Malakree

I will not disagree with this, it seems the argument I'm then making is the slightly more egotistical "My way of playing Ironjawz is the correct way of playing !!!" Still going to make that claim but will preface it with the statement that I am being egotistical, I know it and now I'm going to throw my reasons at you to see how well you can dismantle them. Note: Obviously I'm talking about hyper tuned, maximum potential power-gaming ******. If you 6 Footbosses then go for it, I'm not here to ****** on peoples fun. Ironjawz should always be played with a hyper aggressive. There's a ton of reasons why Ironjawz are suited to this playstyle, the massive reach combined with Smashing and Bashing is obvious, I think the more key argument I would make is however If you are not playing hyper aggressive with Ironjawz you should just play big waaagh! instead. Obviously this is a hell of a statement I just ask you step back for a moment and consider it from a playstyle perspective. What are the primary differences between the two allegiances, what strengths does one have over the other. Smashing and Bashing is super obvious so ask yourself what this supports and how it works mechanically. SnB allows you to get round the combat priority, this is important because relatively Ironjawz are actually quite soft. No after damage saves, no -hit, only a 4+ save and low bravery. This supports a blitzkrieg style of play where you hit the enemy so hard they can't ever muster a response. By exactly the same token Mighty Destroyers allows your army to explode into motion the moment your opponent shows the slightest hint of weakness. Lets assume you're playing a slow methodical style that's NOT hyper aggressive. What does Ironjawz really bring to the table, Hand of Gork? A little extra burst of speed? Realistically not a great deal. The threat potential is there but it's not oppressively overwhelming in the same way that a hyper aggressive IJ style is, it's just more flat. Take the same situation but your allegiance is Big Waaagh! the first and most obvious thing is that you really don't want to be bombing across the field and trying to explode out the other side of your opponent turn 1. It's not that it doesn't support the hyper aggressive style, it's that it actively punishes it. You're so much stronger Turn 2 than you are Turn 1 it's unreal. How about the more conservative, contained style. Well it means that when you actually get to battle you're going to be +1/+1 and have a 6++. It's mindblowing how strong the Big Waaagh! is once it's bonuses start stacking and what do you need to do that? Time. Best way to get time, slow methodical play. As an example, lets consider the list by @tom_gore No Mighty Destroyers hurts a bit but is it worth trading for +1/+1 and 6++? The only other thing you're losing is one warbeat. On the other hand you're generating 4+d6 waaagh! points just because with an extra +2 with a CP. You've already established that without my ridiculous spam the CP dependency tanks a ton. Not to mention that the whole "7+ to cast HoG" is suddenly a lot less painful since you can give yourself +2 to cast. Thus my contention is that IJ is designed for my hyper aggressive style list/play while the list styles that you guys are suggesting all gain large boosts just by switching to Big Waaaagh! even before you factor in the extra unit diversity. Throw an Ironfist ontop and you've even got MD!

Yeah I know how good they are, the first is for the unit of 6 GG's. I'm not sure how important it is on the cabbage or 2 units of 3s with it. Choice is basically between Wurrgog + Weirdnob with HoG and GGV Wurrgog + Warchanter with irrelevant artefact. Warchanter+Weirdnob with HoG and GGV + CP So for me it really comes down to the Warchanter+CP vs Wurrgog. I think the CP is largely equivalent with the 4+ CP which leaves it as +1 damage vs 2 unbinds, Mystic Shield and Fist of Gork.

Ironsunz, Mighty Destroyers, RR1's to save/hit, +1 to hit, reroll key charges, ignore battleshock and the once per game +1 attack waaagh! There are a ton of things we need command points for and personally if I wasn't planning to be super aggressive with Ironjawz I'd be playing Big Waaagh! instead. The biggest problem I've found with Big Waaagh! is that you have to play cagey turn 1 in order to hit your full potential before it really kicks off, means you're vulnerable to alphastrikes etc. With Ironjawz you can go straight away and use the massive mobility to instantly threaten an opponent or pin them if the mission allows it. Man the list I'm going to try and my next club is starts with 4 CP's, gets a 5th on turn 1, has the 4+ CP from a weirdnob AND runs aetherquartz. That's using the Gorefist to trim down the requirement for MD first turn, since I get the 9" move on them anyway. On the turn you go I'd say you're ideally looking at burning 4 CP's on +1 to hit and 4 CP's on RR1's to hit depending on what units are in which key enemy units. It's so important to be able to trigger that smashing and bashing and being on 2s RR1's makes you so much less vulnerable to RNG. EDIT: I am considering dropping the extra CP to swap my 2nd warchanter into a Wurrgog for the extra spells and generation potential...have to test that though, not sure I want to be on only 1 WC.

