules that only existed in his own little world.

As for myself, I am first and foremost a Cryx player so I do have to say that the Troll style of play does seem kind of bland. The Cryx are tricksy while the Trolls... well, let's just say not so much. So how do you make an army like this interesting? Well, by fielding the only leader in the game that come with his own keg!

Instead of just making a Trollblood army, I am actually going to make Borka's Kriel, right down to the tartans they are wearing. Fluff based armies tend to have a bad reputation as they are not necessarily the best tactically but I think it is going to be a lot of fun regardless. And to make things even more interesting, I am determined to paint the entire thing as well. Bare metal to fully painted in four weeks. Is it possible? We're just gonna have to see if I can pull this one off.