AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion

[katana100]

I might have to run some sneaky smugglers screen by sporesplattas in place to buff some boing Boyz 6 attacks on the charge 4+ 4+ (or 4+ 3+ if buffed by manger squigs boss) + MW sounds great fun just a shame the sporesplattas doesn't effect them as well haha

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

Moonclan builds will definitely have to rely on Da Bad Moon

Honestly, I really love this.

It is very fun and characterful and that is all that I ever really wanted from this army.  I have no issue with people who play things purely for the stats and the pure competitive aspect.  That can be fun as well, but I feel that there are other armies for that sort of thing and some of those are arguably better thematically (Daughters, Stormcast, etc).  I really enjoy that Age of Sigmar is taking a big-tent approach and making some armies that appeal to various different gaming preferences.  But, I also like that the Goblins seem to not be 100% totally crazy random to the point where they usually won't utterly fall apart barring insanely good luck.  This is a really great middle-ground.

I can deal with the army having a fair degree of being awful as I have played goblins long enough that I spent over a decade playing with them in that state.  I play the goblins because I love the models, background, and they just make me happy.  But, I will admit that I would prefer the army to not be utterly awful even if they lose a fair bit and have a reliance upon luck.  This book seems like a very good compromise in that a lot of the stuff seems quite decent, but the army-wide mechanic is somewhat unreliable which I think fits with the history of the army. 

Goblins and Skaven seem like the two armies that should still retain a degree of unreliability in their mechanics even if it means losing the ability to definitively pilot the army to victory at competitive events.  There are other armies that work well for that and I am glad to see that GW feels there is room to cater to all types of players.  But, I also like that it appears that GW left enough good stuff in the army that they could possibly reliably play a spoiler role in events.  There may be cases where the stars (or moon rather) align and the army performs fantastically (or the opposite).  I like the idea of that.

I have not read the book yet obviously, but so far this army is really shaping up to be exactly what I have hoped the army could be for a very long time.  I am quite excited.

[novakai]

20 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

Its pretty much 4 armies in one, Horde, spiders, squig and troll. This book covers all play styles except maybe shooting, but spiderfang can do that alright with flingas and all there bows. We can ally in gitmob but i imagine we wont be using allies often as bonesplitters and greenskins dont add much unless you want chariots from greenskins and savage orruk arrow boys or big stabbas from bonesplitters.

there is some good shooting abilities like using Spiteful prodder, Loonking, Loonboss with Cave squig, and shooting spell at enemies. and of course I think the Squig Gobbla is still a decent artillery piece. 

But yeah I don't think Gloomspite Gitz is meant to be play as a strong shooting army, they definitely shine in a melee, magic, and MW department. but they  give you good options to do stuff at longer range

Edited January 7, 2019 by novakai

[Skabnoze]

34 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

I just find it so strange how beastmen have lore about how they are birthed, there camps, practises and rituals but orcs and goblins have is just Waaagh! 40K Orkz have better lore in that regard as you learn more about what they do when they arent in full war mode (which they still fight between themselves but they have races, some farm, general contests of strength, what scrap cities are like and their biology.

I think part of that might be due to how they have constructed the delivery method for that information in the past.  By that I mean when 40k began introducing a lot of this they did it through articles that looked like Inquisitorial alien research.  So a lot of those ork articles were designed as a researching compiling his notes and adding some conjecture.

In addition, I think in 40k they want to explain the long-time fluff about how the Ork race is by far the most prolific race in the galaxy and how they are absurdly hard to eradicate from a planet.  To do that they need to provide some explanation about how Orks can so easily expand in numbers.  And Sci-Fi in general often spends more time discussing alien societies and biology than Fantasy often bothers with as a genre.

In the past GW has presented some fantasy lore as the ramblings of a traveling Empire academic.  It might be a cool idea if they started doing something like this again.  Maybe as a section of White Dwarf or in the Community articles.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

14 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Honestly, I really love this.

