Aztok

I know it's kind of a touchy subject but I actually really like the new command point system and the generic command abilities. I enjoy having some resource management that I spend for different things in different armies, but having those generic boosters that just help everyone. I think it's a nice middle ground from the old style, and the 40k system where you have multiple whole pages of possibly-useful stratagems that are often so specific that it's hard to remember them. The monster endemic to the system, save stacking, is certainly a problem in some cases, but the limit on the +1 bonus to the roll makes it only really a problem with a handful of models, and I feel like most of those can be fixed on a case by case basis. Overall I just like the new command point system, and I think as more books roll out it'll be even better.

Sadly, I think that's just an inherent weakness: any army that can reach over our speed bumps and target our squishy damage dealers is going to be pretty good against us. All you can really do is either take "noisy racket" against armies that rely on a turn 1 alpha to break your teeth to try and mitigate it, or against armies that shoot without needing LoS, or you take "covered in mud" and hope you roll enough successes to cover your Boltboyz so they can sprint into cover and be safe sniping until something comes close. Lastly, you can try to offer them a distraction carnifex: a teleported mirebrute is an excellent sacrifice to keep a shooting army busy for a turn, maybe 2 if you roll fantastic or they roll poorly. If you're going first, the mirebrute can be even better if you get the charge.

With the Killbow, I find it's important against some armies, and terrible against others. If your meta has at least a couple of the following, it does ok: Thunder Lizards, Sons of Behemat, Avengorii, Gristlegore, Stormdrake Guard Spam, Beastclaw Raiders, Ironjawz, Bloodthirster Spam, and so on and so forth. If you don't have a big monster it can shoot at for 2+ turns, it ain't worth it. That being said, against Sons of Behemat they're hilariously great, as if they wound and the Gargant flubs their save, you REALLY chunk them. But, if there is 1 or 2 good targets for it, you can use the killbow to play mind games with your opponent's All-Out Defense for the turn, as they'll surely want to use it to try and block one very strong big hit, which might not even matter if you get the mortals, meaning that your Boltboyz have a softer target elsewhere. Not always the optimal strategy, but hey, it's a fun play.

Dang, @Badluck_Witch, that muddy water effect is awesome. How did you achieve it?

Had an awesome game against Stormcast last night, took a two Mirebrute list like you guys suggested. Worked out great! I was running: 2 Mirebrutes, 1 had Arcane Tome, the other had the Fast'un trait 2 Swampcalla Shaman 1 Sludgeraker General, with the Egomaniak CT 20 GR 2 units of 6 Boltboyz 20 Shootas Rippa's Snarlfangs My opponent had this list: Drakesworn Templar with Arcane Tome Lord Imperatant Bastian Carthalos 3 units of 5 Vindictors 2 Dragon Knights 1 unit of 6 Anihilators He marched everything midfield, but didn't use his pregame move, I played safely, he dropped in the Anihilators 7" away from my left flank and rolled high enough to get past my Gutrippaz and into my boltboyz, killing two, but my overwatch kills two anihilators in exchange, the anihilators kill another two boltboyz and 9 Gutrippaz (even with -1 to wound on everything, and -1 to be hit on the Gutrippaz), before the Gutrippaz and Boltboyz spike the remaining 4 to death with mortal wounds. I auto pass bravery on both squads by using Inspired, and a command point. On my turn 1 I use At the Double to shoot the Gutrippaz 11" forward onto the middle objective he controlled, and double moved my fast'un Mirebrute the same, declaring that it was his birthday (finest hour). The 6man squad of Boltboyz snap off 7 damage to Bastian, and the other squad of 2 fails a rally and just moves up through some trees. The mirebrute runs in and over kills Bastian by like 20 damage, which is glorious. After that it was mostly downhill for the Stormcast, the dragons spend a turn eating the Troggboss, and the templar runs around trying to accomplish stuff, but he can't get into my other Boltboyz and can't kill my general who keeps passing wounds to a nearby swampcalla. We both make max points each turn, but me killing all his actual threats left him with nothing to keep going. Overall, a super fun game, I could have played my positioning better on a couple places, and him forgetting the once per game move might have been really big. It continues the trend I've found of people losing their first game against Kruleboyz, then winning every subsequent time because they know all their tricks. Just wanted to say thanks to you guys for encouraging me to try the two Mirebrute lists, it worked like a dream!

