Let's Chat: Ironweld Arsenal

[Lardidar]

16 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

Be sure to let this thread know how you do at any local events.  

 

I will be it won't be for some time, I'm just finishing up an ironjaws force for this summer but there is a December event I could aim this at.

I do like the idea of the dogs, I just ran out of points but I'd be happy to move to Hammerhal as my small stormcast force is painted up in that scheme.

Darn AOS....so many cool army ideas!

[oscisi]

On 27/02/2018 at 4:39 PM, Double Misfire said:

9 Skywardens

How come you chose Skywardens and not endrinriggers? I, myself, have 3 Skywardens just because I thought they looked better, but I don't think everyone base their choices on the rule of cool.

[Double Misfire]

1 hour ago, oscisi said:

How come you chose Skywardens and not endrinriggers? I, myself, have 3 Skywardens just because I thought they looked better, but I don't think everyone base their choices on the rule of cool.

Skywardens are 20 matched play points cheaper and I'm buying them for their guns and not planning on healing any ships with them. Also I like the way their mines and pokey spear things look.  

[Mandolinovolante]

Any suggestions for a 1000 points list allied with daughters of khaine?

[Double Misfire]

42 minutes ago, Mandolinovolante said:

Any suggestions for a 1000 points list allied with daughters of khaine?

Sexy ladies and cannons, interesting combination. Do you work in marketing?  

I'm not very familiar with the new DoK stuff yet so bear with me... A Lord-Ordinator (as army general) and the two artillery pieces of your choice + requisite Engineer are going to cost around 500 points, meaning that your remaining points should be wisely spent on lots of Witch Elves armed with shields as very mobile Battleline Buddies combined with whichever DoK character on foot is best at keeping them alive. 

I'd suggest Helstorm Rocket batteries as your artillery of choice as you haven't got to worry about clustering them round an Engineer or line of sight, giving you a much better chance at keeping them alive in a game that you won't be able to afford a reasonable Arrow Magnet in.

You'll have to use basic Order allegiance and I'm honestly not sure how good DoK stuff is when used outside of their awesome new set of allegiance abilities. Remember to run Hammerhal allegiance if you've got access to a copy of Season of War: Firestorm to mitigate battleshock!

[Mandolinovolante]

Thank you but i expressed myself badly. I meant that i will play  together with a dok player ^^

[Kaleun]

Do you also use the artillery pieces together with a sylvaneth Wyldwood? I guess it would make artillery lines a lot more survivable.

[Double Misfire]

16 hours ago, Mandolinovolante said:

Thank you but i expressed myself badly. I meant that i will play  together with a dok player ^^

Oh ok, as part of a doubles team? I'll get back to you with any interesting Ironweld combos with the new allegiance abilities I spot when I get time to read the book later this weekend.

16 hours ago, Kaleun said:

Do you also use the artillery pieces together with a sylvaneth Wyldwood? I guess it would make artillery lines a lot more survivable.

I don't because a Wyldwood costs points matched play points and requires a Treelord to unreliably summon. I'd much rather hide my cannons behind a wall of dwarfs than a few trees thank you very much!

That said, a pair of cannons in a Lord-Ordinator lead Ironbark Wargrove army might be an interesting idea... Brb, studying the Sylvaneth book for the first time in my life!

[Kaleun]

7 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

Oh ok, as part of a doubles team? I'll get back to you with any interesting Ironweld combos with the new allegiance abilities I spot when I get time to read the book later this weekend.

I don't because a Wyldwood costs points matched play points and requires a Treelord to unreliably summon. I'd much rather hide my cannons behind a wall of dwarfs than a few trees thank you very much!

That said, a pair of cannons in a Lord-Ordinator lead Ironbark Wargrove army might be an interesting idea... Brb, studying the Sylvaneth book for the first time in my life!

nah. If I read it right then you get a wyldwood for just 40 points. Put your artillery inside and get a +1 save plus protection from charges, wayblocking if you choose to put the wyldwood further ahead.

