Friday 11 August 2017

Trolls post cid hype

So despite the blogg being very quiet, I have still been playing the game. I was accepted onto the Swedish WTC team and have tried to come up with a troll pairing to play.

However, after trying out a lot of different things, trolls in Mk3 just felt subpar and unable to create a powerfull pairing. For the WTC i will most definetely be fielding my Protectorate of Menoth army.

However, following the CID for the trolls and also looking at the current meta shifts, with infantry heavy cryx making a strong comeback, I am rather hopefull for some of the troll lists after the CID has dropped. Just making pMadrak, borka2, pgrim and Mulg much better is interesting and will definitely have an impact.

I have a lot of lists I want tro try after the cid. A pairing of Borka2 and Jarl or grim1 is not unthinkable. PMadrak is also an option. We will see.

In the meantime, I actually have finally painted my pGrim and look forward to fielding him!

Wednesday 15 February 2017

Alphastrike 8 part 2, last two games

Due to life, writing the second part of the tournament has been a bit late, but here it is.

Game 3 -Trolloff
So after just losing with zeroish seconds on my opponents clock, I get paired against Jocke, Trollock with trolls. He is playing Calandra in tier and Gunnbjörn tier, iirc. With my pairing of Jarl and Horgle2 and looking over to see a fully loaded krielstone easily accessible in both lists, (and also knowing that Jocke doesn't believe in Jarl out of theme) I go for Jarl. He gets to face a Calandra tier list on the Recon scenario. This game can also be read through his perspective here:
Trollocks battlereport

Calandra PoD
- Runebearer
- Mauler
- Mauler
- Bomber
- Bomber
- Earthborn
Whelps
Shaman
Shaman
Min Stone+Elder
Dhunia Knot

Round 1
After my second round
Calandra fuels the stone and moves up, putting out stars crossed (she keeps the spell up throughout the game, does this really need to be said?) and bullet dodger on the earthborn. She moves up her beasts up and hides them behind the forest and shaman clouds.

Clearing fennblades is fun, calandra says
I get to go and run my army up. I have the bomber go on a hill to the left of the zone, my Mauler backing him up. The earthborn and Jarl go towards a forest on the right of the zone and feats to hide my army from the bombers. Fennblades go centrally skewed to the right, and the fire eaters and highwaymen go on the left.

Round 2
Calandra the left bomber up to shoot at fire eaters, without killing any of them, I think two toughed. She moves one mauler next to it to put some pressure on the flank. The earthborn tramples into the forest in the zone with his animus up. The other bomber and mauler just hides in the back end of the zone behind the forest. She takes a lot of time to place the krielstone so that my magic bullets can't get to it. It leads to the front line beasts being unprotected.

On my turn, I see an opportunity to start piece trading favourably. The bomber gets to aim with far strike and gets some good rolls against the Mauler who then dies to a few highwaymen shots. I charge in with the fennblades against the earthborn to jam to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, I forget that they have reposition which makes the jam less good than it could have been.

Round 3
Calandra uses most activations to clear of fennblades to open a charge lane for the earthborn to the bomber. The earthborn gets raged and kills the bomber, but needs all 4 fury, which leaves him without his animus on.

Why did I put Braylen there?
On my turn I get a possibility to kill the Earthborn with my mauler and highwaymen, and his second mauler with the earthborn and fennblades. The odds needed to be in my favour, and while I got the roughly 50% headbut on the earthborn and easily kill him, the dice weren't in my favour on the mauler which lives on a few (like 3 boxes). Due to a positional mistake, I think this is the first turn I get to magic bullet the stone aura away which also helped the fight. Due to not killing the mauler, I think i go a bit greedy and try to kill his last shaman with braylen, instead of hiding her, which really was a big big mistake.

Round 4
Calandra feats and kills the mauler with the two bombers, the earthborn with the mauler and braylen with the shaman.

After killing the stone once more with Jarl and putting some damage on the mauler, I try to finish it of with a charging fell caller but at four dice minus eight, that usually comes to zero damage... (it should be 6 on average). I think that during this turn, i don't roll more than 7 on any die roll, which is important as I needed to do more damage to the bombers this turn. Would I have killed one of the bombers and the mauler, this game could have gone in my favour, but no such luck.

Round 5
Not much left on the field now
Calandra clears the zone and my objective, taking 3 points. Killing some highwaymen on the way.

