AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion

[Skumbaagh]

I brought an ardfist ironsunz list to a five game tournament a week ago and here are a few conclusions I made:

The positives:

Bringing the ardfist as an extra tool in your tool box is quite strong.
- Getting low drops, a CP, an artefact and an cheap battalion is something to consider instead of bringing the ironfist. Sure the ironfist is really strong too but the ardfist bring something else to the table.
- The threat from the "teleport" mechanic is really good.  Your opponent need to have his back covered. Since the ardfist does not involve a spell to be cast there is no way to counter it.

- The chance to win the game when an opportunity shows later rounds on a 4+ is really strong.  You are often a run or countercharge away from capturing an objective with 10 boys. 

- The ardboys themselves are such a good unit! with +3 to charge that 9 is not so hard to get. 10 models for capturing, yes I very much like that! are they punchy? Yes! Had it been brutes this battalion would have been useless IMO. 

 

Why trying to spam 40 boys on average T1 is not broken (the negatives):

- Everyone must have read about the theorethical average 40 ardboys T1,  Forcing to trigger it  T1  is not that easy, (a unit from a battalion can not be understrenghted, thus you must either kill your 5 boys yourself or having them die in combat.) Try and do that against Tzeench. And again if you succeed with your teleport (tip of the day: Bloodtoofs) , how are you going to have them killed in combat? Against horrors? How about against Seraphon? Sure both Tzeench and Seraphon must deal with you other ardoys eventually (they are not going to fight the ones you teleport T1) but building the list to generate CP and not have the boys die T1 really gives you not much else to do, the tactics revolve around this ardboys spam early game.

- 4+. Doing a 5 game tournament? How about spending 6 CP and getting 0 boys to fight? Yes it does happen!

- Keeping the warchanter alive may or may not be hard, it really depends on the match ups and if you keep it far in the back it is quite safe. He is not going to be much useful either thou. If he dies before you can spam, GG!

- Ironjawz are really CP hungry, especially in an ironsunz list were you want to spend CP on countercharges and also fight in the hero phase. I only spend CP on recycling if it also would give me points to do the other stuff we want to do. At the best I spent 2 CP to try getting 10 boys back. 

- the ardboys are not easily killed with 20 wounds on a 4+ save. You will need to have them die early if you want the spam to as your main force. 

 

To sum it up:

Yes the spam is filthy if it triggers, but it wont win you no tournaments. Using it as a an extra tool is the way to go.  The ardfist is not at all broken in my book, 

 

My tournament:

The list I played was 60 boys, 3 warchanters, weirdnob, fungoid, megaboss on foot as ironsunz. I brought 10 extra boys for summoning (never got played). I had a game against skaven were I spent 6 CP over 3 turns to get the boys back but no-no (won on points but i got tabled). In a game against a magic heavy stormcast list Gotrek "teleported" two unit of ardboys from the mid table to behind his own back line (win). In a mirrormatch I got 1 unit back which got me a major win instead of a minor. Against ogors I had the warchanter ambushed and got double turned (lost). Against tzeentch I got burned off the table. Went 3-2.

Edited December 2, 2019 by Skumbaagh

[Martijn de Bruin]

18 hours ago, Malakree said:

Im actually not suggesting you get more. At 30 you can convert each of those 5s to 10, same drop count and you gain a Warchanter.

I started referring to none exploitive versions as a "softfist". You're basically using it as it was intended, to recycle the ardboys for more wounds/bodies. Plus the second hero let's you fit in the aetherquartz. Try it without the exploit, just replacing the units continually, it's still good.

I see your point on the replacement.

About drop count, if I'm not mistaken you can't add GG to the Ardfist, making that list a 4 drop.

But I guess if the point is to lose models, going 2nd isn't a bad thing 😄

Edited December 2, 2019 by Martijn de Bruin

[Malakree]

2 minutes ago, Martijn de Bruin said:

About drop count, if I'm not mistaken you can't add GG to the Ardfist, making that list a 4 drop.

