The Hunters Grim and playing them w/ Trolls today

EDIT:  THIS IS MARK II INFORMATION.

  It's entirely possible that you already know that, given the dates, but even if this popped up on your google search while you looked for Grim2, again, be well aware that this is an edition change away.  While Grim2 did not change much into MK3, the rest of trolls did, so take that into account when you read this article.

  Do I plan to update this article?  Not whatsoever.  As far as I'm concerned, PrivateerPress has thrown their game out the window and has no interest in a competitively tight ruleset, and has repeatedly demonstrated that attitude.  There will be no more PP related batreps or strategy articles on this blog until that changes.

  I'll be playing something else.

  Hunters Grim, or Grim2.  The second incarnation of Troll's favorite Anti-Cryx caster.  There's really no in-between with him.  Either you love him and his playstyle, or you wish you had Grim1.  I'm in the first camp.  Every time I play Grim1, I wish I had Grim2.  Grim1 does some things much better, and probably has the best control feat in trolls that's an actual control feat, not "You can't actually hurt me, so don't come here.".  

  Some of Grim2's problem when he first came out though was that Trolls really didn't have a lot of things he wanted.  Burrowers and the Bomber was an auto include, but Scattergunners were really the only other major ranged unit that got any benefit from his feat, and even then, the snipe really only was for Grim and his cohorts.  He didn't make Bushwhackers or Sluggers much more competitive, and he really slid off to the side again til probably the last year and a half.

  When I began picking him up, I was getting drug all over the place by Cryx and needed a solution.  My problem with Grim1 is that he's very very good at two things, and has a control feat, and he can deal with stealth things very easily, and he can lower DEF like nobody's business.  The problem I had is that A) He had to get up the board to do it, and thus risk himself though the feat helped, and B) Any ARM skew whatsoever and Grim1 is in trouble.  I have seen lots of Grim1 builds that had Mulg in it, which makes sense, but since most of the time I'm running my pairing with one of the Doomshapers, Mulg is usually taken with one of them.  So, in developing this Grim2 list, let's talk about what we're covering in the list pairing.

  Until last December, I had Runes.  Runes is pretty well known, does a lot of things well.  If it wasn't Runes, it was a form of Meat Mountain, but usually Runes.  Runes murders most Hordes armies, is very good against shooty Warmachine armies, and has a great tankiness to it that makes it very difficult to root out of the zone.  What it does not like, however, is better control presence, lots and lots of infantry, and weaponmasters specifically.  

  So, Cryx basically, though Runes has enough AOEs to try and make it work, but I still found myself getting swarmed and losing key pieces easily to three or four small based models.  Menoth is hit or miss.  Cygnar is hit or miss.   Also, the mirror matchup was an issue unless it was just Runes on Runes which is horrible.  Menoth's biggest deal for me was weaponmaster spam.  None of that, then we were fine, but otherwise it was a Cryx problem kinda thing.  Haley2 also concerned me a lot because of how trivially she controls Mulg.  Time Bomb, Dead-eyed ATGM and feat.  My favorite things are simply going to get pushed around the table and frustrate me.

  In December, Doomshaper3 dropped, and my tastes have changed a bit.  Time Bomb from Haley still hurts, weaponmaster still hurts, but Mulg doesn't get knocked down anymore, or pushed around.  Druids can't pull my stuff around anymore.  I run the Mountain King and I can remove support all day.  All sorts of things.  Doomshaper3 is my guy.  The Harby matchup is now an issue though because in our meta, Paladins are a thing, and Harby Tier takes like 5 of them.  So Mulg and D3 are the only models that can deal with it.  It's a playable game, but I don't feel like I have the volume of attacks to kill Paladins under Martyrdom.

Enter the Hunters Grim.  Grim2 solves a lot of these issues.  Whereas Grim1's game gets flipped if there's armor involved, Grim2 can debuff it just fine.  Grim1 has to get way up the zone to do things, but Grim2 can hang back, make sure his stuff is in control, and then reform on top of that to a safer spot.  Secondly, the little trapper thing is pretty legit too.  As long as it's not a super high-ARM beast, or a warjack in general, Grim should be ok.  As far as warjacks go, there's not many that can get through Grim's DEF16 on 3 focus without some serious help.  Grim2 definitely stays within the Trollblood bounds of "Difficult to assassinate."

Secondly, Grim2 gets snipe out faction wide and turns the ranged game up quite a bit.  +4RAT is very common in Grim2 lists, and +6 RAT is entirely possible.  RAT10 POW16 burrowers are crazy, man.

What makes him even more playable now though, you ask.  Well, let's look at them.

Highwaymen.  Highwaymen are hit or miss for a lot of players.  Strictly playstyle preferences.  Without any help whatsoever, they are 20 RAT5 POW10 shots.  However, I think that's the wrong way to look at them.  They're actually 10 RAT7 POW12 shots, and that's extremely legit.  They threaten 14, but any caster with movement buffs or range extension helps them with that.  Grim2, I feel, is the best caster for them.  Gunnbjorn likes them too with Snipe, but that's it.  They're good with him, but Grim2 I find only needs snipe on them once and after that it's not an issue.  Between Mirage and Snipe, they can threaten 20''.  That's not bad at all.  Stack Mortality on them and now we have 20 RAT9 POW12 shots under feat.  CRA?  Ok.  10 RAT11 POW14 shots.  There's not many casters that survive that.  

Grim2's feat turn is usually turn two, maybe top of three.  At that point, I have a decision.  If they've made any mistake, I kill their caster.  If they've made no mistake, I might still kill their caster.  If the caster is straight up unkillable (Read: Hordes and lots of transfers.  I've killed Butcher3 and Denny3 both), then I kill everything else.  If Denny1 has hid way outside of my range, I kill all of her infantry.  I leave her with nothing.  Highwaymen adapt to that very easily with CRA.  I could choose to do 4 POW17s even with them, but if there's a lot of infantry on the table, 20 POW12s do a lot to remove it.  Grim2 loves these guys and they love him.

Braylen Wanderheart.

There's only a handful of casters that run her with the HWM, IMO.  Grim2 can be one of them.  Grissel2 and Calandra are the others because of how they can enable the backstrike bonus.  In Grim2's case, it's Mirage.  The Highwaymen can be placed behind things they're engaged with, or outside of melee and walk around.  However, she doesn't play into my gameplan with Grim2 very well because I usually feat going in, and that makes or breaks the game most times.  She's also 3pts of support in an already support intensive build.

One day, I want an Ocean's 11 list with Grim2 or Calandra, and she'd make that.

Dhunia Knot.

These guys are my current favorite addition.  Most of my Grim2 list has models from the last year and a half, and the Knot is no exception.  Grim2's major lynchpin in my opinion is Mortality.  Mortality is Cost 3 and boosted.  It's essentially Cost 4, and if you miss, you're done.  You've done nothing for your army ARM wise, they're down 2 RAT, and you're on 1 transfer because you upkept Mirage.  I've missed so many boosted 8s with Grim2 it's not even funny.  The Knot fixes a lot of that.  And for two more puppet masters, I can get one onto the Bomber and help him out, feel better about not boosting to hit on one of those attack rolls, and the other puppet master goes to the HWM or Rok, maybe get that crit freeze on the assault.  In fact, the odds of that crit freeze landing go up quite a bit.  

