On Troll Slayers in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Troll Slayers are arguably the most iconic character archetype to have sprung from the Warhammer world. With their bright orange beards and mohawks, two-handed axes, tattoos, and bare-chests, they’ve become a visual signifier for the entire Warhammer Fantasy milieu, and have spread, as Fyre Slayers, into the Age of Sigmar universe (caveat: I know next-to-nothing about AoS). They’ve even been immortalised in Lego as a collectible minifigure, under the copyright-avoiding moniker ‘Battle Dwarf’.

In fact, it was seeing that Lego ‘Battle Dwarf’ in 2017 that rekindled an interest in Warhammer that had lain dormant since about 1998, and now has me, at 44 years old, running a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign and a Blood Bowl league in what little spare time I have.

Because I loved Troll Slayers when I first discovered them, via WFRP back in about 1989, and there’s something about them that makes me still love them even now. The idea of a borderline berserk dwarf, driven by shame to atone through death in combat against a much stronger foe, appeals to adolescent boys. I can’t imagine why. Maybe it’s the Freudian drive to kill one’s father. Whatever it is, it’s not by mere coincidence that each of the four editions of WFRP have featured a Slayer on the cover.

But Slayers are problematic. There are probably more questions about Troll Slayers in the online WFRP groups I’m in (from both GMs and players) than about any other career. A lot of people see them as bloodthirsty loners, combat tanks with little or no roleplay potential, who drag the party into dangerous situations and contribute little in roleplay-heavy sessions (which, as everyone knows, are the best sessions; less dice-crunching and more imagination!). Nothing more than murderhobos or dumb-as-rocks barbarians.

Others think they’re far too prominent in the iconography given how rare they ought to be in the lore. Dwarfs aren’t super-common, never mind shame-filled dwarfs with mohawks and death wishes. I even saw someone do a forensic analysis of how many depictions of Slayers there were in the 4e rulebook (a lot; but they’re all the same Slayer, because most of the illustrations follow the same core characters, so there’s the same Witch Hunter and Wizard present a lot, too).

But those people who think Slayers are problematic are wrong. Because they’re just about the richest characters for players to delve into, if you’re willing to do the work.

One of the things that marks WFRP out from the likes of D&D is that you’re not a ‘hero’. Players adopt the character of a Rat Catcher, or an Artisan’s Apprentice, or a Servant: ordinary people plucked from mundane lives and thrust into perilous situations, rather than sorcerers and paladins on noble quests. Slayers play into this perfectly by running counter to the base instinct towards heroism of comparable characters. They don’t want to slay the dragon; they want to be slain by it. They’re the opposite of heroic.

What further marks a Slayer out from their adventuring colleagues is their backstory: most other characters will be human, and young, and at the start of their ‘story’. The Slayer, by necessity, has a backstory, a shame, that has caused them to take the Slayer oath, and it’s up to the Slayer player and the GM to make sure that this is represented in how the character is portrayed.

Because Slayers are not murderhobos or barbarians. They carry deep emotional scars and trauma. In fact, the dwarf species as a whole carries generational trauma; this is what ‘grudges’ are. Dwarfs are not warlike or violent creatures like orcs or ogres; they’ve been forced to defend their ancestral homes for thousands of years and that’s left scars on their collective psyche. They live long and remember longer, and they use storytelling as a living historiography; they’re loyal, driven by family (clan), they love to drink and talk and sing and tell tales. Slayer players can and should use all of this because they are still dwarfs. It’s not a mistake that ‘Entertain’ is in their 4^th edition skills.

If there’s anything wrong with the Slayer career scheme in 4^th edition WFRP (and 1^st, to be fair), it’s the lack of skills from their previous life, because unlike every other career in the game there is always a significant ‘before’ for a Slayer. To some extent the species-specific starter skills and talents for dwarfs address this but it’s perhaps not quite enough. As a GM I’d be working with a Slayer PC pre-campaign to help them understand the mindset and dynamic of a Slayer, and maybe allow them to pick a couple of skills and perhaps a talent from another career to represent the vestiges of their former self that may still come out once in a while. I don’t think this would give them an unfair advantage, and it should help with their roleplay by giving them more context and tools.

