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Destruction at SCGT


PlasticCraic

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Morning,

I'm not going this year, though if I was (and using my Ironjawz as opposed to something else*) my list would be;

  • Maw-krusha w/ Dabbing & Ironclad
  • Warchanter
  • Warchanter
  • Fungoid Cave Shaman
  • 10 Brutes
  • 5 Brutes
  • 5 Brutes
  • 3 Gore-gruntas
  • 3 Gore-gruntas
  • Rock Lobber
  • Rock Lobber
  • Rock Lobber

Hope you brave few fielding Destruction have a great time! Looking forward to hearing how you get on.

*In reality, if I was going I wouldn't be taking Ironjawz :S 

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It doesn’t look like anything to me..... 

didn’t want to post and make this negative because I am going to SCGT2018 but I am not taking Ironjawz. Even though I have been playing them a lot again the last few weeks/months for the “main” tourneys this year  (i.e heat one so far then this, blackout, FHGT and the grand final) I have/will be taking my Astral Templars 

unless.........there is a paradigm shift in how they match up against the meta. They dont have to be top by any means just have a chance and at the moment there are too many almost auto-lose games with IJ it’s heartbreaking :-( 

i will caveat that with they they are always a lot of fun to play but when your sitting on around 120 games with them (at least as I don’t keep track) it does get a bit deja vu. 

Ive reread this back and I don’t want to sound like a WAAC player as I am certainly not, my objective as it is at every event I go to is to win more than I lose (so normally 3-2 but at south coast hats 4-2) I don’t think that this is possible with IJ unless you get a very nice draw of opposing armies currently. 

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@Sangfroid - Anyone reading that knows you're not a WAAC player and your reasons (also my reasons!) for taking a break from Ironjawz competitively makes complete sense. I think it's important as to not get burnt out or eventually even begrudging the army, as silly as that sounds. Taking a step back and enjoying another army for a bit is totally cool and we don't know what will happen in the future that may allow us to feel the time is right to pick them back up and get going again.

I completely understand how you feel though and do often have a sense of letting people/myself/Ironjawz down! But then, the flipside is blindly sticking with them and potentially ending up frustrated after getting stomped over the course of 6 games in practically unwinnable match ups (of which there are ever increasingly more it seems!).

Again, like Kieran, this isn't meant to come across as negative whatsoever. I still do and always will love the Ironjawz, they've definitely become my army and I'll still play them at the club and keep adding to my army in terms of painting. Fingers crossed GW will give us something down the line (you could read what you like into some of the recent rumours), even just a little refresher of the rules to bring us inline with current AoS would be great.

Sorry to derail your thread @PlasticCraic and I certainly don't want to dissuade anyone from taking Destruction to SCGT...it's just me and Kieran have played a LOT of tournament games with the Ironjawz I guess :P 

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@Chris Tomlin , @Sangfroid

Since both of you guys are immensely experienced with IJ, I would really like to hear your views on which match ups you view as auto loose .

I am doing fine with IJ but f I play on a non-tournament environment and only against a limited range of (middle tier) opponents.

So I would be really interested to hear against whom you have found IJ to really struggle against (and why)

Thanks!

 

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22 minutes ago, Planar said:

@Chris Tomlin , @Sangfroid

Since both of you guys are immensely experienced with IJ, I would really like to hear your views on which match ups you view as auto loose .

i'll take a try too. You have a pretty bad matchup agains any T1 army (changehost, classic tzeench, fyreslayer, kharadron, bonesplitterz, mixed order, daughter of khaine to take some exemple). 

Ironjawz are fun, but pretty flat. No range attack, low mortal wound output, low mobility, average model count/board coverage and vulnerability to mortal wound.

They also cruelly lack option. Their two playable bataillion (ironfist and weirdfist) are really expensive, and they don't have spell selection.

Their srenght is they have good damage spike. A well timed charge with waaaghhhh and smash and bash and you can dish enough damage so your opponent will not recover.

But army like Tzeench have good damagespike as well. and better moblity. and good spell. and destiny dice. So they're just better. Take DoK, they move 6, can run and charge (and reroll some dice). 30 fury can dish out 100+ rend 1 damage with the right buff, and they cost 270 pts. (so you'll face 3 x 30 of them).

