The Ol' ball and Chain

No, not your significant others. Talking about the new battle box beast, the Troll Bouncer. Gotta be honest, I was one of the many that never paid attention to him before in MK ii, and I'm not really giving him that much of a look in MKiii except that he comes with the battlebox. He's got a ball and chain and a shield for attacks, very low POW on either weapon though. He's more of a defense guy than offense. He has the same Earth's Blessing animus as the Earth Born and he also packs shield guard to help block shots off your caster. I haven't been that impressed with him as of yet, but mainly because I have the Axer and the Impaler as more heavy hitters and the battle box games are usually over before shield guarding comes into play.

So with him being finished, I now have my entire battle box done and I can now field a fully painted and based force for the first time since playing trolls. Also decided on the slag troll for my addition to the Journeyman force and decided to get a group shot.

Battle Box Tourney

Kinda late getting this on here, but I played in a battle box tourney at the Gopher last Saturday, 7-9. No pictures sadly as we didn't have much time during the rounds and I'd rather be fighting than taking pics.

First game was against Menoth. That box is super strong. Between the Castigator getting ignite to go to P+S 18 to the revenger and it's shield to Malakus' feat, it's a pretty put together box. Ended up losing this one on time as the round ended before I could take my turn.

Game 2 was a mirror match. Ended up with a Ragnor v. Ragnor battle and I left him on 4 health. Next turn he finished me off.

Game 3 was against Khador. This one was an interesting one. He was way to willing to accept free strikes from me instead of sticking in and killing me with his heavys. This led to his caster death when he decided it was worth taking free strikes from the Axer and the bouncer to pull off an unlikely assassination.

So, finished 1-2 for the day and don't really feel like I just got beat up on. I also won best sportsman and that's always nice to be recognized as someone people like playing against.

Journeyman week 1

So. Got some action in with the new Journeyman League at the Gopher. Two games in and I'm 1-1. Here's a quick rundown since there's not much to report with these low point games.

Game 1
Ragnor
Bouncer
Axer
Impaler

vs.

Tanith
Pureblood Warpwolf
Wild Argus
Gorax Rager

So my new strategy with this box is to stand back, put pulverizer on the impaler and let him snipe from 12" away. It makes my opponent either hang back and keep taking POW 15 shots (granted only 1 per turn) or run up to engage me. Thanks to pre-measure, I don't have to step foot inside their threat range and nothing at this level can charge far enough to hurt me. Throw in Earth's sanctuary to make me DEF 16 against ranged and I'll be fine.

The circle player was fairly new and I was able to play this out really well and got her to expose her caster. Axer charging in at even dice and Tanith went down.

Preparing to take on those pesky druids

Trying my hardest to stay away from the Purebloods charge

Took everything I had, but the Wolf bites the dust

Gorax and the Argus try to eat Ragnors face. Feat turn saved me. 

Tanith exposed, Axer and bouncer go to work. 

Good, fun game and I got the win.

Game 2
vs. Khador

Kozlov
Decimator
Juggernaut

Well, I for sure have a higher model count, but those two heavy's are gonna hurt. Not to mention his caster has a spell that negates my knockdown tricks. I played out my strategy from earlier and it worked fairly well. I stayed out of his threat range and got a pretty solid hit on the Juggernaut. He then feated and ran up to engage my guys. Swings from my Axer (put 10 damage on him from one swing) and the Impaler took out the cortex and arm of the Jug. I feat. His next turn, Kozlov decided to jump in the fray and took Ragnor down to 7 health. Now I'm base to base with his caster and here's where I went stupid. Instead of just using my 6 fury to try and kill him (I was only dice-3) I decided to get cute and hex blast him to get rid of chosen ground so I could potentially knock him down. Well, 4 whiffs later and I hadn't done any damage to him and he then killed me. It was sad and totally my fault for not being smart.

Next week I'll be adding in either a swamp troll or a slag troll, I just haven't made my mind up yet.

The Lights In the Window........

......is just a crack in the sky.

