Hello Destruction sub

[Fungrim]

Good Morning good people.

It's been a looooong time since I came on here! No particular reason - a heady combination of work, home and new projects I think.

Despite this, I've still been playing with the Ironjawz a lot, and sadly, losing a lot. This isn't particularly abnormal (a lesser player with a mid-tier army), winning 1-2 out of 5 on average, probably sounds about right. However, it felt right to have a change. I've had over a year with the Ironjawz, and have taken them to a number of tournaments. It's been very fun, and I've loved playing with them, but as I say, I've got the bug for something fresh (spoilers: it's Overlords, proceed to judge me accordingly)

I'm by no means dropping the boyz though, I have no doubt I'll continue to play them, especially in the coming months as I take my time painting the new stuff. Plus, I just love the army I've amassed now - still hoping for a little Ironjawz expansion at some point!

 

With all this in mind, I though I'd briefly cover some of the list permutations I've been messing with whilst I've been absent from TGA. Please accept my apologies if any of the following has already been comprehensively discussed, or I'm accidentally parroting other peoples' feedback. I've not managed to trawl through all the threads yet! I'm not going into battle reports as they can become boring and laborious to read through. I'll try and keep it short and sweet.

 

So:

After GHB17 landed, I went for Brute-heavy lists, using Gitmob as cheap allied objective holders, and a Moo Shaman as a cheap, reliable mystic shield. I really liked these lists and their variations. I'm highly tempted to return to this at some point, especially as Iove the 40 Blood Bowl grots I kitbashed. This list did ok - I won a few, lost a lot. I know however, that quite a few of those losses were heavily influenced by my mistakes. It's definitely a different way of playing Ironjawz when you all of a sudden have access to cheap bodies in volume you can move around surprisingly quickly. Takes a bit of getting used to.

The main reason this Gitmob/Brute combo didn't last too long though, is I finally purchased a Troll Hag. What a wonderful lady she is. Adore the model, adore the rules. Sometimes I feel she's overcosted, but her resilience and shooting probably means she's pretty good value for money. She ousts the Weirdnob Shaman (no need for him). She's 16 wounds, 4+ save, heals d6 per Hero phase. So, so tough. She dies quite often to be fair, but that's because she draws a lot of attention (...) - her biggest asset for me, is the 10" vomit, it's help me so many times, especially as she's not afraid to get up close and personal. Her spell of course, is also fantastic, I've used that + a 10 of Brutes to great effect before. I think I'd like to see her points go up ever so slightly (maybe to 400 so she perfectly fits in the ally slot), and in return gets an extra spell to cast - currently, just the 1 means making that decision becomes a chore, and the Curse casting on a 7 means it's liable to not go off.

Eventually, I started toying with how a Balewind Vortex (proceed to judge me accordingly). I really wanted to ally in some Gitmob artillery I'd got floating about, but at the same time, I really didn't want to drop the Hag. So I figured, Foot of Gork - it's ranged, it's mortals, what's not to like? Plus, we get a handy discount in the way of 30 Ardboys. It meant that I had a fairly small-drop list on paper. especially with a 10 of Brutes. And it also meant that the 30 Ardboys were often torn between staying close to the Weirdnob, or moving forward to objectives/combat. Add to this the fact that even with +3 to cast, Foot of Gork still only goes on a 7 (so only once or twice a game for me), and then that d6 can easily be a 1, and a 4+ is harder to roll than you'd think.... - basically, it's not an efficient way to spend 770 points. THAT said, this is one of my favourite Ironjawz lists. So, so fun to play. The potential for FoG going off makes for really different, interesting dynamics. And I'm happy to say, with a little help from some Brutes, I merrily Foot of Gork'd off Alarielle. It was glorious. I proceeded to lose the game.

More recently I've been toying with back-to-basics Ironjawz. Still been using the Hag, because I just can't bring myself to drop her. Trying to make more/better use of Gruntas. Brought some Warchanters back into the fold, because I can't roll for toffee and I really need those buffs. These have been some of the nicest,  most balanced lists I've used in the last few months, and have felt like that they would have been competitive maybe 6-8 months ago. However there's definitely been a meta shift recently. And I'm not even talking about Tzeentch or KO. I've fallen victim numerous times now to a combination of movement shenanigans and hordes. As I'm sure you all know too well, those two things don't mix well with Ironjawz. But hey, there's been some great results for Ironjawz players recently, so at the end of the day, it's how you use the tools in front of you. I know I could play better, and I know playing with Ironjawz has taught me a lot.

 

Hope you're all doing  well, and continuing to smash some heads in.

