- Trolls 35 pts.
- Characters may join units of Trolls.
Updated: 20/10
- Nasty Skulkers have I3, A1 and the Surprise! special rule, giving them ASF and AP when attacking in the flank or rear.
- Forest Goblin Shamans may re-roll failed channelling rolls instead of re-roll power dice when casting.
- Brutes moved to special, Trolls moved to Rare.
Well, I did promise it would be done this week, so here it is. It contains a few bug fixes from the 8th Ed as well, with the normal 9th ed changes.
Download
I plan to finish the Empire book sometime next month as well. I've yet to finish proofreading and adding all the art and fluff blurbs, but other than that it's pretty much finished.
Are you deliberately teasing us?!: the link is to the Ravening Hordes PDF...
ReplyDeleteSorry, must have copied the wrong link (being Friday and all...)! The correct version is up now.
DeleteGonna look it over as soon as I have the chance here. :-) Not a big O&G player myself, but I'll take a look regardless.
ReplyDeleteSo, I've glanced through the O&G book (fluff not included) and at first gance I have the following comments and sugestions:
ReplyDelete-Description for "Wild-Abandon" seems to be missing in the beastiary section on Savage Orc Boar Boys OR it has become somewhat redundant with the change of Two Weapons, as it doesn't seem to distinguish from mounted and unmounted combat. I'd change the rules to not give two weapons the Parry special rule when mounted at least (in the rulebook). In case you do anything else regarding this, keep Morglum Necksnapper, Azhag and Black Orck Warbosses/Big Bosses in mind as well.
-Regarding Black Orck Warbosses and Big Bosses, I'd remove any mount options apart from Warboar and Chariot from them. First reason is to encourage people to not always go for the Black Orck as a swiss army knife option. Secondly, it fits with their more disciplined nature and fighting styles (armed to the teeth) to be focussed on their own fighting skills, instead of sitting atop some monstrous mount, letting it do the fighting. Thirdly, a little reduction in options do not exactly hurt this list much, being the most character-bloated list of all (originally and your version).
-Gore-Gruntas: My issue with this unit isn't actually the unit itself, but how silly it makes any Orc character/special character seem to coose a lesser warboar mount if the option is there... Can't really picture an Orc Warlord on a warboar being a warlord for long in an army where his boys ride past him on Gore-Gruntas... I'd like to see some "Unruly" type rule added to gore-gruntas, which makes it a valid reason as to why any halfway-sensible (by orc standards) Warboss would actually tolerate seeing some of his boys outclass him in such a fashion. Orcs are the race that defines might makes right after all...
- Wild abandon will be removed, it's not needed in 9th ed. Parry cannot be used by mounted models by default.
Delete- I would agree, but I do not want to want to limit people who already have models for this. The Mawcrusher Boss also looks a lot like a Black Orc.
- Well, it is already possible to have a shaman on a Wyvern while the Warboss might just have a normal boar. If you want to play it fluffy it might be fitting to give the Warboss a Gore-grunta too, but i'd rather not enforce. Some Orcs might just also have a favourite boar that they do not want to give up on :)
- Will fix it so Nasty Skulkers have I3, A1. I will also add the Surprise! special rule, giving them ASF and AP when attacking in the flank or rear.
- That's probably true, I can change to to allow you to re-roll channelling attempts instead. How does that sound, or do you think that is still too good? Alternatively I can allow them to re-roll the result on the miscast table.
- They have the Loner special rule instead, obnoxious should be removed.
- Forge World have a model for them. Right now, I've chosen to keep them more simply like a giant version of the Squig.
- Forge World have a model for them. As O&G is the only army that uses River Trolls, the River Troll hag really only fits in their army. At least it being similar to giants means that there is not that many new rules you need to learn, and it's really more of a Giant alternative as opposed being a completely different unit that will surprise the opponent.
- The staff is probably held in his belt of on his back when he is fighting ;)
- Have not read that one no, but he does have heavy armour and shield, making him pretty tanky for a normal Orc.
- True, but that does look it out for normal warbosses.
- Models are never in base contact with themselves, meaning they cannot attack their rider.
