Is the great gitmob broken?

[Planar]

Hello there. 

 Here's an interesting(?) play that took place last night on a 1000pt Grots VS Chaos game. We were playing the CONSUMED scenario from the Generals Handbook.

There was one big unit of 60 grots defending the ritual site. According to the rules these had the following bonuses:

+1 to hit plus +1 to wound from being Great Gitmob rule (outnumbering Chaos knights more than 2 to 1)

+2 to hit from the Goblins Unruly Rabble rule (unit has more than 30 models)

+1 to hit, wound and save from the ritual site rule of the scenario

+1 to wound and -1 rend from the shaman casting sneakin stabbin on them every single turn

This resulted on this unit having the followng stats:

To Hit 1+, to Wound: 2+, Rend -1, Save 4+ (5+ from shied plus +1 from the ritual site)

Attaking with spears and being 60 deep without battleshock tests (Inspiring presence) they ripped everything apart everything thrown at them. Chaos Chosen, Chaos knight, Chariots. Everything...

Being new players so there is a good chance we did somethng really wrong The funny thing is that we are still playtesting various armies so this was not entirely intentional. Have you seen this before? Is there a known way to deal with it? Or its just bad gaming style to pile up stats like this and hack the game?

 

[Nico]

Pew pew, or particularly Prosecutors with Javelins.

Pure Slaves to Darkness are the worst army in the game, so it's not surprising that you lost.

[Planar]

I actually played the gobbos but felt pretty bad about it

[Double Misfire]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

Pure Slaves to Darkness are the worst army in the game, so it's not surprising that you lost.

Shurely shome mishtake?

[Double Misfire]

Big units of hordey type things like clanrats and skeletons were pretty terrifying when I first started playing after AoS came out, they can get insanely nasty once you've added up bonuses for being in a big unit, warscroll battalions and buffing spells. The best way to deal with them is to thin their numbers out with shooting so they loose their bonuses for being in a huuuuge unit and to try and snipe the characters helping them out with spells and buffs using magic and/or artillery if you can.

If you've come to AoS from previous editions of Warhammer, Chaos Knights and the majority of heavy cav not considered elite enough to have 'Grail' or 'Blood' as part of their unit name now play rather differently to what most people are used to or expect from a unit of guys holding sharp sticks on horses. Whether by accident or design they're now much more fast moving, hard to kill speedbumps and objective grabbers than linebreakers, expected to chew through a big unit in a single turn.

[Nico]

The Grot Shaman is really easy to take out with 4 wounds and a diddums save. 

Mortars make a mess of these blocks or Drycha if Sylvaneth.

[Planar]

6 hours ago, Double Misfire said:

Big units of hordey type things like clanrats and skeletons were pretty terrifying when I first started playing after AoS came out, they can get insanely nasty once you've added up bonuses for being in a big unit, warscroll battalions and buffing spells. The best way to deal with them is to thin their numbers out with shooting so they loose their bonuses for being in a huuuuge unit and to try and snipe the characters helping them out with spells and buffs using magic and/or artillery if you can.

True dat! I have seen that playing the Icewind assualt against skaven. 

6 hours ago, Double Misfire said:

If you've come to AoS from previous editions of Warhammer, Chaos Knights and the majority of heavy cav not considered elite enough to have 'Grail' or 'Blood' as part of their unit name now play rather differently to what most people are used to or expect from a unit of guys holding sharp sticks on horses. Whether by accident or design they're now much more fast moving, hard to kill speedbumps and objective grabbers than linebreakers, expected to chew through a big unit in a single turn.

Also very true! We come from a looooong absense in the game (about 20 years or 5th edition that is )so everything is so much changed now!!!. Chaos is certainly nowhere near as scary as it used to be. Greenskins on the othe hand remain as much fun as they always were just more reliable as they no longer fight among themselves  

 

 

 

 

[Double Misfire]

Just now, Planar said:

Greenskins on the othe hand remain as much fun as they always were just more reliable as they no longer fight among themselves  

Much more reliable is just code for less fun to play against.  

[Nico]

Quote

Shurely shome mishtake? 

They are literally worse than Beastmen - they at least have Bestigor and a real command ability.

[Darth Alec]

This kids, is why you always have some sort of ranged option, even if it's just a wizard. Sounds like a bad case of being outbuffed. Your opponent simply didn't have the tools to win that. He should have killed your shaman, not the unit. Once the shaman is down, the unit crumbles (but does solid damage whilst so).

 

 

[someone2040]

So I think there are a few things going on here which led to the unit being so good.

First, I don't know the particular scenario being played here (Consumed), but by reading the original post it seems to be a single point objective scenario. This is obviously a scenario in that case where this kind of strategy can work out well as you just need to buff a single unit on the objective, and use the rest of your stuff to stall and keep other stuff away.

Additionally, this seems to be a defender/attacker type scenario. Which again, helps out the whole plonk a large unit and buff it to the extreme type strategy. If you want to evaluate things 'competitively' then you might want to play more mirrored scenarios such as those from Matched Play. If you're not into that, then just be aware that attacked/defender type scenarios probably play better if both players are aware of the scenario being played and who will be attacking/defending as well. Because these type of scenarios aren't 'mirrored', one thing you can also do is replay the scenario but switch sides. See if your 60 Goblins fare as well when they're on the attacking side of the board.

 

The second comes to the opponents list. Chaos (especially Slaves to Darkness) will struggle due to lack of way to take out threats from afar. The Shaman is obviously a problem here, but depending on the terrain and other units, it might be quite difficult to engage the Shaman up close. 

It's also a lot harder at 1000 points to have answers for everything. You need to make compromises somewhere, and unless you know what type of scenario you are playing up front this can mean that the games end up being a bit one sided. At 1000 points if I was taking my Slaves to Darkness I might have a Chaos Sorcerer and Marauder Horsemen at best. At worst I might have neither.

 

Lastly, yes. Having more and better synergies seems to quite quickly becoming what AoS is more about. If you don't have some kind of thing your list does really well, you may not so well against a list that does. In this case, your list has your goblin gitmob buffed to the extreme as it's 'thing'. Slaves don't have a lot of synergies to play with, and hence they don't really have this 'thing' that stands out in their list.

 

So short version, there are definitely a few things at play here. Scenario is probably a large one, but opponents list is also part of the problem. Great Gitmob hasn't been busting up the tournament scene, it's just a case of nice synergy.