Jump to content

'Competitive' Ironjawz


Malakithe

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 965
  • Created
  • Last Reply

At what point is it worth taking Brutes over Ardboyz? Will we ever see lists where people forgo Ardboyz to get more Brutes onto the table? Will the lists of the future be nothing but Brutes and Warchanters?

 

What about our heroes. Is the reason people are staying away from Weirdnobz because people favor Brutes over Ardboyz? If the meta shifted to Ardboy dominated lists would the Weirdnob become a more popular pick due to its easy access to +2 to cast? The same question could be asked about the Weirdfist.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- General
- Trait: Bellowing Tyrant
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Orruk Warchanter (80)
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
- Artefact: Talisman of Protection
Orruk Warchanter (80)
Orruk Warchanter (80)

Battleline
20 x Orruk Brutes (720)
-  Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (360)
-  Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (360)
-  Ironjawz Battleline

Units

Battalions
Ironfist (60)

Total: 2000/2000
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Drillz said:

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- General
- Trait: Bellowing Tyrant
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Orruk Warchanter (80)
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
- Artefact: Talisman of Protection
Orruk Warchanter (80)
Orruk Warchanter (80)

Battleline
20 x Orruk Brutes (720)
-  Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (360)
-  Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (360)
-  Ironjawz Battleline

Units

Battalions
Ironfist (60)

Total: 2000/2000
 

 

I see battleshock being a real problem. Against any form of shooting, you are going to be losing 3 wound models before you even get them into combat. 

Having played a number of games with a 15 brute unit, I can't think of many situations where you will ever be able to bring all 20 brutes attacks to bear. 

You would be as well taking a 15 man unit and 10 ardboys to screen/objective hold. 

With the two other 10 man units, you have nothing to screen them, so they can get blasted off from shooting and battleshock. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, mrstimpson38 said:

At what point is it worth taking Brutes over Ardboyz? Will we ever see lists where people forgo Ardboyz to get more Brutes onto the table? Will the lists of the future be nothing but Brutes and Warchanters?

 

What about our heroes. Is the reason people are staying away from Weirdnobz because people favor Brutes over Ardboyz? If the meta shifted to Ardboy dominated lists would the Weirdnob become a more popular pick due to its easy access to +2 to cast? The same question could be asked about the Weirdfist.

 

 

Brutes are often either an elite unit killer or an absolute hammer. Their lacking bravery means that they are too easy to take down without good leadership skills, hence 'ardboys are taken, not because they are superior but because losses in these units matter less. However, a typical Ironjawz list can only be aggressive. 'ardboys are a decent anvil, Brutes are decent hammer.

 

The issue with the Weirdnob is three fold really; he has terrible armour which means any decent shooting list can collect on 120 points quite easily, he is expensive for what he does (His unique spells are not that useful to justify a 100% price hike on a grot) and he can be detrimental to your own units if he rolls a double. Combined with the fact that Ironjaws have no real ranged capability to begin with means one can't rely on a lot of ranged units to make him a low priority target, it's fairly easy to fire a ton of arrows in his direction and he will die fairly easily thanks to a shoddy +5 save. He makes brutes look like a rock comparatively. His main saving grave really is that he's by far the most fightest of the wizards; 1D3 attacks for 1D3 wounds is interesting but again it's a quality unlikely to see any useful effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fellow Megabosses,  I need your kunnin' advise.

What was the consensus about the 15 Brutes Unit? It's worth it or we are putting to many eggs in the same basket?

This weekend, after months sitting at their boxes (it's been a busy year), I'm gonna assemble the boyz.

I have 3 boxes of brutes, and need to figure out if it's better to have a single 15 megabrutes unit or to have 2 units (10 + 5).

These are the 2 list I'm deciding between. I know these aren't the most "competitive" lists we could make (pigs and weirdnob!) but love the models and maybe they get bettwer with GHBII.

LIST 1: Megabrutes Option.

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (520)
- Artefact: Talisman of Protection
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
Orruk Warchanter (80)

Battleline
15 x Orruk Brutes (540)
- General
- Trait: Bellowing Tyrant
- Ironjawz Battleline
3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline

Battalions
Ironfist (60)

Total: 2000/2000

Pros: Single megabrutes unit fully buffed, big boss as general harder to kill, 'Krusha and Brutes would make 2 juicy targets and hopefully they'll ignore the rest of the army.

