by Calvin Rarie

Do you know why Destruction armies are best? Because they’re straight forward, they’re simple, and their identities aren’t defined by names with more than two syllables that you can’t chant.

Instead, sometimes you just want to get mean and chunky, and outside of the dad-bods in the Ogor Mawtribes, none get chunkier than Troggs themselves. Recently, Troggs (the best way to play Gitz outside of big spiders) got an uplift with the release of the second Dawnbringers book in the form of Trugg, and a new Army of Renown in Trugg’s Troggherd.

While the bossman was kind of down on him competitively, I’ve had the opportunity to be on the receiving end of Trugg’s nonsense a few times now, and I’ve got three different lists for you to check out today. Let’s jump in.

The Case For Trugg And The Truggherd

First off–look, I’m not calling it Trugg’s Troggherd. It’s the Truggherd. You’re welcome, GW.

Second off, why the Truggherd? Well it’s simple:

1. You like elite infantry that die VERY slowly.
2. You like slow-dying elite infantry that hit like fucking freight trains.
3. Pursuant to #2, you have a collection of Dankhold Troggoths you’ve been waiting to put on the table.
4. You think casting spells is for cowards.
5. You like finishing games as fast as possible.
6. You play with clocks and want to intimidate your opponent in how fast your turns can go.

Trugg himself, of course, is the main star of the show, being a 16 wound monster that heals INCREDIBLY fast–at d3+3 wounds per hero phase to start with–as well as being a Warmaster. His portal ability is the big selling point, since the Truggherd Army of Renown battle trait extends the buff to all your Troggoth units (which is everyone) until the start of your next hero phase. Dankhold Troggoths and Fellwater Troggoths with a 5+ ward? Yes please. Making your opponent’s Kharadron Overlords army hit only on 6s in the shooting phase? Hell yeah!

In addition, you get to keep the Bad Moon orbit rules from the Gitz book, meaning +1 to save on your army while they are affected by the moon. You also get the Loonshrine, so you can bring back destroyed Rockgut or Fellwater units at half strength. Dankholds, unfortunately, have too many wounds to be brought back.

Moving onto tactics, boy are they easy:

The tactics basically boil down to:

• Kill an enemy unit with a friendly unit affected by Trugg–which surprise surprise, the army is VERY good at killing things;
• Take control of an objective you don’t control with two or more friendly units that are affected by the Bad Moon
  • This one’s great because in missions where you have objectives in your territory, you can just deploy off them and then walk on to them for a VERY easy T1 tactic;
• Kill a hero with Trugg–who, again, is pretty fucking good at killing things. Just don’t pick, like, a Glottkin with this unless you absolutely must.

The Grand Strategy is fine–Trugg has to be alive but no enemy heroes can be. If your opponent’s heroes have ANY kind of mobility, this can be really tough to score, let along having to straight up table Sons of Behemat to achieve it. Just pick Slaughter of Sorcery instead–it’ll be much easier to score on average than this, and it can occasionally just auto-score vs certain armies. Overshadow is also a pretty good pick too since you have the toughest battleline in the game, and your battleline tends to absolute MAUL whatever they touch.

Lastly, I want to talk about Command Traits and Artefacts, because one of the cool things about the AOR is that–if you wanted to–you could make Trugg or Mollog (remember that guy?) a general, and the AOR lets you give them command traits. But not artefacts.

That being said, don’t do that–Trugg is a Warmaster, so he doesn’t need to be your general. Mollog is… fine, but can’t carry an artefact. This means you’re left with the ONE other hero choice, which is your Dankhold Troggboss.

In every list below, I’ve given him the same command trait and artefact, which is all I will talk about here:

• Command Trait: Ceaseless Growth
  • Adds +1 to Regeneration and Greater Regeneration rolls. Free extra healing is great, especially when Trugg starts healing d3 + 4 every round or your Dankhold Troggoths healing d3+1.
• Artefact: Crunchy Shinies
  • Changes the bearer’s movement to d6 + 5″. One of the hardest things about playing Troggs is keeping your general within range of your other Troggs to give out commands to them. With this Artefact, now your Troggboss is moving anywhere from 6″ at worst to 11″ at most BEFORE run rolls are accounted for.
  • This also helps you when you really need to get a Troggboss onto a distant objective, when you could potentially move it a maximum of 17 inches with the At the Double! command.

