AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion

[Skumbaagh]

37 minutes ago, Malakree said:

So after several more games I've come to the following conclusions.

 

Ardboys

They work really well in 5s (duh) and the 15s are solid but require way to much babysitting from your warchanter. Its so easy to end up outside of the bubble and/or get tied down. While significantly better than in 10s the new bravery stat, and fact it has to come from the boss, makes them incredibly command point intensive in an army which always needs more as it is.

Warchanters

2 just isn't enough, you always need more of the buffs and if even one dies your damage tanks. Brutes/ggs are so much worse without the buffs.

1 mbmk, 3 warchanters, 15 gore gruntas and 1 rogue idol is 2005 points. Arrgh! 

[Andrew G]

6 hours ago, Malakree said:

So after several more games I've come to the following conclusions.

 

Ardboys

They work really well in 5s (duh) and the 15s are solid but require way to much babysitting from your warchanter. Its so easy to end up outside of the bubble and/or get tied down. While significantly better than in 10s the new bravery stat, and fact it has to come from the boss, makes them incredibly command point intensive in an army which always needs more as it is.

Warchanters

2 just isn't enough, you always need more of the buffs and if even one dies your damage tanks. Brutes/ggs are so much worse without the buffs.

Pretty much lines up with common wisdom and my own experience as well. I personally only ever take 'ardboyz 5x3 to go Ironsunz. Very rarely just an odd unit of 5 to fill on points.

3 Warchanters is absolutely minimum for me, and I don't know how people play with less. It's especially perplexing when I see 1-2 Warchanters and they're not even shooting for a one-drop. 
 

[Malakree]

1 hour ago, Andrew G said:

Pretty much lines up with common wisdom and my own experience as well. I personally only ever take 'ardboyz 5x3 to go Ironsunz. Very rarely just an odd unit of 5 to fill on points.

3 Warchanters is absolutely minimum for me, and I don't know how people play with less. It's especially perplexing when I see 1-2 Warchanters and they're not even shooting for a one-drop. 
 

For me it's purely I don't have the third. Previously 2 was standard and 3 was extreme, now the third is really needed just for redundancy if nothing else.

[Kasper]

I think it depends on what kind of list you run. From my experience my opponent dont focus the Warchanters as first prio due to two things - I generally always have them sit behind some terrain/out of range and if they focus the Warchanter then they are still gonna be hit hard. Most armies that can remove your Warchanters so easily cant really tank damage and those that count on tanking damage generally cant just snipe your Warchanters from afar. 

I use 3 if double Warlord Batallion and otherwise 2 and from experience thats just fine. I dont want to sink too many points into heroes and risk not having enough wounds on the table.

[Skumbaagh]

On 11/24/2021 at 6:17 PM, Andrew G said:

Pretty much lines up with common wisdom and my own experience as well. I personally only ever take 'ardboyz 5x3 to go Ironsunz. Very rarely just an odd unit of 5 to fill on points.

3 Warchanters is absolutely minimum for me, and I don't know how people play with less. It's especially perplexing when I see 1-2 Warchanters and they're not even shooting for a one-drop. 
 

With 3 chanters, what is your regular ironsuns list?

[Rachmani]

Once a hero has reached the 3+ mark his points usually go up. 
On that note, do we have a general idea on things changing with the winter faq? 
Any rumours and such?

GGs & warchanters? None of the above?

I don’t think IJ need a change as of now, but certain things (like triple WCs) are potential red flags for me.

[Malakree]

7 minutes ago, Rachmani said:

Once a hero has reached the 3+ mark his points usually go up. 
On that note, do we have a general idea on things changing with the winter faq? 
Any rumours and such?

GGs & warchanters? None of the above?

I don’t think IJ need a change as of now, but certain things (like triple WCs) are potential red flags for me.

• Mawkrusha up to 510
• Gordrakk down to 480
• Warchanter down to 110
• Weirdnob down to 80 (same as wardokk)
• Footboss down to 135
• GG's up to 160/165
• Brutes down to 150/155
• Ardboys changed to 10 for 180

That would be my initial thoughts.

