In this article I want to talk about balancing the support in your lists. My hope is that you will gain a better understanding of how to choose which support models/units to bring to ensure your battle plan can work. Most of us know, by now, that Trollbloods are a faction that thrives on synergy. The number of models that provide support to the army in some fashion are huge. Uniquely, Trollbloods have a problem when it comes to support. Many of our support models can also mix it up in the battle, blurring the lines of what are purely support pieces. Most people don't forget that a Fell Caller Hero is a weapon master with two attacks, but they don't want to commit him to a fight and lose him. He also has a really decent spray that can be used throughout the battle. The Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes have really pathetic attack stats, but in a list with a Fell Caller Hero under the command of eMadrak, they become MAT 7 P+S 12 weapon masters. Heck, even Janissa Stonetide has armor piercing on her melee attack. This makes the question of how many points of support we bring extremely difficult because every support model, except for the Trollkin Runebearer I would say, adds a fighting body to the army.
Balancing Your List
In the Pokemon Card game there is a general rule for beginners that says your deck should be comprised of:- 10-25 Energy cards to support the types of Pokemon in your deck
- 10-20 Pokemon
- 50% Should be Basic Pokemon
- 30% should be Stage 1
- 20% should be Stage 2
- Your Pokemon should have attacks and abilities that synergize well together
- The rest of your deck should be Trainers/Supporters
- Use Trainers that reduce/remove damage from your Pokemon
- Use Supporters that let you search your deck for important cards
Unfortunately, there is not a nice little equation that you can use to plan your list in Warmachine/Hordes. You might try, but there are so many variables you have to consider and match ups to prep for. I took a poll over the past week to see if people thought there was a "magic number" for how many points should be dedicated to a 50 point Trollblood list. The results were:
In a 50 point Trollblood army, how many points should go towards support?
| Points | Votes |
| 5 or under | 2 (7%) |
| 5 – 10 | 17 (65%) |
| 10 – 15 | 6 (23%) |
| 15+ | 1 (3%) |
Total number of votes: 26
The majority of people think that 5-10 points (or 10-20%) or your 50 point army should be support models/units. This seems reasonable at first glance but lets take a look at the support staff and see why it is difficult to commit to this 5-10 point bench mark.
I know that it will skew the discussion a bit but I am not going to include the Minions support that Trollbloods can take but you should understand that they account for another 15+ points of possible support for your list. I also understand that some people may consider the Fennblade Kithkar, Trollkin Champ Hero and Horthol to be support models because of their interaction with the Fennblade, Champions, and Longriders (respectively) units. I am leaving them out of the conversation as well because they are typically included in modules involving those units or as combat solos.
We visited most of these models in my Where to Begin? Breaking Into the Faction article, so some of this will be refresher.
Fell Caller Hero
Point Cost: 3
FA: 2
Support:
- He can give Pathfinder to a friendly Faction warrior model/unit
- He can increase the MAT of a friendly Faction warrior model/unit by 2
- He can make all knocked down friendly Faction models in his CMD immediately stand up
Janissa Stonetide
Point Cost: 3
FA: C
Support:
- She can place a wall template completely within 5" of her
- She can push all enemy models within 3" of her directly towards a table edge (may or may not be considered support)
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Point Cost: 2
FA: 1
Support:
- Can give a friendly Faction unit Concealment and Feign Death
- Can give a friendly Faction unit +2 to melee attack and damage rolls against models in the melee range of friendly faction warbeasts.
- Can knock down any warrior model who kills a member of a friendly Faction unit with a melee attack.
Troll Whelps
Point Cost: 2 (for 5 whelps)
FA: 3
Support:
- Can heal a warbeast within 1" d3 HP (removing the whelp from play)
- Living enemy models within 1" of this model suffer -1 to attack rolls
- Can remove fury from a friendly Faction warbeast within 1" of a whelp (removing the whelp from play)
Trollkin Sorcerer
Point Cost: 1
FA: 2
Support:
- Remove enemy upkeep spells from it's client unit
- Enemy models that begin their activation in this model's command range lose eyeless sight, flight, and pathfinder during their activations
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes + Stone Scribe Elder
Point Cost: 3 Leader and 3 Grunts/4 Leader and 5 Grunts + 1 Stone Scribe Elder UA
FA: 1
Support:
- Protective bubble that gives +2 ARM for friendly Faction models inside
- Grants immunity to continuous effects to anyone effected by Protective Aura
- Grants +1 STR to anyone effected by Protective Aura
Trollkin Runebearer
Point Cost: 2
FA: 1
Support:
- Reduce the cost of one of your warlock's spells by one this turn
- Once per game cast a 3 fury or less cost spell
Analysis
As you can see, if you tried to shove the maximum amount of each support piece you would be sitting at 26 points, which doesn't leave a sufficient amount of your army to actually fight with. Cutting the FA's down to 1 you are still sitting at 17-18 points depending on min or max Krielstone unit. Even this isn't reasonable or necessary. Because of the nature of the game and the likelihood that you will have to face certain opponents your support choices narrow.