Cons: Too few units, half points in 2 units.

 

LIST 2: 10 + 5 Brutes

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (520)
- Artefact: Talisman of Protection
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
Orruk Warchanter (80)

Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (360)
- General
- Trait: Bellowing Tyrant
- Ironjawz Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline

Battalions
Ironfist (60)

Total: 2000/2000

Pros: More units, 10 brutes are still a lot of brutes, 2nd Klaw Boss.

Cons: Easier to kill the megabrutes unit, maybe 5 unbuffed brutes unit will suffer from bravery or few numbers and get deleted before doing something noteworthy.

 

Which one would you prefer? Any other pros or cons I missed?

Thanks in advance and Waaagh!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey all,

Got a couple of new bits to discuss today...

The new SCGT pack has disallowed the stacking buffs of the same name and introduced the stipulation that your General must be a Leader. I want to not come across as overly negative because it impacts my army (and arguably nothing at the top, but that's another story...stay on track Chris!), but let's have a look at what this means for our beloved Ironjawz;

  • No double stacking Warchanter buffs. This certainly is a nerf and a bit of shame, however we are still able to put a Warchanter buff on a unit already buffed by Bellowing Tyrant, so it isn't the end of the world let's be honest. Not a biggy, but does make the Death match up trickier.
  • No Brute Big Boss as army General. This goes against the recent FAQ and is, in my opinion, pretty big for us. It kills the Megabrute unit dead in the water before we've had too much chance to try it out. This is much more of a shame than above as I do believe it has (had?) some legs at a competitive level.

Now I know, this is just a SCGT ruling at this stage, but I think it's not too far a stretch to assume (or at least expect) that both of these things will make it into the General's Handbook 2, given the TO involvement with this. Regardless, even if these things don't come to fruition in GH2, it's still a worthwhile conversation IMO as we plan our lists for the biggest event of the year.

I'd really rather keep this thread clear of negativity about this and am more interested in chatting about what we can do moving towards SCGT to build different kinds of lists that don't rely on the Brute Big Boss General. I honestly felt the Megabrute unit was a bit of a breakthrough, however it's now a case of taking a couple of steps back and seeing what else we can come up with.

I've been chatting with @Sangfroid about an MSU approach to Brutes he has been developing and that may well be an option? That's his baby though so I'll leave it up to him if he wants to share.

I guess a caveat to all this is that even if these changes do find their way into the GH2, I think it's safe to assume that we may see some deductions in points that could allow for different builds that mitigate these losses. So it's most certainly not all doom and gloom and is likely to leave us in a more positive place for sure. I've actually been enjoying the Cabbage recently and if that gets a bit of a drop then I think it could become really viable.

But...before GH2 drops, what kind of lists could we be looking at for SCGT? I guess that's the crux of what I'm talking about today. Maybe you'll tell me I'm talking rubbish and could just run the same list with a switch of General?

As an aside, Sheffield Slaughter is in 2 1/2 weeks and I'm gonna run a list with the Megabrutes for that! :P 

Anyway, let me know what you think

(Yeh,...still got lots of catching up to do on this forum I know. May even update my own thread some when!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 5:05 PM, Drillz said:

That 40 brute list at LVO looked really strong

Personally, I thought it looked weak. @N_Watson has covered off most of my thoughts around it.

I was able to speak to Elric a little bit about it (was his list) and he also didn't find it great.

There are definitely playable lists with upwards of 30 Brutes I reckon, but going for multiple large units is not the way to do it as you can never protect them all from battleshock, which makes for some really easy pickings for your opponents. The meta seems to be ever increasing with powerful shooting....Tzeentch and the forthcoming SCE releases will do little to alleviate this.

Considering how best to mitigate battleshock is one of my main concerns (if not the main concern) when writing Ironjawz lists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chris Tomlin not my baby it's da Ironjawz baby we all contribute and help each other out as it's plainly obvious no one else is gonna (and maybe secretly that's the way I like it!) 

my dismay at the Megabrutes change is previously I could run 2 Megaboss both with battlebrew and use these as throwaway pieces that if left unchecked can ruin the opponents day combined with the auto immune always +1 to hit in both phases super-block of 15. Now we can still do Megabrutes but we need to change strategy (which arguably then reduces the power of the list) 

1)carry on but beef up one of the Megaboss to Talsiman of protection, his role is now to avoid combat he isn't safe in and try to stay alive to buff brutes

2) upgrade Megaboss to a mawcrusha and give ToP try to keep 12" away at all times use Ravager instead of BT and then allocate warchanters to buff the brutes when able. 

