Ironjawz AOS2 2018 Help Me Be Positive

[Rock Lobster]

Ghurs glyph feather charm sounds great for the mega boss as you say. It’s always been a pain to get him to keep up with the iron fist brutes and that does the job.

with all of the options available for items etc it does seem like a couple of mega bosses, a couple of command points and a warchanter at only 20 points more than the mawkrusha is a good deal potentially now, especially combined with brutes

[broche]

is it confirmed that allies can use command ability?

As for AoS2 expectation, i think poeple smoked some weed. There was no hint of new allegiance, massive point drop or warscroll change. Why not 100 pts ardboys and warchanter that can summon?

I think point drop are reasonnable. It seem they went to keep bataillion around 200 pts (i guess it make sense considering they give command point, not sure about artefact tough). They leveled up the 2 playable bataillion (iron, weird and gore fist). Ardfist is now playable since it don't cost reinforcement, so the +30 increase  seem justified. I'm a bit disapointed that they don't cut Brutefist cause it's really bad, but anyway.

What will really help ironjawz in next edition is:

Look out sir: Protect your warchanter, weirnob and footboss. Since we have no shooting, it's only good for us.

New magic: Before, +2 to cast and dispel was meh. But as mentionned earlier, with the change to magic, weirnob are becoming really really good.  And it give us the spell selection we cruelly missed.

Shooting nerf: You can now pin shooter with Pig or Arboys to protect your MK or brutes. We have no shooting outside MK so won't matter to us.

Command ability stacking: Maw Krusha + Footboss + Grodrack = +4-6 attackk army wide. This can whipe any army in a single turn, that can be bad.

What will hurt Ironjawz, you still have no summon and no shooting and average mobility. I think the weirdfist is gonna be the best archetype as it give you long range mortal and is unafected by shooting nerf. A list like @svnvaldez look quite good for example.

 

 

 

[Sangfroid]

10 hours ago, Rock Lobster said:

Any more information on this tactic, I am intrigued. Perhaps @Sangfroid is lurking somewhere and can help.

Great work starting this post @Rock Lobster what @Malakree is referring to is that I have been using #BRUTES for a while now as multiple units of 5 under the premise that I’d rather waaagh and get the extra attacks (but occasionally suffer battle shock) than have a big until of 10 or 15 that have to be babysat with inspiring presence. (The new change to command abilities and the rumour of the new “Golden Toof” may change this again btw....) and no I’m not a secret play tester (I wish!!) 

yesterday I was a bit negative but as the day progressed and I thought about it I’m more sanguine about it now and can see that for one thing we now have a few more build options (even if our relative Tier power remains unchanged)

One highlight for me is the weirdfist is now viable not just  because ardboyz at 160  mean you can go 3x10 or 1x20 (as well as 1x30) but also because it gives us one of the very few casters that can do a spell from outside of the 30” new dispel range (Morathi is another) Balewind down to 40pts and suddenly you can sit 36” away +3 to cast and only need 2 out of 5 dice to be 1,2 or 3 and it cannot generally be dispelled (slanns can). That’s a better than average chance to roll and also arcane bolt (conservative choice) auto cast and easier to roll the 10 cast roll  for extra wounds AND a foot of gork each turn again 7+ Cast roll so average chance.  That’s pretty massive I think, add in a fungoid or similar to be your endless spell bot if you want to take them. Also gives us command point, artefact and 6 unit down in a drop.  Something like this: 

mawkrusha (golden toof if this gives auto BS pass) 

weirdnob (or golden toof here and a weapon on mega boss) 

fungoid

warchanter

10 brutes

10 brutes

3 x 10 ardboyz

weirdfist

balewind 

= 1960 (so room for another 40pt endless spell, altogether now, NOM, NOM, NOM ?) 

ardboyz can screen characters and brutes while trying to save up command points to use later for 2 or 3x waaagh with the Krusha and 20 brutes.  4 drop army too! The brutes and Krusha at the key time with an extra 2-6 attack’s each will procc the smashing and bashing and ruin an opponent, the weirdnob just targets the key ranged or magic threats 

Edit: unsaid but being able to be out of dispell range for Nagash or similar “super” caster and put the hurt on early could be massive, it’s no unreasonable to imagine with average dice rolled your hitting out maybe 10 or so mortal wounds but without limit if you get really lucky 

 

[broche]

1 hour ago, Sangfroid said:

suddenly you can sit 36” away +3 to cast and only need 2 out of 5 dice to be 1,2 or 3 and it cannot generally be dispelled (slanns can). That’s a better

out of 6 dices

 

[Tip4Tap]

I'm very interested in starting an ironjawz army. Love the looks of the models. However, I'm very nervous going into the new edition. Although, there's been positive comments on this thread I still can't help feel that destruction as a whole will be bottom of the food chain.