Mawkrushas
Right now double MK is basically mandatory, it's so fricking good it's unreal. Increasing the cost would hurt the alphastrike style of two tanky MK's rushing across the board turn 1 which is so obnoxious. On the other hand Big G is no where near as obnoxious due to his 4+ normal save and lack of a ward save. This would be a boost for Big Waaagh! aswell since he fits nicely into it.

Warchanter
Warchanters are mandatory, they make the army work and without them it falls apart. Given the amount of character removal around they need a drop.

Weirdnob
Currently people are taking an arcane tome over a weirdnob, it's just to expensive for what it does. No Warscroll Spell, no abilities and kinda squishy. You're paying entirely for single cast/unbind with no pluses, it's basically a wardokk without the added utility or a fungoid with no +cp.

Footboss
With the massive increase in points to the MK a points drop here helps offset with the CP spreading issue.

GG's
With the -2 rend they are just so unbelievably good. Highly mobile, great damage and the bloodtoofs rule is just insane, a points cost here again hits the alphastrike style which is going round atm and just generally brings them more in line.

Ardboys
Right now they fill the "chaff" role with very mediocre damage but they take up reinforcement points to be anything more. Increasing them to 10 makes them solid without reinforcement points, brings them inline with the other two Orruk basic infantry (Savage Orruks and Gutripperz) while allowing them to be fielded in a massive unit if you really want to make use of the rally rule. The points cost comes because they do have the rally rule and a size increase just generically benefits from that.

Brutes
Points cost reduction to bring them down to around where gg's were. Right now they are solid but just don't compete with either GG's or MK's. This would make Brute centric armies, thus da choppas, more attractive while offsetting the cost increases elsewhere.

[Kasper]

On 12/3/2021 at 1:31 PM, Rachmani said:

Once a hero has reached the 3+ mark his points usually go up. 
On that note, do we have a general idea on things changing with the winter faq? 
Any rumours and such?

GGs & warchanters? None of the above?

I don’t think IJ need a change as of now, but certain things (like triple WCs) are potential red flags for me.

The current rumors are Mawkrusha going up 70 pts, Pigs going up 30 pts, Kragnos going up to 800 pts, counting for 20 models and gets a 5+ ward save as well as some 3d6 charge aura/ability. 

[broche]

The stupid thing with Maw Krusha is that there is a huge power gap between the 3+ and 4+ save. This should be at least a 50 pts difference. I truly hate when they make mistake design as big as this...

[Malakree]

9 hours ago, Kasper said:

The current rumors are Mawkrusha going up 70 pts, Pigs going up 30 pts, Kragnos going up to 800 pts, counting for 20 models and gets a 5+ ward save as well as some 3d6 charge aura/ability. 

That would be crippling. Only way to justify that is if nagash/teclis/morati etc. Were going up by 100points.

[Kasper]

2 hours ago, Malakree said:

That would be crippling. Only way to justify that is if nagash/teclis/morati etc. Were going up by 100points.

I dont even think Ironjawz is a problem army in competitive play honestly. It was really good on release because people build their armies with zero chaff and forgot the importance of screening their long range shooting units. We knew it would come in and shake things up, which was needed because people brought like 0 chaff. But like I was watching Bobo on stream and the top table DoK player deploys 10 witches on the far left hand of the board instead of using them to screen his 15 bowsnakes on the far right hand side, resulting in his entire army being tagged turn 1 and killed.

I do wonder how many of these rumors turn out to be false.. If they are true though, the double MK list is pretty much dead? Going from 5 units of pigs to 3 due to point hikes is massive. 

Kragnos is kinda fun atm, not hyper competitive, but I could see him be pretty good with an army of brutes if he does bring the 3d6 charge aura and gets a 5+ ward etc. 

[Rachmani]

I think you‘ve stated the central point of any nerf/buff discussion around IJ.

Will IJ still just table and destroy their opponents, once chaff & better positioning resurface?

If they still do - that’s a problem.

