AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion

[Shankelton]

Here's hoping it's a decent rules shake up well Ironjawz wait for an expanded range in the mini department. Anything that tosses out the death ball , waaagh bomb is good in my books.

 

I do also think @skabnoze is right on the money. Well I'd really hoped for a new book to give orruks a much needed lore and fluff dump, I'm fine with waiting. Just hope we arnt last in line with nothing special attached to them. With greenskinz gone IJ are THEY orc faction. Weird to be the poster boys if gloomspite dwarf our options xD.

 

Also, hopefully Skabs comment on leaving gloomspite with the more zanny, clever lore is true. As endearing as cockney hooligan speech was/is I'm a bit tired of green skins just being goofy, one note comic relief. XD

[Skabnoze]

@Shankelton I hope my prognostication is correct.  I get the feeling that it is.  But I would like to reiterate that I have zero inside knowledge and no rumor sources.  I have some experience with how eCommerce companies operate and I have been a GW customer since the late 80s.  I am simply making educated guesses based off of what they have officially told us and how they have been evolving the game and armies of Age of Sigmar.

[Shankelton]

19 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

@Shankelton I hope my prognostication is correct.  I get the feeling that it is.  But I would like to reiterate that I have zero inside knowledge and no rumor sources.  I have some experience with how eCommerce companies operate and I have been a GW customer since the late 80s.  I am simply making educated guesses based off of what they have officially told us and how they have been evolving the game and armies of Age of Sigmar.

Oh absolutely, I just echo the speculation is all!

I just hope for more things green in my future. With more destruction related stories and lore. It's pretty bare bones atm if you're an orc player who wants a bit more flavor then Mace snacks Face.

 

Plus. Who wouldn't want orruk spell lore?

[Rock Lobster]

I would just say set expectations low and maybe we will not be disappointed. There is a good chance Ironjawz are going to get a book some time in the near future so they may not want to go deep with changes in the GHB. A year ago prior to the GHB we were hurting and the GHB made tiny insignificant changes to points but did establish allegiance abilities etc. This time we could be looking at similar. If you are hoping for 25% discounts on things, prepare to be disappointed I think. It will probably be 10 points here, 20 points there. Only big changes will be the really crappy battalions which will get a hefty discount I think - its a shame they are really bad and add little to the army, but a cheap artifact and command point will be handy.

As I mentioned in previous posts, the best thing they could do for our fun is to change that Waaagh mechanic so it doesn't require the whole army to clump together for the roll to even have a chance and force you into MSU. I think it would be cool to put Ironjawz in the activation wars to allow it to compete with the likes of slaanesh and flesh eaters, albeit randomly. Roll a dice - 1-5 +1 attack 6+ +1 attack and always strikes first. And allow to activate in either you or your opponents combat phase. The expectation is that ironjawz just die when charged, if there was a 1/6 chance that they may go first that might be a risk that makes your opponent more conservative. Multiple waaghs obviously increases the chance of the always strikes first and prophet of the waagh also. You would still benefit from keeping things together, but would not cripple yourself if you spread out to fight the battle - you could go MSU or big units.

I think this would be much more fun.

[broche]

if they allow to charge as part of smash and bash that would be cool  

[Baron_Bathory]

Hey all!

I have a few quick questions coming after a 1.5 year hiatus. Wondering if you boyos can help me out.

• In GH2017 everyone was spamming catapults. Is grot artillery not a thing anymore? How are we sniping heroes and taking away battalion bonuses now?
• Has the troggoth hag fallen out of favour? Not seeing her much in lists anymore. Still seems pretty OP to me.
• Can someone explain the WAAAGH! bomb phenomenon to me? As far as I understand, you need to get everything into combat and then blow all of your command points on the cabbage's WAAAGH! to gain a stupid amount of attacks on every unit and crush the enemy in one turn. This seems like a great idea on paper, but how are you supposed to keep your entire army within 15" of the boss? What about objectives? Terrain? Will the MK stay alive long enough to line everything up in that manner? Etc. I think I'm missing something here.
• It appears that IJ players have a love affair going on with the Gloomspite shammy. Seems great for it's points, but is it worth putting 2 or 3? Are people just doing this for the extra command point on a 4+? 

