Beware Troll King Throgg and his bilious cohort - they don't mix well with shiny High Elven armour ! Something else came out of last weekend's battle... I think I may have discovered the perfect High Elven unit and I'm not talking about Swordmasters or White Lions !
My High Elves did not take any porcelain toilets or large buckets into battle and so were not well prepared for the Troll King's rampage. He literally puked his way to victory along with 5 of his buddies suffering from extreme "gut rot". I can only assume that late night doner kebabs and 10 pints were the order of the day on the evening before the battle.
The High Elves made a decent start by taking out all of the enemy's vanguard units (warhounds, and 2 marauder horsemen) with some ease, although it resulted in a mistake... one of the Marauder units was bait ! (at least that's the way it turned out). Here's what happened...
The Dragon Princes dispatched one mounted marauder unit to find themselves a bit too close for comfort to a unit of 6 trolls including king Throgg himself. It should be said that the Trolls needed to charge 10 inches so it wasn't a foregone conclusion but once they rolled the 10 they needed death proceeded on a mega scale.
The Trolls dispatched the Dragon Princes in 2 combat rounds and even survived (what turned out to be an illegal) charge in the rear by a White Lion chariot (which rolled 1 impact hit !). I don't think the chaiort caused even 1 wound on the trolls. Once the trolls had finished puking their way to victory against those two units they moved on my back line which consisted of 15 Swordmasters protecting 2 repeaters and 2 units of archers and Teclis (who wisely decided to start moving out of the way). The rest of my force had moved slightly forward to take the incoming charges from marauders and warriors.
The Swordmasters were my only hope for my back line. They fought bravely and caused a few wounds but Throgg kept rolling high for his copious vomit attack and they were literally dissolved to death by stomach acid.
The archers were next and then the repeater, obviously none of them managed to do much damage to the Trolls. Teclis, who was now well out of the way, managed to cause a few wounds with his Lore of Fire spells but there were still about 3 trolls when they met up with my final unit of archers who valiantly caused a wound before being puked to death.
It was one heck of a Troll show. They had taken out 5 Dragon Princes, a Lion Chariot, 15 swordmasters, 2 repeaters and 2 units of archers single handedly by using nothing other than vomit attacks ! Only the Swordmasters and Teclis had managed to fell any of the bloated monsters.
My back line had been destroyed and the game was only heading in one direction - total annihilation !
Things looked completely different however in the center of the battle ground where White Lions and Phoenix Guard fought valiantly on and were cutting large swathes through the marauders and cutting down far more Chaos warriors than I thought they would be capable of. The High Elves magic had been severely curtailed by the loss of a wizard that, due to a miscast was now a level 0 non-spelllcaster and the loss of the Banner of Sorcery (carried by the Dragon Princes) which had granted the elves an extra +d3 power dice.
Nonetheless, Teclis remained very much part of the game. He successfully cast Flaming Sword of Rhuin 3 times on the Phoenix Guard which granted them +1 to wound for 6 combat turns and he had made quite a few fireball kills and wounds on the trolls. He was however, not really worth his 475 points cost in terms of damage but he was worth the points in terms of fun (from my perspective !)
The White Lions were eventually surrounded and cut down although they stood until the very last elf and were worth their points cost.
The Phoenix Guard were the real heroes of the battle (from my point of view) and caused almost as much damage as the trolls had. I had "tooled up" this unit a bit and it included not only the BSB but a noble and some a nice magic item combo (to make sure they hung around). This is probably the best performance I have ever seen from a High Elf unit. Here's what the unit consisted of:-
Noble (Hero) with Crown of Command [Stubborn, leadership 9], heavy armour, great weapon
Noble (Hero) BSB with battle banner [+d6 combat res], heavy armour, great weapon
13 Phoenix Guard + Full Command
With always strikes first and initiative 6 they were almost always going to re-roll missed hits and with a strength 4 attack (and +1 to wound, due to Flaming Sword of Rhuin), they were going to cause a lot of damage. Note only that but due to their ward save, leadership 9 and stubborn and with the BSB for leadership re-rolls they were not going to go anywhere either.
The Phoenix Guard made a real mess of the marauders and chaos warriors and the enemy lost their general who was cut down when he turned to flee the onslaught. When it was clear that Chaos had taken the day only the Phoenix Guard and Teclis still stood (and the Trolls were hot on his heels !). For a bit of fun we put the Phoenix Guard in the center of the battlefield and surrounded them with all of the remaining chaos units (some warriors, marauders and two depleted units of knights). Get this... if the Phoenix Guard had rolled a 3 on their Battle Banner roll, they would have won the combat ! Alas, they rolled a 1 and then failed their leadership test (and I forgot to re-roll for the BSB) so they were cut down where they stood.
My summary:- Trolls are bad (in a good way) but, with the right support, Phoenix Guard are better !
Images are © Games Workshop. All rights reserved. Used without permission.