[Lardidar]

29 minutes ago, Tip4Tap said:

I still can't help feel that destruction as a whole will be bottom of the food chain.

How we like it, eating our way up. 

Have to say I clearly suck at AOS, reading some of these build and thinking 'oh yeah' I'd have not come up with them alone. 

[broche]

44 minutes ago, Tip4Tap said:

I'm very interested in starting an ironjawz army. Love the looks of the models. However, I'm very nervous going into the new edition. Although, there's been positive comments on this thread I still can't help feel that destruction as a whole will be bottom of the food chain.

Hard to say, but i think our relative strenght have increased compare with most army. The nerf too shooting is irrelevant to us, and our magic got better. BCR received massive point drop. And our command ability can stack.

I think best army are probably gonna be Seraphon, DoK, Idoneth and Sylvaneth.

I think tzeench took massive point increase and changehost got nerfed. 

Fyreslayer don't have magic and have shooting. Also no more massive regiment discount for berserker mean they get a bit worse.

 

 

 

[brankignole]

2 hours ago, Sangfroid said:

 

One highlight for me is the weirdfist is now viable not just  because ardboyz at 160  mean you can go 3x10 or 1x20 (as well as 1x30) but also because it gives us one of the very few casters that can do a spell from outside of the 30” new dispel range (Morathi is another) Balewind down to 40pts and suddenly you can sit 36” away +3 to cast and only need 2 out of 5 dice to be 1,2 or 3 and it cannot generally be dispelled (slanns can). That’s a better than average chance to roll and also arcane bolt (conservative choice) auto cast and easier to roll the 10 cast roll  for extra wounds AND a foot of gork each turn again 7+ Cast roll so average chance.  That’s pretty massive I think, add in a fungoid or similar to be your endless spell bot if you want to take them. Also gives us command point, artefact and 6 unit down in a drop.  Something like this: 

 

Balewind vortex was changed. Now the range increased is 6" and it doens't provide +1 to cast/unbind anymore (it gives +1 save tho).

[Malakree]

56 minutes ago, brankignole said:

Balewind vortex was changed. Now the range increased is 6" and it doens't provide +1 to cast/unbind anymore (it gives +1 save tho).

You can generally get +1 to cast from an arcane piece of terrain  I had the same thought but foot of gork is 18" add the 6" is 24" therefor with 2 rolls on range gives 36".

Hence I concluded the arcane terrain rather than the balewind  

[Thomas Lyons]

18 hours ago, muggins said:

Can you list some examples?

 

Yep.

Both are alpha strike lists where you are into their army at the top (or bottom of 1) using Gordrakk. The first is a variant on the Ironsunz and the other is actually a Aardfist with endless waves of 2h aardboyz.

[Tip4Tap]

1 hour ago, broche said:

Hard to say, but i think our relative strenght have increased compare with most army. The nerf too shooting is irrelevant to us, and our magic got better. BCR received massive point drop. And our command ability can stack.

I think best army are probably gonna be Seraphon, DoK, Idoneth and Sylvaneth.

I think tzeench took massive point increase and changehost got nerfed. 

Fyreslayer don't have magic and have shooting. Also no more massive regiment discount for berserker mean they get a bit worse.

 

 

 

I agree with you in terms of top armies, I also think SCE and mixed order armies will see a big rise. I’m just worried that the nerfs to certain armies weren’t big enough to compensate for the lack of destruction buffs.

Mobility is a big factor in this game and I think it’s something ironjawz lack, while yes they are faster than people think, by the time they get into combat after being shot at/magic they aren’t durable enough to last in combat for many turns. When I first played against ironjawz I thought they would be much harder hitting and last a lot longer.

[Asamu]

1 hour ago, brankignole said:

Balewind vortex was changed. Now the range increased is 6" and it doens't provide +1 to cast/unbind anymore (it gives +1 save tho).