A lot of players look at the odds of an assassination and move on.  They only consider it if the chips are down.  Even then, the odds are long and they might be able to pull an attrition swing.  The Dhunia Knot does a lot to skew those odds in your favor.  My specific Grim2 list has a lot of the tools in place (I can't wait for him to be back on ADR) that enable so many assassinations, but those tools can easily make or break the rube goldberg machine that has to go down perfectly in order for it all to happen.  The Dhunia Knot makes those far more reliable with Puppet Master on 3 different models.  I faced down a double Judicator Durst list with Grim2, and won.  When I needed to remove any piece in the list, I can get a a rerollable boosted Mortality from Grim2, followed by a rerollable boosted (L&E) quake shot from Hutchuck or Krump, stacked with 3 POW16 shots off of a Glacier King who can either A) Reroll those snakeeyes to hit, or B) grab that die that rolled a 1 in a boosted damage roll that actually got a total of 11, and maybe get a four or a five now.  The odds of your army pulling through on assassination runs that rely on key components are incredible now, thanks to this unit.

Lynus and Edrea.

  The runebearer was in this list for a long time, trying to get Mortality down to a Cost 2.  Lynus and Edrea are a better answer to that I believe.  Something Grim2 lost when he upgraded incarnations was that he handed the knockdown gun off to a pyg that couldn't boost it.  Lynus helps with that quite a bit.  He can put it on the Pyg, he can put it on Grim2 and make Mortality cost 3 w/ boost, he can put it on Hutchuck for that boosted Rust, you name it.  Very adaptable model.  Again, helps the non-warcaster parts of the puzzle put their weight in reliably.  I remember playing Cygnar, and how many times the game came down to whether or not Eiryss2 landed that focus stripping shot or not.  No more.  She'll be boosted from hereon out guys.

Hutchuck.

  Also brand new, Hutchuck brings Rust to the game.  Speaking of the same game, with Hutchuck against double Judicator on Durst.  Between Mortality and Rust, I removed the Colossal from the game trivially.  Grim2 is basically my Warmachine drop against non-super shooty lists, and Hutchuck is great for that.  Quake is also a nice addition, and I like having more than one in the list.  Sometimes Grim2's pyg doesn't get there.

Glacier King.

  I'm not a super Glacier King user yet.  I think he's good, I think he does a lot for trolls, but I still prefer other things.  On Grim2 though, he's very good if you can manage his fury (Swamp Gobber Chef).  He brings a degree of Board Control that Grim2 didn't have before, and he tries to anchor the game for you a bit too in the end game.  He buffs Grim's DEF great as well, and does the same for the HWM.  He'd seem like a shoe-in, but when he came out, Denny3 was super popular in my meta and the Glacier King straight up couldn't hit her, KD her, or anything.  I went back to Bomber/Rok, and have continued to be very happy with that battlegroup.

Speaking of Rok

  I know he's not a new option but I rarely see him, much less on Grim2 and he deserves an honorable mention.  I don't play Rok through most of the game, but it's fairly common that he's able to help clear jam units out of the way on feat turn with the spray, or sometimes land the crit stationary on the caster (thanks Dhunia's Knot), but if the assassination goes downhill or we turn to the attrition game, Rok is an amazing endgame piece.  Mirage to disengage or get him further up the board, a free charge, Mortality + Primal?  He's easily the biggest bully on the board in the endgame.  Especially if everything went well on the feat turn.  

  Sure, Mulg maaaaay be better, or maybe a second Bomber.  Generally though, I hit a game where there's a crazy hard target that I really struggle to shoot off the board (A colossal usually), and Rok threatens it enough that it has to stay back.  It can't come wreak havoc or apply scenario pressure because Rok will end it.  And if things really get pear shaped, my Bomber gets primal and now he's a very capable heavy too.  

  Rok goes in all of my pairings, and usually on Grim2.  It's hard to pass up.  

  Fire Eaters

  These guys are in everyone's lists right now.  They're amazing, and under Grim2 they're no different.  They are great for Mark Target, they're fantastic for attrition games, they love mortality, they're just good all around.  They're currently not in my Grim2 list, oddly enough, but I find they don't contribute too much to the overall assassination plan.  They're almost strictly an attrition tool.  A really good one, but attrition.  It's not often a 6'' spray will reach back and touch the caster.  Still very good, still worth considering in your list.

Building Grim2 lists

There's a few playstyles for Grim2, and the plethora of new solos and units help to really define what you can do.  I think Grim2 can play a very strong attrition list, or a very strong assassination list.  My particular variant currently is a very strong assassination with a decent attrition game.  Last week it got put to the test against a full-camp Butcher2 with Gorman's cloud on him.  He was DEF16, ARM25.  Even with Mortality, the Burrowers were dice -9.  In that particular situation, I would have preferred to go attrition, and wait til Butcher rolls lower Fury or spends some of it but my opponent had successfully placed me in some strong scenario pressure so I went for it and pushed the Dhunia Knot to the limits.  Killed Butcher with 3 Dygmy rolls to go.

  I've seen Grim2 lists with Blitzer spam anchored by Dozer's Veteran leader.  I've seen lists with tons of melee infantry that just want Mortality, and the feat just kind of works for him, maybe the scats.  I've seen some minon heavy lists, and I've see some other goofy stuff too.  It really comes to your playstyle.  Right now, I want Grim2 to be fast games, turn 2 or 3, shoot the caster and pack the tray.  I'm not even counting on mistakes.  You can play your caster very safe, and I'm ok with that, I'll kill everything else.  Eventually though, unless you just feed me your whole army, the caster has to come out and play and at SPD6, RNG17 w/ Snipe, there's not many places where I can't start pinging you.

  I've had a couple of lists for Grim2 that I've really stuck with, but I've had Highwaymen in there since they came out.  The current incarnation is:

Grim2

*Rok

*Bomber

Fell Caller

Witch Doc Croc

Max Fenns w/ UA

Max Highwaymen

Max Burrowers

Dhunia Knot

  It's really simple.  Fenns usually get mirage unless I feel like the caster is going to play it safe and hide.  Then the HWM get mirage.  If the Fenns get it, they run way up and stagger so that hopefully only the front two or three get nailed.  Between Vengeance and Mirage, it's a 5'' non-linear movement that can clear some chaff.  

  Burrowers usually burrow turn 1.  Definitely if I'm going second.  Turn 2 is when I like to feat.  If there isn't much blocking LOS to the caster (a Warjack is actually best case scenario), if he's not camping a huge ton of Focus and is high ARM to begin with, and if he's not got any tricks that backfire on me, I'll go for it.  Warlocks are a bit scarier.  I do have the volume of attacks to do it though.  If a list could assassinate the Legion Twins, I think it'd be this list.  

  So, if he's hiding behind a jack, Mirage gets upkept, Burrowers come up, Vengeance triggers, Fenns do some stuff and then we negotiate Order of Activation.  Ideally, the Fenns/Fell Caller can remove what's in the way, be it a screening unit, a shieldguard, whatever.  The goal is for the Burrowers to activate after Grim and get the feat bonus.  Sometimes they can't, and they just have to go up and try to clear it themselves.  Dhunia's Knot will go on all the important pieces at the beginning of all this, and then we'll go from there.  Ideally, Grim2 goes before the burrowers and feats, lands Mortality and shoots the guy once.  Krump KDs the jack in the way if he needs to before Grim goes, but otherwise, KDs the caster hopefully.  Then everything else goes.  Bomber, Rok, Burrowers, HWM.  It's very rare that a caster survives all of that. 

  The HWM are actually some of the more key pieces in the last.  With mortality, they land a pair of POW22s on the caster and finish off a lot of things.  Fenns don't seem like they do a lot in the list, but if all they do is keep people from shooting my Highwaymen, I'm a happy camper.

  If I can't touch the caster, then I may or may not feat.  Either way, Grim2 goes early, gets Mortality on the best thing and reforms.  Fenns tangle up in the lines, and HWM/Burrowers remove infantry from the board as much as possible.  The list seems to attrition very well, and I really think a lot of it is the high volume of reliable attacks that HWM can land on mortalitied targets.

