Trollkin Champions

The champions are hardened trollkin veterans, rising as the great heroes of their kriels. A tight bond links them to one another, an awareness that theirs is a greater destiny. They formalize these ties with the kulgat blood oath, learning to draw strength from their brothers and fight with seamless precision side by side. They distinguish themselves on the front line, hacking into enemies with a weapon in each hand, inflicting grievous wounds.

The mighty Trollkin warrior Skaldi Bonehammer is a champion among the champions of the bitter North, his thirst for glory and carnage an infectious tide that spreads like wildfire among the Trollkin he leads. His thirst for battle is legendary, and his relentless fighting style combines bone-cracking strength and a fearsome swiftness that leaves allies in awe and enemies broken and bleeding.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Entire unit
  • Template:Tough
  • Template:Defensive Line
  • Template:Relentless Charge
  • Template:Sanguine Bond

• Skaldi only
  • Template:Cold Immunity
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Granted (Template:Practiced Maneuvers)
  • Template:Rapid Strike
  • Tactics: Northkin - Models in his unit are considered to be Northkin models and gain Immunity: Cold.
  • Template:Tactics (Template:Overtake-alt)

Weapons

Leader & Grunts	Hand Weapon (x2) File:Sword icon.jpg  RNG   POW   P+S  1 4 12 Template:Weapon Master
Skaldi	Hammer File:Sword icon.jpg  RNG   POW   P+S  1 4 12 Template:Weapon Master

Weapon Attachment

As with most Trollblood units, they may have a Trollkin Sorcerer weapon attachment. His info has been omitted for brevity.

Theme Forces

• Trollbloods
  • Template:Band of Heroes. They gain "Optional Take Down" in this theme.
  • Template:Storm of the North. They become Northkin models and gain Immunity: Cold in this theme.
  • Template:Vengeance of Dhunia

• Other Factions
  • Minion players can also use this unit in the Vengeance of Dhunia theme.

Thoughts on Trollkin Champions

File:Skaldi.png

Skaldi Bonehammer, Command Attachment

Trollkin Champions in a nutshell

Trollkin Champions are the heavy hitters of Trollkin infantry. Hard hitting and hard to kill, Champions both wreck things on the charge and are effective brawlers (although not effective enough to truly wreck heavies).

The stand out special rule is sanguine bond, allowing you to spread damage out when any enemy manages to puncture their respectable armour. Your opponent may need to deal as much as 20 damage before even a single Troll needs to make a tough roll. More models reaching the front lines means more attacks and with weapon master and the Krielstone CA (either one) they can do a lot of hurt to all but the highest armour targets.

Champions are available in 3 of the 5 themes trolls can play in so they are naturally one of the recommended first purchases for new players.

Thoughts on the CA & WA

8 extra wounds on the Sanguine Bond, and a little more infantry killing is good. Being able to see and move through each other is handy but not essential. Skaldi has become a little bit less of an auto-include since the Vengeance of Dhunia update as the main reason to take him was Pathfinder on the charge. Overtake has a few issues with champions if you spread out too much; because hitting more enemies you will cause you to lose Defensive Line during the enemies turn. Reposition from Boomhowler2 or Jarl or Hoof it from Grissel1 or Boomhowler3 are good ways to minimise this issue. Skaldi has also picked up the champion tag which means he benefits from the Trollkin Heros retaliatory strike.

Trollkin Sorcerers can still utilise sanguine bond and the unit wide magical attack buff makes the Champions quite adept at killing stuff like Wraith Engines. The downside of the Vengeance of Dhunia CID is without granted Relentless Charge on Skaldi you end up with some models that can ignore terrain and some who cannot (though moving through each other helps prevent this being a massive issue).

Combos & Synergies

Warlocks

• Any DEF buffs make them almost unhittable.
  • Borka1 is the best for this with his Arcane Ward which has the added benefit of making them untargetable by spells, avoiding many potentially nasty debuffs.
  • Madrak1's Even Ground buffs their defence even higher, though defensive line already grants immunity to knockdown. Healing from his feat also works well with Sanguine Bond as its guaranteed to fully restore a Champion to max HP
  • Grissel2 has Deflection which makes their defense just as good vs guns.
    • Grissel2 also has Dash, which makes them faster and immune to free strikes. Potentially handy when making overtake moves or to get at juicy targets.
  • Jarl Skuld has Quicken for more speed and def against shooting, which helps deliver them tremendously.
  • Madrak3 has Defenders Ward, some shield guard beasts and spellpiercer.

Minion Warlocks (Vengeance of Dhunia only)

• Lord Azazello, The Castellan - with the Hero your opponent is getting hit back if they miss or if they hit thanks to Riposte his feat is also amazing on them.
• Helga the Conqueror - Dash and Defenders Ward is lovely for these guys.

Other Support

• Stone Scribe Chronicler - The Champions like piling in where the battle is toughest, and they can get a lot of hitting power in a small area to maximize the damage buff.
• The Krielstone with the Northkin Elder attachment gives them another speed point if you take Skali or play in Storm.
  • Combine with Jarl's Quicken and you have a P+S 12 weapon master unit that threatens 11" on the charge. Not bad!
• The Trollkin Champion Hero gives them Retaliatory Strike.
• Trollkin Sorcerers as long as they are not the initial target they can still have damage transferred to them via sanguine bond they can also help other models in the unit gain Defensive Line even if they themselves don’t get the +2 Def and no knockdown.
• Boomhowler2 or Boomhowler3 both are great support models in their own right.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Short threat range.
• Expensive and they will get shot.
• If you only want a minimum unit and have a screen, the Sons of Bragg are slightly more flexible.

Tricks & Tips

• Trollkin Sorcerers that you attach to the Champions can have damage moved to them via Sanguine Bond, but not the other way.

Other

Trivia

• Unit released way back in Primal Mk1 (2006)
• Skaldi released in Forces of Hordes: Trollbloods (2010)