Scurvydog

Yea, I might use that if the going gets really tough, most opponents would probably hate using that trick though

That is probably true, the extra spells, especially with the new realm spells does make a fungoid quite useful (like +2 run and charge from Ghur) and even handing out mystic shield to the MK, but I do agree that this might not be better than more board coverage, both to have more redundant units to go grab objectives, as well as zoning/screening, sometimes you just need those 5 ardboyz to sit there and keep outflanking/teleporting units away etc. I might try your approach to the list, maybe just doing 3 more gruntas instead og 5 more brutes and be at 2000 pts, this gives another faster moving element, to potentially catapult 18" for 1 CP if needed, 3 guys could still take down other objective grabbers like 20 grots/liberators etc or minor heroes on their own. The ironclad combo is indeed something I thought about, my local mates scorn me for always finding some "unkillable combo", my latest tournament being with a stardrake with +1 save aura and +1 save buff with the ignore rend 1 artifact, sitting on a 1+ reroll 1's (reflecting mortal wounds when rerolling and saving...) and healing 1 wound on a 5+ save against anything but rend 2+... now that is tough! It does cost the -1 to be hit round 1, a handy command ability and D3 command points from the shaman trait, to get that tougher MK. However I am aware how incredibly more durable a 2+ is than 3+, especially with mystic shield or all out defense. My main concern is how prevalent Fyreslayers are in tournaments, with 4 cookie cutter lists in my last outing this weekend alone, I had to face 2 in my 5 games. I am trying to come up with ways Ironjawz could handle such list, while my mortal wound raining stormcast could pick of the buffing heroes, IJ cant do that if they are half decently screened by hearthguard berzerkers. Anyone got experience dealing with that? tips and tricks?

Preparing for an upcoming tournament I thought about bringing out the boyz. Big Whaagh is strong and all, but I really like the flexible style of Ironjawz. I have been used to running ethereal on the MK and going without a clan for brutish cunning, but perhaps it is time for something different. After having faced KO, Cities, Seraphon and Tzeentch, I have begun to see the value more of the Ironsunz trait in a competetive setting, as some of these armies can deliver a brutal shooting alpha strike, and being -1 to be hit can be critical to get some warchanter buffs up etc. The counter charge command can also make it hard for the opponent to take out single units in combat, as long as something else is reasonably close, the threat of doing so increases exponentially. With no realm artifacts, the sunzblessed armor is a rather good artifact now, as it was simply outdone by ethereal before. The command trait is skipped and taken for the shaman of course. I considered making him a better caster, but magic is so fickle, and command points are so useful for IJ, that doubling down on that seemed like a sure bet. Both shamans will generate another CP each on 4+, so first turn CP pool will then be between 4-8 CP in the bank, which should give a lot of options. A bit on the fence with choppas or spears on the Gruntas, so far I chose spears because I already got those painted, but I do have 6 unpainted spear boars laying around... Allegiance: Ironjawz- Warclan: IronsunzMegaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)- Boss Gore-hacka and Choppa- Artefact: Sunzblessed Armour- Mount Trait: Weird 'UnOrruk Warchanter (110)- Warbeat: Fixin' BeatOrruk Warchanter (110)- Warbeat: Killa BeatOrruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)- General- Command Trait: Dead Kunnin'- Artefact: Great Green Visions- Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of GorkFungoid Cave-Shaman (90)- Allies15 x Orruk Ardboys (300)10 x Orruk Brutes (260)- Pair of Brute Choppas6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320)- Pig-iron ChoppasIronfist (160)Extra Command Point (50)Total: 1980 / 2000Extra Command Points: 2Allies: 90 / 400Wounds: 127