There IS a case for Arcane Tome instead of Crunchy Shinies, which is almost exclusively to cast Mystic Shield and open up the Magical Dominance battle tactic. Hilariously, it also prevents your opponents playing armies like Khorne from auto-scoring Slaughter of Sorcery, since now they have to try and kill one of the toughest wizards in the game.

List #1: Ol’ Reliable Rockguts

Rockguts are tough as bricks, and hit just as hard as them. They already have a 5+ ward, but so what? Giving them +1 attacks or +1 rend and then layering on the super-All-Out-Attack from the Troggboss makes them hit even harder. Sitting at 1950 points means you have a reliable chance at getting the triumph, and this list gives you a reliable opportunity to bring back at least one killed unit from the Loonshrine, which helps extend your ability to continue playing the game.

List #2: Fellwater Rapids

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Gittish Horde: Trugg’s Troggherd
—Grand Strategy: Slaughter of Sorcery
—Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Trugg the Troggoth King (320)
Dankhold Troggboss (210)*
–General
–Command Trait: Ceaseless Growth
–Artefact: Crunchy Shinies

Battleline
9 x Fellwater Troggoths (510)*
6 x Fellwater Troggoths (340)*
2 x Dankhold Troggoths (380)*
1x Dankhold Troggoth (190)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1950 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 118
Drops: 2

Just hear me out:

Fellwaters have possibly the most potent shooting attack in the game, which is hampered almost exclusively by their lack of defensive strengths–namely because they don’t have the 5+ ward that Rockguts do.

However, literally every single buff that Trugg can give DRAMATICALLY increases the potency of Fellwaters, especially the 5+ ward buff. Having an innate -1 to hit in melee makes these foul-smelling beasts incredibly hard to shift in this melee meta we are in.

In addition, this is THE list where you would want an Arcane Tome, since it would let you take the Geminids of Uhl-Ghysh, which could deny units from redeploying out of range of your Fellwaters who just want to vomit on them.

List #3: The Dank Knight Rises

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Gittish Horde: Trugg’s Troggherd
—Grand Strategy: Slaughter of Sorcery
—Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Trugg the Troggoth King (320)
Dankhold Troggboss (210)*
–General
—Command Trait: Ceaseless Growth
—Artefact: Shiny Crunchies
Mollog (130)*

Battleline
3 x Dankhold Troggoths (570)*
2 x Dankhold Troggoths (380)*
1x Dankhold Troggoth (190)*
1x Dankhold Troggoth (190)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 2

Mollog–being only 8 wounds FOR SOME REASON–fits into the Sub-Commander slot in the Battle Regiment, still enabling a 2-drop. In addition, because he’s less than 10 wounds somehow, Mollog benefits from Look Out Sir!, meaning he’s invisible while here’s standing next to the double reinforced Dankhold Troggoths. So to get to him, they have to kill at least 10 wounds of Dankhold Troggoths that ignores spells on a 4+, which is easier said than done. Despite having one of the worst warscrolls in Age of Sigmar (his combat stats are still pretty good for 130 points), Mollog is a worthwhile consideration here since you get a cheapish hero who can score you Surround fairly easily along with the two single Dankholds.

Of note: you COULD drop the Troggboss and just add another Dankhold and go to a 1-drop. Leaving out the Troggboss does mean you lose out on the +1 attack from the All-Out-Attack being issued–so consider that opportunity cost before going all-in here.

Also, if you’ve never played with Dankhold Troggoths before, let me re-enact a conversation I’ve had a GT before with someone who did not understand why I was playing them:

Me: “Ok, I attack with two Dankhold Troggoths and give them All-Out-Attack from my Dankhold Troggboss… that’s 9 saves at -2.”

Them: “Goes through, what’s the damage?”

Me, after rolling dice: “That’s uh, 35 damage.”

Them: “WHAT THE FUCK?”

Conclusion

Let’s not beat around the bush here–there’s significant drawbacks to playing an army that exclusively moves only 6″ and has no access to run and charge or teleporting and with significant bravery issues on the small Troggs. Points are also kind of awkward, with you almost always ending up at 50 or so points under–but at least you get a high shot at a triumph.

That being said, this army is a BLAST because of how simple it is to play. The Truggherd is essentially StatCheck.Army, and you’d be astonished how often armies fail that check and then get the shit beat out of them now that they’re locked in combat with you.

You have a VERY linear game plan, but you execute it very well. I’ve set the whole strategy for you in a way that even a Trogg could read it (if they were literate, which they definitely are not):

1. Trogg see circle.
2. Trogg walk to circle.
3. Trogg fight on circle.
4. Trogg stand on circle.

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