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Let's chat: Ironskull's Boyz


Killax

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Yeah, third for no Shardgale with Orruks. While it is nice to have an inspired warband, it comes at the cost of the durability which is the main good point for the Orruks.

I still prefer Shattering Terrain for the precise damage it puts on one of your fighters (while inspiring them) and then also usually helping to kill a single enemy fighter.

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Just going to point out that I said shardgale and tainted vitality.

One of the big problems I've had is that other than gurzag every member of the warband does terrible damage until inspired.

Hakka and basha are functionally petitioners until they inspire, if you want to go full aggression they need to be pulling their weight.

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44 minutes ago, Malakree said:

Just going to point out that I said shardgale and tainted vitality.

One of the big problems I've had is that other than gurzag every member of the warband does terrible damage until inspired.

Hakka and basha are functionally petitioners until they inspire, if you want to go full aggression they need to be pulling their weight.

Most builds have tended to work around that by including Daemonic and Shadeglass Weapons. Given how much better the top 10 ploy choices are than the top 10 upgrades this feels like the better way to fit in cards for dumb and dumber to get involved.

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1 hour ago, Malakree said:

Just going to point out that I said shardgale and tainted vitality.

One of the big problems I've had is that other than gurzag every member of the warband does terrible damage until inspired.

Hakka and basha are functionally petitioners until they inspire, if you want to go full aggression they need to be pulling their weight.

Still have to have both cards to do it. Idk, seems weak to use up two ploy slots to do nothing except inspire your warband. I admit the 2 chumps do hit like a sack of pillows before inspiring, just seems like a lackluster way to do it. Gurzag literally only gains a reroll on one attack die, which is good don't get me wrong. And bonecutta goes to damage 3 which is great, but idk if it's worth spending resources to damage him yourself. I do think the 2 chumps are the ones most in need of inspiring. Inspiration strikes seems fitting to inspire whomever isnt yet. Daemonic weapon i understand functionally, but I just see it as a good weapon which damages you and then you get inspired, but you're not using your stats anyway so what does it matter if you're inspired?

I would personally use inspiration strikes and maybe shattering terrain in such a way that I could damage myself as well as my opponent with something like quick thinker. You use shattering terrain on their turn, they move, take a damage, quick thinker, you move, take a damage, and ideally you would not be attacked. 

If nothing else I think tainted vitality could be more useful without shardgale than shardgale without tainted vitality would be for Orruks. Orruks are naturally more durable than every other army so healing everyone would help them most more likely. 

Tainted vitality, healing potion, great fortitude can all make it pain in the rear to take out the Orruks.

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Aye I switched to Farstriders as a better offensive deck slightly after the last two sets were released.

That said my Ironskullz ran all of those things and I never regretted Shardgale. One of the best plays is to use it before your activation dealing a damage to everyone then attack then use Tainted Vitality in your activation, it functions very similar to shattering terrain in that way. It's also a solid activator for My Turn. Imo unconditional damage is one of the most important things any aggressive deck can pack.

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58 minutes ago, Anthony225 said:

Still have to have both cards to do it. Idk, seems weak to use up two ploy slots to do nothing except inspire your warband

?

I mean...

But...

Wow.

For the measly cost of 2 cards you can inspire an entire warband. I'd kill for that for Chosen Axes, and it's pretty amazeballs for Orruks.

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Even with Tainted Vitality, that's now a 10% chance of having both in-hand on the first draw and it's going to be unlikely that you'll have both to use together.

Also with how easy it it is do go to 4 damage now, putting your entire warband (outside of Gurzag) to 3 wounds each makes it too easy to have them all die to one-hit kills.

Sure you could always hold off using Shardgale till you draw Tainted Vitality but now your waiting with a basically dead card in-hand and preventing you from getting your game started.

