In Defense Of: Mordor Trolls (and sort of Isengard Trolls)

Good morning gamers,

First off, happy new year! Or, for you math-heads out there . . .

Golly, I love math . . . I know, I have a problem . . .

We're back in our In Defense Of series for the next few weeks and I wanted to start off with what has become one of my favorite Mordor units: the Mordor Troll. If you ask basically any competitive player, they will tell you that these models are just not worth taking - which is a real shame, because they have been available in both of the starter sets since the MESBG revamp and are highly customizable models (not to mention that Mordor/Isengard Trolls can be fielded in three army lists, as well as three Legendary Legions - yes, there are three of them, check my work if you like).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community
Also, don't miss the weapon swaps on all the Orcs . . .

There are a wealth of reasons why these models are discouraged from competitive play and today, we begin the year with the impossible task of trying to provide a counter-perspective to . . . basically everyone in the community, including me from a year ago (though I don't know that this will be as hard of a sell as defending Osgiliath Veterans) . . . so in typical Tiberius style, let's get into it!

Why NOT To Take Mordor Trolls

Any discussion of Mordor Trolls has to begin with a discussion about Mordor Troll Chieftains - Mordor Trolls are warrior models, which means they don't have heroic stats (Might, Will, Fate) and since they're expensive warrior models, they will cost more than heroes who have heroic stats AND won't have heroic stats themselves. As great as the Mordor Troll's profile is (F7/S7/3 Attacks on offense, D7/3 Wounds on Defense - and Courage 4, which is pretty good for a monster), most Strike heroes can get above F7 reliably (or at least to F7), they can roll 3+ Attack dice (especially if there are multiple models that charged the Troll), and dealing 3 wounds to a trapped monster isn't that hard - and for some heroes, the trap isn't even necessary. It's in times like these, that you really want the 2-Might-and-Strike of the Troll Chieftain (who has all the same stats as a Mordor Troll, except that he has 2 Might, 1 Will, 1 Fate, Defense 8, and Heroic Strike/Strength - all of which are/can be incredibly useful).

Second (and still on the topic of Troll Chieftains), the cost of a Mordor Troll plus a cheap Hero of Fortitude in any Mordor list is likely to cost MORE than the cost of a Troll Chieftain. If the Troll gave you most of the Chieftain's fighting power but costed less when fielded with an Orc Captain of some kind, you might have an argument for fielding the Mordor Troll + captain instead . . . but that just isn't the case. There are things that Mordor Trolls can do that Mordor Troll Chieftains can't (more on that in the next section), but if points are at a premium, it's probably more efficient to just buy a Chieftain than to buy an Orc hero AND a Mordor Troll. Unless you're playing with the Army of Gothmog or an Isengard list/Legion, you'll always have access to a Mordor Troll Chieftain . . . so why not just take the Chieftain?

Third, if you're looking for a big brawler piece, your base size matters a lot. 60mm bases are pretty common for big monsters in MESBG (my beloved Balrog has one, as do Ents, Eagles, Shelob, Gulavhar, the Spider Queen, and Mordor Trolls/Chieftains), but with 6" movement AND a large base size, the typical situation a Mordor Troll will find himself in is that he will a) move towards the enemy line very predictably, b) charge or be charged, and c) be stuck in that general area for the rest of the game. This makes the learning curve of actually USING Mordor Trolls on the table quite steep - whether that's a Mordor Troll or a Mordor Troll Chieftain (or a Balrog, actually).

Finally, any time you invest in a big monster, there's a good chance that your opponent might grab his handy-dandy Heroic Defense caddy to run right up to the Troll and say, "I see your F7 and I raise you a wound-me-only-on-natural-6s". Since the Mordor Troll is a warrior, the fact that these wounds need to be natural rolls isn't a big deal, but the fact that these wounds need to be on 6s instead of the likely 3s with Rend is . . . kind of a bummer. There are tons of cheap Heroic Defense heroes out there for both Good and Evil - and if your 100pt monster is tied up by a 50-70pt Defense hero for several turns, you do feel like you've wasted some investment there . . . and that assumes that you don't LOSE a fight to the Heroic Defense hero and take some damage.

A similar strategy could be employed by using an Immobilize/Transfix spell caster - anyone who can cast either of these spells on a 2+ or 3+ against a model that can't resist them has the potential to stall out a good lump of points away from the action (or worse still, who is in the MIDDLE of the action but can't move and can't make Strikes if engaged). If that caster is a Ringwraith or a wizard and can keep this up for a long time . . . I mean, even a single Will point would have been awesome, am I right?