Cheers,

Fungrim

[Malakree]

So after doing some tournaments and generally playing games/analysing stuff I split the game/armies into a two/three different segments, depending on how you look at it.

1. These armies are broken, they abuse some/multiple forms of mechanic to generally avoid playing the game. That's the key bit, they DON'T play the game, they play their own special version where some of the rules don't apply to them.
2. This is the balanced armies who actually play the game, Ironjawz are in this bracket. You have good options, solid stats, aren't overcosted and are thematic.
3. Finally we have the armies who play the game but do it badly, their options suck and they are overcosted. Big difference between T2 and T3 is that a great player with god like rolling using a T3 army will still lose to the broken armies. 

Once you make that divide, specifically the T1 vs everyone else divide, suddenly the game makes a bunch more sense. Things like tzeentch, stormcast or seraphon (especially with prenerf engine of the gods). They avoid having to deal with movement, they avoid having to deal with losing units, they avoid having to care about properly setting up, they avoid having to care about armour saves or wound rolls.

Those armies aren't actually playing the same game that the rest of us are, if a seraphon player gets spectacularly out manoeuvred then he can just teleport away without a care in the world and there is NOTHING you can do to stop it. They are simply not playing the same game as the rest of us and it results in games feeling like you just don't have the tools to fight them. Tzeentch has cheap tarpits which just render them basically immune to melee armies when played properly all while they sit and output an obscene number of mortal wounds that don't care how many points your armour save costs.

Then you have the rest of the armies who form a much more traditional tier list of which Ironjawz are definitely near the top. 

 

[Fungrim]

8 hours ago, Malakree said:

So after doing some tournaments and generally playing games/analysing stuff I split the game/armies into a two/three different segments, depending on how you look at it.

................................................

 

 
This is great assessment mate, nailed it to be fair.

I went to Heat 1 and won 1/5. First two games were Tzeentch, lost one (not horrendously), won the second. I was beginning to worry it would be a weekend of Tzeentch hell.

The following 3 games however, consisted of Seraphon, Wanderers, Fyreslayers. There was literally nothing more I could do in any of those games. Exactly what you described above. I was at least in the first two, right to the end. But the Fyreslayers was a forgone conclusion T1.

Worries me ever so slightly that new releases constantly shifts things in one direction, instead of providing a new balanced army to choose. "Here's the new hotness, go crazy" - meanwhile the top tier armies figure out how to deal with it, and the rest of us can only hope that the next Generals Handbook is super kind to our faction.

 

[Malakree]

Basically all the problems boil down to a small core of issues.

1. Teleporting, there is to much of it, its to easy and there's no counter. This is the "does your faction have to care about the movement phase/rules" problem.
2. Save stacking, this comes in two forms but both are problems. First is getting up to a 1+ save with rerolls and effects on succesful saves otherwise known as "The stormcast problem" best example is the unkillable stardrake which has a 1+ rerollable, heals on a 4+ and inflicts mortal wounds on successful rerolls. 
3. More save stacking. Second is the endless saves, best expressed as "Death doesn't die" they get 3/4 different save attempts against any wounds they take only one of which is actually an armour save, worst example of this irronically is fyreslayers.
4. On a 6+ to hit inflict mortal wounds. This and the previous are an incestuous pair who serve to hide and exacerbate each other. The only reason the save stacking is allowed to exist is because you have armies which just ignore them with their normal attacks, while this is only allowed to exist because otherwise stardrakes would be immortal. "Bloodletters" is both the best name and archetypal example of this.

There are a whole bunch of ways I could explain why each of these are a problem, counter examples of the mechanic done in a none problematic way. For example, if we look at the seaphon teleport then compare it to the destruction move its hilarious how overpowered and unbalenced it is. One gives 6" of movement on a 6 while the other is a map range teleport on a 2+ which on a 6 doesnt even stop you moving. Even if it said "on a 6+ your unit may teleport otherwise nothing happens" it would STILL be stronger and that's a massive nerf even before you consider all the destruction move restrictions. 

Needless to say I can easily show, using examples, logic and things which gw has said/done, why each of the above is not only overpowered but bad for the long term health of the game. The extention of this then becomes how do we fix the problems, some have elegant solutions while others just need to be massively regulated. 

Teleporting

This is one of those things which just needs to be regulated. There is to much of it at the moment, that's unquestionable, and more importantly it turns up in places where it isnt costed for. Vanguard wing is a good example of a teleport which isnt properly regulated, it should require that the unit be wholey within 10/16" or some such distance, this retains the intent behind the teleport while stopping the shenanigans it's used for at the moment. All the stormcast teleports require a similar restriction and the game as a whole needs to have a 3" deployment blocker around enemy units.

