Today we’re diving into the new Reign of the Brute expansion for Age of Sigmar, chock full of new Orruks, Armies of Renown, and Trugg himself. In this article Bair takes a look at Trugg and his troggherd. Thanks to Games Workshop for sending us Trugg and Reign of the Brute supplement for review.
What are Armies of Renown?
Reign of the Brute contains a new way to build your army for a handful of factions in the game. “Armies of Renown” are themed lists restricted to specific types of unit, in exchange for their own exclusive allegiance abilities. Each Army of Renown will name a specific keyword restriction you must follow for list building in order to be able to use it.
While Armies of Renown still count as part of their parent faction (effectively functioning as a brand new subfaction), there are some differences. Armies of Renown have their own Army Rules which replace the core battletome the faction comes from. This means you cannot use the following from the original battle tome:
- Battle Traits
- Command Traits
- Artefacts of Power
- Sub-factions
- Heroic Actions
In addition, you cannot use the book’s original:
- Grand Strategies
- Battle Tactics
- Core Battalions (Core Rule and General’s Handbook core battalions are still OK)
- Warscroll Battalions (if in Narrative Play)
You can still use the army’s terrain piece, if applicable. Ultimately this means that the factions portrayed in Rise of the Brute are standalone. Since all the necessary Warscrolls and pitched battle profiles are freely available you do not need the original Battletome to play any of the Armies of Renown in this book.
Trugg Knows Best
Warhammer Community showed off Trugg’s warscroll earlier this week but now with the full army of renown, some of his abilities really start to come into his own. Before getting too far into his rules though, I had the pleasure of building and painting this magnificent troggoth. Opening up the box I was surprised to see only two sprues with some very large pieces attached to them but it went together relatively easily. There were some gaps after filing down the joins in the arms and legs but a bit of plastic glue fixed it easily. There are absolutely no spare pieces either, no stock options to build in a different pose.
With Trugg built the only left to do was paint! I sprayed him black, drybrushed heavily over with Corax White for underpainting, and got to work. Being such a large model I avoided using contrast for the skin and went for a deeper purple with the idea of basing my Trogg army in Shyish. Honestly I’m not sure how well that translates, if it even does, but with a mix of dryrbrushing, contrast paints for leathers and wood, and a nice bright pink shell I’m really pleased with how this turned out.
For size he’s actually a little smaller than I expected I think? He goes on a 100mm base which used to be massive but in the modern age of Age of Sigmar it’s…not actually that massive. Amongst a horde of Troggoths he definitely stands out as a centrepiece though, and that’s really the point isn’t it?
The Truggherd
It’s Troggoths. That’s the list. Every model has to have the Troggoth keyword in it. Nice and simple!
The Bad Moon has a section here but it’s identical to the Gloomspite Gitz book, giving effected Troggoths +1 save. All Troggoths in this Army of Renown are effected by Trugg’s Leystone instead of only himself. That’s a pretty big boost in both output and defence depending on what you roll and choose to take. Making your army nearly immune to shooting or giving Fellwater Troggoths a 5+ Ward makes things much harder to kill while +1attack on Rockguts and an extra point of rend on anything will just make your attacks stick into those more heavily armoured enemies. It’s very good. The only bad result is if you roll all 1’s. Also all your non-Hero Troggoths gain Battleline. Makes list building nice and simple.
Enhancements
Command Traits
These are also open to Unique units which means that Trugg an take one of his army’s command traits, a nice little bonus.
Ceaseless Growth – All of your troggoths heal 1 additional wound with Regeneration or Greater Regeneration. This helps make up for the lack of subfaction giving extra times of healing a little and is army-wide not a limited range from the General.
Prized Trogglet – This is clearly the little guy hanging out on Trugg’s horns. Enemy models within 12″ issuing commands fail to do so on a 5+ roll. The unit receiving the command doesn’t need to be within 12″ just the model issuing; heroes further afield than units your General are in combat with can still safely order their units. If that 5+ is rolled however your opponent still loses their command point!
Living Landmark – Thematically this one is my favourite, the general has blended in so well with the terrain that the enemy army hasn’t spotted him. It’s a turn-one-only deepstrike that has to be placed within 3″ of a terrain piece and still more than 9″ away from enemies. Unfortunately this means Trugg would forgo his Leystone in turn 1 which you don’t want to miss out on for defensive buffs. Placing on a Troggboss however to get into enemy lines early with an otherwise slow model is very powerful.
Artefacts
Unlike those command traits these are not available to Unique, so Trugg can’t take any. Trogbosses however will benefit greatly! Unfortunately because of the high wounds on all your Troggbosses you won’t be able to take more than 1 artefact without access to the Warlord battalion so choose carefully and play to its strengths.