This critique is pretty condemning if you ask me - and for a long time, these were the reasons I avoided Mordor Trolls. After picking up the Battle for Pelennor Fields box set (my son Gorgoroth got the Evil models from that one) and more recently the Battle of Osgiliath box set (I kept all those models because I'm greedy), and after buying a used Troll and giving actual Mordor Trolls (not Chieftains) a try . . . I gotta say, I've come a long ways from where I was a year or two ago. So let's take a second look at these guys and see what's to like about them and why they're so good to have in certain Mordor builds . . .

Why TO take Mordor Trolls

If you're expecting me to say that every Mordor, Barad-Dur, and Isengard list should take at least one Mordor/Isengard Troll, you're going to be deeply disappointed. The critiques we've leveled against them are all true - and in certain list builds, I will happily admit these guys are just not going to do enough for you. However, we need to look at the unique roles that a Mordor Troll can fill in a Mordor list. Note: I won't be applying most of my thoughts directly to Isengard Trolls, but some of the comments I make about Mordor Trolls will apply to Isengard Trolls too - and I'll specifically talk about these guys at the end.

Before we delve too deep, let's do a quick review of the three ways Mordor Trolls can be fielded: they can be run "vanilla" for 100 points, they can be given a War Drum (that affects all "Mordor" models - or "Isengard" models for Isengard Trolls) for 130 points, or as part of a Mordor War Catapult - yes, the Mordor War Catapult profile on page 123 of the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book says that the siege engine is crewed by "three Orc Warriors with armor and sword, and a Mordor Troll, all with no additional wargear." So yes, we have three ways you can run a Mordor Troll - with a drum, without a drum, and with a catapult.

For the most part, the stats of these Trolls are all the same - if fielded as part of a War Catapult, the Troll's Courage goes down (C3) but his shoot value goes up (4+), which is particularly awesome, since the Troll doesn't actually fire the siege engine - he just gives it rerolls if he's touching it, so he can hurl a S8 stone if he doesn't move AND you can fire a S10/S5 Catapult (or S3 + Courage-test-or-flee if you get the Severed Heads upgrade) with each catapult team (rerolling To Hit and Scatter rolls). All Mordor Trolls have F7/S7/D7/3 Attacks/3 Wounds, which is good enough to roast most warrior units - and even contest most monsters - but isn't much to write home about when fighting heroes.

But this leads to our first rule about fielding Mordor Trolls: Mordor Trolls are great at draining enemy resources, especially Might points. One of the most popular Man-sized heroes available to Mordor is Shagrat, who costs 100pts base, but is usually fielded at 115pts because you want the heavy armor and the Shield of Cirith Ungol (which together bring him up to D7 and allow him to knock over infantry models he charges, just like cavalry). Shagrat is base F5 and if you charge him with a F6+ hero, Shagrat is probably going to call a Heroic Strike, which may prompt the hero charging him to Strike up as well (this very much depends on the charging hero's starting Fight Value and Defense value - Treebeard, Gwaihir, and Sauron might pass on it - and whether you think counter-calling Heroic Strikes is worth doing). Shagrat's best outcome is that he gets a higher Fight Value than his foe (or ties at F10) and then wins the duel and gets a few strikes in, but depending on the Defense of the opponent, his ability to convert Might spent to win the fight (calling a Strike and maybe boosting a dueling roll) into meaningful damage can be really difficult.

But what happens if the enemy F6+ hero is fighting a Mordor Troll instead of Shagrat? With base F7, most heroes are going to need to declare a Heroic Strike just to tie/beat the Troll's Fight Value (the F8+ club is pretty exclusive), so we know that the hero is going to be down at least 1 Might point. If the hero is S4 and has no bonuses To Wound (which is surprisingly common - especially if you don't believe in using your hand-and-a-half weapon two-handed unless you have a rule that removes the dueling penalty), even a hero who Strikes up and wins a duel is only going to wound the Troll on 6s . . . which means an untrapped Troll is probably walking away from the encounter just fine. On the following turn, our massive base size will make it hard for the hero to get around us - and he'll be down at least 1 Might point when we start round two . . . Shagrat might drain resources too, but those resources we force out of our opponent also cost US resources - resources that we didn't have to spend with a Mordor Troll.

The Mordor Troll stat line also has two sleeper stats in it: Defense 7 and Strength 7. While we already mentioned at S4 heroes with no bonuses To Wound are likely to bounce off our Mordor Trolls without dealing much damage to them, D7 is also the gold standard for anti-archery - S3-4 bows will wound on 6s and S2 bows will wound on a 6/4+ (or 5/3+ if night conditions are in play). This usually means that, given the choice between using archery to bring down your Troll before you engage or bringing down D3-6 Orcs, your opponent is likely to avoid shooting the Trolls down and instead seek to even the numbers out.