You can use Umbral Spellportal  for ~+20" to the range (~40mm base + 18" + 1" away from the caster) and more control over the direction of green puke though. Just bring a second wizard to place it next to your shaman. 

Weirdfist might be good. The main issue is that it's sort of a bunker list, since you need to keep all the units within 10" of the weirdnob. You'll probably want to fill the rest of the list 

Too bad the Fungoid Cave shaman run and charge command ability requires him to be the general. It's good if you're playing mixed Destruction, but you can't use it with IJ allegiance.

1 hour ago, broche said:

Hard to say, but i think our relative strenght have increased compare with most army. The nerf too shooting is irrelevant to us, and our magic got better. BCR received massive point drop. And our command ability can stack.

I think best army are probably gonna be Seraphon, DoK, Idoneth and Sylvaneth.

I think tzeench took massive point increase and changehost got nerfed. 

Fyreslayer don't have magic and have shooting. Also no more massive regiment discount for berserker mean they get a bit worse.

I'd add Brayherd and Nurgle to that list. Brayherd got 20 pt drops to multiple units and a 30pt drop to their battalion, so they get an extra ~200 pts to work with at 2k, and Devolve makes for some potentially terrifying ambush alpha strikes, and they can sit as much of their army as they want off the table until their turn 1 with a 1 drop list. Nurgle was only marginally nerfed and got their summoning as is.

Tzeentch took a points hit, but many of their characters had extremely powerful unique spells, and they generate summoning points naturally by casting spells. Magisters can now bring on free spawn, and Thaumaturges bring out pink horrors, and in both cases, the summoning is a direct result of doing mortal wounds with their spells, and you can do some abusive things with the spells to limit movement. Changehost isn't going to be nearly as powerful, but other Tzeentch lists weren't hit that hard, and with Acolytes being good now, they might have a few new competitive lists. Granted, Changehost was the dominant list competitively, so Tzeentch has likely been brought in line, but it will almost certainly still be a top army.

SCE also got better with new models and the 100pt drop in the cost of the Hammerstrike battalion, which is one of their better ones.

Nighthaunt/LoN are also likely to be competitive.

Ironjaws are a bit better now, and we'll see more ardboyz in lists due to the points drop, but they aren't really flexible enough to be a top tier army, though you can always ally in spearchukkas or something to mitigate that a bit.

[broche]

All good point, also I think we will benefit from the change to inspiring presence a lot too. Before it was hard to choose between waaagggg and inspiring presence. Now you can just waaagh every turn, and inspiring presence as a reaction during opposing turn.

 

 

[Rock Lobster]

9 hours ago, Sangfroid said:

Great work starting this post @Rock Lobster what @Malakree is referring to is that I have been using #BRUTES for a while now as multiple units of 5 under the premise that I’d rather waaagh and get the extra attacks (but occasionally suffer battle shock) than have a big until of 10 or 15 that have to be babysat with inspiring presence. (The new change to command abilities and the rumour of the new “Golden Toof” may change this again btw....) and no I’m not a secret play tester (I wish!!) 

?

 

 

Thanks Sangfroid, I can honestly say that my goal in the post has been met by the discussion. I was super dejected when I had posted the original post and some people have really given some cool ideas, alternative takes etc which have really mitigated the gloom, I am excited to try some things.

Although Brutes are still pricey it really feels like they got a solid buff. I used to think the Krusha was mandatory but I am starting to think you can really do some seriously cool stuff with the Brutes and supporting characters.

For example, I would have usually run a mawkrusha and 4 units of 5 man brutes. But now I am thinking for the same price going for 2 x 10 brutes, 2 warchanters, a megaboss and the ork warboss with banner. If the golden toof does what we think, it costs an extra 20 points over the previous ironfist to get it, but it means 2 big units of brutes that are immune to battleshock with +2-3 Attacks (I am assuming you cant use the same characters command ability repeatedly), +1 to hit, rerolling 1s to hit and rerolling 1s to wound. Proper murder machines. The good thing about the little characters vs the big character is you can lose a couple and still be effective, plus you get additional rolls for the destruction move and it increases your odds of getting the magic 6 with the waaagh.