I think the scale is fine for what they are supposed to be. Katakros himself is still twice the height of a person and towers over all stormcast as well, which seems fitting while not being some kind of lumbering giant which could not even fit into any buildings or hold a war council. I think his size in that regard is just right. The stalkers I think are fine too and morghasts, also significantly larger than most units, much bigger taller than Orruk brutes but maybe more in line with troggoths, who should be pretty big. The Mortek fits the lore as they are now, basically just regular human size, so the sclae is not off, but I agree on a fundamental design and concept level it would have been really cool if they were Deaths answer to stormcast and chaos warriors. Why make them construct golems if they are the size of skeletons anyway with the relative same toughness and strength, that seems a bit like a waste of effort for those crafted souls. The deathriders are pretty cool and the mounts are pretty bulky, however I would have liked if they were all something like the liege Kavalos on the far larger construct. The harvester though does seem a little bit small, although I like it on the tabletop that it is not a huge base monster, it makes it more useful in the support role. It is MUCH larger on most artwork though. It would have been interesting to see the OBR battleline be somewhere in between the current Morteks and the Immortis guard, merging those looks for a slightly smaller immortus with only 1 set of arms could have been pretty effective I think.

With MP being the go to now for Katakros builds, it would make sense even though it doubles down a bit on the same stuff Katakros does (being a liege). It is hard to get Katakros in 12" range of his +1 attack command though, and having zandtos run along a big unit of deathriders could maybe work, he is quite killy on the charge as well and he provides the 2 RDP himself to buff a unit with both +1 attack and reroll 1s to wound. With that setup it would still only be 6 drops, not the best, but in my experience it is also below a lot of other lists right now still.

With reroll 1 to hit and reroll wounds on the dracoths on 4 guys their output becomes quite something, and denoying pile ins if rolling any 6s can be HUGE. Rolling those 6s to wound for the dracoths is fun too, the look on one of the fyreslayer players face when I rolled 3 6s and he failed his saves just to see me rolling 4, 6, 6 just for those 3 attacks was priceless!

Yes total commitment basically removes the base SCE allegiance ability completely, and it puzzles me it is still in the book, when duality of death got removed, which severely punished some types of lists as well. This tournament used all the new GHB2020 stuff, but with set realms, so we had Blades Edge set in Ghyran, Border War in Aqshy. 3 Places of Power in Ulgu, Forcing the Hand in Hysh, and Blood and Glory in Ghur. I really liked that pack overall, with some fun missions and some more straight forward ones as well. The realm did have some impact, both frustrating and hilarious stuff happened, such as the terrible KO matchup made worse by his boats being next to healing terrain in Ghyran, with his heroes rolling a 6 two turns in a row, healing all my dragons and primes damage twice... Also in Aqushy, my 5 liberators gambled i volcanic cover, which lost them a man, however 2 angry magmadroths tried to fry them with their d6 MW breath, which needs to roll requal or below the unit model count to hit, both magmadroths rolling 5! Forcing him to dedicate one of the monsters to deal with the distraction. Ghur was handy for the dragon being able to fight at full power despite having taken damage for 1 CP, having access to a +2 run and charge spell in wildform also really makes a difference in an army with little access to bonuses like that.

From what I can tell, this might be one of the most competetive ways of running OBR moving forward. I have a set core in mind, but with 400 pts to move around. I know 2 catapults would be a popular choice, but I am not convinced it is the only choice. I am unsure about just taking 1 catapult and if it then might be best to not take any at all. I have considered bumping the 5 riders to a 10 man unit, to take better advantage of their command and also better ensure they stay on the table to benefit from the healing of Arkhan and Katakros. As a 10 man unit it is also a potent hammer, as they can pile in 6", which helps with the big footprint. A harvester could be interesting, which could also greatly improve the durability of the morteks, especially if one unit is being used as a frontline screen to take on any bloodthirsters or other nasty business with high damage and MW output. The main weaknes seems to be if Arkhan is shot down, with a double turn tzeentch magic phase or KO shooting phase etc. So Immortis guards could be of assistance and also more safely let Arkhan engage next to those guys in melee as well. Thoughts? Core list: Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers- Legion: Mortis PraetoriansArkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament (360)Katakros, Mortarch of the Necropolis (500)- General20 x Mortek Guard (260)- Nadirite Blade and Shield20 x Mortek Guard (260)- Nadirite Blade and Shield5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)- Nadirite Blade and ShieldNightmare Predator (40)Total: 1600 / 2000Extra Command Points: 0Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 86

