Discussion for Destruction fanatics - are you the poorer cousins, or is just how I play?

[Mcthew]

So, here's the thing... We've been playing AoS for a good 14 months now, mostly Order, Chaos and Death armies. With Gloomspite Gitz wetting the appetite, we took the plunge and after a few purchases over the last 2 weeks, rustled up a Destruction mix of Gloomspite with Greenskinz allies, .

First off, they look great. But then Orcses and gobbos always did look great. They are the mainstay of fantasy armies regardless of rules, and they've been the staple of Warhammer back from the days of lead bases (I used to have a few of those myself). The new models look amazing, and up to this weekend, I was looking forward to spending a hefty whack of cash on shrines, battletomes and fanatics etc. 

Until I started playing battles with them, that is.

Because - and yes this is a little controversial - the battleline for Gloomspite and Greenskinz suck. And they suck big. 

The battleforce we have is simple, but it's 1000 points there or thereabouts (and yes, we've gone over on allies before you ask - so it's for a mixed narrative):

40 moonclan grots (20 bows, 20 stabbas), 1 xMoonclan shaman, 1xAleguzzler gargant, 10 orruks, 5 boarboys, 1 orruk chariot, 2 x warboss

Not a rubbish army - a little vanilla, but that's 2 weeks of collecting for you. Still, you'd expect them to compete against other armies just a little, wouldn't you?

Nope. Not even close.

In the first battle against a Legion of Nagash army - they were wiped out. Utterly. First time I've seen every model destroyed by turn 4. In reply, Nagash lost a unit of Glaivewraiths... and that's it.

In the second battle, the combined firepower of Kharadron and Freeguild destroyed all the grots by turn 2 (those who didn't die, ran away), and half the greenskinz army. In the end, the result was a little more respectable than against Death - almost wiped out, but doing hefty damage to 2 Arkanaut companies.

In the third battle, against Sylvaneth, and one where the strategy was much refined and dice rolls not so catastrophic, it became clear to me that:

a) shootas are a pointless waste of plastic and points, even if they look nice

b) stabbas are ok against armies with naff-all saving and big enough units to get 'em all in against... but otherwise see a)

c) boarboys are fast at getting into battle and being slaughtered

d) ditto for the warboss if he thinks it is a good thing to follow his boarboyz into battle

e) gargants are... well, they ok if they getz der kickz in first! After that, they're prone to being chopped down by anyone almost as big as them.

f) chariots are only good if they get to charge in again and again to get that D3 damage over and over. But they rarely get that chance

g) the shaman is a half decent model as long as you stick him on a balewind vortex. He can do plenty of damage for his points, and is much better than any grot or orruk unit for less points

 

(And breathe...)

It's such a shame too, because I was looking forward to expanding the army, but really I find them rubbish and I don't know why GW have turned them into the weakling allegiance of the four. I'm sure Gutbusters, Ironjawz etc have better synergies etc and buffers than the above, but other than spending sh1tloads of money on them, I can't see Destruction battleline being anything other than cannon fodder.

While mentioning Stormcast here is like soiling another persons underwear, point for point, and pound for pound, their battleline are massively better value than anything green. It's such a shame that GW wouldn't do something more for them, maybe have the option for flaming arrows for shootas or something cos 5 to wound is pants (especially for 16" range, and only 4+ to hit if they haven't taken any damage which they will have from any other ranged units).

Likewise the orruks who - considering their brute strength - seem unable to make much rend or a decent wound on the enemy. Not gobbo-bad, but compared to almost every other allegiance battleline, pretty rubbish for the points.

But I'm here not (just) to moan, and I'm not ready to give up on destruction completely. I'm here to ask for advice... Beyond buying an army of troggoths etc is there anything good that I'm missing here? I'm hoping the battletome will help, but unless they have better shooting buffs for the shootas, some kind of grenade launchers for the stabbas, and a points reduction on all, I can't see how.

Balance is one thing. How an army looks is another, and my Destruction army looks nice on the shelf. It's just a pity I won't be bringing them out much on the battlefield without being laughed at... unless I can be persuaded by the good green folk of this forum they are worth playing with, or GW does the good thing and improve their stats/or reduce their points... 🤢

[kenshin620]

You do have to be a little bit masochistic to be with Destruction. Armies like Ironjawz and Beastclaw Raiders are....not exactly meta defining (well today anyways). Many of their rules are old and haven't really been updated. I mean 2018 had ZERO Destruction Battletomes.

