AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion

[tolstedt]

2 hours ago, Izikail said:

Dont remember the wording on the spell buffs for the weirdfist battalion but they may make endless spells uber if it works like that although 1 spell a turn is probably just getting dispeled

Weirdfist only buffs foot of gork, green puke, and arcane bolt.

[Izikail]

1 hour ago, tolstedt said:

Weirdfist only buffs foot of gork, green puke, and arcane bolt.

Ok thanks. Couldn't remember. I considerd buying the mirror to puke from but the turn setup may render it useless

[Malakree]

7 hours ago, Izikail said:

Ok thanks. Couldn't remember. I considerd buying the mirror to puke from but the turn setup may render it useless

If you also grab a balewind for 40 points it gives 6" range on both and a second spell.

[tolstedt]

7 hours ago, Malakree said:

If you also grab a balewind for 40 points it gives 6" range on both and a second spell.

Or you could just bring a grot shaman to set up the portal or cogs for an extra spell.

I would love to puke through a portal.

[tolstedt]

If your opponent sets up units too closely together you can easily be doing 12+ mortal wounds on average with a weirdfist puke portal™

[DerZauberer]

Long time lurker first-time poster here.

First, I love the TGA destruction community for not being salty as most destruction players are coming into 2.0. Big thanks to that.

Now to the topic: In my opinion, it seems Ironjawz need to bank more than ever on a big alpha strike and we certainly have all the tools to achieve that.

1. We have strong (but expensive) battalions.
2. We are able to do 2-4 Waaaghs in a single turn.

I wondered why our point reductions are pretty much non-existent (as they even out pretty much), but I think Ironjawz got a huge buff with the new command ability system. 

1. Battalions give us needed CP and first turn.
2. Cogs give us movement speed and charge range.
3. Multiple Waaaghs give us a huge damage increase.
4. The new smashin & bashin let us roll through enemy lines. 

I think this is really powerful stuff happening for us Ironjawz players. Even if we arrive in the second turn we still have a huge potential to get a lot in close combat with multiple Waaaghs, triggering the new no-range smashin & bashin and roll trough the enemy lines. My bet ist Ironjawz are going to be very snowball-y.

I think several people think that way regarding Ironjawz. But do you like it?

What I want to say is, I fear there will be no "in between" when playing with or against Ironjawz. Due to the very snowball-y mechanics, I think we will obliterate the enemy or we just whiff to sniped heroes or very extensive screen. What do you think?

[Malakree]

@DerZauberer One of the things which I think will be super important is the endless spells. I know I've said it before but it really has to be reiterated. 

You are correct that the Cogs are MASSIVE for us but there are some others which are equally key, for example the prismatic palisade

For 30 points this gives us a way to shut down enemy shooting against us and not just a small amount either. One of the biggest Ironjawz weaknesses is that we have HUGE bases on everything, this makes it almost impossible to hide behind smaller terrain.

This completely counters that, it doesn't matter if that cannon can see 49% of your Maw Krusha, if the line from centre to centre goes through the palisade, which is huge,

Then the cannon can't shoot it. 

It gives us the ability to shut down the shooting armies that hose us as we close in and if we place it properly can even start applying -1 to hit against enemy units on the turn we charge!

Another example is the Emerald Life-swarm, which we can use the restore wounds to our units (MK Wounds table anyone) or even start bringing models back. How about a Malevolent Malestrom to really start dumping over spell heavy enemy armies (Finally a counter for tzeentch)

 A soul shackle snare might seem like it's really hoses down Ironjawz and hurts us more than it helps however this couldn't be further from the truth. All the snare does is half the movement characteristic of the unit, think about that. Oh noes my Brutes lost 2" off their movement characteristic, whatever shall I do. It does nothing to stop all the other movement abilities which we actually rely on for our mobility, Destruction move, Ironfist and Charges are all completely unaffected. On the other hand a more traditional army is losing a significant portion of their ability to move around the map.

The Purple sun is scary, of that there's no doubt, despite that it's again not targeting us. A unit of Brutes would have 1 dice rolled for every 3 models in the unit, a unit of Vulkite berserkers on the other hand are looking at a 1:1 ratio. In fact, outside of Nurgle armies, I don't think there is any army who suffers less from the mortal wound aspect of the spell.

Think some of those are starting to sound good? How about the Burning Head. At 40points with only d3 mortal wounds for any unit it moves across it seems...alright. That's right up till you read the wrathful aura part. You fire a Giant Flaming Skull into your enemies lines, then charge your army in behind it, suddenly your units are rerolling 1s to hit while they are wholly within 9" of it, something which really benefits an army that has small but powerful units as we can easily get two or three within that 9" Aura and at the same time deny it to our opponents just with careful positioning of it. Ever wondered what a Maw-Krusha hitting on 2+ rerolling 1s looks like? Well now you can find out.

The Malign Sorceries, especially the new Balewind, finally gives us a way to properly utilise the weirdnob shaman and turn it's +2 to cast into a devastating battlefield effect.

[DerZauberer]

@Malakree Wow, that's an awesome rundown on the endless spells. Thanks!