But I guess if the point is to lose models, going 2nd isn't a bad thing 😄

Yeah my brain went "oh you've split the GG's in 2 but that's offset by the fact your Warchanter goes in the Ardfist". It had been a bit of a long day when I posted  

The point isn't to lose models, it's that you CAN lose them. You can screen with them and your opponent has to weigh killing them, and risking you putting 10 on the board instead of 5, or just not engaging you. Also remember that if the unit being setup doesn't actually prevent it from moving, so with clever positioning you can potentially take a dammed, move d6 in your hero phase, move 4" in the movement phase and then charge.

I'd also suggest there is no penalty at all for going Ironsunz with your list. Since you don't have a Megaboss you can't take the Trait or the Artefact meaning it's just gain an extra CA and a -1 hit in the first battleround. That makes even alphastriking you or attempting to assassinate the WC a PITA, plus if your opponent tries to engage something other than the Ardboys you can potentially throw them in to mess up their pile-ins and then turn them into an ambushing unit of 10.

[Martijn de Bruin]

9 minutes ago, Malakree said:

Yeah my brain went "oh you've split the GG's in 2 but that's offset by the fact your Warchanter goes in the Ardfist". It had been a bit of a long day when I posted  

The point isn't to lose models, it's that you CAN lose them. You can screen with them and your opponent has to weigh killing them, and risking you putting 10 on the board instead of 5, or just not engaging you. Also remember that if the unit being setup doesn't actually prevent it from moving, so with clever positioning you can potentially take a dammed, move d6 in your hero phase, move 4" in the movement phase and then charge.

I'd also suggest there is no penalty at all for going Ironsunz with your list. Since you don't have a Megaboss you can't take the Trait or the Artefact meaning it's just gain an extra CA and a -1 hit in the first battleround. That makes even alphastriking you or attempting to assassinate the WC a PITA, plus if your opponent tries to engage something other than the Ardboys you can potentially throw them in to mess up their pile-ins and then turn them into an ambushing unit of 10.

Yeah I copied your suggested list and made them Ironsunz.

I will give it a go. Thanks for the insights, appreciate it.

P.s. @Jabbuk Thank you too!

Edited December 2, 2019 by Martijn de Bruin

[Paniere]

My apologies if this came up before in this topic or elsewhere but I'm not an IJ player. My opponent had one  ardboys unit from his ardfist batallion destroyed, bringing its total down to 2 units left. He spent 1 cp with his wc to bring one unit back, then kept spending cp's to bring another unit back up to a total of 5 ardboys units. Was this worked out as intended ? Can you spend multiple cps on this CA bringing back 10-men-strong units indefinitely, or at least up to 5 which is the batallion limit? Thanks for helping out guys

[Malakree]

2 hours ago, Paniere said:

My apologies if this came up before in this topic or elsewhere but I'm not an IJ player. My opponent had one  ardboys unit from his ardfist batallion destroyed, bringing its total down to 2 units left. He spent 1 cp with his wc to bring one unit back, then kept spending cp's to bring another unit back up to a total of 5 ardboys units. Was this worked out as intended ? Can you spend multiple cps on this CA bringing back 10-men-strong units indefinitely, or at least up to 5 which is the batallion limit? Thanks for helping out guys

You can spend as many as you have/want and there is no limit. Not sure if it's intended but it's how it works atm and yes it's dumb

[DerZauberer]

8 hours ago, Paniere said:

Was this worked out as intended ? Can you spend multiple cps on this CA bringing back 10-men-strong units indefinitely, or at least up to 5 which is the batallion limit?

Rules as written (RAW) you're able to do that, the only limit are your command points. It can get messy real fast when using Aetherquartz Brooch.
But i really hope that's just bad wording. There really should be some kind of limit, once a turn or once per hero phase.

Hopefully they'll change it in the Update mid December.

It's just fat, sticky, stringy cheese.

[Malakree]

8 hours ago, DerZauberer said:

Rules as written (RAW) you're able to do that, the only limit are your command points. It can get messy real fast when using Aetherquartz Brooch.
But i really hope that's just bad wording. There really should be some kind of limit, once a turn or once per hero phase.

I hope they don't do something like this, limit it to 5 units per battalion or you can't get multiple units from one being destroyed.

[Guero]

I love the fat dragon model, but I don't know which one to get,  should I pick up the Gordrakk or the megaboss version? 

[Superninja]

It's the same model. @Guero

[DerZauberer]

20 hours ago, Malakree said:

I hope they don't do something like this, limit it to 5 units per battalion or you can't get multiple units from one being destroyed.

