

This week we’re going to look at the other caster in my two list pairing, Grissel 2. I have long considered her the best caster in Trolls and I think you should give her a try. Before we start though, consider this, she doesn’t have a gun. We play the game and we often use phrases like “Rate of Fire 3, gun”, but look at her model, do you see a gun there? Grissel is a Fell Caller Warlock and when she, shoots her gun, she is actually shouting really, really loud. I mean loud enough to knock over a large heavy warjack or maybe literally kill your opponents caster, which when you play her, happens a lot. Hell she can even shout in such a way that the ground is dangerous to walk upon for a turn. Basically she’s like one of the X-Men or God from Dogma (Played by Alanis Morisette), none of which is important to how she plays on the table, but still, it’s cool.

The Gun Show

So now that I’ve told you it’s not a gun we’re going to spend the rest of the article referring to it as a RoF (Rate of Fire) 3 gun, because it’s a game term we all understand, ok? The gun is without a doubt the main reason you want to play this lady. The truth is that it’s one of the best guns in the game alongside Rask and Kaelyssa. All three guns bring great utility to the game, with their multiple shot-type, the main difference here being that Grissel can fire hers three times each turn without spending a single focus. The gun essentially means that anytime your opponent is within 19 inches of your caster you can kill them if you still have a beast with snipe alive.

This gun means that Grissel keeps her opposing caster “honest”. Any of you that ever played a melee only Troll list in Mk2 probably ran into a frustrating situation more than once. You would be playing against an extremely squishy power caster like Harbinger, pSkarre1 or eHaley and your opponent would be able to spend all their focus every single turn and you wouldn’t be able to punish them for it. Hell, I’ve played games where Harby has been able to sit on one health with zero camp and still be safe, because I couldn’t threaten her with an all melee force. These are obviously extreme examples, but the problem they point to is very true. Even with lists that feature a few guns, the ability to threaten the opponent’s caster with spells or guns (Shouts) is a fundamental aspect of the game. It means that your opponent is able to cast less spells, score less control points and do less “Work” altogether. We have other casters that can threaten and keep an enemy honest: Both Grims, Both Madraks, Gunnbjorn, Jarl, but no caster does it on their own like Grissel2 and that’s pretty much all down to a ROF 3 shot boostable gun.

One of the other major benefits of this gun is the flexibility. She can run a beast brick and still deal with 20-30 troops and this is a huge benefit. Whether it’s throwing out AoEs to block charge paths or spraying down incorporeal or stealthed models Grissel has repeatedly shown a flexibility which makes her fairly unique. She is fine playing into both troop and heavy spam, which is especially important given what Khador and Retribution are doing currently. The flexibility also extends to playstyle. The list does really provide a triple threat winning by Assassination, Attrition and Scenario.

Standard Book of Spells

So we’ve gushed about that gun and it really is fabulous, but some of you may have noted we haven’t even mentioned the spells on her card yet and that’s true. The funny is as well that they are great.

Life without Order

Discord allows you to play a control style and stop charges. This can useful when you’re trying to deal with 20-30 troops and you’re struggling to deal with them all in one turn. A timely Discord can shut your opponent down and there isn’t much infantry that can kill a Troll light beast without charging. The best thing about this spell is that you can start with it already out in the Power of Dhunia theme. Recently I’ve been placing it on my Axer, but if you ran a Bouncer with this spell on the guy could easily withstand non charging cavalry attacks. It’s also interesting to note that deafen has a similar effect and so you have the ability to slow units on the advance if you have a Mountain king in the list as well. The main issue of course is that it’s hard to hit and not kill unit leaders with a POW 16 spray even when you don’t boost, though rerolling damage to get a lower result with Puppet Master can be a handy trick for this. The only catch here to note is that a good player will often try and kill their own unit leaders to promote a new one outside of Discord Range (or that isn’t deafened) Usually I’m happy for my opponent to waste activations trying to kill their own models. Especially when the newly promoted guy won’t get to make attacks and the rest of the unit in range of Discord still won’t be able to receive orders so still can’t charge. Keep it in mind though that you never want to just catch the leader of a unit.

Ludicrous Speed

Remember when Dash was one of the main reasons you took Grissel2? In Mark 2 this spell made Warders speed five and that was apparently all us Troll players needed to terrorize the Meta (Not strictly true, the feat helped a lot) Times change and I am personally of the opinion that dash is kind of a trap nowadays. This might seem strange, because I still use it, but it works a lot like my Axer if I’m honest. The threat of what it can do is often more important that what it does.

Let me explain: In an age of pre-measuring, it’s super common to ask your opponent what their threat ranges are. By simply having dash on my card I can tell my opponent that I can walk seven and shoot twelve inches (with Far strike) This makes a canny opponent play safer and offers you a form of board control. The best thing about this is that if they don’t ask you your threat range and they don’t respect her 19 inch threat she can absolutely cast dash, walk up and shoot down a caster. It also allows Grissel to disengage herself when in trouble. This is most times useful when an opponent over extends, but tries to jam you. We already spoke about Grissel being an excellent late game assassination threat and she absolutely can use Dash to enable this. Whether you need the extra speed of just want to avoid a nasty free strike it’s a great situational spell. In regards to my earlier comment about the Axer, I want to point out that by being in the list my Mountain King suddenly threatens 20 on a spray and 12 in melee. Even if it’s unlikely I’ll ever send him that deep, my opponent has to respect that I can. The same holds true for the Bomber that can now threaten 19 inches. Increasing your maximum threat range will force your opponent to play safer even if you never use it.