Looking at our options we have to look at each piece and ask the question, "Does this model help me execute my plan or prevent my opponent from executing theirs?"
In the case of the Trollkin Runebearer and Krielstone Bearer and Stones Scribes + Stone Scribe Elder the answer is almost always "Yes." Every one of our warlocks can benefit from a little fury help from reducing the point cost of even a single spell by one fury. This will give one more fury to put into the Krielstone or even camp for transferring.
The Krielstone unit is, luckily, an amazing and cheap investment for any list. Whether you bring a min unit or max unit I think we would unanimously agree that the Krielstone unit is better with the Stone Scribe Elder.
Janissa Stonetide is a character model and so she can only be in one of your lists in a character restricted format. So, one of your lists doesn't have to worry about accounting for her points because she can't be there. There are certain lists that people would agree that she NEEDS to be included. Any of the Doomshaper lists or Calandra probably really need Janissa to increase their survivability. However, there are plenty of lists that really do not need her. eMadrak most likely doesn't need her because Grim Salvation provides an interest defense mechanism. This makes a multi-list format great because you can work around the character restriction through strong pairing. Just don't try to pair Doomshaper and Calandra unless you find some way to keep them alive without Janissa.
If you aren't running a bunch of beasts then you probably don't need whelps in the list.
If you don't think you are going to be running into enemy upkeep spells then the Trollkin Sorcerer may not be necessary, even if he only costs 1 point (back to this in a minute).
What you have left is Fell Caller Hero and Stone Scribe Chronicler. These two are semi-situational. I say that because they provide support for different plans. The Fell Caller provides an unconditional +2 MAT. This is great if you are trying to make low/average MAT troops able to hit average/above average DEF. As kind of a general rule I always say that if a model/unit has a base MAT of 7 or higher I don't need a Fell Caller (unless specifically planning to fight a lot of Circle beasts or other DEF 15+ stuff where blasts alone won't handle it). I really like, because I play against Circle a lot, to use a Fell Caller to make high MAT troops even higher. A lot of people say it is "overkill", but if I don't hit anything that sounds more like "underkill" (Cheesy, I know. True none the less.).
The Stone Scribe Chronicler is an oddity to me. He grants concealment and Feign Death. DEF 14 is just as easy to hit in most cases as DEF 12 so I think of the concealment as "whatever." This guy makes his money through Feign Death. I don't know how many times I have Fennblades with Tale of the Mists on them that pass their tough checks and because of Feign Death actually make it to my next turn. Well, it has been enough times that I look at the Stone Scribe Chronicler and REALLY want to put him in the list. It doesn't stop their, though. Heroes Tragedy is another money maker because if I send a mass of 1 hp infantry into front lines and they die, as 1 hp infantry tend to do, knocking down the enemy troops can make my counter attack much more effective. I really like the Stone Scribe Chronicler in lists with lots of 1 hp infantry. Putting Tale of the Mists or Heroes Tragedy on Warders or Champs doesn't really have the same effect because there is a decent chance that they won't even have to make a tough check during the turn it is on them. Charge of the Trolls is great when it happens but, in my opinion, if it is a main part of your plan your opponent is just going to kill all of your beasts and that plan is going to fail.
More often than not I find that if I have a Fell Caller Hero I don't need a Stone Scribe Chronicler or vice versa.
The Numbers
Looking at what we have here we can look at the support package for any list like this:
- Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes 3 - Leader and 3 Grunts/4 - Leader and 5 Grunts + Stone Scribe Elder 1 (4/5)
- Trollkin Runebearer (2)
- Fell Caller Hero (3) or Stone Scribe Chronicler (2)
This gives us a nice, tidy, 10 point package to play with. I believe this is where the majority of the voters who participated in the poll were thinking. However when you add Janissa to the list she needs to be in we are sitting at 13 points of support and if that list is, say, an eDoomshaper super beasty list with whelps we are now sitting at 15. 10-15 was the second highest vote in the poll and maybe these additions were what those people were thinking about.
I hope this article has given you some ideas about how to look at the support package for your army and how to balance the support you bring. We unfortunately can't always bring all that we want so we have to choose the most effective models for the plan we want to execute. I know we crunched a lot of really simple numbers in this article but this becomes a big part of balancing and finishing out a list. It is way too easy to nickel and dime your way to half of your list going toward things that are great but don't drive your list towards executing your plan. On that note. One of the most difficult things to do in any list is "Fill that last one point." Currently there are only three options for Trollbloods and they are all Minions. With the release of the Trollkin Sorcerer, we will have a great in Faction option for 1 point that can potentially fit into any list. Even if you don't plan on facing enemy upkeep spells you will still have "another fighting model" with a nice ranged magic attack.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. As with all Kith, Kriel, and Kin articles this is not meant to be the end of the discussion but, rather, the beginning.
~IAmSweeps
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