Having some trouble with Khador Shocktroopers. Need some advice!

[PG_jbarket]

Hey guys,

I've been playing Warmachine for a bit, but I've just recently started playing Trolls. I've been doing fairly well most of the time, but lately I've been playing against a friend's Khador and he runs two units of Shocktroopers and they are a nightmare with Shield Wall up.

Here's the list I've been playing:

eMadrak
2x Impaler
2x Max Champions
Champion Hero Solo
Fell Caller
Min Krielstone
Stone Scribe Elder

I load the stone and brick up. The Champs are 12/20 when everything is going right which is great. With Blood Fury on one of the units of Champs, I'm throwing out 5D6 on a charge. Even when he prevents me from getting 3" on the charge, I'm still doing 4D6.

But, with that said, I can't seem to win the attrition war when Shield Wall is up. When I'm still preparing to charge, I can try to Crit Smite with the Impalers to break holes in the wall, but once everything is in melee, I'm really not sure what to do.

Any advice on dealing with these guys would be appreciated.

[Robbe]

how are your Champions not crushing his armor?
maybe you could exchange one impaler with a pyre for the damage animus
crit smite one shocktrooper from the mid and then go in with the champs
bloodfury, +1str from the stone, +2 damage from the pyre = 14+4d6 => 28 damage per hit
2 hits per model, +feat
this should kill shocktroopers

i would make one unit of champs minimum
and add skaldi to the max unit and take a slag instead of the pyre cause you'll facing jacks

[physxnut]

I normally dont have too much trouble with high armor. We have plenty of ways to deal with it. Lately ive been running pGrissel and shes quickly becoming a favorite. On a feat turn the shocktroopers if you can get them within 12" of her cant make a shield wall order and also ur champs would be able to make a second attack that turn and then move away. Also this doesnt look like the best point level for champs. They are more effective as a second line unit.

To output more damage you could also try and replace one of the impalers with either a slag or pyre for some melee buffs. You dont really need two anyway.

[whitekong]

Honestly I am not sure how you are not wrecking these guys, regular attacks from your champs with 4 dice should be doing 26 pts of damage on average.
Seems like 2 attacks should take one out even in shield wall. Of course your other option would be to drop one of the impailers for a pyre and put flaming fists on a champ or two, extra 2 pts of damage per attack.

Hope this helps, good luck.

[drachenfels]

easy solution - swap impalers for a pair swamp trolls
boost attack and damage on 2 of the shock troopers - pull them out of formation with the other 3
now champs are attacking arm 17 instead of arm21.

(or boost attacks on the impalers and get lucky for crit slams to knock them out of formation)


alternatly - remember that shocktroopers are only pow14, so they need a charge to kill champions, so stay in brothers, and in stone armor, and they are dice-6. after that you can just slowly pound them to pieces.
also - as with the directly above comment - bait them into charging you instead of you charging them.
(watch out for enemy jugg, keep him at bay with slam spears)

[Keeler]

Not the most appreciated beast, but I use a Bouncer every now and then. He has a chain weapon which ignores the Shields. If you run it with a pyre troll for your beasts you should do alright, granted this is kind of list tailoring but meh... Honestly Impalers are great but its not like you are really needing Farstrike in the list, and Bump, Flaming fists may be more usefull in the animus department as well.

[LeSaboteur]

1-2 Longriders could slam some of the shocktroopers out of formation and let the rest charge in, prefferably with bloodfury on them. That should take a fair amount of them out of action.

[sourclams]

I don't understand how Blood Fury-ed champs under KSB aura aren't crushing them.

Even if he charges you and kills 2 champs, your 3 remaining models will hit 6 times (barring horrible dice) for ~26 a shot, which kills 3 of his shocktroopers. The remaining 2 shocktroopers can't kill a single champ without boosted damage, and even if he gets lucky and plonks another, the remaining 2 champs easily kill off the last 2 guys.

[PG_Steampunk Jim]

Take pMadrak. Take Mulg. Pop the feat and laugh like a pirate.


(but yes, with your list, there's no reason that Blood Fury'd champs shouldn't be taking them off the table.)