So we’ve been speaking about Dash on our caster and some of you might be wondering why I haven’t even mentioned it on troops yet. Dash is a fantastic spell for ensuring your infantry army gets the alpha strike, but you have to realise that just because a caster has a spell on their card doesn’t mean you have to utilize or build for it. Interestingly the one list I built that did try and utilize dash to its maximum potential was awful. I wanted to run max Highwaymen with Braylen and imagined they would ignore free strikes and walk into the back arcs of high arm troops to shoot with the backstab bonus. The fact is that none of it worked. Highwaymen are too large based and things needs to be in Braylen’s control range and while it’s possible it felt super ineffective. This is especially galling, because highwaymen on paper seem so amazing with Grissel2.

Storm trooper Accuracy

Before we get going on this one a quick Star Wars tangent, I reckon that Obi Wan has Deflection on his spell list. Storm troopers are described as accurate throughout the films and are actually pretty good in all other films. They only appear utterly useless during the Death Star escape in Episode 4. Clearly Obi Wan is casting deflection and once he joins the force and stops casting it, Storm troopers return to normal.

Deflection being added to Grissel’s card was one of the most exciting changes for Mk3. At least it was until I remembered that we’re trolls and Def 14 isn’t amazing. The obvious synergy, we’ve already mentioned is that Def 15 Highwaymen are pretty respectable. Def 17 Highwaymen with a Stone Scribe Chronicler start to become a pain to shift. You can also do some cool stuff with our Dig In units. I used to run min Burrowers and a Unit of Runeshapers before I changed into theme and basically Def 19 Burrowers that are immune to blast damage are one of the best uses I found for them. They act as an old fashioned tar pit that does very little offensively, but almost always required more points to kill than they are worth. They also had the added benefit of having POW 14 guns that do work against knocked down targets, which is nice especially when Grissel has a knockdown gun.

Deflection though is basically another trap. It’s fine to cast when you have nothing in range for Grissel’s gun, but you shouldn’t be concerned if your list doesn’t utilize it at all. I actually find I cast this spell the least on my card at the moment. It’s often a matter of opportunity cost. Is slightly higher defence really worth losing the work she can do with her gun? That said I imagine I’ll relook at this with every new theme. Def 15 Fire Eaters will be a pain and all the Pyg units are Def 13 as well and I imagine we’ll have an artillery based theme with the Battle Engine, Pygs, and Sluggers etc. in the near future.

Feat

The feat might seem underwhelming at first. I’ve seen lamentations about how Trolls feats are often just two basic abilities together and this is definitely the poster child for that. The beauty is that it buys you another turn. It allows models to move up shoot and then get outside of charge range and it definitely makes people reconsider sending models in on your Mountain King. When you play a control style caster this is often all you need. Interestingly as well it works just like a control feat in the fact that the longer you can hold off from using it the better you’ll be. Often I’ll take most of my activations pre Grissel and see what I can kill and then only feat if I’m worried I didn’t kill enough. Your mileage will vary though.

Conclusion

What I’ve tried to convey is that Grissel is a jack of all trades caster. I don’t think you can build a list that utilizes her entire kit to its maximum and I feel you need to play to one of her strengths. There is nothing wrong with building for dash, but understand she won’t be as effective with her gun. The same goes for Deflection.

Lists

I’ve had a lot of success playing her pre theme with maligned units like Burrowers. This was actually Andy Garrard’s WTC 2016 List which I played when I was first learning the caster. I do advise copying other people’s lists when first trying to learn a new caster, because it certainly taught me a lot about what worked.

Pre PoD List:

Grissel2

– Mountain king

– Bomber

Min Burrowers

Min Stone + UA

Runeshapers

Dhunian Knot

Min Warders

Swamp Gobber Chef

Janissa

By the time PoD had come out I’d changed the list quite a bit and it’s interesting to see how it had evolved over time. Bushwackers were a unit that always seemed underwhelming, but they proved excellent on the table. I’m extremely excited for them to be included in a future them.

Grissel 2

– Mountain King

– Bomber

– Axer

Max Bushwackers + UA

Min Stone + UA

Dhunian Knot

Swamp Gobber Chef

Swamp Gobber Chef

So PoD came out and I started experimenting with Grissel as a beast brick. The Swamp troll had been a model I’d championed for a while and it was a step into the unknown to start running one in a list with no obvious synergy. Previously I’d only run him with Calandra and Grim2, which both obviously synergize really well and it gave me the confidence to consider him for any caster moving forward. I still love this list and feel I might come back to it, but concerns about the way the Meta is moving have meant I’ve started looking to change.

Grissel 2 (Power of Dhunia)

– Mountain King

– Bomber

– Axer

– Storm Troll

– Swamp Troll

Min Stone + UA

Dhunian Knot

Janissa

Whelps (free)

Shaman (free)

Shaman (free)

So now I’m looking at new options. I think I’m staying with Grissel, but I think the new list will be in the Band of Heroes and that is the focus of next week’s article.