Hopefully, it will have get fixed soon in the GHB 2018 :)

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No need to apologise @Chris Tomlin, a discussion about why Destruction stalwarts are not taking them is an equally valid (and interesting) part of the same conversation. Always a pleasure to hear yours and @Sangfroid's thoughts. 

I know what you mean too. We've got a GT coming up in a couple of weeks (Badgacon in Bendigo) - I'm  not taking Ironjawz because I've got a title to defend. 

There's been a lot of chat on the club page about list ideas etc. Almost all of them make me glad I'm not taking Ironjawz. So many debuffs work in the combat phase only, so much deep striking and redeploy shenanigans, so much ignore rend -1. Taking Ironjawz feels like you're just there to make them look good and showcase their tricks. 

Here's hoping those rumours come through!

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I was gunna go to scgt but cancelled when i saw the battle scenarios. Seems plenty of greenies are going to London GT though. 

As for the above, ironjaws are one of the few armies I can actually beat with my ****** goblin army. They are rather predictable and easy to control the fight against, and seem gimped by their own bad rules, e.g. buffs only in their own activation melee phase, so then miss out on up to 3 buffed combats... just need an update it seems. 

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@Sheriff it’s a dark dark day indeed that grots rub their hands with glee when they see an Ironjawz army bearing down on them, and shows the sorry state of affairs ironjawz are in, makes me want to (Green) puke ??

the match ups I’d say we would have serious difficulties in and would require perfect play, mistakes from opponent and a healthy dose of luck (that’s one of the main issues with GW changing IJ, if we get the charges off and double turn an enemy we can really really put the hurt on).  NOTE: I’m also talking about optimised army lists here someone with an awful Tzeetch list for example would not be an issue so for friendly or narrative games okay. 

 

Also in order of filth when viewed from a ironjawz lens...

Fyreslayers: they move up fast due to rune so block off objectives,we hit them hard they save everything, they pop rend -1/-2 rune, we die. Also some missions have 20+ models. (I’ve throw 30 Brutes, Mawkrusha and a troll hag at a wall of vulkites and hearthguard and killed them all by turn 5 but lost all but Mawkrusha and troll hag and they still had a fresh 30 man unit left plus characters...) 

Daughters of Khaine: they are fast, fight better, hurt us when they die and Morathi has an innate protection against our Brutes/Mawkrusha becasue she can only take 3 wounds in one go. Khinarai can drop down and snipe characters. Not as bad as a Fyreslayers match up but I don’t think we have much chance at all against an optimised list

changehost:  proper use of pinks, blues and brimstones (under current rules) should mean we are stunted long enough for the spells to nuke us to oblivion, a double turn at the right time may help us a bit though 

Tzeetch skyfires:  the skyfires smash you from massive range, the spells smash you once inside of 18” again long charges and a double turn may help but would need a lot of help

maggotkin of nurgle: fight as well as us have more wounds, disgustingly resilient, are faster and have loads of armour debuffs and mortal wounds output 

khorne: fight as well as we do, are faster, hurt us when we kill them, can interrupt our charges with blood tithe, immune to battleshock. We can beat them but I’d say they have the stacked deck in this matchup 

kharadron overlords: alpha strike us maul us and if they double turn us probably no coming back. However we can smash the, if they do t do enough damage, so again your relying on luck/bad play

bonespliitas: too many wounds too many shots in 6 games against them I’ve only come close to winning twice, it’s a terrible match for us. 

I haven’t played new death yet not deepkin but the signs aren’t that good for either me thinks. I may have also missed some match ups that are bad because there are so many ???

 

 

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I'm going to be curious to see how deepkin shape the meta. They seem like an intentional silver bullet versus ranged armies. I am not sure how strong they are overall, but skyfire spam, overlords, certain storm cast, and Kunning Rukk will all would be forced to waste shots at chaffe and it may be enough to put them on the back foot. If Deepkin are strong enough to capitalize on this, then they might be a spoiler army that see's Fyreslayers rise to the top and knock Tzeentch off it's pedestal. 

To a lesser extent DoK will are also a silver bullet versus ranged armies via Morathi. Plus they seem to have all the tools they need to be a top tier army themselves.

I think Maggotkin and LoN are both solid, but not meta changing, at least as far as destruction is concerned.