It’s also important to remember that Slayers, despite their oath, don’t ‘want’ to die: they feel obliged to purge their shame by dying in combat against a worthy foe, which is very different. They didn’t choose to take this oath and walk out on their past life, their family, their home; they were compelled to do so by some terrible event (of which they will never speak, especially to a manling) that has caused them immense shame. There can and should be massive conflict in them, and fear of what lies ahead. They’re stoical, not insane, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t regret having taken the Slayer oath.

When we started our WFRP campaign just over three years ago I let the party choose between rolling their careers randomly, or choosing to be a Slayer or a Rat Catcher, which I consider to be the two most iconic careers of the setting, because I wanted us to embrace the clichés and the archetypes of Warhammer. Two chose randomness (a physician and an outlaw), and the other two acquiesced to my desires. We’re very lucky that our Slayer player is very good (the whole party is, to be fair, or we wouldn’t still be here three years later, eager for every session), and gets the dynamic of his character. He wrote up a backstory but never shared it with the other players or their characters, and occasionally lets things leak out; he seems to really dislike halflings for some reason, and has some kind of trade-based background. He is, clearly, a combat tank, but he brings an awful lot more tha that to the table. He’s also taken other careers mechanically when appropriate (we’re playing The Enemy Within, and he accepted Josef’s Boatman offer, for instance) while maintaining Slayer as his vocation, and I’ve allowed him to move freely back into the Slayer career path when it’s narratively suitable to do so.

His interactions with other dwarfs are necessarily strained at points (he is a massive signifier of shame and guilt to his entire species, and some dwarfs will, of course, find that very uncomfortable) and he’s used that well. At the end of every session (we play in short-ish, 2.5 hour bursts) I allow my players to each award one of the others 10 experience points for roleplaying, and our Slayer is a regular recipient of these. In fact, in our last session (which was largely combat-free), he received a full house, in that he gave his to someone else but all three other players gave theirs to him. Proof, if it were needed, that there’s no reason whatsoever for Slayers to be left behind in the roleplaying stakes.

On Blood Bowl Star Players, vol. 1

I’ve been playing a lot of Blood Bowl over the last couple of years; I used to play 30 years or so ago, and picked it up again when visiting Matt (best friends since we were 4) in late 2021. Since then we’ve run a few leagues, playing games in person, via a crazy webcam set-up, and using Fumbbl.

Blood Bowl, if you don’t know, is the ridiculous bastard child of chess, Lord of the Rings, and American Football, wherein team of dwarfs, or elves, or orcs, of halflings, or lizardmen, or whatever, try to kill each other / score touchdowns. It was great fun, if infuriating, when we were 12, and it remains pretty much the same now. You pick a team, coach them through a league, and develop your players as they become more experienced via scoring touchdowns, making passes, or murdering goblins. You also chuck dice across the room in frustration when you fail to pick up the ball on a 2+ roll and cry out to the gods at the unfairness of it all quite a lot.

There are loads of resources for coaches to help them improve their ‘coaching’ online – podcasts, tactics websites, YouTube channels, etc etc – but one thing that I’ve found frustratingly lacking is written advice on Star Players. Star Players are, obviously, really good, famous Blood Bowl players, who you can hire for the occasional game when you have enough gold or are a facing a strong enough opponent that the imbalance requires you to pay for inducements to help balance things out.

But who to choose? What are they all good at? Some are obvious from their statistics, or else just infamous after 35+ years of the game existing, but others are less so. And I wanted to know who I could make most use of.

