Rock Lobster

First 5 wardens minus the bases - waiting for some new base materials to be delivered. I am such a slow painter so this will be a long project.

First test model completed, was too lazy to think of a new scheme so used the same from my 40k space marines. I think it works well for lumineth though.

What is the difference between a soul grinder and an Alegyzzler gargant? One has hydraulics the other has high-bollocks...

What’s long brown and sticky? ...Durthu

Nagash: Lady Olynder, why did you miss the mortarch social last night? Olynder: I had no-body to go with...

I would urge everyone to be considering this a very positive development. For those worried about having to pick up bonesplitters now, don’t worry, it explicitly says pure armies and mixed armies. If a stronger army can be made by adding bonesplitters then don’t consider that being forced, but a bonus that you can access if you choose to make your force even stronger. The reality is that unless the mechanics of ironjawz change a lot, there is little benefit to diluting your army with other units. The more units you have and taking the big battalions makes ironjawz strong and a force half the size is far less than half the effectiveness if diluted with a bunch of bonesplitters. the biggest deal here is new wars rolls. Our warscrolls are so broken it would be amazing to have ones that work. Maybe brutes are worth their points, maybe the list of battalions and functionally useful. Maybe the mawkrusha becomes stronger to justify the points. Could be all kinds of great things happening.

The meta can easily solve hedonites in general. I think anyone who is not playing hedonites and is playing a combat army feels we are at the top tier. However, I think anyone with experience of the army (i.e. all of us) knows that it is the most weak of any of the top tier books to shooting, hands down - we just arnt seeing shooting. I would be confident with my experience of using HoS to build a karadron overlord or even freeguild army that annihilates HoS in a tournament setting. Against the right builds keepers a 360 points dissolve with only 14 wounds and a 4+ save, they are as resilient as 7 ironjawz ardboyz which is 98 points worth of models. In those matchups, none of your characters will survive turn 1/2, you will lose all deprativity and be back to just troops. Those are the times you will be happy to have 60 bestigor in a pretenders host with rerolls 1s to fight which your characters cower or die.

Assuming this was supposed to respond to my post. Definitely a player error. Although in this situation (anecdotal as i may be) about 20 wounds were off the back of attacks hitting on 3s which would have been a nice little saving. having 18 guys with shields would have been another 7 wounds saved, so 16 ardboyz left alive even after that tactical blunder would have pinned me in place another turn and cost me all 4 command points over his turn and my turn to kill them off, leaving me with no CP. If ironjawz win the roll there would be the option to waagh charge in and using smashing and bashing pick up the keepers.

As a Slaansh player I don't disagree. With few attacks that hit really hard and limited access to rerolls, that -1 to hit can be infuriating. I have the same frustration when fighting moonclan grots which will never die because of it.

I recently played a game against Ironjawz with my Slaanesh, his was the typical bloodtoofs / 30 ardboys list and mine was the double keeper, 30 daemonettes and hellstrider chaff list. It is a tough road for the ironjawz in this battle. He made the mistake of using his hand of Gork to put 30 Ardboyz with big choppas into the 5 helstriders screening my 2 keepers and epitome where he was hoping to wipe them out in 1 turn with a couple of Waaghs. Things to consider as to why this was a bad call and lessons for everyone here: 1. Ardboyz will almost certainly strike last, and I had 2 command points, which is 2 keepers fighting twice, some hellstriders and an epitome. I did the full 60 wounds on his turn, wiped them out and summoned a 3rd keeper turn 1 - it was over in his first turn. Keep track of the number of command points, I just barely did the 60 wounds, if I only had 1 battalion there would have been a good number of survivors. If they had shields a few would have been left alive, even better would have been ironsunz since I hit with a lot of 3s which would have missed. 2. Dont need to engage. The ironjawz took position on the table and my stuff didn't fly. The ardboyz could have not charged at all, just sat back a few inches and screened in my army meaning rather than me killing them all and then moving out in my turn, I can only hit the ardboyz on my turn. Plus if I am charging then my characters have to be within attacking range. 3. Remember 1" range. It was a doomed attack since the helstriders screened my keepers and my 2" range could fight over them. Even if he went first he could kill the Hellstriders and still be killed back. As mentioned in an earlier post, it would have been a very clever move that might have won him the game turn 1 to tag in the megaboss on mawkrusha onto the corner of the hellstriders (hopefully just out of 6" of my locus, kill them and allow the ardboyz to smashing and bashing fight with no screen, that would have been a nasty shock. So in short: 1. Dont overestimate your ardboyz resilience or underestimate opponents killing power - be aware of double fighting and how many CP they have 2. Decide if you even need to fight that turn. If you are screening anyway and they dont fly, you can reduce the damage you take in 1 combat phase to 0 by not being engaged. 3. Remember your range is short, things can attack you over screens and you cant attack them. Consider other things to kill the screen first, especially if chaff which can allow you to pile in and fight immediately afterwards.