If they don‘t - they‘re the actual saviour of AoS, ending the reign of the ranged terror yadayada. Meaning, they‘ve forced shooting armies to spend more points on chaff.

I can see the point of nerfing MKs for the sole purpose to encourage more 1 MK lists, though.

But I‘m not sure about GGs… . I‘d like people to adapt and screen first & then take action.

[Kasper]

1 minute ago, Rachmani said:

I think you‘ve stated the central point of any nerf/buff discussion around IJ.

Will IJ still just table and destroy their opponents, once chaff & better positioning resurface?

If they still do - that’s a problem.

If they don‘t - they‘re the actual saviour of AoS, ending the reign of the ranged terror yadayada. Meaning, they‘ve forced shooting armies to spend more points on chaff.

I can see the point of nerfing MKs for the sole purpose to encourage more 1 MK lists, though.

But I‘m not sure about GGs… . I‘d like people to adapt and screen first & then take action.

Im not sure how you incentivize running 1 MK lists. Do you really need the bodies? Probably not. You can still go for a 2 drop army with 2 MKs (although no artefact on the 2nd) so even the temptation of low drops is kinda whatever. Also a lot of people have proved that yo ucan do well with 10+ drops. 

I absolutely love my Pigs - The speed is amazing and the output is great. Im not sure how you convince me to use Brutes unless Pigs just get hammered into oblivion. Even without rend 2 at release I was still favouring Pigs over Brutes simply due to the speed alone. You would have to make some massive pts difference between the two units for me to really consider.

Another issue is the ranged damage output of some armies - If you werent forced to engage turn 1/2 (otherwise shot off the board) I would value Brutes a lot more, but I feel like you need the speed. If Pigs are just hammered in the winter FAQ I kinda worry where Ironjawz will sit in the meta.

Its also wild to me that Mega Gargants have been able to survive for so long and completely warped the meta and how people build lists for MONTHS yet Ironjawz come in and do well for a couple of weeks and everyone are losing their minds.

 

[Rachmani]

This is probably just due to their change in balance. Bad timing for the IJs and maybe SCE. 
But then I‘d rather take better and more frequent balance updates over some warped sense of justice that everyone should get the SoB treatment. That’s not what you suggested; still wanted to mention it.

As for convincing people to change their lists… I think it’s enough to strengthen internal balancing. A brutes list with ardboy screens should for example have advantages  the mirror. It all depends on how good shooting armies will be after the update.

Hopefully they‘ll cut them down quite a bit, to make room for slower armies.

[Malakree]

Something which was suggested at the Leister GT this weekend was to have two different Ardboy options like the SC dragons.

• 5 Ardboys for 80 points, Battleline Unique
• 10 Ardboys for 180 points: Battleline

So that you can either take them as cheap chaff/battleline or as larger units which can be reinforced to take advantage of the rally rule.

I'm hoping personally that Brutes come down a fair bit, maybe to 140/145 points, so that fielding them in large numbers becomes easier and more attractive. Big G dropping massively (possibly as low as 450 points) and getting the ability to be fielded in any destruction army. 

56 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Im not sure how you incentivize running 1 MK lists. Do you really need the bodies? Probably not. You can still go for a 2 drop army with 2 MKs (although no artefact on the 2nd) so even the temptation of low drops is kinda whatever. Also a lot of people have proved that yo ucan do well with 10+ drops. 

Best way to do that would be to allow the Megaboss on Foot to effect 3 units with his command ability propagation. It's so key to the army working atm that having two separate sources of it makes a huge difference in your ability to spread out.

Honestly the biggest problem at the moment is internal points cost rather than external. When you compare us to the top teir armies we aren't making massive waves. At the Leister GT top IJ was 8th, then 2nd was 19th, compare that to Petrifex Nagash, Seraphon and SoB all of which had 2 in the top 8.

A second consideration is just how overcosted Kruelboys/Bonesplitterz are, if they come down in points then we may see more Big Waaagh! armies turning up which would allow for a much more paced game.