Which are limits, too. My two suggestion were just examples.

I've seen on Twitter a Tournament Pack Draft which made some heavy balancing on factions for a tournament in ireland in late january.
Its called "HERO PHASE XII"

Slaanesh for example with "Double Depravity Point costs for characters" and "unit breaks free from its locust diversion after unit looses wounds, so it can act normaly after the attacking unit did all of his attacks". The fix for Ardfist in this pack was only usable once per unit and can not be used on units of 5. Another nerf was using hand of gork prohibits any movement, even movement in the hero phase.

Theres plenty of other balancing in this pack, e.g. groups of wizards can't cast endless spells (fixing pink horrors), line of sight needed for mortek crawlers etc.

Would you agree with such a heavy handed balance update?

[Malakree]

1 hour ago, DerZauberer said:

Would you agree with such a heavy handed balance update?

No. IMO house rules should be as limited and soft touch as possible. Fixing only stuff which is obviously not working as intended.

[Andrew G]

1 hour ago, DerZauberer said:

Which are limits, too. My two suggestion were just examples.

I've seen on Twitter a Tournament Pack Draft which made some heavy balancing on factions for a tournament in ireland in late january.
Its called "HERO PHASE XII"

Slaanesh for example with "Double Depravity Point costs for characters" and "unit breaks free from its locust diversion after unit looses wounds, so it can act normaly after the attacking unit did all of his attacks". The fix for Ardfist in this pack was only usable once per unit and can not be used on units of 5. Another nerf was using hand of gork prohibits any movement, even movement in the hero phase.

Theres plenty of other balancing in this pack, e.g. groups of wizards can't cast endless spells (fixing pink horrors), line of sight needed for mortek crawlers etc.

Would you agree with such a heavy handed balance update?

That change pretty much kills the battalion IMO, everyone would just default back to Ironfist. I think Malakree's suggestion that you can't get multiple units from one being destroyed pretty much fixes it. 

If I had to bet, I think they'll just make it so you can only use the command ability once per destroyed unit to be consistent with some of the other FAQs on similar abilities.

[tripchimeras]

1 hour ago, Andrew G said:

That change pretty much kills the battalion IMO, everyone would just default back to Ironfist. I think Malakree's suggestion that you can't get multiple units from one being destroyed pretty much fixes it. 

If I had to bet, I think they'll just make it so you can only use the command ability once per destroyed unit to be consistent with some of the other FAQs on similar abilities.

In fairness I think only being able to use it once per destroyed unit also nerfs it pretty hard.  It becomes extremely unreliable at that point on top of the built in unreliability factor that the ability already hinges on a singular 6 wound model in a game where character sniping is becoming increasingly common and easy.

I don't think the ability as it stands is competitively problematic to begin with so long as it must adhere to the battalion unit restrictions.  To "abuse" it you basically have to build your list around that fact needing to both generate and then expend a massive number of command points very early on in the battle which has sizeable drawbacks for an army that runs on command abilities in general.  Especially given that even if you manage to pump out 3-4 command points into it at a very early stage there is a non trivial chance it does very little at the expense of your entire command pool and a key strategic part of your army.  Especially with the versatility and guaranteed nature of ironfist if you want any diversity in your ironjawz battalions reducing the effectiveness of ardfist is going to hurt that a lot.  Not to mention that the whole premise of the "abuse" use case everyone seems to be worried about hinges on your ability to destroy a unit of 5 ardboyz quickly, when in reality doing 10 wounds to yourself is not exceedingly easy, and is going to require a full magic phase and likely taking some endless spells you very well might not have otherwise to even give yourself a chance of it.  I just don't find it particularly appealing or strong, nor does it seem to have been born out as a serious concern so far in tourney play from what I can see. 