The power level was quite high in the tournament (https://tabletop.to/battle-of-copenhagen-2020-summer-edition) and with 36 players it might have been one of the largest events this summer. 4 Fyreslayers lists in total and I got 2 games against them, which i also a tough matchup, both due to 4+ ignore wound saves on hearthguards, but they also all brought the banner artifact on the battlesmiths for 4+ to ignore spells, which really puts a huge dent in Kroaks output, unless the dragon and prime can snipe that banner. The finals was a Bonereaper list vs Tzeentch guild of summoners, ending in a draw with a nailbiting game to say the least. Tzeentch won the event due to points (4 major wins with 4/4 secondaries and just the draw in the end). Some of these lists include a bunch of NPE as well, with probably Tzeentch being the worst, as the list would have 3 lords of change på BR 3 usually and the board and objectives flooded in blue and brimstone horrors. I do think Starcast is the only way to even compete in that top meta though and getting 5/5 will take both a lot of hard work and some luck of the draw as well. Now I will have to consider if the dragon will roll out again in the next event in 2 months time.

Actually another Starcast took 3rd place, while I just placed above the middle, due to 2 of my wins only being minor wins. His list was similar but instead of concussors and liberators, he had judicators as battleline, incantor, arcanum and everblaze comet. I will in my defense say that he probably got some better matchups than I did, and with nothing to really hold the line, I could see that being a problem if he had my matchups, although from what I saw he did play really well and less aggressive than I do. I will say that Kroak is a MAJOR factor, the list is nowhere near the same level without him and he did major damage and fed my army with CP all the time, letting me reroll 1s to hit, use realm commands and reroll mount wounds basically all the time, making the concussors beasts, my opponent who lost 10 hearthguard to their charge alone and then could not pile in due to their 6s, was stunned, most people have never even tried playing against concussors I do hope SC will stand better on their own, have better stormhost rules (we got overlaps with the generic GHB commands jeez) and be able to put up a fair fight, as the best lists currently rely on a lot of "shenanigans", and starcast is certainly also a NPE for many opponents, which despite mostly good games, two of my opponents had a hard time staying positive, as things exploding across the board without any counterplay. My prime did die in a few games, mostly as a calculated risk to get a good shot and then "distraction carnifex" the focus on him, and deliver a hard counter punch with the dragon and concussors. I did not save him for turn 2 even once, his shooting is so useful and after kroak and stardrake peppers things with MW, his ability to snipe a hero for a guaranteed 3 MW if needed is priceless. With kroak I usually had spare spell slots, to give him mystic shield, and tried to keep him near the dragon if I was not confident in attacking, giving him a 2+ reroll 1s save. He did die in the last turn against a fyreslayer player, when I took his backline objective, but he took it back with a heavily wounded magmadroth, charging in, using CP to deliver d6 MW and had the ogor style charge mount trait, rolling 6 on the d6 and 3 6s with 8 dice for the charge... If I put him down from the sky in a risky spot, I will usually use a reserve liberator unit as well to place in front of him for a screen. That is not always enough though, especially wiht long bomb charges and double turns at times, but he is very much risk/reward for me.

I find them quite good. Meeting engagements favor speedy units due to the few turns and late arrivals from board edges. Deathriders are great, they might not be the wall as mortek are, but they are super fast and still a great cav unit in their own right. I kavalos is of course also a decently fast general, Arkhan could also be a possible choice of leader for this, with a group of mortek in the main body and riders for spearhead and rear guard or stalkers. OBR work decently well without battalions and all kinds of crutches and specialist builds for meeting engagements, while some 2k armies really need all the bells and whistles to raise their power exponentially.

Yea I really got no idea where to put Nagash now in OBR, losing both +1 save but also the non stacking damage ignores from protection of nagash really hurts the build. PArt of me wants null myriad, but it is really useless against any lists without magic to speak of, but will be really really good against some meta armies like Hallowheart, Tzeentch, Kroak and soon Teclis lists. Stalliarch is always decent, run+charge is always nice to have, mobility wins games after all and maybe using 2 units of deathriders could also see play for the cmd. Crematorium is rather meh all around and difficult to get much value from. MP does debuff bravery which helps with soul stealer and the few non battleshock immune armies out there... The artifact is ok if you bring a Liege for some DP generation, which could also be important for that once per game D3 on a critical turn perhaps, as a Nagash list will hunger for RDP. Immortis guard might even have a use to keep him standing... maybe.

