Bad Blood

[Tweak]

Yesterday I got my first two games in under the field test rules of mk2 for my Trollbloods. Both games were against the same person playing Legion. Oddly enough in both games my opponent picked one of the two casters with this spell called "Bad Blood." In both games I found my trolls to be slightly more neutered than I expected by that Bad Blood and I just wanted to start a thread discussing what Trolls can do to stop this spell from causing the grief it caused me.

In both of the games, the first against plylth and the second against pthagrosh, my opponent used this spell on one of my front line beasts right before he charged it with either a carnivean or the angelius. Oddly enough my opponent was doing it more to cause more damage as I would have to leach the fury from the turn earlier if my beast survived the charge. What we found was besides causing damage from leaching it stops all attempts to heal the beast or regenerate. Suddenly my Dire troll that survived the angelius strike, though he lost his mind and most of his body, couldn't strike back because I could not heal anything to gain back the lost aspect. My MAT 6 dire troll needed eights to hit and unless I boosted he wouldn't hit and even with boosting it was far from a solid chance, since I was at minus 1 die to attack rolls.

I guess I'm just caught off guard at how utterly devastating that spell is when used on the only two warlocks who have it, legion one and all. Trolls are never going to get the charge off on Legion, thats a given, but our retaliation is servilely nerfed if we can't use our awesome healing to make sure we can actually retaliate well enough to stop their next turn from ending that beast.

Just to note I was running EMandrak and EDoomy in these lists and neither can stop upkeep spells unless I missed something.

I'm not saying Bad Blood is broken or OP. I just want people to discuss what can be done to counter it by our faction so that players can face those two legion casters without feeling like their faction's effectiveness is servilely diminished, heck I had four whelps sitting there just waiting to be devoured for health but alas no healing allowed.

[i_like_tool]

Welcome to Trolls! Lots of things, even more now than before, ignore Tough or can deactivate it altogether for a turn or 2. Fun huh?


Seriously though....we have a few casters that can deal with that.
Grissel can stop the spell from being cast again if your within 12" of her. But than she isn't using her other calls....

If you want to walk Doomshaper within 6" of your beast he can stop the ability or he can use Purification to wipe all of his upkeep spells too

Bad situation to be in either way hardie har har

edit: Forgot to add Whelps won't help either. No healing of any kind allowed.

[huntroll]

Well, it's simple... Don't keep your beasts on the front line where he can easily charge them. Either use eDoomy or Borka to strike first, or use some cheap/expendalbe models to block charge lanes and tie them down. You know, they wings won't save them any more :D

[i_like_tool]

Well let me expand on your problem. If your using eMadrak, bring more Infantry. he makes them nasty
If running eDoomy, use more beast. Bad Blood can't be everywhere

[Waaargh]

Doomy to the rescue, a Banishing Ward would have helped out tremendously. Or use some warriors to stand in the way. Those KW sounds more and more appealing :)

[Cannibalbob]

People need to really stop suggesting "use XXX caster". That is a cop-out way of answering the question.

People might like to play certain casters and not the one mentioned, which means they need a way to deal with what the OP ran into. Or, it could happen in a tournament where you do not have the luxury of cherry-picking your caster.

And standing your beasts way at the back is not a great suggestion either as it gives the advantage of board position to the opponent.

The suggestions for screening/blocking with other models is not a bad idea, but the caster suggestions are simply impractical and lend nothing to the discussion.

[i_like_tool]

Let's take this a step further, how many points were you playing and what did you bring?

With eMadrak I feel that his list need, at the minimum, either FennBlades or full Kriel Warriors. Either to protect eMadrak and to fuel Warpath. let's not forget to use Terrain as our advantage with Killing Ground as well. Beast Wise I still feel that a Dire Troll + 2 lights is Solid. preferablly an Axer and maybe a Pyre

eDoomy can help too. You need to be a little more sneaky. Use Agitation to keep your opponents Beast hot, so some Frenzy and he looses some Transfer targets. Wild Aggression is a must on your Heavy to ensure your scrapping his Beast. Feat early if need be to get those Charges off. We have to hit first to stop us from taking tons of damage and not being able to do much about it

[Amarel]

Bad Blood is a very good upkeep regardless, but against Trolls is extra nasty because we pay for regeneration and it removes it. My feeling (having only played against pLylyth in MKII twice (both 15pts, once with TB's and once with Circle) so hardly comprehensive) is that the part about a beast losing regeneration could be dropped without it affecting the nastiness of the spell in most situations (you'd still have to force to regen anyway and Bad Blood likes it when you force).