It is very fun and characterful and that is all that I ever really wanted from this army.  I have no issue with people who play things purely for the stats and the pure competitive aspect.  That can be fun as well, but I feel that there are other armies for that sort of thing and some of those are arguably better thematically (Daughters, Stormcast, etc).  I really enjoy that Age of Sigmar is taking a big-tent approach and making some armies that appeal to various different gaming preferences.  But, I also like that the Goblins seem to not be 100% totally crazy random to the point where they usually won't utterly fall apart barring insanely good luck.  This is a really great middle-ground.

I can deal with the army having a fair degree of being awful as I have played goblins long enough that I spent over a decade playing with them in that state.  I play the goblins because I love the models, background, and they just make me happy.  But, I will admit that I would prefer the army to not be utterly awful even if they lose a fair bit and have a reliance upon luck.  This book seems like a very good compromise in that a lot of the stuff seems quite decent, but the army-wide mechanic is somewhat unreliable which I think fits with the history of the army. 

Goblins and Skaven seem like the two armies that should still retain a degree of unreliability in their mechanics even if it means losing the ability to definitively pilot the army to victory at competitive events.  There are other armies that work well for that and I am glad to see that GW feels there is room to cater to all types of players.  But, I also like that it appears that GW left enough good stuff in the army that they could possibly reliably play a spoiler role in events.  There may be cases where the stars (or moon rather) align and the army performs fantastically (or the opposite).  I like the idea of that.

I have not read the book yet obviously, but so far this army is really shaping up to be exactly what I have hoped the army could be for a very long time.  I am quite excited.

Yeah i fully agree with you Skab, ive played destruction throughout the whole life of AoS with a short break playing KO until i got my mojo taken when i realised the cool ass boats weaken the army and then i played DoK for a few months when they we released but they were just slaughtering my local scene too much that sadly i shelved them as it was just stupid. I then put my hands into undead when Nighthaunt were released but i just missed my boyz and ladz so i stopped playing since August. Throughtout 6th through to 8th i switched between Lizardmen and Orc and Goblins with Lizardmen being my love of fantasy (O&G a very close second, but Orkz are first in 40k). I now have my first game booked in for the first week of Feb vs a few mates, we will have a little league and im so excited to run some squigs! Im not one to go off statistics or averages... i can give people those statistics but me personally i love themes, and if something looks cool im going to use it, im just not a firm believer of averages... when i have an opponent complain that it should of been a 7 or that it wasnt average it actually annoys me haha... just have fun playing the game!!! 

In regards to the Moonclan, i dont think they get hampered when the moon isnt on them! They only loose out on reroll 1s to hit, its the wizards that suffer most. +1 to cast and unbind is huge! Try count how many of them are in the game... its quite rare. But if a savvy player can use his army in conjunction with the badmoon effectively i think this army will be quite difficult to deal with!

Edited January 7, 2019 by Ekrund Oath Splitters

[Skabnoze]

2 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

In regards to the Moonclan, i dont think they get hampered when the moon isnt on them! They only loose out on reroll 1s to hit, its the wizards that suffer most. +1 to cast and unbind is huge! Try count how many of them are in the game... its quite rare. But if a savvy player can use his army in conjunction with the badmoon effectively i think this army will be quite difficult to deal with!

I think this is where a lot of the unpredictability is going to come into play.  I like that you don't seem to NEED the moon in order to succeed, but the key is that you are going to WANT it.  This may psychologically effect how you play the army, how you deploy, and how you move your units around the table.  And that could potentially mean that people may chase the moon into a position, or make moves predicting where it goes, and then the moon does something totally different and leaves you over-extended and exposed.  That is great in my opinion - although I expect a number of people will hate it.

It makes me think that the people who will do the best regularly with this army will be those who will be able to understand when it is best to chase the moon and when it is best to simply not worry about it.  The moon army mechanic might actually be a trap of sorts.  And I expect that canny opponents might be able to also use the moon to their advantage at times.

Honestly, the more I think about it the more this sort of thing seems to line up with the psychology of goblins themselves.  They are all crazy gits chasing desperately after the moon and the idea of the allegiance mechanic transferring some of that behavior to the player is hilariously well played by GW.

[Skabnoze]

3 hours ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Hey,

This has been added to the Destruction Discussion Hub at the top of the sub forum. Thanks @Malakree for the heads up.