Long rant short, Ironjaws may place better over all, if only because other armies have a new potential hard counter that trips them up at a GT. Bonesplitterz were already a spoiler army, and they just got a new hot & pretty counter army to worry about. I see them slipping slightly in the rankings, but not too much. Beastclaw has been nerfed to hard to be relevant until they get a points reduction to compensate for the nerf.

My thoughts. Hopefully we do better, but GW needs to throw some bones our way.

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@bonzai they are silver bullets to nonexistent problems.  As much as people moan about ranged attacks, none of those armies are placing particularly well at tournaments, let alone dominating them.  Mortals, mobility and resilience are king and Idoneth do nothing to block those.  

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8 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

@bonzai they are silver bullets to nonexistent problems.  As much as people moan about ranged attacks, none of those armies are placing particularly well at tournaments, let alone dominating them.  Mortals, mobility and resilience are king and Idoneth do nothing to block those.  

but they have this on their own

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23 minutes ago, broche said:

but they have this on their own

 

Yeah, I think they are going to be reasonably competitive, but I don't think they'll shake up the meta in a meaningful way.  They won't stop tzeentch from doing their thing, nor Nurgle theirs.  They won't impede mixed order monster lists and at best are a skill matchup vs DoK.  I just see them entering the meta and joining the ranks, which is always a good thing.  

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3 hours ago, broche said:

yeah i agree, they look good but i think they break the game less than DoK

Issue is that in someways they dump on stuff which is already shafted. Unrendable saves are a cancer which should never have been in the game. (Modern ethereal is fine because it's positive AND negative) 

Their rule should be "cannot be reduced below 4+" because it's current form is just mortal wounds or gtfo.

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5 hours ago, Richelieu said:

@bonzai they are silver bullets to nonexistent problems.  As much as people moan about ranged attacks, none of those armies are placing particularly well at tournaments, let alone dominating them.  Mortals, mobility and resilience are king and Idoneth do nothing to block those.  

Tzeentch does place, as does Stormcast. Arguably less after GHB17 as Seraphon and Fyreslayers have risen to the top, but they are pretty consistently GT top 4, if not outright winning. KO and Kunning Rukk are spoiler armies, they win big most of the time but are one trick ponies that run into a brick wall when that trick doesn't work. Deepkin seem to have built in tools to counter them. 

In essence they are a rock to ranged armies scissors. As such it will be interesting to see the impact that makes, regardless of whether the army is top tier in and of itself.

 

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10 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

 So congratulations to @Kanamorf on taking out top Destruction general! 

How did your weekend go?

How did everyone else do?

Well back from the insanity and after the dust has settled I am happy with how I did. My actual results were not as I would have liked (3 major wins and 3 major losses).

Of the 3 games I lost I felt I was in the game until the end in every single one and in 2 of the games I made stupid mistakes which lost me the games.

The only game where I felt I actually had no chance was game 6 vs Ben Johnson's Daughters of Khaine, in some ways I was lucky that he had a totally different set of objectives for the weekend than everyone else (he was trying to table everone and ignoring scenario and succeeded with 11960/12000 killpoints for the weekend), I won the game but lost my army.

Game 1 vs Slaanesh. (Battle for the Pass)

I really should have won this, but I made a couple of mistakes with casualty removal which let the Exaulted Greater Daemon of Slaanesh into my back lines to make a mess, she only had one turn to exploit the mistake before she died but it was enough. From that point on I was on the back foot and could not recover fast enough to deal with the rest of his army arriving.

Game 2 vs Sylvaneth (Malign Portents mission 1 Dark Omens?)

I have played vs Sylvaneth a lot and know where their strengths and weeknesses are so I knew where to hit and make maximum efect. Buffed Maniaks on the charge are a scary thing when you have not much armour like big blocks of unbuffed dryads. The Stikkas got into the Tree Lord Ancient fairly early meaning he had no characters left on his objective for bonus Prophecy Point scoring.

Game 3 vs Legion of the Night (Malign Portents mission 2)

My opponent set up 3 characters in the ether ready to pop on at any point. My mistake here was I obsessed about zoning him out so he could not get his 9 points in turn 5. This left my characters at the back of the board. If I had ignored that and just rushed forwards I would have had enough characters in my opponents half to make his 9 points not enough. The game ended 10-9 to him with me having 2 characters 2" and 4" away from scoring.

