Since vanilla, the playable Troll faction was actually a very specific and small group of people. Trolls could very well be Azeroth's most populous humanoid race (though the arthropod-like Aqir races might have them beat at the expense of being far less likely to live to old age) but when it comes to the playable races, we're looking at only the Darkspear Tribe - one tribe within one kingdom of a larger Troll civilization.
The Darkspear were initially members of the Gurubashi Empire, which spanned much of the southern Eastern Kingdoms area before humans drove them back into Stranglethorn Vale. Stranglethorn had been the heart of the empire, with its capital of Zul'Gurub.
Despite having the overarching leadership of the Gurubashi Empire, the Darkspear fought brutal battles against rival tribes, and some time after the Second War, the Darkspear were driven out of Stranglethorn and forced to sail west to a small group of islands in the Great Sea.
It's unclear exactly whether the Darkspear had fought alongside the Horde during the Second War. Orgrim did secure many Trolls as allies, including the Amani under Zul'jin, and given the Gurubashi's position within what was fairly securely held Horde territory during that war (ironic, given that the map in the Second War and that at the beginning of World of Warcraft was practically flipped) it would make plenty of sense to have seen the Gurubashi lending support to the Horde against their ancient human rivals.
Still, it was when Thrall and his recently-liberated Orcish Horde landed on those islands and helped avenge the Darkspear chieftain, Sen'jin, that the Darkspear officially joined the Horde, and they would settle on the peninsula that Thrall named Durotar in honor of his father.
The Darkspear have obviously risen to far greater prominence within the Horde than they had before. Once a single, downtrodden tribe exiled from a crumbling empire, they are now perhaps the most politically powerful group of Trolls in the world. They did suffer a bit under Garrosh, but as they spearheaded (pun not intended) the revolution against the tyrannical Warchief, they even managed to ascend to the Horde's greatest heights as their own chieftain, Vol'jin, became the first non-Orc Warchief of the Horde.
But with Vol'jin's death, they are in a state of bizarre limbo. While certainly not languishing in the outright persecution they faced under Garrosh, they have seen their place of power, held so briefly, taken by the Forsaken - a highly organized war machine that was very effective even when they were just one small branch of the Horde.
And with Vol'jin dead, the Darkspear do not have an obvious leader. Vol'jin had no children, nor did he have a clear second-in-command who might take over for him. While core members of the Horde, their influence must be waning.
And that makes this a really complicated time for the Zandalari to join the Horde.
If the Darkspear were exiled refugees from a crumbling empire collapsing under brutal tribalism, putting them at the bottom of Troll civilization's social ladder, the Zandalari are its pinnacle.
The Zandalari Empire was the greatest of all troll civilizations. The other three major empires were initially just territories ruled from Zuldazar. Even in the wake of the Zandalari Empire's collapse, the remaining Zandalari kingdom still maintained an elite status. Theirs was the center of culture and history. The Zandalari could afford to send out teams to study the degradations of the other Empires while they seemed to remain prosperous and enlightened. As the Gurubashi fell to the madness of Hakkar and the Drakkari collapsed in the face of the undead Scourge, the Zandalari were safely on their own island watching in safety, but with concern.
Ultimately, the Zandalari are proud. They even stand up straight, unlike the other Trolls who hunch and bend.
And now they are going to be joining the Horde.
A few issues present themselves: First off, while our initial interactions with the Zandalari were nothing but friendly - even the Alliance could work alongside them when fighting Hakkar - they underwent a shocking reversal, swept up in a zealous dream of manifest destiny, attempting to reunite their Empire under the spiritual leadership of the Prophet Zul.
Joining up with the Gurubashi zealots they had helped us defeat, the Zandalari suddenly began a global campaign of domination. They traveled south to Pandaria where they revived the Thunder King and attempted to help reestablish the brutal Mogu Empire to serve as an ally in their campaigns against the Alliance and Horde. Yet it was during that time that we discovered one possible motivation for their actions: Zandalar had been devastated by the Cataclysm, with parts of it sinking into the sea.
In Battle for Azeroth, it looks like we'll get a revised sense of that story: that it wasn't so much the sinking of the Nazmir forest, but what it unleashed.
With Blood Trolls and Blood Gods, and potentially a great deal of other rising threats in Zandalar, the Horde will convince King Rastakhan to join up.
But what does that mean for the Trolls?
First off, Rastakhan will probably take a great deal of convincing to swear fealty to someone else - an undead elf, no less. It's unclear to what extent Rastakhan was on board with the Prophet Zul's vision, but even if he resisted Zul as the fanatic he is, for someone who is the king of the oldest mortal civilization on Azeroth, it's got to be tough to have to kowtow to someone else.
The other really interesting issue that could arise is the relationship between the Zandalari and the Darkspear. It was Vol'jin who struck out against the earliest efforts by the Zandalari to reunite the empires, and even setting that aside, you have what is essentially the elite of the upper class now allying with the ultimate downtrodden pariahs. What even is the power dynamic there? As nearly foundational members of the Horde, do the Darkspear "outrank" the newcomer Zandalari? And can they, even, when their own leadership is in shambles? Or will Rastakhan, entering the Horde, insist upon being at least the sovereign over all the Trolls in the Horde?
And in the midst of all this, what do the Loa have to say?
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