Chaos trolls?

[GuitaRasmus]

I've played a good game tonight against my buddy empire, and while everything in my army performed nicely (Blight Kings, Plague Drones, Skull cannon, Harbinger of decay, and a Soul Grinder - wow, that one does a lot), my chaos trolls really underperformed. I've tried them quite a few times before, each time being disappointed with them. What am I doing wrong? They don't tarpit well (5+, 4 wounds and bravery 5), don't hit well, don't shoot well or far... What are they good at? Why are they 180 points? 

[Broxus]

I have no idea why some units are so expensive.  I have heard the next GHB version should be better balanced.

 

[Hebroseph]

They are 180 points because GW doesn't want you to play them. Its an old unit they want to phase out.

[Spiky Norman]

Maybe you could play them as Bile Trolls?

They seem to have a pretty good rep, although I cannot attest to that myself as I haven't played them yet.

[GuitaRasmus]

That's a possibility - although I don't see them being much better. 200 pts, and you get 1 more wound, 1" more of shooting, a 1/6 chance of an extra shooting attack, a -1 bravery to enemy units, and the need to have a nurgle hero nearby, to not risk them being dumber than oatmeal. I don't think that's getting a lot for the extra 20 points. 

Compare them to blight kings at 200 points. 

Blight Kings:

1/6 chance of healing each turn

4+ save

15 wounds pr. unit

Bravery 10

Average damage output, including special 6 to hit ability: 10,66 wounds

 

Trolls: 

Average damage output, including shooting: 8,55 wounds

Average damage output close combat: 5,94 wounds

5/6 chance of healing

5+ save

Bravery 5

15 wounds pr unit. 

 

The Blight Kings are significantly better: They cause 2 more damage in their own turn, and a whopping almost double the bile trolls in the opponents turn. Furthermore they save half the incoming damage as opposed to 1/3. Most importantly, they ignore all but the most dire losses, due to their bravery. You can easily lose the last two trolls, due to a bravery check if one is killed during combat. I just don't see any reason why one would choose trolls. And I really want to, since I've painstakingly converted an awesome unit of them.

[Furious]

Check out the Destruction trolls. For pretty much the same thing, they are 20 points more, and not compendium.

[Spiky Norman]

As mentioned I haven't played the Bile Trolls, but if you search the forums for 'Bile Trolls' they have been praised quite a bit.

One thing I do think is worth remembering is the Nurgle keyword, and that Bile Trolls have rend where Blight Kings have none. So it's not an all or nothing. Blight Kings are good at killing low armour, large number units, where the trolls have some rend that can help them against tougher targets, especially considering you get to shoot in combat, so you have both -1 and -2 rend on hand.

Mix them up with Epidemius and maybe a Plagueclaw and things might start to shine a bit more than what you have experienced so far.

[Thomas Lyons]

A couple things:

• Try running them with Throgg.  He gives them rerolls, as well as rerolls to all of your monsters as well.
• How large of a unit were you running? I would try running them in groups of six (at minimum).