Chris

It wasn't needed.  It's been firmly at the top of the destruction board since it was created and due to how awesome goblins are it should remain so until they pull the plug on the forums.  But thanks for adding it anyways!

[Skabnoze]

39 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

I honestly think normal dwarves and elves would get the same amount of hype from the community. Not everything has to be crazy AoS concepts to attract people, this release is perfect its not too over the top. It builds on the older Night Goblin design and just updates it inline with the new stuff GW can produce. The only faction i dont like the look of is IDK, its abit too high fantasy for me, but every other release for AoS i have liked, with 4 expanding on my already existing armies (dark elves/witches, orcs, dwarves and beastmen kind of as they got no new units just spells and terrain that i already had a premade one) and now its 5 with Gloomspite Gits.

I think that if GW rolled up the non-battletome humans, dwarves, and high elves into a single Freecities army release and structured it like the Gloomspite release that they would have an absolutely massive hit on their hands.  By this I mean both model release and rules.  So for rules they structure it so that each of those races has their own sub-allegiance that can be fielded if you want to be purist, but there is also a big-tent that also rewards players for combining it (in regards to rules, fluff, modelling, etc).  So you could field an army of just Dispossessed but you could also meld Dispossessed, Free People, Ironweld, and say Swifthawk into one coherent force.  In addition, they should make the effort to refresh the parts of those lines that are a bit long in the tooth and add a few extra new things in also (while deprecating a few kits they don't want to keep) - so much the same as they have done with the Moonclan and Troll portions of Gloomspite.

Sure, there would be some people that complained that Dispossessed (or whatever small allegiance) deserved it's own book (not going to argue the merits of that either way), but I think most people both old and new would be extremely happy with a release like that.  It would also square away a lot of the baggage of the Order Grand Alliance and I suspect it would also be a very popular army.

But whether or not they choose to take that approach I do hope that they address these allegiances sooner rather than later. 

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

17 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I think this is where a lot of the unpredictability is going to come into play.  I like that you don't seem to NEED the moon in order to succeed, but the key is that you are going to WANT it.  This may psychologically effect how you play the army, how you deploy, and how you move your units around the table.  And that could potentially mean that people may chase the moon into a position, or make moves predicting where it goes, and then the moon does something totally different and leaves you over-extended and exposed.  That is great in my opinion - although I expect a number of people will hate it.

It makes me think that the people who will do the best regularly with this army will be those who will be able to understand when it is best to chase the moon and when it is best to simply not worry about it.  The moon army mechanic might actually be a trap of sorts.  And I expect that canny opponents might be able to also use the moon to their advantage at times.

Honestly, the more I think about it the more this sort of thing seems to line up with the psychology of goblins themselves.  They are all crazy gits chasing desperately after the moon and the idea of the allegiance mechanic transferring some of that behavior to the player is hilariously well played by GW.

With my squig army im going to try not rely too heavily on the moon, but with the (random) speed of the squigs i should be able to take advantage of the run and charge when i need it. In any other case i will see about getting squig lure off if i need to run and charge with some units. When you think about it the moon "forces" you to move in a diagonal which can really limit your board control, ability to get objectives and to take bad engagements if you decide to constantly chase it across the board. But this more affects spiderfang and troggoth more than the other 2 subfactions. The 3 units that really love the badmoons light though is the mangler boss, shaman on arok and the troggoth hag as they all get 2 benefits from the the bad moon whilst under it which is quite cool. 

Edited January 7, 2019 by Ekrund Oath Splitters

[PlasticCraic]

@Skabnoze thanks for an interesting post and perspective.

I agree with your handle on where they will sit competitively.  Obviously none of us have the book yet, but we’ve all read the majority of it now and an experienced player can usually get a pretty good handle on these things. 

FWIW (and just to voice a counterpoint) I was hoping they would catapult straight into the top tier of competitive armies.  You are right to say there are other armies for that…but not in Destruction.  As a devoted Orcs and Goblins fan who has waited literally years and years for any real kind of update, while power creep has rampaged ahead unchecked, I think it was reasonable to hope that when a book came it would be right in the mix.