Leister GT
Speaking of Leister GT, I went 2 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses. Although that's not actually true as I was penalized the first game due to "late registration" getting a loss with 0tp instead of a win with 17tp (my opponent got a win with 3tp ). My game 2 opponent got absolutely smashed on bottom table because I'd been artificially placed there and Lastly the draw was actually a win by 1 VP but BCP could only process a 10tp result as a draw. So functionally I went ~3/1.

With that said I ran the same list model wise I ran at BOBO (where I got obliterated). The changes were.

1. General went Megabossy with Armour of Gork. This just fits how I use him so much better and the wizard feels meaningless in the current meta.
2. I took Mean 'Un over Smelly 'Un on my aggressive Cabbage.
3. The 15+5 ardboy blocks was split into 5+5+5+5 as I found having to have a warchanter wholly with 12" of the unit was just way to restrictive.

I had two main takeaways, the four blocks of 5 ardboys was just better. Not only did it allow for better screening but it made it so much easier to have a battleline unit alive at the end of the game. Secondly Mean 'Un is super fun and surprisingly useful just because everyone is running battle regiments for reduced drops. One of my highlights was stomping a demon prince for 9 mortal wounds immediately followed by doing 7 mortals to a unit of horrors. Multiple times the Stomp spiked and was game changing.

[Kasper]

34 minutes ago, Malakree said:

Something which was suggested at the Leister GT this weekend was to have two different Ardboy options like the SC dragons.

• 5 Ardboys for 80 points, Battleline Unique
• 10 Ardboys for 180 points: Battleline

So that you can either take them as cheap chaff/battleline or as larger units which can be reinforced to take advantage of the rally rule

Yeah I suggested it a page or two back that the issue with Ardboyz is really that they come in blocks of 5. They eat up your reinforcement points in no time which leaves them as just a cheap battleline option. 

I dont know if a huge block of 30 Ardboyz could be problematic though. 60 wounds with a 6+ ward on the many of those. You could easily do cute things like pulling the boyz from the front to ensure you get outside of 3" at the end of the combat, then Rally at the start of the next hero phase. It would be incredibly difficult to get rid of.

[Ganigumo]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

Yeah I suggested it a page or two back that the issue with Ardboyz is really that they come in blocks of 5. They eat up your reinforcement points in no time which leaves them as just a cheap battleline option. 

I dont know if a huge block of 30 Ardboyz could be problematic though. 60 wounds with a 6+ ward on the many of those. You could easily do cute things like pulling the boyz from the front to ensure you get outside of 3" at the end of the combat, then Rally at the start of the next hero phase. It would be incredibly difficult to get rid of.

don't forget 'ardboyz rally on a 4+. Ironjawz also have a TON of wounds if you run a list without a maw-krusha. Don't know that it would be broken but 30 blocks of ardboyz would be super hard to shift.

[Andrew G]

4 hours ago, Kasper said:

Im not sure how you incentivize running 1 MK lists. Do you really need the bodies? Probably not. You can still go for a 2 drop army with 2 MKs (although no artefact on the 2nd) so even the temptation of low drops is kinda whatever. Also a lot of people have proved that yo ucan do well with 10+ drops. 

I absolutely love my Pigs - The speed is amazing and the output is great. Im not sure how you convince me to use Brutes unless Pigs just get hammered into oblivion. Even without rend 2 at release I was still favouring Pigs over Brutes simply due to the speed alone. You would have to make some massive pts difference between the two units for me to really consider.

Another issue is the ranged damage output of some armies - If you werent forced to engage turn 1/2 (otherwise shot off the board) I would value Brutes a lot more, but I feel like you need the speed. If Pigs are just hammered in the winter FAQ I kinda worry where Ironjawz will sit in the meta.

Its also wild to me that Mega Gargants have been able to survive for so long and completely warped the meta and how people build lists for MONTHS yet Ironjawz come in and do well for a couple of weeks and everyone are losing their minds.

 

This so hard. Speed is our survivability at the moment, and is also why we are well positioned in this meta where half of the top armies are designed to completely cripple you in 2 turns from 24+ inches away (40k is fun!). 