They really did the lightest possible touch. Not really complaining too bad, but I would have hoped for a few more point reductions to Gutrippaz and... like everythingnin Bonesplitterz. Ah well, the changes aren't major and I don't think they'll disrupt the game too hard. At least Kragnos is actually worth considering now!

I've always liked firebellies, but I really hope that new pirate ogre is a harbinger of stuff to come, I love pirates, and I'll take Ogre, Goblin, Dwarf, Vampire, or even human (Gork forgive) ones.

I remain convinced that the original plan was to have the Beastclaw Raiders be all-mounted frost ogres, and the Gutbusters to get canned and they produce the Firebellies as an entirely infantry fire ogre army. Then they realized they have the Fyreslayers, Crematorians, Fuethan, Blisterskins, and upcoming chaos dwarfs for the fire theme, so they canned that whole concept and re-integrated the Firebelly (which would have been renamed into something like the Firebelly Pyrebelcher or whatnot). Why else would the Firebelly be placed in his own entire allegiance?

They did, but Lumineth's a special case in that High Elves were the single most popular WHFB army, so they rushed out the army as soon as they had models to ship, and did a second wave once they had another large enough grouping. As much as I love my orcs, we're nowhere as popular as elves.

I'll say this, this is the classic GW I grew up with, and I'm happy to say that even after 20 years nothing's changed. They walk in the room, mention what a big delicious cake they've got cooking in the oven, and ask us to wait til 6. Now it's 6:54, you've waited a couple hours, and all you hear coming from the other room are crashing pans and occasional sobs from the interns.

I totally get it. I really want to keep playing drakkfoot, but in my meta at least, punching through big armor saves is a little more vital than ignoring wards. I guess it comes from fighting Stormcast and Kharadron a lot. Also, @Shirtripper has absolutely got me hyped for big hordes of boarboy maniaks. Was originally dead set on Kruleboyz and was only tangentially interested in Bonesplitterz, and then the mad lad comes along with his guide and gets me excited for 'em.

I always love these write ups, thank you for doing it! It sounds like a combo of rough luck and bad matchups, combined with some poor rolls. Against Kharadron my only advice is to try and pick two objectives out of 3 and hold those. Overextending will just get you killed because KO are faster and can pick you apart. But if you force them to come to you for a fight, that works much better for you. Weirdly enough I actually think Icebone's better against Kastelai SBGL than Drakkfoot because the mortals are really good at punching through their high armor, but against vyrkos or any other SBGL Drakkfoot's better IMO. As with KO, if you suspect a big deepstrike is coming in, try and play from a corner and spread out from there, it's MUCH harder to goon you off a teleport if they can't get behind you on two sides.

I've heard rumors that the least popular (or at least worst selling) army is Idoneth Deepkin, but that it's a relatively close spread. I know my home area isn't a great metric either as it's either the least populated or second least populated warhammer area in my country, but I know that Gloomspite Gitz, Stormcast Eternals, Ironjawz, Maggotkin, Nighthaunt, and Seraphon are the armies most commonly collected, if not the most commonly played, with Sons of Behemat being somewhere in the upper middle. To answer the second half of your question, the army everyone's sick of fighting is (insert recent tournament rankings here). Sons of Behemat and Lumineth are armies I hear a lot of people grumbling about, with a couple people refusing to let go on a long-standing irritation for Kharadron Overlords and Disciples of Tzeentch. That all being said, do not let others opinions dissuade you from playing the armies you want to play. Never let others browbeat you for painting and playing the armies you think are cool. If you're trying to find an army that people won't have any qualms fighting, but isn't so bad and underpowered you're basically a glorified punching bag, Soulblight Gravelords, Slaves to Darkness, Kruleboyz, Sylvaneth, Fyreslayers, Cities of Sigmar, Ogor Mawtribes, and Ossiarch Bonereapers generally fall in the middle of the pack, barring a handful of tournament level lists that are especially strong and sweaty. But even then most people wont get mad at you for playing Lumineth if you just want to goof around and have a good time with them. Most people only get itchy when they see the maximum tournament level list stuff, and from the sound of it you're nor aiming to bring that sort of thing. I hope this helps a bit!

