8th Ed. Troglodon

[Vukodlak]

Hi!

I wanna buy a Troglodon, but I cannot come up with a way to justify it. I think its just useless.
Any suggestions somebody?

 

[Mr Phat]

Im planning on getting one and using it as a "count as" carnosaur.
Needs a little conversion but if that dosnt scare you it could work.

Else im thinking of using it as an Ancient stegadon.
Put some extra skinks on its back....maybe an engine and all of a sudden it spits just fine.

 

[Prof]

Are you worried about being super competitive? If you love the model, and will enjoy playing it, then go for it!

What phatmotha said, in friendly games you can do 'counts as' if your opponent doesn't mind

 

[godswearhats]

I did a quick bit of math to calculate the value of the Troglodon's Primeval Roar rule. I built an army list which aimed to maximize the number of models with Predatory Fighter, and contained one Troglodon, at 2,500 points. You get 180 attacks (spread across Saurus, Temple Guard, Cold One Riders, Kroxigors and characters). If you were able to get all units in combat, and in range, of the roar (very difficult) you would get an extra 30 attacks across your army one turn. This is like having an extra 15 hits (assuming an equally skilled army), or roughly an extra 5 wounds (assuming a reasonable amount of toughness and armor).

That to me suggests that the roar itself is worth a max of 25 points and more like 15, and here's my logic:

A banner gives you +1 combat res and costs 10 points. 5 combats with a banner nets you +5 combat res which is somewhat equivalent to +5 wounds. You're only likely to get into 2-3 combats per banner, so you'd need 2-3 units to get that equivalent bonus.

There are many magic items that will net 5 wounds throughout a battle that cost ~ 25 points. Ruby Ring of Ruin springs to mind.

You have to construct your army a very specific way to get those 5 wounds. It's much more likely that you'll have 2-3 units within range of the roar, netting you half the number of extra attacks/hits/wounds, which is why I suggest it's worth roughly 15 points.

So, from a competitive perspective, you then need to look at the Troglodon to decide is he worth 175-185 points. He has 5 wounds at T5, which is very similar to a Stegadon. He only has 3 attacks with poison at S5, vs 4@S6 plus impact hits for a Steg. He as a very short range venom spit, which you may get to use once per battle, vs a greater range set of weaponry on the back of a Stegadon. It's also coming out of Rare points vs Special for the Steg. If you run a Slann (the list above that I constructed did not, in order to maximize models with PF) you can use this guy as an Arcane Vassal, but there are other cheaper options (Skink Priest in a Skirmisher bunker for example) that also net you an extra spell and channel dice.

I'm someone who always tries to use models that other people don't or won't (my main army is Wood Elves!), but I just can't justify ever including this guy in my army. So, as someone else said, if you love the model, use it! But just don't expect it to be a good use of points vs virtually any other choice in the book.

Hope this helps,
~gwh

 

[Pinktaco]

It Can be decent in one way: PF works for all ranks + the roar can be used every phase. For 200pts would that have been too much? The empire have a buff wagon that gives them +1 to hit and +1 power dice for 130pts. Fair enough our dino can fight, but currently it does nothing well, not even the fighting part. It's such a mess.

 

[JuQ]

The main reason why Trog is so expensive it's for the Arcane Vassal rule. It is nice to have a 5 wounds with toughness 5 thing to throw your spells through the rest of its rules are more ornaments (the roar, the shooting attack, the poisoned attacks...). Does it worth 200? no, it is way too much, even less when we are talking about rare points allowance. But still, if you really need a tough vassal with a fairly high mobility this is your option.

If it costed 100 points I would field a trog instead of a skink priest. IMO that would be a fair cost for it, they can remove the roar, the spit and the poisoned attacks for all that I care. After all, it doesn't really do much by itself (we have still better options to kill chaff).

I feel in this book they keep giving rules our troops don't need just to have an excuse to make them more expensive. Trog and the Feather Cloak are the best examples.

 

[Putzfrau]

It Can be decent in one way: PF works for all ranks + the roar can be used every phase. For 200pts would that have been too much? The empire have a buff wagon that gives them +1 to hit and +1 power dice for 130pts. Fair enough our dino can fight, but currently it does nothing well, not even the fighting part. It's such a mess.

Is this true?

I was under the impression the consensus was first rank gets it until an FAQ?


I want to use pf in all ranks so badly.

 

[Sleboda]

It doesn't really matter what the consensus is. The rule is clear. First rank only.