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Of course shardgale shouldn't be seen in the vacuum of being an inspire ploy only. 
Lots of cards lets you attack several times during a single activation/power phase.
Attack, but don't kill two different targets. Finish them off with shardgale. Losing your own durability doesn't matter so much if you just took out two of your opponent's fighters. 

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On 5/17/2018 at 2:08 PM, Sleboda said:

?

I mean...

But...

Wow.

For the measly cost of 2 cards you can inspire an entire warband. I'd kill for that for Chosen Axes, and it's pretty amazeballs for Orruks.

To be fair, Chosen Axes would be incredible if you could inspire them with the two mentioned cards. It would be a no brainer to take them if you could easily inspire the entire warband. Chosen Axes are all monsters when inspired. Comparing Orruks and Fyreslayers is not really the same thing. 

Comparing Skaven and Orruks may be more in line

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On 5/21/2018 at 12:56 PM, Goblin-King said:

Of course shardgale shouldn't be seen in the vacuum of being an inspire ploy only. 
Lots of cards lets you attack several times during a single activation/power phase.
Attack, but don't kill two different targets. Finish them off with shardgale. Losing your own durability doesn't matter so much if you just took out two of your opponent's fighters. 

While yes it can be use to finish off fighters, it won't trigger any of your instant objectives too (which Orruks usually run a lot). Plus it's still quite a bit of setup for the Shardgale kills when you can just do the easier thing of have your fighters one-shot enemies.

I'm not saying Shardgale is bad, just that it's not as efficient as other cards and can also be quite the double-edged sword.

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As above. It doesn’t feel like a good enough fit to make the list of 10 ploys for orruk.

Where I’ve found shardgale good is when you have a lot of aggression to stack the damage after, or with Farstriders where you’re looking to get damage on the way in to bring models into kill range and you really value the chip shots.

orruks don’t really want to play either of these ways. They can maybe do it, but then you’re just a worse hyper aggro deck than reavers etc. Play orruks to their strength (trading hits) by running great fortitude to get more health - not shardgale to remove it. You’re a better warband for cards like My Turn than Shardgale.

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At the risk of sounding naive and silly, are Orruks considered one of the "good" or competitive warbands nowadays? I assume they are as they seem to fit the style of lots of movement+attack ploy/upgrades. They have a lot of great attack/charge ploys and they are very durable. 

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1 hour ago, Anthony225 said:

At the risk of sounding naive and silly, are Orruks considered one of the "good" or competitive warbands nowadays? I assume they are as they seem to fit the style of lots of movement+attack ploy/upgrades. They have a lot of great attack/charge ploys and they are very durable. 

The movement 3 hurts. Having to carry 2 subpar models hurts. They’ve not placed in any GC this season.

As good as Gurzag is, Skritch is kinda just a better 1 model army and Skaven have the results to back it up. As far as the multiple durable fighters goes, Magore is a better option there.

There’s not really a niche for Orruks to slide into right now without them just feeling like you’re playing a worse version of another deck.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
On 9/4/2018 at 9:40 AM, Mr. White said:

Anyone taking that new board that causes damage to tournaments to inspire the Boyz quickly?

Any success with this? I'm not seeing the Orruks placing very high in tournaments, so I'm guessing no...

I am thinking of running the new dbbl deadly board to a tourney coming up...i think it might be a nice charge and inspire threat to have on tap

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  • 2 weeks later...

I actually ran the 3 deadly Hex in almost everyone of my games in a grand clash this weekend and took 3rd overall. Orcs are still viable for sure.

Shardgale is nice because it gave me options instead of being outmaneuvered with reactions from 1 guy and helps put almost everyone in 1 shot rangewhich can be clutch .

One take away from the event is that HOLY %#&^ the new stormcast are strong. They inspire easily at range, have good health, good attacks, easy glory options....it was my only loss and i got absolutely punked. Apparently so did everyone else as the 2 new stormcast warband players beat everyone so bad that they finished in the top 2...even after playing each other in round 4. the mechanics felt a bit non-interactive at times, reminiscent of the ole stormcast BS...but maybe its too new to tell.