Kharadron are great at mobility, their damage is highly focused but good, they have an awful time taking or regaining objectives, and they do very little mortal wound damage. As a result, Stormcast are actually quite good against them, especially with anihilators and other good deep strikers that can hit hard and are tanky enough to shrug off -1 or -2 rend relatively safely. Blocking groups of Liberators are good if not necessarily because they live a long time, but because they're relatively cheap and keep deep strikers more than 9" away from your important stuff. I've seen that Kharadron have a "sweet spot" of about 12 inches, meaning they do their most damage at that range, and so if you have stuff in front and behind your key components placed just so that the KO player needs to place himself 13 or more inches away, the damage falls off a good bit. Great shooting also helps, and any good KO player will avoid letting strong shooting ever get a shot, but at the same time that gives you a big bubble of safety to place stuff in, so those Longstrike Bows are great for teleporting in, Chunking ships, and then defending big sections of board of they're bubble wrapped right. Lastly, anything flying is very scary to get in melee with for KO, as they can't just bail out from flyers. So, unit wise, good strong melee deepstrike like Evocators, Anihilators, and other paladins are going to weather the retaliatory overwatch and then chunk the ships to below half which is where you want them. Longstrike bows or that new mega bow hero are great for shooting the bejeezus out of the relatively squishy ships. And lastly, any spell or ability that can affect units that are densely packed for a couple mortals are money because the ships are big clown cars full of squishy, hard to target units.

Oh man, I hadn't considered that. The shamans are sweet but you make a very good point. Losing the one shammy is way less impactful than losing the whole squad of archers. What about running one Killaboss and one Mirebrute? One for offense, one for utility and defense? Or is it better in your opinion to skip the Killaboss entirely for more mirebrutes?

I've considered that as well, perhaps a list with 20 GR, 40 HG, 2 squads of 6 MSBB, and then heroes to fill in around them? My meta is extremely deep-strike heavy, every other player either deep strikes, summons, or is so fast it's equivalent, so my number one fear is being charged by deep strikers because I didn't block off all angles with chumps perfectly. Have you guys had any experience with heavy deepstrike lists?

Interesting - my experience has been that the Gutrippaz are necessary from the perspective of keeping the enemy from steamrolling past them in one turn and going straight for the the Boltboyz. What are you using for blocking maneuvers? In the past I've run blocks of Shootas and Stabbas.

