Another poor showing for Destruction

[yarrickson]

10 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

Did anyone mention why?  I know people moan about anecdotes on the internet but it would clear things up a little in this case.   

I attended a tournament last weekend and took Bloodbound rather than my Orruks, not because of any weakness in the Orruks but rather because I'd not had the Khorne out since the new Battletome. 

Gonna sound pretty basic. But everyone had something else they'd rather play with. Nothing more than that I fear. 

[Turragor]

12 hours ago, Soup Dragon said:

fares poorly against Tzeench

I think this is everyone now right? Seems like Tzeentch is top of the pile anyway. From results from around the globe anyway.

Of course as others have mentioned this could all be due to the better players actively seeking out factions with even small advantages (so nothing is truly OP or 'nerfed to the ground') to play with.

If you are one of the 3 best players entering a tournament and you want to win, why would you take a list that, all things being equal and with average dice rolls, will come out just behind another list?

[Lysandestolpe]

15 minutes ago, Turragor said:

I think this is everyone now right? Seems like Tzeentch is top of the pile anyway. From results from around the globe anyway.

Of course as others have mentioned this could all be due to the better players actively seeking out factions with even small advantages (so nothing is truly OP or 'nerfed to the ground') to play with.

If you are one of the 3 best players entering a tournament and you want to win, why would you take a list that, all things being equal and with average dice rolls, will come out just behind another list?

I believe tzeentch took both team and GT at NOVA OPEN.

[Ollie Grimwood]

54 minutes ago, yarrickson said:

Gonna sound pretty basic. But everyone had something else they'd rather play with. Nothing more than that I fear. 

Cheers. Maybe everyone is just Destructioned out, Kunnin Rukks are pretty wearing on everyone involved ?

[Chris Tomlin]

Interest results no doubt, thanks for sharing again @Soup Dragon,

I think Facehammer GT this weekend is going to be really interesting. The biggest GH2017 event to date and by now people may well have played all the new Battleplans and have a handle on them (not me, I'm way off the pace ).

I am really hoping for a decent performance, especially as FHGT was one of my best scoring events last year. However, my list is untested (and I'm unconvinced by it) and I genuinely fear some of the lists out there. Some of the Tzeentch builds will be hard to deal with IMO.

I am pleased to see Death getting up in the mix more, this is clearly a good thing, but we also need to see Destruction competing!

It's tricky to compare current and previous Ironjawz as everything else has moved around us as well, so it's not a straight comparison in terms of which is better (hard to argue that losing 2D6+2 movement is good though of ocurse!). Obviously though we can talk about where they sit in the current meta and I'd guess we are doing a little better overall. Truth be told though I just haven't played enough games to know yet...I don't even know what sort of list I want to run. Everything is different now haha

[SolarBur]

I'm not a tournament goer and i've haven't really been playing much of the new 2017 book (trying to get army built for that first ^^;;;). But it just might be a case of people figuring out their footing with all the new points, hordes, abilities and artifacts changes (plus new faction ones). I don't really think there is a bad army in AoS. Some need the help of allies to boost up their points to make them playable, and some can run just fine on their own. 

But it just mostly comes down to preference i would say. Destruction losing the big movement they got in the hero phase is a bit of a problem, but at the same time it was something that players came to rely on quite a bit from battle reports i've watched online. Again, it might just be a case of players finding their footing in the new 2017 book. We might see breakthroughs of more interesting lists that weren't just the run this, because this works best (looking at you BS's). 

Tzeentch doing pretty well, that's nothing unusual. Abilities that can manipulate dice are always going to be pretty powerful anyways. 

[Sheriff]

I get that people don't think Destruction is as good anymore (due to movement nerfs), but that doesn't explain them not even turning up at tournaments. Surely they should still turn up but just lose?

My gut says it's just a fluke of sample size, further data needed. 

(Personally I've solved the movement issue and points changes by including a ton of Spiderfang models  )

[Iradekhorne]

No one talk about the combo atack of ironjaws. 30 man ardyboyz plus 10 brutes with waagh and warchanter are really brutal, and they have a lot of chance of delete one unit cause his size and chain the attacks.

I feel it with my khorne army and I remounted the game but with a luck with dices and the pool very full, my friend wipped me 900 points in the first turn in combat and I killed him 4 brutes cause my bloodwarriors killed him when they died. Is like all his army attack first. In a smaller game than 2500 I couldn't remount cause my pool don't get replenished.

I think ironjaws now are a like a blades of khorne army in terms of power. They can have a maw crusha but khorne can have archaon and bloodtristers and they have a weirdnob shaman (who is prety good even in mele, that bastar hit surprisly hard xD) and khorne have priests, and the bloodsecrator is similar to the waagh skill + warchanters.

I think they are in same power level then khorne, now you can have 6 pig units too who have +1 to chargue, who is worth if you warchanter them when you cargue.

Maybye they havent bloodletters, but I think bloodletters are si quishy vs shooting armys.

[Nico]

Quote

Maybye they havent bloodletters, but I think bloodletters are si quishy vs shooting armys.

Well indeed. Kunning Rukk based armies are virtually an autowin against Bloodletter heavy Khorne lists.

