Ode to my Trollblood victory!

[PurpleMonkey]

Ode to my Trollblood victory!
The night was dark and stormy,
The basilisk was blind,
Hexeris exposed his tender flank,
So Maddy spanked his bare behind!

Hello chaps,
Well I fought my 5th game of Hordes last night, second victory, and think I am slowly getting the hang of some things (certainly not all). But if I may, I wanted to run a few things before you and as your opinions.

The fight was pretty stock for us. 20pts (up from the previous 15.... ooooh I here ya?ll say, but that?s an extra unit and fills the table top in pretty fast with the medium bases) cos were still very green.

Anyway I fielded pMadrak, EBDT, Whelps, Axer, Fell Caller and a unit of Kriel Warriors against some Skorne.
I just wanted to clarify a couple of things:

I used Madrak as a wrecking ball (pure circumstance) to kill off his Void Spirit who basically seems to dictate/herd my movements for the first couple of turns. He uses it to run across the board, pulling me out of position as he knows that Maddy is the only thing I have to kill it with. I need a better strategy than just waiting for him to put the model within reach of Maddy.

Anyway, he was passing by a light forest nearby, so I dropped my Axer Animus on him, charged 11? (6 + 3 + Animus [2 & Pathfinder] ) an put the Axe right between its eyes.

I took AoE damage from is Ash Eruption, but I really hate that thing and was hardly scratched!

Anyway the turns unfolded with my finally wandering into range of his Savage and Titan and copped a slam (Almost killing my Axer) from the Gladiator, and his savage took a chunk out of a Kriel Warrior only to make the tough roll and look all macho.
In an attempt to off my Axer, he moved Hexeris out of his protective line of Venators and tried for a soulfire and didn?t quite manage it, and burnt all his fury.

Anyway, his Gladiator was stuck into my lines, his savage tied up by warriors, his Venators a mile away and his Cyclops Shaman had frenzied and couldn?t do anything, and there, in the middle of the field, was Hexeris all alone.... and a very angry Madrak within I guessed 9?.

I cried charge, Maddy leapt at Hexeris full force, burning 2 Fury to boost my initial Hit and Damage rolls.... and brought him within an inch of his life, so I burnt another Fury for an extra attack (I believe this is permissible unless I have missed something in the rules), hit again and brought him low with a crit (not that it really mattered, he went splat anyway).
So I wanted to check a couple of things.

First, can I change facing, then charge? Or can I only charge something that?s directly in front of me at the start of my activation?

Second, was I allowed to spend a Fury for that extra attack from Maddy?

Third, any suggestions for dealing with the Void Spirit? I thought maybe Janissa Stonetide or something, but really a RAT of 4 to use the Rock Hammer (?) or whatever her ranged magic ability was, just seems a bit low to rely on without boosting the attack roll, and with Maddy Fury is like gold so I wasn?t sure it was a wise investment/combo.

But I am new to all this and would love to hear, as its a real pain.

Cheers lads,

Purple Monkey

[zor]

1)You can charge in a straight line to anything in your front arc at the beginning of your activation. Can't 180 then charge or anything.
2) You can spend fury to buy additional melee attacks
3) Janissa uses an 8 for her rock hammer as she has a Magic Ability (8)

[PurpleMonkey]

Hi Zor,

Thanks for the responses!

1) For the charge, thanks for clearing that up. Thought thats how it read, but wasnt sure (I tend to second guess my interpretation of things).
2) Excellent, that means I didnt pull off the impossible miracle
3) I must not have read the Magic Attack/Abilities section clearly enough, as I had wondered what the (8) meant at first glance. Makes that much more viable, so would you suggest her as a Void Spirit assassin or no? I mean, its 3 points vs his 1 I think, so id have to include her for more reasons than he would have his if you take my meaning. I think she has more utility, certainly, than I am considering here but really its the Void Spirit and his manipulation of how/where I move in the early game I want to negate. B'stard keeps hiding him in houses and terrain

Cheers,

Purple Monkey

[zor]

Janissa is such a toolbox for the Trollbloods, so theres at least 5 reasons to put her in a list. #1 is wall, #2 is tectonic shift, #3 is force lock, #4 is magic 8 rock hammer, #5 is ap attack... I'm sure theres more...
Too bad Character Restriction came in as the norm this year so Trolls can't have her in EVERY list lol. She's really THAT good. haha

[PurpleMonkey]

I must not be thinking about Force Lock in the right context here. Mind explaining how its used? As My recollection is that it was extremely circumstantial and without any real advantage, but maybe I need to go re-read.

Also, whats the character restriction? I clearly dont know this and didnt know that I couldnt take what characters I so chose....