Sorry for the double post, but I had a couple great games over the last two weeks. Lost both of them, but they were super important learning experiences. I used the same list both times, taken from Plastic Craic, as I wanted to try it out before making tweaks to it: ++ **Pitched Battle GHB 2021** 2,000 (Destruction - Orruk Warclans) [1,995pts] ++ + Core Battalion + Core Battalion: Battle Regiment + Leader + Breaka-boss on Mirebrute Troggoth [180pts]: Fast 'Un Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast [315pts]: Battle Regiment - 1 Commander, Egomaniak, General, Mork's Eye Pebble Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot [105pts]: Battle Regiment - 0-2 Sub-Commander Swampcalla Shaman and Pot-grot [105pts]: Battle Regiment - 0-2 Sub-Commander + Battleline + Gutrippaz [360pts]: 20 Gutrippaz, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Musician, Reinforced, Standard Bearer, Wicked Stikka Gutrippaz [360pts]: 20 Gutrippaz, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Musician, Reinforced, Standard Bearer, Wicked Stikka Man-skewer Boltboyz [360pts]: 3 Man-skewer Boltboyz, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, 2x Reinforced + Other + Rippa's Snarlfangs [70pts]: Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops Shootas [140pts]: 20 Shootas, Bad Moon Icon, Battle Regiment - 2-5 Troops, Gong Basher, x3 Barbed Net + Allegiance + Allegiance Allegiance: Orruk Warclans Kruleboyz: Big Yellers + Game Options + Game Type: 2000 Points - Battlehost Grand Strategy: Hold the Line My first game was against Soulblight Gravelords, he was running vyrkos with 2 20blocks of Graveguard 2handers, a block of 60 zombies and a block of 20, a pair of Vampire Lords, a Necromancer, and Mannfred. The mission was Tectonic Interference. The Alpha objective varied between Objective 3 (which was directly under a huge pile of zombies) and Objective 1 (which was under a huge pile of Gutrippaz). I spent the entire game killing and killing and killing, but at the end of every turn any unit I killed just came back at half size, and even 10 Grave Guard were chopping me to pieces. I just got ground down over the course of 3 turns, was a washout at the end of turn 4. Mannfred played super defensively, so I couldn't shoot him, but at the same time he couldn't bring his power to bear. Overall, super fun and I wish I spent more time targeting heroes, killing his necromancer would have been huge but he kept him far away from my power units. Game 2 was against the best player I know, a Kharadron Overlords list with an Endrinmaster in balloon suit, a khemist as general, a navigator, a couple blocks of 10 company and a 20block of company, a frigate, gunhauler, and ironclad, and an allied Lord Celestant. The mission was Survival of the Fittest. That game was a complete failure from the word go, even with the most careful defensive play he picked me apart from the edges while dancing out of reach of my bows, then the lord celestant charged a flat 12 over my blockers into my archers to kill half of them and keep me completely occupied for the game. While frustrating to lose, it was an interesting game from a perspective that I basically couldn't reach anything he had unless I rolled perfectly, or he made a positioning mistake, and he didn't make a single one. My final thoughts having played basically this exact list for about 6 games now is that I love the power the bows give but hot dang they're easy to bully. You have to defend them with everything you've got because the enemy is coming for them. I've absolutely adored the Troggoth Boss, but his damage isn't being as successfully utilized as I want, because everyone and their grandma sees a big dumb troll and wants to shoot him to death instantly. In fairness, three games ago he did oneshot Krondys on the charge, which was hilarious for both players. That all being said... I keep thinking about benching him in exchange for a Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof. The speed and protection from Battleshock might be the deciding factor, even if he is a little more vulnerable to mortals. I have a second list I'd like to try with the Breakaboss replaced by the Killaboss, the 9man bows split into 2 6man squads, dropping the Shootas but keeping the Snarlfangs as super-mobile blockers. Gotta say, those little wolf goblins are fast becoming one of my favorite little units just from how mobile they are. Lastly, I've been thinking of splitting one of the 20blocks of Gutrippaz into 2 10man squads, for better board presence, but the damage gets way, way worse. Any thoughts from you ladz? I'd love to hear how you guys have been doing in games lately, I've been trying to get 2 games a week but everyone's busy for the holidays. What are your experiences with the Break-Boss vs. The Dogboss?

I remember it's exactly the same as a Stonehorn's base size, which is 120x92mm.

I'm afraid you misunderstand, from what I've read the plan for Spiderfang is that they'll become their own faction, separate from the GSG, not that they'll be squatted entirely. Sorry if I wasn't clear there!

From what I've heard here on the forum, there's a decent chance that the Gloomspite Gitz and the Spiderfang are going their separate ways into different armies, but even if so, the GSG would be pretty fine with a new tome and a new Madcap Shaman. We have a LOT of new models, and although it'd be nice to see a new type of troggoth (plastic Troggoth Hag maybe?) and maybe a new Loonboss Wif Giant Cave Squig, We're probably getting the "new-character-and-tome" treatment. I just want to play with my 7k points of GSG and not feel like a chump again...

Really? Dang it, oh well. I'll probably just add in 20 GSG shootas if I want backline bodies then.

We can take Kruleboyz as allies, right? I was thinking, might be nice to mix in 100-200 points of Kruleboyz for some backline support. Maybe a unit of Boltboyz to hold a backfield objective and plink away at heroes or chip away at a monster or something. Because BS is such an aggressive faction it might be nice to drop something that doesn't want to move much. Also, do you guys think it's necessary to reinforce Battleline, or could I splurge all my reinforcements on 2 units of 4 big stabbaz, and 2 units of 10 Maniak Boarboyz? Those are my two favorites in the faction but I'm not sure if it's worth it to go all in on them.