I am really pleased to see you put those lists into action, all very solid. I am particularly taken with the Ironsunz approach (partly out of blood toofs fatigue after a year) and I think it has real legs for those tanky ardboyz, and a boss that has a little more survivability. I like your take on the protection verses offense. With the rerolls to wound and extra attacks you really dont necessarily need the extra oomph of the rend. That 5+ against mortal wounds is great, at his average of 16 wounds, it will take 24 mortal wounds to bring him down, meaning you can tank an entire skaven army's ranged mortal wound output for a turn and live potentially if you desperately need him to be somewhere exposed. He even has the potential to survive the girstlegore general if they dont roll well which is a claim few other characters can make. Did you feel the Brutes upgrades were worth it (aside from rule of cool) compared to arboyz or would you have rather had a CP in retrospect? Do you think you get more value out of the fungoid and the potential for a mystic shield on the ardboyz or a 2nd warchanter for the 2+ to hit when they go in? I am genuinely on the fence so actually interested in your perspective.

...better make it 2 beers then...

In short, on your turn yes as you get to choose what activates first a the start of the combat phase, on their turn no as they will choose what gets to activate first in the combat phase. However, on their turn if you buy them a beer and ask pretty please maybe they will allow you to activate your cloak first and kill their killer general...

I didn’t see the original post but unfortunate to see name calling came up. Been on this thread a long time and it has always been great and cordial. Ironjawz is da politest!

Depends on your definition of a nerf. if your definition of a nerf is many of our units getting cheaper, battalions getting cheaper, mega battalions getting cheaper and stronger, additional very useful command abilities and a new and extremely useful spell lore a nerf... then I suppose it’s a nerf...

If you are going crazy buffs you can always reroll wounds on them first in the hero phase (assuming you don't need to stay in range) and hand of gork after. It may need you to be within range in the combat phase though, I havnt seen the wording. Plus if you go for the 2nd shaman you miss out on the 2nd +1 to hit from the 2nd warchanter.

Its really good, 3s to wound isn't amazing. The problem is the wholly within 12". That is tricky to do with such a slow moving and squishy character. In the solid lists we have been discussing with megaboss, shaman and warchanter, megabattalion, 30 ardboyz and 4 x ardboyz or gruntas, this leaves you 160 points. This could be: Another shaman and a 40 point endless spell or upgrade a unit to brutes Another shaman and use the spare 40 points to upgrade the warchanter for triple shaman Another unit and a 20 point endless spell Upgrade some units to brutes or a CP and upgrade some to brutes Upgrade warchanter to a 2nd shaman, take a CP, upgrade 1 unit to butes or endless spell Take a 2nd warchanter and a CP and upgrade a unit to brutes. Take a 2nd and 3rd warchanter. So you have a lot of options for that last 160 points in addition to what you have in - ranging from 3 warchanters and 1 shaman to 3 shamans and no warchanters, to some combination with either CP or units. You can of course cut the 30 ardboyz to 20 to do something else with, but this feels like a mistake to me unless you are making 2 or 3 x 20 which could work if you are going a different strategy then the pin in approach.

