PlasticCraic

I've done an article on 3rd Party Giants that you might be interested in: https://plasticcraic.blog/2020/10/07/third-party-giants-spectacular/ I've already had a lot of great suggestions for other Giants to include, so I'll be doing a follow up article too.

@EccentricCircle nope I hadn't heard of Bricklink, but it's good to know that the concept worked! I'd imagine that Lego is way bigger than Warhammer, but I do think our hobby is now of a large enough scale that something like this could function if someone had the time and energy to get it off the ground.

Bravo et Felicitations @kozokus! Congrats on a great tournament and a very interesting list, and thanks for the write up 😀 Edit: you might want to double-check the name of that Battleplan in Round 5, what you've written means something quite different 🤣

I think bitz works best peer to peer. It's hard for one entity to hold and sort the required stock commercially: they're essentially a warehousing and distribution business, and any logistics business will focus on SKU rationalisation as the key driver of efficiency and profitability. Whereas a bitz business’s entire model is taking an already-huge number of SKUs and making it explode into an insane number. It's actively anti-efficient. I’m lucky that I’m in a big, active gaming group who can and do help each other out with Bitz. In the real world we’ve all got stuff lying around in boxes that we’ll never use, and other hidden gems that we come back to one day. These bits are out there – all of them, and in great numbers – they’re just not in one place. People have bitz, and people want bitz. The challenge is putting those people together. So the way I could see this working for everyone’s benefit is a trading platform: so a bitz site where rather than holding stock themselves (or, in practice, not holding that stock – or certainly not enough of it) and charging a mark up from retail prices, it’s essentially a catalogue of bitz. People have buyer and seller accounts and trade those bitz with each other, with the website taking a commission from the sale for bringing them together (as opposed to owning and carrying the stock themselves). There would still be a lot of work and costs involved in cataloguing the bitz, hosting the website, resolving disputes and so on, and like any peer to peer business it would take a while to get up and running with active buyers and sellers. But I think this would be of great benefit to the community.

What are you cooking up Steve? Or is it under wraps?

@Lionheart the latter. If you check the FAQs there's one somewhere saying that you multiply and divide first, then add and subtract.

I think that list is easily capable of 3-2 at a 2-dayer with the right matchups, and that probably undersells it a little if anything. Have you thought about putting in the Ardfist?

One thing I do like about the Hag is that she can teleport herself straight into vomit range (if you take the Arachnacauldron endless spell for access to the spell lore). Gives you a bit of Hero sniping, and a teleport / redeploy threat, but it does mean flushing yet more points down the drain on an overcosted, one-cast wizard. A Skaal can do something similar but with an extra CP and artefact thrown into the deal. I love the Hag, and I've ran her loads over the years, but she's not in a great spot unfortunately.

If you're dead set on the Rockies (and they are a decent unit), then I think you have to drop the Squigs down to 6 unfortunately You can dump the Jaws of Mork artefact on the Shaman. There are no restrictions on who takes that one.

Second option would be 1x 40 Stabbas and 2x 20 Shootas, wouldn't it? Which works quite well, because it's putting all 80 Grots you own on the table. Being a Boss does help a lot, because: 1) He can take an artefact (-1 to be hit) 2) He can use Command Abilities (put out Inspiring Presence, make run rolls into 6" and reroll charges are probably the most useful in this army, in that order) 3) He can score bonus VPs on Leader missions It does add quite a lot of utility for an extra 40 points

If you're on exactly 2000, the Loonboss on GCS should free up 110 points, and there's two ways you can leverage that; 1) The horde discount on Stabbas (taking them up to 60 only costs 100 extra points) 2) You could swap out 20 Stabbas for 2x 20 Shootas (240 points total either way) You could even trade out him and the 6 Rockies for 60 Stabbas and a Loonboss. That would put you on 120 Grots which is a pretty healthy number, depends how many models you have available?

@Pombar I would rarely throw the Rogue Idol forward turn 1 personally. You're giving away the +1 to cast, and you're putting him outside of range of the Warchanter and Wardokk healing. He's not all that efficient at just pounding away at chaff screens. There's other stuff that is much better for throwing under the bus. All kinds of pigs can blow up chaff screens more reliably and at a lower cost. Also Arrow Boys can plant their feet in the middle of the table and shoot some stuff up. Pebbles is adding value to that through buffing the magic that makes them effective, and maybe even getting the Wurggog Prophet to hit a jacked up 10+ cast on his warscroll spell. I think you need to be patient for at least a turn or two with him in most games, and then strike at something elite or a Hero when it will be decisive, and he won't just get swamped in volume of attacks. There are other tools in the army that can scratch that turn 1 aggro itch more effectively.

