This post is a few days after we found out Horgle's card, but I wanted to give myself a few days to think over Horgle, see if anything started poking out, and let it simmer. After a few days, I think I know how I want to put my thoughts out more clearly, although I think that my initial basic thoughts probably weren't too far off!
I'm going to address a few key points with Horgle, with a listing of where I think our casters fit with him/how well I think they fit on each point. I was originally going to do a caster by caster breakdown, but I decided to change it up because I felt I'd be reiterating the same points repeatedly. So here we go!
Side note: I put Gunny pretty much constantly in the middle because I'm honestly not sure where else to play him; when people have had success, they've had it in very unique, different ways, so I feel like he is a YMMV caster for Horgle. Frankly, your own list building dictates your use; this is purely my initial thoughts.
First, I think that, in many ways, Trolls had the potential greatest use out of a Lesser Warlock. Trolls Fury management is arguably the weakest of the factions (ignoring Minions), yet our desire to use animi to our best advantage is among the strongest, particularly in light of the ARM and STR/Damage animi we have. We have some of the biggest potential STR swings - getting a damage swing of 4 with a MAT swing of 4 is even all that hard for us - but we rely heavily on our beasts.
Horgle gives us an interesting, limited fix to that condition, while simultaneously helping out the ranged game of a single beast (or two potentially with swapping). His limitation is the Character limitation; that limits him in Steamroller. However, he's not a piece like Janissa that we would gladly stack everywhere possible; he's very good, but he's good in giving us interesting options. Both the Circle and Skorne Lessers seem fine, but I don't think they really needed them as badly as Trolls could use someone to shift our Fury burden. Which leads into Point 1:
1) He reduces the Fury load on our casters. This is extremely nice to me; I can't say how happy I am to see this. This particularly applies to any casters that want to put out spells, animi, and fuel the stone. This reduces the animi burden, freeing up our casters to cast more, or just camp! And a Troll caster on a 3 camp is fairly stout; not many people want to try and break it. This aid fits with all our casters; he can do it with any of them and is his best "all around" asset. However, some of them fit better than others; someone like pGrissel really needs it less, because she runs very beast light. eMadrak is frequently run beast light also, and it becomes less necessary, or a Borka list may not want it. This isn't to say he doesn't have game; he can really help eMaddy if you want to really spice up those Fenns or Dygmies. These casters just feel like they need it a little less.
Best Warlocks: Calandra, Grim Angus, Hunters Grim, Jarl
Middle Class: pMadrak, Borka, Gunnbjorn (I think?), eGrissel, pDoomshaper?
Less Interesting: pGrissel, eDoomy, eMadrak
To me, pGrissel frequently fills the same roll, eDoomy frequently wants a Mauler, and eMadrak is fairly beast light, with Blood Fury filling much of this role. I think he might be better than I'm crediting with pDoomy, but the way most people play him (Runes/Beast Brick), I just don't think it's necessary yet. This may see some change.
2) He allows an interesting flanking force, in support of something like SoBragg, Long Riders, or <insert unit here>. This can come from either shooting or using animi to support; if he's supporting the SoBragg, a Horgle-Pyre-Slag grouping could be very interesting, as he can get damage animi on all 3 fairly comfortably with one from each while keeping up Hotshot. If the SoB get jammed, he can help clear them to dig a little deeper. I could see him working similarly with the Long Riders, also. Some casters want this more than others; casters commonly beast bricked don't really need this so much, while casters that have a central jam and collapse the flanks (Jarl, perhaps?) might be interesting.
Best Warlocks: Grim Angus, Hunters Grim, Jarl, p and eGrissel
Middle Class: Calandra, Gunny, eMadrak
Less Interesting: Borka, pMadrak, p and eDoomy
3) Order of activations solver. Want to get out those damage animi before earlier before you activate your caster or beast? Of course you do! Now we can do it better. You can get more animi out before you activate that unit to start the hot swapping of upkeeps, or before your feat! The limitation of this is whatever you have on your caster; your caster can't hand out those buffs now. But that may or may not be a problem. Reducing the Fury load means all the animi from the beasts ON your caster are now loose. But at least you can get them cast out of your casters activation. This category is highly game-dependant, so I'm going to emphasize upkeep casters more for this because they have more swapping. It may come up less in a game, or it may come up more. This one is a lot more situational.
Best: eMadrak (allows a lot of work before feat), Jarl (somewhat), pMadrak (for timing Crusher well), p and eDoomy (for Fortune/Wild Aggression/Refuge hotswapping).
Middle Class/Less Interesting: Everyone else, really? This one's hard to judge out of game.
And finally, 4) Fantastic buff bot. If you are willing to risk him having no fury, you can get 4 animi out with him and 2 beasts. Otherwise, you get 3, which is still pretty nice all things considered. That's more than we get many turns. Again, this one's kinda game dependant, and it also kinda ties to the first point (Fury management), but I wanted to mention it again. Trolls rely so much on this capability, to change our damage output and get the most mileage we can, that I think it has to be brought up. I'm not going to rank on this mostly, except I want to point out the biggest exceptions (I think), which are p and eDoomy to me. I think they simply don't worry as much about it. The Doomy's frequently have a buffer - usually the Mauler - that simply meshes a little better. Now, new list builds may become popular, so that can change.
I want to give a couple of special mentions, though, where I think he really shines. The casters I really find interesting are the Hunters Grim, Jarl, and Calandra. All three of these really want to use their Fury in some form or another, and he frees up a lot off them. Mortality from the Hunters is now free to be used more easily, while Jarl can let an Impaler roam near these guys and get his animus onto them but burn his Fury himself. Calandra really wants out Star Crossed or to have a board effect with Force Blow/Befuddle, or to use her fury for rerolls. Reducing her Fury load makes it really interesting to see what can be done with her.
I think pGrissel stands out the least to me, outside of the Doomy's, because she runs so beast light. Now, that said - you could maybe do really interesting things with Horgle + his group, paired with more damage buffing on Grissel, to really turn your army into absolute bastards - but I feel like I might rather do that with eGrissel and a massive armor brick.
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