Cheers,

Purple Monkey

[thumpernickle]

I noticed a couple of other things in the OP that were not played correctly, if I understood the post correctly.
1). The Axer's animus Rush is friendly faction warbeast and therefore cannot be cast on Madrak.
2). You cannot pay fury to boost the damage roll of a charge as it is automatically boosted from the charge. Madrak would, and can, only spend a maximum of one fury one the charge attack--to boost the to hit roll.

Keep fighting for the Kriels!!

[PurpleMonkey]

Ahah!

Thanks Thumpernickle. I will keep all that in mind for the next run!

Just to be clear, If I charge, I cannot 'boost' for an extra die, I just have the 'additional' as a result of the charge? Is this the case with a Slam as well?

As for the Animus, thats definately my bad there and knowing such I probably would have just walked him forward far enough to get a clear LOS on him and thrown Rathrok then.

I appreciate the feedback, its all tremedously helpful!

Thanks again,

Purple Monkey

[zor]

Character Restriction is a new tournament restriction that allows each Character to be used only once between all of the lists you use in a tournament.

Anyway, Force Lock means that the model in question can't advance once they are in Janissa's (or Runeshapers in her CMD range) melee range. That means that you can use janissa to block charge lanes using both her walls and forcelock. So once a model gets within half an inch of janissa they can't move any further.

[PurpleMonkey]

Hi Zor,

Thanks for that.

Ok, so I had read it right, but I suppose it just didnt seem that useful as I considered that a) If anything was moving within 0.5" of Janissa, it would probably thump Janissa anyway. and b) I probably didnt want her to be a melee focus point. Looks like I need to rethink here.

Add to that, the rock wall she creates, it doesnt prevent people from charging over, does it? I thought as an obstacle all it does is reduce movement over them by -2" so not really blocking a lane, rather than just meaning the had to get closer to do a charge. Or is this wrong? (And she gets 2? I thought she only got 1 wall per turn @ the end of which it dissapates)

Thanks,

PM

[zor]

By both I mean 1) her wall and 2) herself with forcelock.

The wall cannot be charged over unless a model has pathfinder and can get all the way past the wall.

[hatchet]

Another way you can deal with his incorporeal void spirit is to get the KSB (Krielstone) + UA (Unit Attachment), it would mean increasing the point level of your games but it would grant +2 armor and you could use the UA to remove stealth/incorporeal while in it's aura. Janissa is also worth getting, for all the reasons listed and more.

[PG_thegreatblah]

When you charge, the damage roll is automatically boosted, and each roll can only be boosted once. The attack roll for the charge can be boosted though.

In reference to adding dice there are two terms you care about 'additional dice' and 'boosted'. Any roll can only be boosted once, however, you can add as many additional dice as you can muster. (i.e. a weaponmaster gets an 'additional dice' on their damage rolls. If you charge something with a weaponmaster you get four damage dice. Two as per normal rules + one additional dice for weaponmaster + one more dice for the 'boosted' damage roll.)

There aren't a lot of cases where you add additional dice too many times, but a good example is eMadrak's spell 'Blood Fury' which adds an additional dice to all damage rolls for target model/unit.

[thumpernickle]

Thegreatblah answered your question about boosted damage better than I would have.
Glad you are enjoying playing with the Trolls.

[Big Fat Troll]

What's the wording on Force Lock? Could that stop Enliven?

[Armides]

What's the wording on Force Lock? Could that stop Enliven?

Oh yes!

That's definatley one way to stop enliven

[PG_thegreatblah]

Riisssee dead thread Riissseee

[Arizona_Troll]

Hi Zor,

Thanks for that.

Ok, so I had read it right, but I suppose it just didnt seem that useful as I considered that a) If anything was moving within 0.5" of Janissa, it would probably thump Janissa anyway. and b) I probably didnt want her to be a melee focus point. Looks like I need to rethink here.

Where it helps is you can position her so that something has to attack her because it can't squeeze past her even a little bit to get at what's behind her (even if it's just slightly behind her). I agree that usually you don't want to sacrifice her for this, but late game it can be a nice ability, and as a counter to enliven or admonition it can be gold. In general I use the ability more on Runeshapers (who gain the ability while within 8" of Janissa) because I don't mind sacrificing them and, since there are 3 in a unit, they can clog up more charge lanes (especially since they have steady, so if the model kills you and you make a touch check, you just keep holding the line).

I thought as an obstacle all it does is reduce movement over them by -2" so not really blocking a lane, rather than just meaning the had to get closer to do a charge. Or is this wrong? (And she gets 2? I thought she only got 1 wall per turn @ the end of which it dissapates)

Walls don't impact movement distances. You just can't charge over them if you don't have pathfinder (although you can still walk or run over them with no penalty) and you must be able to get your base completely on the other side of the wall when you end your movement (so no balancing models on walls). If your base can't fit on the other side of the wall (either because of other models or because you don't have enough movement to clear it) then you must stop your movement at the wall.