The  stronger play as several others have mentioned above I would think is to use it as a support threat in a non cheasy manner, supporting normal strength units of Ard Boyz with the threat hanging over your opponent of units coming into their backfield at an inopportune moment at any stage of the game.  This, to be worthwhile and effective, however still requires reasonable reliability of success, which requires the ability to use it multiple times in one go to account for 50% chance of success.   All of the "solutions" I have seen in the last few comments imo would make the ability non-viable competitively.  Perhaps the only small tweek mentioned so far on top of battalion size limitation is to maybe prevent it from working on units of 5.  This restricts the early game "cheese" we have seen associated with it, that prevent "that guy" from making a lot of casual games nightmares for ppl.  But honestly I'd be fine with nothing changing unless we start seeing a lot more competitive abuses.  This really does just seem like one of those rules that is terrifying on paper, but just good on the table.

Edited December 4, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Andrew G]

2 hours ago, tripchimeras said:

In fairness I think only being able to use it once per destroyed unit also nerfs it pretty hard.  It becomes extremely unreliable at that point on top of the built in unreliability factor that the ability already hinges on a singular 6 wound model in a game where character sniping is becoming increasingly common and easy.

I don't think the ability as it stands is competitively problematic to begin with so long as it must adhere to the battalion unit restrictions.  To "abuse" it you basically have to build your list around that fact needing to both generate and then expend a massive number of command points very early on in the battle which has sizeable drawbacks for an army that runs on command abilities in general.  Especially given that even if you manage to pump out 3-4 command points into it at a very early stage there is a non trivial chance it does very little at the expense of your entire command pool and a key strategic part of your army.  Especially with the versatility and guaranteed nature of ironfist if you want any diversity in your ironjawz battalions reducing the effectiveness of ardfist is going to hurt that a lot.  Not to mention that the whole premise of the "abuse" use case everyone seems to be worried about hinges on your ability to destroy a unit of 5 ardboyz quickly, when in reality doing 10 wounds to yourself is not exceedingly easy, and is going to require a full magic phase and likely taking some endless spells you very well might not have otherwise to even give yourself a chance of it.  I just don't find it particularly appealing or strong, nor does it seem to have been born out as a serious concern so far in tourney play from what I can see. 

The  stronger play as several others have mentioned above I would think is to use it as a support threat in a non cheasy manner, supporting normal strength units of Ard Boyz with the threat hanging over your opponent of units coming into their backfield at an inopportune moment at any stage of the game.  This, to be worthwhile and effective, however still requires reasonable reliability of success, which requires the ability to use it multiple times in one go to account for 50% chance of success.   All of the "solutions" I have seen in the last few comments imo would make the ability non-viable competitively.  Perhaps the only small tweek mentioned so far on top of battalion size limitation is to maybe prevent it from working on units of 5.  This restricts the early game "cheese" we have seen associated with it, that prevent "that guy" from making a lot of casual games nightmares for ppl.  But honestly I'd be fine with nothing changing unless we start seeing a lot more competitive abuses.  This really does just seem like one of those rules that is terrifying on paper, but just good on the table.

No doubt what I think will happen (one use per unit that was destroyed) will be a bigger nerf than not being to summon multiple units from one destroyed unit.  

I hope that's the half-measure they take, rather than basically squatting the battalion by making it one use per dead unit.

You definitely have to focus on CP generation to make the battalion work as well, but I think it's misnomer that you're investing that much to nuke your own units to get the summon off . What I've seen in practice is MSU ardboyz screening and being teleported to control board space. One of those units usually gets knocked out by turn 2 and they're dumping between 4-8 CP  w/ Broach to summon 'ardboyz.  It rarely limits their ability to use Mighty Destroyer, the lists are already geared to generate, preserve, or avoid using CP, so it's really not much of a sacrifice in that department. 

I regularly play against guys who place in the top 20 consistently at LVO, and I'm sorry but it is a real competitive threat. Not to say the other top armies don't have some equally ridiculous things, but I don't really think there's much of argument that this is only good on paper. 

[tripchimeras]

26 minutes ago, Andrew G said:

No doubt what I think will happen (one use per unit that was destroyed) will be a bigger nerf than not being to summon multiple units from one destroyed unit.  

I hope that's the half-measure they take, rather than basically squatting the battalion by making it one use per dead unit.

You definitely have to focus on CP generation to make the battalion work as well, but I think it's misnomer that you're investing that much to nuke your own units to get the summon off . What I've seen in practice is MSU ardboyz screening and being teleported to control board space. One of those units usually gets knocked out by turn 2 and they're dumping between 4-8 CP  w/ Broach to summon 'ardboyz.  It rarely limits their ability to use Mighty Destroyer, the lists are already geared to generate, preserve, or avoid using CP, so it's really not much of a sacrifice in that department. 

