Calling the Blitz: an article on the use of the often overlooked Blitzer

[Dark Angel]

The Blitzer is a bit of an anomaly in the dire troll stable. He doesn’t hit as hard as the Mauler, EBTD or Mulg and has less reliable shooting then the Bomber. Many often question his value at 9 points, arguing that it’s better to pay the 1 point more for the Bomber and well, most of the time, they’re probably right however, the Blitzer does have a role and he does offer a number of things to a troll player that are otherwise not available. Lets go through them:

The support caster’s best friend:

The Blitzer has an award winning yet often overlooked Animus, while he can use it on himself (more on that later) handing your caster the ability to extract himself from combat is not to be overlooked. Granted you can argue that he should never have been there in the first place but it happens and when it does, having a Blitzer on the board helps.

I’ll have me some threat range:

The Blitzer has the highest built in thread range of any of our trolls. Yes, eDoomy can send Mulg a fair way across the table but it takes alot of effort and the Blitzer can hit things alot further away (rather unreliably but still). It has a built in threat range of 18’ before you augment it (8’ charge + 10’ range on the gun) and it can easily be increased to 22’ with Farstrike. Other factions can do better but that’s other factions. We beatface pretty well but being able to easily reach out and hit something important in the backfield is sometimes rather important and the Blitzer gives troll players that option. The Blitzer will come in with D3 S13 shots, all of which are boostable. It won’t take down a heavy but it can remove those irritating support solo’s and it’s possible to kill more than 1 in a turn.

I’ll have my cake and eat it:

Because of gunfighter and virtuoso, you can kill whatever you charge (obviously target dependant but the Blitzer is still a dire troll) and then shoot allowing you to derive substantial value in any given turn, should the combat not go your way, you can still pop the animus and then shoot. One of the downers of using a Bomber is that once combat is joined and he’s engaged in combat the shooting stops. With the Blitzer, that aint the case.

Synergies

The Blitzer works well as a tag team with either the Pyre or the Slag troll. The main reason is that both of those trolls add a significant range attack to the party, depending on what you are more worried about (infantry or constructs). They also have superb animii of their own that buff the Blitzer to the point where it almost competes with the melee dire trolls in terms of damage output and significantly increases its versatility.

The caster’s that best with the Blitzer are our range of support casters, all of whom make good use of the Animus. Grim has the ability to debuff targets while Calandra with her feat and ability to reroll dice increase the reliability of the Blitzer however one caster above all seems to have been built for the Blitzer, Cap’n Gunbjorn. Firstly, if you happen to be taking a tier list, tier 1 drops the cost of both the Blitzer and the Bomber by one, always welcome but where he truly shines with the Blitzer is his spell list. Drop Explosivo and guided fire down and suddenly you have 1-3 boosted POW 13 attacks a turn with the first shot being a AOE 3 that also happen to be magical. Throw down a rockwall to prevent charges and the Blitzer can cause many a headache for your opponent, allowing you to pick off targets at range while limiting counterattacks.

Conclusion

Trolls don’t exactly struggle when it comes to superb options for your heavy beasts and you can certainly be forgiven for going for the Bomber over the Blitzer however the Blitzer does give you a number of options and he is a ton of fun to play.

[Dark Angel]

Additional space

[Dark Angel]

Please feel free to comment and add, I'll update the article.

[PG_thegreatblah]

I really like Bringing the Blitzer. Dunno if its because the Sculpt was the reason I started playing and picked Trolls or not, but I love him. Most of the time its shooting ability is suprising and his animus is pretty awesome. Downside is the d3 shots thing... never can roll better than one shot when I need it.

[Digestive]

Yay for the Blitzer! One thing though: Explosivo only works on the first shot, iirc.

[Dark Angel]

Yay for the Blitzer! One thing though: Explosivo only works on the first shot, iirc.

Good point, edited.

[Osito]

He's also the coolest looking model in the entire PP catalog. And he paints up great.

[Tom Brine]

I also find him nice for the current crop of SR scenarios. Want to own that flag? Easy pop a blitzer up there and use its animus to get the enemy away from the scoring zone. Coupled with Jannissa's Tectonic shift you are pushing enemy models up to 6 inches in total, enough for any Troll commander to gain a scenario point.