Always yes. CPs are the lifeblood of Ironjawz, there are times my aetherquartz broach (when you spend a CP you get it back on a 5+) goes nuts and I spend 1 CP to move my entire army in the hero phase. I'd also suggest splitting the 20 ardboys into either 10+10 or 10+5+5. Gives better board coverage for objectives and screening. Inversely combine the two units of 3 GGs into one unit of 6. They are your big kill unit and being able to consolidate buffs onto them (Mighty destroyers/+1damage) is really good. It's also worth pointing out that it takes a minimum of 6 wounds to force a battle shock on GGs while it's 4 for ardboys.

Having just finished chrimbobo with 2 more games as big waaagh! and an actual nights sleep where I wasn't woken up at 2am by someone in the room next door getting phone calls.... I'm not sure I'd run an MK in Big Waaagh! the army feels way more about grinding than it does about the heavy impact type characters/units. I took a Footboss with Ironclad+Mirrored Cuirass, holy gods did he do work. He soaked an entire combat phase worth of attacks from Gotrek and only took 6 damage. Getting to a 1+ save with mystic shield and mystical is unreal. The Wurrgog is fantastic, 2 casts/unbinds is sweet. His unique spell is gross when you start adding +2 from the CA and with 20 Waaagh! points he's actually a bit of a beast in combat. 4 attacks 3+/2+/-/d3 AND d3 at 3+/2+/-/1 is so nasty. It's actually a bit tricky to generate Waaagh! points if you don't factor that in. I was only getting 5 (WC/WgP/20 CA) ontop of my d6, when I rolled low it really stung. Ardboys Not being CA heavy is nice, sure the Ardfist is a drain but I could easily chuck them on RR1s CA etc. So after 5 more games with it I think the problem I had was that it's a completely different playstyle to Ironjawz. Ironjawz is a shockforce, you hit stuff hard and blow them off the board. Big Waaagh! on the other hand is a meat grinder, it goes into combat then goes the distance all while churning out a reliable amount of attacks. I'm also really warming to the Softfist, it's a threat your opponent has to deal with and can potentially drown your opponent under the continual waves. I can see it being good in Ironjawz but it's horrific in Big Waaagh! That footboss though, 1+ save while in cover, RR1's with a 6++ after save and another 5++ vs mortals is just nightmare to deal with, I'm seriously thinking he might be the default general of choice for all big waaagh! armies.

Aetherquartz is mandatory in IJ IMO. I just find ironsunz to be so amazing, -1 To hit in the first round is great given the amount of shooting/alphastrike floating around atm. Free CP for the aetherquartz engine and the reduce rend really help aswell. Yeah except it's for a whole turn not just 1 phase and let's be real we need all the cps we can get! That's what I thought!

So at chrimbobo playing doubles with Jon and Jonny. Playing what I've nicknamed a "softfist" basically an ardfist which isn't trying to go super exploitative. With it being 1k I'm a bit short on CPs but it's actually been way more useful than I thought it would be. With that in mind I'm looking at running a bit of an odd 2k list at the next club night and/or whenever my next tournament is. Allegiance: Ironjawz- Warclan: IronsunzMortal Realm: HyshLeadersMegaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)- General- Boss Choppa and Rip-tooth fist- Trait: Right Fist of Dakkbad- Artefact: Sunzblessed Armour- Mount Trait: Mean 'UnOrruk Warchanter (110)- Warbeat: Get 'Em BeatOrruk Warchanter (110)- Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch- Warbeat: Fixin' BeatOrruk Weirdnob Shaman (110)- Artefact: Great Green Visions- Lore of the Weird: HoG/Bash EmBattleline6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320)- Pig-iron Choppas3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (160)- Pig-iron Choppas3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (160)- Pig-iron ChoppasUnits5 x Orruk Ardboys (90)5 x Orruk Ardboys (90)5 x Orruk Ardboys (90)BattalionsArdfist (120)Gorefist (130)Endless Spells / Terrain / CPsExtra Command Point (50)Total: 2000 / 2000Extra Command Points: 3Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 123 Starts with an enormous 4 CPs and has the generation potential from the weirdnob, not sure which spell to take with him. Wrath of Gork gives so horrific MW output potential, hand of gork let's me throw a unit of 5 across the board turn 1 and gives the ever useful teleport. Finally bash em ladz for the wound reroll seems potentially solid. In all honesty though he's mainly there to put mystic shield on the cabbage 😅 Gorefist over Ironfist purely for points reasons, even dropping to a fungoid doesn't give me the ironfist and at least on the first turn it "acts" like 3 free Mighty Destroyers. 5 drops, 3 artefacts, 2 WC along with the cabbage+6ggs. Honestly seems really solid to me and the ardfist is yet another tool in the box, your opponent has to worry about so many different tech pieces that it's unreasonable. Throw in the 5 OR 6 command points on turn 1, free 9" move on the GGs which can be stacked with mighty destroyers (?) and holy gods do I love aetherquartz broach!