But the Strength 7 stat is also really good - not only because this makes you unlikely to be Rended by most monsters (since your Strength and Defense are the same), but very few models with Monstrous Charge are going to be able to beat F7 AND get to S8+ - Gwaihir with Heroic Strength, Bear-Beorn in his Legion, Bear-Grimbeorn with Heroic Strike in his Legion, and Smaug are the only models likely to do this solo (though Smaug doesn't technically have Monstrous Charge), and models like Gulavhar, Shelob, and the Spider Queen will need some kind of shenanigan to help them get the higher Fight Value AND be higher Strength. If these kinds of models are smashing a Mordor Troll instead of the heroes you brought along, you're kind of okay with that, I think . . .

It's true, however, that Heroic Defense models can pose a problem for big heroes and anyone who dumps points into their Strength stat . . . but Mordor Trolls might have the easiest time out of any Monster models of dealing with Heroic Defense. Thanks to having the Monster keyword (and also depending on how you modeled your Mordor Troll), several options will be available to you. If you're near other enemy models, you can always use Barge or Hurl to charge other nearby models or to knock models prone that are directly away from you in the direction of the Heroic Defense model. These options are available to all monsters, but being S7 and not being able to two-hand without penalty (since these guys carry hand-and-a-half weapons) means that foregoing a wounding roll in order to move someone out of the way and fight again OR sending a S4 model 4-6" away from you is pretty good (especially if that Heroic Defense hero is mounted). Sending a S4 model at least 4" away from you should guarantee that the hero won't be able to charge you on the following round - and that means your opponent will have to find another way of dealing with you.

If you took the hand-and-a-half hammer on the Troll, you can always choose to Bash the hero you're fighting - and if that hero is a S4 man-sized model, this means you're starting with a +3 advantage on the Bash roll-off WITHOUT two-handing (and you COULD two-hand to get a +4 advantage). If you get higher than a 3, there's nothing your opponent can do to stop you - he's knocked Prone. If you took the hand-and-a-half club instead, you could choose to Stun, which won't keep the hero from calling another Heroic Defense next round, but they'll be doing it with a lower Fight Value and only 1 Attack. While I don't think this is as good as Bashing, it's still valuable (especially if your foe has a good Fight Value, like Gil-Galad or Treebeard). If you took the sword . . . you can always Feint to reroll 1s for another chance at natural 6s - and depending on the Fight Value of the model calling Heroic Defense, this might mean you still have the higher Fight Value.

All of these thoughts apply to Mordor Trolls however you field them - now let's turn to the two more specialized cases of Mordor Trolls. If you took a Drummer Troll, you gain a war drum that affects all Mordor models. While both Mordor and Barad-Dur (and most of the Legions from Mordor) have access to an Orc Drummer for 30pts, you COULD have +1 model by taking an Orc Drummer with <your choice of 100pt hero or a Mordor Troll>. If you go this route, the Orc Drummer will only affect Mordor Orcs . . . which won't do anything for those Black Numenoreans, Trolls, Mordor Uruk-Hai, or Ringwraiths in your army. Taking the Drummer Troll also makes your War Drum far less likely to be sniped by the enemy (D5 with 1 Wound/1 Fate is laughably easy to kill with most serious shooting threats), which preserves your army's overall speed much better than if you ran an Orc Drummer.

Additionally, if you compare the Drummer Troll to a March Captain, you can probably get more overall speed from the Drum than by calling Heroic Marches, thanks to the 12" range of the drum and no need to spend Might to make it work. While a March hero has to move first in order to provide their movement benefits (and everyone needs to start/end within 6" of the March in order to move), a Drum can be beaten after heroics are declared in the Move Phase and everyone can go wherever they please . . . they just can't charge at all (instead of only being prohibited from charging if they move after the March hero). Instead of running a mid-tier hero and a March hero (like Shagrat and an Orc Captain on Warg/Guritz), you could instead run a Mordor Troll with a war drum and a cheap beater hero (like Gorbag or Zagdush), which will give you two good combat pieces instead of 1 good combat piece and a so-so combat piece.

The second way you can run a Mordor Troll in a specialized capacity is with a War Catapult - and my golly are these things fun! I've talked about War Catapults a bit in several articles (most notably in our Back to Basics article on siege engines, as well as my review of the Army of Gothmog), but the most important thing to point out about this is that your Mordor Troll makes up 100pts of the 160 point siege engine, which means that the 3 Orcs, 3 points of heroic resources, and the Catapult itself only cost you 60pts - which is a steal! Tack some severed heads on that thing to cause devastation against low Courage armies and you're golden!