yes yes it is there now. I keep pushing ctrl+enter to do linebreaks on reflex but that submits the post instead :s

Tournament over. Ended up winning 3 out of 5 games and had a lot of fun overall. My list: LCoSD Castellant Kroak Prime 3x5 libs 4xconcussors Game 1 was against KO in Baldes Edge as I mentioned before. Despite trying to zone him out some with kroak and 3 units of liberators (rest in the skies). Still lost Kroak just barely and had 4 liberators in 1 unit left. KO sat on 5/6 obj. Turn 2 I landed the rest of the army, got unlucky with my drake shots and did not do too much damage otherwise with the prime shooting. Failed all charges with cmd rerolls as well, so sat there like a fool. After that things were slow, I managed my secondaries killing all his heroes and keeping my drake alive, but otherwise a major loss on obj, I could not get to them all, while he had boats and endrinriggers flying around. Game 2 was Border War against fyreslayer lords of the lodge list with 2 magmadroths. I should have pulled more back, but I got double turned and he got run+charge runes and maxed his run with a cmd and got 10" charge, so 20 angry dwarfs with rend 2 axes and fight twice on the dragon just killed it. I came back though, got his heroes shot down, concussors managed to kill the hearthguards and gryph hound killed 2 with somehow over 2 rounds. Kroak was the game winner here and prime, those to got enough mortal wounds the right places so I managed a minor win and 2/4 secondary points gained. Game 3 was 3 places of power against DoK, he did not have a battalion and I actually got 1st turn with my 8 drops. I got 3 wounds on Morathi in elf form, sat the dragon on center point, prime on 1 other and bunkered down there. I could reach his lines turn 1 in the middle while having the dragon within 3", and killed so so many elfs. He could not get any +rend spells of so all those 0 rend witch aelfs just bounced. 83 attacks doing 1 damage on the concussors (gave them the castellant buff for charging next to dragon). Major win. Game 4 was the new plan Forcing the Hand against another Fyreslayers, no magmadroths but 20 more hearthguards woth poleaxes (oh oh). I baited him in the middle, just barely loosing the prime there after some nice shooting on a bunched up hero blob, he got a long long bomb 12" charge and 2 rounds of fighting, taking the prime down sadly, but I counter attacked with concussors and dragon next turn, which wiped them to 1 wounded dwarf! I managed to screen his 20 poleaxe guys with liberators, so he only got a few in combat with the concussors on his charge next turn, taking only 4 damage and killing 3 liberators. My counter attack killed all of them on my turn. Eventually the long combat in the center lost me the game, as he had 2 gunhaulers doing fly high, getting lucky shots on my liberators and grabbing more objectives than I wanted... I got them eventually but the game ended 22-21 and I got 3/1 secondaries while tabling him, with both kroak, dragon, castellant and 3 concussors alive still. Major loss due to 1 point Game 5 was Blood or Glory against Eels (Deepkin). I bunkered down, screening out the coming 2x6 outflanking eels, while waiting for turn 3 to get them in, I managed to kill his Eidolon of the storm with shooting and ranged, kill 1 3 man unit of eels, half kill his king and 2 other eel units which were on the table. I used my concussors as bait, they took the charge of king and all eels and died gloriously. Now all those eels and the king stood in a bunch and the celestant prime smiled. My bunkering won me the game easily with a tabling, but it also cost me the major win, as I was just a few inches short of reaching the 4th objective (need all 4 at once for a major win). I got a minor win and 2/2 secondaries as my bait liberators did not die (first time all liberator units survived!).

Regarding Celestant Prime, I got into a discussion regarding his "retribution from on high", we have been playing it with the Scions of the storm rule of 1 unit on the table for each in the celestial realm, however I got to thinking, that nothing on the Primes warscroll mentions this and the ability seems completely unrelated. For example, would it then not be possible to have 3 units of liberators on the board and 3 in the celestial realm and then also the prime in the heavens in reserve?