I ran this. It was "ok" but there were definitely things I would change. In the previous post I added some "conceptual" changes with how I'd approach the list. In terms of fixing this one. Drop the Brutes Merge the 2 units of 3 GG's Make the unit of 5 Ardboys a unit of 10 Buy a CP.

I did, it's awkward but not terrible. Gordrakk is amazing so if you run him as your secondary cabbage it gives you access to his vastly superior CA as well as his much better combat potential. It's definitely tricky but doable. Possibly something like this? or Both are obviously alphastrike but lets be fair you're running 2 MK's and a block of 6 GG's. You could drop the 6 GG's but they are one of the massive backbones of the army right now. If you did that you'd really be looking at an Ardfist with your cabbages supporting.

No on Gotreks warscroll it says. If the damage inflicted by an attack....is greater than 1, change it to 1. While the warchanter warscroll says Add 1 to the damage inflicted by attacks made by melee weapons.

To be honest I've never had a tournament call me on WISIWG with the cabbage. The difference between Big G and a normal MK is so small relative to the model it's not noticeable. This is especially true since so many people use the axes as alternative weapon looks for the MK's. My second one has Big G's axe and a rip tooth because I didn't want to use the sword again. My advice would be get some 2mm magnets, put one into the hole ontop of his armour where the banner normally goes, put the same magnet on the bottom of both the normal banner and BIg G's banner before you spray/paint them. Then paint them both and switch between them depending on whether you're using the normal one or Big G. On the SC, it's such phenomenal value that I'd say you can go up to 4 before it starts to tank. At 4 you have 12 GG's which is 2 units of 6 or 1 unit of 6 and 2 units of 3s for a small gorefist. 4 Warchanters is a little excessive but you can easily run 3 depending on your list and 40 Ardboys is the other base unit atm. As an equivalence. 2 Start Collecting £120 15 Ardboys £32 6 Goregruntas £96 So 30 Ardboys and 6 GG's is £144. 2 start collecting + 15 Ardboys (taking you to 35 Ardboys) is £152. For £8 you get an extra 5 Ardboys and 2 warchanters. As long as you want the GG's the start collecting is easily better value. It's only if you don't want them that you should buy the units individually.

@Jabbuk at this point all you really need to do is play some games. There's only so much that theory crafting can get you until you need in game experience to either prove/disprove your instincts. A lot of it will also be subjective choices over your own playstyle. The best example is that Leo is a famously conservative player while I'm ridiculously aggressive as a player. How he plays, the armies he runs and the units he includes are all going to be strange and unwieldy for me. Equally I tried playing Big Waaagh! and it's completely alien to me yet apparently it has a higher win rather than IJ does atm. It feels to me like you need to play 5/6 games messing about with all the different units before you'll get much more from this thread. I've already played 13 tournament games with the new book, the opinions I have now are wildly different from when the book was first released.

The Ironsunz +1 CP is from a command trait and your megaboss has to have sunblessed armour EDIT: The artefact change doesn't matter to much since it's basically Ethereal Lite anyway. Personally I'd take Aetherquartz over GGV, since you no longer need to take ethereal amulet, but that's a preference rather than a rule. So it would be 2+D3 CP +1 (and 4+ GGV or aetherquartz)

At 2k it's so that you can put 4 Wurrgog prophets in. At less than that it's not quite as relevant but you gain and stack up Waaagh! points by charging or having units of 10 in combat, given that the Ardfist puts units of 10 on the board it generates a lot of Waaagh! points. You're also going to generally have Ardboys operating outside the range of heroes so MD drops in value while SnB is basically irrelevant since you're not running the units to blow things up. On the otherside of it you can use WP early in the game to add +2 to your casts, which makes the initial HoG more likely, later on it means your recycling Ardboy units have a 6++ and +1/+1 on attacks. Essentially the stacking bonuses are general army buffs unlike the IJ ones which are really geared to a different playstyle, a unit of 10 ardboys with all the Waaagh! buffs is one of the most terrifying things in the game. 2 wounds each, 20 total. 8 wounds with a 6++ vs normal wounds. a generic 6++. ~26 effective wounds per unit. 2 attacks each with 2 extra for the boss is 22 total. +1 to hit and +1 to wound. 22 attacks at 2+/2+/-1/1. You can Waaagh! at 24 WP for 1 cp and it's MAP WIDE with no restrictions. You're now at 32 attacks 2+/2+/-1/1 If you have 40 Ardboys in combat that's 128 attacks. Which is ridonclous...

