Greetings, good Edain Team and community! I have come from out of the water bearing a suggestion regarding the implementation of an old Angmar unit... the Snow Troll!
My proposal is this: Angmar's Spellbook ability "Summon Hill Trolls" would be renamed to "Trolls of the North". Upon purchasing the spell, you will gain two spells which will have the following effects:
- The first spell will be "Summon Hill Trolls". This will summon Rogash and two Hill Trolls. This will essentially be the original spell.
- The second spell will be "Summon Snow Trolls". This will summon Rogash and two Snow Trolls.
Both these spells would act like the "Brown Wizard" spell in the Lothlórien spellbook: using one would put the other on cooldown, meaning you could choose to summon Rogash with either two Hill Trolls or two Snow Trolls, but not both at once.
The Hill Trolls will mainly be powerful against heroes and buildings, as I believe they are now. They'd ideally be summoned during a siege or during an open field battle to throw the enemy ranks into chaos.
The Snow Trolls, on the other hand, wouldn't be as physically powerful as the Hill Trolls, but would make up for this by having abilities, something the Hill Trolls do not possess. With this new implementation, they would ideally be used against enemy cavalry, being especially effective at breaking a charge or halting a retreat. Their new role would also synergize with the "Frozen Land" spell. They would have the following abilities:
Charge - (Requires the Snow Troll to have traversed Frozen Ground) The Snow Troll rushes into its enemies, dealing medium damage and knocking them down.
Snow Walker - Snow Trolls gain +50% speed on Frozen Ground. Effect lasts 20 seconds after leaving the area. (Passive Ability).
The reason for the second ability is simple; Snow Trolls are wanderers of the frozen north, and it stands to reason that they'd be able to traverse the snow with efficiency. Snow Trolls would naturally be about the same speed as a Cave Troll, but upon walking on Frozen Ground, they would be able to catch up to enemy cavalry and use Charge to knock them to the ground and finish them off.
I believe Snow Trolls would fulfill a similar role as the Ogres in Battle of the Five Armies; a creature of smaller size than a Troll used to deal with cavalry (such as Battle Wagons). They'd be effective against cavalry because of the environment in which they live; the snowy regions of the north where food is scarce and prey is fast, meaning the predator has to be able to catch it or else go hungry. Snow Trolls would be much like Polar Bears; stalking their prey (Helm Hammerhand was compared to a Snow Troll in this regard) before catching their prey with a combination of unnatural speed (for such a large creature) and brute strength.
Balance-wise, as far as I know, Angmar doesn't have much trouble with cavalry due to their number of Pikemen as well as the "Fell Wind" spell, so the role of Snow Trolls is up for debate. But I hope they can return to Angmar in some form, as they are a truly unique type of Troll in design and nature. I also feel like the current "Summon Hill Trolls" isn't very interesting (though it is effective), so perhaps a new addition could add something more to the spell?
Also, apologies for the length and half-finished appearance of some of the writing. I wrote this over multiple days and even after doing a full re-read and fixing a few things it still looks odd. I hope I got my ideas through properly.