I totally get that not every player wants or needs that, and you have very eloquently expressed the perspective of those who don’t.  I think it was quite a deliberate choice to pitch it at that angle, and in that sense they have absolutely nailed their objective. 

But after seeing successive Destruction releases proactively and heavily nerfed shortly after release, and left there; and after being left out of the GH Allegiances in successive editions; I think it was reasonable to hope for a highly competitive release.  Frankly I've had enough of straining every sinew to go 3-2.

My own 2 cents is that it’s fine and thematic for the Bad Moon to be erratic and therefore unreliable from a competitive viewpoint.  But if they are going down that path, it would have been good to get Skyports / Temple rules and a Prayer lore.  We really should have had more free rules as a quality of life issue – Prayers in particular are long overdue and would have been very thematic.

[PlasticCraic]

That being said I hope you and others who got exactly what they were hoping for enjoy the book, and I'm sure you will.  Hopefully we Destro fanboys don't have to wait as long for the next book, and hopefully at that point we'll all have something pitched at the right level for us.

[PlasticCraic]

And one last thing on this topic (so as not to attempt to drag down the mood of the thread), I should just clarify that I do like the book, and I will be buying in! 

It might not be pitched at the level I was hoping for competitively, but it looks like an excellent book on its own terms. 

And who knows, with this many Warscrolls to work with, maybe we will be able to crack the code and make a very strong army even without relying on Battle Traits and the like - there are certainly a lot of tools to work with.

[FPC]

10 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

And one last thing on this topic (so as not to attempt to drag down the mood of the thread), I should just clarify that I do like the book, and I will be buying in! 

It might not be pitched at the level I was hoping for competitively, but it looks like an excellent book on its own terms. 

And who knows, with this many Warscrolls to work with, maybe we will be able to crack the code and make a very strong army even without relying on Battle Traits and the like - there are certainly a lot of tools to work with.

Yea...I think this. Just looking at the leaked info and everything that’s out there there’s not much more I could ask for. A ton of good buffs and debuffs through a variety of means, multiple play styles, good magic, arguably a top end battle line (what else can naturally wound on a 2+? There can’t be much), and all the while it’s characterful and fits the theme.

O&G were my first fantasy army almost 20 years ago, and I’m super happy with this release. Though I haven’t looked at points thoroughly yet, I think I’ll be hard pressed to fit everything I find  good or better into an army (mostly play 1500 pts) which I take as a good sign. 

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

14 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

And one last thing on this topic (so as not to attempt to drag down the mood of the thread), I should just clarify that I do like the book, and I will be buying in! 

It might not be pitched at the level I was hoping for competitively, but it looks like an excellent book on its own terms. 

And who knows, with this many Warscrolls to work with, maybe we will be able to crack the code and make a very strong army even without relying on Battle Traits and the like - there are certainly a lot of tools to work with.

Squigs dont really need to rely on the allegiance ability and they dont look like pushovers on paper either.

[spenson]

Does anyone have infos about the webspinner shaman?I couldn't find anything about his warscroll.

[NazbitWeirdstabba]

Might be too early to say, but how is everyone's possible list building going? I'm struggling, as I want to field so many of these amazing new models but also want some synergy! I'm currently thinking: 

Loonboss on Mangler (300) (General)

Loonking (220)

Loonboss (70)

Fungoid Shaman (90)

Stabbas x 60 (360) 

Stabbas (or Shootas) x 20 (130) 

Sneaky Snufflers (70)

Loonsmasha Fanatics (140)

Spore Fanatics (130)

Squig Hoppers (180) 

Boingrot Bounders (200)

 

1940 points

 

My biggest struggle was with the battleline; do I take the Loonking as general, have his ability and 40, 20, 20 stabbas for battleline or take the boss mangler and have less grot units and a hopper battle line? I'm thinking the Snufflers  and Spore fanatics for the buffs on the 60 grot unit, Loonsmasha fanatics for punching power, Boingrot bounders for a nice charge and hoppers for mobility/battleline. I know I have some points left over for something!

 

Be happy to hear your critiques/opinions!

 

Edited January 7, 2019 by NazbitWeirdstabba
formatting

[Smashin']

2 minutes ago, spenson said:

Does anyone have infos about the webspinner shaman?I couldn't find anything about his warscroll.

