Rock Lobster

That might be the option to go with for a small keeper, they are pretty good with the claws still, a rend -3 blade on them or the one that gives +1 hit and wound and they can assassinate a couple of small characters a turn moving around with that little base.

Yes that could be situationally good. I would be very concerned though about trying to slip past and then before my next activation 2 models pile in and trap the keeper in place. The immediate double attack is nice for that. Nothing stopping have both types of keeper though for options.

A 2nd 6" pile in would be so broken and delicious. If that were the case I would definitely take the flying fire cloak to give them the +4 move and fly... and probably a chaos wizard for daemonic power. Screening would be so difficult against such a monster that can simply roll past a unit and hop over the top. I think the only way I could win that matchup was him making a mistake or wonky dice, in a perfect play scenario for boh players I dont this there is any current slaanesh list that would beat that list - it is too lopsided until we get some tricksy spells and battalions to work with. As it was the only lucky roll I needed was the charge on the 2nd keeper since the first did it all without dice, and the 2nd wasn't an insane move since an 8 could have worked with the right kills on the first attack, a nine would have been fine and rolled a 10. Plus I could use the reroll without consequence since worst case I couldn't fail a charge into the nearest unit thanks to seekers plus 2 charge. Overall dice were pretty balanced. But for sure - 8 wounds from 1 cannon in 1 turn. I am sure 2 hits his turn would have been unpleasant. From memory he had 3 x WLC 3 x warp fire throwers Some kind of verminlord with a 26" immune to battle shock bubble ability Grey seer Engineer Warlord rat for the death frenzy The endless spell that prevents running and flying and damages everything within 6" (pain in the ass) 40 clanrats 40 clanrats 20 clanrats The WLC and warp fire throwers are horrible for us whether we go characters or mass damonettes - and its all mortals so no depravity. Skaven are a really horrible at the moment, we need some deepstrike type shenanigans perhaps in the book with something.

And that is particularly important with the 6" pile in trait. You dont need to connect, just skirt around an enemy and jab from just under 2" away and move past them if you need to get too something more tasty.

It was not slick play from the skaven in that battle - in screening not range, overconfidence from cruising to victory in other games I believe and the matchup being so in his favor he didn't take the time think about every possibility. It was the end of the day and we were all tired, he knew that all of my units could fight twice but I dont think he realized the impact of the 2nd pile-in which I have found incredibly useful when planned for. The keeper with the 6" pile in he had no idea to stop since with a 2in range I didn't need to make contact with his unit, pile in 6" skirting past the far side clanrat and jabbing them from 2in away as a pass and another 3" thereafter (making sure to be just slightly closer to the nearest model) and 2" range again. His WLC was not close, but moving 22" and then 6" pile and 3" pile and 2" range gave me the 33" range i needed to hit the sucker - the lesson he learnt isn't range management but not compromising on screening even at crazy distance just in case. With the 2nd keeper again I got 10" charge +2" for seekers which gave me 16" plus 12" plus 3" pile plus 3" pile for 34" which was not at all what he was expecting. In both cases the WLC felt they were safe and would be in range next turn with enough screen to stop me, but I had enough clever movement to get around the screen. I have no doubt that if he just played conservative and put his WLC even further back rather than getting greedy and formed a continuous line of fur the game would be nasty.

I agree with the assessment in general, and was constrained by the models available to me, that said, victories are often how you play the strengths of the lists and capitalize on your opponents mistakes. As mentioned I won the tournament with this list and played 2 skaven opponents, 1 with 3 warp lightning cannons. I kept 27.5" to stay out of range turn 1 and he made a mistake with his screens assuming that he was too far for me to get him. 1 keeper ran full 6" (using 1 of the plentiful command points) and hence used 6" pile in to hit the side of a unit of clan rats and rolled around the 1 model with the 2nd pile in to kill 1 warp lightning cannon. The other keeper surprised them with a 10" charge (using another of my plentiful command points for the reroll) that again allowed a 2nd rolling pile-in to take off the 2nd warp lightning cannon, the 3rd took 8 wounds off a keeper before it too died. The geminids put -1 to hit on the verminlord and large numbers of clanrats which combined with the hellstriders kept me survivable. It was a full tabling on table 1 final game of an opponent who had tabled his previous opponents and by the end I had used a total of 9 command points in 3 turns. The key to the success of the list was the seekers ability and the command points, it allowed me to sit out of range of the biggest threats to my army if needed and surge forward and strike in 1 turn if needed from an insane range, missing either of those components my strategy would not have worked. In this case it paid off bringing the trophy home.

