PlasticCraic

Wait until you see what Salamanders can do. Fun Fact Lord Kroak: 320 points Huskard on Thundertusk: 340 points Good luck !

Fair

I don't think that's correct @Lanoss I don't have the book here, but I'm 99% certain that it's in your first Hero Phase (but not the start of). Do you have the book there to verify? You could also Mighty D them, or put them and the Brutes in an Ironfist (which is much better than Gorefist if you can rustle up 30 points). But it should work with Gorefist too.

And that's still a big reason right there. As a couple of us have mentioned, the main reason we prefer Ardboyz is their +2" to charge. Both for Hand of Gork, and for footslogging. They do most of their movement in the charge phase so the difference between making a charge and failing it is absolutely everything. Brutes are cripplingly slow without that charge bonus. They really needed to be devastating in combat (heavy rend / mortal wounds) to make up for that and have a niche. Given that the mediocrity of their combat stats is now locked in until the next Warscroll update, the second best option would be for them to be waaaaay more efficient for their points to (kinda) make up for the many times they fail to get where they needed to. Still arguably less competitive, because their output would be spiky and unreliable (highly efficient when you do make it in, but dropping to zero in the turns when you are running around doing nothing). But this at least allows for the big, missing assumption in any combat efficiency calculation, namely that you are assuming they are actually in combat in the first place. That is a far safer assumption in the case of Ardboyz, and that's the reason why I think you will continue to see a lot more of them competitively.

I guess you could try Winterbite. You might still be fighting an uphill battle though.

Fair enough, maybe that works better in your meta. Khorne can kick out a few mortals for sure. Have you got your eyes on a particular Mount Trait then?

Haha not at all mate. Despite my comments on Brutes above I don't think there's that much in it. My problem with Brutes is not that they are awful (they aren't), it's that they have nothing unique to hang their hat on. It's not so much that there's some huge gulf between them and Ardboyz, it's morseo that they aren't different enough for my liking. You just end up with more attacks on an identical melee profile, but slower, less brave and worse at capping objectives. If you do really like them, it's close enough that you can make it work. I'll personally take some convincing to give up that +2" to charge though.

You make an interesting point on the Quickduff Amulet @Ganigumo Bloodtoofs haven't been super popular competitively, but with the +cast +unbind arms race, it might be worth a second look to have that guaranteed teleport. Shame the Command Trait is such a tax. Don't forget your Mount Trait. If you take Weird Un, that gives you access to ignore magic on a 4+ which removes a lot of the logic for taking Ignax Scales, in turn freeing you up to take Ethereal Amulet. I'd also advise a second unit of Gore Gruntas over a Gargant at the same points every time, unless you're looking at Rule of Cool and you like em, in which case go for it!

I agree @NauticalSoup, I hope Ardboyz are going nowhere. They and GGs are both good at what they do, it's Brutes that are the odd one out. Their bravery is a joke and has been for years, it's not good enough that it was left at 6. They are too slow and if they do get there, they don't do anything special. To make up for all their downsides, they should have hit like a truck when they arrived, so they had a niche as the hard-hittinest unit. Brutes needed heavy rend, and / or mortal wounds, and / or a rabbit pulled out of the hat with something unique. Instead they lost all the flavour of the Klaw and the heavy rend, and all that was left was just Generic Combat Unit. What a waste.

@VonSmall awesome article mate. I've long been a fan of the Rod for the same reasons you outline, but running your Weirdnob up into spell range with Mighty D is a new one! Well it is for me anyway, that's fantastic. Love your thinking. Very interesting perspective on the Waaagh points too, it's easy to get tunnel vision and lock ourselves into +1 to Hit, +1 to Wound. But I think you are absolutely correct that we shouldn't be afraid to spend it on clutch casts and unbinds in this matchup. We won't struggle to splatter Skinks. Any tweaks you'd make for next time? Keep it up, you are doing Mork's work!

Yeah I would need to be retired to play as many games as I want...but getting into the hobby has deferred my eventual retirement for years. What Clan do you like for Bonesplitterz? The pigs obviously fit in quite well with Icebonez, which is a good all-rounder.

Yeah, that and also the fact that Big Waaagh is tight for points because you're squeezing in two sets of buffing Heroes. Your Warchanter and your Weirdnob Shammy (plus maybe a Megaboss for BC) plus a couple of Bonespliterz wizards....I think you often end up with one more small Hero overall, which means no space for one throwaway chaff unit. Like I said though, they're not unusable. You'll be able to make them work if you like them. Quite good fun to paint and affordable too, plus they could be a bridge into running a Bonesplitterz army. I did a whole article on the Bonesplitterz side of the book, which you might be interested in if you're tempted by them: https://plasticcraic.blog/2019/10/26/battletome-orruk-warclans-bonesplitterz-review/