Gloomspite Gitz probably won't be absolute top tier, but I think it'll bring (parts) of destruction to a mid tier level.

[Malakree]

29 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

Because - and yes this is a little controversial - the battleline for Gloomspite and Greenskinz suck. And they suck big. 

Gloomspite look like they will be a top tier army. @Donal was already doing very well with a Moonclan based mixed destruction and I can't see that changing.

As for the rest of destruction, we have a few "ok" 3/5 lists, notably the kunnin rukk and a couple of ironjawz lists.

All of this is at 2k.

As to the allegiances as a whole. 

Bonesplitterz and ironjawz have functional lists. I believe there is a functional gutbusters list but the faction isn't played enough to really know.

All the other allegiances suck.

Yes destruction is the weakest force pregloomspite, we have to play to win on objectives because we can't outright the other grand alliances.

3 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

Gloomspite Gitz probably won't be absolute top tier, but I think it'll bring (parts) of destruction to a mid tier level.

I suspect the aforementioned grot will no doubt be able to take gloomspite to the top tables at big tournaments. We're not going to be the new daughters of khaine but that entire book was one big mistake so...

[kenshin620]

@Malakree Yea I meant mid-high tier but not broken tier.

 

I think this was mentioned in other topics but AoS isn't based on player needs, it's based on the Design Team's wants (or at least thats the conspiracy).

So if GW's Design team ATM isn't into Destruction, well...Destruction isn't getting updated.

[Aelfric]

I have a small 1500 point local tournament coming up at the end of the month and have an urge to bring out the green tide instead of Wanderers or mixed Order.

Planning on taking 40 Orruks with 2 choppas and 60 Gitmob Grots with bows accompanied by a shaman with sneaky stabbin and a Warboss on Wyvern.  The rest will be filled with 10 ardboys, 5 brutes, 3 Goregruntas and a Megaboss (don't quite have enough Ironjawz painted yet for a full force).

I haven't brought out the Greenskinz for nearly 2 years, but have to scratch the itch.  I think a few large units may give a better showing than MSU - to make use of the bonuses you get.  Being able to autopass battleshock with a cp now will also help.

I could do more blocks of Greenskins instead of Ironjawz, but feel like I need a mix.

Fortunately, I've been given the ok on square bases as I've not got round to re-basing many of them.

It'll be fun, which is the main thing, and who knows....?

[Ollie Grimwood]

Ok lads don’t tell Im nothink.  The Stunti is just worried cos the Bad Moons is rising an the little lads is going to give is sort a right kicking.   Ees just after earing our best tacticks so he can plan for them. 

[Skabnoze]

2 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

I think this was mentioned in other topics but AoS isn't based on player needs, it's based on the Design Team's wants (or at least thats the conspiracy).

So if GW's Design team ATM isn't into Destruction, well...Destruction isn't getting updated.

This is not just AoS - it’s how all of GW has rolled for the 25+ years that I have played.  For better or worse that is how they tend to operate.

[Eevika]

Your list is ass and you are playing against. LoN what did you expect 

[Skabnoze]

Are you fighting against Nagash in a 1000pt game?

[Mcthew]

38 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Are you fighting against Nagash in a 1000pt game?

Ha - no. That would be laughable. 2 units of 40 skels, a necromancer, morghast, glaivewraiths, spirit hosts and banshees mainly. Grots were mashed by the skels, orruks slaughtered by the morghast. The others mopped up the rest. Some unlucky rolls, but was first time with Destruction - who were “ass” I agree. Didn’t realise how “ass” until second battle.

But the LoN weren’t that good as a list either, and still got Destruction got thumped!

Really feels like a “******’s” army, alas...

[Malakree]

4 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

Ha - no. That would be laughable. 2 units of 40 skels, a necromancer, morghast, glaivewraiths, spirit hosts and banshees mainly. Grots were mashed by the skels, orruks slaughtered by the morghast. The others mopped up the rest. Some unlucky rolls, but was first time with Destruction - who were “ass” I agree. Didn’t realise how “ass” until second battle.

But the LoN weren’t that good as a list either, and still got Destruction got thumped!

Really feels like a “******’s” army, alas...

lol, that's not a bad LoN list, it has 2 blocks of 40 skeles, what are you going to do against that?