I'm gonna disagree with @Dankboss here and say that yes, Gits are bad. They're not so bad that nobody can possibly win any game, ever - we don't have to lurch to extremes - but I would put them well below halfway (if they are in the fat middle, they are skulking right around the bottom end of it). Just to substantiate that a little, JP's ELO rating has them right near the bottom under the current GH. No set of stats is ever definitive but it does demonstrate that across thousands of games all over the world, you are by no means alone in finding them difficult to win games with: Where I do agree with Dankboss is that their Warscrolls are good, they are just lacking in extra rules. But that's a huge deal. No other book is playing off their Warscrolls to the same extent as Gits and if they did, I think they'd find life a lot harder. But it's obviously been noticed by GW and Jaws of Mork was an excellent update, and hopefully the incoming Troggoth rules are just as good. So hopefully that will encourage you to keep persevering. The reality is you're playing on hard mode but if you're up for the challenge, Gits aren't that far behind the others, and you should be able to get back into the game. I'd say so. It is "free" rules in the sense that you just layer it on top of Da Bad Moon, but it does come with its own trade-offs. Specifically it locks you into a Command Trait (not an issue if you're taking Skraggy) and artefact (quite important, because it means that you miss out on some good ones from the book). The Battalion benefit is superb in its own right, and it gets you a second artefact (so you can keep the Clammy Cowl on your Manglers). Putting him on neg 1 to be hit is quite important and the double-damage Boingrots are nuts (I've played with the new rules). One thing to note is that your General does not have the Squig keyword, so you'll be recycling Grots through the Shrine (unless you make the Mangler Boss your General). I would personally want more Grots in an army like this. Biggest thing I'd be asking myself is how I will win games. Classically Grots have won by getting on objectives and staying there, but that doesn't look like your strategy (you'd need a lot more bodies and stacking negatives to hit). And that playstyle isn't fun, and has a hard ceiling anyway, so I can get with trying to kill stuff instead. So the question then becomes, how will you get the Boingrots into them? They really need to charge, for the Mortal Wounds, for the +1 to wound, and for the extra damage from the Battalion. Also they are the classic glass hammer: they will either murder stuff or die horribly, there is little middle ground. Broadly, there are two ways to do that: either build for speed, and ram everything down their throats turn 1, or send a distraction into them, set up screens and then charge out from behind them. There is already an example of someone have great success with an alpha-strike Squigs army: What you will notice here is that Adam's strategy leans into two elements: low drops, and all-out speed. He is using Hoppers for the 3D6" movement, since they are a lot faster than the Bounders and still hit hard (rend -1 damage 2 on the jaws attacks). Similarly he has multiple Manglers, all with that 3D6" rerollable movement, and keeping his drops down to 1 in the Battalion. He has the big battalion for the extra 6" move, and the Loonboss on GCS for the extra 3". It all works because you have loads of units with that kind of movement: if one unit doesn't roll hot, another one will, and he's almost guaranteed to get multiple, hard-hitting units where he needs them every time. I don't think your list can execute that strategy. You are going to be way higher drops, and you don't have that critical mass of speed boosts to get where you need to go reliably. You have a little bit of speed that's still only partly reliable, some hard-hitting but slow units that can't really take a punch, so scoring units but not that many. In the real world you'll often end up being made to go first, stringing a few units out in the middle of the board, and then they'll just get picked apart. But that's ok, there's other ways to play this army. I think you're in the position of "playing Warhammer", developing the board, and pouncing when the time is right. Honestly, that's got its own problems in a shooting meta, but if your local games aren't too competitive you should be able to achieve it. The good news is, you have Cave Squigs, which natively reroll charges. I love throwing them forward with Hand of Gork and chewing up something on a lightly guarded objective, or just boxing them in behind their own chaff screens. It means that if your opponent makes you go first, you are unlikely to completely waste a turn. What I'd suggest is dropping the Loonboss on GCS and putting more Grots in there. Run forward and set up camp with your Rockguts hitting over the top of Grots on an objective (with a view to advancing them once holes start appearing), harass your opponent early with Squig Herd, and tee up big charges with Boingrots flying over the top of your screens. It'll still need a lot practice to make this kind of army work, but if your opponent's aren't playing too competitively, I reckon you'll get there with perseverance!

