AoS 2 - Moonclan Discussion

[Donal]

On 6/28/2018 at 11:30 AM, Imperial said:

Yes. I expected what GW give some errrata or FAQ, but.... they dont care about Destruction, so 1 brave grot can kill Archaon or Nagash 

I killed Nagash on Sunday twice over with 2 grot spears.

And was it awesome? Yes, yes it was.... Damage 16 grots may be the best thing in the world

[Skabnoze]

5 minutes ago, Donal said:

I killed Nagash on Sunday twice over with 2 grot spears.

And was it awesome? Yes, yes it was.... Damage 16 grots may be the best thing in the world

Damage 32 grots are better...

I find the idea of a single grot with a spear killing an entire enemy infantry unit to be rather hilarious.

Either they will errata this pretty quickly or else they are going to completely change warscrolls and abilities in the Moonclan battletome and it is not far off.

Just for amusement I would like to see this last long enough for someone to break a tournament sideways with it.

[Antonio Rodrigues]

I shall convert a grot with an Iron Mohawk and model a floating incandescent arrow besides him... Paint it blue and call him "Yondu"...

Hummmm... Actually, this is not a bad idea at all... Maybe a Dryad for Groot... ;P

 

[Imperial]

3 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

Just for amusement I would like to see this last long enough for someone to break a tournament sideways with it.

It's will be second time when Moon Clan broke meta 

[amysrevenge]

I for one miss the Hooded Villain.

[Falandris]

Could one of you guys explain the "Grot Spear 16+ Damage" thing? 

[PlasticCraic]

On 7/4/2018 at 4:44 PM, Falandris said:

Could one of you guys explain the "Grot Spear 16+ Damage" thing? 

So by default, Command Abilities are stackable and spammable.  Rather than bring in a blanket ban, Games Workshop have backed themselves with a finesse approach to hand-select the ones that they think would be broken / cheesy, and FAQ them to not be stackable (e.g. the Wurgogg Prophet).

The Moonclan Warboss has a Command Ability that doubles the damage of a unit on a 6+ to wound.  I call it the Irish Capital Combo, because your damage keeps Dublin and Dublin and Dublin and Dublin...

So Base Damage of 1 from a lowly spearman x 2 x 2 x 2 x2 = 16

Obviously it would apply to Netters too (it's the whole unit), and you could give it to Manglers or Colossals, but the Spearmen are the one that gets talked about because of their volume of attacks, and also the juxaposition of their lowly status versus the redonkulous combo.

The AOS 6 Nations lists are up, and one of the armies looks set up to exploit this ruthlessly!

I would not be surprised if this was the first and last time we see it at a tournament though, because my guess would be that it will be FAQ'd in the near future to stop it from stacking.

Edit: I should also point out that the Moonclan Grots have intrinsic +2 to wound from being in a large block, so you are getting the explosive damage on a 4+ instead of a 6+

[Falandris]

Thanks for this comprehensive explanation. Weird stuff ^^

[mcbrain]

2 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

So by default, Command Abilities are stackable and spammable.  Rather than bring in a blanket ban, Games Workshop have backed themselves with a finesse approach to hand-select the ones that they think would be broken / cheesy, and FAQ them to not be stackable (e.g. the Wurgogg Prophet).

The Moonclan Warboss has a Command Ability that doubles the damage of a unit on a 6+ to wound.  I call it the Irish Capital Combo, because your damage keeps Dublin and Dublin and Dublin and Dublin...

So Base Damage of 1 from a lowly spearman x 2 x 2 x 2 x2 = 16

Obviously it would apply to Netters too (it's the whole unit), and you could give it to Manglers or Colossals, but the Spearmen are the one that gets talked about because of their volume of attacks, and also the juxaposition of their lowly status versus the redonkulous combo.

The AOS 6 Nations lists are up, and one of the armies looks set up to exploit this ruthlessly!

I would not be surprised if this was the first and last time we see it at a tournament though, because my guess would be that it will be FAQ'd in the near future to stop it from stacking.

The issue I have with this is where the hell do you get the command points to make it work?

[Imperial]

4 minutes ago, mcbrain said:

The issue I have with this is where the hell do you get the command points to make it work?

Left 200 point for it or take Aetherquartz Brooch from Hysh

[Peter (Age of Miniatures)]

So, my first attempt at a defensive Moonclan list utilising the buffed Squig Gobba and the Endless spells because fun. Only meant as a fun army.

I have a big purple themed moonclan army, so the story behind the army is pretty simple:

In a spasmic vision my fungoid cave-shaman have seen the world ending in a purple blast created by a purple moon. He has gathered a great throng of purple squigs and grot followers of the purple moon. Finally, the cave-shaman has (with the help of quite the amount of funky mushrooms) succeded in manifesting the purple moon. 

The Purple Sun is mandatory in the list, as I just want to try it out. The rest is build as a defensive core (as that is how I like to play).

