AoS 2 - Moonclan Discussion

[Skabnoze]

5 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. 

I think there is going to be a lot of stuff like this that GW simply did not think through with this edition.  I think the ideas they have for 2nd edition are all mostly positive, but historically GW has never got implementation correct on the first try.  They also generally always ****** something up when they make backwards-compatible editions.  We will probably have to wait a bit and let the dust settle to see where the issues with this edition end up and hope that they errata some of this stuff.  Moonclan has brokenly over-powered interactions as well right now.

There are a few magic items that can help against things like this, but they will only really help out individual characters and the enemy can always just snipe out other ones.  One thing that you can try is to insulate characters in units and then position those units in such a way that it is hard for endless spells to fly over them and have enough space for their base to land.  That is one strategy that Moonclan should be relatively good at since 40-60 model grot units should easily be able to make a big footprint on the table.  The Geminids have a small base, but their movement is only 8 and they both have to land within 6" of each other or else they dispell.  So, we should be able to use positioning to limit the options an opponent has when using spells such as this and force them towards units we are willing to have take the hit.

[Skabnoze]

3 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

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

Manglers explode when they die.  I think I am ok with that.  I think I prefer Manglers to be a big squig monster than the humongous Fanatic that they used to be.  I just want the abilities and the cost to not lie quite so close to the Colossal.  What bothers me right now is that those units simply share too much design space and compete for almost the same thing - and right now the Colossal clearly wins that comparison.

A completely different idea would be to redesign the Mangler so that it is no longer a behemoth.  Streamline the profile with less wounds and attacks and possibly allow multiples in a unit.  An example of this would be things like the Khorgoraths, Ikhelian Allopexes (the flying sharks), etc.  The advantages of this would be that it would increase the diversity of Moonclan lists that emphasize squigs.  The Mangler would no longer compete in the same role as the Colossal and instead you could use them alongside Colossal Squigs.  It would also fit a medium-size combat unit role that Moonclan, and destruction in general, is fairly lacking.

[Mr.Pengwinn]

Leaders
Grot Warboss (100)
- General
- Moon Prodder & Giant Cave Squig
- Trait: Might is Right
- Artefact: Battle Brew
Moonclan Grot Shaman (80)

Battleline
40 x Moonclan Grots (260)
- Pokin Spears & Moon Shields
40 x Moonclan Grots (260)
- Pokin Spears & Moon Shields
20 x Moonclan Grots (130)
- Bows & Slittas

Units
6 x Grot Fanatics (200)
6 x Fellwater Troggoths (320)

Behemoths
Mangler Squigs (240)
Mangler Squigs (240)
Aleguzzler Gargant (160)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Wounds: 170

So this is the list I'm thinking of running. It's mostly just a combination of what I have currently and what I'll be getting from a juicy Ebay auction I nabbed. Just not sure how well it'll work out though. I wanted to make sure I had enough large visually obvious threats to distract my opponent while my grots hold the center of the board, and any nearby objectives. However since I played Tzeentch only having two Heroes feels wrong. Especially when I made my general into a suicide missile to kill whatever I point him at. I also have a Venom Clan Box's worth of Spiderfang I could bring in as well. I do also plan on grabbing a Gobba and Colossal Squig in the future, but for now I have enough on my plate to paint up. Any suggestions?

2 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

It would also fit a medium-size combat unit role that Moonclan, and destruction in general, is fairly lacking.

Don't Troggoths kinda fulfill that role?

[Skabnoze]

14 minutes ago, Mr.Pengwinn said:

Don't Troggoths kinda fulfill that role?

They are not quite the same thing.  The closest thing I can think of in Destruction are the Mournfang & Goregruntas or chariots.

I am thinking less about the 3-4 wound infantry and more the 8-wound mini-monster units.

[bsharitt]

So yesterday I got my package of all the Forgeworld Moonclan stuff and I noticed that the warboss doesn't have shield, but the warscroll is written assuming a shield, that is to say it does say he can take a shield, but that he does and the reroll wounds isn't written to say it happens if he has a shield, it's just under a git shield section saying that he can reroll saves in general. Does everyone play the FW warboss as having a shield? I always try to do WYSIWYG as much as possible, but I guess since this squig is armored(and basically has shields on his thighs) and the the GW isn't, that makes up for it.

Other than him, I'm really excited to get the Colossal Squig and Squig Gobba painted. Those are some fantastic models.  I was surprised that at his size, the colossal squig was still a giant chunk of resin. Not a huge fan of the shaman, and I already have two of the GW metal ones, so he might go straight to the bits box as I was after the warboss for that set anyway. The flag guy is fine, I just don't need him, so he'll probably be conversion fodder too.