Game 4 vs Nagash (Duality of Death)

I love fighting Nagash, its my favorite monster to chase. I got lucky that my opponent had never faced Big Stikkas before.

Nagash set up on one side and 40 skeletons with a Wight King and Necromancer on the other. 

I set up one Wierdnob opposite Nagash (with the Wurgog Mask) to hope for an early point and maybe a chance to drop the mask on Nagash, but with no real hope of holding that flank.

I stacked the other flank figuring that killing his 2 characters there and then being out of range of Nagash while he was teathered to the objective I could ride out the storm.

I got first turn ran both of my Maniac Wierd Nobs onto the objectives to score early, charged the boars, fully buffed, over the table into the 40 skeletons and importantly getting 2 into the necromancer. The plan and dice worked perfectly. The highlight of the game for me was the Stikkas getting into Nagash buffed with Dammed and Brutal Beast Spirits and then rolling Reroll Wounds on the monster hunter table. Yes, Nagash died.

Game 5 Clan Skryre (Star Strike)

There are days when you could moan about loosing all the proirities and not having the run of the green, and I did, but in the cold light of day I set up badly and my opponent exploited the bad setup very well. He tied me up dealing with stuff in my deployment while he sat on the objectives winning the game. The 3 Storm Fiends in my face I kinda felt I could deal with, and I did but in dealing with them I could not get to the 3 Mortars that where just massacring my units. 

Game 6 Daughters of Khaine (Total Conquest )

My first time out against these girls, oh my... Beating them is going to take some thought. If Ben had not had his own agenda he would have won. I ran some characters away from the slaughter to sit on objectives while the meat grinder smashed through my forces.

 

There were only 4 destruction players at the event this year, this may be even lower than the worst Death showing when they were the "worst" Grand Alliance,  but it is a reflection of what tournament players think is good at the moment. After 30 some years of playing WFB then AOS and always having played Orcs and Goblins even I am looking around for something new, I nearly went Nurgle, then nearly went Deepkin, but in writing lists for those armies I cannot see a way to make it as fun as my Bonesplitters. What other army can take out Nagash in one combat like Big Stikkas leaving your opponent stunned and laughing about how utterly awful/incredible they are.

So for me it is time to take stock of the 149 games I have played with Bonesplitters, repair the damage that has happened as a natural part of that many games and enjoy the ride. I am sure there will be something for Destruction soon, I am not sure it will be AOS2 as the cant shoot out of combat change that has been spoken about may be the death of the Kunnin Rukk competitively, however I am hopeful.

 

Oh and last comment, the Fungoid Shaman was RUBBISH!

 

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@Kanamorf thanks so much for that, it was excellent to read.

Could I push for a little more detail on the first game please?  What to watch out for, what you'd have done differently?  

I'm taking a 1-drop Bonegrinz to an event over here in 2 weeks, and there's a good chance I'll be facing an Exalted Greater Daemon of Slaanesh at some point.

Very sad to see the mess we're in as a GA.  Only 4 players is past a joke and when stalwarts like yourself are having second thoughts, it's sad times indeed.  Personally I have just ordered a copy of Star Wars Legions.  To say the least it is disappointing that we were the only GA to get no new models announced at Warhammerfest.

And congrats on your big moment against Nagash, that's awesome!  Great story, and the stuff that memories are made off.  

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15 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

@Kanamorf thanks so much for that, it was excellent to read.

Could I push for a little more detail on the first game please?  What to watch out for, what you'd have done differently?  

I'm taking a 1-drop Bonegrinz to an event over here in 2 weeks, and there's a good chance I'll be facing an Exalted Greater Daemon of Slaanesh at some point.

Very sad to see the mess we're in as a GA.  Only 4 players is past a joke and when stalwarts like yourself are having second thoughts, it's sad times indeed.  Personally I have just ordered a copy of Star Wars Legions.  To say the least it is disappointing that we were the only GA to get no new models announced at Warhammerfest.

And congrats on your big moment against Nagash, that's awesome!  Great story, and the stuff that memories are made off.  

 

I had the first turn in game 1. Set up with the goblins in a screen and one unit of boars on each flank. 