I regularly play against guys who place in the top 20 consistently at LVO, and I'm sorry but it is a real competitive threat. Not to say the other top armies don't have some equally ridiculous things, but I don't really think there's much of argument that this is only good on paper. 

Fair enough, but I guess what I am saying is that in the limited sample size of tourneys since the book came out I have yet to see many ardfist builds place well.  Surely it is early goings, but it doesn't seem to be the first instinct of those placing well with Oruks.  Doesn't mean it won't happen, but it hasn't yet from what I can tell.  I'm not trying to argue it isn't a competitive ability, just that it doesn't seem to be out of balance with that presented by the ironfist, which as strong as it is has yet to put Orruks in a situation where I think most would argue serious rule changes are needed.  In my opinion why fix something that has yet to present an issue?  There is only anecdotal evidence thus far that this build is a problem, we have a mountain of evidence that depravity needs to be reworked as an example.  I don't see value in nerfing a rule that is not currently being overused when an arguably stronger one like ironfist already exists in army. 

Its still very early in the lifecycle of a book, but I think its too soon to be making changes to a rule like this.  I agree that either your half-measure or the one limiting its use to units of 10+ are probably the only ones that work without rendering it competitively unusable, but it still feels too early for that to me.  Yes, anecdotally it seems very strong, but our book is very strong in general, and generally you aren't going to see ardfist and ironfist in the same list its more likely going to be one or the other I think.  So keeping them in line with one another is going to mean a lot for the book's internal balance but I think less towards external.  I hope whatever action GW may end up taking keeps this in mind, though like you I would not be surprised if they kill its usefulness.

Edited December 4, 2019 by tripchimeras

[Andrew G]

16 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

Fair enough, but I guess what I am saying is that in the limited sample size of tourneys since the book came out I have yet to see many ardfist builds place well.  Surely it is early goings, but it doesn't seem to be the first instinct of those placing well with Oruks.  Doesn't mean it won't happen, but it hasn't yet from what I can tell.  I'm not arguing it isn't a competitive threat, just that it doesn't seem to be out of balance with that presented by the ironfist, which as strong as it is has yet to put Orruks in a situation where I think most would argue serious rule changes are needed.  In my opinion why fix something that has yet to present an issue?  There is only anecdotal evidence thus far that this build is a problem, we have a mountain of evidence that depravity needs to be reworked as an example.  I don't see value in nerfing a rule that is not currently being overused when an arguably stronger one like ironfist already exists in army. 

Its still very early in the lifecycle of a book, but I think its too soon to be making changes to a rule like this.  I agree that either your half-measure or the one limiting its use to units of 10+ are probably the only ones that work without rendering it competitively unusable, but it still feels too early for that to me.  Yes, anecdotally it seems very strong, but our book is very strong in general, and generally you aren't going to see ardfist and ironfist in the same list its more likely going to be one or the other I think.  So keeping them in line with one another is going to mean a lot for the book's internal balance but I think less towards external.  I hope whatever action GW may end up taking keeps this in mind, though like you I would not be surprised if the destroy its usefulness.

Yea, I'm completely with you.  The trade off right now between Ironfist/'ardfist is tempo. You can really impose your will the first few turns in Ironfist (grab board control, smash off screens, having many CP in the bank for Ironsunz CA, +1 to hit, etc.)  

The 'ardfist has a latter payoff, but as it stands, it's an absolutely huge pay-off (my buddy had one game where he summoned close to 1k points of 'ardboyz w/ some above-average broach rolls T2.) and it doesn't cripple the rest of your army/plan  to really make it happen. You're basically playing in the same way as a conservative Ironfist+Ironsunz player (conservative in this case just meaning they're not boosting and charging their entire army T1) but with the massive summoning upside. 

That said,  I honestly think 'ardfist plays best in a Big Waagh!  with the buffs having no proximity dependency and still having access to Might Destroyer with Brutal Cunning and  Warchanters. 

[broche]

My main problem with Ardfits is that you need shitload of ardboys and Gruntas and Brutes look awesome  

I think the nerf of once per destroyed unit (like the Moonclan terrain) is coming. I think bataillion will still be quite usable. Bringing back model is a powerful mecanic, even if it's random, especially considering bataillion is super cheap. 