[Skabnoze]

6 hours ago, bsharitt said:

So yesterday I got my package of all the Forgeworld Moonclan stuff and I noticed that the warboss doesn't have shield, but the warscroll is written assuming a shield, that is to say it does say he can take a shield, but that he does and the reroll wounds isn't written to say it happens if he has a shield, it's just under a git shield section saying that he can reroll saves in general. Does everyone play the FW warboss as having a shield? I always try to do WYSIWYG as much as possible, but I guess since this squig is armored(and basically has shields on his thighs) and the the GW isn't, that makes up for it.

The AoS warscroll is written with the weapon options on the old Metal/Finecast Boss on Squig model.  That model had a shield that attached to the arm holding the squig and then 2 arm choices.  One arm has a sword and the other has a spear.  So that is why the warscroll assumes the model always has a shield - because the model that GW primarily sold for it always had a shield.  Back in older editions of Warhammer you could equip characters with a larger variety of weapons & magic items.  So back then it was possible to field a boss on squig without a shield if you wanted - and it seems that the Forgeworld model was built like that.

I would not worry about it.  If it does bother you then just get a spare plastic shield from somewhere and put it onto the model.  You can even have it strapped to his back or onto the harness of the squig. 

[MidasKiss]

I heard about (Warhammer Tv's) Diarmuid's moonclan from Shyish idea which sounds pretty fun. Has he posted pictures anywhere?

[Critch]

This Thread was a good read, on Saturday I went to the JustPlay Liverpool Tournament with a Moonclan Army, I came 6th out of 17 places and won 2 matches out of my 3, was my first tournament, my list was:-

Heroes

Grot Warboss with moon prodder and cave squig with Rockeye

Grot Waross riding cave squig

Cave Shaman with mushroom pot

Cave Shaman with mushroom pot

Cave Shaman with mushroom pot

Fungoid Cave Shaman

Units

60 Moonclan Grots (9 nets, 1 bad moon icon, 1 gong and rest are spears)

20 Cave Squigs

20 Cave Squigs

10 Squig Hoppers

Behemoth

Colossal Squig

Artillery

Grot Spear Chukka (ally)

Grot Spear Chukka (ally)

 

I didn't know about the double damage command stacking or the firestorm abilities either, if I was to do it differently I would drop the hoppers and take the command points, one for inspiring presence for when I get hit hard turn 1 as this loses against most in set up so therefore I lose t1, and I would swap out the Warboss riding the squig for a Warboss I made with a sword and shield for that re-rollable save.

 

I have another tournament on Sunday August 5th so I will update this thread with the results then as well.

[NemoVonUtopia]

I have decided to use moonclan grots for battleline in a swamp themed general destruction army based around firmir and troggoths so I will have minimum sized units so I can spend more points on bigger stuff. I was wondering if anyone had experience with mine units with bows? I am planning to use them with stabbas and shields to take advantage of netters and better stats but having one or two ranges units might complement the rest of my army more; however my initial impression is that the bows will do nothing since I'll only have 20 per unit.

[Warboss Gorbolg]

The bows are awful, but I'm considering building some with bows myself because I want the variety in aesthetics and some range within faction. To me it all comes down to how much you're willing to bet that a battletome isn't too far off and that Moonclan Grots will get a new rule for the bows.

I'm thinking that they will keep the short range, but a mob/unit size bonus or an auto-wound on a hit of 6+ (e.g. fungus poison) seem likely and possible.

[mcbrain]

58 minutes ago, Warboss Gorbolg said:

The bows are awful, but I'm considering building some with bows myself because I want the variety in aesthetics and some range within faction. To me it all comes down to how much you're willing to bet that a battletome isn't too far off and that Moonclan Grots will get a new rule for the bows.

I'm thinking that they will keep the short range, but a mob/unit size bonus or an auto-wound on a hit of 6+ (e.g. fungus poison) seem likely and possible.

Yeah bro, Moonclan bows are bad.  I just play my Moonclan bows as Gitmob and play one of my Moonclan shaman as a Gitmob boi and all is good.

[Skabnoze]

Bear in mind that they have kept the fluff that Moonclan live in caves, hate the sun, and mainly attack at night - so they may just keep Moonclan archers fairly lousy.  

If you are parking the unit on an objective then the bows are not a horrible idea.  The spears don’t do much if the unit does not get into combat and nobody shoots at it.