His warscroll is on the Arachnarok Spider page of GW in downloads, this includes the on foot option. 

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/AoS_Gloomspite_Gitz_WSCards_Webspinner Shaman.pdf

[Skabnoze]

17 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

That being said I hope you and others who got exactly what they were hoping for enjoy the book, and I'm sure you will.  Hopefully we Destro fanboys don't have to wait as long for the next book, and hopefully at that point we'll all have something pitched at the right level for us.

I agree.

And I also value your opinion and respect your desire for a top-tier destruction choice.  My personal take on that, as I made previously, is that does not really fit with gobbos.  Gobbos are just bonkers zany and always have been.  To me it does not really fit for them to be the go-to top tier choice by design.  Gobbos, and Night Goblins in particular, have really been the corner of the Orc & Goblin army that always embodied the full utter loony-toons craziness.  Other sections of the old Orc & Goblin army were there for the more deterministic & competitive aspect - such as Black Orcs.

To my mind, I am hoping that eventually GW builds Ironjawz and Beastclaw Raiders into those choices that are more competitive focused.  For one, that feels much more thematic to me as Gordrakk is the Fist of Gork and he is the one that people throughout the Mortal Realms should be very afraid of - including the major characters.  I feel like that should extend to the competitive scene and makes sense.  Gobbos feel to me like the refuge of those of us who are a bit more carefree and don't mind (or even enjoy) some crazy random moon mechanic that could make or break a game.  I feel that there is, and should be, a place in the Age of Sigmar army landscape for both of these types of forces and I prefer gobbos to take the spot closer to lunacy.  Ironjawz should not be a bunch of clowns.

But I completely understand and sympathize with you in regards to the timeline and the waiting game.  Destruction has languished for a while and I really hope that GW fixes Ironjawz, Beastclaw Raiders, or Bonesplitterz sooner rather than later.

[Skabnoze]

45 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

Prayers in particular are long overdue and would have been very thematic.

I have thought this for a while as well.  Prayers really fit both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz and I really hope GW brings that concept into those books.  The Bonesplitterz wardancer really should be using a prayer mechanic rather than the weird thing that he does.

[PlasticCraic]

17 minutes ago, Ekrund Oath Splitters said:

Squigs dont really need to rely on the allegiance ability and they dont look like pushovers on paper either.

Agreed.  I do love the Batallion for the 6" pile in move (which does rely on the Bad Moon) - so in my Squig build I have taken Skragrott.  But they definitely look strong even without that Batallion. 

One thing I love about Skragrott is his 4+ shrug.  An expensive low-wound character like him would otherwise be too vulnerable to things like the Everblaze Comet and Celestant Prime - hopefully you should at least get a turn of him being alive, which is all you need to get some juice out of his CA.

Do you think there's still a place for the Colossal Squig?

[novakai]

I was listening the Honest wargamer show

Something fun you can do is deep strike your grot unit with the Fanatic inside using the Hand of Mork, and you release the Fanatic in the charge phase 3 inches out of the unit. then the fanatic only need a 6 inch charge to get into combat. you can use COG to make it a 4 inch charge if you want

Edited January 7, 2019 by novakai

[Skabnoze]

4 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

Do you think there's still a place for the Colossal Squig?

I think it depends on how all of the points land.  I have not looked into that stuff, but the Colossal Squig is still quite a good monster.  He also still pops out a squig unit upon death.  I think with access to various buffs he would only be better.  Question is if he is redunant compared to taking another Mangler.

[Ekrund Oath Splitters]

4 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I agree.

And I also value your opinion and respect your desire for a top-tier destruction choice.  My personal take on that, as I made previously, is that does not really fit with gobbos.  Gobbos are just bonkers zany and always have been.  To me it does not really fit for them to be the go-to top tier choice by design.  Gobbos, and Night Goblins in particular, have really been the corner of the Orc & Goblin army that always embodied the full utter loony-toons craziness.  Other sections of the old Orc & Goblin army were there for the more deterministic & competitive aspect - such as Black Orcs.