[Jabbuk]

1 hour ago, broche said:

My main problem with Ardfits is that you need shitload of ardboys and Gruntas and Brutes look awesome  

I think the nerf of once per destroyed unit (like the Moonclan terrain) is coming. I think bataillion will still be quite usable. Bringing back model is a powerful mecanic, even if it's random, especially considering bataillion is super cheap. 

I'm in the same boat, man. I mean I don't hate the ardboys at all, I just like the other two units much better visually. The idea of simply massing ardboys is boring to me. I like to have a nice mix of stuff. Just wish Brutes were more competitive. If anyone tries the brutefist battalion, please let us know. In the meantime, I'll continue painting them until I can make it

[Kasper]

23 hours ago, tripchimeras said:

Fair enough, but I guess what I am saying is that in the limited sample size of tourneys since the book came out I have yet to see many ardfist builds place well.  Surely it is early goings, but it doesn't seem to be the first instinct of those placing well with Oruks.

They are slowly starting to show up now :P https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-results-2nd-december-2019/

 

[Jackroks981]

15 minutes ago, Jabbuk said:

I'm in the same boat, man. I mean I don't hate the ardboys at all, I just like the other two units much better visually. The idea of simply massing ardboys is boring to me. I like to have a nice mix of stuff. Just wish Brutes were more competitive. If anyone tries the brutefist battalion, please let us know. In the meantime, I'll continue painting them until I can make it

Yeah I hate the idea of spamming nothing but ardboys, I've been running Ironfist with a healthy mix of everything and honestly a unit of 10 brutes are serious business. They will melt anything they touch with a warchanter buff, think people are just overlooking them at the moment cos of the ardfist.

[Andrew G]

15 minutes ago, Jabbuk said:

I'm in the same boat, man. I mean I don't hate the ardboys at all, I just like the other two units much better visually. The idea of simply massing ardboys is boring to me. I like to have a nice mix of stuff. Just wish Brutes were more competitive. If anyone tries the brutefist battalion, please let us know. In the meantime, I'll continue painting them until I can make it

6 Gore Gruntas + Warchanter is one of the best/ if not the best hammers in the game right now at least    It is sad Brutes got squatted though, they're in this weird middling area where they don't hit as hard as GGs (mostly due to GGs have two attack profiles) and are much slower; with the only upside being that they're marginally tanker per point and less buff dependent. 

[Malakree]

46 minutes ago, Jackroks981 said:

Yeah I hate the idea of spamming nothing but ardboys, I've been running Ironfist with a healthy mix of everything and honestly a unit of 10 brutes are serious business. They will melt anything they touch with a warchanter buff, think people are just overlooking them at the moment cos of the ardfist.

They are overlooking them because point for point 15 Ardboys are better than 10 Brutes and are 10 points cheaper. The Ardfist has nothing to do with why Brutes aren't used, they just don't compare to Ardboys or GG's. 

Maybe in a massive Brutefist using Ironsunz for the enemy turn charge or Da Choppas to get all of them buffed with +1 damage. 

 

[PlasticCraic]

Agreed, if it was just the Ardfist that was squeezing them out, you'd see Brutes being taken in the Ironfist.  Fact is that they are also squeezed out by Ardboyz and Gore Gruntas in Ironfist too.

They are way too similar in their damage output to both of their competitors, and worse in other key ways (bravery, objective scoring and speed).  They needed some kind of unique hook in combat to make up for their crippling shortfalls in other areas, but they didn't get it (in fact they had their rend -2 taken away).

It ends up being like a 40K comparison, where one is just better.  There's not really that much in it, and it's certainly close enough that if you want to make them work you can do so, but you'd probably be taking them because you want to take them. 

[Malakree]

2 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

They are way too similar in their damage output to both of their competitors, and worse in other key ways (bravery, objective scoring and speed).  They needed some kind of unique hook in combat to make up for their crippling shortfalls in other areas, but they didn't get it (in fact they had their rend -2 taken away).

Just not having their special weapons hit on 4+ would have been pretty big, suddenly you've got a free WC buff on 1/3rd of your attacks...