Thwackwheezer Club – If the bearer has fought in the current fight phase then all attacks targeting him suffer a -1 to hit and wound for the rest of the phase. This would be good if it was just hits or wounds but it’s both! It also doesn’t matter what this hero attacked, it’s a blanket effect for the rest of the phase regardless of what’s attaching him.
Crunchy Shinies – Changes the bearer’s move to D6+5″ from the normal 6″ move. At the worst roll he’s not slower, on an average roll you’re getting a bit more movement and at the peak 11″ potential that’s a Troggboss really legging it down the field. You can of course still run as well if you wished for an average 12″ move to get somewhere important. Troggs are slow and this little boost will make a difference to getting into combat or not.
Loonstone Teef – Gains Monster keyword, so can perform a Monstrous Rampage. Being able to Roar a target before swinging in turning off All Out Defence is especially tasty but Titanic Duel to make bigger creatures a bit easier to take down is great too! Also means he now counts as 5 on an objective making him better at solo contesting.
Grand Strategy
Leave Me Alone – Keep Trugg alive and kill all enemy Heroes. In some matchups this will be nice and easy, but in others nearly impossible to achieve. Your opponent should be gunning for Trugg considering how much he does for the army, so consider one of the General’s Handbook ones.
Battle Tactics
Don’t Like Dat One – Pick an enemy Hero and kill it with Trugg. Nice and simple for when there’s an enemy hero in range and already knocked down to a few remaining wounds.
Feels Funny – Kill an enemy unit while a Truggherd unit is affected by Trugg’s Leystone. Very, very, very easy. May be one of the easiest battle tactics in the game now so long as Trugg is living! Just use the Leystone and kill an enemy unit – things you were already doing.
Wot’s Dat Glowy Fing? – Pick an objective that isn’t yours and have 2 or more Truggherd units being affected by the bad moon and controlling it. This is incredibly simple to score turn 1: don’t deploy on your home objective and have the light of the bad moon from your Loonshrine in range of it. Done.
How the Army Plays
Honestly it’s incredibly simple really. You take Trugg, a pair of Trogbosses, and a smattering of Troggoths of your choice between Rockgut, Fellwater, and Dankhold. An army of singular Dankhold Troggoths would be especially amusing making target priorty a pain for your opponent while walking around dealing out high amounts of damage and getting buffed by Trugg. Realistically you probably take a few reinforced units of Rockguts and Fellwaters together for more attacks and more reliably objective control.
Sample Lists
To start just a nice simple well-rounded Trogg list. It’s difficult to make up a list without being a fair amount down on points, so at least the triumph bid is a big possibility!
Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Control the Nexus
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders
Trugg the Troggoth King (320)*
– General
– Command Trait: Ceaseless Growth
Dankhold Troggboss (210)
– Artefact: Thwackwheezer Club
Dankhold Troggboss (210)
Battleline
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (340)*
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Rockgut Troggoths (340)*
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Fellwater Troggoths (340)*
– Reinforced x 1
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
Total: 1950 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 118
Drops: 3
It really is a simple list. It walks forwards, kills what it hits (hopefully) and takes objectives that way. Yes, it’s relatively slow, but any army of Troggs will be! Importantly it looks very fun to put down onto the table.
Oops All Dankhold
This list follows a similar ethos to the Grimwrath Berzerker list I talked about. The name of this game is making your opponent’s decision making harder. That’s it. With this many single model units your opponent will have a hard time splitting attacks and deciding how many to go into which unit to either see them all healed back up or see how much overkill could have gone into other targets. You could instead take out a Troggboss and Dankhold to slot Trugg in, which then gives the list a lot more in the way of buffs, but you lose out on a whole unit then and end up about 100 points under 2k. And the point is all Dankholds anyways! Please someone run this, I want to see Ellar have to write about it in Competitive Innovations because it’s just a bit nutty.
Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Control the Nexus
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty
Leaders
Dankhold Troggboss (210)*
– General
– Command Trait: The Clammy Hand
– Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
Dankhold Troggboss (210)
– Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
Dankhold Troggboss (210)
– Nullstone Adornment: Hand-carved Nullstone Icon
Dankhold Troggboss (210)
Battleline
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)*
1 x Dankhold Troggoths (190)
Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 108
Drops: 5
Bringing it Together (in the swamps)
Trugg is a fantastic model and what he adds to a Gloomspite army is pretty cool all around. The Army of Renown, like with most, seems to simply give up far too much to make it an automatic decision to run. Also giving up entirely on having any wizards in your army or any of the many other buff units or screens that Gitz normally have access to means you’ll need to play much more aggressively and try for some long-bomb charges that your games with hinge around. That said, it looks like a bunch of fun to play with and against and I can’t wait to get my Rockguts painted up and on the table with Trugg!