[Double Misfire]

4 minutes ago, Kaleun said:

nah. If I read it right then you get a wyldwood for just 40 points. Put your artillery inside and get a +1 save plus protection from charges, wayblocking if you choose to put the wyldwood further ahead.

[Kaleun]

whups!

[Double Misfire]

On 02/03/2018 at 6:14 PM, Mandolinovolante said:

Thank you but i expressed myself badly. I meant that i will play  together with a dok player ^^

Hey @Mandolinovolante,

Sorry I took so long to sit down and read the DoK book, it's been a rather busy week! There's only one standout direct combo for Ironweld Arsenal stuff in the book (honestly one more than I thought there'd be), and that's the Lore of Shadows spell the Withering - +1 to wound against a target unit is huge, and means a Helstrom Rocket Battery or Organ Gun combined with a Lord-Ordinator will be better than a Cannon shooting units that have had this cast on them. Take in on Morathi or a Bloodwrack Medusa on a Balewind to get it in play as soon as possible.

Beyond that, Morathi's got the makings of a pretty solid arrow magnet, being absolutely terrifying, but taking a minimum of three turns to kill (realistically four most of the time). Take her in a Khailebron list to ensure even more arrows go into her.

[AdrianDrake22]

On 12/02/2018 at 1:54 AM, Mordeus said:

How did you do the weathering? Looks great.

Hey dude, I'm so sorry I've not been on here in a while, so I'm a bit late. You'll be happy to know that the weathering method is super easy though. I layered the white up as I usually do with pallid wych flesh and white scar, recess shaded it with agrax, then lightly dabbed on rhinox hide with a cut up sponge. 

It was actually the first time I had used the sponge method and it worked out great ? The trick is dab off most of the paint, much like dry brushing. Then when you apply it to the model, focus on the edges and corners.

Hope this helps ?

[oscisi]

Hi guys!

This is a list for 1500 points, using the 2000 points rules!

Tomorrow I'll play in my first tournament and I want to use a Lord-Ordinator, a Cogsmith and three warmachines.

I will post my preliminary list below, followed by a run through of what other units I have available. Would appreciate any advice or suggestions on how to improve it. The reason I added two Warden Kings is because I want to be able to hold objectives. I don't know what scenarios I'll be playing tho, so my list needs to be versatile as well!

Oscar - Allegiance: Order www.warscrollbuilder.com

Leaders

Lord-Ordinator (100)- General- Command Trait : Strategic Genius

Cogsmith (100)

Warden King (120)- Artefact : Phoenix Stone

Warden King on Oath Stone (120)

Units

5 x Liberators (100)-Warhammer & Shield

1 x Gryph-Hound (40)

10 x Longbeards (120)-Great Axes

20 x Thunderers with bucklers (240)- Clan Banner

10 x Warriors (80)-Axes or Hammers & Shields- Runic Icon

War Machines

Cannon (180) Cannon (180) Organ Gun (120)

Total: 1500 / 2000 Allies: 0 / 400 Leaders: 4/6    Battlelines: 3 (3+) Behemoths: 0/4    Artillery: 3/4 Wounds: 85

Other models available:

10xLongbeards with shield and axe/hammer, Unforged, Runelord on Anvil of Doom, Apprentice Runesmith, Miners with Pony and Cart, Flame Cannon, Grudge Thrower, Aether-Khemist, 20xArkanaut Company with 6xAthermatic Volley Gun, 3xSkywardens with one grapnel launcher, 5 more Gryph-Hounds (I own 6 total) and some Bretonnians that are all overpriced pointswise.

