It’s been a while! Life has been hectic! You can believe I was moving house, and work has been hectic, but the truth, the real truth is more reductive.

Not unlike my actual face.

So let’s get back in the driving seat! Let’s dust off and get back on the horse! Let’s …something something wagon? This week we are covering Trollbloods and Retribution of Scyrah. For Troll bloods there are easier answers, as a Troll beast brick is basically unshootable, and very good against Cygnar. So we’ll discuss some other lists with an honourable mention or two.

For Ret I’m going to discuss the subtleties of the ‘easy button’ against two stormwalls. Not that it’s a difficult matchup if you’re careful, but it bears some thought on the matter! Of course, as always, be aware of the assumptions I’ll be making about Haley’s list.



Kithkar’s Krieg

So it doesn’t take a genius to realise that Runes of War, IMO the best list in the Trollbloods Faction is a good bet here. Three Arm 22-23 warbeasts, which are also often high Def over all of the walls make a great start. Banishing ward can protect you against the few builds that include arc nodes, or a desperate Haley scenario rush. The runeshapers are Arm 15 or 17 and have 5 wounds, so the infantry removal section of the typical Cygnar army is inefficient. All of this makes for a very, very good matchup.

While we’re on theme forces, Family Reunion is also good in the Haley matchup. Once again, it’s too much beef. The Boomhowlers will easily buy you the time to get your walls of champions in the zones and you begin to negate covering fires and seriously threaten the wall. Iron flesh can make champions really difficult for the ‘wall to remove in melee as well so in typical troll fashion you can just outlast your foe. I’d be hardpressed to find someone who doesn’t like hearing that they should play Borka! He’s so much fun!

The Grand Champion of Beermachine!

So what are our other options here? Blood fury burrowers can threaten around covering fire, but they offer a perfect reason for Haley to feat when she predicts they will pop up. Most of the rest of Madrak’s army is pretty susceptible to covering fire, excepting Long Riders. So you could embark on an adventure to include burrowers, warders, and long riders enough models that can get through the covering fire as well as the burrowers to force the feat, which you shouldn’t overlap with threatening/exposing your other models too much. Swarming stormwalls with models that hit hard and can charge through/get around covering fire is very effective, especially in scenario play.

Finally Grissel1 and Grim2 can play games of damage swing against the stormwall, again with longriders and warders primarily, though gators get some honourable mention for yet more multi-wound infantry. You’ll want troll gang, calamity/mortality, rage/flaming fists, and so on. Trolls have an excellent time against Cygnar as long as you have at least one list with Arm buffing and multi-wound models, these will always be issues for Cygnar. Take care that you’re Haley list isn’t hard countered by their other list, but many Troll Cygnar drops are good against almost everything the Faction can muster.

Elven Education

The Retribution is typically quite good against both Cygnar and Menoth. They tend to be very easily murdered by Snipe-Feat-Go and bring lots of warjacks for Ossyan to destroy. Poor scenario presence is non-stormwall lists gives Rahn very good game, as well as a huge absence of stealth.

Fielded as often as all trenchers!

Snipe, Feat, Go is a good trick against all Haleys, but I think that MHSF-based Ravyn lists are leaving yourself open to more problems than the few autowins are worth, even in a worldwide meta increasingly occupied with Menoth and Cygnar. There are so cool dawnguard based lists out there that still assassinate forever and have good options if that’s not a goer. Why does the mini feat stack with the spell on possible the most high output shooting unit in the game!? Scary stuff.

Many people, as in sensible people, will have an Ossyan list that wrecks a stormwall like nobody’s business. However the two stormwall version requires some care. The gunmages can often hit he mage hunters early, as well as trampling stormwalls claiming a few little guys with pods, or buying a turn with the feat so that most of the unit can’t shoot, or at least the rest of the army can’t. You can still usually kill one stormwall, but the second becomes a very serious uphill slog.

I’ve seen a lot of good Ret players get caught off guard by the subtleties of the matchup. You want use the stormfall archers earlier than is typical to try and kill the gunmages. And pace your mage hunters so that they strike first, hang them back until you are ready to at least but the hurt on a stormwall. This can require some creative commitment to zones, but if you lose a banshee to lure a stormwall forward that’s fantastic.

Oh no! I’m in a zone! Sure hope no one charges little old me!

Not much list innovation this week. Retribution and Trollbloods are both pleasantly well-positioned against robot assault! Next week I’ll give a list for Convergence, Mercenaries and Minions each of which should have game in this matchup. Then in two weeks we will discuss the Faction which struggles most with Haley2 and any number of stormwalls in a bumper edition.

Stay Classy!

-Eoin/VP