My mixed destruction - Is it worth finish painting?

[Spiky Norman]

My recent project on a new 40k army is coming to a close soon, and I have been eyeing the chance to pick back up on my long neglected Destruction army.
I have one nagging thought though - Is it even worth going back to the army as I planned it a long time ago?
I have all the models built and primed, but I don't really feel like spending hours and hours painting something that may actually be so ******, that it would not end up being worth putting on the table.
Therefore I come to you for advice. Not on how to improve the list, but simply for your rating of the list on a 1 to 10 scale. 1 being a legal but extremely weak list and 10 being a top tier 1 list.

My list as planned is it stands:

Quote

Allegiance: Destruction
*Orruk Warboss (140)
- General
- Great Waaagh Banner
Orruk Megaboss (140)
*Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
Moonclan Grot Shaman (80)
Moonclan Grot Shaman (80)
*5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- 1x Gore Choppas
*5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- 1x Gore Choppas
*3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
10 x Savage Orruks (120)
10 x Savage Orruks (120)
10 x Savage Orruks (120)
Aleguzzler Gargant (170)
Rogue Idol (400)

Total: 1990 / 2000

All the units marked out has already been painted, but most have not, and I am especially not looking forward to painting the 30 battle line orruks.

I know a simple scale of 1 to 10 excludes all the nuances, but I'm thinking that I'd like it to be worth putting on the table against most moderately competitive lists, so I guess it should be at least around a 6 or7-ish or something.

So - What does your experience and gut feeling tell you about the above list?

 

Thanks in advance :-)

[Malakree]

Not really on topic but isn't that a Stoneclaw's gutstompas list rather than mixed destruction? No point missing out on a freebie allegiance.

Based entirely on my limited b&g experience this weekend you will struggle with slow heroes and just being a slow army in general. I'm not good enough to say more than that though.

[broche]

6 seem reasonable. You could go up to 7 with a balewindvortex

[BunkhouseBuster]

From a painting and hobby perspective, I would say to go ahead and finish painting it, but's that's just me, as I'm trying to finish up painting projects before digging into anything else army-wise these days.

Gaming wise, I wouldn't call it super-competitive.  I would rate it at a 7 out of 10 though, as it seems that it would be very competent against any non-cheesy list.  A little magic-heavy for my tastes, but I prefer a good ol' fashioned krumpin' with my Ironjawz.

[Ollie Grimwood]

It’ll be fun to play and paint but it won’t be massively competitive given the lack of (reliable) Mortal wound output,  shooting and speed. It does have some synergy though and the Warboss with the banner will boost the Brutes nicely.  I think it’ll do well against foes that come at you but it’ll fair badly if you have to chase after your enemy. Probably a 5 or 6. 

Edit. Actually your Mortal wound output is proabably not too bad I’ll revise up to a 6. Given the nice variation of painting I’d say it’s well worth a go. 

[Spiky Norman]

Thanks a lot for pitching in with your views on it!

It is great to hear other peoples opinions on this, as my own gut feeling says it's probably a 3 or 4 mainly due to the lack of shooting and mobility. But maybe it's not as bad as I think it is. :-)

 

I'll let it rummage around in my noggin' for a bit, while I decided what to do - I really want to do the Rogue Idol, as I think it could turn out to be a great conversion based off of the Glacier King model.

[Chris Tomlin]

@Spiky Norman - You've had some nice replies here, but unfortunately this list is not a 7/10 in competitive terms.  I'd give it a 5 tops, but your gut feeling may actually be more accurate.

Without wanting to sound blunt, I don't really get what you're trying to achieve with the list? If it's just aesthetics and you want a cool looking army, then that's great and is a perfectly viable reasoning. Other than that, I don't really see what this achieves over a pure Ironjawz army post GH2017?

 Given that it's mostly Ironjawz you've painted so far, I would probably re-evaluate the list and switch to Ironjawz allegiance with 400pts of allies, which could be the Idol (Glacier King would look awesome), or the Orruk Warboss you've already painted and some other bits.

