Acrozatarim

The section in the Warclans book about Mount Traits specifically says you only get to pick one hero to have one of the traits. I'm pretty sure the core then classifies them as an enhancement, ie you can get extras via the usual ways of adding enhancements through the relevant battalions.

My experience with Gutrippaz has been honestly pretty positive. Overpriced? A little. But they've got serious punch just while hanging around within 12 of a Sludgeraker, no need for a shaman babysitter as well (though it's nice).

Started a 1000pt Path to Glory campaign today, and got in our first battle; rolled up the Breakthrough battleplan. Noisy Racket definitely helped take the bite out of the enemy's first turn, and the 10-man Gutrippaz did some serious work while keeping within 12" of the Sludgeraker, mowing through a 20-man Mortek Guard unit and its attendant Mortisan. The poor Sludgeraker just couldn't catch a break though. Never rolled so many 1s on attack rolls, and didn't roll a single 6 on his attacks all game

How has Gobsprakk performed for you? Has he been worth it compared to another, cheaper Killaboss on Vulcha with more melee killing power?

Can you explain a bit about how this army list works in practice and what its strengths/weaknesses are? I'm struggling slightly to envisage what the overall strategy is, particularly wrt to the big birds.

Someone was saying on that thread that it's not the same as the NDA people were signing last week at Gencon, either. So it'd have to be super-recent if it is legit.

You can't really ignore the mortals, though; they're absolutely crucial to Boltboyz and Gutrippaz both. Ignore them, and you might as well replace your Boltboyz with Hobgrots as well, because if it were all 'just' regular wounds the Hobgrots do more damage there too! But the mortal wounds are there and they're absolutely critical to the way the army functions, and to the synergies with the Sludgeraker and shaman. The Sludgeraker aura alone causes Gutrippa damage to absolutely take off, even in just a 10-man unit, and Gutrippaz get more out of the aura than even Boltboyz do. I agree that Hobgrots are decent - hence why I referred to them as skirmishers as well rather than just chaff/screens - but they aren't going to do the job of Gutrippaz, and I think relying on Hobgrots alone to hold back the enemy army while your Boltboyz shoot is probably not going to work out all that well in play. I would always want some Hobgrots in my army, so I'm really not trying to rubbish them. Edit: Ironically enough, I was mostly preparing myself to be defending Hobgrots in this thread rather than be talking them down at all

I mean, you take Gutrippaz with Big Yellers because for their points they're more resilient and more killy in melee, hilariously more so when in 12" of a Sludgeraker. Hobgrotz are great as screens/skirmishers and bodies on objectives, don't get me wrong, but I'd be really worried with an army that's nothing but missile troops and screens that there's so little to counterpunch with - especially if the enemy have missile troops of their own and can just shoot your Boltboyz.

While Gutrippaz are probably a bit overcosted, I think generally people are underestimating them as well. They're genuinely pretty solid - just fiddlier to use than the simplicity of the Boltboyz. But I suspect really shooting-heavy Kruleboyz armies are going to struggle.

Honestly, assuming a 4+ armour save, unless the smaller hero has a good number of Wounds - like, 10 or more - Killbows are worse at small hero sniping than Boltboyz. 9 Wounds or less, which is where most smaller heroes lie, the Boltboyz are going to do more damage on average, and have a higher potential spike damage for that kind of target. However, the Killbow can do it by pointing and clicking from within 24" (or, let's face it, 27") range, whereas the Boltboyz need to close to their shorter range band to get that sort of killing power. Edit: Got the calcs for Wounds when shooting a target with LOS wrong!

The Killbow is basically a very powerful hunting rifle. You want to fire it at tough targets where its higher Rend and high damage potential can make large holes in things. The Killbow also has a range-based advantage. While it still has to target pretty high-Wound units to actually pull ahead of Boltboyz on damage, notably that's calculated against Boltboyz firing Hasty Shot - which they need to get within that shorter range for. The Killbow fires at maximum efficiency within its longer range. There's also the psychological impact. I'm not convinced the Killbow is better than another unit of Boltboyz in a lot of situations, but the potential to reach out and tear massive chunks out of usually-resilient targets at considerable range is probably going to have an effect on how opponents react to its presence.