Im preferring the 2nd option the more I dwell on it because at least we then have 2 large threats and the crusha is tougher to take down (so more resource into it to do so thus leaving the brutes untouched (or visa versa) a list something like this maybe?

mawcrusha 520 (general, ravager , top)

megaboss (battlebrew)

warchanter

weirdnob

megabrutes (x15) 

5 brutes 

10 ardboyz

10 Ardboyz 

Ironfist

= 2000 

(Note here I so wish that ironjawz points were looked at in the sneak peak because just a 20 pt reduction in mawcrusha could have meant 2 warchanters instead of a Megaboss or 40pts some where an extra unit instead of Megaboss but hey ho!) you could also swap General around so the mawcrusha run off and kill and the footboss hide, needs testing.....

BtW this list looks very like @Chris Tomlin masters list now that I look at it.... 

 

MSU: 

since the masters I have been using a brutefist formation and a Megaboss using the Waaagh command ability basically because I decided that I would just ignore battleshock completely and instead limit its effects (MSU) while at the same time boosting damage output (+1 or +2a) and more Klaw & Smasha actually also I've used 2 Brute Choppas in my units mainly due to the wysiwyg layout and using my Grimgor model as Da brutefist Big boss 5 attacks with this rerolling hits is not far off a Megaboss and is a lot better than my previous glance at the warscroll gave it credit for. This is because I can only fit in 1 Warchanter and my trait has to be ravager as you lose D6 move from brutefist, s hitting on 3s is quite consistent. Here is some of it set up Monday agaisnt Carl smiths fyreslayers

I'm loving it because literally no piece matters in the grand scheme of things (Even the general dying doesn't impact it too much) and 5 units of brutes stomping aboutnreally does copause mayhem! The D3 mortals on the charge is nice but after 2 games I'm missing the Ironfist so may swip this in next week to run it out 

Megaboss (general, ravager, top)

megaboss (battlebrew) 

warchanter 

weirdnob

3 x 5 brutes with jagged hackas 2 with Klaw one with Grimgor and boss choppa) 

2 x 5 brutes with choppas (1 each with Klaw and boss choppa)

3 x 10 ardboyz 

brutefist 

the jagged hacka as sit behind Ardboyz and those 30 vulkites that charged me on the double turn killed 6 ardboyz and 2 brutes from both units. 

I killed all 30 by the end of the double turn... mwwwwwwwhahhahahahahaaahahhahahahahahahaahhaaaaaaaa! 

IMG_0447.JPG

IMG_0448.JPG

IMG_0449.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm currently on holiday in Lanzarote (had to slip that in) and been thinking about my list for my Ironjawz as I'm booked up to go to a tournament in march in Stirling. Just saw the Twitter update for SCGT and I'm now waiting to see if the Megabrute general will be outlawed there as well. (probably will given that their other house rules are similar to SCGT). 

I remembered @Sangfroid talking about his MSU brutes brutefist and it got me thinking. 

I had a game last week vs Sylvaneth with a brutefist and Ironfist, and I wrecked his army by the end of turn 3. I tried out Nothing Left Standing btw, and it was awesome! This was with the Megabrute unit though. 

To try and protect the Megaboss from shooting, I have come up with this list, which is very similar to Sangfroid list. 

Allegiance: Destruction

Leaders
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- General
- Trait: Ravager
- Artefact: Talisman of Protection
Orruk Megaboss (140)
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Orruk Warchanter (80)
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)

Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
- Ironjawz Battleline
6 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (360)
- Ironjawz Battleline

Units

Battalions
Brute Fist (80)

Total: 2000/2000

I am limited by the models I have, and the time in which to build and paint, but I am planning on using the goregruntas to be a Line of Sight barrier for my Megaboss general, as they are tall enough to at least limit shooting into him from things like skyfires and kurnoth. I know he will be able to be shot at by behemoths, but I think everything will struggle to bring a full units shots to bear. They are fast enough to not hamper his movement and provide 30 wounds with a 4+ save. 