To be honest, the first time I've heard about the Cogs my brain automatically auto-passed on all the other spells. 

But now you've got me curious: Do you think we'll see armies with more than - let's say - 2 endless spells?
For example, I'm really excited about the Weirdfist as we have a pretty casual setup and I imagine an all-abroad first strike Ironjawz setup to be really potent and not suited for casual play.  In addition, I want to take a Balewind Vortex for the extra spell. Now add in the Cogs and you spend 100 points for buffing stuff. With all the hype and excitement most of us hold for 2.0 and Malign Sorceries, most people in 1.0 times would suggest taking e.g. Warchanters (as those still be nuts for 80 points, right?).

In my case of a casual Weirdfist I'll take as many spells as possible, but let's think competitive for a minute: Are more than 2 endless spells viable at the end?

[Malakree]

7 minutes ago, DerZauberer said:

In my case of a casual Weirdfist I'll take as many spells as possible, but let's think competitive for a minute: Are more than 2 endless spells viable at the end?

I think it will depend on the list and how many weirdnobs you want to include. 

If you think about it a budget of 150 for endless spells actually gives you quite a few Excluding The Purple Sun all of the others are 60 or under. Soulsnare Shackles are 20 points!

It's a host of extra tools that we haven't had before which adds a ton of strategic and tactical depth. For example, at 40 points The Burning Head is a potentially vicious start to an already explosive turn.

As a hilarious combo, take a Balewind Vortex and Umbral Spell Portal to cast Foot of Gork with a 24" range from the centre of your opponents army!

[Sangfroid]

A 6 unit weirdfist with a balewind will mean you have a 50/50 chance of casting spells from 36” away with +3 mortals so that’s normal arcane bolt casting on a 3 with 4 mortals or 8 for D3+3  (edit crucially one of the few that can cast without being dispelled normally)

foot of gork would cast on an 8+ (and we get to do now thanks to Balewind! 

Add in a fungoid to cast a pallisde in front of the weirdnob and then he can back board edge almost and can be shot but CAN cast as his spells don’t require a visable unit.  I’d see a valid tactic as a low drop weirdfist army sitting tight for a turn  blasting out some spells . Add in cogs (fungoid casts T2 but then leaves near weirdnob (he can cast 3 spells now) he casts gnashing jawz up front (12” from him and can move 12”) into the enemy and carries on blasting or if enemy close enough leave on the +2 move/charge and use the 3 command points on waaaghs and get stuck in my initial it’s though is this:

mawkrusha (with new golden toof if it works as rumoured) 

weirdnob

fugoid

weirdfist 

5 brutes

5 brutes

5 brutes

3 goregruntas 

20 ardboyz 

Balewind

cogs

pallisade

Jawz 

=1990

(id also consider dropping the jawz and have 4x5 brutes because with just 3 waaaghs that’s 3x klaw and 5 smashas per boss and 6 gore hacka but quite like the speed of the Pigs and the gnashing jawz lowers bravery plus can block as well as damage enemy. Ardboyz can stay back to provide +2 cast also weirdnob can always drop balewind and reposition 

Edited June 25, 2018 by Sangfroid

[Malakree]

18 minutes ago, Sangfroid said:

(id also consider dropping the jawz and have 4x5 brutes because with just 3 waaaghs that’s 3x klaw and 5 smashas per boss and 6 gore hacka but quite like the speed of the Pigs and the gnashing jawz lowers bravery plus can block as well as damage enemy. Ardboyz can stay back to provide +2 cast also weirdnob can always drop balewind and reposition 

Where are the two extra Waaagh! coming from? Each hero can only use a command ability once per turn so you would need more than one.

[Sangfroid]

I was under the impression you could use it more than once on a single hero (haven’t seen the rules yet of course)

[Backbreaker]

Hey guys, do you think that command abilities with "once per battle" will change with the new command point system ?

 

Thinking about Gordrakk

Edited June 25, 2018 by Backbreaker

[Malakree]

1 hour ago, Backbreaker said:

Hey guys, do you think that command abilities with "once per battle" will change with the new command point system ?

 

Thinking about Gordrakk

No, but they did get better because they no longer stop you from having other characters with command abilities.

This is entirely me being a hopeful grot but I think, given we have SC4 + NH battletomes there might be some new stuff for destro soon afterwards. I'm hoping it's IJ2, which would explain the extreme lack of IJ changes with the GHB, but I suspect it might be the long rumoured Moonclan.

Will possibly know by the end of the week, here's hoping it's both!

[Tizianolol]

Guys new balewind cost still 100 points?

[DerZauberer]

12 minutes ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys new balewind cost still 100 points?

Nah, it's pretty much confirmed 40 points.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by DerZauberer
Removed the link to the leak, don't know if I'm allowed to reference it.

[Izikail]

I feel like a read somewere its 40 now although i may be wrong

[Izikail]

I like orks but ironjaws seem souch more onedimentional than bonespliters. Can they do much more than move fast and attack fairly well?

[Mincemeat]

So I'm looking at expanding my beastclaw raiders into braggoths beast hammer soon, and I'll probably opt to pay £2 extra for the start collecting set over buying gore gruntas on their own, which provides the perfect excuse to begin an Ironjawz army! ?