Its great to have a tough choice between 2 things for once. I think blood toofs is still the best, super reliable and does everything you want it to do, but Ironsunz is now an interesting choice. If they made the -1 to hit automatic I would say they are dead even, as it is, the chance of rolling a 1 leans me into bloodtoofs, +1 to charge is so useful with hand of gork.

I have no seen the rule, only heard then talked about, that is unfortunate. Makes me lean a little the iron sunz way, although lets be honest the bravery is a grade A lifesaver. Does it give +1 to charge?

I had forgotten about the banner, good shout. Still a tempting choice for that -1 to hit first battle round from ironsunz is designed for this type of strategy. Normally it will just provide a little protection for a first round of shooting, but getting to use it in both your turn for retaliation attacks and their turn for their attacks is great. It also helps out a lot if the casting roll for hand of Gork is flubbed and the ardboyz need to soak up an enemy alpha strike. I am not underestimating their tankiness, it is why we are all looking at the 30 ardboyz, however we should also not overestimate it when you are pinning the entire strategy on them holding the enemy in place a while. AOS is a much higher damage game than it was a year ago. Ironjawz which are not even the highest DPS can cause 55 wounds after save with 3 waaghs and the 2 warchanters on 30 other ardboyz, 1 more unit of pigs on top equals a turn 1 wipe out which in turn means if they double turn they strike out and take all of the objectives. I think the strategy is good though. Just per earlier posts I think we need to offensively power up the arboyz to cause massive damage with first strike too and I think ironsunz could be a real potential option to reduce return damage and make it really tough to wipe them out in a turn. If it works it is game ending for the opponent. I love the visual of a wall of iron smashing in to cripple a response, locking bodies shields and weapons to hold back the counter push and then a 2nd wave crashing in finish off the enemy. What are you thoughts on moves if the spell fails, even with easy casts I tend to have a tendency to roll a 4 and fail and will do so in at least half of games.

Yes Indeed! Ironsunz way better. 2+ for the -1 to hit and your megaboss gets D3 of the +1 wound and attack. Solid pick now.

I had never thought of kitbashing with the endless spells, what a great idea - Im sure there are all kind of possibilities there.

The bravery 10 is nice as a start, but if you take 22 wounds that will drop to 9 and you are going to be taking double that probably down to 8 from the big hitters. So 22 wounds is a big turning point when you would be taking battleshock on bravery 9 with 11 casualties. If you roll a 6 that is potentially another 8 casualties putting you down to 11men, anything more on top of that and it get more dire. The risk with going first is they get to hit you back with whatever you charged into and kill you and get free their turn 1, or in their turn they can potentially wipe you out, meaning in their turn if they double turn they get to strike all of the stuff capturing objectives in the midfield. That doesn't mean I dont think it is a valid strategy, I actually really like but we might want to consider some additional potential resilience for the unit to stick around if you plan to go first. What about going ironsunz rather than bloodtoofs if you are not as into the waagh or just need to be a little more careful about positioning if doing it since you want the6 units . On a 2+ first turn you get -1 to hit the the whole of the first battle round, that is -1 to hit on their attacks back to your ardboyz and on their turn too - a good tool if going first. As an example, lets take 40 plague monks buffed to 4 attacks each rerolling hits (I know they can be more nasty) . 40 against blood toofs will kick about 40 wounds after armour saves and everything with that many attacks. That will leave about 10 ardboyz remaining to doomed to fail battleshock off even with the +2 without inspiring presence (and you will always need inspiring presence). If you get the -1 to hit the math changes as follows, those same plague monks do 29 - 31 wounds against your ardboys. If you have a few shields in there or even do the reroll 1s for armor save cp burn you can be pretty safe in losing 11-13 guys rather than 20. Its a big difference. Plus with ironsunz the megaboss becomes more tanky and a beatstick and will also be -1 to hit, so if he has good protection he might be able to get stuck in and cause havok too.

And yes, sadly rumour is that the gitmob are gone, it’s a shame, some highly amusing and iconic items like the snotling pump wagon and doom diver.

I don’t think anyone is going to have a problem with that if it’s a cool conversion. I think counts as conversions are really great and characterful as long as it looks like what it should be, a multibarrelled cannon type arrangement covered in grots.