Thank in advance for the help Just trying to get my new target list in order.

[broche]

@Baron_Bathory Welcome back!

1. Catapult were never a great investment in my opinion, but now you suffer from from the ally limit as well (1 unit per 4 unit). Add to that the look out sir! i don't see any reason to include them. 

2. I think Hag is still more than playable. The only set back is that with MK and Hag it's more than 800 pts in character, wich hinder you board coverage / waaagh generation so she's been less popular but far from bad.

3. Waaaagh bomb is basically your only outs against current top tier army. Since all our troop are worst than every army, to compete you need to go +4 attack and raze them to get the upper hand. If you don't do that you'll just fall behind as top units efficiency/point is just strictly better. It doesn't hinder to much board coverage, except on some battleplan that are really split appart (like total commitment) as MK cover a 21'' radius.

4. Fungoid is just too good for it's cost right now. At least 1 for free mystic shield on MK, and extra realm spell for further buff (if they are used). CP are worth 50 point each, so he is basically free.

good luck!

[Skabnoze]

The fungoid is surprisingly durable and he works quite well to get out some endless spells.  He is probably the best ally option for Ironjawz I would say.

[Vasshpit]

If the Weirdnob recieved the same cp generator as the Fungoid do you guys feel he'd be worth it over the fungoid? 

[Skabnoze]

14 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

If the Weirdnob recieved the same cp generator as the Fungoid do you guys feel he'd be worth it over the fungoid? 

I think a dedicated Spell lore for Ironjawz, and synergistic spells in that lore, are more important for the Weirdnob than a CP generation ability.  Give him some good spells to work with and watch his stock rise.

[Malakree]

2 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I think a dedicated Spell lore for Ironjawz, and synergistic spells in that lore, are more important for the Weirdnob than a CP generation ability.  Give him some good spells to work with and watch his stock rise.

And a FNP save, and the ability to cast a second spell at least occasionally, and remove stop him doing a 10+ arcane bolt on me 1/6th of the time he attempts to cast/unbind.

The issues with the Weirdnob are much more fundamental than the lack of a spell lore, foot of gork is already one of the strongest spells in the game.

[Skabnoze]

1 minute ago, Malakree said:

And a FNP save, and the ability to cast a second spell at least occasionally, and remove stop him doing a 10+ arcane bolt on me 1/6th of the time he attempts to cast/unbind.

The issues with the Weirdnob are much more fundamental than the lack of a spell lore, foot of gork is already one of the strongest spells in the game.

I don't disagree.  However just a spell lore and nothing else could do a lot.  It would be nice if he could double cast or did not potentially kill guys around him when he rolled doubles but I still say that a spell lore could make these less important depending on how it is written.  If the spells are inherently powerful and designed to synergize with Ironjawz then casting one spell is not necessarily that bad.  The same goes for damage blow-back.  If the spells are strong enough then dumping D3 wounds onto a nearby unit is easier to handle.

Protective abilities would be nice, but it is possible they tweak the allegiance ability to make the whole allegiance more like giant meat-bags.  All I am saying is that they have a lot of levers they can pull before they have to touch the warscrolls if they choose.  Who knows how much they will want to do.  I hope that the Weirdnob gets a warscroll rewrite when they release a new updated book, but for now I don't think we should expect the warscrolls to change with this update (although they could).

[Baron_Bathory]

@broche, @Skabnoze Thanks a bunch for the pointers! Very much appreciated. Regarding the Fungoid; what spells do IJ players typically give him? Are the cogs the way to go right now?

[Skabnoze]

2 hours ago, Baron_Bathory said:

@broche, @Skabnoze Thanks a bunch for the pointers! Very much appreciated. Regarding the Fungoid; what spells do IJ players typically give him? Are the cogs the way to go right now?