I love battalions, and on paper this one is a steal for just 70 points more than your 50 point command point you would buy anyway you get less drops, an artifact and plus 1 attack on a unit if close to the enraptures. I think I would take it for sure if it didn't force pretenders. The downsides currently are: Going pretenders rather than seekers you lose the massively useful (and critical in my view) movement for essentially a little more utility on your warlord with the extra command trait is more eggs in that basket on a character who is squishy. Worth it if you have a very good plan for that 2nd artifact and can change the way you play - of course the battalion and everything makes it more likely your 2nd item bearer will again be a smaller more squishy character. The plus 1 attack is very hard to gain unless A) your enraturess runs around and doesn't shoot, B) you slow your units down. At any rate getting extra attacks is not a problem as you just spend 1cp with your exalted keeper to give those daemonettes 4 attacks and there is rarely need for more than that. Plus, she is a squishy character - a quick snipe and the battalion doesn't help. You pay a tax beyond the battalion to get it. The enraptures is a better summon than base unit in reality. You would rather put those points elsewhere and summon her. Also seekers I do not rate, they hit like wet noodles, dont buff any other units and dont fill your battle line. Points are already tight and you start 340 (290 if you ignore the command point) in the hole between the seekers, the battalion and the enraptures which could be put in more efficient places. I played a 1 day tournament called day of blood in Ontario couple of weeks ago and won undefeated (played multiple skaven and deepkin) with the following list: Seekers host Exalted Keeper - Aetherquartz broach, 6" pile in trait Exalted Keeper 30 daemonettes 6 fiends 5 hellstriders 5 hellstriders Geminids 5 command points This was a weird list based on available models with a bucket of command points and the aetherquartz broach to regenerate them. In reality I only needed one of the 2 - a big pool of command points or a smaller pool with the broach. The big pool though allowed me to first turn often run daemonettes and main keeper 6" to get close to the enemy (and keeper to pile in later) allowing the daemonettes to keep pace with the faster moving elements. I was able to make both keepers, daemonettes and fiends double attack and would typically gut the opposing army in a single turn, or at least decimate anything touched. I would even screen with my daemonettes and let the opponent hit me only to reveal the horror of my screen being -1 to hit (or -2 with the geminids) and then the rest of the army piles in and attacks twice. Key to the list was management of the hellstriders -1 hit aura and stacking with the geminids. Always keep general out of combat to pile in later and for second squishy exalted keeper fight first so the incentive isn't there to hit her. The fiends can easily tank any combat, the dameonettes too with the reroll 6's to hit them stacked with -1 to hit debuffs. At one point 40 clanrats with additional attacks and buffs attacked the daemonettes but had -2 to hit with the geminids and reroll hit rolls of 6 and with a bucket of dice did very few casualties and were minced in response. I dont think this is the list I would settle on as it needs bodies, but it was certainly fun and a nasty shock. I think the command point pool is very important given how powerful the command trait is for slaanesh and also how powerful the run CP is on the daemonettes. Spending a CP with seekers to make daemonettes move 13" and then charge at +1 to their charge means opponents 20" away might think themselves safe but are more than likely being hit that turn which is a big threat range.

