AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion

[Malakree]

5 hours ago, Superninja said:

I am 3-1 since my post of doom.  Thanks all for the pep talk and strats!

Don't give up!

Sometimes the small changes can make a big difference, that doesn't make them any easier to see when you're getting your ads whooped.

That's what outside perspectives are for  ? like cutting the wizard out for me. Despite how reluctant I was damn does it feel so much stronger.

[Planar]

Soooo, how do we deal with 3 or 4 celestar ballisas falling from the sky  buffered by lord ordinator and knight azyros?

Careful deployment certainly helps preventing the alpha strike but as the game proceeds and the army moves towards the objectives eventually gaps are created for them to fall within their deadly 18" range.

My cabbage was called to save 41 wound rolls on their first shooting phase. With ironclad and mystic shield he managed to survive(!)  with 2 wounds (enough to activate a full Waagh later on).

Then lord funny lightning haircut  fell from the sky and he did 16  mortal wounds on my remaining brutes but that's another story

 

 

[Malakree]

10 minutes ago, Planar said:

Soooo, how do we deal with 3 or 4 celestar ballisas falling from the sky  buffered by lord ordinator and knight azyros?

Careful deployment certainly helps preventing the alpha strike but as the game proceeds and the army moves towards the objectives eventually gaps are created for them to fall within their deadly 18" range.

My cabbage was called to save 41 wound rolls on their first shooting phase. With ironclad and mystic shield he managed to survive(!)  with 2 wounds (enough to activate a full Waagh later on).

Then lord funny lightning haircut  fell from the sky and he did 16  mortal wounds on my remaining brutes but that's another story

What was your list? Kind of makes a difference as to how you can respond.

[Planar]

Bloodtoofs with cogs and two goblin shamans.

We played escalation

Worked quite well up to end of third round. Army was amazingly fast for IJ and delivered a lot of damage. I lost the cabbage to the ballistas but managed to kill 2 units of retributors and 2 units of evocators on one side of the table with multiple waaghs. I thought by that time I had secured that side of the table. But did a mistake parking one unit of gruntas on the center and one on the other side of the table (I was hoping they will last the ballistas shooting and keep scoring the points). I should have charged the ballistas instead.

Start of 4th round he activated the ballistas twice (one in the hero phase and once in the shooting) phase)  thus easily deleting both unit of gruntas and then deleted my remaining 4 brutes with the funny haircut guy falling from the sky along with a comet and some other tomfullery (16 MW in total)

It felt like an uphill battle. You deal with shooting then you have to tackle evocators. You tackle evocators and then you get roasted by magic.

Very challenging to face optimised stormcast lists but very fun also since you have to think really hard...

 

[Malakree]

46 minutes ago, Planar said:

Bloodtoofs with cogs and two goblin shamans.

We played escalation

Worked quite well up to end of third round. Army was amazingly fast for IJ and delivered a lot of damage. I lost the cabbage to the ballistas but managed to kill 2 units of retributors and 2 units of evocators on one side of the table with multiple waaghs. I thought by that time I had secured that side of the table. But did a mistake parking one unit of gruntas on the center and one on the other side of the table (I was hoping they will last the ballistas shooting and keep scoring the points). I should have charged the ballistas instead.

Start of 4th round he activated the ballistas twice (one in the hero phase and once in the shooting) phase)  thus easily deleting both unit of gruntas and then deleted my remaining 4 brutes with the funny haircut guy falling from the sky along with a comet and some other tomfullery (16 MW in total)

It felt like an uphill battle. You deal with shooting then you have to tackle evocators. You tackle evocators and then you get roasted by magic.

Very challenging to face optimised stormcast lists but very fun also since you have to think really hard...

 

Yeah can be a real ******. I think you're really trying to smash the part of his army he does put on the table before he drops the rest of it. If he has all that in the sky he's down half his points. Then clean up the balistas when he drops and try to win on VP scored in the later phases.

****** the VP's and just go for killing everything you can get your choppas to.

[Backbreaker]

Quote

Start of 4th round he activated the ballistas twice

How did he do that ? Not with his lord ordinator I hope ?

I don't think you did something wrong, even if your gruntas charged ballistas, I don't think they had enough impact t kill one on the charge. 