To my mind, I am hoping that eventually GW builds Ironjawz and Beastclaw Raiders into those choices that are more competitive focused.  For one, that feels much more thematic to me as Gordrakk is the Fist of Gork and he is the one that people throughout the Mortal Realms should be very afraid of - including the major characters.  I feel like that should extend to the competitive scene and makes sense.  Gobbos feel to me like the refuge of those of us who are a bit more carefree and don't mind (or even enjoy) some crazy random moon mechanic that could make or break a game.  I feel that there is, and should be, a place in the Age of Sigmar army landscape for both of these types of forces and I prefer gobbos to take the spot closer to lunacy.  Ironjawz should not be a bunch of clowns.

But I completely understand and sympathize with you in regards to the timeline and the waiting game.  Destruction has languished for a while and I really hope that GW fixes Ironjawz, Beastclaw Raiders, or Bonesplitterz sooner rather than later.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the GGs will be relatively top tier, not because of there allegiance ability but because the army is very well rounded, kind of like Dark Eldar in 40k. Looing throught it all there arent really any units in this book that makes you go "meh thats ******". Everything has its use which is awesome. The spells are one of the best we have had in a while, there CP generation is unrivaled, there casting and unbinding is above average, MW output is through the roof, mobility can be covered by spiders or squigs, they can horde very well and get units back on the board, ignore battleshock, we can go old plague monk level of attacks in a pinch, there is a plethora of minus to hits we can invoke, ways to lower people armour saves to negate ethereal (mommet and spiderfang spells), destroy artefacts (the first ability ive seen do that in AoS), good artefacts and traits and finally we actually have some reasonable shooting for a change.

Now im not saying we are DoK or post nerf DoT but we are definitively up there with the big boys and if i were to rate this battletome out of 10 for how good it looks its a strong 8.5 to 9. One of our biggest weaknesses is that we infact have too much choice and we cant have it all!!! I really realllllyyyy think this army will be a meta changer in a big way. It will be quite hard to fight against GG due to our random (but not stupid Possessed/CSM randomness) tactics and abilities we can poop out on a whim. As an old O&G player myself im happy for us but at the same time scared, i dont want WAAC players picking up our army and spamming them across all events and suddenly we get the nerf bat a swinging our way in 6 months time. Unfortunately that will probably happen due to the innate goodness of this battletome. I can really only count like maybe 3 bad things i think is bad so far in the battletome.

[Hoseman]

Here goes my list. I don't know if it's competitive or not but I just love the models:

Loonking, arachnarok with shaman, Mangler boss and troggboss.

2x 20 smasha grots, 20 shootas, 15 spiders, 5 fanatics.

I think it's 2k. Maybe later I switch mangler and trogg boss for normal options to fit a unit of rocktroggs

 

[Smashin']

2 minutes ago, NazbitWeirdstabba said:

Might be too early to say, but how is everyone's possible list building going? I'm struggling, as I want to field so many of these amazing new models but also want some synergy! I'm currently thinking: 

Loonboss on Mangler (300) (General)

Loonking (220)

Loonboss (70)

Fungoid Shaman (90)

Stabbas x 60 (360) 

Stabbas (or Shootas) x 20 (130) 

Sneaky Snufflers (70)

Loonsmasha Fanatics (140)

Spore Fanatics (130)

Squig Hoppers (180) 

Boingrot Bounders (200)

 

1940 points

 

My biggest struggle was with the battleline; do I take the Loonking as general, have his ability and 40, 20, 20 stabbas for battleline or take the boss mangler and have less grot units and a hopper battle line? I'm thinking the Snufflers  and Spore fanatics for the buffs on the 60 grot unit, Loonsmasha fanatics for punching power, Boingrot bounders for a nice charge and hoppers for mobility/battleline. I know I have some points left over for something!

 

Be happy to hear your critiques/opinions!

 

I would only take the Loonboss on Mangler as your general if you plan on going full squig with multiple hopper units (I sure will be!). The bonuses you receive for using Skragrott the Loonking as general is otherwise too strong to pass up for a lesser leader in my opinion, not really worth using the Manglerboss for 1 unit of hoppers, also note Manglerboss command ability can be used without needing to be your general. So really depends how you want the core of your army to be.