When playing by proper rules I prefer thrain, more base fate and the army wide standfast is nice. And I think the model is cooler.

Thror is nice but I've never seen him stick around to long, if he was D9 it'd be a different story. Fearless is ok but they both have such high courage, I would hope 9/10 they'd pass a courage test.

To be fair, Thorin is still better than both of them and should be first choice for any Erebor Army.

Neither of them are great beyond fluff purposes. As it stands they're both far too expensive, like Southy says, compare them to Thorin (who is fairly costed compared to a Free People's Dwarf King) and you'll see that Thrain should be about the same points as a tooled up Thorin (so around 115) and Thror should probably be about 10 points less than that.

Assuming you're OK to pay 25-35 points over the odds for them then Thrain's clearly the better choice due to the guaranteed 3 Fate. They both waste points on a largely useless rule: (Fearless is only so much use on a C6 model and Blood Feud requires the presence of the rarely seen Azog to come into affect) but Thrain's Durin's Heir rule is absolutely brilliant, unless you decide to ignore an incredibly important part of the rules...

Finally, to pick up on that last point, I honestly have no idea why you would play without the courage rules. Even if you're just playing a fight to the death (i.e. not using the scenarios) then breaking the enemy and courage tests are an incredibly exciting, dynamic and important part of the rules. It's also a major contributing factor to the points values of your troops. Goblins are cheap compared to elves in part because their low courage means they'll leg it at the end of the game. If you're not using these rules then I can only assume that you're giving the army with lower courage less points to make up for the fact your removing one of their major disadvantages? The breaking and courage test rules also ensure the end of the game is tense and fun, the idea of just running forward and rolling dice until you manage to kill each and every one of your enemy's models bores me to tears.

Yeah Im feeling the same way. Im also confused about that shielding and D9 stuff......he should be....

I dont get why Thrain is so much more Epic....Thror was THE KING and Thrain went mad....he didnt die in battle...he just pretty much quit.....

Hmm... I wouldn't say Thrain quit, if anything Thror quit when he lost control of his mind and succumbed to the seduction of all the gold he forced his people to mine. If it wasn't for Thror's avarice then Smaug would never have come to the Lonely Mountain, Thorin's people would still be very much alive, and the Dwarven race would have remained one of the most prosperous civilisations in Middle-Earth, potentially even rising above the authority of Elves and Men as far as wealth, estate and populace are concerned.

Thrain's final act was also delivering the Key of Durin to Gandalf, without which the entire quest of the Hobbit could not have been completed, or even thought of. It was a noble and valiant final act which led to Smaug's defeat and the return of Durin's line to Erebor.