I stuff a lot of models in the zone, gobbers, runebearer, fennblade and fell caller. I continue to shoot with jarl but go for the right flag, scoring one point. I do not kill the first bomber.

Round 6
Calandra goes for a good assassination, knocking Jarl down and shooting him with a bomber.

Summary
I do not think this is a bad match up in any way for Jarl. Magic bullet making the stone positioning difficult is very important and boosted pow 12s do damage to the beasts. There definitely were some key moments in this game, getting the knockdown on the earthborn was one. Needing way more than I should have to kill the second mauler was another. But I think that the main error I made was to give up braylen way to easily. Forgetting reposition on fennblades is something I must just learn.

Game 4 - Fighting fire with fire
I go up against a menoth player and immediately decide to drop Horgle2, mainly to get the practise with him. My opponent drops Severious1 and his shooty list. The scenario is extraction.

Fighting fire with fire
Sevvy1
-Eye of Truth
-Reckoner
-Lancer
Idrians+Ua
Sunburst Crew
Sunburst Crew
Choir
Monk
Monk
Kjell Bailoch
Nicia

Round 1
I run my stuff up, MK slightly to the right, Bomber to the right, Fire eaters and sluggers on the right, highwaymen on the left.

He moves up but does not really know what to do as my army i mostly fire immune. He does some damage with the idrians on the MK.

Round 2
Notice the epic fight between sluggers en Bailloch
Removing the idrians is all I can do, and kill all but three at the end his fire phase. I continue to move forward placing myself just outside the threat of the eye of truth.

He jams the flags with Monks, nicia is a big threat on my left, and he tries to shoot against the stone with the sunbursts. Nothing much happens. He moves his visioned Eye of Truth up in threat range of the mk.

Round 3
On my turn, I see a chance to kill the Eye of truth. But there is one idrian blocking the MK. The fire eaters miss it, needing 7s. Horgle goes for a double pound on the MK, but snake eyes makes him miss that. In the end, the axer has to rush himself and boost an attack on the idrian. Killing it. The raged and stonestrengthed MK gets to charge the Eye of truth. Needing 4's to hit, he should have four connecting blows, between vision and oracular vision. On average his ps 23 should do 36 damage to the jack, killing it. But when dice decide to not favour you, you do nine damage total and lose the game then and there.
Them monks and nicia, so annoying.

Sevy easily kills the MK with the Eye, reckoner and lancer as they ignore the armourbuff from horgle.

Round 4-6
I try to clean up and kill his jacks, But really cant gather the damage do to it. We continue this game for a few rounds before I give up as this was the way the game was heading.

Summary
In hindsight. Going in with the MK was a really bad idea. I had the chance to go for scenario play but instead went for the bloody axe to face play and was punished. It could have to do with that I am not used to play four games a day, this is something I have to really practise and build stamina.








Monday 6 February 2017

Alphastrike 8 part 1, first two games

First tournament in MK3 was here and I went with my Jarl/Horgle2 pairing two get a feel for how they would perform in a tournament and how the lists felt.

First game was against a veteran minion player who had brought Jaga Jaga and Rask. The scenario was the pit, and I think that he would drop Rask to combat the possible Horgle2 drop and I was right about him dropping Rask. His list:

After my second turn, bomber putting some heat on the snake.
Rask
-Wrastler
-Wrastler
-Battle boar
 Dalia & Skarath
Wrongeye & Snapjaw
Rorsh & Brine
Mist speaker
Orin
Swamp gobbers
Gremlin Swarm

I got to go first  and he chose the table edge where could be covered as there were walls on the side of the zone and a trench just outside of it. I placed my highwaymen to the left, beasts centrally, the sluggers and fire eaters to the right.

Round 1
I ran forward, putting inviolable resolve on the Mountain King and fire starter on the bomber. He ran forward and positioned himself to threaten into the scenario.

Round 2 
Rask is measuring for the assassination after my MK moved in.
Bomber moves up and throws into the clouds, first bomb drifting and setting a wrastler on fire, the second catching dalia and skarath dealing a lot of damage to both. On his round, things still burn and force dalia to transfer to skarath who now is at one hp. On his turn, he decides to move his admonitioned wrastler infront of the MK and the other wrastler behind him and feats.