[Ravir]

Drop one of your units of champs for max Fennblades + UA. You'll be able to alpha strike just about every time, and with Blood Fury, a PoW 12+4d6 should slaughter shocktroopers unless you're just blessed with quad 1's all the time on your dice. Even if they're ARM 20 that would average out at 6 damage per hit, and they shouldn't survive Madrak coming up from behind and popping feat to all get hit again.

[Spume]

People never mention Runeshapers and I'm not really sure why. Runeshapers can charge in tremor to knock them all down, no shield wall and fennblades can come in on the follow up charge to decimate them with bloodfury. All tremor needs to hit is 1 model, then EVERYTHING in 2" falls down goes boom.

[wargrim]

Probably people don't mention Runeshapers, because that's not the way the rules work? Knockdown doesn't change anything about shield wall. And tremor knocks everything with the same or lower DEF as the attack roll down, not everything as long as you hit the target model.

[Beckman]

People never mention Runeshapers and I'm not really sure why. Runeshapers can charge in tremor to knock them all down, no shield wall and fennblades can come in on the follow up charge to decimate them with bloodfury. All tremor needs to hit is 1 model, then EVERYTHING in 2" falls down goes boom.

Knockdown does not stop shieldwall. Runeshapers cannot tremor on the charge, since Tremor says that you can't.

man-o-wars are not exactly hard to hit in the first place, so there isn't much point to bringing runeshapers against them. Not that Runeshapers are bad... They're a consistently good unit with little or no support.

It's just that I don't feel that they will be super effective in this case.

[Spume]

Knockdown does not stop shieldwall. Runeshapers cannot tremor on the charge, since Tremor says that you can't.

man-o-wars are not exactly hard to hit in the first place, so there isn't much point to bringing runeshapers against them. Not that Runeshapers are bad... They're a consistently good unit with little or no support.

It's just that I don't feel that they will be super effective in this case.

I wasn't aware knockdown doesn't break the shieldwall, but you most certainly can charge and tremor.

From the card: Tremor effects every model within 2" of this model and does not require a target. Make one magic attack roll. If the roll equals or exceeds the DEF of an effected model, it is knocked down. This attack roll cannot be rerolled. This model can make a Tremor special attack if it charges.

[SgtPepper]

I've had some horrible luck in a similar situation. I have to agree, hitting them is not the issue, it's damaging them. In my game my opponent had his jacks in front of his 2 units of shock troopers. I charged my min unit+Horthol and slammed the jacks through the shocktroopers knocking most of them down. Between the slams and my attacks afterwards, I did a whopping total of 3 pts of damage...... It was my first time using any cavalry at all and I seriously wanted to cry. Those guys can be tough to crack.

[Kamahin]

From the card: Tremor effects every model within 2" of this model and does not require a target. Make one magic attack roll. If the roll equals or exceeds the DEF of an effected model, it is knocked down. This attack roll cannot be rerolled. This model can make a Tremor special attack if it charges.

What that means is you make one roll, then everyone who is low enough def gets hit. If they are all the same def then yes, its everything or nothing.

But if they have different defence you could affect only some of the models.

[Spume]

What that means is you make one roll, then everyone who is low enough def gets hit. If they are all the same def then yes, its everything or nothing.

But if they have different defence you could affect only some of the models.

I was referring to the charge and tremor. Yes, one roll, any def you exceed gets knocked down.

[sourclams]

Honestly, think about what you just did there. 2 LRs slammed 2 warjacks, knocking down both jacks and 5-10 medium-based infantry. His Spd4 infantry has just been halted in its tracks; either that or they're moving 4" without shieldwall next turn. His jacks are similarly stopped, unless he spends 2 Foc to stand them up (in a faction that tends to be FOC starved). If those 2 warjacks are berserkers, then spending that focus might blow them up, removing a 6 pt model from the table.

Talk about jammed up. More than 20 pts worth of models basically subjected to half of eHaley's feat, and all due to 2 LRs costing maybe 4 pts in total.

[PG_machine007]

Knockdown does not stop shieldwall.

If you knock down the leader it will prevent them from using shield wall on the next turn, since a knocked down leader cannot give the order when the unit activates, since he is knocked down (Unless the opponent has a way to pick them up). More of a future effect, but it would be more-so useful if you are just having trouble cracking the armor regardless.