[Mcthew]

7 minutes ago, Malakree said:

lol, that's not a bad LoN list, it has 2 blocks of 40 skeles, what are you going to do against that?

Lol - not much, even the gargant was overwhelmed and swarmed over. Was hoping for better against Kharadron who speared the gargant like harpoon fisherman and then turned the battlefield like the Somme by volley-gunning the grots.

Oh, for just some better saving throws! I don’t recall making many save rolls in all 3 battles... 🧐

[Skabnoze]

Well I assume this was not Gloomspite and was using the old rules as a grand alliance Destruction army.  It sucks to say, but a hodge-podge general allegiance force is not going to fare well against a battletome force led by one of the strongest models in the game.

You should probably re-evaluate with an actual Gloomspite force from the battletome.

[Skabnoze]

12 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

Lol - not much, even the gargant was overwhelmed and swarmed over. Was hoping for better against Kharadron who speared the gargant like harpoon fisherman and then turned the battlefield like the Somme by volley-gunning the grots.

Oh, for just some better saving throws! I don’t recall making many save rolls in all 3 battles... 🧐

A gargant barely costs more than a minimum unit of grots.  He is in my opinion pretty decent and hits quite hard for his cost, but at the end of the day he is only a 160pt model.

[Kramer]

24 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

A gargant barely costs more than a minimum unit of grots.  He is in my opinion pretty decent and hits quite hard for his cost, but at the end of the day he is only a 160pt model.

The only time I saw a gargant do work was in beast of chaos. Whipped for +1 attack & a spell for one more. All headbuts hit 😂 I swear my Tyrant was there one moment, but he definitely wasn’t the next, just a gargant head shaped hole in the ground where he stood. 

But @Mcthew, I’m sorry man. But any army that you had this approach with, the same would have happened. You chose to collect an army before the tome releases. So no knowledge off the synergies yet, and most likely not the ideal set up. You played a couple of games against people who know their lists. And that LoN is pretty nasty with 2x40 skellies. So far every horde army needs their synergies and key pieces to do work. So to me claims like ‘their a waste of plastic and points’ seem to be at least... an overstatement. 

Just a comparison, of your Death opponent brought 2x20 skeletons and no way to buff them, you could have dealt with them far easier right? 

Just imagine having 40 stabbas, backed by those snufflers, with a loonboss’s command ability for good measure, and they will do some serious work. 

So it’s just my two cents, but seeing the title of your thread it should be fine , but if you like the models, get the book before new expansions to your army because you clearly need to be able to compete more. Destruction hasn’t gotten enough love but moonclan will defiantly be able to compete. You just need to figure out how they work!

[Skabnoze]

@Kramer I have used my giant a lot and had him put some serious hurt on units and other big models - certainly more than he costs me to include in many cases.  But there are plenty of times that he dies before he can do much.  Even if he just works as a distraction I think that can be valuable in many cases.  He is cheap enough to be disposable.

[dirkdragonslayer]

7 hours ago, Mcthew said:

40 moonclan grots (20 bows, 20 stabbas), 1 xMoonclan shaman, 1xAleguzzler gargant, 10 orruks, 5 boarboys, 1 orruk chariot, 2 x warboss

...

a) shootas are a pointless waste of plastic and points, even if they look nice

b) stabbas are ok against armies with naff-all saving and big enough units to get 'em all in against... but otherwise see a)

c) boarboys are fast at getting into battle and being slaughtered

d) ditto for the warboss if he thinks it is a good thing to follow his boarboyz into battle

e) gargants are... well, they ok if they getz der kickz in first! After that, they're prone to being chopped down by anyone almost as big as them.

f) chariots are only good if they get to charge in again and again to get that D3 damage over and over. But they rarely get that chance

g) the shaman is a half decent model as long as you stick him on a balewind vortex. He can do plenty of damage for his points, and is much better than any grot or orruk unit for less points

 

No offense, but the list you brought doesn't have any synergy between the units. I don't know much about Orruks, so I will comment on the grots. Minimum size squads of melee Grots die quickly to morale and and enemy fire. You want to aim for squads of 40-60 grots, especially if they have spears. Larger mobs allow you to take more nets (fantastic) and one of each banner. There was also no Gobbo Warboss to buff them up. The large blobs also act as an anvil for heavy hitting units like Squigs to come in to do damage.  Arrow grots before Gloomspite book were kind of garbage, especially in 20 (5+ to hit, 5+ to wound, a squad of 60 would only get 6 hits before armor saves). Now they are more usable, not great, but more usable with their buff in large numbers (4+ to hit).