So, in the absence of other people having written about them (there are videos and podcasts etc, but I prefer my advice silent and readable most of the time), I did what I used to do (about music), and wrote it myself…

I’ve not played enough with every Star Player yet (or even half of them) to be anywhere near an authority, and there are many, many, many, many better coaches then me out there, but I have used (and faced) a bunch of them (and I still think I can write, blog-style, about just about anything reasonably well), so who knows, this may help some people…

So, here’s vol. 1 of my thoughts about Star Players in Blood Bowl (PS. if you’re still here looking for music recommendations then the James Holden and Mitski albums from this year are absolute masterpieces)…

Zolcath the Zoat

Useful for: Wood Elves / Elven Union
Useful at: blitzing / being a safety

Zolcath is a tough one in more ways than one. All Elf teams lack strength, so to have a reliable (no negatrait) St5 piece who can move 5-7 squares a turn (MA5 with Sure Feet) is a big boon. For woodies, Zolcath is a mobile threat completely unlike a treeman, who basically sticks to your line of scrimmage and hopes enough people stay close enough to batter; Zolcath on the other hand can maraud around the pitch and lend muscle where needed.

That said, like a lot of Star Player big guys, he’s not got Block, which means you need to be careful with him. He does have Juggernaut, so Blitzing is fairly safe, and if he ends up near your opponent’s ball carrier he’s likely to freak them out enough with Disturbing Presence that they don’t want to pass, while his Prehensile Tail makes dodging away tricky too. Ag4+ means his special skill (basically a one-off use of Hypnotic Gaze) isn’t something you can rely on to change the game. He’s pretty expensive too, at 230,000gp, and elf teams often have high Team Values, so he’s a bit of a luxury. Maybe he’s an option when you need to burn some of your treasury down.

So what is he on the pitch? I’m not 100% sure. A safety/sweeper, perhaps, or a blitzing cage-breaker. Or perhaps someone who can chase down and Blitz / Mighty Blow an opposing thorn in your side off the pitch, or clear a path for a Catcher to run through.

Just don’t waste Zolcath on the line of scrimmage, where he’ll get stuck and likely ganged-up on (because that’s what happens to St5 stars). Although Regeneration means there’s a 50/50 chance he’ll come back even if they do manage to really hurt him. All things considered, he’s such a spectacular model on the pitch, visually, that he’s likely to take a lot of your opposing coach’s attention, even if he’s not a game-winner or changer in his own right.

Wilhelm Chaney

Useful for: Undead (any)
Useful at: killing the ball carrier

Werewolves are some of the best starting players in the game; brutal blitzers who can burst through a shield to score on offence, or lurk at the back as a vicious safety on defence, especially when paired up with a side-stepping wraith. And Wilhelm Chaney is the turbo-charged, bestest-boy werewolf of them all.

St4, Frenzy, Wrestle and Claws have him pulling down, crowd-surfing (or just murdering) the ball-carrier with alarming regularity. I assume GW gave him Catch as a visual joke so they could sculpt him with a ball in his mouth; who on any team likely to hire him is going to throw him a pass? Useful for hand-offs and catching kick-offs I guess, but you don’t want him hogging SPPs by scoring, so you’re best off putting a Ghoul under that High Kick. No, keep him back, keep him free, and watch him eat catchers and runners for breakfast.

Rumbelow Sheepskin

Useful for: Flings / Dwarfs
Useful at: blitzing

Rumbelow is a vaguely comical figure – a halfling! riding a sheep! wot larks! might as well be the mythical badger-rider from WFRP – until you actually use him on the pitch. Then, it quickly becomes apparent that – AV8+ notwithstanding – he’s actually just about the most (cost) effective Star Player in the game if you’re after a blitzer / safety. Block, Tackle, and Juggernaut make him pretty formidable, but add in Horns for that lush ST4 blitz, and all of a sudden he’s dumping people off the pitch with relative ease. And then you realise that he’s also got Leap, so the possibility of cage-diving with a two-dice block to choose from is real!

He is, however, only Ag 3+, so not quite dancing into a cage like a wardancer. And that low AV – though higher than his halfling brethren – makes him more than a little glass-canon-esque. But! He’s only 170,000gp, meaning fling teams can probably take him every game. And they should; I’ve had more success with him than Zug or Ivar, who cost a lot more. I can see him adding serious value to Human and Dwarf teams, too. Keep him out of the scrum so he doesn’t get hit back (and never follow-up unless you Pow), and he can be worth his weight in pies. I’m playing halflings this season and have induced Rumbelow four times: he’s got six casualties in those games.