[@aosbatrep]

From my side, I have played Destruction exclusively throughout AoS and this was my first event with a different army. I had already decided to build a mixed Death list before GHB17 dropped following a Twitter poll for Agom. 

 

That said, I would usually have taken my beloved gitmob/ogor/dreadmaw combo as a last run out but feel it was not in a good place following changes to Destruction abilities. I 'm confident I could have finished top third with my Destruction list but managed a third place with a death rattle force. 

 

To to be fair to Shane, he was using my models and is new to the game, having never played with them or in a tournament. I chose the list to be simple and not competitive so he would be comfortable. 

There is still a place for allegiance lists but mixed Destruction lists need serious tweaking to perform as they did. 

[Lysandestolpe]

3 hours ago, Sheriff said:

Surely they should still turn up but just lose?

 

Oh, hi, i didnt know you were talking about me.!

i havent played a single tournament to date not bringing destruction, and I will likely continue doing so despite the fact that i may lose. The theme of the army is in my oppinion the foundation of what age of sigmar is supposed to be: carnage to te last man, oh and also some dudes drawing th short straw and deidcated to holding an objective and miss out on the great brawl. I never really felt that even my Khorne army brought as much fun and exciting punch as my ironjawz or ogors ever did, mostly because of their overall lack of rend and dmg 1 attacks. A lot of times i ended up just rolling dice where my opponent saved them, and back again where i saved them. 

Playing destruction i at least have a guarantee ****** will die GorkMorka style! 

WAAAAGH! ?? 

[Sheriff]

1 minute ago, Lysandestolpe said:

Oh, hi, i didnt know you were talking about me.

Playing destruction i at least have a guarantee ****** will die GorkMorka style! 

WAAAAGH! ?? 

I wasn't talking about any individuals, just in general! It seems that we are inferring a lot from a handful of observations, and my day job makes me cautious about such things 

WAAAAAAAGH! indeed 

[Lysandestolpe]

1 minute ago, Sheriff said:

I wasn't talking about any individuals, just in general! It seems that we are inferring a lot from a handful of observations, and my day job makes me cautious about such things 

WAAAAAAAGH! indeed 

Haha i know, was joking at my own expense! ^^ 

Meh, what else is a forum for than state your oppinions as facts? Im american, thats what im taught to do... 

[Sheriff]

12 minutes ago, Lysandestolpe said:

Haha i know, was joking at my own expense! ^^ 

Meh, what else is a forum for than state your oppinions as facts? Im american, thats what im taught to do... 

Then I don't know americans as well as I thought I do despite working there 

[kozokus]

18 hours ago, Nico said:

Now Ironjawz stomp all over Beastclaw. Sylvaneth took a hit. KO took a lot of hits. Stormcast took a hit. Even DoT took hits.

Hail Grimnir you fools!

Orange 4++ is the new black !

[Ollie Grimwood]

1 minute ago, kozokus said:

Hail Grimnir you fools!

Orange 4++ is the new black !

Now you've gone too far sir! Too far indeed. 

[Sheriff]

But never mind the moping, how can destruction react and build better lists versus the armies that seemingly are set to (maybe) dominate this season? I'm still learning so have no idea really. Get more high-movement units into our lists? More dispelling versus Tzeench? More mobs of trash units around our squishier heros? Any advice appreciated from you wise veterans. 

[Kramer]

21 hours ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Look, of course we shouldn't whine, but let's be honest as well. I get trying to put a good spin on something to avoid being overly-negative, but honest feedback is important, and saying something is better when it is literally worse is shooting yourself in the foot from the very beginning.

I think the point was that it's about relativity. It doesn't matter if destruction battalions went up on its own. It only has value compared to other changes. So yes, net we got hit. But that conclusion is fairly inconsequential as it's compared to the 2016 status quo. 

On the other hand. What absolutely is a missed chance is not giving ogres, grots and others fitting and fluffy abilities. that's the reason destruction is missing. It's so much more fun to experiment with the new abilities and rules than to be stuck while your opponent has new toys... it's also what's happening to me. Love the ogres but now my slaanesh and disposed have cool new rules... I'm playing around with them. 

[bonzai]

The first thing I thought when looking at the roster was a lot of people were trying out their Flesh Eater cult armies again. Good on them! This caused there to be a disproportionate amount of them. I am sure that they did get better,  but it' hard to say by how much. Frankly as the ONLY death battle tome 2 years into the game, it needed a boost!

Second, I look at the top 5 and there aren't any surprises. Tzeentch is still on top, even after the skyfire nerds. They have a lot going for them and in my opinion are the only tier one battle tome. The other tier one options are mixed order and chaos. They just have so many options to choose from.  This is a big benefit right now as most battle tomes are small and starved for units.

As for destruction it' self. Before the GHB17, there were basically two real tounament lists. Mixed destruction and Kunning Rukk. 

Mixed destruction definitely took multiple hits. Stonehorn nerf hurt. Bonesplitterz were nerfed faction wide, and so was rampaging destroyers. That being said, I think it is still playable. It will need to be slimmed down to basics, but is still solid. It just went from being tier 1 to lower tier 2.

