AoS troglodon uses?

[Nukes4life]

Hey guys,

Now that I finished my troglodon base and it is by far my most beautifull model I would like to use it as well. I haven't yet found a good role for him yet and that is a real shame. What role do you give him and how do you use him? The lack of rend is a real shame but that is what the steg and carno are for of course.

Let's make a troglodon tactics thread

cheers!

 

[Aginor]

I like to use the Troglodon against light infantry (or anything lightly armed really), buffed with mystic shield, Serpent Staff, Celestial Rites and Starlight he can actually be pretty deadly.
He can also unbind and a Slann can use him to cast through, so you can keep the Slann out of sight behind some terrain piece.

Sometimes I even hide the Slann behind the Troglodon. When casting through the Troggy he has line of sight for his spells but the enemy doesn't have line of sight to the Slann!
Also some people fear the Troggy as much as a Carnosaur (not quite rightfully so) and spend a lot of attacks to try and bring him down. That's not bad considering he is much cheaper.
Another nice use is to teleport him. His spit means that he has a better chance of making the charge after the teleport. Again: fully buffed he can do a nice amount of damage.
Also notable is his bravery debuff. It stacks with the banners I think which means the enemy is at -2 bravery. Against some armies like Bonesplitterz that's worth a lot, since two dead Orruks can mean that another two flee despite their bravery buff, which is good because they have many wounds that you otherwise would have to chew through.

 

[Nukes4life]

Hmm thanks for the tips! But if he is focussing light troops that would often mean the flanks and there he is harder to buff. Is he good enough on his own to try and flank. I'll have to try him some games after my exams but I think that is his best role. In the center he would get great use out of the stacking bravery debuff but there I usually face heavy armoured things making him a little underwhelming. The casting through him is a very nice idea though, standing right in front of the slann. Especially with the battalion healing him every turn. Thanks for responding!

 

[Canas]

It's best use is probably as a skin vassal for a slann to cast through, being fairly cheap but also fairly sturdy (for a skink at least..) and actually capable of going into the frontline. You can't send a skink starseer into your frontline like that, he'l just get slaughtered...

Besides that there's the bravery reduction which can make him deceptivly effective against armored targets,even while lacking rend, especially when combined with a saurus banner. No need for high damage or rend if just killing 1 enemy causes an immediate rout. That'l only work against specific armies though seeing as battleshock immunity is a thing for some, plus causing 1 additional skaven or grot to flee is probably not worth the effort Against elite armies it might be quite effective though.

Sadly it's actual combat ability is relativly mediocre on its own, even when buffed. It's capable, but nothing amazing. Also, it doesn't have a particularly clear role being a relativly "weak" behemoth. It's two synergies are where it shines. On its own the only real use would probably be hunting down squishy targets. Prefering to chase and eat an enemy wizard, especially as those tend to not be too effective in combat, so we don't need the melee prowess of a carnosaur, and it has a natural defense against them with its unbind. But beyond that it's not going to be of much use for a specific strategy without relying on one of those two synergies I mentioned earlier.

Anyway tl;dr: use its as a vassal or rely on its bravery reduction if you want to tailor a tactic around it. Besides that it's a fairly mediocre behemoth, capable but nothing special.

 

[PJetski]

For 180 points the Troglodon is one of the cheapest MONSTERS in the game, and at that price point the stats aren't bad - 4+ save, unbind, and 12 wounds is great for 180 points.

Unfortunately the Troglodon doesn't do much damage, and you need to stack a lot of Bravery/Battleshock effects to get good use out of its Primeval Roar ability. Like a distraction Carnifex from WH40k, you hope your enemy views it as a threat and wastes a lot of attacks on the Troglodon.

I really wish the Troglodon was a HERO so we could give him artifacts. For 40 points more you can get an Engine of the Gods... seems like a no-brainer "upgrade".