[oscisi]

Today is the day! I'm bringing a bunch of different options to the event. Made a back-up 1000 point list:

Lord-Ordinator, Strategic genious, General

Cogsmith

Warden King on Oath Stone, Phoenix Stone

5xLiberators with warhammer and shield

10xLongbeards with Great Axes

10xWarriors with axe and shield 

1xGryph-Hound

1xGryph-Hound 

Cannon 

Organ Gun

 

Wish me luck! I'll let you know afterwards how it went.

Cheers 

 

[Kaleun]

good Luck! We are looking forward to your report about the game.

[Bozly]

6 hours ago, oscisi said:

Today is the day! I'm bringing a bunch of different options to the event. Made a back-up 1000 point list:

Lord-Ordinator, Strategic genious, General

Cogsmith

Warden King on Oath Stone, Phoenix Stone

5xLiberators with warhammer and shield

10xLongbeards with Great Axes

10xWarriors with axe and shield 

1xGryph-Hound

1xGryph-Hound 

Cannon 

Organ Gun

 

Wish me luck! I'll let you know afterwards how it went.

Cheers 

 

Heads up for you longbeards can have shields and great weapons. The wording isnt specific enough.

[Cinncinnatus]

Had a game last week with a Storm ast list using the Lord-Ordinator with a Reaper Bolt Thrower ally. Combo simply evaporated everything it glanced at. It was scary good!

[oscisi]

Hi guys!

So last Saturday I played two games with the 1500 point list mentioned above, only modified to have two hounds instead of one, and a Noble Champion instead of my second Warden King. I lost the first game by a landslide while the other one was very even and looked like it could go either way. My opponent ended up securing one more point than me at the end tho, so two losses for the Ironweld Arsenal unfortunately.

Instead of boring you with a long winded account of every little move made, I will give you my thoughts on the games and what I learned/would do differently in future games. To make things a little more interesting I will also sprinkle in random photos from the games without necessarily commenting on the pictures themselves.

The first game was Duality of Death from GH2017 and I played versus Tzeentch Acolytes with 6 Skyfires, two shamans, two groups of Kairic Acolytes and a big blob of Tzaangors. Generally speaking the list was either shooty or able to dish out mortal wounds or both. 

My opponent had a battalion while I obviously did not. Hence he finished deploying way before me and could therefore chose to get the first round. And this was basically the main problem this game. An Ironweld Arsenal army is, as one might expect, way more static than most so the first round was really my only chance to kill his two heroes and render him unable to gain victory points. Instead he managed to put one shaman within 3 inches of one of the objectives but well out of sight of my artillery due to terrain on the board. I made short work of the other shaman but could never claim any objectives for myself since his skyfires and other units effectively screened my "tanky" heores.

This leads to my main conclusion: it might be worth getting all the models for the Artillery Detachment. I've always thought it was stupid and required too big of an investment pointswise but dropping all those models at once would get me a chance of going first on the first round and therefore winning the game (or at least getting a draw).

Another option, and this is something I will definitely do in future games, is to switch one of the cannons for a grudge thrower. Sure, I will not be getting any buff from the cogsmith, but the ability to snipe heroes without seeing them more than makes up for that.

 

Now for the second game. The scenario we played was scorched earth. This one was against Death and my opponent brough a Vampire on horse, two Necromancers, a huge blob of 30 or 40 skeleton warriors, 10 more of those, some nighthaunt stuff, two units of direwolves and a mortis engine.

In this game we both basically ended up holding our own three objectives the whole game. Variations in point income occurred when he killed all my warriors in one fell swoop using three Morghast Archai. The next round, though, I answered by blasting them to smithereens with my cannons. I later managed to pick off the heroes that my opponent had left behind to hold objectives using my artillery. This made him lose out on points as well.

What I learned in this game is that since Gryph-Hounds have the ability to retreat immediately after attacking they are great for slowing down enemies advancing towards your poorly defended objectives. I simply attacked in the rear, and then retreated 2,5 inches, keeping the unit locked in combat but forcing them to make a very sub optimal pile in and giving the hound a chance to survive and do it again.