  The other thing is the Witch Doc Croc.  Haven't talked about him a lot.  He's legit.  He's there for Awe, and fearless Burrowers.  He's been very key in a lot of matchups, and since we have a Harby issue in our meta, I don't see him going anywhere.

  Possible things I may change in the list.  The Fell Caller might go away.  The only thing that reeeaaaally needs Pathfinder are the Fenns and they get it on the turn it matters anyways.  I also really like the +2 to hit, but the Fenns hitting things isn't crucial to the list.  It's very nice, mind you, but it's not make or break and if it is I have the Knot for that.  3pts to something else would be nicer, I think, and in this case, probably Lynus and Edrea.  Hutchuck is a fantastic consideration, and I'm very tempted because Rust + Mortality is crazy.  But having a free Mortality boost, or a boosted KD shot, or so many other things is really tempting.  Also, Edrea gives me another magic attack which can be nice as well. 

  Everything else in the list performs very well, and has time and again done well.  I'm pretty confident into most Warmachine matchups that I can at least make a game of it with Grim2.  I tried him with the GK for a bit, but I had a really difficult time anchoring the late game with him at MAT5 and Denny3 was very big in the meta at that point.  I could probably get away with it now, but the biggest thing that helps is the gobber chef.  Before, the GK wanted to run full, and Grim2 wanted to camp a few, and the GK can't pass frenzy checks pretty much ever.  So that was out.  With the chef, I might could make it work now, and it'd give me a few more points to play with.  I'd still have to camp 2 all the time or cut for fury but it'd be doable at that point.  Idk.  It's an option.

  Anyways, I hope that this has been an insightful view to the new Grim2 lists available and if he's a caster that you're looking at getting into, I hope this helps broach your options.  The Hunter's Grim is a very adaptable, capable caster unit that can play nearly any style of game.  The tools are all there, and Grim2 himself can contribute every turn.  It's a fun game and keeps things interesting.  Hopefully find out for yourself.  

  Enjoy the weekend!

Vayl2 (Legion) vs. Doomshaper3 (Trolls) x2.

  It's been a weird month guys, but I've got some batreps at least.  This is the first non-beta scenario I've played in a month and a half, so I can use the batreps.  The Objectives, however, are in beta, but because they held no significant factor on the game, whatsoever, I can share the game with you.  For all intents and purposes, the objectives are SR2014 objectives that do nothing.

  Still playing Doomshaper3.  I've played this legion player several times, and his current pairing is Thags1 w/Blightbringer and 2x units of Warspears w/UA, and his other list is Vayl2.  He's tried the Thags1 list into my twice now and I've beaten it both times, though they've had the opportunity to go either way.  So he's trying Vayl2 into Doomy3 again.  We burn through the first game, and reset and go again, so I've got two batreps here, same lists, same scenario.

 Vayl2
*Angelius
*Angelius
*Scythean
*Seraph
*Ravagore
*Ravagore
Succubus
Shepherd
Shepherd
Spawning Vessel

  My Doomshaper3 list is unchanged, though I forgot my Mountain King so the large black base is the proxy.  It's been a busy month.

Doomshaper3
*Mountain King
*Mulg
*Axer
Max KSB w/UA
Max Burrowers
Whelps
Whelps

  This is a Tier 3 list.  Vayl2 is playing tier as well.  My opponent wants to play Recon so we throw the terrain together, roll off and I win the roll with a Seven thanks to tier.

  Deployment is pretty simple.  I only have a few models.  Mountain King is deployed left of the objective because there's a house on the right and more room to move on the left and that's the only important thing there.  This picture is after the Axer has rushed MtK and charged, and the Burrowers have run.

     Mountain King runs.  Doomshaper puts down Implacability, rushes Mulg, dumps the rest to the stone and charges the Mountain King.  KSB pops aura and runs.  The one whelp I deployed runs up too.

  My opponent decides that he thinks he can get an Angelius into the King this turn.  So a Ravagore shoots a Burrower and kills.  The Seraph animuses and Slipstreams the Angelius up a bit and moves to my left.  The Scythean pushes the Angel up.  The other Ravagore runs.  Vayl2 activates, puts Refuge on the Angel that's been pushed, puts Admonition on the other and that's all I remember that's pertinent.  The Angelius charges the Mountain King, armor pierces at dice even (19 rounded to 20, divided in half to 10 for armor piercing, +2 ARM from tier, +2 ARM from stone), and does seven or eight damage.  Buys an attack, hits him again.  It does about 15 damage to the King, leaving four whelps on the ground.  It refuges off to my left.  The pot dudes attack themselves and spawn a stinger which runs up to my Mountain King and is just a pest in general.

    It's feat turn for sure, so the Burrowers burrow.  This is probably the most thinking for this game, is running the Burrowers first turn or burrowing.  I like them to be underground for the feat so that there's really nothing for the opponent to do.  They help to either stall an alpha, or be a pain on the post-feat turn.  In this case, that's what I want, the post-feat turn speedblock.  So they burrow.  Doomshaper moves up a little, feats, does Admonition on Mulg, casts Implacability and puts 1 on the stone.  

  Mulg walks up, murders the Stinger and goads away.  The Axer moves up, rushes the Mountain King.  The Mountain King activates, rolls 5d3 to heal (Four whelps, 1 hyper regen from Doomy3) and rolls five fives, healing 15 damage, bringing him to full.  He then assaults into the Seraph.  The admonitioned Angel wanders past me into my back arc.  It takes four fury but I remove the seraph (Missed an attack and rolled terrible damage on another, leaving him on two boxes) and have a fury left.  I killshot the pot, hit, boost damage and remove it from the board, along with the unit.  The Mountain King has consistently removed that pot from the game.  It's pretty funny.  To me.

  The stone pops aura and runs to support the King and get +2 ARM out there.

    So it's go time.  The back right Ravagore aims, puts a shot into the stone unit and kills three models, including the stone bearer who self sacs to the one survivor in the group.  The angel that admonitioned walks up and kills the bearer himself, putting the Mountain King down to ARM19.  

  Don't remember how, and refuges the other Angel I think.  It moves in, hits the Mountain King some but not a lot and backs of.  The Scythean goes all in but really does very little.  Vayl activates and manages to get Admonition back on the angel in the zone, oblits some whelps off and the Ravagore gets some too.  That's turn.  Shepherds do some fury things but yeah.

  Burrowers come up around the Angel in the zone.  Mountain King eats a whelp to get rid of fury and Doomshaper takes everything back in and upkeeps Admonition.  The stone moves first to get stuff set up and open lanes, and in my idiocy, I run the KSB UA within 6 of the Angelius, which admos out of the burrowers, so four of them lose the back arc bonus.  Very dumb move on my part.

  Doomshaper goes ahead and moves into the zone, casts Implacability, and puts Rush on Mulg I think.  Maybe.  He camps three fury though.  The scroll does the "Signs and Portents" thing for warrior models and the Burrowers shuffle over unfortunately.  Of the six of them, three hit with their POW8s and do nearly nothing, and only 1 POW14 hits, doing three or four damage.  The other burrowers shoot at the objective and leave it on seven.  The Axer charges in, boosts to hit and does seven or eight damage.  Buy an attack, hits (rolling hard 8s) and then boosts damage, leaving the Angel still kicking.  Originally Mulg was going to go into the Ravagore in the upper right, but the Angel is more important.  He moves up to the objective, hits it, finishes it, goads back to the Angel and kills it.  The Mountain King removes the Scythean with ease.   With the Objective gone and Doomshaper in the zone, I go to three CP.