Agreed, there's loads of competitive lists that have done really well with the Prime (often as an ally, but that's more a reflection of the state of Stormcast in general than the Prime in particular). He's also pretty handy for grabbing Auxiliaries - overall I'd say he's in a really good spot.

It's not a bad idea, their base is >6" so they can still be targeted by the Crawlers, but they are good on a lot of scenarios now too. That base can get the gold on two objectives simultaneously on Focal Points for example. I also like Squigs, because they reroll charges natively. So they are good for teleporting and making the 9" charge, and once they're in the Crawler can't shoot anything. If you're doing Realms, Wildform (from Ghur) really plays into that too (+2" to charge).

Let us know how you go! EDIT: FWIW I'd probably take the clubs over the hackers in that build.

You can fit in a Hunter with the Eurlbad if you want that deepstrike (as long as you're not using him for damage output with the Skaal): I don't think that's a bad little army.

It's an allegiance trait: they can choose Coalesced or Starborne. Coalesced gets Scaly Skin as part of the package, which makes Ogors look pretty sad. But Starborne is more popular and the competitive go-to. They're both amazing, but Starborne gives them free teleports every turn, and summoning. As well as a CA within one of the Starborne tribes that lets Skinks fire overwatch after you charge, and then retreat.

I wish Morboyz even just had rend -1, then they'd have something of a role within the army.

I've seen some very nice conversions based on Fimir (by Benjamin Savva), although they themselves are hard to come by these days! I've seen them done with Brutes brandishing the big spears too, not naked enough to be Bonesplitterz for my money but it's pretty clear what they are.

Very interesting list @kozokus, good luck! Come back and give us some batreps too please 😃

Bonesplitterz are money against Fyreslayers, check out this article for how I set up to one-shot a unit of Hearthguard with Big Stabbas: https://plasticcraic.blog/2020/02/27/summer-smash-tournament-review-big-wins-for-the-big-waaagh/ Note that this list is no longer tournament legal (Warboss is now Compendium) but you could easily adapt it. Your bigger issue will be fitting Gordrakk and Big Stabbas in the same list from a points perspective. Nah Brutes are ok since the points got shuffled around. I can see myself putting them in lists now, maybe one unit of 5 or 10. The biggest thing for me is the +2" to charge on Ardboyz, which Brutes really miss. But you could definitely work them into a list.

You kinda want a mixture of unit sizes for S&B, because you do need that big hammer to crack something and guarantee a cascade. But you already have that here in Gordrakk / MBMK and your 6 pigs. The reason you've got a few medium sized Ardboyz in these lists is more to allow you to contest objectives in different areas of the board, and also because you only have so many points! Ironfist is also a very good Battalion, I'm leaning Ardfist here because I think it gives you a win condition against FS (lose your units and pop up again to contest an objective miles away from their HGB). But never rule Ironfist out. I built those lists around Ironsunz as you can see from the CT and artefact, because I think it's the most fun (the countercharge is always interesting tool to use), the artefact is useful, plus it gets you an extra CP to fuel your Ardfist and absence of Ironfist. You certainly could go no Clan, but at that point I would look closely at Big Waaagh, maybe even with Gordrakk as general for the 6 Waaagh points and an Ironfist for back door access to Mighty Waaagh

Yeah I'd have to agree with @Magnus The Blue I'm afraid, especially if you're set on running Gordrakk which I see as sub-optimal. IJ have some neat tricks against Slaanesh, specifically: - Smashing and Bashing circumvents Locus. So if you charge multiple units and kill something soft first, you'll get to hit their Keeper - You can Hero phase charge with Mighty Destroyers, retreat back out in the movement phase, then pile in (because you completed a charge earlier that turn) You still have to be super careful because they're summoning can get out of hand quickly against multi-wound models. In practice that means killing their Heroes at the first opportunity, and having models around their Heroes to close down the 9" summoning zones. Against Fyreslayers you're going to be banging your head against the wall a lot of the time. They Mighty D retreat thing will still work around Hermdar fight first. Without any way to snipe out their Heroes, you're looking at playing the scenario, but if your opponent is good he will be favoured in the matchup. The good news is, they don't have much in the way of shooting, which means your Warchanters will be safe; and they don't have dominant magic, so a Shaman will be usable. I do think this list would be a lot tighter if you ran a Maw Krusha instead of Gordrakk and a Megaboss: Maybe with a BWV instead of the extra CP, so you can have some fun teleporting the Shaman to where your summoned Boyz come on the table and double-banging Green Puke with extended range.

Thanks for the reply @RuneBrush. I'd love to think that applications from women would be strongly encouraged next time the team expands or someone retires / moves on.