Kunning Rukk was always a spoiler list. It won hard against a lot of things, but lost hard to its counters. As such it was great at RT's but rarely did great at GT's where they were more likely to encounter them. The Kunning Rukk did get nerfed, but the sad fact is that it makes little difference. It went from 180 shots down to 120. It' still going to do what it was doing before, and any price hikes are lessened by smaller unit size and not having to take normal boys as a tax.  Its the rest of the faction that took the bigger hits. Without the Kunning Rukk the army is probably tier 3 at best.  Expect more of the same, only more mono build as they have tighter points restrictions to work with.

Ironjaws? They were tier 2 before, and ghb17 gave them a mixed bag. Point reductions and allegiance abilities are nice. The changes to rampaging destroyers was a hit. The main thing is that their allegiance ability it tricky to pull off on a consistent basis. Hopefully some master Ironjaws players will learn the ins and outs of it and show us how it' done. Right now they feel a lot like Khorne Blood bound when they first came out. An army that requires a surprising amount of finesse to effectively pull off. 

Beastclaw? The above mentioned Stone Horn nerf hurt their overall power, but surprisingmy we may see an increase in straight Beastclaw allegiance due to allies and giving them the chaff they desperately need.

Everyone else? They all lost compendium characters and battalions, as well as rampaging destroyers. Hard to take that as anything other than a hit. 

In summary, I think these results are more due to people taking other choices (like Flesh Eaters), than a huge power shift. We did take a hit, but not so much of one as to give up on the allegiance. We just don't have a tier 1 option any more.

[TheWilddog]

42 minutes ago, bonzai said:

Kunning Rukk was always a spoiler list. It won hard against a lot of things, but lost hard to its counters. As such it was great at RT's but rarely did great at GT's where they were more likely to encounter them. The Kunning Rukk did get nerfed, but the sad fact is that it makes little difference. It went from 180 shots down to 120. It' still going to do what it was doing before, and any price hikes are lessened by smaller unit size and not having to take normal boys as a tax.  Its the rest of the faction that took the bigger hits. Without the Kunning Rukk the army is probably tier 3 at best.  Expect more of the same, only more mono build as they have tighter points restrictions to work with.

This is spot on.  There are so many fun things about this army, the magic, the fluff, cool units like Big Stabbas.  However, the only way they are competitive is to shove as many Arrowboyz in a list as possible.  I still think the Rukk is a solid list and will put up results but it has some very tough match ups that will always be an issue.   

[SolarBur]

 

45 minutes ago, TheWilddog said:

This is spot on.  There are so many fun things about this army, the magic, the fluff, cool units like Big Stabbas.  However, the only way they are competitive is to shove as many Arrowboyz in a list as possible.  I still think the Rukk is a solid list and will put up results but it has some very tough match ups that will always be an issue.   

Its really true. You get a lore of these crazed monster hunting Orruks, running around randomly without direction. Suddenly appearing to fight armies that either get in their way to a monster, or simply because there is a monster in the opposing army. 

And it really is sad to see a combat heavy army reduced to a gunline. While its pretty true that the points really didn't effect them thanks to the unit cap, its just seems to be business as usual and the kunning rukk just sticks around. Come on destruction players, we are better than just the same lists, we are the pillagers, looters, and fightiest armies around ;p

One thing i did find odd though. Regular Savage Orruks going down to a 30 max unit size. Its not that they are powerful, and i get that they can be a bit of a tarpit in combat. But when a unit has an ability that's active at 30, and losing it by taking a single casualty just seems a bit odd. I can understand 30 max on Morrboys and Arrowboys, simply because of the amount of attacks each unit can throw out. But the regular boys seemed to have taken a hit that's made a lot of people question about taking them when Morrboys are the same points and do more attacks. 

[Killamike]

Out of curiosity what are the hard counters to a kunnin rukk?

[SolarBur]

1 minute ago, Killamike said:

Out of curiosity what are the hard counters to a kunnin rukk?

Well i'm not a 100% sure, but i would say taking out the savage boss basically kills off the kunning rukk ability. The arrowboys themselves aren't anything special so if you can get into combat with them they die pretty quickly, especially if the attacks do multiple damage. Shooting pretty much has the same effect. I would also think that they suffer a lot at objective based games since most of the points are put into the kunning rukk, and everything else is there to support or defend it. 

That's how i figure the weakness is. Though i'm sure other players will be able to give a better outlook ^^;;

[TheWilddog]

20 minutes ago, Killamike said:

Out of curiosity what are the hard counters to a kunnin rukk?

Mostly the rukk chewed up melee foot slogging armies (like Khorne for example).  Gets hundreds of shots like while they cross the board and then presents hundreds of wounds for them to chew through when they get there.  

It had trouble against other shooting lists that could  snipe out the Big Boss and out range it with better long distance fire power (like the pre-nerf Skyfire lists).

[Sheriff]

45 minutes ago, Killamike said:

Out of curiosity what are the hard counters to a kunnin rukk?

I feel this chat needs its own thread, summarizing the key counters to all the dominant roster-types we will be seeing. Would be super useful for people to learn from the wisdom of more experienced players.