[Planar]

47 minutes ago, Backbreaker said:

How did he do that ? Not with his lord ordinator I hope ?

I don't think you did something wrong, even if your gruntas charged ballistas, I don't think they had enough impact t kill one on the charge. 

He did it with his general. It was an ability to activate a unit once per game in the hero phase. I am not sure if it was the models ability or a battalion he was using.

The gruntas were buffed by waagh so they MIGHT have at least taken one one of them but yeah, the reason i did not charge them is that i am not impressed by their offensive output. Those ballistas are 7 wounds 4+ saves so not exactly easy to kill. 

[sambaker31]

Hi all, long time lurker to the Destruction forums - first time poster ? 

Firstly can I say a massive thanks as this thread has been a great help and source of inspiration for planning and tactics with Ironjawz! I have recently started an Ironjawz army and am in the process of building my list up to 2k, so far I’ve played a few games of AoS 2 with the boyz and like the synergies from various characters and ultimately I love the models and how they look on the table.

However... I’m in need of a bit of help as my brother (who I play against most of the time as we haven’t been able to get to local clubs yet) has recently got an Order Draconis army and let me tell you it is disgusting... 2 warscrolls and 2 heroes in 2k, 4 drop pretty much guaranteeing him first turn, alpha strike due to some crazy once per game free movement ability on everything, +damage when charging with lances, re-roll hits bubble command ability, base re-rolling saves on his dragons, ranged mortal wound output (that can’t miss!) on his 3 dragons and on top of all that the dragons have 3 (4 with his ability) D6 damage jaw attacks with rend which pretty much just deletes anything I can throw at them. Couple that with a quicksilver potion (Order artefact) and I can never fight first in the key combat with tooled up units before he wipes out my brutes/warboss etc.

At the moment I generally play 1.5k with WB, WC, allied Grot Shaman & orruk warboss, 2x5 brutes, 3x GG and 20 Ardboyz with an Ironfist and am stuck as to what to get next to even give me a chance of surviving first turn, let alone have another left in the tank to pull off some cool synergies/buffs and some waagh! stacking. 

I was planning on running a Weirdfist + Balewind combo with 30 ardboyz for some mortal wound output, alongside an Ironfirst with 3x5 brutes for movement and combat supported by characters (MB, MW, Grot  shaman and Orruk warboss), but thanks to his dragonmage unbinding is a threat to that plan (especially because I have to kill a dragon to get rid of the mage...). Would a Weirdfist with 3 units hanging back realistically give me enough punch to kill multiple dragons over the course of a game?

Do you fellow warbosses have any ideas on next steps to give my boyz a chance? Unsure if I want to lay out £60 on a MK only for it to be triple-teamed by some dragons every single game, and I know Bloodtoofs could be an option as a 1 drop but then I feel I am just countering an alpha-strike army with another alpha-strike army? Sorry for the long post, but hoping someone has some advice or I may just have to move to a nasty skaven gunline or something (Gork and Mork forgive me!)...

Edited September 24, 2018 by sambaker31
Typo

[Planar]

1 hour ago, sambaker31 said:

Hi all, long time lurker to the Destruction forums - first time poster ? 

Firstly can I say a massive thanks as this thread has been a great help and source of inspiration for planning and tactics with Ironjawz! I have recently started an Ironjawz army and am in the process of building my list up to 2k, so far I’ve played a few games of AoS 2 with the boyz and like the synergies from various characters and ultimately I love the models and how they look on the table.

However... I’m in need of a bit of help as my brother (who I play against most of the time as we haven’t been able to get to local clubs yet) has recently got an Order Draconis army and let me tell you it is disgusting... 2 warscrolls and 2 heroes in 2k, 4 drop pretty much guaranteeing him first turn, alpha strike due to some crazy once per game free movement ability on everything, +damage when charging with lances, re-roll hits bubble command ability, base re-rolling saves on his dragons, ranged mortal wound output (that can’t miss!) on his 3 dragons and on top of all that the dragons have 3 (4 with his ability) D6 damage jaw attacks with rend which pretty much just deletes anything I can throw at them. Couple that with a quicksilver potion (Order artefact) and I can never fight first in the key combat with tooled up units before he wipes out my brutes/warboss etc.