[tjohnfranklin]

Pure theorymachine here, but the Blitzer + Janissa look like a fantastic hard shoulder for your opponent to break their teeth on. Drop a wall in front of the Blitzer and he's at defense 16 (and add Elemental Communion from an EBDT or if your caster's nearby to bumb him to ARM 20). If the enemy advances to attack he'll probably survive - next round, push the enemy away with Tectonic shift, drop a Slag, Pyre or Mauler buff on him, charge the enemy (who are 3" away), clear your shooting lane and then fire at softer targets beyond. Or, use his own animus to bounce the enemies 3" off, then repeat as above, and have Janissa plonk the wall back down in front of him - depends how hot you're prepared to run him.

I imagine all of that working with both Doomies, and Gunnbjorn. pDoomy and Gunnbjorn especially, as they both give him extra accuracy (through Fortune and Guided Fire, respectively). Whelps a must.

[Jake the Dog]

With the recent ruling/clarification, will the Blitzer see more play?

For ruling reference:

The "at the beginning of its combat action" refers to when you roll for Rapid Fire shots. To help clarify, the flow of the combat action would be:

1. Model declares which option it is picking (initial melee attacks, initial ranged attacks, Special Attack). (Virtuoso would get both initial ranged and initial melee as a single option.)
2. If initial attacks are chosen that allow ranged attacks, roll for Rapid Fire.
3. Perform all available attacks, in any order you choose.

Reopening for any follow up questions, but please keep them on topic and concise.

so... if I charge.

I decide declare charge and I decide to do initial melee attacks and initial ranged due to virtuoso, I charge, do a punch that's the charge attack, another fist, I roll for rapid fire, then I start shooting?

just making sure.

Close. You would declare charge, move, see if the charge was successful. If it was, declare "making initial attacks," then roll for Rapid Fire. Then you could make a melee attack to get the charge bonus, etc. The roll happens right after you declare your intent to make initial ranged attacks (and, again, remember Virtuoso gets both melee and ranged), but before you start making any attacks. You can still choose the order in which you make the attacks.

[Actual]

Using the blitzer's ability to charge in, and either kill his charge target with initial melee attacks, or repulse it and start shooting, is great for removing backfield pieces like support solos, or UAs. This tactic is most effective with either a buff to his RAT (guided fire is great for this) or a defense debuff on your opponent's army (grim's feat might do the job, however it is unlikely to reach out into the opponent's back field).

I have found that his MAT/RAT of 5 limit the types of targets he can effectively engage, so I tend to send my blitzer after heavy infantry (with def in the <12 range) or light beasts/jacks, against whom he can be a total bully. He still has Dire troll durability, and snacking, and I have had great results against heavy infantry with the Blitzer.

EDIT: Important note for the above tactic, you cannot get additional melee attacks before using your ranged attacks, so if you do not kill whatever you charge with your initials, you must repulse it to shoot into the backfield.

[LeSaboteur]

I will claim Rök will be our ranged beasts best friend. Primal will turn the blitzer (or the Bomber) into an animal of destruction. With MAT7 on him he, won't need to boost to hit his initials, granting you more power on his ranged attacks or even the possibility to take a huge bite on a heavy.

Both variants of Doomshaper will have good synergies with him, even benefitting from his animus if getting into CC-trouble. Goad coupled with a primaled Blitzer could be huge fun and extend your threatrange to hillariuos levels, especially wit eDoomy. When Rök comes out, I for one will let the Blitzer hit the table more often.

[PG_machine007]

I love me some biltzer and I am pretty sure I will run him more once I get him painted. I do like the possibility of getting 5 initial attacks, and with a damage buff still outputting pretty good damage on the melee. Especially with Rok. I usually run an EBDT with Grim, but I could switch the blitzer out to see how it goes.

[Ralphus]

Also you may want to re-word the section about threat ranges. Blitzer has Virtuoso, but not Assault. So you can't Charge and shoot something at range. You have to charge and reach melee for you to shoot your gun. You can full advance and shoot, but not charge unless you have Assault.

[PG_Celedor]

But he is a Gunfighter/Virtuoso. So he can charge and shoot.

Edit: See Jake's post a few up from this for Infernal ruling. It was also mentioned that if you did want to shoot something at Range after charging you had to kill your charge target and engaging models with initial melee attacks or repulse.

Hmm, this does make me think about the Blitzer with the Storm Troll animus. Charging in to kill 4 models with initial melee attacks and electro leaps then shooting deeper into enemy lines.

[Beckman]

Rok really does help the Blitzer and Bomber out quite a bit in terms of letting them hit harder. The Blitzer is pretty nice in scenario play, with his animus being able to push stuff out of control zones.