Yes that is about the same I came up with, pretty rough first pairing for my first tournament. My fear among 36 participants was the 2 very similar KO lists and 2 Seraphon kroak+salamander teleport lists. These lists does a similar trick to starcast, but just better and a battle is completely on their terms due to the ability to teleport/fly high. A slann doing a teleport and then the dracothions tails ability to drop down salamander units in your face, combined with their own MW antics is too much. 2x3 sallis alone has the average output to kill a stardrake turn 1 by themselves and can guarantee their positioning with teleports. Next greatest fear is probably a fyreslayer player who got smart and put his battalion hero on a magmadroth and MW pole axes on the berzerkers.

Bringing my starcast to a tournament starting next saturday. I know my first matchup is going to be against a KO list, in the plan Bleeding Edge and taking place in Ghyran. My list is LCoSD with the usual and chamon artifact. Prime. Castellant. Kroak. 3x5Libs. 4xConcussors. Balewind. My great fear is Warp lightning and spell in a bottle, with Barak Ziflin he can move his skyvessel in the hero phase, making it impossible for me to deploy out of range, as he can fly high in the hero phase as well... This way he can guarantee a LOT of MW as it deals dmg in his hero phase, his move phase and my move phase. If he lets me go first, he might even get dmg in two of his move phases, which on average would cripple my dragon and kill the castellant. Regardless the castellant will not be long for this world and the drake will be on the back foot with his source of healing gone and heavivuly wounded from pure MW. Not to mention his Frigate has the skymines giving up to d6 MW on a 4+ to a target within 6". With all this and his shooting it is not even unlikely he just deletes whatever is on the board from the start. As I see it my options are few and not great, especially in bleeding edge with all objectives near the center. I could place kroak and some liberators and just accept them all dying, wiht look out sir kroak could be lucky, but likely not with thunderers, endrinriggers, frigate and an ironclad + heroes blasting on him. Then bring down my dragon, concussors and prime the next round, but he could just block me out and my chance of doing anything useful is slim. In this scenario he would probably just hold back on the warp lightning and just fly high and nuke my tiny force on the board. I'm trying to play this out in my mind, but as he has nearly all in a battalion and dictates the turn order, I see little chance of me achieving much. If I go all in, he will just take first turn to avoid my drake, prime and kroak potentially taking out his khemist with the spell in a bottle artifact. Any advice, thoughts and ideas how to play Starcast in this scenario? This really puts focus on the weakness of the list to me, with the castellant being so vulnerable too, and no ignax could just bring me back so much as to never recover.

With Tzeentch, Serpahon, Nagash and possibly LRL being really prominent with magic, Null Myriad might not be so bad, although they bring nothing against specific builds unfortunately. This hits Nagash builds the hardest though, as he already brings the reroll 1s to save. Petrifex is still a strong sub faction, most would kill for access to +1 rend, reroll 1s to save army wide, good trait and good artifact, still hard to complain, but still burns when toys are taken away. I still think they should have gone for something else, nothing makes sense for petrifex, and the Ivory host is of course left to rot still.

Katakros builds with Praetorians will probably pop up more in a somewhat weaker version than the PE build used to be. Even if he drops in wounds, he will still have 18" range on +1 save, which is still not shabby no matter how you look at it. Run with Arkhan as a buddy and you can always heal him 6 wounds per turn if need be... Yea its a nerf, but it had to happen, although the change was just lazy and uninventive and no closer to the fluff. It also steps on the toes of Nagash builds a LOT, and I doubt we will see many PE Nagash, or even OBR Nagash lists anymore, unless Seraphon, Tzeentch and Teclis lists dominate all (partially already happening), null myiad might be much more interesting looking into than the more obvious choices.

Ex Profundis made this fellow with a conversion from primarily a Megaboss and Ogroid Thaumaturge: https://www.exprofundis.com/orruk-backbreaker/ I love the look of this, the rapid growth of the Ironjawz just gone wild, beyond a Megaboss and just going completely feral. This could be either a bruiser sort of like a Dankhold troggoth in size and relative power (on a conceptual level). It could also fill a role which is becoming increasingly needed in the meta as a bodyguard unit, protecting weirdnobs and warchanters by absorbing hits, maybe even becoming more enraged and dangerous (like Fyreslayer doomseekers), making it riskier to attempt to spell snipe those warchanters and neuter the whole army (thanks warclans book!). Oh well, wishful thinking and probably won't happen. The conversion here is just so evocative by itself and springs all kinds of cool ideas!