My brutefist will only include 4 units as a consequence, with 3 of them having jagged gore hackas, but with the Waaagh ability, the extra reach might be better. 

I like the thought of not having to worry about battleshock. It was taking away some enjoyment from the game. 

Any feedback or thoughts on the pig meat shield? 

I'm back off to sunbathing now! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I want to add my experience here against a new Tzeentch list. We played roughly 1500 pts.

My list was

Megaboss

Weirdnob

Warchanter

Warchanter

10 Ard

10 Ard

5 Brutes

5 Brutes

5 Brutes

3 Goregruntas

Ironfist

 

My opponent played Two Heroes (Lord of Change, some Daemon on a disc?, many Horrors...)

We played 3 places of power. I won. But only by points, and because he made a tactical mistake. Otherwise I had barely a chance, and I would not win a second time. 

The problem are the many mortal wounds this list can deal to your Brutes. With 3 wounds and no save, your Brutes are dead before you reach the Daemon lot to smash it. I do not really know what could be done against such a list, maybe my list was also not the best against Tzeentch, but well, when you play competitive you should play a list that could be good against any opponent. 

The point of my post here is to say that with Ironjawz we need to come up with something against these shooty Tzeentch lists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Anaticula said:

I want to add my experience here against a new Tzeentch list. We played roughly 1500 pts.

My list was

Megaboss

Weirdnob

Warchanter

Warchanter

10 Ard

10 Ard

5 Brutes

5 Brutes

5 Brutes

3 Goregruntas

Ironfist

 

My opponent played Two Heroes (Lord of Change, some Daemon on a disc?, many Horrors...)

We played 3 places of power. I won. But only by points, and because he made a tactical mistake. Otherwise I had barely a chance, and I would not win a second time. 

The problem are the many mortal wounds this list can deal to your Brutes. With 3 wounds and no save, your Brutes are dead before you reach the Daemon lot to smash it. I do not really know what could be done against such a list, maybe my list was also not the best against Tzeentch, but well, when you play competitive you should play a list that could be good against any opponent. 

The point of my post here is to say that with Ironjawz we need to come up with something against these shooty Tzeentch lists.

As people here have been experimenting, MSU or Multiple small units seems to be the only other think we can try against a lot of shooting. Accept that you will lose some units, and minemise your loses by screening your more efficient units. 

For example, horrors wouldn't likely be able to see brutes behind ardboys, so use them to screen them while moving forwards. 

Use the gore gruntas to do the same thing. When the brutes get close, you should still have most of them alive and they can get to chopping. 

Shooting seems to be the crutch of the meta right now, as is allows you to do damage to your opponent without any risk of being hit back. 

Heavy shooting armies can be very forgiving, where as with combat, you need to really consider every action and combat that you pick because your openent gets to pile in after your first pick. 

Minimising your losses by giving your opponent lots of different units to shoot at is maybe the best answer we have. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

For example, horrors wouldn't likely be able to see brutes behind ardboys, so use them to screen them while moving forwards. 

I have read about units blocking sight around here quite a bit. What is this based on? Around here everybody is like "you can shoot at anything within range".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Anaticula said:

I have read about units blocking sight around here quite a bit. What is this based on? Around here everybody is like "you can shoot at anything within range".

If you read the core rules for shooting and attacking, each model that chooses to shoot must be in range of its target and be able to see it. 

They even give the example of stooping down to get an idea of whether the model shooting can actually see the model it is targeting. 

At least where I play, the shooting model must be able to see the body of the model. For example, if the shooting unit can only see the warchanter sticks, it can't shoot the warchanter, bit if it can see it's hands, it can shoot it. (this isn't in the core rules, just how we house rule the 4 pages with a common sense approach) 

Hope this helps. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you read the core rules for shooting and attacking, each model that chooses to shoot must be in range of its target and be able to see it. 
They even give the example of stooping down to get an idea of whether the model shooting can actually see the model it is targeting. 
At least where I play, the shooting model must be able to see the body of the model. For example, if the shooting unit can only see the warchanter sticks, it can't shoot the warchanter, bit if it can see it's hands, it can shoot it. (this isn't in the core rules, just how we house rule the 4 pages with a common sense approach) 
Hope this helps. 