I do agree that it's the very definition of an item that should be in a F(requently) A(sked) Q(uestions) doc, though. It seems like despite the perfect clarity of the rule, people want to close their eyes and wish for it to be different - lots of people. It gets asked about all the time and thus should be in the document.


As to the troglodon, I like him, as I've said before. The one thing I would change about him is to allow his roar to be activated in any combat phase, not just the Lizardmen players turn. That would go a long way.

The difficulty in pointing him is in the sheer number of things he does.

He is a monster with Thunderstomp, and that's always worth something (those Tstomps tend to do more for me than the attacks a monster has on his profile).
He channels.
He boosts the attacks of several units in the army.
His shooting attack is pretty cool when it hits.
He has armor and a good movement rate, allowing him to live through some shooting.
He causes terror.
He's a booster to a Slann.

That's a pretty full package, and you have to pay for that.

The problem is that he's not really good at any one thing, so you never really get a strong boost out of him in any one area, making other selections that are more focused seem to be better options.

I'm getting a kick out of using mine. Even if all he does is give my Kroxigor unit 3 more hits (at S7) in a crucial round of combat, he really does help. Plus, people tend to focus on him, which helps my other stuff live. It's sort of like a Casket of Souls in that way - not all that powerful, but people tend to think it is and overreact.

 

[Mooncrawler]

We need a FAQ for the PF rule.

Reason: I agree, the rule is clear, second rank gets PF attacks!!!!!

If you read the rule from the german rule book there´s no space for interpretation:

The rule tells to make all attacks according to the BRB. For each rolled 6 you will gain
an additional PF attack. Pretty clear. Never had a reason to discuss about this.

 

[Pinktaco]

It Can be decent in one way: PF works for all ranks + the roar can be used every phase. For 200pts would that have been too much? The empire have a buff wagon that gives them +1 to hit and +1 power dice for 130pts. Fair enough our dino can fight, but currently it does nothing well, not even the fighting part. It's such a mess.

Is this true?

I was under the impression the consensus was first rank gets it until an FAQ?


I want to use pf in all ranks so badly.

Sorry it was worded badly. I was suggesting how it could be worth it. Pf doesn't work on second rank...

 

[Putzfrau]

We need a FAQ for the PF rule.

Reason: I agree, the rule is clear, second rank gets PF attacks!!!!!

If you read the rule from the german rule book there´s no space for interpretation:

The rule tells to make all attacks according to the BRB. For each rolled 6 you will gain
an additional PF attack. Pretty clear. Never had a reason to discuss about this.

Interesting wording.

That wording seems to imply the supporting attacks (1 per model, all according to bsb so far) still get PF attacks.

The wording of the English version is much more ambiguous.

 

[MarchoftheStegs]

To be honest when i read the rule I knew it was ambiguous so i handed it to my friends and local tournament organizer and asked their opinion they said it works in all ranks. Just find what your area alllows and go with it its not worth a fight as generally it lead to maybe 1 extra wound.

 

[Sleboda]

We need a FAQ for the PF rule.

Reason: I agree, the rule is clear, second rank gets PF attacks!!!!!

If you read the rule from the german rule book there´s no space for interpretation:

The rule tells to make all attacks according to the BRB. For each rolled 6 you will gain
an additional PF attack. Pretty clear. Never had a reason to discuss about this.

=> Not to turn this thread into yet another discussion on the wording of PF, but if that's the translation of the German text (and I have no reason to doubt you, nor can I look at a German copy to see for myself so I'll just assume your wording is correct), then the issue remains absolutely to same as with the English wording.

There is nothing in that text, which is the text of a Special Rule, to override or create a conflict with the wording in the BSB itself. The details of this have been discussed to death elsewhere, but I wanted to make that point here - there is nothing in the German wording of this Special Rule that allows you to break the rule of the BRB that says no Special Rule will grant more than one Supporting Attack.

I mean, just look at the German wording provided. It actually says that for each 6 you get an additional attack (because of this Special Rule). Now compare that to the BRB that says a warrior can "only ever make a single Attack" even if that Attack comes from a Special Rule.

Ask yourself the following:
Is PF a Special Rule? Yes.
Is that Special Rule generating additional Attacks in any way at all? Yes.
Is a warrior making a Supporting Attack limited to making just one Attack no matter what a Special Rule says? Yes.

It's really not complicated. If anyone can find fault with that, I'd love to hear/read it - afterall, I'd like to make more Attacks as well! It's just bad sportsmanship of me, right now, to try to make Attacks that I have no right within the rules to make.