I buffed the boars with Hand of Gork and Brutal Beast spirits and threw them at a unit of 30 daemonettes, knowing they would not survive, but also being confident that even with the Hellstrider -1 I would decimate one threat. Loose 320pts, remove a major threat, fair exchange for me.

I dropped Mystic Shield and Inspiring Pressence on the goblins.

The boars did their job and reduced the 30 to 6 and no surprise they died.

Mark took his first turn and got the Exaulted far enough up to charge the goblins and tag in the big stikkas, on the other end of the screen a chariot made a charge.

Exaulted Daemon activated 1st and he correctly targeted the stikkas, I did not know about her 2" reach so my usual plan of having them close so they get dragged into combat backfired, damn these people who have played against them before and know what they do to monsters :) , he then activated the chariot at the other end of the screen. In a moment of pure madness I casualty removed the chariot losses from in front of the exaulted. No idea what I was thinking, in no world was this a good idea, even more so as I had forgotten that she could pile in twice..... Exaulted activates again and bang she is into my archers and the Maniac Wierdnob with the mask.

I won the priority into turn 2 and killed the exaulted but importantly she had killed 11 archers so my shooting was down to 2 per modle. This is where I was on the back foot and I struggled to deal with the second block of 30 Daemonettes. I feel, that if I had not messed up I would have eassily been able to deal with that second 30 block and from there would have had control of the game. 

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@PlasticCraic Is there a reason your taking a one drop army? I feel its a lot of points invested for no real gain in most games. I feel confident in the lists I take that I can react to either going first or second so I am happy eaier way.

If I get 1st turn I know I can have a unit of maniacs on their side of the table being annoying, and you would be surprised how many players will turn their whole army over to killing one unit of boars, so you have changed their plan straight way.

If I get second turn I am happy enough that my screen can mitigate any alpha strike to acceptable damage (baring moments of stupididty in casualty removal) and then you have the possible double turn to play with.

I also used to try for low drop armies but now I try to build lists that can exploit either option and that way you have not invested 300(?) points into batallions (thats 6 big stikkas!)

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What you are saying is all true.  My own logic is that there is some stuff arrow boys just can't kill, so Duality against a Stardrake or Sylvaneth for example. 

In those match ups there are two options that I can see.  Either take the Stabbas and chop them down, or go first with your arrow hoard and ice the game by swarming objectives and staying there.

I'm going for the latter, although yours is definitely more fun! 

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4 destruction players at south coast even with reduced numbers is an atrocity, I feel so bad for not taking one for the team and just flying the flag of ironjawz (I don’t think I saw any ironjawz at the whole event) I have broad enough shoulders to have accepted theignomy of having my butt kicked if it would have resulted in exposure of the weakness of the faction.  That being said there was some great conversations going around all weekend about ironjawz in particular and how/what could be changed to make them better so it’s nice that even non destruction players care enough about the whole game that no one is happy to see any faction so u Der the cosh. 

 

On a a personal note I played my Astral Templars like my Ghostwulfz, run forward and smash/eat things. I got myself to table 3 game 6 agaisnt one of my best friends and club mates so was a hotly contested and fun game to finish (daughters of Khaine) I think if I had won t2 prio would have made the game 50/50 if I had one t3 maybe 70/30 but after that the game was done.  (Note he played his army perfect as did I so the little dice spikes mattered, he failed his T1 charge with Morathi that could have ended the game pretty much T1 so I’m happy with the way the game flowed ? 

however you guys don’t want t hear boring stories about stormcast who have a nicely balanced book you want to hear tales of a pseudo-destruction nature! 

My stardrake ate 5 fulminators over 2 games (rolling a double 6 3 times on 3 dice) nom nom nom (poignant considering what was released from Warhammer fest for destruction spells)one of the poor recipients of this ridiculous luck was our very own Paul Whitehead, his luck agaisnt me in all 3 of the games we have ever played is terrible, he seems to have dice that can only roll 1s & 2s at all times. (I gave him a lucky dice that I hope gives him some luck for priorities in future)

secondly my concussors did a #BRUTES on 10 bloodwarriors doing 17 wounds in a single charge and because of the mortal wounds rule only one could pile in and attack me back as it died. 

Still missed my Mawkrusha all weekend though... 

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