Seaphon are the otherside of this scenario where the units are just not costed to include a mapwide teleport. This means you get situations like kroak teleporting before summoning a balewind vortex, artillery pieces and the like doing unavoidable and unblockable teleport snipes. The solution to this is that any teleport which isnt able to be costed for, so a warscroll or batalion, needs to be very restrictive. So in the case of seraphon removing the 2+/6+ reult so that the unit is essentially mysticalled until the end of their turn.

Save Stacking

There are actually a couple of changes which form a really elegant solution to this. The first is to change all "reroll failed saves" to "reroll saves of 1", this just cuts down the quantity of rerolls happening and means that even without rend the majority of units where this occurs will be leaking damage at a much higher rate. The second change though is the key one which provides the elegance.

This is an extension to the current rule of one for saves. "A roll of a 1 on a save is always a fail, if an attack has rend then it increases the automatic fail equal to the amount of rend. For example a save automatically fails on a 1 or a 2 if the attack has rend -1 while an attack with rend -3 would cause the save to automatically fail on a 1, 2 3 or 4.

This stops the most egregious forms of save stacking while also causing rend to act as the natural counter to armour saves it's supposed to be.

Mortal Wounds on 6+

This is rather simple with the changes to rend made, simply altering them to say "on a 6+ to hit increase the rend of this attack to - 3" this means they still need to roll to wound and saves are still possible which does a ton to bring them in line. 

The only other change needed is to change all"on a roll of" to require that result BEFORE MODIFIERS so that a roll of 6+ is no longer altered by +/- to hit which allows those units to be costed far more easily and be much more robust with regards to changes going on around the unit. For example a +1 to hit for daemons aura at the moment would either be overcosted for 99% of armies or broken as all hell with bloodletters. This being an amazing example of how the health is negatively impacted by the current state of affairs. That model couldnt exist in slaneesh because khorne could get it, thus it's either restricted to slaneesh demons thus ensuring it sucks for ga:chaos or it becomes mandatory in khorne.

Sorry for the wall of text I kinda went off on one again.

[PlasticCraic]

6 hours ago, Malakree said:

Sorry for the wall of text I kinda went off on one again.

Awesome post mate.

[PlasticCraic]

On 1/30/2018 at 10:43 PM, Fungrim said:

The main reason this Gitmob/Brute combo didn't last too long though, is I finally purchased a Troll Hag. What a wonderful lady she is. Adore the model, adore the rules. Sometimes I feel she's overcosted, but her resilience and shooting probably means she's pretty good value for money. She ousts the Weirdnob Shaman (no need for him). She's 16 wounds, 4+ save, heals d6 per Hero phase. So, so tough. She dies quite often to be fair, but that's because she draws a lot of attention (...) - her biggest asset for me, is the 10" vomit, it's help me so many times, especially as she's not afraid to get up close and personal. Her spell of course, is also fantastic, I've used that + a 10 of Brutes to great effect before. I think I'd like to see her points go up ever so slightly (maybe to 400 so she perfectly fits in the ally slot), and in return gets an extra spell to cast - currently, just the 1 means making that decision becomes a chore, and the Curse casting on a 7 means it's liable to not go off.

THIS!

I have been wanting to drop my Shaman but I can't quite do it because I need Mystic Shield every turn.  So I use one wizard to cast Mystic, and the other to have a crack at their own spell, depending on the situation.  That's pretty expensive!  

I would want to drop my Shaman for a Warchanter, which would leave me 40 points spare for either a Triumph or (less likely) a Grot chariot.  That 40 points would be perfect to bump up her cost slightly to accomodate the second cast!  Now I do get that "It would work really well for Pete's army" isn't the kind of justification that the rules team are looking for, but don't ask = don't get, right?

In a more objective sense the GUO is a 2-spell caster who does way more for the rest of your army, and is at least as durable as her, so I don't think 400 points for her to have a second cast (and therefore a "free" swing at her own spell each turn) is unreasonable.  If anything you'd still be paying the Destruction tax really - it would just improve her utility.

[svnvaldez]

17 hours ago, Malakree said:

So after doing some tournaments and generally playing games/analysing stuff I split the game/armies into a two/three different segments, depending on how you look at it.

1. These armies are broken, they abuse some/multiple forms of mechanic to generally avoid playing the game. That's the key bit, they DON'T play the game, they play their own special version where some of the rules don't apply to them.
2. This is the balanced armies who actually play the game, Ironjawz are in this bracket. You have good options, solid stats, aren't overcosted and are thematic.
3. Finally we have the armies who play the game but do it badly, their options suck and they are overcosted. Big difference between T2 and T3 is that a great player with god like rolling using a T3 army will still lose to the broken armies. 