Round 3
I see an opportunity to bulldoze the first wrastler away and kill the other, so I rage the MK and do just that. I try to hide Horgle as good as possible in the trench outside of my zone and block him with highwaymen and the bomber. The mk kills the wrastler and dalia & skarath with the spray. The rest of the army moves up to clean up what would kill the MK.

Rask wants to go for an assassination, a rather good one, with brine after killing the MK. Orin moves up to clear, but a tough stops the plans. Snapjaw gets his ps 23 and Rask shoots away the armbuff. Due to really bad dice, Snapjaw does not kill the MK himself and needs the second wrastler, who cannot throw rage on Brine and therefore he cannot kill the bomber as well. He decides to save rorsh and brine for next turn and instead moves the gremlin swarm to block snapjaw and the wrastler.
Rask is measuring for the last ditch assassination

Round 4
Horgle feats and wants to put consuming flames on the gremlin swarm, but orin negates it, he feats. The runeshaper does it instead, putting snapjaw on fire as well. The sluggers and fire eaters kills the swarm, wrastler and snapjaw easily. The bomber kills orin and the battle boar together with the highwaymen.

Rask goes for the last ditch assassination but doesn't get the dice rolling well enough.

Summary
I got rather lucky with the die rolls this game. It would have been much closer if brine would have killed my bomber after the MK went down. Rask really has no worries dismantling my army and I needed some bad dice from my opponent to win.

Game 2 - Nemo3 theme list
So after getting a initial win I get to face of against a Stryker2 Nemo3 pairing on Line breaker. I chose to go with Jarl as I think I need the long threat and shooting to remove his infantry and he goes for the Nemo3 theme list.

Nemo3
-Dynamo
-Firefly
-Lancer
Junior
After my turn 1. Just moving up!
-Firefly
Max Storm Lances
Stormblade Infantry+Ua+3 Gunners
Stormsmith Storm tower
Katherine Laddermore
Acosta
Arlan Strangeways

We roll of and I win, chose to go first. He chooses a side with two hills instead of two forests, which is fine by me. As it is line breaker, I have no rush.

Round 1. 
I run forward with most things, the highwaymen hang behind my left forest, fire eaters behind my right, I move my beasts up centrally behind a long wall and my fennblades in front of it.

He runs his stuff forward and positions on the hills. Arcane shield on the knights.

Round 2. 
Jarl starts killing 4 stormblades and feats, fennblades kills two more. The bomber tries to to something but cannot really reach anything interesting. the fire eaters and highwaymen hang back behind their forests, staying out of threat ranges.

My opponent thinks a while about what to do. He is rather stunted I play so defensively. He moves a firefly into one of the clouds to bounce some shots onto my fenns and kills four or five of them.
After my second round. Feating and hiding. Classic Jarl.

Round 3.
I continue to work on his stormblades and that flank. Move back further with the highwaymen and try to just ignore the knights.

He goes in with the knights to clear for laddermore who can score my left flag. He tries to remove the bomber but fails despite some hot dice from dynamo.

Round 4.
Jarl and the bomber moves to start killing knights. The bomber continues to under perform, killing nothing, Jarl gets one down. The highwaymen and braylen damage another one, and severely damages a third. On my right, the fire eaters kill acosta and the earthborn hides behind the wall. The mauler moves to charge knight on the following turn

The cygnar forces continue to press forward, the two remaining stormblades and the lancer going for the objective and not being able to kill it. Dynamo moves up and finishes of the bomber behind the wall. Knights again clear the flag for laddermore.

Round 5.
Clocks are getting low, and I play just to clock my opponent. The two remaining fire eaters move to defend the flag behind the rightmost forest, the earthborn just hangs still behind the wall. Jarl continues to shoot knights, The mauler kills two of them. The highwaymen remaining and braylen finishes the last one off.

After my fourth turn. Cheers love, the cavalry is here.
The clock is getting really low and my oponent starts speeding up. He charges dynamo to kill the earthborn but does not do it, arlan strangeways moves in to be able to capture the flag. Laddermore kills all but one highwaymen, he finishes of the objective, going up to 3 points.

Round 6. 
The earthborn tries to throw dynamo away so that the mauler could kill it. Misses the boosted sevens needed, but moves so  that he contests. I kill off laddermore on the side, put damage down on the lights centrally.