-Goblin Nasty Skulkers: Two base attacks just seems wrong to me tbh. This is a trait only possessed by the most veteran and dangerous of warriors. It, combined with two hand weapons, gives them too much staying power. They are supposed to be ambushers first and foremost after all. I'd suggest some other rule, such as Always Strikes First and Armour Piercing (1) when charging for example.
ReplyDelete-Forest Goblin Shaman: While I like the inclusion of a Forest Goblin Shaman, I find his Spider Venom special rule to be bordering on too good, as his Stupidity is perhaps to easily countered by a decent general nearby and/or the standard of dscipline. It is sort of a Circlet of Iron, that works for every spell cast. Even if he goees Stupid, you can easily have anotther cheap shaman to dump the power dice on. I might be wrong here admittedly, as such things are not so easy to fully see the effect of, but it is a concern at least. It also depends a little on if you tweak the magic system or not to some extent and in what manner.
-Giant Cave Squig: Missing "Obnoxious" special rule description in the beastiary. Is this something that apply to other squig units too?
-Colossal Squig: Is this something one can find a model of anywhere? :-P Some part of me thinks it needs a special rule to represent that it is basically a living Maw, able to easily take a massive bite out of anyting, wheter it is the side of a Stegadon or scooping up half a dozen Imperial State Troops in one go. While S7 is certainly justified in it's case, I think it still lacks something... Even Big Dragons and the like can have S7, but nothing has anything resebling such a mouth in the warhamer world (apart from some massive behemoth of the seas at least). Some suggestions:
S6, Mutiple Wounds (d3)?
Heroic Killing Blow?
Impact Hits (D6) instead of Stomps?
-Gaint River Troll Hag: I think I'd remove this, for several reasons. It is very similar to Giant in many ways and one such "complicated" unit from a rule perspective is enough for any list. If I counted correctly, the list has 11 Rare options, which is on the bloated side to be sure. It is also not something I expect you'd find model for. While not in the same list, it sort of undermines the stature of Throgg. Don't get me wrong. It is nothing wrong with it on it's own, but with the Giant in the list it feels a bit redundant.
-Azhag the Slaughterer: Just seems a bit odd that he has two axes and a staff, but only two hands...
-Gorfng Rotgut: Don't know if you have read the Queek Head-Taker book, but if I'm not mistaking he is featured there. From what little I recall, he was extremely tanky, to he point the Queek found himself to be outlassed.
Armour of Gork: Seems like it should be a Heavy Armour from it's description...
Collar of Zorga: Does it affect a lone Monster being ridden by a character or is the intention that the Monster wil never attack its own rider? I'm not arguing either way, just checking that this isn't an oversight.
Ok, that was it for my first browsing through the book Mathias.
The giant River troll hag had a forgeworld model. Also I like bloat, it's what makes Mathias' books so great! Although I'd say it's an inclusive approach rather than bloat ;)
DeleteThe Colossal Squig also has a Forgeworld model.
DeleteMoolnam:My point is that any army list is from a balance perspective defined from both what is included AND what it is lacking.
DeleteI seem to recall Mathias saying that the WoC Rare section was a bit bloated, but it can't hold a torch to the O&G one (not to mention the enormous list of character options etc).
My point is that with two many options in one list compared to any other lists, it becomes much harder for the player with the smaller selection list to try to guess what he might be facing and vice-versa, which is in and of itself a strategical advantage.
Anonymous:
Cool. Can't recall seeing it, but I hoped there was a model. :-)
I would want the hag kept. O&G are a race that occupy the entire world and as such, there will be a huge variety of options for an army. You won't find them all in the same Force, of course, so whether they are similar to giants or not is kind of irrelevant. A troll country Waaagh! should be very different from a badlands savage orc waaagh! Plus the hag gives you another magic caster option...
DeleteP.s. Link to the squig: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/Colossal-Squig :)
DeleteEd: The thing that makes the Hag stand out to me is that it s one of those units that IF yo bring it, your opponent will hae to spend quite a bit of time to study it's rules, since it is very rule heavy. The giant is the same, but most know how it works due to it being a feature in multiple lists etc.
DeleteAnother thing, the Hag Troll strikes me as a bit more of a norsca kind of unit than a proper greenskin. It has that "fairytale" wibe to it.
