Good morning gamers,
Over the past year and a half, I've been playing some with Mordor Troll Chieftains - models that are commonly critiqued as being too slow and on too large of a base to be truly effective. During my games with multiple Trolls, I've found it quite difficult to make sure my Trolls get into the action instead of being side-stepped (see this formations post for an example). Because I like Troll Chieftains (and Mordor Troll Drummers), I decided to go back to the source material and take a look at how Trolls are employed in the films - and how we can apply that information to getting more out of Trolls in our games. Let's dig in!
Epic Movie Moment #5: The Main Gate of Minas Tirith
Though the Black Gate Opens Legendary Legion will be our source army for today's post, Trolls play a very small part in that battle. While it is undoubtedly the best list for running Trolls in (you don't have any other options, really), if you want to see how Trolls are used in the films, you actually need to turn to the Siege of Minas Tirith. The obvious place to start is when the non-catapult-manning Trolls are first observed in action: the opening of the gates of Minas Tirith:
Later during the siege, we see a Troll throwing someone in a street:
And we also see a Troll battering down a door to the third level (it could be a higher level, it's unclear from the shot):
These three relatively short scenes give us a few tips for how to use Trolls. First and foremost, Trolls are sent to the front of the lines to batter a hole through the basic guys or draw out resources from the more important pieces of the enemy. In the clips above, we see the Trolls out in front, absorbing archery and forcing the attention of the enemy onto themselves. In the game, Mordor Trolls and Mordor Troll Chieftains are incredibly resilient, wounded by most archery on no better than a 6+ (and often times on double dice). Magic can pose a problem for these guys, but even if they lose a fight, they are usually tough enough to not be one-turn-gronked by anyone (even Aragorn) so long as the Troll can back up.
Second (and related), while Trolls are in the front to draw attention, they are not alone - there's always a group of warriors operating around them. Keeping models of all kinds from being trapped is the key to winning the game (traps win games, after all). Trolls have incredibly large bases, which means trapping them isn't that hard (especially if you have 1-2 friendly models that would both need to Make Way for the Troll should he lose a fight). Put models too close to a Troll and you'll have a different problem: overly-constricting his movement. In the Return of the King, we see that they have lots of room to work and specifically charging lanes ahead of them should they want to advance.
Third, we want our Trolls to be near each other. In the films, we see a bunch of Trolls rush through the gate together - as a block, you have to deal with them BEFORE you deal with the Orcs and Easterling behind them. In the Black Gate Opens LL, you need to bring at least one Mordor Troll Chieftain (who becomes the "Uber-Troll-Chieftain" with +1M/+1W/+1F, +3 warrior slots, and Fearless) and having a second or third in tow doesn't hurt. For me, I like having a Mordor Troll with War Drum as well so that you can get extra speed out of your Trolls (and the Mouth of Sauron for Transfixing anyone who gets too close to these guys). As you'll see from the army list that we're looking at today, I like having three Trolls of some kind - it means your opponent probably doesn't have a big hitter for each of them and if the hitter spends his resources trying to beat up a Troll and fails, he's in for some serious pain later. Having the Trolls near each other means they can support each other - even if it's just Hurling into each other's combats to knock everyone EXCEPT your Troll over.
Okay, with these principles in mind, let's look at the formation!
The Flat Wedge Formation
We're going to use the following 800-point army list to illustrate this formation:
- Uber Mordor Troll Chieftain [ARMY LEADER]
- 3 Orc Warriors with Orc bows
- 5 Morannon Orcs with shields
- 4 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
- 1 Morannon Orc with shield, spear, and banner
- Mordor Troll Chieftain
- 1 Orc Warrior with shield
- 1 Orc Warrior with shield and spear
- 3 Orc Warriors with Orc bows
- 3 Orc Warriors with Orc bows and spears
- 2 Morannon Orcs with shields
- 2 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
- The Mouth of Sauron on armored horse
- 7 Orc Warriors with shields
- 7 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
- 1 Mordor Troll with War Drum (Mordor)
This army has 43 models at 800pts with 3 Trolls (and 9 Orc bows with 3 Thrown Stones) in it - not bad. The army also has three different warbands that can all make the "Flat Wedge" formation:
You can see from here that the Trolls are close together to threaten each other's combats, but not so close that their supporters can't come in and free them up in combat. The placement of the Mouth of Sauron behind the Troll makes it easy to call a March (where our extra 5" of movement will be able to get us around the Troll easily) and to keep him safe from enemy archery or magic. The gaps between the Trolls should be a bit bigger than 50mm/2", allowing the Mouth to move easily between them, but also allowing two infantry models to pass through the hole to get into fights with both Trolls.
The Orcs accompanying the Trolls are ~2" behind them, which allows them to get into anyone who engages the Trolls (which could give the Orcs +1 To Wound if you're then outnumbering the enemy in this Legion). We have almost 50% of our Orcs equipped with spears to follow-up whoever charges in to pile in the attacks.
Our flanks are guarded by Orcs with Orc bows, who aren't great archers, but can park somewhere and shoot with one flank guarded by a massive Troll. By using their bows to harass the flankers, you can encourage your opponent to funnel towards the Trolls. No, 9 Orc bows that hit on a 5+ and probably wound on a 6+ aren't going to kill much, but any kill will feel good. Also, because our numbers are so high, we left the archers outside of March range, but within Drum range (so they can move 4.5-9" each turn).
As the army advances, the Mouth of Sauron has the ability to Transfix someone who is fighting a Troll (either protecting the Mordor Troll Drummer from a Striking hero or helping a Troll Chieftain get a Heroic Combat off by neutralizing a Striking hero from his fight - or keeping your army leader from being wounded). The Transfix game won't last long, but it can help - and any Will spent resisting can't be spent to pass a Courage test to charge a Troll. He can also, of course, sail in on his horse to deny cavalry bonuses and lend some extra dice in the fight.
Finally, the ~2" gaps we have give our Trolls a pretty short distance to travel if they want to Barge into each other's fights. If our opponent charges us and we're able to respond, we can use our Orcs to pull models out of the fight with the Trolls to make their likelihood of winning increase, but if we have priority and our opponent charges us after we've moved so we can't respond, we can resolve fights in the order we want to Barge (or Heroic Combat) to get to the important fights. This gives us the main thing we want from our Trolls: the ability to direct their impressive combat statistics the way we want.
Conclusion
Trolls will always be hard to maneuver - large bases are a thing and by default have their limitations - but this formation gives them the greatest latitude of movement while still leaving them within reach of help from their allies. If you have formations you like to run with these guys (or have ideas on how to improve this one), let us know that in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!
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