Da Bad Moon gives us another blessing yet again! Not two months after the last Tome Celestial, we get another one, and for Gloomspite Gitz again! Last time it was The Jaws of Mork aimed at the popular mascot of the Gloomspites, the Squigs. This time, the other, less appreciated mascot, the Troggoths get to shine. These sentient mushrooms are beasts of destruction, focused only on eating and napping and then whatever it takes to get one of those two things. With the newest White Dwarf you can field your own squad of them for a decidedly different type of playstyle from the normal gitz lists.

The Lore

Troggoths are not complex creatures, they care not for deep aspirations. They sleep in their caves and if it were up to them they’d like to keep it that way. Glogg, a particularly cunning Troggoth (by which I mean only somewhat stupid instead of very) who has, despite all odds managed to form his own Trogherd and keep it going. Most Trogherds tend to burn out after a time, once their hunger has been satiated and they return to sleep. Glogg has, somehow, kept it going though no one is sure how. Guided by the Badmoon, this particularly dangerous Trogherd travels across the Mortal Realms, seeking new strains of fungi to eat.

I wish I could say that it got deeper from here, but nope. It’s Troggoths, they’re easy to please.

Loonshrine Update

Similar to how the Jaws of Mork rewrote the rules for the Loonshrine to let you regenerate lost units of Squigs, this will do the same for Troggoths. If a Fellwater Troggoth or Rockgut Troggoth unit dies, bring it back at half strength on a 4+. Just like the Squigg loonshrine, anyone can optionally use this, even those that don’t use Glogg’s Megamob.

Battle Traits

This time around, the unique allegiance is Glogg’s Megamob. The second subfaction granted to Gloomspite Gitz after Jaws of Mork you probably guessed similar to how Jaws of Mork tried to make an all squigs list viable, this is based on Troggoths. Practically every ability is designed to buff troggoths and like most subfactions, comes with a mandatory relic and artefact.

Allegiance Ability: Monstrous Regeneration

Every turn, Troggoths can attempt to regenerate D3 wounds on a 4+. This adds +1 to the roll, making it a 3+. This makes for reliable healing which will make the fairly tanky Troggoths far more frustrating.

Command Ability: Oblivious to Sorcery

Dankhold Troggoths already have an ability to ignore spells on a 4+. This allows a Dankhold Troggoth to grant this boon to nearby Fellwater or Rockguts within 12″, forming a shield wall against spells.

Command Trait: Shepard of Idiotic Destruction

Simple roll a D6 each round and on a 4+ gain a command trait. Welcome addition and hardly a bad thing to have.

Artefact: Aetherquartz Studded Hide

Found in the realm of Hysh it seems, this grants a 5+ Feel No Pain for mortal wounds for the bearer. Troggoths are already tanky so this is in line with their M.O.

Battalion: Stomping Megamob

• 1 Dankhold Troggboss
• 3-9 Dankhold Troggoths, Fellwater Troggoths or Rockgut Troggoths units in any
  combination
• 0-2 Aleguzzler Gargants

Only one here, which is unfortunately a bit dry. It’s not a bad one though, every one in the battalion can fallback and shoot and/or charge in the same turn which is very powerful and gives them more flexibility than they otherwise might have.

List Building

There’s 3 kinds of Trogg units, plus a leader and a named leader. While not a ton of variety, lets try and keep it in theme as best we can.

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz

LEADERS
Dankhold Troggboss (250)
-General
-Command Trait: Shepard of Idiotic Destruction
-Artefact: Aetherquartz Studded Hide
Mollog (170)
Skragrott, The Loonking (220)
-Spell: The Hand of Gork

BATTLELINE
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (150)
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (150)
3 x Rockgut Troggoths (140) 
3 x Rockgut Troggoths (140)

OTHER
2x Dankhold Troggoths (380)

BEHEMOTHS
Aleguzzler Gargant (160)

BATTALIONS
Stomping Megamob (160)

SCENERY
Bad Moon Loonshrine (0)

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Extra Command Point (50)

TOTAL: 1970/2000

Quick and Dirty, everything but the named characters go into the Battalion. We brought Skragott along because we don’t have a caster otherwise, and the Troggoths do tend to follow where he goes, as where the Loonking goes, so is the Badmoon. The actual playstyle is pretty straightforward, charge with the Troggoths, who can shirk off a lot of attacks and clobber through the enemy with your high rend attacks. Hand of Gork can help get them there quicker if you so choose but you want Skragott around at least to dispel spells. While you have a tendency to ignore spells, it’s best to try and stop that before it even happens.

Conclusion

This isn’t a terribly long article because there just isn’t a lot here. The fluff is pretty much what you’d expect, just a bunch of dudes having fun causing mayhem, and the rules aren’t anything we haven’t seen before but they’re powerful and are new for the Gloomspite Gitz.

I do like this a little more than Jaws of Mork. Not for anything special about what the Glogg’s Megamob does, but Gloomspite Gitz needs more subfactions, and this is a very different playstyle from what they normally get. While traditional Gloomspite lists favor hordes of Gitz attempting to overwhelm their foes this gives more weight to a handful of big strong models. None of the features are particularly unique or clever, they’re pretty bog standard abilities like generate command abilities or a 5+ feel no pain relic. What it does do is encourage this unique playstyle by giving it much needed boons that support the strength of the troggoths.

What I don’t like is the feeling that the only way Gloomspite Gitz are getting their subfactions is solely through ethereal White Dwarf articles. Gloomspite Gitz are a book in need of serious help and while I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to make them wait for a new codex to feel competitive, I don’t like them getting this piecemeal solution to the problem. The point of subfactions is to reward unique playstyles and favor different ways to play, and it seems unfair to reward these unique playstyles one at a time. I wonder how many more of these we’re going to get, something with spiders? Possibly! For now it’s at least more options for an army desperately wishing for them.