I've read this back and the tone doesn't sound great, so apologies for that. Hopefully it makes sense though  

Chris

[Spiky Norman]

6 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

@Spiky Norman - You've had some nice replies here, but unfortunately this list is not a 7/10 in competitive terms.  I'd give it a 5 tops, but your gut feeling may actually be more accurate.

Without wanting to sound blunt, I don't really get what you're trying to achieve with the list? If it's just aesthetics and you want a cool looking army, then that's great and is a perfectly viable reasoning. Other than that, I don't really see what this achieves over a pure Ironjawz army post GH2017?

 Given that it's mostly Ironjawz you've painted so far, I would probably re-evaluate the list and switch to Ironjawz allegiance with 400pts of allies, which could be the Idol (Glacier King would look awesome), or the Orruk Warboss you've already painted and some other bits.

I've read this back and the tone doesn't sound great, so apologies for that. Hopefully it makes sense though  

Chris

I appreciate the honesty, so no need at all to apologize! :-)

What was I thinking with the list - Well, I bought the Ironjawz battleforce last year (hence the Gargant + IJs), plus I really want to make my Rogue Idol. The rest are from previous, early days AoS projects of mine. Some of them I'd like to use as I've made some nice conversions of them, mainly the Orruk Warboss based off a Goregrunta and the Gargant is now very Bonesplitta-like. So it's a little hard to let go, but...

As you're also suggesting, I was thinking that maybe I should just accept that some 'sunk cost fallacy' here, and simply buy some new models to make a proper Ironjawz army instead. I have half of a decent list already (including the Idol), it wouldn't take that much, especially if I get a Mawkrusha, 2xGrunta + Warchanter.

But looking at the 30 Savage Orruks I'm not looking forward to painting, though I would be sad to let the Gargant + Warboss go. :-)

[Malakree]

2 hours ago, Spiky Norman said:

I appreciate the honesty, so no need at all to apologize! :-)

What was I thinking with the list - Well, I bought the Ironjawz battleforce last year (hence the Gargant + IJs), plus I really want to make my Rogue Idol. The rest are from previous, early days AoS projects of mine. Some of them I'd like to use as I've made some nice conversions of them, mainly the Orruk Warboss based off a Goregrunta and the Gargant is now very Bonesplitta-like. So it's a little hard to let go, but...

As you're also suggesting, I was thinking that maybe I should just accept that some 'sunk cost fallacy' here, and simply buy some new models to make a proper Ironjawz army instead. I have half of a decent list already (including the Idol), it wouldn't take that much, especially if I get a Mawkrusha, 2xGrunta + Warchanter.

But looking at the 30 Savage Orruks I'm not looking forward to painting, though I would be sad to let the Gargant + Warboss go. :-)

Personally I would say that you have the solid beginnings of an Ironjawz list with a good availability of allies. If you setup the Savage Orruks as Morboyz they also have a reasonable position as allies. The allies department was fantastic for u.

There is an option to try and make a stoneklaws list but it would probably involve a fair bit of deviation from the current.

[svnvaldez]

4 /10: But definitely worth painting and hanging onto. I think every true destruction player should have 1 of everything painted for when the meta shifts (and 90 Arrowboyz till that shift happens lol), plus it looks great on the shelf. Like @Chris Tomlin said, the list doesn't do anything well.

USA Top ITC Destruction Player (FYI USA is a lot worse than the UK so take it with a grain of salt ;p)

[Chris Tomlin]

3 hours ago, svnvaldez said:

USA Top ITC Destruction Player

Nice, congrats man! Would be great to get more input on here from competitive US tournament players who are doing well with Destruction.

[Spiky Norman]

Thank you for the replies @svnvaldez and @Malakree !

I don't think Stoneklaws Gutstompas are an allegiance I'd bank on being able to use in general Matched Play, plus I do not have the Firestorm expansion. But I'll hang on to the models and perhaps simply aim to start with the Rogue Idol, as that's something I'm really looking forward to.