Truth be told Ive wanted to this for a while, love the Ardboyz models and lore, to me the only thing scarier than an orruk is one who knows about tactiks and whatnot. So I'm thinking of running an ardboyz heavy army. Any advice on this? 

I thought about running 2x minimum ardfists (about 1600 points now I belive?) to mitigate the warchanter being sniped. How would you guys fill up the other 400pts? 

[Skabnoze]

19 hours ago, Malakree said:

No, but they did get better because they no longer stop you from having other characters with command abilities.

This is entirely me being a hopeful grot but I think, given we have SC4 + NH battletomes there might be some new stuff for destro soon afterwards. I'm hoping it's IJ2, which would explain the extreme lack of IJ changes with the GHB, but I suspect it might be the long rumoured Moonclan.

Will possibly know by the end of the week, here's hoping it's both!

Well, new editions is the most likely place to see existing army books get rewritten.  Historically it has not always happened since there have been army books that have spanned multiple editions before.  But on the whole those are rare and it has mainly happened in 40k and less often in Fantasy (although it has happened).

My hunch is that we will see a number of older Battletomes reworked for Age of Sigmar 2nd ed.  40k has most of their codexes out now and they will probably slow down their book releases for that game and probably concentrate on releasing more campaign books.  Theoretically that means they may have more bandwidth for book rewrites for Age of Sigmar - although that will depend on if they also want an accompanying model release and how big they want those releases to be.  But, books like Legions of Nagash do not require model releases so we may see more of those.

I have a feeling though that we will see reworked battletomes and small model release waves for some of the earliest battletomes.  So things like Ironjawz, Beastclaw, Fyreslayers, Silvaneth, Clan Pestilens, etc.  They have a lot of allegiances to expand with new books, but it would probably be best for the game if they balanced out updating existing books with releasing new ones.  This is generally what has happened in the past when they have released update editions that are backwards compatible with army books.  Ironjawz are a fairly popular faction but have a limited amount of models.  I'm sure there is a fair bit of money to be made with a new book and a small release wave.

[Skabnoze]

2 hours ago, Izikail said:

I like orks but ironjaws seem souch more onedimentional than bonespliters. Can they do much more than move fast and attack fairly well?

To play devil's advocate - what else would elite orcs do?

Thematically speaking I don't think this is really the army for subtlety.  

[Izikail]

18 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

To play devil's advocate - what else would elite orcs do?

Thematically speaking I don't think this is really the army for subtlety.  

Im not looking for subtlety. My point being. Bonespliterz can caster spam, Boar charge, infantry spam, ranged barrage. Ironjawz can do i bit of spelling. But is mostly infentry spam that runs fast no mater how you build them. Weather you spam brutes or ard boys either way you use the same frame. Also from what i read and my own maths gore grunters dont pack as much punch as the rest of the army or as similarly priced other cav 

[Skabnoze]

9 minutes ago, Izikail said:

Im not looking for subtlety. My point being. Bonespliterz can caster spam, Boar charge, infantry spam, ranged barrage. Ironjawz can do i bit of spelling. But is mostly infentry spam that runs fast no mater how you build them. Weather you spam brutes or ard boys either way you use the same frame. Also from what i read and my own maths gore grunters dont pack as much punch as the rest of the army or as similarly priced other cav 

This is fair and I agree.

For Ironjawz to do more will probably require a model update wave and a new Battletome.   But my question is - what other role should they do?  I'm not denying that they could use more playstyle diversity.  But the whole point of the army is to be uber-elite melee orcs.  They name all their formations after a Fist - which tells you how preoccupied they are with punching stuff.  The only alternate role that I can come up with off the top of my head that seems fitting would be the ultra-durable role.  Right now Ironjawz really are not that tanky.  They are tankier than other orcs, but they still are mainly built around offense.  Maybe they add an alternate brutes unit that carries shields and is a bit less offensive in order to be highly defensive and hard to shift?  That seems like it might be fitting for Ironjawz.

But as it currently stands I don't think the army is really geared to do much more than punch people in the face.  The biggest playstyle change you could really do right now would be to go heavy into the Wierdfist. 

In regards to Gore Gruntas - don't discount the buffs we can layer onto them. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Skabnoze

[Jgroover]

Gorefist List

Gordrakk 
Warboss on Boar w/ Waaagh Banner w/Feather charm
Fungoid Cave Shaman
Moonclan Shaman

Gore Gruntas x6
Gore Gruntas x6
Gore Gruntas x6

Umbral Spellportal
Soulsnare Shackles

Total: 2000pts

Shamans stay hidden and cast spells into portal while Gorefist does Gorefist stuff. I feel like this could be a really hard hitting alpha strike with the new Smashing and Bashing rules. Shackles could make it harder for enemy to run or reinforce. Any ideas to make it better? 


 

[tolstedt]

If you're gonna do gorefist, go all in.

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Gordrakk The Fist of Gork (580)
Orruk Warchanter (80)

Battleline

Units
9 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (420)
6 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (280)
6 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (280)
3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)

Battalions
Gorefist (200)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 141