Anyone else have some Exp against them yet? 

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@Oreaper84I've got quite a bit of experience playing AS them at this point and I'll admit they do feel extremely powerful. Given that I was playing Farstriders before this, Averon alone feels like he overshadows the ranged pressure I was able to previously put out unless I drew some great cards and snagged lucky crits with my inspired leader. 

I'm not sure what the answer is yet to consistently put up a fight against this team for the average/slow moving teams. Of all the warbands that have ever put out the best pressure on me, it's actually been chosen axes getting out some timely speed upgrades. Tefk and Fjul rocketing into me without being able to space them out led to a loss for me after the almighty Fjul 1-shot on Averon.

Adding some movement shenanigans like Faneway Crystal, Great Speed, or Hidden Paths seem like a decent option to me, but I'll admit that you probably won't want a deck stacked with such a focus on movement the moment you go up against team where there isn't significant spacing play going on.

I'm also curious about what mechanics felt non-interactive to you. Was it gambit spells going off where you don't get to roll any sort of defense, or something else?

 

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31 minutes ago, Skyeline said:

 

I'm also curious about what mechanics felt non-interactive to you. Was it gambit spells going off where you don't get to roll any sort of defense, or something else?

 

The passive objectives were the biggest part, there seemed to be multiple that i have no control over (aside from killing the guys so he cant cast), and then some overall sit back and juice up play style overall. It was very power up, score non-interactive objectives, then punish if i came into the kill zone of his back half.

It wasnt pre-FAQ relic bad....but i didn't feel like a have a solution without deck building specifically as you stated, but that will waste cards against most crews.....idk. I'M hoping as crews get released there will be meta shift.

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@Oreaper84 Makes sense. I do wonder how the overall introduction of magic and seemingly an increasing amount of ranged attacks might shift the meta. Ranged was quite uncommon in Shadespire but we've already got two leaders who can get up to a 3 damage ranged attack (Averon, Vortemis) and we know that more range is coming. Kharadron's aren't lacking in firearms , the Sylvaneth team clearly has a bow-wielding character, and that darkoath team had a fighter holding a javelin/spear in a throwing pose.

It may very well be that our traditional run-in-and-smack-things teams may need to shift to a more movement oriented loadout in order to try and shut down teams who aren't so eager to get in and brawl or at least start packing more tertiary objectives that can help carry the glory before a melee actually breaks out.

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Bringing this back to the orruks, it’s a little jarring to hear people say that the meta is heavily tilted toward one-shotting 4-Wound fighters and you shouldn’t run Shardgale to damage the Boyz. Either the meta is heavily tilted in that fashion, in which case damaging your own fighters to inspire them isn’t really hurting you, or it isn’t, in which case Shardgale is a bad idea. But it can’t be both. 

I’m going to hop on the Waaagh! train for a change of pace now that my models are assembled. Should be a good green time!

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I've never been convinced that Shardgale is the way to go with the boyz, simply because there's a decent amount of 3 damage attacks out there which you're so much more susceptible to dying to without forcing opponents to blow valuable cards like Trap, Twist the Knife, Ready For Action, etc.

Hakka and Basha in particular feel somewhat wasted to me as being hit by shardgale since their damage is still lackluster at a mere 2, while the resilience inherent at having 4 life is lost in the trade. 

This is ultimately just conjecture from me however as I was playing Ironskull's before Shardgale dropped. Back then Shadeglass weapons were my preferred avenue for getting value out of Hakka/Basha and probably the route I'd still try to take. 

 

Off Topic: Ghoulish Pact caught my eye when I was looking through the new cards, but I was actually looking at it for the sake of teams like Reavers where you can make a loser who is going to get 1-shot anyways into a loser with a dangerous shardglass weapon. Obviously it wouldn't be worth it if you aren't already running Spoils, but still something I may end up playing around with.

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