  Not a lot anyone can do.  Vayl2 moves in, feat, oblits Mulg twice, does some damage, and kills whelps that spawn with her occulus. She's also just out of range of the KSB dude, so she can't get the +2 ARM gone.  She does refuge the Ravagore though.  The Ravagore charges, but is just out, failing it.  The Angel goes in on Mulg, but only does about half damage, removing his spirit.  The second Ravagore goes in on the Mountain King but at dice -5, does very little.

  Pretty simple after that.  Doomshaper pulls fury off of Mulg and the Axer while the Mountain King eats a whelp.  Mulg heals 3 with the Hyper Regen and trivially kills the Ravagore, scoring the last two CP needed to win the game.

  Thoughts on the game.

  1.  Vayl2 is a concern for me, but she straight up has no damage buff so she really struggles to kill any ARM whatsoever, so I'm pretty comfortable tanking even when the feats not up.  She does out threat me with the Seraph's animi though, and I think once he figures out how to leverage that and force me to feat on his terms, 

 2.  I've played against Vayl2 tiers before, and had a lot more trouble against them.  I think normally they have the Blackfrost Shard though, and this guy doesn't have that.  Until then, a PS17 scythean doesn't scare me too much.  

 3.  I can't believe I forgot about Admonition.  I even have that spell.

Next game.  Same lists, same Scenario.  I even win the rolloff again.  We deploy exactly the same.  First turn goes exactly the same.

    His turn is vastly different however.  Everything essentially runs to the left with an Angel, Seraph and Ravagore putting shots into the Burrowers, killing three, and one bad drift way out to left field.   When it's all said and done, everything is way back and way left trying to flank hard and the Seraph has Admonition, really the only thing in Charge range.  There's one Ravagore tucked into the building on the right, but that's it.  The Pot tries to kill enough of it's own models to spawn something, but no luck.

  I decide that I can stay out of charge range of most of the things, so the Burrowers don't burrow, but run up the left flank and tarpit .  The KSB pushes right and up into the tall grass, pops Aura.  The Axer moves left and back a little, trying to protect the extreme left flank, Rushes the Mountain King.  The Mountain king walks forward seven inches with Rush, boosts to hit the Ravagore on the right, hits and boosts damage doing seven or so.  Mulg walks up.  Nothing crazy.  Doomshaper moves to the right, puts admonition on Mulg, loads the stone a bit and camps three.

So.  Vayl2 upkeeps admonition.  Seraph aims and shoots two burrowers, one toughs, shoots it again and kills it.  Ravagore on the right charges in and does some damage.  Mountain King whelps mostly to the back because I want to heal, and I expect Vayl2 to oblit and clear them if I place them in front.  

  Vayl2 activates, shoots another burrower in the way, puts refuge on an Angel and camps.  Burrowers fail CMD.  The Angel charges in, armor pierces decently, then overtakes around and kills more whelps.  Then it refuges away behind the objective.  Mountain King is about half health.  The other Angel runs up a bit, nothing crazy, the Scythean shuffles in somewhat, trying to force Mulg to get Rush if he's going to come.  The last Ravagore puts a shot into a whelp near the King on the back side, but misses and drifts onto 3 KSB dudes and kills them.  The pot manages to kill one more guy and pops a shredder when puts spiny growth on Vayl.

    So, definitely Feat turn this time.  D3 upeeks admonition and pulls in fury.  Stones shuffle into the tall grass and pop aura.  Doomshaper moves into the zone, casts Implacability, loads another onto the stone and puts Rush on Mulg.  Then he feats.

  Mulg walks into the objective, hits with his fist, then the club and kills it.  Then he buys into the Ravagore.  He kills it in four attacks and goads back out of the way.

  The Mountain King assaults the Angel hiding behind the objective.  The assault shot misses both the Angel and Vayl.  The charge attack hits though and cranks damage.  The second initial misses.  Third attack hits, fourth attack hits and I boost damage to finish the angel.  With Killshot, I target the pot, hit needing a 5 and boost damage, killing it and removing it from the table.  Axer runs to my left and tries to block some more of the zone.  I go to 3 CP.

    There's not much he can do.  Vayl2 upkeeps admo, because why not. The Angelius gets spiny growth from the shredder.  Vayl activates, put refuge on the Angel, moves back and tries to shoot the KSB but since he's trying to camp, he can't roll the 7 he needs because of concealment.  The KSB stays.  He does Icy grip the Mountain King though.

  Seraph shoots the whelp behind the wall and tries to slipstream the Scythean but is just out.  The Angel charges in, does a little to the King but not much.  Enough to whelp once.  It then refuges into the zone behind most of the stuff.  Ravagore charges in, does next to nothing.  Scythean charges mulg, Mulg admonitions because Vayl2 didn't Purify.  Scythean instead kills Burrowers.  Shepherd runs into the zone.

  Doomshaper pulls in fury, leaves one on the Axer which frenzies and does some damage to Mulg.  Not much.  Mountain King eats a whelp to get rid of his. Stone pops aura for +1 STR.  Doomshaper charges the Angel, and the scroll bearer does the Signs and Portents thing.  Doomshaper boosts a Repudiate, hits and removes Spiny Growth.  Then he hits, crits (pointless against the Angelius) and does eight or nine damage on his own.  Casts Implacability because why not.

  Mountain king can't sweep because of Icy grip, but he only needs sixes to hit the Scythean, so he goes for it.  He kills it with 2 fury to spare, buys and boosts a hit into the Shepherd and kills it.  Mulg walks into the Angel, needing sevens to hit.  Four or five attacks later, it's done, dead, and I score the last 2 CP needed.

Thoughts on the game:

1.  This game was more one-sided than the last one.  Being able to start scoring on my feat turn means I go to 3CP, he can't clear me out, remove any key models, and I get to finish off what's in the zone next turn.  It's pretty bad for him.  Flanking hard had some benefits, but allowing me to position back and dictate when I feat was really bad.  He needs to be able to keep enough of his army alive past the feat turn to remove either Mulg or the Mountain King.  If I go first, I can't score on turn 2, but I probably have to feat because of my position on the board.  So I'll score 3 on turn 3, but the feat is down.  If he's managed not to lose his heavy hitter(s), he counterpunches bottom of 3 and removes Mulg or the Mountain King and fills the zone, which he can do very easily with Refuge.  Now I have to clear the zone with just whatever's left.  With the number of beasts Vayl2 brings with her and the ability to Refuge them back trivially, she can really manage to only feed me one a turn.  That means she feeds the Seraph and Ravagores into the machine, saving the Angels and Scythean for the counterpunch on turn 3.  None of that happened in this game.

2.  No damage buff really hurts.  I think I might see the Blackfrost in the future.  

3.  Recon is Doomshaper territory anyways.  Unlike some of the other scenarios, Recon encourages a brick, and really rewards the good brick troll lists.  Vayl2 can afford to spread out and play things like Incursion and Outflank, and Doomshaper3 really doesn't want to.  Recon though, man, I love that Scenario with Doomshaper.

So, that's the batreps.  Hopefully they're some good information with the Doomshaper3/Mountain King combo.  Feel free to comment and critique.

No DNC means Doomshaper3 every time apparently

  Our bi-weekly scrambles got skipped two weeks ago with Christmas around the corner, and was only 6 strong today for the same reason.  That being said, the 6 of us included both my Wife and I, her appearance being her first tournament.

  She took Krueger2 and Kaya1, but ended up dropping Krueger both times (We didn't need 3 rounds to establish 1st place).  She faced off against Terminus first round and was doing pretty well until she learned he could fly.  Up to that point, she was pretty confident.  Her second game was against a Thagrosh2 player that had just finished dropping Abby2 into me.  She lost that one as well.  She thinks she should have played Kaya1, for starters, but as we talked about it she realized she wasn't arcing TKs through the grove.  At all.  Ever.  So she lost them both but was pretty comfortable with what all was happening and why she lost.