Gargants are kind of average, I don't know what to say about them.

Destruction is a horde army allegiance except for BCR and Ironjawz. You need big monster units to be effective. Meet their 40 Skeletons with 60 Grots.

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Skabnoze said:

@Kramer I have used my giant a lot and had him put some serious hurt on units and other big models - certainly more than he costs me to include in many cases.  But there are plenty of times that he dies before he can do much.  Even if he just works as a distraction I think that can be valuable in many cases.  He is cheap enough to be disposable.

Yeah, as distraction definitely! But for damage output, mine never seems to deliver. Fielded him about 6 games in a row with gutbusters, my preferred destructions faction, and dropped him after that. Probably also the comparison with other Ogor units doesn’t help. Everybody hits, fairly hard, speed advantage is smaller, but he gets an outing now and again. I just love that Albion cyclops model 😍

[Mcthew]

Thanks everyone. Priceless advice and some gobbo-lovin’ as well has restored a bit of faith. Will look to the battletome and follow suggestions.

Still like the Gloomspite styling so I’m not completely disenchanted. After all, even if you lose with Destruction it’s the manner (and mania) of losing that counts! Can say the destruction of my Desctruction was fun,  just wanna make a better fist of the next encounter... 🤨

[Gorthor21]

Like others have said your best bet is to at least pick one kind of Greenskin to focus on.  Orruks are horde dependent and need war bosses to give them more attacks.  Even with a full unit of 40 with two hand weapons you’re looking at over 400 points invested for 3 attacks re rolling 1’s to hit and wound with rend -1 and one attack.  I’m not sure about the new night goblins but they used to have similar volume of attacks just without the better stats.  At the end of the day either kind of Greenskin should be there to tarpit units while something that can deal more wounds can help them out  such as iron jaws, ogors, squigs, or the gargant.   I would recommend to either stick with a single allegiance and only ally in things that you feel would help.  

Expand all of your units for sure and have multiple hammer units to saturate your opponent’s threats.  These kinds of generic destruction armies don’t compete well but really neither do order armies or multi aligned chaos armies.  Everyone has given you sound advice just don’t give up after losing so much it is a new faction to you and your model selection does put you at a disadvantage against single allegiance armies.

[Lucio]

AoS is about synergy and stacking your buffs at the right time, in the right places.  The list described can do nothing to help each unit support another.

 

Gloomspite Gitz has several stacking options to reward focus, and is going to become strong in the hands of an aware player as a result.

 

[PlasticCraic]

One thing nobody has mentioned yet, but which I think is only fair to raise, is the risk of throwing good money after bad with some of the factions you already have models for.

On the day that the Gloomspite book came out, GW silently deleted all Greenskinz and Gitmob from their webstore.  They also repurposed a Gitmob model to be used in the Gloomspite range.  There has been no communication from them on what this means, but a lot of people are reading between the lines that their future is bleak.

I would be very, very cautious about buying anything that isn't already in a book (Ogors excepted because they have had a reboxing, and multiple mentions in the Core Book amongst other places).  So if they do come back up on the Website, or you are tempted to go fishing on eBay, or you see some shelf stock of Start Collecting Greenskinz, I would only proceed in the knowledge that whatever you buy is unlikely ever to get full support.

One futher thing worth a mention is that Destruction has been largely ignored in successive General's Handbooks.  So armies like Gutbusters, Moonclan, Gitmob and Greenskinz did not get Allegiance Abilities in the way that equivalents in other GAs did (some of whom went on to get a book).  Moonclan has now got their book, but the others have an objectively worse toolkit to work with than even non-Battletome factions from other GAs.  So yes, you are playing on hard mode with Destruction in general.  Hopefully the new Gloomspite book will put them back in contention, and given your current collection I would echo advice to acquire and build around that Battletome.

[Mayple]

@Mcthew

It has been mentioned and pointed out, but I'd like to underline it again due to it's importance. 

Your list was all wrong. You essentially forfeited the battle before you even showed up to the table. You could salvage this by playing perfectly, but nine out of ten times, you'll get tabled by a light breeze. 

Nevermind synergies. They're a bonus, or a source of extra punching power. You don't need them to win. Your approach failed on some essential principles that, if fixed, will give you a much better game experience. 