Puggy Baconbreath

Useful for: Flings / Humans
Useful at: unexpected touchdowns / being thrown

People sometimes refer to Karla von Kill or Ivar Eriksson as ‘mini Griffs’, and I can understand why, but in actuality on the pitch they both behave in quite different ways: Karla the big guy blitzer, Ivar the team-player who elevates those around him. Puggy Baconbreath, however, kind of is a mini-Griff, in that he can do a bit of everything, and do it much better than his teammates…

Stronger than a regular ‘fling, and blessed with Blodge and Nerves of Steel, he can credibly knock down players much bigger than him (admittedly with an assist for safety) and is also incredibly difficult to get the ball off. Plus, like Griff, he has an inbuilt reroll once a game. There’s no one better at being thrown across the pitch, landing safely, and scampering home a touchdown. He’s been the difference that’s won games for halfling teams I’ve used, but he can also add tactical options to dwarf or human teams: a genuinely agile, cheap ball-carrier for the bearded ones, and, in tandem with an ogre, a credible one-turn-threat for humans. For 120,000 gold pieces (and a massive sandwich), he’s a steal. Just never, ever let anyone hit him; even with Blodge he’s still only AV7+.

Akhorne the Squirrel

Useful for: Everyone
Useful as: blitzing

I’ve never used Akhorne on my team, but I’ve faced him enough times to know that he can be a pain in the bum – he’s fast, he’s got Claws, he gets two goes at every dauntless roll, he’s got Frenzy and Jump Up AND Side Step, and he dodges everywhere on a 2+, which all adds up to a very effective blitzer, for only 80,000gp! But he’s also St1 and AV6+ with no Block skill, so if you can catch him and stamp on him, he basically dies.

The trick with Akhorne is that, because he’s a squirrel, it’s easy to overlook him in favour of bigger targets, leaving him free to run amok through your team removing linemen from the pitch left, right and centre. So, you need to deal with him, but doing so can very easily distract you from doing what you ought to be doing (trying to win the game), leaving people out of position and opening up holes for bona fide scoring threats to run through.

If 80,000gp is all you can afford for inducements then he’s a brilliant irritant, especially against well-armoured, slow-moving teams, where his agility and Claws come in very useful (I imagine him basically getting stuck in your helmet and slashing your eyes out).

Eldril Sidewinder

Useful for: Wood Elves / Elven Union
Useful at: scoring / cage breaking

Despite the Mohawk (and the description) Eldril isn’t a Wardancer in the Wood Elf sense: he’s actually a fancy, dancing Elven Union Catcher. No Leap and no Block means he’s not going to dive into cages to steal the ball back; instead he’s intercepting opposition passes (on the rare occasions they happen) with On The Ball, catching passes in insane situations thanks to Nerves Of Steel and Dodge, and, most crucially, disabling key players with Hypnotic Gaze.

It’s that latter aspect that’s perhaps key to understanding Eldril. Yes he’s an amazing Catcher and a huge scoring threat, but the fact that he can run up to the corner of a cage and cause someone shielding the ball to lose their tackle zone and thus let one of his teammates (be they Wardancer or Blitzer) to get in and punch the ball carrier, and do that EVERY TURN, is massive.

Eldril does suffer the typical Elf problem of being quite expensive, and thus not available very often, but he adds something significant to any flavour of ennui-laden, pointy-eared show-offs he plays for. Just avoid being hit, and don’t try hitting anyone else either.

Griff Oberwald

Useful for: Flings / Dwarfs / Humans / Norse
Useful at: hogging the limelight

Clearly, Griff Oberwald is awesome, and his reputation precedes him. With St4, Ag2+, Block, Dodge (and Fend these days too), MA7, Sprint and Sure Feet, and his own personal once-a-game reroll, he can basically run anywhere and do anything. Steal the ball? Yep. Blitz a TD threat? Absolutely. Slug it out on the line of scrimmage? If he has to. Catch on a 2+ and sprint 10 spaces to the endzone while dodging through tackle zones? Easy peasy.

