Please Don't Feed The Animals: Exigence

The smell of a new book is always a welcome aroma. I received my copy of Exigence the day after release and despite the fact I had all the models ruined for me from all the spoilers, I was eager to find out what was next in the story.

I'm going to try my damnedest to not spoil anything in the new fluff but if I do please forgive me. It seems that the involvement of dragons are becoming more frequent in the lore which makes me speculate that the next Hordes faction will be the followers of perhaps Charsaug or his twin. You will see a good deal of them as well as the involvement of another dragon, Blighterghast. All in all, I'm pleased with where the lore is going. Borka's story in this book is great but I have a trollkin bias. It is also interesting to see what Kreuger is up to as well as Barnabas finally making the necessary steps toward his final goal. It's all worth reading, is all I have to say after this mindless drabble.

As far as rules here are some of my thoughts and opinions on the factions I play. I'm an optimist about new model releases for the most part; I try to find use for the new things that come out. From what I have read on various forums and even on the different Faction Facebook pages, new releases are becoming more and more situational. People have complained about the lack of new auto-includes in these last few books. I think the game could be potentially ruined by always putting in the auto-include because it negates the need for some of the older models/units. I am very pleased with how PP does their releases; not only does everyone get something new relatively at the same time but making a new investment into recently released models is completely optional. Ok, enough of that, time to get into the factions that I care about.


Trollbloods:

Epic Borka is pretty sweet in my opinion. His initially reception by the community included some head-scratching and some "reallys?" but he seems super fun if built correctly. In my opinion, he also brings new life to that bearded bastard the winter troll, in that giving his Battlegroup immunity: cold, winter trolls have carte blanche to spray into combat without hurting their buddys.

I like both of the new units. The highwaymen seem okay but I am very excited for the fire eaters. That pig buddy sets them on fire and you get two boosted sprays with assault! Love it! Braylen also intrigues me me a bit and that model will most likely be awesome. I'm still trying to sort out her uses. Dozer and Smigg seem solid but I would have to do some play testing to really see if they are worth taking over some of my other choices for their position. Let's not forget about Horgle; I find him to be great even for just being a source of fury management. That being said, I don't feel that any of the lessees could really compete in the resource management with the Journeyman Warcasters. Blame the Fury mechanic.

Minions:

Jaga-Jaga is super cool in my book! Another caster that can actually get her force to do some damage is always very welcome. Her anti-spell tech is also pretty sweet, being able to circumnavigate defender's ward and arcane shield is great. She is most likely going to be a popular choice for list pairings.

The Sacral Vault will really help Blindwater's ranged game a good amount; it's not all about turtles anymore, but I could see the coupling of the two being pretty good. I'm pleased that there is another option now that can directly replace a posse pointwise and give a different kind of strategy.

I do have a pig army but I'll admit that I'm not well versed in them yet. The Efaarit Scouts seem like they will help the slaughterhousers out big time. Just have the scouts move up, use sniper to do one damage on a jack/beast and as long as you can get those housers into melee, you've already prepped the target for finisher. I'm thinking I could definitely utilize them in Trolls, as well as Maximus, who is just a deadly little 2 point solo.

The meat grinder is another model I might definitely invest in for my Troll army.  Love the bulldoze aspect and the knockdown/trash combo is really nice. This thing also seems like it will be a good method of taking out those pesky high DEF tarpits.

I like the releases that are relevant to my factions, even though I am slightly bummed that Blindwater only got 2 releases. I can only hope for more next time. That's it for now!