At the moment I generally play 1.5k with WB, WC, allied Grot Shaman & orruk warboss, 2x5 brutes, 3x GG and 20 Ardboyz with an Ironfist and am stuck as to what to get next to even give me a chance of surviving first turn, let alone have another left in the tank to pull off some cool synergies/buffs and some waagh! stacking. 

I was planning on running a Weirdfist + Balewind combo with 30 ardboyz for some mortal wound output, alongside an Ironfirst with 3x5 brutes for movement and combat supported by characters (MB, MW, Grot  shaman and Orruk warboss), but thanks to his dragonmage unbinding is a threat to that plan (especially because I have to kill a dragon to get rid of the mage...). Would a Weirdfist with 3 units hanging back realistically give me enough punch to kill multiple dragons over the course of a game?

Do you fellow warbosses have any ideas on next steps to give my boyz a chance? Unsure if I want to lay out £60 on a MK only for it to be triple-teamed by some dragons every single game, and I know Bloodtoofs could be an option as a 1 drop but then I feel I am just countering an alpha-strike army with another alpha-strike army? Sorry for the long post, but hoping someone has some advice or I may just have to move to a nasty skaven gunline or something (Gork and Mork forgive me!)...

Have you tried screening your brutes with some cheap chaff units to absorb the alpha strike? Once the alpha strike vents off two units of 10 brutes would easily bring down the dragons. This is where brutes excel. Bringing down big monsters. With a warchanter buff they will be hitting on 2's , rerolling 1s. Put a couple of extra attacks from the waaagh and the amount of damage gets ridiculous . I wound not be surprised to see a brute boss bringing down a dragon alone.

Dont forget smashing and bashing. Once you bring the first dragon down your second unit will also activate PRIOR to your opponent

Weirdfist is very temperamentall. If can be devastating at times but its not reliable and will not work in every game.

 

Hope this helps

 

[Superninja]

@sambaker31

@1.5 points, I think I would drop the Ironfist. If you know he is going to hit your first, you probably don't need the extra movement.  Bring in another set of Brutes or something.  As the above post says, if the brutes can get on a dragon and get a Waagh/Frenzy of Violence buff, they could very well kill it.  2 sets of brutes or a 10 stack should bring it down for sure.

Have you tried the 2" range weapons with the brutes/goregruntas?  Attacking over the top of something is great and hitting a more important target is also great. The goregruntas is this case would need warchanter buffs.

(If you get to go first) Use your rampaging destroyers movement on your Gore-gruntas and pin a unit of his back in his territory.   Walk your army up the board, taking objectives hopefully.  (assuming warchanter buffs on the gore-gruntas in this case)

The Mawkrusha is nice for many reasons but is a lot of points.  Because it has more Wounds than a footboss, it can last longer, especially with the right trait and artefact.  Ignax's scales from Aqshy is a great one for the Mawkrusha.  4+ save vs mortal wounds.  IF mortals aren't a problem, then I would use the Gryph-Feather charm from Ghur.  -1 to be hit and +1 move.  Combine that with Ironclad,  the -1 to rend against you and he is quite hard to take down. 

Gordrakk can be great, but squishy.  He can guarantee that all of our units get in, but again, very costly especially when taking a battalion too. (Still good though)

Bloodtoofs is a good way to go if you really know what you want to do and how to do it.  But with all those points spent on battalions and the Mawkrusha, there aren't many models/wounds left.  However, as you said you could take first turn and try and alphastrike him first.  (not guaranteed to get there w/o cogs and/or a proc or two from our rampaging destroyers.)

If you absolutely know that you are getting alphastruck and he is absolutely going to kill units...bring an ardfist.  Keep your warchanter back/hidden.  Bring back the ardboys that he kills.  Frenzy and Waaagh!

OR ally in some cheap orruks (80 pts for 10) or some cheap grots(100 pts for 20/270 for 60) and have them stand in front/bubblewrap your ironjawz stuff. 

If you are playing your brother, you should be able to proxy what you need.  That way you can try a lot of different stuff before buying it. 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by Superninja

[Backbreaker]

1 hour ago, sambaker31 said:

However... I’m in need of a bit of help as my brother

I think you need to give these dragons something to chew and counter attack with brutes or megaboss. If you're sure that you won't have first turn, forget about battalions and add more bodies.