Interestingly, I believe someone else earlier has it right - You may indeed be able to generate additional Attacks for the models in the second (or third or fourth for hordes, spears, and hordes+spears), but the bummer here is that you are not allowed to use those Attacks as Supporting Attacks.

Just because your group has not seen fit to question it, doesn't mean you have been playing it correctly.


To be clear on the key point: No matter how it is phrased within the Special Rule, it cannot grant more than one Supporting Attack specifically because Special Rules are not allowed to grant more attacks in support! The only possible argument to change this would be a direct statement within the rule that says something like "Even though the rules of Warhammer do not allow Special Rules to grant additional Supporting Attacks, this specific Special Rule is a direct and explicit exception to that prohibition."


EDIT: Also, once more for the record, I completely agree that GW probably meant for these models to get to use the PF Attacks, but personal belief and wishful thinking really don't stand up against ironclad, ultra-clear rules.

As I've said before, I think this is a "with 9th edition in mind" rule, which is why they have not issued an errata for it. I think that 9th will allow full attacks from all ranks that are fighting, and thus the question is moot.

 

[Pinktaco]

To be honest when i read the rule I knew it was ambiguous so i handed it to my friends and local tournament organizer and asked their opinion they said it works in all ranks. Just find what your area alllows and go with it its not worth a fight as generally it lead to maybe 1 extra wound.

IMO it makes quite a difference. A spear horde can gain 51 attacks, a templeguard horde with Skavenpeltbannner 51 attacks, or how about 8 kroxigors? 24 attacks. Now pop the troglodons roar And those 51 attacks can become an additional 17 attacks. The krox? 8 attacks - even if half of those a gone in the To Hit phase you'd be looking at 4 additional S7 attacks - fair enough though so how abou something as regular as spear saurus 6 wide? An additional 8 attacks. All of this is obviously with the roar, but we're discussing the trog here.

PF on its own is sort of just there, but a horde of guards who can suddenly make an average of 10 extra attacks (no Skavenpelt banner) can tip the combat.

 

[Putzfrau]

We need a FAQ for the PF rule.

Reason: I agree, the rule is clear, second rank gets PF attacks!!!!!

If you read the rule from the german rule book there´s no space for interpretation:

The rule tells to make all attacks according to the BRB. For each rolled 6 you will gain
an additional PF attack. Pretty clear. Never had a reason to discuss about this.

=> Not to turn this thread into yet another discussion on the wording of PF, but if that's the translation of the German text (and I have no reason to doubt you, nor can I look at a German copy to see for myself so I'll just assume your wording is correct), then the issue remains absolutely to same as with the English wording.

There is nothing in that text, which is the text of a Special Rule, to override or create a conflict with the wording in the BSB itself. The details of this have been discussed to death elsewhere, but I wanted to make that point here - there is nothing in the German wording of this Special Rule that allows you to break the rule of the BRB that says no Special Rule will grant more than one Supporting Attack.

I mean, just look at the German wording provided. It actually says that for each 6 you get an additional attack (because of this Special Rule). Now compare that to the BRB that says a warrior can "only ever make a single Attack" even if that Attack comes from a Special Rule.

Ask yourself the following:
Is PF a Special Rule? Yes.
Is that Special Rule generating additional Attacks in any way at all? Yes.
Is a warrior making a Supporting Attack limited to making just one Attack no matter what a Special Rule says? Yes.

It's really not complicated. If anyone can find fault with that, I'd love to hear/read it - afterall, I'd like to make more Attacks as well! It's just bad sportsmanship of me, right now, to try to make Attacks that I have no right within the rules to make.

Interestingly, I believe someone else earlier has it right - You may indeed be able to generate additional Attacks for the models in the second (or third or fourth for hordes, spears, and hordes+spears), but the bummer here is that you are not allowed to use those Attacks as Supporting Attacks.

Just because your group has not seen fit to question it, doesn't mean you have been playing it correctly.


To be clear on the key point: No matter how it is phrased within the Special Rule, it cannot grant more than one Supporting Attack specifically because Special Rules are not allowed to grant more attacks in support! The only possible argument to change this would be a direct statement within the rule that says something like "Even though the rules of Warhammer do not allow Special Rules to grant additional Supporting Attacks, this specific Special Rule is a direct and explicit exception to that prohibition."


EDIT: Also, once more for the record, I completely agree that GW probably meant for these models to get to use the PF Attacks, but personal belief and wishful thinking really don't stand up against ironclad, ultra-clear rules.

As I've said before, I think this is a "with 9th edition in mind" rule, which is why they have not issued an errata for it. I think that 9th will allow full attacks from all ranks that are fighting, and thus the question is moot.