If it wasn't a 4+ the only armies atm would be ardfists summoning walls of Ardboys. At 1250 for example I could run this list Deploy defensively to bubble and protect the Warchanter+Weirdnob, use the Brutes and 1 unit of Ardboys. 3 Drops so should get to pick first or second. Roll for your Waaagh! points, get 2+d6 and can burn a CP for +2. Hand of Gork the unit of 5 Ardboys. Make a 7" charge. Ardboys die. Summon 40 Ardboys. This is your WORST case scenario. Things which can make it better. Commanding, Deadly, Damned, Arcane, Volcanic, rolling a 4+ on your Waaagh! dice, Aetherquartz Broach, rolling more than 1 CP from the trait, rolling an extra CP from the artefact. Conservatively you're pulling 50 Ardboys on your turn 1 as a 3 drop army. That's 900 points of Ardboys, so I get to start the game with 2100 points in a 1250 points game. At 2k it gets even worse. That's why it's on a 4+.

If they leave it I'm going to be building up my Ardboy numbers until I can take like ~150/200 for it. I think the most you could run in a list is ~100 so up till that point it's reasonable. Definitely.

You can be back as many as you roll. I'm hoping they errata it so you can spend as many CP's as you want but can only get 1 unit back. So if you roll like ****** it takes you 4 to get the unit, if you roll like a god it costs you 1 CP but any extra CP/4+ rolls don't give you another Ardboy unit.

@DanteeChaos @broche I think to some extent it might depend on how tournaments end up dealing with the OBR terrain piece since that's supposed to go down before terrain deployment. They basically decided to tell the tournament scene to go ****** itself with it's pre-rolled/placed terrain etc.

Sadly Ironskullz can't be used in an Ardfist. The reason is that the Ardfist doesn't use Keyword Bold. It uses "Orruk Ardboys" which specifically refers to the unit not the keywords. Even if you're just recycling 30 Ardboys it's still a fair bit of pressure. The first unit of 5 goes into the spare 10, your second 5 combines with the first to give you 30. The other CP's can then be spent on things like run rolls and and Ironsunz charges.

At out club tourney last Sunday I played 15+10+5. The unit of 15 was a big anvil but it felt like overkill a lot of the time. The unit of 10 was great as both a damage threat and a screen while the unit of 5 was really useful for holding objectives and zone control. Honestly though I think both @broche and I agree (as unusual as it is 😉😘) that the 5 brutes are not great. Personally I'd recomend dropping them for an ardfist and splitting one of your ardboys units into a pair of 5s. Allegiance: Ironjawz- Warclan: IronsunzMortal Realm: HyshLeadersOrruk Megaboss (150)- General- Trait: Right Fist of Dakkbad- Artefact: Sunzblessed ArmourOrruk Warchanter (110)- Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch- Warbeat: Get 'Em BeatOrruk Weirdnob Shaman (110)Battleline6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320)- Pig-iron Choppas10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)Units5 x Orruk Ardboys (90)5 x Orruk Ardboys (90)BattalionsArdfist (120)Endless Spells / Terrain / CPsExtra Command Point (50)Total: 1220 / 1250Extra Command Points: 2Allies: 0 / 200Wounds: 89 You're 4 drops so should get to pick. Take priority and split the board, take the two corner objectives and ignore the middle. Hand of gork 1 unit of 5 and get em beat with the other. The aim is to get into combat but be attacked as little as possible forcing the opponent to start their turn in combat. Tag the ends of units, put 1 model 3" out that sort of stuff. Move the megaboss onto one corner objective with the 10 ardboys to screen and protect him. The opponent tags him and let's him start fighting it should be ok as long as he's not being focus fired. Get your weirdnob on the other corner objective with the GGs buffed/screening. Have the Warchanter sat nearby so he can rebuff the GGs and is in range to get 'Em beat your 5 ardboys unit which goes with them. Hopefully the opponent starts their turn 1 with you having tagged both top/bottom objectives with a bit of a screen and locked in combat by the 2 units of ardboys. They then kill the units of 5 in either their shooting or combat phase depending on what type of army they are. Use your ardfist, broach and 4 starting cps to summon units of 10 blocking and screening both corner objectives, protecting your heroes. Ideally you would like ~30/40 ardboys split between the corners to hamper them if they get the double. Remember aswell that you can Ironsunz CA to charge them at the end of the opponents charge phase, thus further disrupting and pinning them! Sorry was intending to do a little bit and got lost in strategizing.