Ardfist might work but at 1.5k points, I don't know...

1 hour ago, Planar said:

He did it with his general.

Do you remember what was his general ?

[Planar]

8 minutes ago, Backbreaker said:

Do you remember what was his general ?

Found it. Actually it was a command ability 

COMMAND ABILITY
Heroes of Another Age: The Anvils of the
Heldenhammer use ancient and revered codes of battle.
You can use this command ability in your hero
phase. If you do so, pick a friendly ANVILS OF
THE HELDENHAMMER unit wholly within 9" of a
friendly ANVILS OF THE HELDENHAMMER HERO,
or wholly within 18" of a friendly ANVILS OF THE
HELDENHAMMER HERO that is a general. That unit
can attack with all of the missile weapons it is armed
with, or make a pile-in move and attack with all of the
melee weapons it is armed with.

[Backbreaker]

Just now, Planar said:

Found it. Actually it was a command ability

So only one or two ballistas were able to shoot twice, right ? They can't be take in unit so he had to spend one command point for each ballista. By the way, that command ability is insane.

[Planar]

45 minutes ago, Backbreaker said:

So only one or two ballistas were able to shoot twice, right ? They can't be take in unit so he had to spend one command point for each ballista. By the way, that command ability is insane.

yes correct. still good enough to casually delete 3 gruntas in a hero + shooting phase

[sambaker31]

Thanks for the quick replies all, I did have some success with brute bosses destroying units of cavalry on their own so they are certainly a force to be reckoned with, so I think with more bodies and maybe 2" range weapons this could help for sure.

I think in terms of screening I would need more ardboyz (or goblins could be interesting!) as the dragons with fly can get over my line so would need to almost screen front and back at least partially, I guess that's what you mean by bubble wrap! Definitely think a bigger block of brutes would help with survivability so that could be a potential avenue then.

Also thanks for the advice on the weirdfist, I guess I need to weigh up if that 1 in 10 (or 20 or 30?) Times the foot properly goes off is worth all the outlay in points and tactics!

You're right about the proxying thing, apart from taking 3 dragons and some sick combos in a 2k list my brother is fair lol

I'll try some bigger units instead of investing points in batallions and see if that pays off - I may even stick everything in a weirdfist for the extra artefact and hope for the best with some spells from the middle of a screened block of more brutes backed up with characters, as all it takes is a failed dispel roll and I could still be doing quite a bit of damage from the foot or even puke with all of the extra MWs from units...

[Malakree]

Sorry for slightly derailing the conversation here. After experimenting with no wizard in my bloodtoofs I'm far more comfortable with not taking a weirdnob.

On that train of thought I was playing around with a brutish cunning double cabbage list and ended up with this.

Allegiance: Ironjawz
Mortal Realm: Aqshy

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (440)
- General
- Trait: Brutish Cunning 
- Artefact: Ignax's Scales 
Orruk Warchanter (80)
- Artefact: The Boss Skewer 
Orruk Warchanter (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)
20 x Orruk Ardboys (320)

Battalions
Brute Fist (180)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 141

Sadly I'm short on the brutes to run it but the idea is pretty obviously to try and get your opponent tied down with the ardboys then swing in with the brutes. It gives us a lot of potential for mw output before the combat phase.

[broche]

For me the key learning of AoS2 (and it was experimented sucessfully by @Superninja):

- Ironjawz are mostly slow

- Ironjawz don't have deepstriking

- Ironjawz have a good effective wound/point ratio

So that make them a defensive army with good counterpunching power. So your goal should be to occupy the board and score more point than your opponent and eventually win the attrition war. Investing point in strategy to move faster and bliztkrieg is counter productive (unless you're playing gorefist). Your just loosing those extra 15-20 wounds that are crucial to your strategy (defending and counter attacking)

[Backbreaker]

We can cover a lot of ground with gruntas. They have speed, resilience and are cost/effective. Probably our best unit in my opinion. Three units is a minimum because that ground coverage is a way to mitigate our lack of deepstriking.

But I like Malakree idea. It's just that, like all armies that go 100% into a "concept", if your opponent have the right counter to that concept, it's over ! ^^

[broche]

Yes gruntas are really good since they went down to 140. Ardboys at 160 are also a bargain. 