There is a need to field at least one Hero of Fortitude or higher for each siege engine, so in reality, you're actually paying 250-300 points for a siege engine and a full Fortitude warband, but you're also getting 15-20 models for those points, so you could have some pretty massive numbers if you don't splurge on a really expensive hero. War Catapults are also a great way for Mordor armies (which struggle to have good archery) to force archery-heavy lists to actually engage with them - get one direct hit with a catapult and the message will be received. If paired with the Shadow Lord (outside of Gothmog's Legion, of course), you can REALLY force the issue - and that can only work in your favor.

Regardless of how you build out your Mordor Troll, the primary purpose of taking them is to provide a distribution of your threats. Most opponents will look at this model and say, "Eh, I should deal with <pick-a-hero> first, then I'll get to the Troll." Trolls actually like this a lot, since a resource-depleted hero usually doesn't want to end up anywhere NEAR a F7/S7/3A model - let alone a monster model who can wound most man-sized models on 3s with Rend! If this guy is paired with other big threats (the Witch-King, Shagrat, and at least conceivably, Sauron), chances are good your opponent will either choose to spend their resources trying to gronk the Troll (weakening them before fighting these other threats) or they'll try to neutralize the power heroes and end up without resources to fight the Troll. Yes, not having Might can mean that these guys lose a fight here or there, but it's a rare situation that a Mordor Troll suffers much from a random warrior or two - they tend to stick around.

One final thought is about Isengard Trolls: these guys are pretty similar to Mordor Trolls, but they can have limitations. First and foremost, they cost an extra 10pts and swap their hand-and-a-half weapon (hammer, club, or sword) for a sword and shield (you can optionally swap the sword for a spear - don't ever do this). If you don't believe in two-handing or Bash or Stun, then maybe you're okay with a sword and shield. 10 extra points to pick up D8 and swapping the flexibility of Bashing or Stunning (or Feinting) for shielding (or Feinting) might be worth it - though you'll actually pay 5pts more if you get a Drummer Troll variant (and because you swap the shield for the drum, you'll actually have exactly the same stats as a Mordor Drummer Troll . . . but be 5pts more expensive).

Furthermore, the drum on the Isengard Troll isn't as great because not everyone in the Isengard list has the Isengard keyword - Saruman, Grima, all of the Uruk-Hai models, Sharku, and Isengard Trolls have it, but the Dunland models (with the exception of the Oathmaker and Wild Men if the Oathmaker is in the list) and Orc models don't have the right keyword, so like an Uruk-Hai Drummer, you can secure extra movement on some of your units, but not on all of them . . . something you don't have to worry about with a Mordor Drummer Troll. This is "potentially" a problem, but only if you want cheaper Dunland/Orc models in your list instead of running pure Uruk-Hai - then it's not a problem.

Perhaps this is why I've seen Isengard Trolls recommended by at least one person on Facebook at low points levels in an Assault Upon Helm's Deep list - it's an interesting idea, since the Helm's Deep list usually relies on siege engines to deal with big heroes . . . but at low points levels, you'll be hard-pressed to get your synergies to work properly if you're trying to pack in 2 Uruk-Hai Captains and 2 ballistas at 500pts . . . but 2 Captains and 2 Trolls might just work out.

For my part, I have no interest in running Isengard Trolls - they cut into my numbers too much because I like Uruk-Hai so much (whereas if I've got a bunch of 6-7pt Orcs, I can probably make space for a 100-130pt monster warrior). That said, if they work for you, then by all means, run them. Isengard has lots of cheap F4-5 heroes who can Strike (kind of like Mordor), but an Isengard Troll gives resilience to these beater units - something Isengard really doesn't have. Mordor has a few heroes who can rival a Troll in the stats department (once you factor in the Heroic Strike they're calling), but Isengard has very few models that can match the damage or defense of an Isengard Troll . . . but the cost of doing business with one of those just doesn't seem as valuable to me.

Okay, let's wrap this post up with some lists . . .

Making It Work

Our first stop is a "Tiberius Special" for Mordor - a list that fields a ton of units that I love (some of which people think are garbage from a competitive standpoint). The Witch-King and the Shadow Lord are excellent heroes - and great for deterring heroes from challenging our Drummer Troll, who is supported by a horde of Morannon Orcs and Mordor Uruk-Hai (and some Orc Trackers to sit on objectives). With lots of shooting, a Fell Beast, and a Drummer Troll to keep our infantry blocks moving quickly, this army is ready for all comers (though it only has 31 models . . . which isn't great, but we've also got a lot of D6, so hopefully that holds).