 

The list:

Colossal Squig: 300 (will run full speed into something nasty I do not want to hit my army. Must be kept away from the purple sun)

Grot warboss: 80 (will provde the moonclan buff in melee)

3x Grot Shaman: 80 (flinging endless spells with +2 to cast mushrooms)

Cave shaman: 80 (general and will get some defensive traits and artefact).

2+  Squig Gobba: 160 each (can be positioned out of sight. Very cheap  for the amount and range of the shooting attack. Ok in melee and the crew cannot be shot of!).

3x40 grots: 260 each

Umbral Spellportal: 60 (Grots with shamans can be far back and throw spells through the portal).

Purple sun: 100 (because fun and good against heroes and monsters)

Gemenids: 40 (good damage and utility for the points).

It comes out at an even 2000 points

The weakness is clearly the lack of heroes with artefacts able to take objectives in battleplans were that is important. Also, in melee the grots are going to get killed of at some point. The army has a lot of drops, so will probably not get to pick first turn.

What do people think? What kind of wacky list are you brewing?

[Milandro]

I was looking at a very similar list! “Goblin Shaman Coven”

I think the warboss is 100 points? 

I think some fanatics even min sized might help to deny your opponent charges and buy you a little more time?

I was planning on the spell portal and just spamming bad moon. I’m worried they would move the purple sun back through the portal at my shamans 

Let me know how it goes!

[novakai]

Hmm so the ability is call "I am Da boss, so stab 'em good!"

So the Grot spear are able to do 16 damage because 4 different Grot war bosses are yelling at them that they all are incharge and all of a sudden they become Spartans from 300.

[Peter (Age of Miniatures)]

3 hours ago, Milandro said:

I was looking at a very similar list! “Goblin Shaman Coven”

I think the warboss is 100 points? 

I think some fanatics even min sized might help to deny your opponent charges and buy you a little more time?

I was planning on the spell portal and just spamming bad moon. I’m worried they would move the purple sun back through the portal at my shamans 

Let me know how it goes!

Yeah, you are right the boss is 100. So I have to shuffle stuff around anyway, and the 3 fanatics are indeed awesome for the delay purpose. Hmmm will have a look

[Peter (Age of Miniatures)]

Hmmm, are we sure the grot warboss command ability is stackable as written? On my first read through I just thought "well, even though I cast the ability multiple times, it still only gives double damage no matter what". I can see the case for either reading.

That said I would never allow my opponent to do it nor do it myself. Clearly broken and will get FAQ'ed soon

[Skabnoze]

10 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

 I call it the Irish Capital Combo, because your damage keeps Dublin and Dublin and Dublin and Dublin...

Please tell me that you have children, because someone without kids should not be able to dad-joke that hard.

[Skabnoze]

8 hours ago, mcbrain said:

The issue I have with this is where the hell do you get the command points to make it work?

Low-ball the points in your list.  Every 50 points you do not spend gives you a command point at the start of the game.  Even just playing 100 points down and banking your command points in game will give you 4 of them on the second turn when you are most likely to be able to activate this with Grots.

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, novakai said:

Hmm so the ability is call "I am Da boss, so stab 'em good!"

So the Grot spear are able to do 16 damage because 4 different Grot war bosses are yelling at them that they all are incharge and all of a sudden they become Spartans from 300.

Currently there is nothing in the rules to stop a single warboss from yelling 4 times at the same unit.  So all you need is 1 warboss and 4 command points to do this.

I don’t think GW implemented the command point limitations well.  I see them stumbling a bunch of times with this since they have taken the approach of addressing stacking in the rules for specific command abilities.  I expect that either in errata, the next GHB, or the next edition they will have realized the error of this decision.

[novakai]

17 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Currently there is nothing in the rules to stop a single warboss from yelling 4 times at the same unit.  So all you need is 1 warboss and 4 command points to do this.

I don’t think GW implemented the command point limitations well.  I see them stumbling a bunch of times with this since they have taken the approach of addressing stacking in the rules for specific command abilities.  I expect that either in errata, the next GHB, or the next edition they will have realized the error of this decision.

Huh that interesting, I am surprise GW didn't put a character can only use their Command ability once per turn rule, maybe they don't expect people to bank too much of their point for CP.

Seeing 4 grot warbosses using their CA on a unit of Grot spear seems amazing but has some actual drawback, having 1 Grot Warboss doing it 4 time is actually insane.

[Skabnoze]

Ok, so let’s chat about the Colossal Squig!

Seriously, how good is this guy now!  Right now I am having a tough time wanting to include Manger Squigs rather than another colossal.  

So first off, the colossal gives you a min unit of cave squigs when he dies.  This is now free with the new summoning rules.  So one way to look at the Colossal Squig is that you get the big guy for 240 and then a reserve deployment cave squig unit for another 60.  With that line of thinking the Colossal is effectively costing you the same as the Mangler.  The Mangler only has the advantage for list building in that his base price is 240 and you might have an easier time slotting that into a list.