Other armies do slower survivability per point, and synergy hero redundancy list way better (SBGL as an example) which is the only other melee archetype that fairs well on paper against longstrikes, bow snakes, sentinels, Seraphon, and tzeentch ranged projection lists. 

I'm just worried that the sentiment of, " Ironjawz and Sons are brain-dead armies, so if they're winning they must be broken" has been echoed enough that GW is going to be a little hamfisted with the points changes. 

[Kasper]

2 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

don't forget 'ardboyz rally on a 4+. Ironjawz also have a TON of wounds if you run a list without a maw-krusha. Don't know that it would be broken but 30 blocks of ardboyz would be super hard to shift.

Yeah exactly. Stick them in Hunters, maybe give them Mystic Shield.. Thats a tough unit to remove entirely. They can really grind it out in combat and the opponent needs to commit something serious to get them off an area on the board.

[Rachmani]

1 hour ago, Andrew G said:

This so hard. Speed is our survivability at the moment, and is also why we are well positioned in this meta where half of the top armies are designed to completely cripple you in 2 turns from 24+ inches away (40k is fun!). 

Other armies do slower survivability per point, and synergy hero redundancy list way better (SBGL as an example) which is the only other melee archetype that fairs well on paper against longstrikes, bow snakes, sentinels, Seraphon, and tzeentch ranged projection lists. 

I'm just worried that the sentiment of, " Ironjawz and Sons are brain-dead armies, so if they're winning they must be broken" has been echoed enough that GW is going to be a little hamfisted with the points changes. 

That’s why I believe those armies have to be taken care of first, and only then we‘ll get a good sense of how IJ really fare.

[Baron_Bathory]

Are you guys having any trouble keeping up with your chanters? Especially in a double MK Grunta list, every1 is so fast and the range of the beats is only 12". How are you guys staying in range?

[Lanoss]

@Kasper Don’t be too sure that IJs will suffer horribly outside 2MBMK lists…

I went 5-0 against a slew of ‘top meta’ armies at a TT. 
I ran MBMK, Footboss, 2 Chantas, 10 Brutes, 5x3Grunts. All other IJ players ran 2xMBMK

Bragging aside. I feel there’s a lot of game in the rest of the IJs outside of 2xMBMKs. 

@Malakree I too hope Brutes come down a bit (and expect Gruntas to go up a bit) to create some internal balance to the force

[Kasper]

2 hours ago, Lanoss said:

@Kasper Don’t be too sure that IJs will suffer horribly outside 2MBMK lists…

I went 5-0 against a slew of ‘top meta’ armies at a TT. 
I ran MBMK, Footboss, 2 Chantas, 10 Brutes, 5x3Grunts. All other IJ players ran 2xMBMK

Bragging aside. I feel there’s a lot of game in the rest of the IJs outside of 2xMBMKs. 

@Malakree I too hope Brutes come down a bit (and expect Gruntas to go up a bit) to create some internal balance to the force

I mean I dont really like the 2 MK list that much except its fun and flashy to put two big beasts on the board, but I would much rather prefer to play a single MK list with a more "balanced" approach aka both pigs and brutes on the board. In fact I would actually like to play around with Kragnos and have already done so and he does seem kinda impressive except he just dies to MWs currently, so hope the current rumors are real!

People generally take the path of least resistance aka take the best lists to a tournament, but the fact that you are about the only one going 5-0 is telling. It could be everyone are just bad and you are a complete beast, or it could be due to your path to victory? I just dont see a slow IJ list beating a majority of the top dogs.

[Lanoss]

@Kasper who says it’s slow? MBMK + 15 Gruntas running up the board. With reinforcements/objective holders coming up the rear 

1,2,3,4,5,6 punch + a brute kick 

[Orkmann]

I think with the current point cost a single cabbage and a bunch of pigz in BT is the best general list for IJ. It gives you more bodies, more board control, more screening ability than two cabbages. The double cabbage list is strong ofc, and in some battleplans/match ups you dont need to worry about screening and stuff, but for me it feels it has less play in it.