I also discovered the horror of a huge blob of charging skeleton warriors buffed by a necromancer, piling in twice and getting off what felt like more than a hundred attacks. Luckily there was no rend so my defensive wall of 5 Liberators with shields and 20 Thunderers with bucklers managed to stop them in their tracks.

I also learned the hard way that the mortis engine, while being mostly useless, has an explosion type ability, usable only once, that dishes out D3 mortal wounds to all units within range. I naively left the engine alone and focused on my enemy's heroes. Then it blasted my artillery crews leaving only two out of nine alive (yes my opponent was luckier than me on the rolls this whole game).

Above you see my survivors after the battle. My opponent didn't bother to destroy the artillery pieces themselves so I am pretty sure I would have won if we had ended up with the same amount of victory points and the game had been decided by how many points of the other army we had killed. Sadly he got one more victory point than me. 

The main lesson in this game is that I need more small, quick, units (like Gryph-Hounds or Skywardens) that can be kept in the back for most of the game and then, when the artillery has done its work, run off and claim undefended objectives. But to do that you obviously need to cut back on something else - which is the eternal dilemma of making lists for Age of Sigmar, or any other competitive wargame actually.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun and have now signed up for a championship league. If I have the time I might cover my games played there in a more traditional, battle report-styled manner.

I would still gladly accept advice on how to improve my lists tho. But keep in mind, I am way more into being thematic than competitive, and will for example never give my Longbeards wielding Great Axes shields on their backs. I appreciate it being pointed out that they CAN, but to me it doesn't make sense, since they need two hands to use their weapons.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that I didn't fail too badly at keeping it short and concise!

Cheers

[Dragobeth]

Great report Oscisi

I was playing arround using the batallion too (but I'm not sure if I can, my Ironweld force is on an greywater fastness army) for the drop count, but I could have to drop my hurricanum (maybe swap it for a jade battlemage)

The terrain is very good, do you use the rules for terrain with the random effects? any LoS house rule?

[oscisi]

On 2018-04-25 at 8:58 AM, Dragobeth said:

Great report Oscisi

I was playing arround using the batallion too (but I'm not sure if I can, my Ironweld force is on an greywater fastness army) for the drop count, but I could have to drop my hurricanum (maybe swap it for a jade battlemage)

The terrain is very good, do you use the rules for terrain with the random effects? any LoS house rule?

I'm pretty happy to have found this gaming group. It's a dedicated community and many of the tables are amazing. 

We have found that generally you either forget about terrain effects or don't have any use for them. Or both. This has led us to decide to only use terrain for cover. In terms of LoS we just do what the rules say. The "stoop behind the model to see if the enemy is in sight" bit.

What I tried to do in the games was to set up the artillery pieces so that at least one of them would be able to get LoS on every corner of my opponent's half of the table.

Regarding composing lists it's a constant debate, isn't it. Do feel free to write your take on how to make the batallion work. I could definitely use some more points of views on this.

[Dragobeth]

Well, we forget the terrain rules a lot too over here.

After some games trying to use the batallion I'm not really sure about it, the only problem that I can see is the tank, having to put that mini is a let down. Don't get me wrong, I love the tank model but the potetial is so random and I'm not sure what niche give to that unit on my army. Yes, the 1 drop and extra artifact are nice (it gave me double turn on one game and man...graywaters givin you extra shoots on a double turn plus the batallion shoots is...scary ) 

If the batallion requirements where something like "you need to have a cogsmith, a gunmaster and X number of warmachines" I could totally use it but unless I find how to use the tank it's not worth it for me.