I have to agree with Malakree, I would give it 0-1% chance. However this is not a bad thing. The gloomspite gits waited and got a whole load of new kits, flesh eaters got a quick turnaround on their book and only on new model with the release. I would prefer a release next year with a couple of new units to give the army more fleixbility. Ironjawz are a very popular range and GW will know they can stick a couple of new units in one of those battle boxes with another faction ahead of the book release and sell a ton. Small chance, but I would not rule out that battle box being released Christmas this year with a book next year if they do have models underway. Perhaps Ironjawz and the light elves would be cool in a set :D.

They are the best answer we have to eels. We have a limited toolset which is the weakness of the army. Where we think that Brutes may not be able to overcome eels, ardboys are in an even worse position. 10 ardboys with the great weapons and +2 attacks vs the killy eels is 9 wounds or 2 dead eels. The same on 5 brutes is 16 wounds or 4 dead eels. It is a really poor matchup for ironjawz. The eels usually get the charge, and if they do you lose whether you took ardboyz or Brutes, however if you get a double turn or he underestimates your movement plus ironfist plus cogs (as has happened for me) it is possible to get the charge. The eels are much better on the charge so if you get a chance to double move a maw krusha and pin units in place at the very end of a line it is worthwhile and you can catchup with your units hopefully before he dies. If you are going 2nd then the eels have uncomfortable decisions to make since although they have enormous movement, a 6 on the ironfist roll and a cogs spell and suddenly you are projecting an average move and charge distance with your brutes of 22" if you have those tools. Even if you dont have those tools a lucky double move can pin a unit in place. This forces the deepkin player to choose to either take a chance and move their units closer to the ironjawz and risk the low chance of shenanigans with lucky allegiance and battalion rolls, or backup and take the chance of a charge failing, even with their reroll which will put them in a bad spot. Either way the chances of a good result are low unfortunately, it requires either bad luck on their part or good luck on your part to really be in the fight and even then you can still easily lose. Brutes are the weapon of opportunity here, if the good fortune does come, they are the unit that can really hurt the eels and capitalize on it.

I have found the Brute verses ardboyz tradeoff to be a little false in my past games and it is better to have a mix. Ardboyz are on paper better units when you look at damage they can take and multiple waaagh against many enemies, but for certain pretty frequent occurances you are better with the Brutes. Brutes are better against anything with 4 wounds or more, great against eels (which are common in any deepkin build), fiends of slaanesh (when the book comes out you will see more) and enemy monsters or characters they can take a reliable bite out of or assassinate. I frequently use my 5 man Brute units to pick off key characters, especially in scenarios where those character score. The other situation which you see a lot of is with any negative modifiers to hit. The basic brutes having +1 to hit over the ardboyz and the brute smasha on the boss auto hitting (as long as you have enough attacks to land the claw (+2 minimum) helps rack up the damage. Against a unit of grots and netters with 4 additional attacks, 10 ardboyz with great weapons hit only 20 times and cause an average of 11 casualties. The 5 Brutes will average 18 wounds in the same situation. Finally the Brutes clear armour better thanks purely to the Brute smasher. This really just helps with the character killing as the rest of the unit is no better off. +4 attacks on the unit though (average for 3 command points spent and prophet of the waaagh) will net you 4 wounds at rend -2 and D3 damage which can even cause sequitors some trouble. A solid core of a list for 1000 of your points with the rest to taste would be 2 x 20 ardboyz and 2 x 5 Brutes which gives you the flexibility to cover both these types of options. If you are in an eel heavy environment you might double up the brutes and halve the ardboyz for more choppy against high would models, or even a mix of the 2 for just over 1k points with 20 ardboyz, 10 ardboyz, 10 brutes, 5 brutes.

I dont think you need to go back to the drawing board, I think you nailed it here almost. Drop 1 fungoid for a command point and bump 2 units of ardboyz up to brutes, or drop 1 fungoing, downgrade 1 unit of ardboyz to gore gruntas and get 2 command points and you are all legal and have both the front loaded waaagh and the endless waaagh in the list.