But I generally prefer the spears.

[Milandro]

I am just finishing a unit of bows. 

I know they are terrible but I have a soft spot for subpar units. I also figure occasionally with some above average rolling and the war boss command ability they might surprise someone. I use them to carry a min unit of fanatics to block charges.

I too hope for a battletome though 

 

[novakai]

Well no more 64 damage grot to be expected but I do like the new Warboss's CA ability to give them a MW on a 6 in addition to normal damage

[Skabnoze]

So, they killed the exponential damage from the "Stab em Good" command ability.  It is an interesting change and works fairly different than it previously did. 

The negative part of the change is that it now only triggers on unmodified to-wound rolls of 6.  This means that the standard Moonclan Grots "backstabbing mob" rule no longer effects this ability at all.  The ability also no longer doubles the damage - so you cannot use it on something like Cave Squigs to double their d3 damage.

But, what it does do is inflict a mortal wound on top of the normal damage.

I find this to be an interesting change.  Obviously the exponential stacking portion of the original ability was going to go away.  I think we all knew that exploit was short for this world.  I'm not sure exactly how this change is going to stack up compared to a single-use effect of the old ability.  The way this new ability works it has really no extra synergy combos to be found.  It works the same on any Moonclan unit that you use it on.  The only thing you can really do to make the ability more effective is to use it on large volume of attacks.

On the surface this looks like a distinct nerf, but the extra damage generated by this ability is now mortal wounds.  Previously the increased damage could still be mitigated by armor saves.  Now your extra damage is almost guaranteed - which could be pretty useful.  It also still works on ranged attacks so there might be some play here to using big swarms of Moonclan Archers to drop mortal wounds at range.  The casting range is also pretty large - especially for the general.

My initial reaction is that this ability is still pretty good and feels like a side-grade.  I like the addition of Mortal Wounds - which I think Moonclan was lacking.  My first take is that this is a positive change.  I wish that there was more possibility for synergy, because I find synergy fun, but even without synergy this ability seems good.

[Oreaper84]

It says you can trigger in the combat phase so unless your doing any shooting then.......nope. However we can tailor this just to the unit that needs it, with the caveat that they are wholly withing 12/24....so thats a slight buff

Overall the damage output overall for the grots will go down, but we will be more versatile with our targets. We can use the mobs to swarm a larger target...and ping in the cheeky mortal wound here and there, which if I'm honest with myself is much more moonclan than the old rule.  

 

[Skabnoze]

16 minutes ago, Oreaper84 said:

It says you can trigger in the combat phase so unless your doing any shooting then.......nope. However we can tailor this just to the unit that needs it, with the caveat that they are wholly withing 12/24....so thats a slight buff

Overall the damage output overall for the grots will go down, but we will be more versatile with our targets. We can use the mobs to swarm a larger target...and ping in the cheeky mortal wound here and there, which if I'm honest with myself is much more moonclan than the old rule.  

So it does.  I skimmed over the first sentence and missed that part.  That is a shame, but the ability still seems ok.

As for damage going down, I am not sure we will really see damage decrease except for against low-armor units.  In most cases I think the damage will be about the same and against armored opponents it will probably go up a bit.  I'll run some numbers later and see how this compares to previous usage for Moonclan Grots.

[Milandro]

1 hour ago, Oreaper84 said:

It says you can trigger in the combat phase so unless your doing any shooting then.......nope. However we can tailor this just to the unit that needs it, with the caveat that they are wholly withing 12/24....so thats a slight buff

Overall the damage output overall for the grots will go down, but we will be more versatile with our targets. We can use the mobs to swarm a larger target...and ping in the cheeky mortal wound here and there, which if I'm honest with myself is much more moonclan than the old rule.  

 

I'm mostly sad about the change to wholly within. Makes it a lot harder to use with units of 60. 

That it doesn't effect shooting is another blow to moon clan with bows. I just posted yesterday that it can make them do alright lol. 

It was sometimes insane when the grot war boss with squig did just crazy damage as well.

I never did stack it though as it didn't read that way to me, but it might be my hangups on previous rules 

The change seems to make a lot more sense. Definitely changes things for my scheming/planning

[Skabnoze]

Looking at our various units, it appears that Squig Hoppers might be a decent target for Stab Em Good.  Squig Hoppers are a pretty high volume attack unit per model - and to get the best use from Stab Em Good you want to get as many "to-wound" rolls as possible.  Each model in the unit has 3 attacks and 2 of those are a 4+ to-hit.  Squig Hoppers are also on 25mm bases - which means that even with only a 1" melee range they can attack in 2 ranks.