Once you make that divide, specifically the T1 vs everyone else divide, suddenly the game makes a bunch more sense. Things like tzeentch, stormcast or seraphon (especially with prenerf engine of the gods). They avoid having to deal with movement, they avoid having to deal with losing units, they avoid having to care about properly setting up, they avoid having to care about armour saves or wound rolls.

Those armies aren't actually playing the same game that the rest of us are, if a seraphon player gets spectacularly out manoeuvred then he can just teleport away without a care in the world and there is NOTHING you can do to stop it. They are simply not playing the same game as the rest of us and it results in games feeling like you just don't have the tools to fight them. Tzeentch has cheap tarpits which just render them basically immune to melee armies when played properly all while they sit and output an obscene number of mortal wounds that don't care how many points your armour save costs.

Then you have the rest of the armies who form a much more traditional tier list of which Ironjawz are definitely near the top. 

BOOM!!! This should be on every GW employees wall and a footnote on the box when we buy our toys.

[svnvaldez]

8 hours ago, Malakree said:

Sorry for the wall of text I kinda went off on one again.

You did not go off the wall... You should be given a job as a play tester. Post more, make a new thread with this breakdown etc etc. More awareness the better.  Tune out anyone who disagrees. This is all spot on.

[Fungrim]

18 hours ago, Malakree said:

Sorry for the wall of text I kinda went off on one again.

 

Not at all - it's great to see what many of us have faced watered down into a few well written points. These are issues that need addressing somehow. I've loved AoS from day 1 and am loathed to criticise it or GW but it does feel like things are beginning to slip away from us a bit. 

This is even more emphatic as new details emerge of the upcoming Death book. High volume of attacks, access to mortal wounds, extensive magic arsenal. It's not going to be nice folks. It's great for Death players of course... and they do deserve a bit of happiness now and again.

 

11 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

THIS!

I have been wanting to drop my Shaman but I can't quite do it because I need Mystic Shield every turn.  So I use one wizard to cast Mystic, and the other to have a crack at their own spell, depending on the situation.  That's pretty expensive!  

I would want to drop my Shaman for a Warchanter, which would leave me 40 points spare for either a Triumph or (less likely) a Grot chariot.  That 40 points would be perfect to bump up her cost slightly to accomodate the second cast!  Now I do get that "It would work really well for Pete's army" isn't the kind of justification that the rules team are looking for, but don't ask = don't get, right?

In a more objective sense the GUO is a 2-spell caster who does way more for the rest of your army, and is at least as durable as her, so I don't think 400 points for her to have a second cast (and therefore a "free" swing at her own spell each turn) is unreasonable.  If anything you'd still be paying the Destruction tax really - it would just improve her utility.

I find all 3 lesser Ironjawz heroes really awkward to fit to be honest. I've come full circle in my advocacy for Warchanters to be fair - I'm so bad at rolling that I just need 1 or 2 to boost either my block of Brutes or the Mawk. That said, I'm  contemplating dropping 1 and putting in Ironskull's Boyz - a great objective holding unit for the same price. And then of course, if your ally slot is free, a Grot Shaman also falls at 80. Further still, 2x Warchanters is the same price as Ironfist. So many permutations now, which is a good thing really, but also makes for hard decision-making re. lists. The Weirdnob is the Weirdnob. Complete love/hate relationship with that dude, especially when I started using the Balewind. They're in no rush to drop his points, and I kinda get why - I think I'd genuinely prefer his points to go up and get a 2nd spell (not too much to ask considering what SCE heroes get) - plus it wouldn't exactly make him broken at say, 140. Then there's the Megaboss on Foot - I love him, but he gets sniped off so quickly, and most the time I'd rather have 3 Gruntas. Only the Mawkrusha has a nailed on spot for me - and even he is not value for money IMO (despite a massive points drop). 

The new GUO's pointage is just madness. Great point of reference though - it'll be interesting to see what GHB18 does in terms of re-pointing similar heroes/monsters.

[Furious]

Oh man I knew what I felt but never had any words for it. Yeah, there are three different types of armies. And unfortunately, the one that half the players play - Stormcast - are the worst offenders in that first group.

The way things generally seem to be going, though, is that eventually all armies will be moved into that first group? IDK I definitely have a problem with the armies that abuse rules so blatantly.

[Malakree]

 

6 minutes ago, Furious said:

And unfortunately, the one that half the players play - Stormcast - are the worst offenders in that first group.

It's more that Grand Alliance: Stormcast has one of the mechanics built in (deep striking) and so many options that they can pick and choose which of the other options they need to abuse.