Who knows what'll be released for Destruction in 2018 - Maybe something that can help the list or replace parts of it, if nothing else then at the very least we're still missing the Destruction herald for the coming campaign. :-)

[Warboss Gorbolg]

On 11/7/2017 at 2:42 PM, Spiky Norman said:

My recent project on a new 40k army is coming to a close soon, and I have been eyeing the chance to pick back up on my long neglected Destruction army.
I have one nagging thought though - Is it even worth going back to the army as I planned it a long time ago?
I have all the models built and primed, but I don't really feel like spending hours and hours painting something that may actually be so ******, that it would not end up being worth putting on the table.

I believe that the introduction of annual General's Handbook updates should greatly reduce this concern.  I've never felt freer to collect what I want!  It's an awesome feeling.

[Spiky Norman]

7 hours ago, Warboss Gorbolg said:

I believe that the introduction of annual General's Handbook updates should greatly reduce this concern.  I've never felt freer to collect what I want!  It's an awesome feeling.

I agree that the Generals Handbook is a very nice addition to AoS as a whole, though I'm not sure it is especially conductive to mixed lists really. With the 2017 edition the general Destruction abilities got worse and we got better sub-faction abilities which incentivise going for sub-faction lists .

[Malakree]

2 hours ago, Spiky Norman said:

I agree that the Generals Handbook is a very nice addition to AoS as a whole, though I'm not sure it is especially conductive to mixed lists really. With the 2017 edition the general Destruction abilities got worse and we got better sub-faction abilities which incentivise going for sub-faction lists .

I think the point is that they have said they will release a GHB every year which will update the game as a whole.

So 6 months from now the meta could shift wildly when the new GHB is released. 

[someone2040]

On 11/11/2017 at 7:46 PM, Spiky Norman said:

I agree that the Generals Handbook is a very nice addition to AoS as a whole, though I'm not sure it is especially conductive to mixed lists really. With the 2017 edition the general Destruction abilities got worse and we got better sub-faction abilities which incentivise going for sub-faction lists .

Here's the thing about mixed IMO (From a competitive perspective).

If you're going mixed, it better be worth it. You have to make the most out of the versatility it offers you. Whether that's allies options that are unavailable, going over your allies limits, etc. Because at the end of the day, you're paying a price for that versatility. The price is weaker allegiance abilities and no battleline-if. 

 

A great case for mixed (although, not Destruction) are the mixed Order lists floating about. These lists heavily rely on the Frostheart Phoenix, as well as an array of spellcasters, and some form of additional threat (usually a Dragonlord or Freeguild General on Griffon). There's no way you could fit all this stuff into a faction specific list, the allies wouldn't fit or wouldn't be available. So the heavy synergy you get out of the Frostheart makes up for weaker allegiance abilities (and Order has a bunch of cheap worthwhile true battleline). You're also not giving up much, because many of the Order allegiance abilities force you down certain roads with list building to make the most out of the allegiance abilities, so if you're not planning to go down that road anyway you're not giving up much.

 

Destruction in a way, used to be like this under GHB2016. Nobody took Bonesplitterz or Beastclaw Raiders allegiances, because the Destruction abilities were just super strong it wasn't worth it. Now that they've been tamed down (Whether too far or not is debatable), you have to take a good hard look as to what you get out of a competitive mixed list. In addition, many of the strong units got points adjusted so they're no longer must haves. This makes building mixed lists tougher, as a unit put into a mixed list may just be overall stronger in a faction specific army.

 

Overall though, I think honestly the Grand Alliance allegiances exist primarily for two purposes. The first is to give allegiance abilities to factions that do not have any yet. The second, and of course, more importantly, is so that people don't have to feel restricted in collecting what they want. You won't be super competitive, but you'll be able to run a list that you want. These people though are probably not worried about whether their list will be competitive or not.