- Goblins (Grots) in any shape or form, and regular Orruks are both horde armies, as far as their infantry goes. This means that you can not under any circumstances use their infantry as minimum sized units and expect them to yield any results beyond dying, which is sometimes useful on its own, but not as your core. 

Rule of thumb; if the unit has a discount, or gain bonuses from having more models in it, you need a pretty good reason to only bring it at the smallest size, as you're crippling it by doing so. Chaff are an exception here, as they're often formed from the cheapest minimum units available, and exist only to die in place of more expensive units. 

- Age of Sigmar is a game about objectives above all else. Killing your enemy is only an option when it benefits your ability to take objectives, or prevent the opponent from doing so, or prevents him from preventing you from doing so, etc. This is how armies with zero damage output can still win. This also means that you actively have to consider how you will be able to take or contest objectives when putting your army together. If you skip that consideration, you will lose the majority of games you play, regardless of what faction you bring. 

- Destruction has so many sneaky and hard hitting unit choices available, they more than make up for a lack of allegiance abilities by their wide variety of choice. It is not even close to being a bad general allegiance. 

- "No allegiance ability" does not equal "Can not win versus anyone with a battletome" - this has been proven false repedeatedly, and should never be considered a fact. Falling into this mindset is a trap that only weakens your ability to overcome strong enemy armies.  Never think "My army can't win", always think "His army can lose" - Try to consider what units are essential to the enemy's ability to contest objectives, and break/stall/block/bait them, while you avoid them identifying your own key pieces in turn. 

 

 

tl;dr: bring more models, or use a different, more elite approach. Don't assume your units are weak just because they get destroyed. Identify -why- they didn't perform, and what you can do to fix it. 

 

Alternatively; don't over-analyze it like I do, be chill and just play for the sake of playing - but then also accept that you'll lose a fair bit, which is okay. 

Just never blame your faction again. (unless you play beastclaw raiders. You guys get a free pass )  

 

Either way, Gloomspite is one of the more solid battletomes to come out in recent time. You won't regret getting into it.

[Donal]

GROTS ARE DA BEST!

Thanks for the shout out @Malakree

 

@Mcthew - have you found the advice useful? Do you have an idea of what sort of play style you are interested in and how to improve the army? Think there has been some good advice here, but no sure if you have actionable steps to take next?

 

[gnaleinad]

@Mayple Thanks for over analysing. 

I love destruction. When Age of Sigmar first landed I was killing Stormcast and Khorne without trying.

Even when SCGT point system came out(which evolved into GHB), almost every other list using every other point system had nothing on us. 

Seraphon and Everchosen also had no chance. 

We had the longest range weapon in the game. Doomdivers. No line of sight. 

Although one can argue that the Bolt thrower from the Aelves and Duardin were even more awesome, they were hard to buy, destruction artillery were easy to get. Oh although Cannons had a really special combo but it was easy to shut them down. 

When playing 2k games,  4 spear chukkas or rock lobbers and 3 big block of 60 Gitmob Archers won me every game. It was pure cheese. 

When playing 1k games having 2 spear chukkas can change a game.

2 Grot Spear Chukkas side by side can reroll hit rolls, place them on a pre2018 mystical terrain and you might even get to reroll wound rolls.

Line of sight weapons can be easily countered so Rock lobbers are great as you can place then in pre2018 damned terrain to get that +1 to their hit rolls, and they generate another shot on a 5+.

Rend -2 long range attacks were banes of characters, unless it's Nagash or Archaon.

Doomdivers only had rend -1, but 50" range is no joke. 

Seeing your opponent removing their general and important synergy characters in disbelief is funny. 

Even against a Bonesplitterz Kunnin Ruk list they were strong, will have to swap the spear chukkas to rock lobbers and kill his heroes because they always keep the important one out of sight.

2015 they were top tier. So were the smelly Seraphon and Tomb kings.

In 2016 and the meta change a little destruction were still damn good, and 2017 was the worse ever because they removed the battalion for Gitmob. They were a winning battalion in 2k games, imagine 60 Grots archers hitting on 2+ wounding on 3+ with -1 rend, with another 120 shots hitting on 2+ wounding on 4+.

Gone were the days. But that was also the days of infinite Tomb kings and Ripperdactyl combo.

Destruction were great once. 

Make destruction great again. Release the Sky Pirates Orruks and Grots!