Worth noting that Skumdrekk's weapon is slightly worse than a regular Snatchaboss's - he has 4 attacks at damage 2, while the Snatchaboss has 3 attacks at damage 3.

I'm not so sold on the superiority of the vulcha-riding Killaboss. He's good, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he's a must-pick. Compared to a Gnashtoof-rider he's about as resilient (4 more wounds but the Gnashtoof hits the extremely good 3+ save watermark). If the Gnashtoof gets a charge, then the vulcha-rider is only .4 wounds ahead of the Gnashtoof on average against a 4+ save target (7.8 wounds vs 7.4 wounds). The vulcha-rider also has a very large base which can be handy for spreading that battleshock resistance around, but is also more difficult to bubble-wrap with screens, and more difficult to fit into a densely-packed warband gathered round a Sludgeraker to give that battleshock resistance to in the first place. What you're getting for your 70 points is the flying, it being a monster for VPs, and the (really good!) command ability power. Since a Killaboss seems to be often getting slotted in primarily for the battleshock resistance, though, I'm not convinced that every list is going to have the 70 or 130 points left over just to give him a prestige mount when those points could go on more shooting or towards another Sludgeraker. Or, indeed, on Gobsprakk, since plenty of folks do seem to see him as pretty solid regardless.

I figure he'll find his way into lists if folks start testing a lot and find the Kruleboyz come up short on CPs, but I don't think we're necessarily a CP-intensive army. Killabosses obviate the need for the battleshock command, and AOA isn't as appealing on units engineered to be VEW Mortal Wound delivery vehicles.

I think the shamans absolutely count. In my (limited, obviously) experience thus far, even shamans assigned to boltboy escort will likely have a turn to chuck a spell, while gutrippa escorts likely have more leeway for casting. You're not going to set the world on fire with swampcalla spellcasting but our spells are potent enough that when you do get one off, the other side feels it. And, of course, the non-casting poisons and elixirs give you flexibility; against foes with less casting prowess you can try and cast more spells, while against magical powerhouses you can focus as much as possible on poisons and elixirs which they cant dispel without feeling like you're wasting the shamans' points. I think one issue is that there's no intermediary step between swampcallas - which you need anyway - and Gobsprakk. Straight from a cheap support character to a 300 point jack-of-all trades. We don't have a non-unique 'caster lord' tier of shaman in the 150-250 range, or a mounted shaman with a different theme and spell, or whatnot. If you really want to push magic, you need Gobsprakk, and at that point you need to rejig your whole list a lot to fit his 300-point feathery backside in.

We do need to avoid falling into grass-is-greener thinking already, yeah. It would be a surprise if the first attempts at Kruleboy lists didn't struggle with what is one of the top army lists in the game right now. Even then, I don't think it's impossible to tackle. Kruleboyz can throw an absurd output of Mortal Wounds, more than Lumineth can manage (with the caveat that Lumineth have more ability to project those Mortal Wounds with precision). The real trick is getting those Mortal Wounds into a priority target at the same time. Edit: Removed Sludgeraker comment because I misread the damage calculations!

It doesn't stack as in you don't get the extra Sludgeraker MW on 5s, but you can affect a unit with both a Shaman (so it MWs on a 5 and a 6) and a Sludgeraker (so it gets +1 MW on a 6) simultaneously. So stacking both on one unit effectively triples that unit's MW output. Some of the maths mentioned above is a bit off, I think? 10 Gutrippaz is 21 attacks, so with both Sludge and Shaman they're doing 10.5 MW + 0.875 wounds vs a 4+, for a total of 11.375 wounds. The Mirebrute's also getting an average of +4 attacks rather than just +2. I haven't dug into the rest of the numbers because I'm too lazy One concern I have with Sludgerakers is their fragility. Slightly more wounds than a Breakaboss but much less sustain - they don't have the innate regen, and they're below the crucial Bravery breakpoint at 6 compared to a Breakaboss's 7 for Heroic Recovery, so they'll fail to heal more often than not. I really feel like they need a ward save, which makes me really leery of taking Skumdrekk over a generic Snatchaboss.