While I agree on this point I disagree on the whole. At 10+ Brutes they become a focus target for ranged, magic and all sorts of chip. The end result is that they take way more casulties and are far more vulnerable to battleshock. You're also getting into the territory where the sheer lack of utility vs Ardboys is incredibly noticable, their Drummer and Shields start to become massive. Shields for obvious reasons, as you start to get more they become more and more powerful. The drummer because you're now investing a lot into that unit, a Warchanter buff, 270 points, and potentially a MD to get them closer for the charge. At that point having the charge fail becomes quite a massive hit, not least because you now have a unit of 10 brutes stranded in-front of your enemies line. There's such a huge difference between a 9" charge and an 11" charge, hell at 5" the ardboys can't fail. Don't forget that your expanded frontline is more likely to get the extra coverage because of the extra 2" and can even result in situations where your ardboys are able to threaten things which should be "out of range". Ultimately I'd rather have 6 GG's for the offensive side and 15 Ardboys for the defensive.

Tbh I've only had 2 games at club since the book dropped and those were both learning the army and a little bit of tournament prep. I do a massive amount of tournaments and that's where almost all my gaming experience is. Makes it hard to do this sort of testing where you really need 4/5 games in a 2 week period to get a feel for if it works. Sadly our club is fortnightly so I can't actually do that.

Honestly I'm not sure that's an issue in and of itself. Both Ardboys and GG's are good enough that you want them in your army anyway, means that having enough to run an Ardfist or Gorefist isn't wasted money/time for future lists. On the otherhand the only way to tell whether there is a list which Brutes are good in is to already have 40+ Brutes. Dunno about you but I'm not going out, buying and painting another 25 Brutes to work out if the list is actually good. I'd rather just buy another 75 Ardboys, knowing I can/will use them in normal lists and have access to the stupid ardfist list.

Exactly the problem is that the specific situations under which Brutes "might" become good requires so many Brutes that maybe even @Chris Tomlin doesn't have that many Brutes...

I've been playing around with lists for my next few tournaments. It basically always comes down to the choice of 5 brutes vs 5 ardboys and a CP or 5 brutes and a CP for 10 ardboys with a triumph chance. In both cases I take the Ardboys. So asking myself when I'd actually take brutes it boils down to a few factors. 1) slow moving army. This offsets them being superslow by having an army where they aren't out running the buffs. 2) no MK. Freeing up points to put more bodies on the board. I'm thinking you should be putting down at least 45 brutes. 3) bravery buffs. Stops brutes from running because someone 2 tables down sneezed. 4) Da Choppas. This not only helps with the bravery but provides a reason to take brutes over ggs. Being able to buff 840 points of brutes with 1 Warchanter and a CP is a form of power amplification which offsets the brute-gg difference. 5) brutefist. This is what makes brutes a legitimate choice over ardboys. 5 MW from a unit of 10 brutes charging is super important in a high save meta and gives a tool that is otherwise lacking. Allegiance: Ironjawz- Warclan: ChoppasLeadersOrruk Megaboss (150)- Artefact: The Boss SkewerOrruk Warchanter (110)- General- Trait: Checked Out- Warbeat: Get 'Em BeatOrruk Warchanter (110)- Warbeat: Fixin' BeatOrruk Weirdnob Shaman (110)Battleline10 x Orruk Brutes (280)- Pair of Brute Choppas10 x Orruk Brutes (280)- Pair of Brute Choppas10 x Orruk Brutes (280)- Pair of Brute Choppas10 x Orruk Brutes (280)- Pair of Brute Choppas10 x Orruk Brutes (280)- Pair of Brute ChoppasBattalionsBrute Fist (120)Total: 2000 / 2000Extra Command Points: 1Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 175 You're putting down a lot of wounds, 2 seperate bravery auras and a large potential MW output in the charge phase. Being able to buff up 4 of the units is a horrific quantity of power scaling that normally wouldn't be possible. Nobody wants to get hit by 40 brutes doing 20 MW on the charge before attacking with +1 damage on all their weapons. Sure it's slow but you're hoping the amount of beef will help mitigate that.