So, a simple 10 Squig Hoppers are going to get 30 attacks in combat.  Given that squig hoppers are 80 points for 5 and Grots are 130 per 20 - that makes Squig Hoppers the most point-efficient unit in regards to volume of attacks.  Moonclan Grots cost roughly 6.5 points per attack and Squig Hoppers cost roughly 5.33 points per attack.

The negative thing about Squig Hoppers is their absolutely abysmal bravery stat.

[Milandro]

Yeah I think squig hoppers and spears with as many netters within range is now the prime target of stab em good.

Still worth it as a bonus on any of the high attack monster squigs if you have spare command points available. 

Looks like you can use it even on a opponents combat phase which is still nice 

[Malakree]

So at the risk of committing a faux pas here's a stupid list using the new Moonclan Boss ability. It is however a general destruction list, for reasons which will become quickly obvious.

Quote

Allegiance: Moonclan Grots
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (80)
- General
- Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch 
Grot Warboss (100)
Grot Warboss (100)
Gordrakk The Fist of Gork (580)

Battleline
60 x Moonclan Grots (360)
- Pokin Spears & Moon Shields
20 x Gitmob Grots (100)
- Bows & Slashas
20 x Gitmob Grots (100)
- Bows & Slashas

Units
20 x Grot Squig Hoppers (320)

War Machines
Grot Rock Lobber (100)
Grot Rock Lobber (100)

Endless Spells
Chronomantic Cogs (60)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 185

 The 3 dice roll charge from the Big G works fantastically well with the squig hoppers before you even include how good +2 attacks is with the new CA. It also gives you the Big G, who is a beast in his own right, and chronomantic cogs to help speed you around the battlefield. In order to fit all of it in I had to go to the GA grabbing 20x20 Gitmob Archers, having done this the Rock Lobbers seemed like a nice addition. Finally the Fungoid is an amazing general who gives you the ability to back your Squig Hoppers out to potentially charge again for yet more attacks. It also lets you do multiple charges off Gordrakk to abuse his destructive bulk. With so many CP outlets the broach is fantastic. 

Ideally you would position for a turn or two to soften them up, get more CPs and then go for it. With a Gordrakk there's ~4/9 chance of hitting a double with a charge dice reroll it goes up to ~70%. The mortal wound output from even 10 of them is going to get high at that point.

I would say the "Core" list here is the following. 

Spoiler

Allegiance: Moonclan Grots
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (80)
- General
- Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch 
Grot Warboss (100)
- Moon Prodder & Giant Cave Squig
Gordrakk The Fist of Gork (580)

Battleline
20 x Moonclan Grots (130)
- Pokin Spears & Moon Shields
20 x Gitmob Grots (100)
- Bows & Slashas
20 x Gitmob Grots (100)
- Bows & Slashas

Units
20 x Grot Squig Hoppers (320)

Total: 1410 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 11
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 123

So there's almost 600 points float in it which is pretty solid.

Personally I think Gordrakk now works super well in a moonclan themed GA:Destruction with this change. His synergy with both the Warboss and the Fungoid is fantastic plus he's a great enabler.

[Davros]

3 hours ago, Malakree said:

So at the risk of committing a faux pas here's a stupid list using the new Moonclan Boss ability. It is however a general destruction list, for reasons which will become quickly obvious.

Well now you have to run all not battletome armies as the grand alliegence or you miss out on alliegence abilities.

This new FAQ had some good things, then this really dumb thing.

[Malakree]

33 minutes ago, Davros said:

Well now you have to run all not battletome armies as the grand alliegence or you miss out on alliegence abilities.

This new FAQ had some good things, then this really dumb thing.

What it's actually done is said that if you have allegiance abilities you MUST use them. So no ironjawz lists using GA:Destro abilities.

For those without allegiance abilities it has changed nothing from the core rules.

The rule itself is only about the allegiance abilities and not the list allegiance. So a moonclan army uses the Destro because they don't have one of their own.

[Davros]

Sorry I had only read one of the FAQ documents before making that comment. @Malakree you are correct.

[Malakree]

11 hours ago, Davros said:

Sorry I had only read one of the FAQ documents before making that comment. @Malakree you are correct.

It's cool, sometimes the wording can be arcane lawyer speak. Those of us who are really ****** over rules can decipher it but to normal people it looks like gibberish ?