I think actually Ironjawz have the same problem other army have: DoK and Idoneth. First one can do same thing but better, second one just have too much mobility and high tide basically nullify smash and bash for a full round. Even if you're not dead, they have retreat and charge in round 4.

[Andrew G]

2 hours ago, broche said:

For me the key learning of AoS2 (and it was experimented sucessfully by @Superninja):

- Ironjawz are mostly slow

- Ironjawz don't have deepstriking

- Ironjawz have a good effective wound/point ratio

So that make them a defensive army with good counterpunching power. So your goal should be to occupy the board and score more point than your opponent and eventually win the attrition war. Investing point in strategy to move faster and bliztkrieg is counter productive (unless you're playing gorefist). Your just loosing those extra 15-20 wounds that are crucial to your strategy (defending and counter attacking)

I don't think it matters how many times you or I repeat this ?.  Think it's why you're seeing more and more players just going generic destruction or bonesplitterz and focusing on wound per point lists  and board coverage (look at facehammer results). 

[Malakree]

Seeing @Chris Tomlin and @Sangfroid both being order traitors is sad  Generic Destruction in 2nd place, and one of only two 5 majors is nice. I would like to see the list (@Donal?) but I suspect it has at least 180 grots....

It definitely looks like destruction is better than any specific allegiances.

[PlasticCraic]

 

2 hours ago, Malakree said:

It definitely looks like destruction is better than any specific allegiances.

Yep, seems that way.  With the possible exception of Bonesplitterz ( @Kanamorf smashed it too and went 4-1, good for 7th overall). 

Only Ironjawz have any bonus over generic Destruction and even then it's pretty thin.  Smashing and Bashing can in no way be compared with the power of spell lores + prayers lores + multiple powerful Battle traits + chapter tactics + a page full of artefacts + another page full of artefacts + another page full of artefacts + another page full of artefacts + mount traits and so on and so on.

[PlasticCraic]

So imo Bonesplitterz still have a decent toolkit to work with, but other than that you might as well open up the full range to choose from, because you gain relatively little by going pure Ironjawz. 

That's not to say there aren't competitive bulids in Ironjawz (there are), but there are more competitive builds in GA Destruction, both logically and empirically.

Overall though I'm just excited that some great players are making it work. 

I'm definitely running out of excuses for losing games with Destruction, it's officially on me!

[Planar]

14 hours ago, broche said:

For me the key learning of AoS2 (and it was experimented sucessfully by @Superninja):

- Ironjawz are mostly slow

- Ironjawz don't have deepstriking

- Ironjawz have a good effective wound/point ratio

So that make them a defensive army with good counterpunching power. So your goal should be to occupy the board and score more point than your opponent and eventually win the attrition war. Investing point in strategy to move faster and bliztkrieg is counter productive (unless you're playing gorefist). Your just loosing those extra 15-20 wounds that are crucial to your strategy (defending and counter attacking)

This makes a lot of sense. The counter argument is that Ironjawz cannot defend well against magic, MW output and heavy shooting. Therefore you need to get to melee combat (where you excel) as fast as possible. 

Moreover AoS is mainly an objective control game. With so many teleporting armies the only way to stand a  chance is to be as mobile as possible. This is why Bloodtoofs seem to work so well for many people (me including). It makes IJ units extremely fast (surprisingly fast for your oppnet may I say) and up to the requirements of AoS 2 environment. This element had won me many seemingly lost games against stronger opponents.

This might not be so apparent on a tournament environment where lists have to be optimised to face myriad of different parameters/ scenarios. IJ simply don't have the toolkit for this. But on casual gaming they can be really really good

[broche]

18 hours ago, Malakree said:

Seeing @Chris Tomlin and @Sangfroid both being order traitors is sad  Generic Destruction in 2nd place, and one of only two 5 majors is nice. I would like to see the list (@Donal?) but I suspect it has at least 180 grots....

It definitely looks like destruction is better than any specific allegiances.

it seem it's 60-40-20 grot with fanatics and Frostlord, don't know the rest.

Boneplitterz is 7th overall, but 4th general. First Ironjawz is 24th with 3 - 2. But I only saw 4 ironjawz total. Most played army seem to be by far Stormcast and Undead.

Edited September 25, 2018 by broche