Haha I was about to correct you to 4.33333 recurring and then realized that you need to factor in a 1/3 chance each of the additional CP may generate additional CP in a lucky streak. You are right, sticking 2 of those guys for 180 points is 4.5 roughly CP after 3 turns. of 4.5 x 50points = 225 points average value if they stay alive for 3 turns and do nothing else. If you combine that with the Prophet of the Waaagh that means those 180 points results in an average over your games of +6 attacks to all units or 2 per turn average. You would pay 180 points for something that did nothing else and granted your army an average 2 attacks per turn on every weapon in every unit.

if you are going wierdfist or using a wierdnob and hoping to get off foot of gork go rogue idol. If they allow the realm spells in your area and you have a few wizards, go rogue idol. If you are looking for something to smash into stuff and for amusing things to occur, go bonegrinder. If I were making an ally recommendation from scratch (and granted you didn't for it) I would probably say Troggath hag is a great choice. Slightly cheaper, highly resilient, strong if short ranged shooting attack and a wizard with an amazing spell. That spell on her completely changes a combat. Also because she is a wizard and resilient she is great for all the scenarios where only a wizard or artifact holder can sit on an objective. Another classic ally choice would be the fungoid cave shaman. If you are in the realms for magic, 2 of these for 180 points will generate 3 CP on average by the end of turn 3, a value of 150 points meaning you basically got 2 spell casters for 30 points. If you have the aetherquartz broach then those extra CP will result in a 4th CP meaning your 180 points of spell casters generate 200 points of CP by the end of turn 3. With this little guy it is possible to forgo battalions entirely if you are looking at stacking Waaagh, drop your 300 points of Bloodtoofs for 360 points of 4 wizards and with your aetherquartz broach you will waagh 4 times a turn every turn of the game and have a lot of unbind and casting attempts too.

more than likely yes. In the meantime since every start collecting box etc includes some seekers, and no one uses seekers, just use those as the heralds potentially. There will not be any confusion as long as you have no seekers in your army.

Including 2-3 60 point heralds on steeds of slaanesh is good value I find. They can move fast enough to keep up with fiends for their locus, you can hide one for keeping access to summoning if you are worried about losing your characters and they are the best depravity return point for point. For example, if you throw 3 heralds into an enemy unit for 180 points and they get munched you will earn 12 depravity points which will get you 2 enrapturesses worth 240 points. Any depravity they earn is gravy on top of this since you have netted a free extra 60 points of units your couldn't afford when building your army.

Another note on the one drop battalion and its usefulness. Remember that if you have a 1 drop battalion it doesn't mean you need to drop it all at once. If your opponent has 8 drops for example you could still drop 6 units down to see their positioning and for your 7th drop put down the rest of the battalion to give you 2nd turn without being outdeployed.

I agree, some really solid lists here. The banner boss is potentially interesting as an option if you are looking to drop the mawkrusha entirely since the short range of the megabosses command ability makes it mostly unusable - although I can't think why you would drop the krusha as he is really great. This would be a terrible list, but another flavor for anyone crazy enough to try it. You can get the warboss for his baby waaagh and reroll 1s to wound, 3 warchanters and 3 x 30 man units of ardboyz and a battalion plus 1-2 command points likely. Still use the aetherquarz broach but take brutish cunning on one of the warchanters for that 1 in 3 chance to throw a unit of 30 ardboyz forward to disrupt an enemy charge phase, also probably a boss stikka for bravery help. The warboss is an absolute liability at 6 wounds and 4+, you are not totally knackered if he goes down (especially if you put prophet of the waaagh instead on a warchanter but I think if you are going for a silly list like this, go all in with silly and go for the random pontentially hilarious charge move which can disrupt your opponents plans. Imagine the look on someones face when their whole army is lined up to charge you, you get the 5+ and use 1 block of boys to charge in and pin down the army in an irritating line that doesn't let them maximize combatants, removes all charge bonuses and when one of their units hits you, you spread attacks all the way down the line. The sacrifice of much of that unit could save a battle - so random and silly but amusing nonetheless. Also killing 180 wounds with a 4+ save is soul destroying. Also soul destroying to paint