They don't want anything to mess with the 40k 9th edition release, so putting a new faction out there, even for AoS will probably take some time. Next week we will have nothing interesting to preorder, and the week after might be some of the other new models for marines and necrons, which will be quite big releases, maybe over 2 weeks at least. We know 2 warbands for underworlds are for august, but an optimistic approach would say Sons late august, but it would make more sense with the last 2 weeks og august being Lumineth and warbands.

@DjangoYou were doing that right, you just have to have the unit recieinv the spell effect wholly within range of any part of the casting units base, so the edge works fine for the closest possible evocator. I could rant on about the "within" and "wholly within" effects all day, once enough of these effects are present it just slows the game to a crawl... Wholly within was really to combat congo lining, but 9th 40k has now dealth with that by using better unit coherency rules, so I hope we see that in 3rd edition someday and no more of those wholly within nonsense

I understand that the UK and US both struggle with this more than some others, we have it far better here in Denmark and besides some extra hand sanitizers all over the place, things are more or less normal. I will add to the statement, that stuff like that is not outragerous. This world state will be here for a long time, most will have to deal with their anxiousness at some point, or not being able to enjoy much of anything. The world is changed, this will not just go away. Why do kids play ball in the streets in wartorn countries? That seems just as outrageous, should these kids not just cower in their homes until war no longer exists, surely playing in the street can't be worth the risk of getting hit by a stray bullet. Well life is funny that way, we need to live and enjoy life, people in the west are just not used to having to live everyday life with any real conscious risk, but that is reality so many other places in the world. At least thinking about this for a second might brings things into perspective a bit more.

Could depend on the meta but against any alpha shooting armies with 1st turn your dragon could be in a world of hurt, staunch allows you to castle up and mitigate alphas a lot, it also gives you the option to succeed with a defensive strategy. Without staunch anything with rend 2 will just chew up the dragon, especially if the castellant gets focused down, then there will be real trouble. I posted about this before, but the dragon should not just get melted to MW only, so with smart play, the castallant buff and the ignore rend 1 artifact, it should be doable to find a unit to simply get to hit the dragon and heal it up that way, even if charging you should still get more 6s than failed rerolled 1's by a large magain. Staunch is just such a game maker, if you do not bring that, then I would probably look into a stormhost instead.

The tournament I am attending in two weeks time already banned Chamon realm rules, but not artifact at least. I think that is a knee ****** reaction though, just because people freak out at seeing "+1 save" anywhere. Chamon will not be the miost impactful I am sure, Shyish and Ulgu will probably end up having much more impact once people look beyond the obvious. Shyish makes all terrain nullifying, think about that for a second, extra unbinds everywhere, this realm will be a major problem for caster heavy lists. Ulgu gives the teleport command, at the END of the movement phase, for 1 CP a hero can take a unit wholly within 18" and put them wholly within 6" and 9" from enemies. This is guaranteed for 1 CP. The problem with teleports for many armies is simply the 7+ cast requirement usually, always fails or gets unbind when you actually need it. Just thinking about how Ironjawz or StD can use this... Mawkrusha flying up the board, 1 CP teleports 30 ardboyz up 9" away from enemies and enjoy the +3 to charge they got... StD with a manticore summoning 40 marauders up in front it itself 9" from enemies, now the 40 marauders only fail on snake eyes and the manticore flies 12", kan put the unit up to 6" in front of itself and 9" from enemies, that is a distance of 27" easily covered, guaranteed for 1 CP! (in fact ardboyz could get even futher, with movement in the hero phase if needed) So what do you think, does a +1 save spell sound so bad compared to the above? I think not, but of course that is an opinion, but having access to maybe 1 unit getting a +1 save buff seems far less impactful than unbinds everywhere or constant access to teleporting for 1 CP. That was a bit of sidetrack for Starcast, but realms will certainly have an impact for everyone, especially if played as intended with a player choosing based on roll of.