• The Witch-King of Angmar on Fell Beast with the Crown of Morgul and 3M/15W/2F [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 6 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Morannon Orc with shield, spear, and banner
  
• 3 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
  
• The Shadow Lord
  
• 4 Orc Trackers
  
• 2 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 5 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 3 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• 1 Mordor Troll with War Drum
  

700pts, 31 models, 10 Orc bows hitting on a 4+ AND 1 thrown stone hitting on a 4+, 21 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and a War Drum, 5 Might points

Our second stop is the Army of Gothmog LL, which I believe to be the best list for running double Mordor War Catapults - mostly because everyone else in the list is bad at killing stuff. At 700pts, it's certainly possible to spam a lot of guys (a mix of Orc Warriors and Morannon Orcs, probably - along with lots of 50-80pt heroes), but the double catapults does a few things for you. First and foremost, it will make most shooting lists (even the Assault on Lothlorien and Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legions) have to at least think about engaging you - two catapults with a 30-75% chance of hitting without spending Might and then wounding on 5s followed by a C2-3 Courage test is pretty devastating - and if they target the ballistas in the Helm's Deep legion with their normal shots, they have a good chance with the reroll To Hit of breaking a ballista in two rounds!

As I've said before, having two F7 Trolls in the list also makes Gothmog a lot better, since the Trolls can transition from helping with the shooting to charging into the enemy (with the catapult running behind them, since they have to stay within 6" of the catapult) and forcing enemy heroes to call Heroic Strikes . . . which Gothmog can then copy for free with Master of Battle. Having double monsters also gives you some very interesting shenanigans, as does having two siege engines that might muck up your opponent's attempts at wrapping around your flanks! Because our catapults will be joining the action eventually, I've slanted a TON of emphasis into their crew - you'll want to avoid getting caught in the center in Contest of Champions with this list, as over one-third of your army will be starting within 6" of your board edge!

• Gothmog, Lieutenant of Sauron on Warg with shield [AL]
• 8 Orc Warriors with Orc bows
  
• Morannon Orc Captain with shield
• 4 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 4 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Orc Warrior with spear
  
• 3 Orc Warriors with Orc bows
  
• Mordor Siege Veteran with Mordor War Catapult with Severed Heads
• 5 crew
• 1 Troll crew
  
• Mordor Siege Veteran with Mordor War Catapult with Severed Heads
• 5 crew
• 1 Troll crew
  

700pts, 36 models, 11 Orc bows hitting on a 5+ AND 2 catapults hitting on a 4+ (rerollable with Trolls in base contact) AND 2 thrown stones hitting on a 4+, 12 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and 5 Might for Heroic March, 7 Might points

Our final list is the most likely situation where you'll see a Mordor Troll show up - and it's in the Black Gate Opens Legendary Legion. While fielding an army with lots of Trolls sounds like something you'd want to do at a high points level, I've actually found this list to be the most effective at low points levels, since it's very unlikely that you get heroes who can rival Mordor Trolls for very long there! Shooting tends to be minimal at low points and magic is almost entirely non-existent, so a Mordor Troll (not even a Chieftain - but also a Chieftain) can basically do whatever they want . . . and that's pretty great. While you can certainly run two Troll Chieftains, this list at 500pts has only 16 models, but your Uber-Troll Chieftain is going to be your only hero, so he's you defacto assassin and keep-alive guy, which could be very daunting for your opponent:

• Uber-Mordor Troll Chieftain [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Orc Warriors with Orc bows
• 6 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 4 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Morannon Orc with shield, spear, and banner
• 1 Mordor Troll
• 1 Mordor Troll with War Drum
  

Conclusion

Maybe I didn't convince you that Mordor Trolls are worth running - and that's fine. I've had games where I've been disappointed with these guys, but I've also had games that I've really enjoyed using them (and I've both underestimated them and faced other players who have underestimated them). While I'm not always sold on a vanilla Troll, I think both of the other options are excellent. 

Next time, we're turning our attention to another much-despised model: the Moria Blackshield Captain. Yes, these guys are the more-expensive, less-reliable cousins of Moria Goblin Captains - and the often overlooked blister-mates of the dreaded Moria Blackshield Shaman. Are these guys only worth being used as paperweights for your sourcebooks? Or are they actually worth something on the gaming table? I'll do my best to convince you that they do, in fact, have a place next time - and until then, happy hobbying!