I think their issue is that they find themselves in competition with Gore Gruntas, which are only a few points more, and amazing. They are definitely usable if you like them, but I think that's why they're squeezed out of my own lists currently. Minimum pigs are a decent mobile screen / speed bump, just about cheap enough to be throwaway. One niche they do have is tying up shooting units / artillery. Give them Breath of Gorkamorka, tag their unit in combat and let them soak up the Dakka. Especially useful for things like OBR catapults and Helblasters, which then can't shoot at all. You can also stack saves on the Boarboys and turn them into a bit of a tarpit, in the same way you would with Savage Orruks. Maybe you could have a wave 1 - wave 2 strategy where you ramp up the saves on some pigs and fling them away into the enemy, while the Orruks run onto Objectives. Then next turn you put the saves on the Orruks. I'd love to have a cheap unit or two in my army, it just gets squeezed out when push comes to shove. They are useful, and if you like them you will be able to compete with them. I just struggle to fit them into lists currently because Gore Gruntas.

Yep, missed that. And agreed!

Definitely, they're really good value (both $$$ and points). A 30-block of Savage Orruks with a Wardokk to double stack saves on them is really useful. Great at fighting anything without an elite armour save, loads of bodies for pumping up the Waaagh, loads of wounds to get through. 30 Arrow Boys too, they have similar advantages. Worse armour saves and lower overall output, but handy for chipping off a support hero or shooting off anything that fights when it dies.

There's things you can do to make her work if you're investing in Endless Spells. Give her Ethereal Amulet and get someone else to cast Cogs. Then she slows it down. Someone Hand of Gorks he 9" away and she unloads Geminids and her Warscroll spell into them. That's debuffs for days and Mortal Wounds prowling around through their army. She's on a 4+ rerollable save, straight into range to vomit all over them, and everything around her has minuses to hit all over them. Deal with that. The package is expensive, but can be worth it if you have a secondary use for Cogs so it's not just a Hag Tax, e.g. an Aggro unit that can benefit if you're not confident throwing her forward or they have boosted unbinds. Squigs are great for this because they can reroll charges natively, so maybe you switch gears and speed up Cogs, teleport 12 / 18 / 24 Squigs forward, and hit their screens with a 7" rerollable charge. So to get the most out of her I think you kinda need to invest in other stuff around her to make the whole army work, rather than running multiples of her. Her biggest problem for me is not that she's bad (she isn't), it's that she's in direct competition with the A-Rok, which has 2 spells, direct access to a useful spell lore, buffed casting and is 100 points cheaper. That being said I have gone 4-1 at a big tournament with the Hag so I know she can work if you build around her.

Honestly, I don't think it'll ever be super competitive. As much as I love using her, she's only quite good, and then mainly for a specific role in the army. If you were looking to make the list stronger I'd start by upgrading your chaff to Stabbas. They have a bit more durability than Squigs and come back through the shrine. Maybe something like this with 4 Hags: Gets the negs to hit stacking, gets access to the spell lore and has a few bodies to score with. Probably still a 2-3 army though. If you went down to 3 Hags, you might be getting into 3-2 territory: If you're wanting this army to be good and not just cool, you're probably better looking at Nurgle in all honesty. The GUOs are 2-spell casters with direct access to a spell lore, and cheaper too. What's more they have access to a proper Allegiance kit, unlike Troggoths, and a decent Battalion (Thricefold Befoulement). I'd love to see Troggoth Hag spam for Rule of Cool, and you might be able to steer it to a better result than I'm anticipating, but I personally can't see it being a really competitive tournament build unfortunately.

Wow, people are already thinking it's unlikely for 2021 too?

Well that's quite the rabbit hole right there! Luckily @Nico has got your back: https://aosshorts.com/nicolab-the-activation-wars-part-2/ In general, it comes down to which ability triggered most recently. Spells like Warcry are fairly low down the pecking order in Activation Wars, because other things trigger in the charge or combat phase, which means they are more recent and therefore take precedence. But it's still useful against the many, many unit that have no real foothold in Activation Wars.

Yeah I was thinking that. A Siege of Excelsis got a cheeky mention in the Orruk Warclans Batteltome too.

The best image I've seen was this one by @minimute on Insta He's put a lot of work into scaling these from the one official image. The grey shadow is what it would look like if the OBR basing piece was / is to scale, which is pretty close. I'm expecting it to come in that window between the colour and grey versions.

Sorry for being rude. I did think it was a bit off that you corrected someone else without checking first, but there was no need for me to be rude about it. Back to Giants, hey 🙂

Is this a troll? "Seldom" is a synonym of "rarely". https://www.dictionary.com/browse/seldom

I've written an article that you guys might be interested in 👍 https://t.co/FN18N9YvAL

I personally don't hate the idea of human Cultists who worship the Gargants, but I accept that I'm in the minority here! I get that it's the whole point of the army that it's nothing but nothing but Giants, and that's fair enough. I'm happy to see that being the case, but I'd even just love to see some "Johann" bits on the sprue. Fleeing humans would make nice objective markers for things like Relocation Orb in particular. Maybe the Cult of Behemat could be best done by writing a small campaign to play through with my local group, rather than as a formal part of the army.