In general, to underscore what I said above regarding having a variety of options, imagine WoC, Deamons and Beastmen all in one army list... They are technically all melee armies, but if you had to play it, you'd think it was a bit hard to prepare for such a wide variety of enemy options s you were selecting your High Elf list or something similar... You'd be at quite a disadvantage even before any models were put on the table.
I did check the Colossal Squig out. Thanx though. :-)
Completely get what you are saying, and as an o&G player I understand I have a certain bias! However, the way I see the majority of players playing, most of the games will be against friends they play regularly and therefore will have a reasonable idea of the type of models in their collection. Granted, this won't always be the case though...
DeleteWhat about those players playing against Skaven? Their ruleset is quite extensive...
Granted the O&G army is one of the most varied lists out there, but the unpredictability of what comes to the table matches the unpredictability of the army itself, I think. Sometimes, as an O&G player, it doesn't matter what advantages you bring to the table, the army will work against you and you WILL lose regardless...
Animosity can be a harsh thing at times, no doubt, but then again that is why things generally cost less in terms of points too. :-)
DeleteWhen it comes to the O&G list it basicaly has every tactical thing/unit type besides some cheap flying type unit, so I dont think it is an army that suffers from much in the way of disadvantages (apart from animosity). It was already this way before the quite extensive list of new inclusions by Mathias, which causes some concern.
One thing that can be done though to keep all the options in a list is to tie some of them to certain character types and if you are making a list to play a friend, you have to state which "kind" of characters you are bringing. That would narrow down the scope of what your opponent would have to prepare for, while at the same time keep things in the list.
For example:
-In a WoC army, only characters with a certain mark would allow you to select units with the same mark.
-In a VC army, only characters of certain Bloodlines would allow you access to certain abilities and maye a few unique units.
-In a O&G army, you'd have to have a bBlack Orc character to select Black Orcs, a Nigtt Goblin Characer to select all manner of night goblins etc etc.
This is just an example, but it could serve to "reign in" the armies with a much wider specter of choises than others, to balance it out a bit, while still allowing for more variation overall.
From a competitive standpoint I'd agree, but these rules are better suited for flavourful play with friends.
DeleteI know that's a controversial point of view, but it's pretty much the reason I switched over from 9th age.
Perhaps limitations like that, although I can see the benefit, could be house-ruled?
DeleteBtw, it's more than animosity that can mess up your O&G army; fanatics spinning back through your own ranks being just one other example. Pump wagons can fall apart on the first turn, doom divers can misfire into the back of your own units, squigs can go chomping through friendly models, you can net your own units, etc etc. But, that's all part of the fun, and also why you rarely see very successful competitive greenskin army lists. Competitive lists tend to be predictable as the majority of the above will be left out.
Personally I find it better to aim for more balance initially, then you can houserule things and try things out as you wish amongst friends on the side. It was a major part of why I didn't go for Age of Sigmar for example. But people are different and I understand that. :-)
DeleteThe Great Cave Squig doesn't need the obnoxious rule as that rule doesn't let characters join the unit, while the great cave squig is only used as a mount for a character - it would actually be a conflict to have the rule.
DeleteInteresting thoughts re: nasty skulkers though. I suggested AP when the 8th version was released but having it (and ASF) on a charge makes more sense I think. And as they have two hand weapons, 2 A is probably overkill, particularly as supporting attacks are now back. I have noticed that they gave I2 in the bestiary and I3 in the army list. I hope I3 is the correct stat as I think (and want) it to be more fitting...
Balance - schmalance! I'm creating a cheap flying type unit as we speak! Then the list will be complete! :-D
DeleteOh. I think i just saw obnoxious listed under Great Cave Squig (ifI remember correctly), but I didn't see any description of it or a page reference.
DeleteNasty Skulkers should definately be I 3 (at least)... :-)
Winged Squigs Squadron? :-P
The bestiary entry for Grom implies the chariot is an optional mount. However, the army list does not give that option. Should it? In addition, if taken as an infantry option, he could upgrade a unit of gobbos to Groms Goblin Guard (the RoR from 1st/2nd ed) like Grimgor and the immortals?
ReplyDeleteThe bestiary entry is the same as the official book, but I can clarify it by making Grom troop type chariot instead, since the mounts are not destroyed now.