My actual list is this:

Allegiance: Greywater Fastness

Leaders
Lord-Ordinator (100)
- General
- Trait: Strategic Genius
Gunmaster (80)
Gunmaster (80)
Celestial Hurricanum With Celestial Battlemage (380)
Freeguild General (100)
- Stately War Banner
- Artefact: Phoenix Stone

Battleline
20 x Freeguild Guard (160)
- Halberds and Shields
20 x Freeguild Handgunners (200)
20 x Freeguild Handgunners (200)

War Machines
Cannon (180)
Cannon (180)
Helblaster Volley Gun (120)
Helblaster Volley Gun (120)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 117

Now I'm thinking about swaping my guard and general for some liberators and a Castellant. I will keep trying to find how to use the batallion, the tank (my main problem) was the MVP in some games, who knows, maybe I just need to learn how to use it (and get used to don't have my Hurricanum in exchange, I miss a lot that +1 when I don't field it.)

[Lightbox]

Hey everyone,

 

So now I've cobbled together a volley gun kitbash and have 1 cannon + 1 volleygun I'm considering trying to jam them into a 1000 point list alongside freeguild for a 3v3 game next week. Basically it's myself, a friend using phoenix temple and a friend using freeguild (with one cannon) versus khorne and I'm getting tired of always fighting khorne in melee so figured "Hey, why not try some big guns?". I'm gonna end up doing them as mixed order (does mean I can play around with a firestorm allegiance too since I vaguely recall the paint scheme restrictions being FAQ'd out) I have a second cannon I can borrow off one of my friends so I'm wondering whether it would be thought to be worth having 2 cannons, an engineer, a volleygun and then whatever freeguild stuff I can fit in (thinking a general, some guard and hopefully riflemen if I can fit them in)?

Or whether it might be better to focus a bit more on the freeguild core and just have the one or two guns added in as fire support. I've yet to play with ironweld stuff (besides a cannon in my path to glory campaign which was fun but unreliable) and I've barely fought khorne with my freeguild so I'll be honest I'm a tad worried because sure they can be bloody tanky (especially in freeguild allegiance with the command trait for boosting saves) but khorne get a lot of attacks. I expect the game will be a semi serious one as out of our khorne players one has a pretty solid list built (though he also like to swap stuff out for skullcrushers a lot which I never find as problematic beside shifting them off objectives) another will likely run a -lot- of bloodreavers because at 1000 points they're not a bad choice and the other guy usually mixes reavers & warriors. They'll have a fair bit of synergy with 3 blood tithe tables and buffs helping each other (that's just usually how we play) but at least my engineer will buff our other freeguild guy's cannons and I can give him hold the line if he takes a lord ordinator general to help my guns out (hooray teamwork & friendship)

As to whether teams can usually buff one another in RAW I'm not sure but that's generally how we play. Let's us all feel cohesive and whatnot.

 

Anyway back on topic any advice on how ironweld play at 1000 and whether you reckon it's a good idea to focus on them or freeguild vs khorne would be awesome. Because I'm still pretty novice with my order armies (used to tzeentch mortals who play very differently)

 

::EDIT::

So a list I'm considering:

 

Freeguild general (100)

-general

Freeguild general on griffon (260)

20 s&s guard (160)

10 handgunners (100)

Cannon (180)

Hellblaster (120)

Engineer (80)

 

Pointa: 1000/1000

 

Alternatively: (this can be freeguild alleigance)

General (100)

General on griffon (260)

30 s&s guard (240)

10 handgunners (100)

10 crossbowmen (100)

Hellblaster (120)

Engineer (80)

 

Points 1000/1000

 

[Dragobeth]

6 hours ago, Lightbox said:

I'm gonna end up doing them as mixed order (does mean I can play around with a firestorm allegiance too since I vaguely recall the paint scheme restrictions being FAQ'd out)

As the FAQ's states, you can make your own city and choose one of the allegiance abilities (as long as your units are part of the factions listed on the city page from the book).

You are only limited by your paint scheme if you painted your minis as one of the cities from the book.

In my case  my army is painted on blue and grey with the Greywaters ability but nothing says I can choose another city on other game becouse my paint scheme is a custom one, make for my own city (Dragon Port, I even paint the banners as the  city's flag).