The downside is that he’s likely to hog SPPs by scoring all your touchdowns (and maybe even clearing the opposition off the pitch, too). And he’s expensive, obviously, although nowhere near as much as Morg ‘n’ Thorg.

Also, bizarrely, Griff seems to have a habit of being hit hard and dying, at least in games I’ve been part of: more than once I’ve seen him removed by freak dice rolls early on, including an epic self-casualty double-skull reroll into skull, 12, 12 in the first block of the first turn when he was hired in by an Imperial Nobility team. Obviously that’s a fluke of the dice, but if Nuffle doesn’t want you to take Griff then Nuffle’s going to remove him…

That said, though, gold piece for gold piece, Griff is the most effective player in Blood Bowl. Stick him on a dwarf team and he changes the entire meta and will win games almost single-handedly. Put him with halflings and all of a sudden you have a credible TD threat and ball-winner. Put him with humans or Norse, and, well…

As agile as an elf and as strong as a saurus, in the same way that the basic Human team does everything quite well, Griff does everything brilliantly.

Ivar Eriksson

Useful for: Flings / Norse / Humans / Dwarfs
Useful as: blocking, enhaning the team

Statswise, Ivar looks a bit like a Happy Shopper Griff Oberwald (see also Karla von Kill), making him a very useful St4 addition to lots of teams, but his skills make him a very different proposition on the pitch.

Tackle and Guard together – plus AV9+, one better than most of his Norse brethren – make him arguably the best lineman in the game. Stick him on the line of scrimmage or a corner of a cage and he makes everyone around him better. Even more so when you realise his once-per-drive special play is to be able to reposition a nearby teammate, allowing you to bring that yhetee back into base contact for a Block rather than using up your Blitz, or moving someone to give a much-needed assist or exert a tacklezone on a TD threat.

If you need him to grab the ball and run with it, he can; if you need him to Blitz someone out of the way he can, but he definitely excels by directing the action from the thick of it.

Norse can be rather unsophisticated bashers, but Ivar gives them a serious degree of tactical subtlety. St4, Block, Guard, and Tackle make him a very reliable safety or sacker, AV9+ means he’s not a glass cannon, and while he’s nowhere near as flashy as Griff he’s also not going to hog SPPs either. In fact, he’s going to help everyone around him play better, which is a really valuable thing for a Star Player to do.

Karla von Kill

Useful for: Flings / Dwarfs / Humans / Norse
Useful at: blitzing Big Guys / sacking the ball carrier

Karla von Kill is a very appealing Star because there’s nothing remarkable about her: she’s just very good at hitting people, and decent value too.

At St4 with Block and Dodge she’s tough to knock down, and having Jump Up means that, even if she does get knocked down, she’s going to stand up on a 2+ and hit you right back, and hard. Dauntless also makes her a very effective Big Guy killer – on a 2+ she’s one-dicing even a St6 treeman, so if you can set her up with an assist she’s two-dicing anyone but Deeproot easily, and her Indomitable skill means she can even three-dice him once a game if you’re canny.

Dodge also means she can get into position well to break a cage, and if you’ve marked the corners then she’s potentially two-dicing a ball-carrier. She’d be a very effective ball-carrier herself, actually, as long as you’re prepared to risk a hand-off or else have her hog all your SPPs.

AV9 makes her fit very well with a Norse team (as does her Valkyrie-esque winged headgear, aesthetically), where she becomes a very reliable, very accomplished blitzer who’s not going to Frenzy into danger or suffer from being a glass cannon. For Humans and Imperial Nobles, she’s a Happy Shopper Griff Oberwald in some ways (that’s in no way a pejorative), and less likely to overshadow your Catchers in the TD stakes.