  I took Doomshaper3 and Grim2.  The lists are the same as they have been for a long time.  I didn't drop Grim2, so my D3 list is:

Doomshaper3
*Mt. King
*Mulg
*Axer
Max Burrowers
Max KSB w/UA
2x Whelps

  My first game was into Legion, Abby2 as I said above.  It was a triple Scythean list anchored by Typhon, plus the pot, 2x shepherds, 2x forsaken. Scenario was destruction and I won the rolloff to go first.  I've been wanting to try D3 into Abby2, though this is a considerably different list than I'm used to with her.  No Raeks or Carniveans.

  Turn 1 I was way up the board, near the zone, burrowers running because there was no ranged threat.  He moved up very little with everything and fortified a beast.  On the second turn, Doomshaper pushed in, feated.  Burrowers burrowed.  Mulg didn't do much.  Axer rushed the King. The King assaulted the pot, killed it, and didn't have range on anything else.  The spray clipped the Fortified scythean and did some damage but nothing major.

  On the next turn, everything just ran around.  Most of her force ran to my right, and then one Scythean just moved dead center into the Mountain King and tried to block him as much as possible.

  Burrowers came up.  Several surrounded the Scythean engaging Bruce, others came up near the objective.  Doomshaper creeped around my objective, did Signs and Portents for warrior models, upkept Admonition and cast Implacability (which he had been nearly every turn). The burrowers remove the objective, and do some damage to the Carnivean though not nearly enough.  The Axer fails to finish him as well.  The King wanders around, still engaged.  He sweeps and amucks, hits a Forsaken and the Scythean, kills the forsaken, hurts the Scythean.  Boosts the killshot to hit on the other forsaken, oneshots a shredder, then finishes the Scythean, which is the picture below.  Killing both Forsaken is pretty big because I really don't want them trivially removing burrowers.  Mulg moves across to block a possible charge on Abby's feat turn.  The stone is filtered in and around Doomshaper and trying to occupy the zone as much as possible.  I score 3 CP.

  Abby goes.  She gets Conferred Rage off of one of the burrowers, feats and runs away.  Burrowers fail their terror check from her.   A scythean goes in on the Axer and removes it, leaving a whelp or two.  Typhon goes all in on the Mountain King and I go whelp crazy, spawning 2 for most of his attacks.  There's a second Scythean that can get in there and get the King, but by the time I finish whelping, there's no place to land and the king survives with six or seven boxes at ARM21.

  The Naga moves in, hits some burrowers in the corner. The other Scythean just walks in and contests the zone as well, kills another burrower or two.  They're all dead in that corner, and I have 3 beasts mostly healthy in the zone.

  On my turn, the King heals 21 boxes between the whelps and regen from D3.  He moves in, amucks, headbutts, misses Typhon, and then buys, boosts and boosts damage.  Calls it a turn.  I was hoping for a killshot spray into the Scythean in the middle of the zone that killed my axer but no go.  Burrower pass CMD but that's it.  Doomshaper moves up, boosts a hit and crit smites the Scythean back, but not enough.  He hits again, but only smites him out another half inch.  Not enough.  Scroll does free animi though.  Mulg charges across the zone, hits the Scythean there.  He damages, buys, hits, crits and moves him out of the zone.  Kills the Naga with two more hits.  Mulg buys an attack on the last Scythean in the zone, but can't finish him, so no dominating.  Mulg does do Runebreaker though because of the scroll from D3.

  Typhon goes all in on Mt. King again.  Same story.  Can't finish it, lots of whelps when we're done.  Abby goes all in on Mulg, using the tail to syphon his fury away, but this does 2 things because I choose not to admonition away.  A) It gives me a transfer target because before, Doomshaper didn't have one, and he was two inches from a Scythean, and B) it manages to spawn a few whelps for Mulg.  To recap, there's two Scytheans on either side of him.  One nearly dead on the left near D3, one on the right mostly healthy.  Both have a fury because they stood up.

  Abby tries to cast Psycho Surgery.  She can't because of Runebreaker, meaning that she cannot Teleport either.  She ends up camping five or six transfers.  The left Scythean moves in on Mulg as PS17, and tries to get him, but at dice -4, can't finish it, and Mulg whelps enough to the right to block most of the other Scythean's lanes.  When that Scythean does try to come over, Mulg admonitions away.

  On my turn, the Mt. King heals 19 boxes, amucks again, headbutts again, kills Typhon.  Boosts a hit into the nearly dead Scythean and kills it.  Mulg easily finishes the other, and that's game.

Thoughts on that one:

1.  Mt. King healed 40 boxes.  With 2 whelps per strike, it's really hard to get more than one model into the King when you have a low model count list, or no ranged attacks to clear them out.  Mulg, with Implacability, Admonition and Whelps is also very difficult to reach.

2.  Abby2 still concerns me.  She can easily force me to feat defensively.  I think she's one I normally want to go second against so that I can clear the zone bottom of 2, score 3CP, feat and clear it again bottom of 3.

Next game.

So of the six of us, obviously 3 won, but the third guy lost is second game very quickly leaving the winner to be decided amongst the 2 of us and we both had the CP for 2nd place as well.  My opponent has played against both of my lists, (He was a Kromac2 player last time), and I played the list he would drop against me last week with Grim2.  Grim2 got lucky when he beat it, and both of us wanted to know what Doomy3 would look like.

  His list was Gorten, Earthbreaker, 3x TAC, 2x Forgeguard, 2x Bokurs, Thor and the dude with coins.  Whatever his name is.  I won the rolloff and chose first.  I ended up way up the board, ran the burrowers even against the Earthbreaker.  The Earthbreaker removed 3 of them, and Gorten put a Rockwall down.

    The picture above doesn't show it, but the Forgeguard all run, and the left unit clumps together into the woods.  I really want to killshot them, and I think I can get the King in range of the Earthbreaker.  I'm going to jam the King down his throat either way and feat on it, but I want all the above.  I measure it several times, and I feel like I can charge the TAC he puts in front and engage two of them AND the Earthbreaker.  The assault I know won't get many, but the Killshot will hit most of the Forgeguard, and after that I just buy attacks on the Colossal.  What happens is that even with Rush, I only engage that one TAC, and only kill him with the assault, leaving me nobody to trigger killshot with, and I'm out of range of the Earthbreaker.  

  Really bad.

  My army does skew left though, burrowers burrow.  My next mistake is that the Earthbreaker gets +4 from Gorten (who has to sneak out from Doomy's control area to do that because of the lamentation scroll), and then I forget to remind my opponent to only roll 2 dice and not 3 damage dice for the charge.  He rolls a 6,6,5 for the charge damage, and then on the second roll I remember.  It's too late though, and at that point we couldn't remember what he'd rolled anyways.  He ends up leaving it on one box and the Bokur barely finishes him.

  Another Bokur moves up in front of Gorten, while all of the forgeguard are very careful to stay away from Mulg's threat range, the Bokur is just baaaarely in and I can goad from him.  So I do.  I boost the initial hit to be absolutely sure, kill him, then goad, buy another reach to another model. Kill that one, and then I realize that 1 for the charge, 1 for boost, 1 for goad, 1 for buy, I'm left with just one to goad into Gorten and no more to buy attacks with.  We roll it out and if I had not boosted on the Bokur, I would have hit, killed, and then had two attacks on Gorten and killed him as well.

  The next turn goes as expected.  Everything dies and the game peters out pretty badly from me thereon out.  He wins with 3 CP to my 1, and kills Doomshaper.

Thoughts:

1.  I got too greedy on the assault.  I could have even just charged, and not taken the ranged attack, but then killshotted the Forgeguard.  That would have been better.