I honestly don't really know what people have been using in regards to endless spells for Ironjawz as I have not been playing them much lately.  However, the spells I would consider using would be cogs, geminids, qjuicksilver swords, or the burning head.

[broche]

@Baron_Bathory the most used endless spell is the Cog, fit nicely in IJ as it fill one of your weakness (move) and help trigger Gruntas d3 damages.

You'll also see some Geminid, powerfull spell.

Otherwise Quicksilver sword is a decent spell specially with Skaven big in the current meta and only 20 pts. Also never used it myself , but prismatic pallisade is interesting for blocking line of sight (protecting MK from shooting for exemple). 

There's also a new spell that allow teleportation, could be good. 

In the end, it's up to you. Bringing and endless spell won't make your army insane or awful. I would just say don't bring up more than 1 cause it's too many point.

[Aelfric]

10 hours ago, Baron_Bathory said:

@broche, @Skabnoze Thanks a bunch for the pointers! Very much appreciated. Regarding the Fungoid; what spells do IJ players typically give him? Are the cogs the way to go right now?

I'm considering the Arachnacauldron for the full Gitz spell lore for the Fungoid.  Itchy nuisance should prove useful to counteract "Strike first" units, plus several mortal wound spells.  You could Hand of Gork the Fungoid onto an objective if required.  Worth the D3 MW damage, I think.

[Keilerei]

I guess, we will see how it will turn out for IJ in a few days. But what I personally wish for us, is a spell lore, the other Battalions need to be viable enough, so auto-including the Ironfist is not mandatory anymore and opens up maybe different playstyles. For warscroll changes idk if that might be overkill or to little I'm not a numbers person, but maybe it would help out to increase the damage output, so that at least Brutes and Megabosses (or hell, the whole army) do more carnage. Give them +1 damage, -1 rend, +1 attacks. An army wide improvement, like they did with fyreslayers, giving every model an extra wound. It'd also super fluffy, I mean, come on they are Orks, they should hit like a truck and everybody need to be afraid to get in close combat with them.

[Scythian]

Brutes and Ard Boyz need a points drop by 20. Their foot slogger heroes are fine. Gore Gruntas need rend of 1 and D3 wounds per hit on the charge no matter what. As for army terrain, give them an idol of gork that increases no battleshock each turn. Actually, Ironjawz are such an easy fix to make them a viable army again. Their rules should be an escalation of violence by increasing rend or giving them more attacks. Army wide Waaagh should be free once per game with no battleshock that round. The general’s handbook will be the first clue about where they’re going. Hope we are not disappointed! 

[Gothmaug]

Hello everyone,

 

A bit of news, I’m sure we’ll get a flood next week, but until then...

Games workshop just posted a matched play article for the ghb 2019 on the community site. Brutes, ardboys, mega on mawkrusha, and gordraak all receiving point reductions .

 

 

[Malakithe]

Ooh man depending on by how much, flooding the board with more armored green could be just what the weirdnob ordered...

[Rock Lobster]

14 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Ooh man depending on by how much, flooding the board with more armored green could be just what the weirdnob ordered...

I expect it will just be 10-20 points here or there for this. My guess would be 10 points off ardboyz to 150, 20 points off brutes to 160. It all helps. If the megaboss on maw krusha dropped to 400 points (that is probably optimistic) that would be really nice to free up cost. It is surprising they didn't list a couple of the most overcosted things like he wierdnob shaman and foot megaboss (he is way too slow to make his points). I hoped for a 20 point reduction in each.

[Scurvydog]

Actually I think the Megaboss on foot is one of the best costed units, yes 4" move is low, but at his point cost he is both the toughest and strongest around on the warscroll, however the most killy heroes in the game gets their power from allegiance abilities and command ability combos. Based purely on warscroll though, only the Bull Centaur heroes of Legion of Azgorh are as tough and killy for the points.

The weirdnob shaman on the other hand is the first one which should have dropped in points, but perhaps we see some nice new allegiance abilties... perhaps a spell lore... one can dream.