For Dwarfs or Halflings, she offers manoeuvrability and strength together, both of which are things these teams need. She’d make a very good safety/sweeper, though lack of Tackle and Wrestle prevent her from being truly great at that, so she’s probably best thought of as a pure blitzer, making holes in the opposition lines for ball carriers to run through.

210,000gp isn’t cheap, but it’s not exactly expensive either – Karla is well worth spending your inducement money on, and maybe dipping into your treasury too. So, is she just Zara the Slayer (a Star Player from previous editions) without the knives? Yes, but given that this makes her cheaper and therefore more accessible, that’s pretty awesome.

Lord Borak the Despoiler

Useful for: Chaos / Skaven
Useful at: blitzing / fouling

Lord Borak isn’t just an Agony Uncle, he’s also a monster on the pitch; very strong, reliable, tough, and surprisingly mobile and agile, too. Like Griff and Varag, he’s the essence of his principal team (Chaos Chosen) turned up the max.

Although it’s tempting with St5, AV10+ and Block, you don’t want to get him caught up on the line of scrimmage, because he’ll just invite people to gang up on him and trap him there. Instead, to get the best out of him, use him as a roaming blitzer/fouler, punching holes in defensive lines or kicking prone players off the pitch.

But be careful with the latter part; although Lord Borak is very good indeed at fouling, with Dirty Player (+2) and Sneaky Git increasing his chances of removing players but also meaning he’ll only get sent off half as often as anyone else, I’d still never commit a foul early in the game with him. You have to balance the risk of fouling with a 260,000gp player in any turn before number 16. Blitz people off for the first 10-12 turns, and then think about fouling.

Don’t forget the extra re-roll he brings with him, too; like Ivar Eriksson and Grombrindal, the White Dwarf, Lord Borak makes your entire team better while he’s on the pitch. That extra re-roll, deployed at the right time, can win you a game.

Varag Ghoul-Chewer

Useful for: Greenskins / Skaven
Useful at: blitzering

Varag likes to fight, and he’s very good at it. He’s fast (MA6) for a Black Orc, and St5 with Block and Mighty Blow makes him reliably dangerous. Factor in Jump Up and Ag3+, and even if he does get knocked down, he’s probably going to hurt you back next turn if you don’t run away (and maybe even if you do).

He’s not going to dance through your defensive lines like a greenskin Griff Oberwald, but if the dice go well for him, he’s likely to take someone off the pitch practically every turn if your opponent isn’t careful. In much the same way as Griff is the uber-Human, taking everything that characterises that team and turning it up to 11, Varag is the uber-Orc: strong, brutal, unsubtle, and effective.

He is as expensive as Griff, at 280,000gp, and I’m not sure he’s as much of a game-changer. You could get a wizard, Fungus the Loon and Bomber Dribblesnot for the same price. But if you need fast muscle, there’s only one person better than Varag…

Morg ‘n’ Thorg

Useful for: Everyone (except Undead)
Useful at: blitzing / throwing team-mates

Challenging opinion alert! Morg ‘n’ Thorg is rubbish. Or, he does something to my dice that makes them rubbish. Any time I’ve induced him he’s done NOTHING other than roll double skulls and get kicked off the pitch. (When he’s been induced against me, on the other hand…) He’s an absolute gang-block magnet and even more of a gang-foul magnet. Coaches go insane trying to remove him as quickly as possible.

But that’s because no one else is as effective at removing people from the pitch as Morg ‘n’ Thorg is. No one else is as effective at blitzing through defenses like a wrecking ball and scoring, either. (Obviously Griff is great at blitzing through and scoring too, but not like a wrecking ball.) And because of this, no one else is as expensive as Morg ‘n’ Thorg, which means that you’re unlikely to ever see him deployed for anyone but halflings or snotlings.

On the rare occasions you do get to use him, he makes a terrifying cage front-corner, especially if paired up with Black Orcs or Chaos Blockers (although it’s very unlikely he’ll end up playing in teams with those types of players often). But I think his best role is as a roving killer; partner him up with a lineman to make ganging-up on him tough and to enable 3-dice blocks where you can, and then just go and brutally assassinate any scoring threats.