2.  I've got to remember the dice on the feat.

3.  Goad math.  

Overall, my opponent played it tight.  There wasn't hardly anything I could look at and say he made a mistake whereas I made several.  The games I land against that particular opponent are always interesting.  He loves his dark horse casters and is exceptionally good at making them work.  Really enjoyed both games, and it's nice to be back in after the vacation and holiday.  Hey, my wife's even on the tournament scene now.

  So, Merry Christmas, hopefully you guys have had a good holiday.  My painting desk is absolutely full right now.  Kromacs 1a, 1b, 2, Nicia, Haley3, Ace, Glacier King, a Rok mod (even with the announced resculpt), a Knight Errant Seneschal... all kinds of things.  Expect to see a lot of painting come off the works here before too long.  Also, I didn't post doomshaper3, and he's right here.

  So, again, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and we'll see you again before too long.

How does one start Trollbloods? Not with the Battlebox.

EDIT:  THIS IS MARK II INFORMATION.

  It's entirely possible that you already know that, given the dates, but even if this popped up on your google search while you looked for Trollbloods, again, be well aware that this is an edition change away.  Trolls have become a different animal, and were I planning to play MK3 Warmachine, it wouldn't be Trolls anyways.  The only thing I can summarize about Trolls in MK3 in relation to this article is that PP still wants Trolls to have a crappy battlebox, and literally the only thing you want it for is Ragnor, unless you need the lights too.  I certainly wouldn't participate in a Journeyman with the box if you already know how to play the game.

  Do I plan to update this article?  Not whatsoever.  As far as I'm concerned, PrivateerPress has thrown their game out the window and has no interest in a competitively tight ruleset, and has repeatedly demonstrated that attitude.  There will be no more PP related batreps or strategy articles on this blog until that changes.

  I'll be playing something else.  

The actual article:

 I said enjoy your thanksgiving two articles ago.  This will be the third article I've released in 48hrs.  Apparently I had several just ready to go.  So, without further ado, how to get into Trollbloods according to this guy.

  The rumor is that trolls are the new cryx.  This is preposterous.  Our 3pt solos don't do what Cryx 2pt solos do or anything near it.  Our casters haven't been nerfed three times and our infantry doesn't just move through objects and models and kill two colossals a turn.

  However, of the last seven or eight players I've had buy into Warmachine my meta (I'm a PG, so generally get the early games with most of them), half of them have bought Trolls, and a couple of our regulars have picked them up too.  They're everywhere.  I thought about writing this article a few months ago when the first guy got into it, and I had to answer all these questions and I thought "Nah, the next guy will want Circle or something."  Hasn't happened yet.  So by the 4th guy, I'm going to go ahead and write this thing, and if you or a buddy is looking at trolls, hopefully this will answer some questions.

  Let me break this up for you.

1. Intro.  Cover letter.  Whatever.  The skippable part.

2. Getting started.  What you should probably buy to begin with.

3. TL:DR Start here and get these things
4. The lists you're hearing about.

INTRO TO TROLLS

  Trolls are currently fighting for first place in Hordes factions.  For a long time they took backseat to Legion and Circle, but with some recent tiers and Doomshaper3, they're really pushing into the lead and in fact, D3 is just the cherry on top.  Trolls plays as a beefy infantry faction that can do anything, be it hit hard and fast, slow and furious or shoot accurately at midrange.  Their beasts can do all of the same things too.  If you go toe-to-toe with any faction that does that one thing better, you will probably lose in most cases. Grim2 is our best shooter, but if I drop him into a Haley1 shooting list, he can't compete.  Madrak2 dudespam can struggle into Cryx dudespam and etc.

  However, Trolls are resilient faction wide, and can pretty nearly adapt to anything.  A Fennblade is a MAT6 ARM14 model w/ Reach.  Under any caster, it can be DEF14, ARM16, immune to any single elemental damage, MAT10, PS18.  That's because we have the support that can layer multiple buffs to anything.  In this case, the Fennblade is affected by Stone Scribe (Tale of Mist), the Krielstone (+2 ARM, +1 STR), the Fell Caller (+2 MAT), the Rage animus from the Mauler (+3 STR), KSB aura again (+1 STR), and the Stone Scribe again (Charge of the Trolls, +2 attack and damage to models within melee range of a warbeast).

  Most of those things can be applied to solos and casters.  A Champion Hero, Fell Caller and Kithkar all become game enders.  The support exists in trolls to do nearly anything.  It's one reason they're so good in ADR.  It doesn't take much to swap out a few modules and drastically change how a list plays, yet the support will still work for it.  

  Secondly, Trolls can play beast heavy in some cases.  We're not as proficient at it like a lot of Circle lists or Legion in general, and really, we only have one series of casters that really run beasts well, and that's Doomshaper1, 2 and 3.  Some others can do ok with it, but none of them really spin them like the Doomies can.  We don't have the fury management other factions do, and none of our casters ever get to Fury 8.  Really, most of our beast lists are just how best to deliver Mulg, Doomshaper's best friend.  How best to do that is up to you, but that's what it boils down to.  The exception to that is Elemental Evolution.

GETTING STARTED

  This is the meat of the article.  If you're looking at trolls because you saw Jay Larsen pilot EE and Runes, look below if you want to start those lists.  For people that want to play the faction of Trolls, this is for you.  

  Battlebox.  Don't.  It's two Impalers and an Axer on a caster that has 5 fury, and 0 spells for beasts.  Surefoot is nice, great, but his feat does literally nothing for you at 11pts.  Madrak1 is possibly the worst caster they could have chosen for battlebox.  I'm sure there's a reason, but it's not any fun to play.  If you want to do a journeyman, do the Doomshaper1 Mauler, Pyre, Storm box.  That one is killer.  The first battlebox has all things you'll use except the second impaler, but that's the only reason I'd get it.  The Alternate with Doomshaper1 has beasts you'll use all through your troll armys, especially if you magnetize the mauler kit.

  Casters.  Troll casters are harder to kill on average than most faction's casters, simply because of Tough, Transfers, possibly Mulg being involved, and KSB.  The top 2 hardest to kill are both Trolls, Borka1 and Madrak2.  There's a lot of fun casters in trolls, but the ones that I feel have the greatest toolboxes, resiliency and forgiveness are:

  Madrak2.  Borka1 is harder to kill, but I feel like Madrak2 answers more questions.  A typical Madrak2 list answers infantry skews, arm skews, delivers a personal threat in the form of Madrak himself, and he's easy to play forward because he's so difficult to kill.  I came from Cygnar, and a stiff breeze kills most casters.  It was really difficult to figure out how to play a caster forward and Madrak2 was the guy that did it.  My Madrak2 lists have lots of Fenns, Burrowers, some Scats to clear off lines, and Fire eaters but you can have nearly anything, as long as it's faction.  He's not a big fan of facing shooting lists, but a Warder build can deal with that.  Blood Fury makes everything weapon masters, and that's about all you'll use.  When the chips are down, Madrak can end the game, and surf to the enemy caster with Tide of Death.

  Grim2.  Or Grim1.  I get Grim1 killed, and he doesn't have a good damage buff for units.  Grim2 can provide damage buffs, accuracy buffs, movement buffs, and remove a caster from the table easy.  Trolls struggle against Cryx in general, and Grim2 deals with it pretty well.  The only lynchpin in the whole thing is Mortality, but with the new unit Dhunia's Knot coming out, he gets dialed up very well.  Grim2 drops well into warmachine in general, Cryx, Menoth specifically.  Menoth players want to drop Harbinger into Trolls, and Grim2 makes sure they can't.