 

[Canas]

For 180 points the Troglodon is one of the cheapest MONSTERS in the game, and at that price point the stats aren't bad - 4+ save, unbind, and 12 wounds is great for 180 points.

Unfortunately the Troglodon doesn't do much damage, and you need to stack a lot of Bravery/Battleshock effects to get good use out of its Primeval Roar ability. Like a distraction Carnifex from WH40k, you hope your enemy views it as a threat and wastes a lot of attacks on the Troglodon.

I really wish the Troglodon was a HERO so we could give him artifacts. For 40 points more you can get an Engine of the Gods... seems like a no-brainer "upgrade".

Meh, an EoTG is enough of a threat that an enemy is fairly likely to focus it. A troglodon is "harmless" enough that an enemy is actually likely to leave it rampaging for a bit allowing you get to more mileage out of that bravery reduction as it'l be allowed to stand around for much longer. And although it isn't an amazing combatant it will eventuall eat something. Plus, with 10" range on the bravery mechanic it'l affect quite a large area which will mean it'l probably cause at least some extra units to flee, even without stacking bravery effects. Against elite armies that can quite quickly add up without it being very noticable for your opponent. An EoTG is much more Obvious in what it does and thus much nicer to kill yourself.

A nice strategy could be to take a firelance host, stick a troglodon in the middle and a carnoaur. The carnosaur and Knights will get some kills with relative ease. If that's spread out over say 3 units all in range of the troglodon the troglodon gets 3 free "kills" without even having to do anything and it won't stand out among the Knights mortal wounds or the carnosaur''s battleprowess. Plus as those Knights have a similar bravery reduction effect the troglodon will appear even less significant in comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if the opponent would kill the entire starhost before bothering with the troglodon, and at that point it's entirly possibly the bravery mechanic alone has more than paid back its value.

 

[Aginor]

Yeah. A Troglodon alone isn't _that_ great, combined with something else he might be.
It may not be representative, but in all of my games I used him in, he has always pulled his weight for me.

 

[Canas]

I think I'm gonne try to comine it with a firelance host, with the cost reduction for Knights and the combined bravery reductionI could really see that being a niely working combo. Now I just need to convince my gf to not use that stupid celestant on a dracoth with his annoying "noone takes battleshock tests" command ability...

 

[Aginor]

I think I'm gonne try to comine it with a firelance host, with the cost reduction for Knights and the combined bravery reductionI could really see that being a niely working combo. Now I just need to convince my gf to not use that stupid celestant on a dracoth with his annoying "noone takes battleshock tests" command ability...

Grrrr I hate that guy. It was so rewarding to see my VLoZD rip him apart in my last Death vs SCE game.

 

[Canas]

Grrrr I hate that guy. It was so rewarding to see my VLoZD rip him apart in my last Death vs SCE game.

I genuinly don't get why anyone thought a permanent 24" bubbly of battleshock immunity on a fairly elite but mediocre-bravery army would be a good idea. At that kinda range it basicly just means ít will Always cover the entire army... It's ridiculously powerfull to have an entire army just ignore an entire phase in a turn...

 

[Aginor]

I genuinly don't get why anyone thought a permanent 24" bubbly of battleshock immunity on a fairly elite but mediocre-bravery army would be a good idea. At that kinda range it basicly just means ít will Always cover the entire army... It's ridiculously powerfull to have an entire army just ignore an entire phase in a turn...

Pretty much for the same reason why they gave some SCE units abilities that work like spells except they don't roll, don't need line of sight, cause mortal wounds more reliably, cannot be unbound, have bigger range, and are not subject to the Rules of One.

 

[Canas]

Pretty much for the same reason why they gave some SCE units abilities that work like spells except they don't roll, don't need line of sight, cause mortal wounds more reliably, cannot be unbound, have bigger range, and are not subject to the Rules of One.

