Workbook of Cave Troll of Moria - Playtesting (Fellowship B)

[caps]

For Moria I would say unarmored and use this mini





and White Knight's 3d printed ones

[Splash]

/\ This
We can do armored for RotK and bump up statwise and add another ability on the basic troll.

[Ninja Status]

Agreed, I would say save an armored troll design for later down the line. Remembering the movies the Black Gate has armored trolls that open the gates/fight the army of men in the final movie, so we can look towards that as well.

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

Axegrinders do not have Tough. No one in Classic has Tough and more than 2 defense that I'm aware of.

I don't know why I thought they had Tough.

[Shiftrex]

So, for the base cave troll are we ok with just the tough ability or does it need a second one?

If we leave it with one ability then any other version will be a flat upgrade, or we could give it a second ability that gets replaced when we do the armored troll, but they could still fill different roles. So from that standpoint they could be different rather than completely superior.

Obviously there would be some stat changes to make one better due to the armor/training/weapon upgrade that the War Troll would have. What's the direction we want to go?

[caps]

I would like a second power. Maybe one of the negative powers from Pel, the Hill Giant or another borrowed power from some other ogre or troll. I have trouble seeing Flail Hurricane on these minis though.

[Splash]

Well the Olog Hai are for like seiges right and the cave trolls are cave trolls, so some sort of shadow space bonus?

[Shiftrex]

I'd be on board, can reuse the name from one of my suggestions.

Daylight Burns/Blundering Oaf/Cave Dweller: subtract or add attack dice if the target is on a shadow space or... should we check if the troll is on a shadow space instead? If its terrain dependent this can be a positive or a negative ability.

[caps]

Ok, supposing we want Tough and a cave-related power like Shiftrex was suggesting:

NAME = MORIA CAVE TROLL
GENERAL = UTGAR

SPECIES = TROLL
UNIQUENESS = UNCOMMON HERO
CLASS = BRUTE
PERSONALITY = FEROCIOUS
SIZE/HEIGHT = LARGE/7?

LIFE = 6
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 5
DEFENSE = 2
POINTS = 85

CAVE DWELLER
When attacking a figure on a dungeon or shadow tile, add 1 to this Moria Cave Troll's attack.

TOUGH
When rolling defense dice against a normal attack, this Moria Cave Troll always adds 1 automatic shield to whatever is rolled.

I'm inclined to avoid Orc Archer synergy here; they have so many bonding options already. I would be fine with either Death Chaser bonding (Large Wild) or Durgeth Savage bonding (Savage). But no bonding at all is also fine with me.

It would be cool if we could represent them turning to stone in daylight, but there's no concept of daylight in Heroscape. Maybe we can do that for a scenario sometime.

[Shiftrex]

Yeah, this guy doesn't need to bond with the archers. I don't think trolls actually LIKED orcs, it seemed to be a one sided and cohersed relationship at best.

I agree with the turning to stone thing, would be nice but we can represent tons of stuff in scenarios. Probably the best place for it because turning to stone should kill the unit immediately.

I think the Troll looks JUST good enough that I'd pause and read him if I was looking through units for the first time. Large beat sticks are always appealing to some degree. As for bonding, is there any reason we can just slap him with Large, Wild and Savage? Those would seem to fit decently well with what we know about trolls and I've been playing with the Durgeth a lot these past few weeks, he fits their playstyle and doesn't really push them any farther than their current options.

Last thought on that draft, I don't think they would be Jandar

[Splash]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

Ok, supposing we want Tough and a cave-related power like Shiftrex was suggesting:

NAME = MORIA CAVE TROLL
GENERAL = JANDAR

SPECIES = TROLL
UNIQUENESS = UNCOMMON HERO
CLASS = BRUTE
PERSONALITY = FEROCIOUS
SIZE/HEIGHT = LARGE/7?

LIFE = 6
MOVE = 5
RANGE = 1
ATTACK = 5
DEFENSE = 2
POINTS = 85

CAVE DWELLER
When attacking a figure on a dungeon or shadow tile, add 1 to this Moria Cave Troll's attack.

TOUGH
When rolling defense dice against a normal attack, this Moria Cave Troll always adds 1 automatic shield to whatever is rolled.

I'm inclined to avoid Orc Archer synergy here; they have so many bonding options already. I would be fine with either Death Chaser bonding (Large Wild) or Durgeth Savage bonding (Savage). But no bonding at all is also fine with me.

It would be cool if we could represent them turning to stone in daylight, but there's no concept of daylight in Heroscape. Maybe we can do that for a scenario sometime.

I was just about to post a cave troll up here and you beat me to it! And the only main difference was I had Cave Dweller give an add an extra attack die to basic attack when on dungeon and shadow and lose 2 movement when not on dungeon or shadow to represent the turning to stone a bit, but yeah that's pretty hard to get across, so i could see tossing it.

[Splash]

Actually it does make way more sense to give the +1 attack for when the opposing figures are on those spaces rather than the trolls, as being double hexed would not help them if they had to be on shadow tile. I was more trying to find a way to include the movement loss within the same power. I would like to entertain some idea to incorporate into Cave Dweller for the Cave Troll and Moria Orcs, does anyone have any ideas to turn avoidance of sunlight into a workable game weakness?