I agree with you prett y much on all accounts, but I'm curious as to why this doesn't easily fall into "army book over bsb" argument. Is it because the lizardmen book doesn't explicitly state it overrides it?

I wonder if there is any mileage too the argument behind it not being two attacks, but one attack that happens to strike twice.

Meh, regardless id say just establish before hand which way yoire gonna go and if the opponent has an issue just default to front ranks only.

 

[sirkently]

I agree with you prett y much on all accounts, but I'm curious as to why this doesn't easily fall into "army book over bsb" argument. Is it because the lizardmen book doesn't explicitly state it overrides it?

Because it isn't the same rule. If the LM book said "Supporting attacks benefit from PF" then it would override the BRB.

And really, the army book overriding the BRB was there when 8th came out to answer questions about the interaction of 7th edition army books with the new 8th edition rules. That is why an enchanted shield still cost us 15 pts instead of the BRB cost. Really shouldn't come into effect with any of the new army books.

 

[Sleboda]

I agree with you prett y much on all accounts, but I'm curious as to why this doesn't easily fall into "army book over bsb" argument. Is it because the lizardmen book doesn't explicitly state it overrides it?

I wonder if there is any mileage too the argument behind it not being two attacks, but one attack that happens to strike twice.

=> Second part first - no. The wording is pretty straightforward on PF. Each Attack that gets a 6 lets you make another Attack. It would have been clever of them to write it better to go down the path you suggest. They could have said something like "For each 6 rolled by a PF Attack, roll a die. On a 4+ the hit counts as two hits." Then you could claim that it's just one Attack. As it stands, you cannot.

As to the first part, yeah. I covered that. Not only is there no contradiction (which would have required a very specific wording as I outlined above), but it's one of those rare instances where GW wrote such a tight rule that they made it future-proof. It's a seriously water tight wording. They don't manage it often, and they have only themselves to blame for a lack of faith from players, but when they do get it right like in this case, it's not right to dismiss it*. I'll repeat a bit of what I said just to show what I mean:

Ask yourself the following:
Is PF a Special Rule? Yes.
Is that Special Rule generating additional Attacks in any way at all? Yes.
Is a warrior making a Supporting Attack limited to making just one Attack no matter what a Special Rule says? Yes.

The wording in the BRB actually includes the specific wording to account for Special Rules not granting more Attacks, and PF is a Special Rule.

The AB>BRB catchall, if you think about it, is really there to allow any of the army books to work at all! Go through any random Army Book and I'm sure you'll find many examples of rules that are not covered/would not be allowed in the main BRB. If we did not have AB>BRB, we would have hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of "Well, my army book allows me to do X" vs "Well, the main rules don't allow it, so you can't."

Here's just one example off the top of my head, using Lizardmen. Aquatic states that these models can claim rank bonus in Rivers. Well, according to the BRB, units in a River cannot claim a rank bonus. See the direct conflict here?

BRB - No rank bonus in rivers.
Aquatic - Rank bonus in rivers.

Without the AB>BRB rules, you have no reason to pick one rule over the other. It's an endless cycle of "No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can...""

How does this differ from PF? Because there is no conflict.

BRB - No special rule can allow for more than one supporting attack.
PF - Models with PF get to make another Attack when they roll a 6 to hit.

See how there is no conflict? You can apply both rules legally and fully with no conflict.

How would it be worded to create conflict, using River Ranks as a parallel?

BRB - No special rule can allow for more than one supporting attack.
PF - Models rolling a 6 to hit, including those making supporting attacks, make another attack with this Special Rule.

See the key difference there? One rule says no extra supporting attacks from special rules. The other says that even supporting attacks can attack more. That is a conflict.

Hope that helps.



* It kind of feels like a math test where they usually tell you that you have to show your work for full credit. You can't just guess and get lucky with the right answer. Sometimes you don't have to show your work and you get lucky with the right answer for full credit.

In this case, GW doesn't have to show their work (explain intent), so maybe they got lucky and wrote a tight rule by mistake, but they still did do just that, so they get full credit.

 

[Putzfrau]

Makes sense to me! Ive always played it as first rank anyways so /shrug. Ill be delighted when the faq it tho.

Thanks for taking the time to type that all out even if the argument has already been beaten to death elsewhere

 

[Sleboda]

No problem. I must confess that I like to write. I am a communicator/writer by trade and have an insatiable need to figure out the "why" of anything, so writing out a crapton of stuff is actually fun for me!

 

[Pinktaco]

where can I find this rule about AB -> BRB? I mean page number.