The Mangler does have the better damage potential when undamaged but it also has a lot of damage degradation brackets and it can decay quickly.  It also has less wounds and is much less defensive.  I feel like the -1 to hit in melee, larger base wounds, and flat values for attack stats will make the Colossal perform better most of the time.

I hope that in the Moonclan battletome that the Mangler and other squigs are reworked a bit and the abilities that trigger on doubles for charges are removed and replaced with something else like was done with the Colossal.

What does everyone else think?

 

[amysrevenge]

I am some kind of excited about this guy.  He'll slot into my Spiderfang right now, and then when I get my Great Grot Rebase completed, he'll be welcomed back with open arms.

And yes I'd like another stab at the rules for Manglers.  The seed of it is there, but the final product isn't quite what I'd like to see.  For that matter, I'd like to see a ground-up redo on Fanatics also.  They don't quite do what I'd like.

[mcbrain]

Question for you guys that are more experienced than me: how do I stop Morathi from sniping one (or more) of my shamans turn 1 with spells like the Geminids? Played a game against DoK last night and she set up 35" away from my casters and because of bad positioning (and ignorance) sniped both of them on turn 1 with 2d3 mortal wounds from both models in the spell. Admittedly, it's 100% my fault that I lost both of them, but there's nothing I could have done to prevent losing at least 1 as my opponent deployed her last, out of my unbind range, but within 36" of me. Cast the geminids, and zipped them over me with their effective range of 44". 2d3 mortal wounds will average enough to kill a shaman in one go. It's a pretty brutal combo. 

[Flindt]

2 hours ago, mcbrain said:

Question for you guys that are more experienced than me: how do I stop Morathi from sniping one (or more) of my shamans turn 1 with spells like the Geminids? Played a game against DoK last night and she set up 35" away from my casters and because of bad positioning (and ignorance) sniped both of them on turn 1 with 2d3 mortal wounds from both models in the spell. Admittedly, it's 100% my fault that I lost both of them, but there's nothing I could have done to prevent losing at least 1 as my opponent deployed her last, out of my unbind range, but within 36" of me. Cast the geminids, and zipped them over me with their effective range of 44". 2d3 mortal wounds will average enough to kill a shaman in one go. It's a pretty brutal combo. 

The new Lens of Refraction should help a bit, I think

[Skabnoze]

On 7/4/2018 at 3:47 PM, amysrevenge said:

I am some kind of excited about this guy.  He'll slot into my Spiderfang right now, and then when I get my Great Grot Rebase completed, he'll be welcomed back with open arms.

And yes I'd like another stab at the rules for Manglers.  The seed of it is there, but the final product isn't quite what I'd like to see.  For that matter, I'd like to see a ground-up redo on Fanatics also.  They don't quite do what I'd like.

I'd like to know more about this Great Grot Rebase of yours.  I recall you mentioned you had some base-stamps or something?  I too am working on rebasing my entire old Orcs & Goblins collection.  My Night Goblin army was meant to be my over-the-top display army and I just stripped a lot of it (a lot more was unpainted).  I was doing a fungus cavern theme and I am salvaging what makes sense and making all-new bases for a lot of it as well.  I am on the fence about what to do with the rest of my goblins and my Spiderfang though.  Right now I am leaning towards a cracked-earth badlands theme for all of my Orcs.  I picked up a couple of clay rollers from greenstuff world to try out for my Nighthaunt and those things are simply amazing, cheap, and absurdly easy.  They are making me rethink the previous ideas I had for my Orcs and Spiderfang.  I'd like to know about what other people are doing for their rebasing projects.

In regards to the Mangler and Fanatics - I agree with you.  The Mangler I don't think is bad.  It went from being a giant fanatic in Warhammer 8th to a somewhat fragile monster with huge damage output.  It is still thematically a cross between Squig monsters and fanatics with it's weapons, but it is also in a weird place for rules.  If they just dropped the price then it would be fine, but it still seems odd given how close to the Colossal it is in terms of abilities.

Fanatics feel a bit off to me also.  The old-school concept of fanatics is still in their rules, but it just feels a bit off.  They are very deadly when they attack, and they still pop out and interrupt charges, but they are also extremely prone to simply getting stabbed in the face before they can attack.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand that simply the ability to preemptively charge and mess with someone is very strong, but after playing Fanatics for so many years it feels wrong that they often just get killed so easily before they can inflict damage.  They used to be more of a booby-trap for the enemy and now they operate more like a speed-bump.  It feels wrong to me for a bunch of drugged up lunatics with super-strength rapidly whipping a ball & chain into a murderous cyclone to be so easily disposed of before they can cause damage.  They are also quite expensive.  I think I would prefer if they restricted how many fanatic units you can hide in a single grots unit, cleared up the wording so that you can only hide them in the Moonclan Grots unit, gave them a -1 to attack rolls against them, and then added a rule where they either inflicted mortal wounds on a successful charge or that they always fought first in close combat rounds.

[amysrevenge]

For  Fanatics (and even Manglers too), possibly something like Blood Warriors where they get to pile in and attack after being killed?