Picked up my battle box (more on that in another post) and immediately started work on this guy. Ragnor Skysplitter, The Runemaster. I've used him in a few games so far and he has done excellent for me. He is a good all around caster that supports beasts and infantry well. His only major drawback is his 6 fury. It does hurt some, but if he was 7 FURY he'd almost be too good, so I understand why they did it. He has pretty decent assassination potential seeing how his hammer is STR 14 and can crit knockdown. His spell list is also pretty good. Pulverizer gives you +2 STR and beatback. Shockwave is a RNG 10 POW 14 shot that when it hits, creates a 4" AOE knockdown. Hex blast is a RNG 10 AOE 3 POW 13 that removes upkeeps and animi from a model/unit. Earth's Sanctuary lets a model become dug in, gain cover and not block line of sight. Given the fact that Earth's sanctuary is the only spell on his list that cost less than 3, I feel like you have to include a Runebearer with him. Early on he gives you FURY efficiency making things 1 less, and later in the game he can start shooting off Shockwave and Hex blast as well since he's no longer limited to one spell per game. Ragnor has a defensive feat (which seems to always anger the internetters and makes some overlook him instantly) that says any enemy damage rolls one less die. The important part there is "damage" not damage from attacks, not magic damage, just blanket damage, so things like electroleaps and other things that say they aren't considered an attack, it still protects from those since they still cause damage.   

So far I've been running him with a small battlegroup of Runebearer, Mauler, EBDT, and Axer. Filling in the rest of the holes with Fennblades with UA, a Kriel Stone and Elder, 2 units of Runeshapers (which, despite being the Rune Master, he does nothing for really) Janessa and a Fennblade Kithkar. It's been working for me so far. The combo of the Earthborn and the axer creates a catapult effect that can send the EBDT 12" on a charge. With pulverizer up and Stone strength, that's a POW 18, 12" charging troll in your face. It's fun to watch. Anyway, enough talking, here are the pretties. 

I enjoyed painting this guy up except for the scrolls on the back. They just seem out of place and I didn't really like how they fit. It's almost like they didn't know what to do with his back, so they just stuck a bunch of scrolls there. All in all I'm pretty happy with him and can't wait to start the league next week. 

A Bit of a Rocky Relationship

Finished up my Earthborn Dire troll and let me tell you this guy was an adventure.
I picked up the all metal one as part of a lot from eBay. This dude is HEAVY. It was a PITA to assemble too. The metal parts didn't mesh together right and left some horrible gaps. Here's a couple WIP shots.

Thought I had better shots of all the green stuff I used, but I can't find 'em. Basically, there is a giant gap between his right and left side torso and where the head joins to the body. Those had to be filled totally and sanded smooth. The actual painting part was rather easy. He's pretty much just an exercise in drybrushing and highlighting. Not too difficult overall.

I've been using him in game with Ragnar so far and he's worked out pretty well. His Transmute ability gives him pluses to DEF, ARM or SPD depending on the terrain he's near. With the Axer's animus he can get up to a 9 spd. That's pretty good for a lumbering troll. His fists are only one point lower than the Mauler and for that he gets shoved to the side and forgotten for some reason. He's the same price, has a great animus and can be boosted in STR to 21. He's also immune to all typed damage. I think he's a pretty good beast and plan on using him for a while, especially since the internet seems to hate him for some reason.

What a Bunch of Stoners

Here's my take on the Krielstone Bearer and Stone scribes. Next to the Dire troll Mauler, this is one of the most iconic units for trolls. You see them in lists everywhere and deservedly so. They give your army a +2 armor bump and with the UA can give it either +1 STR, make it immune to continuous effects, or remove stealth and incorporeal. The real downside is that your caster has to power the stone with fury and with some, that's pretty difficult to do. Madrak, for instance, is only a FURY 5 and it makes it really hard for him to do what he needs to do and power the stone. It's still taken in his lists, just hard to do. I don't take one in my Gunnbjorn lists, I just can't fit one in and don't really need it that much in his list.

  

You Make the Rockin' World go Round

Finally got around to painting up my trio of fat bottomed girls, the Dhunian Knot. I love these models in game. Their puppet master ability comes in real handy when you just have to have that re-roll. They can also heal and potentially stop a beast from frenzying, though I've only used those sparingly since you need to be much closer than with Puppet master. Model wise, they were a bitch to paint. All the little baubles and bits hanging off them was annoying and at times seemed over the top.