[Rock Lobster]

Just now, Scurvydog said:

Actually I think the Megaboss on foot is one of the best costed units, yes 4" move is low, but at his point cost he is both the toughest and strongest around on the warscroll, however the most killy heroes in the game gets their power from allegiance abilities and command ability combos. Based purely on warscroll though, only the Bull Centaur heroes of Legion of Azgorh are as tough and killy for the points.

The weirdnob shaman on the other hand is the first one which should have dropped in points, but perhaps we see some nice new allegiance abilties... perhaps a spell lore... one can dream.

I think that is the trick in developing points costs. Points costs are way off when the totality of synergy is not considered. On paper Ironjawz units are really solid. Compared to 70% of the field though they get steamrolled because our synergy included power does not equal theirs. Flesh eater courts are a good one for this, the warscrolls combined with the command abilities, general traits and allegiance are far mightier than the warscroll alone might suggest when you hit them or they hit you. Ironjawz are exactly what you see on paper when you hit them and fold. On the attack waagh plus smashing and bashing makes them better.

[Malakree]

7 minutes ago, Rock Lobster said:

I think that is the trick in developing points costs. Points costs are way off when the totality of synergy is not considered. On paper Ironjawz units are really solid. Compared to 70% of the field though they get steamrolled because our synergy included power does not equal theirs. Flesh eater courts are a good one for this, the warscrolls combined with the command abilities, general traits and allegiance are far mightier than the warscroll alone might suggest when you hit them or they hit you. Ironjawz are exactly what you see on paper when you hit them and fold. On the attack waagh plus smashing and bashing makes them better.

Not sure that's true anymore. Brutes were originally had an amazing warscroll at 3+/3+/-1/1 but that's now the staple for armies.

My big comparison would be the Dragonlord and Mawkrusha.

• MK has a 3+ save but the Dragonlord has a 4+ rerollable.
• MK fists are 4 attacks at 1" with a 2(deg)+/3+/2/3 compared to the dragonlords 3 attacks at 3" 4+/2+(deg)/-2/d6
• The claws are just strictly better than the tail
• The lance is slightly worse than the Choppa+riptooth unless he charged in which case it's way better.
• The dragonlord has a better movement and doesn't table anywhere near as hard as the MK.
• Dragonfire is so much better than destructive bulk it's unbelievable.

If the Dragonlord is 380 points then the MK needs to be reduced to that at a minimum. In all honestly the MK should be down to around 360.

So it's not so much the synergy, IJ have possibly the best synergy in the game with the Waaagh! stacking, the issue is that our warscrolls are medicore and outdated, our stuff is to vulnerable and we lack a proper delivery system. Hopefully Ardboys come down to 140/360 and Brutes drop to 150/160.

 

[Rock Lobster]

14 minutes ago, Malakree said:

Not sure that's true anymore. Brutes were originally had an amazing warscroll at 3+/3+/-1/1 but that's now the staple for armies.

My big comparison would be the Dragonlord and Mawkrusha.

• MK has a 3+ save but the Dragonlord has a 4+ rerollable.
• MK fists are 4 attacks at 1" with a 2(deg)+/3+/2/3 compared to the dragonlords 3 attacks at 3" 4+/2+(deg)/-2/d6
• The claws are just strictly better than the tail
• The lance is slightly worse than the Choppa+riptooth unless he charged in which case it's way better.
• The dragonlord has a better movement and doesn't table anywhere near as hard as the MK.
• Dragonfire is so much better than destructive bulk it's unbelievable.

If the Dragonlord is 380 points then the MK needs to be reduced to that at a minimum. In all honestly the MK should be down to around 360.

So it's not so much the synergy, IJ have possibly the best synergy in the game with the Waaagh! stacking, the issue is that our warscrolls are medicore and outdated, our stuff is to vulnerable and we lack a proper delivery system. Hopefully Ardboys come down to 140/360 and Brutes drop to 150/160.

 

Would be nice if that would happen, but lets set expectations, things almost never change by more than 20 points, and they have not obvious inclination to hard balance so I suspect the maw krusha will remain very overcosted. it being 80 points more than a keeper of secrets is very frustrating.