But I do think that he should probably be an 8 point beast. He'd be good for 8 points.

For 9 points, I would like at least 2/3 of the following:
1 more RAT,
and 2 shots - no rolling
12" range.

[Ralphus]

Right but if his charge fails to reach melee, or he doesn't kill his charge intended target, then he can't shoot something at range without penalty. I was simply stating the wording implied he had the same capabilities of Assault when he doesn't have that specific ability.

[Flindo]

The reason I didn't take the blitzer before was because of the original undesireable scupt, now that I think the new sculpt looks fantastic there is no problems and I take him all the time.

[jdripley]

I've always liked the Blitzer. He's performed pretty well for me when I've taken him, which honestly hasn't been too much. But I've had some great moments with him. I find his RAT 5 to be less of an issue than it appears because you don't often get that perfect scenario where you can charge a target, use your second attack to kill another target, and happened to roll 3 for your number of shots with the gun, and get to kill 3 more - and struggle with hitting/damaging all of that stuff due to limited fury relative to the number of attacks you can make. More commonly you've got a trooper in charge range, so you charge it and with two attacks are likely to kill it with melee. Then typically you rolled for 2 attacks with the gun, so you've got two more shots with the gun, and have 3 fury left. You're probably in range of either their caster or a key solo, so that gives you two shots. You boost to hit because you can't damage if you hit, and that leaves you with one boosted POW 13 and one unboosted POW 13 - that could kill a caster right there, that will definitely kill most solos (or even two solos), and if you even put half damage on the enemy caster that often forces a do-or-die situation. Fortunately Trolls are good in do-or-die situations. So you charge the Blitzer in, put some heavy damage on the enemy caster, and then turtle hard. They will probably do big damage to your army, but you come back swinging after they blow all of their options. To me, that's the big threat of the Blitzer - being able to force that do-or-die scenario onto the enemy early in the game.

Great write up by the way. Refreshing to see somebody write about an unpopular unit and write in a fair and reasonable way (instead of saying it's awful, or saying that it's really the best model out there). The Blitzer is a middle of the road beast that isn't spectacular, but is capable and useful.

[The Happy Anarchist]

When I do use him, I far more often boost hit and/or damage on him than going all out. I could fit him in so much more easily at 8 points, which is odd as it is just a 1 point difference, but it would make a huge difference!

I do think he is not terrible, just not quite there.

[kirobjorn]

I run a gunny tierlist with THREE of them. It.....is.....HILLARIOUS!!!!!! Not the best list ewer, but still very fun to play. It struggles a bit with heawy's but all those boosted pow 13 hits tend to whittle away at them after awhile. Infantry is, as u might suspect, a cakewalk. This is at 35p. Haven't tried it at 50 yet.

[Sebi]

I like this article and there is some insight I didn't get myself though thinking about the Blitzer's options and possibilitiers over and over

Would you mind if I take your information to maybe update the battlecollege site (if it has not happened yet - I am not up to date about it)

My take so far:
one game
Gunny's tier 2 (alng a bomber - don't have another/third ranged heavy but will get me a blitzer as I have a magnetizes plastic set being able to play either bomber or blitzer)

and it schredded through the enemyies infantery like a chainsaw through warm butter.

The fact that it is not reliably shooting 2 shots each round was the first "repellent" but it is the same as it is with Bull (Merc Charuni Blythe and Bull) - you calculate with one shot - maybe with 2 and be happy if you get those two or even three.
Same as with tough. Don't take it into the equation but be happy when it happens.

Then I guess I will see some more action with the Blitzer - even outside of Gunnys tierlist (Jarl popped to mind with his movement fun).

I like the new Model better - fits better next to the bomber and old mauler.
The old white metal version was abit ...out of line so to say.
A cool model - no arguing there - but I just didn't like it.

Lets hope I find me one ... just for "MINE"-purpose (the collector's conundrum: "I don't like it - but it will soon be gone forever - should I get me one?" )

[kirobjorn]

@sebi. i have three diffrent models. the old one, the new plastic and a converstion i made. i had an old metal bomber extra so i bought the pygpilot, his gun and the old mauler metal arms from pp maiorder. i did however forget to buy the head for the pilot so instead i used the head from the "pyertroll"whelp. it looks fantastic and the only hardcore modeling that was nesessary was the shortening of the old mauler arms and fixing the tripod stand for the gunattachments on the back of the bomber.