Deletedded some posts under the last rulebook entry Mathias. Don't know how easy it is fo you to catch that kind of stuff.
ReplyDeleteAh, found them! Thanks for letting me know.
DeleteHow long till the empire book, can't wait :)
ReplyDeleteI expect it to be out around the end of this month :)
DeleteLooking forward to it Mathias. I'm not an empire player myself, but it is in many ways an army list that serves well as a"baseline" when it comes to balancing rules etc. :-)
DeleteTrolls are in the rare section of the unit reference at the end instead of the special section.
ReplyDeleteFixed, Brutes moved to special, Trolls moved to Rare.
DeleteHave you looked at the new(ish) Warpgnaw Verminlord model from Forge World?
ReplyDeleteIs that not just the old Exalted Verminlord?
DeleteNo it isn't. I looked at the rules and it was definitely distinct from the other Verminlord variants; it was not a stronger 'vanilla' Verminlord at all.
DeleteTrolls back to rare?! Boo! Still at 40 point instead of 35?! Boo! (why can't you please everyone, eh?)
ReplyDeleteJokes aside, with the size matters rule - it suggests that you could not use a Hero character to lead a troll unit as they "may only join a unit of the same type". Should that be the case?
The bestiary says " Only by barking commands himself, or by tasking a Big Boss to lead the Troll pack, can a greenskin commander come close to relying on the hulking creatures" which implies you should be allowed to recruit a character to lead the unit (which was always common with trolls).
Not to create even more work for you, of course...
Crap, I forgot to fix the points for them... I will fix this later today, along with allowing Orcs to join Trolls.
DeleteI'll go through the book comprehensively later but there are a few things that I have noticed. Stupidity for a wizard is a HUGE issue - if a character in a unit is stupid and fails their test, then the whole unit can’t move or shoot. Given the types of unit forest goblin shamans are likely to be in this is catastrophic. I like the concept of them being delirious, but the stupidity solution is too blunt a tool. They need their own rule – maybe something off a D6 table, but critically it shouldn’t affect the unit they are with. You have also stated they are immune to poison in the description but not given Immunity (poison) in the rules.
ReplyDeleteGoblin chariot carry short bows – that is missing from the equipment. You can also give them extra wolves and crew – (could combine these two to a BIG chariot) which would give +1W to the chariot as well as an additional attack from a goblin and one from a wolf. Would mean that 75x100 is an accepted chariot base size too.
The goblin chariots run in units but you’ve not enabled them to take command?
- I'm aware of that, which is why I have tried to balance it out by giving them a strong magic boost instead. So Forest Goblin Shamans are rather high risk/high reward wizards. Will add poison immunity.
Delete- Will add bows. The extra wolf is due to some older model that had 3 wolves, it just adds an additional attack, overly complicated adding another profile for a bigger wolf chariot.
- That's because the model does not have it, and the chariots have only been allowed to be run in chariots in the last edition or so, same as Tiranoc chariots.
I am not sure retooling a channel die offsets stupidity. assuming a 6 turn game. that means 12 channelling attempts, of which half will benefit from a reroll, and half will be successful. So a forest goblin shaman will generate 3 more power or dispel dice per game (which they may not need). for that I have to take 6 stupidity tests which on average a normal shaman will fail and a lord will just pass without the presence of a nearby lord. If I fail then I can't cast ANYTHING, nor can my bunker unit move to where would be helpful / in range / out of trouble etc, or can shoot with the bows that are the most common armament to a bunker unit. It is the impact on the UNIT that is so crippling with the rules as they stand. I stand by my comment that a special Forest goblins shaman befuddlement table would be fairer.
ReplyDeleteI have one of those 3 wolf chariots - awesome - even if it is just another attack
I've just a question regarding Brutes.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that it is an infantry unit and (don't remember where I found this information) miniatures have to be on 40*40 mm bases.
Shouldn't it be 40*40mm bases and monstruous infantry or 25*25mm bases and regular infantry ??
If not, it is a big drawback as brutes have a big base (so each brute will face 2 regular ennemies). Moreover they need to have 5 miniatures ranks to get a bonus and they can make only one support attack for the second rank.
If this is correct, aren't they a bit pricy (26 pts per model) ?