Sacrificing a single runeshaper to do the job might be effective if you still can't crack the armor.

[SgtPepper]

It was a kodiak and a berserker that I slammed. It was pretty awesome, I basically removed those jacks from a couple of turns of play and that part of it was really cool. My horrid dice rolls turned the move against me though and I was unable to remove even 1 shocktrooper. Next turn the shocktroopers stood up and just wailed on the long riders and killed them.

[HellecticMojo]

using repulsion animus on the Blitzer works too if you swing that way. It's bit of an resource investment, but an option is an option.

[SgtPepper]

Well apparently, and I didn't see this at the time because I am still new to trolls, but a more experienced by stander pointed out that I could have used Janissa's push to the same effect of clearing a path. The more you know, right?

[Beckman]

I wasn't aware knockdown doesn't break the shieldwall, but you most certainly can charge and tremor.

From the card: Tremor effects every model within 2" of this model and does not require a target. Make one magic attack roll. If the roll equals or exceeds the DEF of an effected model, it is knocked down. This attack roll cannot be rerolled. This model can make a Tremor special attack if it charges.

I got confused between Tremor and their AOE :P

Oops.

Either way, the man-o-wars are not really hard to hit.. so there's not much point to knocking them down.

[mcdermott]

Another relevant question is, what list is he facing and what support are the MOW recieving. I can't say my experience running MOW has had them prove that kind of resilience.

[nosrek]

Min one unit of champs add skaldi, drop the other unit, add full KW with UA and cabers. Problem solved.

Shield wall meet momentum. Your KW grunts will tarpit the MoW and maybe kill a few off. Cabers and champs do the rest.

[Beckman]

Mulg + STR buff and potentially Goad, Crusher, or Warpath depending on caster is my answer, by the way... He eats a whole unit...

[PG_joedj]

I'd use a full unit of Burrowers instead of the second unit of Champs, plus you save 4 points!

Burrowers popping up in the rear arc of Shocktroopers, charging or shooting, negates the Shield Wall (which only applies to damage originating in their front arcs).
P&S 8 plus 3d6 (eMadrak's Blood Fury) and POW 14 vs ARM 17.

It may be challenging for your opponent to prevent a Burrowers rear-arc pop-up, even if the second Shocktrooper unit is close up to the first.

Or if possible/necessary, carefully placed Burrower bases can be inserted in-between or behind the ShockTrooper bases (at the rear) at millimeter-slight different increments, then Janissa can be used to move the whole line of ShockTroopers 3" toward one board edge to separate each/every one of the Shocktrooper bases from their adjacent neighbor...

(Just don't do it in a timed tourney, takes way too long for that type of positioning, then arguing with your opponent )

[PG_jbarket]

Thanks for all the ideas guys.

My buddy is new too, and I discovered one of the problems I've been having, and that's that Shield Wall is an order. We've been playing it like a conferred ability, so they charge and retain Shield Wall or whatever. Between the ideas here and the fact that he'll be ARM17 a lot more than he has been in our games, I think I've got a good handle on the situation now.

[Spume]

Thanks for all the ideas guys.

My buddy is new too, and I discovered one of the problems I've been having, and that's that Shield Wall is an order. We've been playing it like a conferred ability, so they charge and retain Shield Wall or whatever. Between the ideas here and the fact that he'll be ARM17 a lot more than he has been in our games, I think I've got a good handle on the situation now.

Good to hear, good luck with the Blue Booze Brigade.

[drachenfels]

lol yea things against specific units becomes ALLOT easier when your opponent isnt cheating. lol :P

[PG_thegreatblah]

The problem I have with Runeshapers and Fenss is; with Fenns they aren't hitting hard enough, Runshapers don't have enough volume.

I think you list is fine maybe fine tune how you approach shock troopers. Hit them in waves and then write off the Front line as dead. He spends his turn clearing the line, you spend your charging in with more Champs... rinse and repeat. Classic Jamming101 and Champs are better at it than they first appear (just don't get too caught up in thinking you HAVE to keep them base to base.)