If you paint your minis as, for example, Hammerhal units you can't choose other city, you have to play them as Hammerhal. If you paint them with your own paint scheme you can choose any city (remmember to look at the factions restrictions, Hammerhal can have any from order except Seraphon, Greywaters can take Freeguild, Stormcast, Wanderers and Ironweld)

Other thing is the ability, you can have the city ability and your grand alliance ability but you can't have your city ability and your allegiance ability (for example, you cant take Grewaters and Stormcast allegiance abilities even when all of your minis are Stormcast but you can take Order GA and Greywaters ability at the same time) 

The cities aren't great, they are good but not at the same level as the battletome abilities; I think that's why you don't usually see them on tournaments but it can be a good bonus (Greywaters is good for Ironweld, it gives you an extra shoot from your warmachines on a 6, if i'm not mistaken it's basically the same from the batallion but with no cost) 

But all goes to the TO, if the Firestorm abilities are accepted by the Tournament usually there is no reason to not pick it if you go with a mixed order list, you just have to find one that accepts the factions that you use (as long as you don't use Seraphon there is always a city, maybe that's why you don't see cities on tournaments, mixed order usally uses skinks as battleline and no city allows Seraphon)

On the game against Khorne...I'm yet to play agaisnt that army, no one use it here but since Khorne doesn't have shooting I think it could be a good idea to focus on your warmachines to get the most advantage from the shooting fase since I'm pretty sure he can destroy you on the combat fase.

[oscisi]

9 hours ago, Dragobeth said:

Allegiance: Greywater Fastness

Leaders
Lord-Ordinator (100)
- General
- Trait: Strategic Genius
Gunmaster (80)
Gunmaster (80)
Celestial Hurricanum With Celestial Battlemage (380)
Freeguild General (100)
- Stately War Banner
- Artefact: Phoenix Stone

Battleline
20 x Freeguild Guard (160)
- Halberds and Shields
20 x Freeguild Handgunners (200)
20 x Freeguild Handgunners (200)

War Machines
Cannon (180)
Cannon (180)
Helblaster Volley Gun (120)
Helblaster Volley Gun (120)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 117

Now I'm thinking about swaping my guard and general for some liberators and a Castellant. I will keep trying to find how to use the batallion, the tank (my main problem) was the MVP in some games, who knows, maybe I just need to learn how to use it (and get used to don't have my Hurricanum in exchange, I miss a lot that +1 when I don't field it.)

My main comment on this is list is that you seem to have an even worse case of what I was suffering from in my two games: you don't really have anything fast that can go and snatch objectives. Is your Freeguild General on a horse? But even if he is I wouldn't say it's optimal to send him nor the Celestial Hurricanum off to potentially dangerous places to hold objectives. In some cases you need more than one model to have a real chance of keeping the objective anyway. Prosecutors could be something worth considering since you already have your eyes on Stormcast Eternals. I guess you could consider adding the Steam Tank simply to gain more mobility, even though it's annoying with a random movement characteristic. I love your artillery battery though!

 

7 hours ago, Lightbox said:

So a list I'm considering:

 

Freeguild general (100)

-general

Freeguild general on griffon (260)

20 s&s guard (160)

10 handgunners (100)

Cannon (180)

Hellblaster (120)

Engineer (80)

 

Pointa: 1000/1000

 

Alternatively: (this can be freeguild alleigance)

General (100)

General on griffon (260)

30 s&s guard (240)

10 handgunners (100)

10 crossbowmen (100)

Hellblaster (120)

Engineer (80)

 

Points 1000/1000

 

Out of these the second one looks more competitive to me. I would only consider the first one if you are able to change your Freeguild General for a Lord-Ordinator. It seriously makes your artillery WAY more deadly. And since you guys share buffs you could place the Ordinator so that his bubble touches any war machines your friend might be bringing. Good luck on your game!