The like here is for lists 1 and 3. 1 is an interesting take on a very different ironjawz list. It has the same weakness as the Ardfist in that the wierdnob dies and its curtains for the whole battalions benefit, but slightly more risky as you can need line of site so have to be out there and it requires your units to group together. I dont think it is in the same bracket as the other lists to be honest as it is so situational and against a list like nagash or tzeetch they will dispell you all day unless you are well positioned to outrange their dispell and lucky on your wierdfist rolls, but I like that it punches hard still with the 2 maw krushas so wins my vote for top wierdfist so far. For the ardboyz list I am torn between yours and @Andrew G , both solid lists. I think I might like yours better though as the wound count is insane and that is a lot of scoring heroes, albeit with less potential for waaagh. It also wins the award for worst list to model and paint!

If you like the list dont forget to give it a like otherwise I wont be able to track favorites. I think you might be onto something in the daubing. I am biased towards the reflecting of mortal wounds from the mirrored cuirass after I kept my mawkrusha alive and killed durthu in a tournament in his final turn (I was done) when both durthu and my Maw krusha were down to 2 wounds each and he hit me with 2 mortals for the magic double 6. It turned a 14-6 win into a 20-0 owing to my position on the objective and forever now has earned its place. I like the creativity of the list and it could suprise people, with zarbags gang there the charge stopping of the fanatic is a big sell to me. However I think the list feels a little light on something extra with less speed, bodies and hitting power than previous lists. Maybe cogs would be a great compliment to Zarbag and would make this a very fast list, but it feels like unless you could find 50 points for the extra command point from somewhere...

Indeed, that is what I had heralds on seekers in to do. Useful for popping cheaply onto gravesites or objective or sending a wave in to earn back their own depravity as a distraction. I think the enrapturess does the job better now though with shooting. If you have the super fast exalted keeper (or 2 in my case_ you could do worse than going in and earning a bunch of depravity points turn 1, then maybe summoning 3 of these turn 2 that can immediately shoot and earn more. Chances are that turn 3 you can gain 3 depravity from the ones that are there, add them to any further damage from your lord and their shooting and summon a couple more. Rinse and repeat.

I think if the base herald were also a wizard that would give some utility, although at 60 points and a goblin shaman being 80 she would need to be at least 80 points for that to be fair. The other option would be to give them an ability that allows them at least to supplement a unit without wasting an activation like some of the Khorne heralds have. I.e. if you activate and attack with the herald, then you can attack with another of your units within 6" as well.

Although lets be fair, the Enrapturess Hyper loop would be highly entertaining but not very strong. First turn there are 7 of them. If you are lucky enough to go up against something like a Maw Krusha 7 x 2+ / 3+ / Rend-3 DD3 could net you 6-8 wounds turn 1. Fun for summoning, a little underwhelming for 7 characters going nuts.

I put a vote in for list 1 here. List 2 is too easily crippled by the loss of the warchanter I feel. List 3 is very strong, but I prefer my own which is really similar out of personal preference that I like the 2 medium units verses the 1 large unit for flexibility and maximizing attacks in 2 places.

I agree, dont buy 6+ enrapturesses on this basis. She will be minimum 10 points to summon.

Are you sure? That must be a mistake, typically units are circa 1 depravity point per 10 points, slight discount for keeper and exalted keeper and big discount for 20 daemonettes. She is 120 so I expected 12. Funny thing with that depravity cost is you can have 6 of them as you characters then: Turn 1: generate 6 depravity points in your hero phase and immediately summon a 7th in your movement phase. Shoot with all 7 in your shooting phase, likely netting another 5-6 depravity points Turn 2: Genrate 7 depravity points in your hero phase and combine with those earned with shooting last shooting phase to summon an 8th and 9th, let fly with those 9 in your shooting phase. Turn 3: rinse and repeat... the Enrapturess hyperloop is born The funny thing is that even when your opponent kills them, outside of mortal wounds you can quickly replenish these girls. If an opponent kills 3 enrapturesses, that gives you enough points to summon 2 more. That army could be comically frustrating.