I am thinking:

Megaboss (general)

Orruk Boss with banner

Warchanter (golden toof)

Warchanter

Wierdnob (with balewind)

Wierdnob (with Cogs)

10 x brutes

10 x brutes

10 x ardboyz

10 x ardboyz

Ironfist

This list I think has some flexibility with 2 devastatingly hard hitting units that are tough to shift, 2 good screening or holding units, 2 wizards who can both do +2 to cast and can cast an extra spell each. It is also potentially very quick in a pinch - With 5 IJ characters to look for those 6+ for destruction move, plus the 4+ from the general (fair chance of getting 2 units potentially) +d6 move for ironfist, +1 to charge for Ironjawz and +2 to charge for Cogs. Average 10" charge on those Brutes and average 7"-8" move and chance for the +6". Not unrealistic to run forward and smack a target 20" away, and with the buff to running from the cogs the buffers should be able to at least stay in range to keep the buffs on.

But I see a lot of weaknesses in the list and I am playing around with things. It is just cool to see potential options.

[broche]

the footboss with ironclad and mystic shield can be almost unkilable (except with mortal wound) when in cover, + look out sir on top of that.

[Rock Lobster]

53 minutes ago, broche said:

the footboss with ironclad and mystic shield can be almost unkilable (except with mortal wound) when in cover, + look out sir on top of that.

Indeed. Also it is worth noting that 3 megabosses is 20 points cheaper than a maw krusha, can use multiple waaaghs, has 4 more wounds, -1 to hit from shooting, and is a beat stick in combat. When if you get 2 Waaaaghs off they each have 8 attacks plus 4 from the rip roof. That 36 total high quality attacks from the 3. 

[broche]

i'm eager to see what will be the rule for command ability stacking in matchplay. i suspect the exact same ability will be limited to once per turn, but i might be wrong!

[mikey]

are iron jawz allowed to take troll hag as an ally?

[svnvaldez]

7 minutes ago, mikey said:

are iron jawz allowed to take troll hag as an ally?

Yes

Aleguzzler Gargants / Bonesplitterz / Gitmob Grots / Greenskinz / Moonclan Grots / Troggoths is the complete list I believe

[Malakree]

One of the silly lists I thought of is something like this

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (440)
Orruk Megaboss (140)
Orruk Megaboss (140)
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (80)

Battleline
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)
5 x Orruk Brutes (180)

Battalions
Ironfist (180)
Bloodtoofs (120)

It's a 1 drop and you start with 2 command points, meaning that the triple Waaagh! is available on your first turn. Potentially you can take the Fungoid as your general no matter what your alleigance is, that gives you the potential charge in hero phase, retreat in move, charge again in charge phase from the MK.

If you wanted to you could also downgrade 2 units of brutes to either Ardboys (+40 points) or GG's (+80) and pick up an endless spell up. As an example the Cog's would give you +4 to your charge range when combined with our other bonuses making it super easy to get everything in on that kill turn, not to mention getting the 8" charge on the two units of GG's to line up with potential +6 attacks with each melee weapon.

3 Goregruntas doing 30 attacks with the pigs at d3 damage, oh baby.

[Imperial]

Just found realm gate scroll... Rip realm gate....

[Imperial]

Yep just watch video with unboxing GHB... We can setup only 1 gate... 1 more kick to destruction from GW

 

[Ollie Grimwood]

That won’t be much of a worry for Blood Toofs it was only ever a single one and it’s set up before the enemy places any units and if you can only travel between Realmgates it’ll stop the enemy being able to use the Bloodtoof one to teleport units behind us. 

[Imperial]

3 minutes ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

That won’t be much of a worry for Blood Toofs it was only ever a single one and it’s set up before the enemy places any units

But before you can jump from gate with full buff in turn 1 because of migthy destroers. I like port to table edge and charge behind screen... Now they dont work if we dont have 1 more gate on table! 

[Ollie Grimwood]

38 minutes ago, Imperial said:

But before you can jump from gate with full buff in turn 1 because of migthy destroers. I like port to table edge and charge behind screen... Now they dont work if we dont have 1 more gate on table! 

The Baleful Realmgate was already only a single model though. The Bloodtoofs was only ever one as well which you have to to set up in your opponent’s territory.  What you suggest requires your opponent agreeing to add more Realmgates, which would be nice but hardly a reliable strategy.