  The nice thing about both of the above casters is they use a lot of the same units too, so there's that budget saver as well.  If you want monsters, play:

  Doomshaper2.  This is the guy to run your beasts if you want to play that way.  He outthreats nearly everything with he feat, runs Mulg probably the best and is generally just fun to play.  He doesn't like Cryx, or anything that can trivially remove him from the board like Caine2 and Taryn.  This creates some great threat ranges and makes it very difficult to prevent assassinations in a lot of cases.  Doomshapers all also have an affinity with Mulg where he gets to attack the last thing he attacked at the end of his activation.  Assuming that you're going for the caster kill or a colossal removal, this means Mulg will charge for 1 fury, use both initials, then buy 4 more attacks and get a free one at the end.  That's 6 PS19 +buffs attacks and 1 PS17 +buffs.  Realistically, probably 6 PS22 and 1 PS20.  If you're going to play a Doomshaper, I don't think you can do it right without Mulg.

  Beasts.  Buy a Mauler kit and magnetize it.  You'll probably use the Bomber the most, but magnetizing it like this article says it makes the decision easier.  I play the heck out of Rok too but I'm the only guy.  The lights in Trollbloods are probably more important than the heavies because of the buffs they bring.  Farstrike, Rush, and the damage buff from either the Pyre or the Slag are the biggest things.  Right now, I would say a Pyre is the biggest thing, Axer right behind him, Impaler 3rd.  If you picked Grim1 or Jarl for a caster, Impaler becomes more important.  However, the Bomber is easily one of the best shooting packages in the game.  The Pyre trivially removes the option for your caster to burn to death and provides a +2 melee damage bonus to anyone who needs it.  Also, he lights the Fire Eaters on fire.  We'll get there.  The Axer is a speed buff for beasts.  If you want to play Mulg, I'd get an axer.  Storms and Slag trolls are both really good, but I think a Pyre is the best in the meta right now.  Storm is good for shooting lists and Slag's are great Anti Cryx so both are fantastic options for ADR and I have definitely done that, but if ALL THE ABOVE isn't an option, go Pyre. All four of the elemental beasts's animi provide immunity to that type of damage as well, so Winter can give cold immunity, pyre can give fire immunity, etc.  

  The caveat to all of this is if you want to play beasts, just beasts, and beast bricks.  Then you need the Earthborn Dire Troll and Mulg.  The EBDT animus is the +2 ARM when near obstructions or walls(which you will be, thanks Janissa), and combined with the KSB aura, is +4 ARM all the time.  Mulg... is Mulg.  Mulg is a PS19 Reach beast with a mini-purification animus, loves working for Doomshaper, and any time any caster he is attached to is damaged, he walks towards what did the damage and swings at them every time they damage your caster, even if he transfers.  Three transfers on your caster?  That means Mulg is probably going to walk 12-16'', and can you take a MAT7 PS19?

  Units.  Fennblades.  Fire Eaters.  Burrowers.  Kriel Stone.  Grim2/Madrak2 both love Fennblades.  They're fast, have reach, are generally self supporting (Buy the UA), can give Pathfinder to themselves, and at PS12, do plenty of work.  Kriel Warriors are cheap now because of the plastic resculpt, but they're less forgiving than Fenns are, slower, and don't have reach unless you bring the weapon attachment.  

  Fire Eaters are the new hotness.  They're 4pts, fearless, and everything is boosted when they're on fire, courtesy of the Pyre troll.  I love these guys.  They remove their points worth from the table every game, if not double to triple that.  They kill everything they touch, and its rare my opponent is able to kill all three in a turn.  These guys can lead off the game to kill the tarpit, or come in on turn three to catch up on attrition.

  Burrowers.  Grim2, Madrak2 both love these guys.  Madrak2 can give them Blood Fury (Extra dice on damage), so now they're essentially POW8 weapon masters (4d6 on the charge), and POW14 3d6 attacks.  That's bonkers.  Grim2 likes them because they pop up on feat turn for a great Mark Target benefit (models targeting enemy models within 5'' of a friendly model get +2 to ranged attack rolls), and can take their terrible RAT4 to RAT10 (Aim + Snipe, Feat and Mortality).  They also tarpit crazy well, and it's rare that you lose any of them on the way in because of the burrow.The other great thing about them is that they have Point Blank, allowing them to use their ranged attack as a melee attack, meaning that they can get 2 attacks in melee, and Blood Fury affects both.  Again, that's a 4d6 POW8 charge followed by a 3D6 POW14.  They kill lots of things.  Warjacks, beasts, colossals, etc.

  Krielstone.  The nuts and bolts of many Troll lists.  These guys can store fury for your caster, and drop a point every turn to provide a +2 ARM aura.  You probably know that, getting into trolls, but still.  You will want them, and if you get them, get the UA too.  He gives +1 STR to everything in the aura, or he can ban continuous effects.  No fire or corrosion rolls next turn.

  Warders.  These guys came out a few books ago and went crazy.  They start at ARM17, and when one is wounded, the whole unit goes to ARM19 and gains +2STR.  Under the KSB, they are ARM21.  They are difficult to remove, are weaponmasters and base MAT7.  They do work, and are the beginning of any infantry brick list.

  The last unit to consider growing into is a good shooting unit.  Either the Highwaymen or the Scattergunners.  Scats are better in melee lists, Highwaymen are better for shooting.  Scats work well with both Madrak2 and Grim2, while Highwaymen are amazing under Grim2.  Neither is an immediate purchase, but once you get going in trolls, you'll have to decide on which one you want.  Scats are base RAT5, Highwaymen have CRA and 2 shots.  It's a tough call.  Highwaymen can be sniped though, so that's why I take them with Grim2 over Scattergunners.

Support.  Fell Caller, ASAP.  He can give +2 to any unit or model.  Mat6 Fennblades become MAT8.  MAT7 Warders become MAT9.  MAT8 Madrak2 becomes MAT10.  Or he can give pathfinder.  Or he can stand up a bunch of knocked down models.  He can also spray 8 inches at RAT6.  If you're going to play trolls, get the Fell Caller. 

  Stone Scribe.  He's better if you're getting the Highwaymen, but he can give concealment to a unit, or hero's tragedy (Enemy warrior model hits your guy, enemy gets knocked down at end of activation).  He's good, but not quite auto include like the Fell Caller.

  Janissa.  Janissa can drop a wall anywhere completely within 5". This is what hands out the ARM bonus from the Earthborn Animus.  She can also shift enemy models away from her 3''.  Situational but game winning in those situations.  She's also great for keeping casters alive.  DEF18 Madrak2, DEF20 Grim2.  Pretty difficult to remove those casters.

  Runebearer.  Auto include in a lot of lists.  Specifically Grim2 and Madrak2.  He makes your caster cast the first spell at 1 fury cheaper, and can minifeat to let himself cast one of your caster's spells.  He's absolutely required to get that Blood Fury bounced around on feat turn for Madrak2, and Mortality on Grim2 is cost 3, so cost 2 is even better.

  There's a lot of other support in trolls.  Champion Hero, Braylen, Dhunia Knot releases soon (Get that one too), etc, but the above 4 are the first I would think about.

  Minions.  Trolls don't mind minion/mercs, but we don't play them nearly as well as Skorne does, and in some cases Circle.  I owned a lot of mercs coming out of Cygnar, so I already had Nyss, Boomhowlers but I rarely play them.  Part of that is because Grim1 is our best minion caster and I don't play him very often.  The minions I do use are the Witch Doc Croc, and now Croak Raiders.

 The Witch Doc Croc (Gatorman Witch Doctor) provides tough and undead to a unit/model.  Tough is pointless unless he's putting it on minions like Nyss or Croaks.  However, Undead makes a unit fearless and this is pretty key on Burrowers and some other things.  Undead also ignores anything that triggers off of living models, so Harbinger's Awe, Kromac2's Primal Howl, and Cryx's Excarnate bomb all get ignored or mitigated by undead.  The Croaks are a good shooting unit that just released, and have gotten very popular, but I wouldn't consider them an immediate purchase.  When it comes to that point, and you really like playing the Grims or Jarl, it'll come down to them or the Nyss.