At least those don't outright allow you to ignore an fairly important rule/mechanic with about 0 effort, those abilities are "normal". Stupidly powerfull but "normal"

 

[Aginor]

At least those don't outright allow you to ignore an fairly important rule/mechanic with about 0 effort, those abilities are "normal". Stupidly powerfull but "normal"

Yeah I guess that's correct.

 

[PJetski]

Pretty much for the same reason why they gave some SCE units abilities that work like spells except they don't roll, don't need line of sight, cause mortal wounds more reliably, cannot be unbound, have bigger range, and are not subject to the Rules of One.

You mean like how the Engine of the Gods does D6 mortal wounds to any enemy within 25" with no LOS required?
Seraphon are just as broken as Stormcast

 

[Aginor]

You mean like how the Engine of the Gods does D6 mortal wounds to any enemy within 25" with no LOS required?
Seraphon are just as broken as Stormcast

Nope. It is much more random and we have one unit that can do something like that. Just like most armies. Compared with the Celestant Prime the EotG is a joke.

 

[PJetski]

If you think he's overpowered there's nothing stopping you from bringing the Celestant Prime as an Ally

 

[Canas]

You mean like how the Engine of the Gods does D6 mortal wounds to any enemy within 25" with no LOS required?
Seraphon are just as broken as Stormcast

The EoTG is horrificly random making it complety unreliable for abuse. I've had games where it literally never managed to do a single thing cuz it'd only proc irrelevant stuff. The AoE when nothing's in range, the heal in turn 1 when going first, etc.

As for seraphon in general compared to SCE:

- We're Reliant on synergies, SCE don't particularly care. hence we're easier to hamstrin by killing key-units. SCE need to be basicly routed before they start falling apart.
- Being Reliant on synergies also means we want more battalions, however this is costly and thus not really viable.
- Being Reliant on synergies and battalions means our armies tend to be very specialised and thus easy to stomp with a counterbuild
- We have few ways of dealing with sturdy targets (few mortal wounds and little rend on our stuff) SCE have a metric ton
- We have few defenses against mortal wounds, one of the few aspects in which the SCE aren't top-tier I think
- Several of our units have significant (and somewhat odd..) problems, the most Obvious being the Saurus guard or the EoTG
- Rule of one severly hamstrings our wizards and outright breaks 3! special abilities that we have.
- Summoning is a glorified thunderstrike.
- SCE have abilities that mimic spellcasting, just without the chance of it being unbound and with generally better succes rate
- SCE have acces to virtually everything (infantry, cavalry, artillery etc.) we are lacking with respect to ranged options and our cavalry is middling.
- We're Reliant on behemoths for a great deal of our effective (and cool stuff) there's a limit to how many we can field..

Enough weaknesses in comparison yet?

 

[PJetski]

The EOTG is quite reliable if you have a Slann and Curse of Fates
I can see you're trying to rant about perceived imbalance in Seraphon vs Stormcast, but that's not what this thread is about so I'm going to stop replying now

 

[Aginor]

The EOTG is quite reliable if you have a Slann and Curse of Fates
I can see you're trying to rant about perceived imbalance in Seraphon vs Stormcast, but that's not what this thread is about so I'm going to stop replying now

That's an important point with our army: we need synergies. Most of our units aren't stellar when viewed alone. They just become good with the right support units near.
And that's what gets me back to the Troglodon: yes he is not the best unit. But with the right support near He becomes decent and even scary for some opponents.

 

[PabloTho]

I've always thought the Troglodon was pretty mediocre or even bad (even if he is cheap) but I got some really good mileage out of him in the last game I played where he was in a Thunderquake Starhost. The key is to have your opponent focusing on the more credible threats - like the Bastiladon and Stegadon I was using. Meanwhile my Trog was teleporting around the board channeling spells from the Slann and tying up weaker units preventing them from charging more desirable targets.

Plus, his damage output actually surprised me. Though the lack of rend means he is walled by anything with a decent save, when his attacks slip through they can pack a punch.