[i_like_tool]

On thinking about it some more...Champions would REALLY help out. If they lock down and beat on your Heavy what is going to challenge that heavy? Sure an Axer will do some good damage, but how about some Charging Champions? Head Butt and let them go to town.

[Tweak]

for those asking my lists, both 25 pts, where I ran into bad blood issues were:
eMandrak
EBDT
Bouncer
Min Kriel Warriors
UA
Max Kriel strone bearers
Elder UA
1 Whelp group
Swamp Gobbers

For Doomy it was:
eDoomshaper
Mulg
Mauler
Axer
Min Krielstone
1 group of Whelps

Honestly I am thinking that removing both regenerate and healing from our repetoire is rather devestating. It doesn't help that only pDoomshaper can dispel upkeeps, which means if they get it off against anyone else I can't get rid of it, or I could be using Grissel and hopping that somehow my opponent made a movement error and entered my command area, because unless my beast is behind grissel the range ten spell that is Bad Blood is gonna not be effected by her no spells song.

It just seems that this spell really hurts the two hordes factions that do not utilize a first strike approach, skorne and trolls, as without healing of any kind losing an aspect from taking a massive first strike spells doom for any attempts for that beast being able to retaliate.

[blitzmonkey]

The other thing that matters for bad blood is for PLyl, it is range 12 if she hits with ranged attack, range 10 for straight spelling casting. Same for thag. Range 10 as well. Do you guys that have anything that can threaten either or enough to fear coming up that close?

[Cannibalbob]

The other thing that matters for bad blood is for PLyl, it is range 12 if she hits with ranged attack, range 10 for straight spelling casting. Same for thag. Range 10 as well. Do you guys that have anything that can threaten either or enough to fear coming up that close?


The warbeast they just cast that ability on....

Possibly champs.

[blitzmonkey]

Well, as the OP said....Lyl cast Bad Blood then had a heavy tear up the Mauler. That means it is in position to be countered. So you have a damaged beast, but your champs are going to be in position to charge the beast that tore it up and shred it to bits.

[ArchonXVI]

It should also be noted that the smaller the game, the larger the impact of the spell will be. Up the value to around 35 and you'll feel the burn a lot less.

[Sevwall]

Bad Blood is a good debilitating spell, but its only really good if they cripple the beast.

There is no way to counter it other than keeping it from hitting you or preventing damage to the beast.

Just like other things (rebuke) the only answer is to deal with it.

[Tweak]

So the solution is have a meaty "anti beast" infantry unit nearby and just sign off the bad blooded beast as screwed.

I guess I am hoping there is some other option out there for trolls to do. I mean "grin and take it" can only go so far.

What if, like I did with emandrak, I took Kriel Warriors. They were too close to get the charge off on the angelius and thus found themselves attempting to deal alot of damage to an unwounded angelius without any boosting. It did not work out that well for me.

[Sevwall]

I don't understand. Its a spell with an effect. Not all spells have counters, you just have to deal with them.

The beast isn't negatively affected by Bad Blood at all if it is healthy. So try to keep it healthy.

And try to keep your DEF up with Cover and such to keep it from hitting you.

Not everything can be prevented or countered. Some things must simply be mitigated and dealt with.

[blitzmonkey]

So the solution is have a meaty "anti beast" infantry unit nearby and just sign off the bad blooded beast as screwed.

I guess I am hoping there is some other option out there for trolls to do. I mean "grin and take it" can only go so far.

What if, like I did with emandrak, I took Kriel Warriors. They were too close to get the charge off on the angelius and thus found themselves attempting to deal alot of damage to an unwounded angelius without any boosting. It did not work out that well for me.

Doesn't have to be that exactly. From a legion perspective, your two biggest worries are going to be the Angel and the Carni. The Angel is relatively easy to kill or cripple with a light sometimes. The Carni is a hulk. But if you send in champs or something to deal with it or mess it up, you will be fine. The other suggestion is tactics. If you are so worried about your mauler getting hit, put something up front that Lyl can't afford to ignore. Yeah, it will get eaten up. But as is a common move in chess, sacrificing something small so you can get something big is worth it.