The cygnar forces clear of the right flag, dynamo killing the earthborn and arlan removing the last fire eater. He goes up to 4 points with 10 seconds left.

Round 7. 
I run in the runebearer to contest the flag but he uses his 10 seconds to kill it and I don't roll the tough.

Summary
Well, I think I played it right to the end. If I would have gotten the throw on dynamo, he would not have been able to kill my electroimmune earthborn contesting the flag, but it is a dice game and I need luck to win, that is the game. I really like Jarl into cygnar, especially with an earthborn.

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Jarl1 vs Carver1 75 pts

Lots of games last week (well ok, 3 games, but it's a lot in a week for me at the moment), the last one was trying the thought out Jarl list for an upcoming tournament on the 4th of February, The list, which I have talked about in an earlier post, is:

Jarl1
-Runebearer
-Bomber
-Mauler
Braylen
Fell caller
Chronicler
Max Fennblades+Ua
Min highwaymen
Fire Eaters
Max Champions

My opponent, not knowing what to pair his Helga list with, was trying out a Carver1 beast list.

Carver1
-War hog
-War hog
-War hog
-Battle Boar
-Battle Boar
-Gun Boar
-Gun Boar
-Splatter Boar
-Splatter Boar
Lanyssa
Gremlin Swarm
Gremlin Swarm

This much bacon under batten down was not really what I want to see with my Jarl list, but I do not think it is a lost cause in any way. We rolled scenario and got Outlast, which should be a good scenario for an army of my size. We rolled off and I lost, Carver chose to go first.

Round 1 - running
Carver ran his stuff forward. Gun boars centrally, a splatter and battle boar onto each zone flanked by gremlin swarms. Carver and his personal bodyguard of three war hogs hanged back and slowly advanced centrally to see what zone to go for.

After my round 1
I had clogged myself in a magnificent way during deployment. Wanting to deploy as centrally as possible, I had placed my highwaymen and fennblades to close to the center, forcing back my bomber and my champs. Thankfully, since the pigs just ran forward, I would be able to get into position and feat. So this is what I did. Jarl went forward, shot a lot of damage into one of the gun boars and feated. Then I ran the fennblades, not taking my opponents AOEs into enough consideration. I moved up the highwaymen and fire eaters. The only thing that was too far back from what I would have wanted was the bomber.

Round 2 - shooting and jamming
With my feat up, Carver is just looking at a few rolling clouds without the possibility get into melee. His small shooting boars walk into the clouds and start shooting away at my too tightly packed fennblades, clearing a few of them. He decides that the left zone, to me that is, is the one to target and starts moving his war hog/carver center towards it.

After my round 2, notice the nice pack man circle
 for the battle boar on the left.
On my round 2,I try to go for some killing of the small boars. The fennblades charge in, the fire eaters attack the battle boar on the right flank. I was thinking of going for a scenario play by shooting one of my fire eaters in the back and magic bulleting to the gremlin swarm, but when the battle boar did not die it was better to kill lanyssa with and shoot more boars. Lanyssa died but the roll of snake eyes makes me kill my own fennblade in melee with two gunboars, I misplaced the highwaymen, they should just have run to flank more instead of doing nothing on two combined shots. I also forgot to reposition with my fennblades. So it was a very crappily played round from me. Still, I put down a lot of damage on many of carvers beasts without actually committing my beasts nor the champions.

Round 3 - scenario play and attrition
Carvers goes for a scenario play on the left side, clearing it out and scoring 2 points, placing his three war hogs so that he can clear out the stuff I throw into the zone.

I start to move as much I can toward the right flag and kill all the beasts on my right flank. The champions now can move can charge his war hogs the next turn. The last highwaymen and braylen contest the zone.

Round 4 - get into the zone!
Almost at the end of my round 3.
There are a lot less models left on the table now.
Carver moves back into a trench outside the zone and clears of my highwaymen with a warhog, gun boar and battleboar, scoring one more point.

On my turn I move my bomber to shoot one of the road hog, while the mauler gets quickened and raged and takes out the war hog who had removed my highwaymen on the left side of the left zone. Three of the champions charge the third war hog but only do a minimal amount of damage to him. The last fennblade and the fire eaters clear of the last gunboar and splatterboar centrally, leaving carver with two war hogs, one of which was heavily damaged, himself and the gremlin swarms.