[PG_Devilsquid]

The good thing about the rapid fire was that if the rof was more than 1, you'd have to pay fury for it. As it stands, you get the 1-3 shots without costing any fury.

[dchadpage]

It has a built in threat range of 18’ before you augment it (8’ charge + 10’ range on the gun) and it can easily be increased to 22’ with Farstrike.[/U]

18 foot threat range is a bit overkill in my opinion. :P

[PG_Celedor]

The Blitzer can kill Warnouns still in the display case of your opponents home-damn!

Edit: distance exaggerated for dramatic purposes.

[Beckman]

The good thing about the rapid fire was that if the rof was more than 1, you'd have to pay fury for it. As it stands, you get the 1-3 shots without costing any fury.

Right. Nobody's suggesting ROF2. We're suggesting a rule that lets him shoot twice without paying for a second shot.

Actually, if they made him Rapid Fire d3+1, that would both fix the problem of rolling a 1, and be a significant power boost. I would probably be willing to overlook his 'Meh' range, mediocre RAT, and 9 PC if he was d3+1.

Not to say that there's no reason to run a Blitzer - he has his moments.. But I generally feel that compared to our other heavies.. the Blitzer loses out a lot of the time.

[Robbe]

I'm thinking of bringing Rök for his Animus more often and he makes both the Bomber and the Blitzer more "fun". Especially the Blitzer if you want to charge something and use his melee capabilities. Maybe with pDoomshaper for "controlled" raging via the scroll?

d3+1 would definitely put the blitzer in more of my lists

[skurkious]

It would be awesome if the pyg ace could still fire on turns that the Blitzer frenzied. You would still not be able to boost or anything but might get a couple shots off. Would definitely use him more if they had done that.

[Sebi]

honestly I see no big difference ... the Pyg has a lousy RAt and that means getting those shots off and hit is pure luck and not my style (though I always cross my fingers about my tough rolls) ... and wouldn't really make me take the blitzer more often.

Nevertheless I have a lot of stuff here to play and I guess its time to let the Trollbloods out of the box ... after the German masters (Merc Frenzy right now ).

[TurdFerguson]

Your arguments of buffing its melee damage are null and void when you consider you're justifying bringing a bad model because you can buff it to be as good as a non-buffed good model. Those "good" models, Bomber, EBDT, and DTM all have amazing animuses and are much less situational. IE, you'll want to or get to use them in more games. (Bomber less so, but point still stands). This example also can be applied for any game.

I really like the Blitzer's sculpt, and his rules, but his RAT is too low, and his gun is too volatile for me to take him. Plus, he should have a better animus really imo.

[JArrow]

I have used Blitzer whit Jarl as a reliable magic-bullet platform. Boosted rat 5 hit's most targets, and threath range of 22" is REALLY good. One thing everyone has missed is, that blitzer can powerattack slam and then buy one double-boosted shot as well as charge and try to scratch enemy heavy.

[Pjolterbeist]

I have used Blitzer whit Jarl as a reliable magic-bullet platform. Boosted rat 5 hit's most targets, and threath range of 22" is REALLY good.

Jarl himself has 22+" threat, 2 more RAT, two shots every turn. Bring Impaler and Runebearer. Give Far Strike and Harmonious Exaltation to Jarl, move up, Magic Bullet, boost hit, walk if you killed something, Magic Bullet, boost hit, walk if you killed something, hide behind Gobber Smoke / Wall / something. Does pretty much the same job, better, and saves the price of a heavy...

[Pjolterbeist]

Your arguments of buffing its melee damage are null and void when you consider you're justifying bringing a bad model because you can buff it to be as good as a non-buffed good model.

I agree. For example, Mulg or Earthborn with all the damage buffs up can one round pretty much any model in the game, even an Arcane Shielded Stormwall. A Blitzer, not so much.

[PG_Celedor]

The thing some people are overlooking is that the Blitzer brings a decent combined arms approach and a situationally good animus. Bringing Rok shores up his melee weaknesses, and you end up with a well rounded list that provides melee and ranged threats. Once I have Rok in a list, I usually feel like Mulg is overkill and look to diversify my selection, usually with a Bomber, but it's fun to switch things up a bit sometimes.

Nobody is saying the Blitzer is our best beast or ideal target for Primal (whatever that means), but with the addition of Rok to our faction we can expect some previously maligned beasts like the Blitzer to perform better than before.