  I do own two units of Gator Posse, but I got a really good deal on them.  We already have fantastic multiwound faction infantry, but if you become a Jarl player, the Gator Posse is pretty good with him.

  Calandra is also very good with minions, but I doubt you'll see her outside of Elemental Evolution anymore.

TL:DR

  If I were starting trolls all over, and I started with a Battlebox, I would get:

Doomshaper1
Mauler
Storm
Pyre

  At 25pts, you have 13 to play with.  Get a Runebearer, KSB w/UA, Janissa, and either consider upgrading the Mauler to Mulg, or upgrading one of the light beasts to an Axer and getting another 2pt solo.  Whelps, IMO, would be best for the list, and I run them a lot but any troll 2pt solo isn't bad.  To get to 35 pts, I think Mulg is probably necessary if you want to stay with a Doomshaper.

Doomshaper
*Runebearer
*Earthborn
*Mulg
*Axer
*Pyre
Janissa
Min Krielstone w/UA

  These three or four are the base of most beast bricks.  The Earthborn animus goes on the important pieces near the front, E.G., Mulg, Axer, and then all three of them go behind Janissa's wall.  Between the EBDT animus and the KSB aura, they're +4 ARM all the time, and on the turn that the opponent wants to alpha hard with a beast, you feat and the Legion or Circle heavy takes d6 damage for every fury spent.  I've killed a lot of Legion heavies this way.  You could also drop Doomshaper2 into this list pretty easily, and either cut the Runebearer and max the KSB unit (D1 is +7 pts, D2 is +6) or change out beasts a little.  This is also the bulk of Runes of War.  All you need for the standard list is the Mauler and 4 units of Runeshapers.

  I also like Doomshaper2, and he's an easy 15$ swap with Doomshaper1.  I would personally change out the EBDT and Pyre for 2 units of Whelps and Rok.  Doomshaper2 can cycle Refuge and between the Axer and feat, yoyo Rok and Mulg quite a bit and play a Circle Orberos hit and run kind of game, saving Wild Aggression for the endgame.  Between Goad and Beserk, Rok is incredibly efficient and will kill lots of things.  He's excellent on Doomshapers period.

  After the Journeyman, I would shoot for Madrak2 and Grim2.  Probably Grim2 first since he covers what my beast oriented list above doesn't.  My 35pt Grim2 list is

  Grim2
*Rok (Magnetized Mauler kit)
*Pyre Troll
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Burrowers
Highwaymen

  If you want, don't go all the way to Rok, drop 2 pts and go to the Mauler and sub in the Chronicler instead.  This list just assassinates.  Burrowers pop up, hopefully within 5'' of what you want to shoot and Grim2 feats.  Everything you own kills everything they own.  Especially if he lands Mortality.  Rok is good for end game anchor.  He's MAT7 PS19 base.  Primal takes him to MAT9 PS21, and if Grim2 lands Mortality on the target, he's MAT11 PS23, and hopefully Grim2 lands the shot on the target and gives Rok a free charge.  Also, you can Mirage Rok for an extra 2'' threat range.

  Then I'd go for Madrak2.

Madrak2
*Pyre
*Storm/Pyre
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Fennblades w/UA
Burrowers
Fell Caller
Fell Caller (Or Runebearer.  Then you have a point left over, so you might trade one light for a Slag or Axer)

  This list can handle High ARM, attrition very well, etc.  It just doesn't want to be shot at.  If you have to get shot at, lose fenns to the shooting, not the Fire Eaters.

  After you've grown to this point, Warders, possibly double Warders should be on the list.  At that point, you're pretty set, you should know your trolls decently by now.  You should know what you want to play and how.  The three lists here will have nearly everything for the basis of most of your lists.  There's only a few solos and units after this that are fairly important, and Warders are probably at the top, and an Axer and Impaler light right in there with them.

POPULAR LISTS

  There's three right now.  First up is Runes of War.  Runes of War is a Tier IV list for Doomshaper 1 that gives 2'' of deployment zone extra, 1 point cheaper on runeshapers and a wall for every two units of runeshapers.  The list usually is:

Doomshaper1

*Mulg

*Mauler

*EBDT

*Axer

Janissa

Max KSB w/UA

Runeshapers
Runeshapers
Runeshapers
Runeshapers

  This list has lots of scenario pressure, is very hard on Hordes games in general because of Doomshaper.  It can handle decent amount of infantry because of blast damage from the Runeshapers and the ability to have no less than 3 walls on your side of the table.  The end game is usually Doomshaper winning on scenario, or a rushed Mulg landing in the opposing caster's face.  My variant of the list drops the Mauler for a Pyre troll, and 2 units of whelps.  I personally prefer throwing whelps out in charge lanes and handling fury more efficiently with them, but that's me.

  Miserable Meat Mountain is the next one.  This is just an ARM skew, plain and simple.  It has a lot of variants, and the new version has Fire Eaters in it.  The good old fashion one is:

Grissel2
*Runebearer
*Mulg
*Axer
Warders 

Warders
Champions
Krielstone max+UA
Chronicler
Fellcaller

  Everything is ARM23 on her feat turn while engaged and very difficult to kill.  On top of that, Grissel2 has Inhospitable ground, so a lot of factions like Menoth and Skorne that don't have a lot of pathfinder really struggle to even engage the list.  The list was originally designed for Jarl, but the player that really popularized the list (Chad from MuseonMinis, Chadwick on the forums) settled on Grissel2.  At this point, MMM generally refers to any Double Warder +KSB build.  Some have Long Riders, some have Champs, mine has Highwaymen and Fire Eaters.  Grissel1/Grissel2 are the usual casters, but both Madraks have been seen helming it as well.  All of them have something to contribute, but I've seen more people argue over which Grissel.  Grissel2 can do a better ARM skew and speed the whole list up, and Inhospitable Ground is great.  Grissel1 can prevent enemy charges and can speed one unit up, or give a unit an extra attack.  It's a matter of playstyle, but definitely explore both options.

 The new craziness is Elemental Evolution.  Tier 4 runs a Mountain King, but nobody does that, so at Tier 3, you get a point off of light beasts (You can only take the elemental ones) and they all get AD.   Jay Larsen runs it w/:

Calandra
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Slag Troll
*Slag Troll
*Slag Troll
*Storm Troll
*Storm Troll
*Storm Troll
*Pyre Troll
*Pyre Troll
*Pyre Troll
*Winter Troll
Krielstone max w/ UA

  Cryx hates this list and most infantry lists do too just because of the amount of shooting that goes on.  Slags routinely remove Colossals with weapon master shots so don't worry about those either.  The list is very difficult to engage because of Starcrossed from Calandra, and it's normally 11 pts higher than a regular 56pt list because of the tier benefits.  The tier allows Warders and Runeshapers, but everyone spams beasts.  My particular list removes a beast for 2 units of whelps which with annoyance, can pop my DEF to 13 which is ridiculous with Starcrossed.

IN CLOSING

  That's Trolls.  It's a fun faction.  Lots of adaptability, plenty of skews, and a pretty enjoyable faction overall with lots of character.  The Fire Eaters are a particular favorite, running around drinking beer and spewing it out in flames is awesome to me.  I have been playing trolls for two years and while I will dabble in a few other factions down the road, and have steadily updated my Cygnar, I don't think I'll ever be not playing trolls.

  I hope this intro has given you some guidance to buying into Trolls and if you have any questions, you can catch me on twitter @diceotfirstdegree, or comment on the blog.  Enjoy your holidays!