Round 5 - chaos ensues
Carver has to clear out the zone, meaning killing one champion and my two beasts. Unfortunately, I positioned them to close together so that the free war hog could get to both of them. Popping his feat, carver charges the contesting champion and misses two or three attacks, barely killing it and only getting one or two swings at the bomber. The road hog also misses a few hits on the mauler and manage to kill it but not the bomber. What should have been a sure win now looks to be a loss for carver.

The game plan is clear, kill the non camping, non batten down carver. Two of the fire eaters spray him for a few points of damage, jarl shoots but rolls badly on the damage, only doing a few points. The bomber goes in, needing to boost and only gets three boosted attacks at pow15, not killing carver. I have one champion that can reach him, but does not finish him of, leaving him at one box on fire.

Round 6 - round 6? what is this, warhammer?
Fire roll, it doesn't go out. Six or more and then a tough roll can win me the game. Fire roll comes out a 5, and carvers easily clears out the zone and wins.

Summary
Despite the comical but exciting ending to an otherwise great game, I feel like the list has the tools to win a match up like this. The amount of damage the list puts out adds up, even against arm 19-20 beasts. However, I need to play way better. Better positioning against AOEs, better setting up so that I can unpack my army correctly, and also better utilise the flanking ability of the highwaymen. In all fairness, I did not really know what the battle boar and the splatter boars did, and playing with my son in a harness on my chest did not help.

But one thing is very clear, the champions are not pulling their weight at all. They got to charge heavies and not dent them at all, not even lights. Granted, batten down helps my opponent, but I still want to at least cripple an aspect, or be close to. They are so gonzo from the list. For the 17 points, firstly I will be trying out Sons of bragg and a min unit of sluggers, since I want to keep a high number of infantry. If that doesn't work I will put an earthborn and gobbers in the list. The earthborn has really performed in the games I have used it.


Monday 23 January 2017

Horgle2 vs Helynna1 75 pts


Helynna
Practise makes perfect they say and I am a firm believer in knowing my lists and how it performs against different enemies. With the errata, my Horgle2 list I posted about earlier is not valid anymore (the sluggers have changed in cost). Since there is a one day tournament coming up soon I need to  practise the new list which is:

Horgle2
-Runebearer
-Mountain King
-Bomber
-Axer
-Max Sluggers
-Fire Eaters
-Min Stone+Elder
-Min Highwaymen

With the errata, I have gone from the bouncer to the Axer, as the need for a shield guard to the Mountain King is not as necessary anymore. Having a rather shooty list that also handles melee very well all ties into Horgle2 as a versatile caster which can use the feat both for shooting and for melee.

My opponent tried one of his tournament lists, Helynna1, a hard hitting list very survivable against shooting. Discordia, the artificer and helynnas feat and deceleration all hamper the output from my shooting.

Helynna1
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
-Discordia
-Manticore
-Manticore
Max. Dawnguard Sentinels+Ua
Max. Dawnguard Sentinels+Ua
House Shyeel Artificer
Arcanist
Arcanist
Arcanist

The scenario we rolled to play was extraction, with kill box which mattered as Helynna wants to play rather far back. The terrain was set up so that one side had a wall, both sides had a hill and there was rubble and water in the centre of the table. We rolled of and lost the roll, but surprisingly, my opponent chose to switch sides to the one opposite the wall.

Round 1
After my first round, just running things.
I set up my Mountain king and fire eaters slightly to the right, to contest the right flag. Higwaymen and sluggers to the left for the left flag. Axer, bomber and Horgle2 deployed centrally to see how everything turned out. My first turn, everything ran forward. Inviolable resolve on the King, Fire starter on the Bomber, 3 fury in the stone.

The setup for my opponent was very symmetrical, Helynna in the centre with disco, the two units flanking her, and the two manticores flanking them. He ran his stuff forward and put up his defencive tech, walls and force barriers.

Round 2
After my round two, positioning
I moved my stuff forward, The bomber put some guys at fire without killing anything due to immunity to blast damage. The mountain king moved into the threat of three sentinels, the highwaymen flanked on the side. In other words, I positioned myself for a very aggressive turn 3 scenario play.

My opponent decided it was go time, he charged with what he could, putting down a lot of damage on my bomber with two sentinels and some damage on my Mountain king. He jammed with the rest of his army and disco sprayed horgle for brain damage, One crucial thing is that he forgot to feat.