My outline for a non-Yellers 2k list is currently something like this: 315 Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker 170 Killaboss on Gnashtoof 105 Swampcalla Shaman 105 Swampcalla Shaman 180 Breakaboss on Mirebrute 180 10 x Gutrippaz 180 10 x Gutrippaz 180 10 x Gutrippaz 240 6 x Boltboyz 130 Beast-skewer Killbow 80 10 x Hobgrot Slittaz 80 10 x Hobgrot Slittaz Which leaves 55 points for an Endless Spell or whatnot. It's not horrifically efficient or tuned; could probably do with shuffling to add another Killbow at least. (Edit: Or drop the Mirebrute and a Hobgrot Unit for another Sludgeraker). But it brings plenty of bodies and the pieces needed for a poison-generating machine. One Swampcalla babysits the Boltboyz, another scoots along with the Gutrippaz to boost whichever unit is best positioned for it; either casts a spell opportunistically if the Boltboyz need to move or poison/elixir recipients are in melee already. Probably throw Amulet of Destiny on the Snatchaboss, Arcane Tome on the Killaboss, Supa Sneaky as the command trait to redeploy a Gutrippaz unit or the Mirebrute as a threat. Not quite sure yet how the mount traits stack up; Fast 'Un on the Mirebrute lets it hurtle around like a cruise missile, Loud 'Un or Mean 'Un make the Sludgeraker nastier in melee, Smelly 'Un makes it more survivable.

He's reasonably cheap and in a magic-heavy meta he's probably actually pretty good, but there's a lot of things competing for even that small slice of points in a Kruleboy army. When I get to the point of thinking whether I can fit the Murknob in, I'm also looking at a unit of hobgrotz to give me screening, zoning, and objective capture, or maybe an Emerald Lifeswarm for a touch more resilience, or boosting a foot Killboss up onto a Gnashtoof, or whatnot. You are often gonna see 2 Swampcallas, yeah, though I think 3 is a trap with diminishing returns.

Thing is, I think you need all those things anyway in a Kruleboy list, so it's no great loss A unit of 10 Gutrippaz (with spears to maximise attacks) with the Swampcalla buff and within 12 of a Sludgeraker is dealing an average 10.5 mortal wounds in melee, or 'just' 7 mortal wounds with only one of those support pieces - most armies wish they had that sort of MW output.

I'm not feeling so down on Gutrippaz - I think they are a bit overcosted, but not by a huge amount. VEW buffs from the shaman and sludgeraker synergise with them better than with Boltboyz for total MW output (with the obvious caveat that Gutrippaz dont have the same range), and I think a Killaboss is pretty much a must either way for Kruleboyz whether you're going Boltboy or Gutrippa heavy.

I mean, wave 2 would be one thing, but a wave 2 where they show a second wave model along with first wave models before those first wave models are even out seems... unlikely?

Also, for the compulsory Sludgeraker: If taking a Snatchaboss, what do people think for ward save protection? Amulet of Destiny, or Egomaniak?

So our magic's in a bit of a funny place. Great spells, but reasonably high casting values and our Swampcalla's are going to spend a lot of their time on poisons and elixirs - which of course makes them fantastic even in oppressive magic metas since we'll still get a lot of value out of them. It does mean, though, that we're not likely to be making that many casting attempts in a game just with Swampcallas. Gobsprakk opens things up a bit with his two casts, of course. The Mouth of Mork does feel reasonably priced for what he brings, but I'm still struggling to fit him in to most of the lists I'm eyeing after a Sludgeraker, piles of Boltboyz and Gutrippaz, along with mandatory Swampcallas and a Killaboss for battleshock protection. Arcane Tome as a second artefact on the Killaboss might open up a bit more spellcasting flexibility though. I started looking at Endless Spells. We don't need stuff that causes mortal wounds, and without Spell Portal stuff like Soulsnare Shackles feels more liability than anything else. The most interesting option there seems to me to be the Emerald Lifeswarm, which could give a bit more resilience to our army, whether keeping Gutrippaz in the fight or protecting the vital Sludgeraker.

I honestly love those Kruleboyz models.