I wish I could get that going at my GW store. Everyone goes with "it's in range" and throws 40 archers on the board then complain when I take an ironfist....
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello all glad to be here.  I'm not gonna even attempt to read everything in the thread so far.   I recently went to LVO and took 3rd place Overall with a balanced Ironjawz list.  Here is what I ran.  I went 5-1 including taking down some tough armies.  Ironjawz are legit people.  Spread the word.

 

Megaboss on Maw-Crusha

Warchanter

Warchanter

Shaman

Shaman

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

10 x Ardboys

10 x Ardboys

3 x Gore Gruntaz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, IronjawzBrian said:

Hello all glad to be here.  I'm not gonna even attempt to read everything in the thread so far.   I recently went to LVO and took 3rd place Overall with a balanced Ironjawz list.  Here is what I ran.  I went 5-1 including taking down some tough armies.  Ironjawz are legit people.  Spread the word.

 

Megaboss on Maw-Crusha

Warchanter

Warchanter

Shaman

Shaman

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

10 x Ardboys

10 x Ardboys

3 x Gore Gruntaz

Hi Brian, I thought you took second.

 

Thanks for sharing your list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, IronjawzBrian said:

Hello all glad to be here.  I'm not gonna even attempt to read everything in the thread so far.   I recently went to LVO and took 3rd place Overall with a balanced Ironjawz list.  Here is what I ran.  I went 5-1 including taking down some tough armies.  Ironjawz are legit people.  Spread the word.

 

Megaboss on Maw-Crusha

Warchanter

Warchanter

Shaman

Shaman

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

5 x Brutes

10 x Ardboys

10 x Ardboys

3 x Gore Gruntaz

Well done @IronjawzBrian. Would love to see a break down of the lists you faced and how you got on. 

It's unusual to see a list with no formation and two Wierdnob shaman, which are widely regarded overpriced. 

I can appreciate not reading the full thread, but there is a lot of great discussion on here. You might actually enjoy reading everyone's scrambling for ironjawz knowledge haha. 

Congrats again! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@IronjawzBrian - Congrats on your placing, very impressive! Great result with what is quite an unusual list (if nothing else, not being able to dictate first turn very often would concern me)

I'm glad you posted here, was hoping you would. I am very interested in your match ups and reports of the games as I'm sure are many others here. Would be cool if you are able to share! :D 

I saw you mention elsewhere that you think Ironjawz are a top tier army...interested if that was a serious comment haha!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now we can still do Megabrutes but we need to change strategy (which arguably then reduces the power of the list) 
1)carry on but beef up one of the Megaboss to Talsiman of protection, his role is now to avoid combat he isn't safe in and try to stay alive to buff brutes
2) upgrade Megaboss to a mawcrusha and give ToP try to keep 12" away at all times use Ravager instead of BT and then allocate warchanters to buff the brutes when able. 




From Sylvaneth perspective the mawkrusha with talisman is the biggest problem for me when facing Ironjawz.

I think if I was to play against the megabrutes again then I'd simply tag my Treelord Ancient with oaken armour and gnarled warrior onto one end (preferably the end of the unit furthest from the claw / smasha boss)

He's part of the Household Battalion so you can't retreat from him, and has a 2+ save rerolling 1's and ignores Rend -1.

This feels like a serious problem for your list and the mawkrusha is one of the only things you have that can deal with it.

Well... unless you wanted to try your luck with Foot of Gork of course...

You said nobody else wants to help you guys out but I do follow this thread and have a little love for the IJ so there's a little thoughts from someone facing them to help you adjust accordingly.

Interested to hear of that would affect any plans on or off the table actually.


Sent from the Hidden Enclaves via the Realmroots
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the support-fist-pump  @Forestreveries The Treelord ancient is a pain to kill with ironjawz which strangely MSU brutedarts in a brutefist find a lot easier to deal with than the Megabrutes because you can charge a couple of Brutedarts in do 2xd3 mortal wounds and then using the Waaagh command ability are getting up to 6 decent -2 rend attacks that do D3 each the only time the Megabrutes have faced the TLA they took down durthu and then with a battlebrew megaboss sat there trappped by the TLA for the rest of the game, I did 20 wounds to the treelord but the turn sequence and good heals (6,6,5) meant I couldn't take him down 

last time I foot of Gork a treelord I did 1 mortal wound (rolled a 1 then a 1) I really need to cut that spell out of my book ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...