Round 3.
After my round 3, much of the retribution army gone
Round three was easily the feat turn. With so much on fire and the bomber able to put out more, it was the way to go. Horgle feated and used his two attacks to clear of the bomber by combustion. However, the bomber then walked through the manticore wall, taking 4 damage to the spirit, knocking it out. He therefore only managed to throw out one bomb, setting some more stuff on fire. The mountain king then moved forward to kill Discordia, using only his initials, spraying some sentinels and killing a few more. The runebearer killed two sentinels with consuming flames and the fire eaters managed to kill of three. On the left flank the highwaymen managed to clear of most of the remaining sentinels, letting the sluggers only kill one guy. All in all, it was a very good feat turn.

My opponent figured assassination was the only way out. He went for it and failed even though it was close, since horgle had taken 8 damage from the Discordia spray earlier. Game over.

Parting thoughts
I need to set up the highwaymen and sluggers on opposite flanks. They get in each others way on the same flank. The fire eaters performed ok this game, but I think I need to spread them out more, they were hampered by the manticore wall this game. Me and my opponent discussed how much the feat during his turn would have helped. I probably would not have killed as much with the feat on. Probably still enough to get me the game though. Neither the axer nor the sluggers go to do any real work during the feat. I like the list as it is now a lot, it feels well rounded and will hopefully perform come the next tournament!


Saturday 21 January 2017

Calandra1 vs Fyanna2 75 pts

It seems I will be going to Smogcon, and therefore need a third list. Calandra has always been close to me and trying some of the lights in theme would be a good trial for them. I was playing:

Legion list and setup
Calandra1 - Power of Dhunia
Runebearer (free)
Earthborn
Mauler
Slag
Slag
Pyre
Storm
Axer
Night
Swamp
Min stone+elder
2x Whelps (free)

My opponent was playing a Fyanna2 combined arms list (i could be missing something):
Entrenched

Fyanna2
-Succubus
-Angelius
-Typhon
-Zuriel
Swordsmen
Strider Scouts
Deathstalker
Shepherd
Nyss sorceress & Hellion
2x Spell Martyrs

The scenario we rolled was Entrenched and the terrain was set up in such a way that one side was rather favoured as the zone was blocked by a large obstruction and there was access to the other zone via a forest. We rolled of and my opponent chose the favoured side.

Round 1
I fueled the stone and ran forward with everything. The plan was to hold my zone with the earthborn, calandra, the stone and maybe one light or more. On my left flank toward my opponents zone I placed both slags and the night troll. The rest were placed centrally. My opponent ran his army forward and feated, placing his three beasts centrally, his swordsmen running through his zone, and the archers moving into the forest toward my zone.

Round 2
After my round 1
Because of the feat, I held of my advance and played rather cautiously, +3 def is not to laugh at, especially since it is legion we are talking about. I just moved up, the earthborn into the zone without his animus, and shot some archer off the table with the pyre troll and storm troll. 

My opponent set up a strong scenario play by charging his angelious into my zone killing the objective with the armour piercing charge and repulsed my Earthborn out of the zone. Zuriel killed the storm troll and typhon sprayed my night troll to death. He was setting up for a 3 point scenario swing, but then fyanna went forward, hitting my pyre troll so that I could drop a whelp in my zone. 

Round 3
After my round 3
Feat turn for calandra. Rage up the pyre troll and earthborn. The Pyre troll threw the admonitioned zuriel at the angelius in the zone, knocking him down, the axer, receiving rage from the mauler kills zuriel and the earthborn kills the angelious. My lights kill some other small bases but the game is pretty much over after the mistake in scenario play.

Fyanna sees her only out is to go for an assassination and tries to kill calandra, but the second attack misses and she dodges away.

Last thoughts
I liked the list more than i thought I would. However, 9 beasts are too many for calandra and the min stone should be a max stone. What I will do for now is to exchange one of the slags and the swamp troll for a second Earthborn and a max stone. Additionally i have changed one of the free whelp units for a northkin shaman. With the changes I feel the list has better durability and also better output. As for the lights, I feel that under the feat and with rage, they can really pack a punch, but the small ranges on the guns are not doing them any favours. I do like the continuous fire on the pyre troll and fire immunity is something really useful at times. I think that they can perform in the right lists, but they do need help to have ok output.