Andrew G

Sure, we'll see how it pans out in practice but I'm predicting you'll see "competitive" IJ lists almost always go choppas. The argument you're making basically boils down to a threshold argument, "1 extra MW in charge phase could be the difference between a MK charging again" which could be true, but you'll probably play a dozen games before it happens. There will probably be more games where one extra mw isn't the difference between charging again or being able to pile-in past a screen and the raw output would have been better. That, and like Seals mentioned, you can make the same threshold argument that higher output enables charge again shenanigans better than hackas in bloodtoofs as well. The gap between the two is relatively small, regardless, especially when looking at damage against 2+ save or turns GGs are not buffed. The choice of weapon doesn't impact how you're going to play the unit at all. So in the end... it probably doesn't matter which you pick.

Yea, with you 100%. Choppas all day, every day !

I'm at work, so forgive the 10 second Microsoft paint job but this is how I move my goregruntas around and they always have choppas. When charging, I just place the 25mm bases touching my opponents and orient the GGs around it touching the 25mm bases. Depending on the enemy formation, you'll always have 5 to 6 attack with this method.

Very hard disagree, there's a very easy to use formation that maintain coherency and allow all 6 to attack/charge/etc. There's only been probably 1 or 2 times since the coherency change where I had to sacrifice 1 GG not attacking because I couldn't maintain the formation and that was mostly due to proximity to terrain.

Choppas, every time. We're talking about the difference of 1 MW for a unit of 6 GGs between the weapon options vs. 33% more attacks which have scalable value when warchanter buffed or it's a Waaagh turn.

Two different discussions IMO(how often/massively should the rules be updated vs. should the rules exist in an easier to update format), but I appreciate and agree with the sentiment in a game where the players are also the enforcers/arbiters of the rules to keep changes to a minimal when possible. That said, I play other games where the rules exist purely in a digital format with the only printed materials being lore/art and it's such a luxury in comparison to AOS. The developers have the same pressure to keep changes to a minimum (for the reasons already stated), but any changes that "need" to be made are integrated into the main rules app/army builder with a separate change log if you're a returning player. In today's AOS, if I have a legitimate question about how your army works, you handing me a warscroll card means jack-****** without also referencing the FAQ/Errata.

Completely agree. I think this is pretty typical when any new edition drops, as most people focus output/synergy first and then sacrifice damage output/wounds per point for utility pieces they determine they need through more in-game experience.

Recap from a 1-day, 20 person event. My List (Ironjawz): Game 1: Clan Skryre All gas, no brakes MW shooting Skyre list. He didn't have a screen in the army. He did have enough firepower that if you actually set-up in range of the Stormfiends, canons, etc. he probably could shoot off almost anything. So, I didn't set-up anything important in range of those things! He opts to give me first turn as I had deployed so far back. Orcs go fast though, I Mighty Destroyers the Mawcrusher up the board, teleport 5-ardboyz to absorb Unleash Hell, and everything else runs to middle objects. I kill off enough of his MW shooting output he can't kill my MK in one round in his turn. I win the initiative roll, game over for the rats. Game 2: Soulblight Faced off against one of the best players in the area. He's running a Gatebreaker ally, zombie dragon, Radukar, MSU zombies+Graveguard. Really close game, but he exposed his zombie dragon genera and Gatebreaker too early and I got very lucky with dice and end up killing/crippling them both T1. He stayed in the game clogging up the board and respawing zombies in the backfield, but he had no answer for the Mawcrusher for the rest of the game so it mostly just a game of wack-a-mole from there. Game 3: Idoneth Walking up the table and seeing the army, I had no idea how this guy won two games. 2x30 Namarti bow guys, two turtles, Idolon, and some other stuff. After playing against it, it made a lot more sense. Not paying for rend -1, or -2 and just going for volume of shots is probably the way to go when there's basically 2+ armor ethereal amulet hero/monsters in most games. That said, another person who tried to skip screens to maximize firepower and deployed on the backline to try to prevent T1 charges. He gives me 1st turn, Orcs go fast, and I end up getting the mawkrusher (landed the 3d6 charge warbeat), 6 gore gruntas (mighty destoryer), and 5 'ardboyz (teleported) into his army T1. Kill almost all the reavers. He tries to jump the Mawkrusher with the two turtles and Idolon, and fails to land a roar on the MK, which means I'm tanking everything on 2+ and he only lands one MW bite. I win initiative, and it was game over. Result: I ended up in second, with the person taking first bringing Nagash. Takeaways: 18 of the 20 players were playing shooting lists to counter chad monsters, or playing chad monster/heroes. I have no idea how I dodged Lumineth, as 6 of the 20 players basically brought the same lumineth list. I don't think I'll get as lucky next time and get two players who thought they could rely on low-drops/unleashed hell/damage output/ backline deployment to deal with really fast armies but I'll take it.

I go back and forth on this as an IJ player and eventually opted to keep 1 wizard in my army. Being able to dispel endless spells like spell portal/ shackles without being forced to use my heroic ability It's sometimes possible to stay our of dispel ranges 1st turn with longer range spells that target friendly units (e.g Hand of Gork) Playing against factions w/o magic doms that have super impactful spells (e.g mind razer) Playing against magic dom factions that also bring weaker casters (e.g Unbinding lumineth archers 5+ mortal wound spell rather than messing with Teclis himself). It's obviously not a clear-cut decision, especially against the worst abuser (Kroak) from both a casting and unbinding perspective, but I tend to regret not bringing a wizard against Lumineth, DoK, STD, Soulblight, etc.

List above. I took the battalion that gives an extra enhancement and gave the shaman +1 cast. Grand strategy is to keep battleline alive. Agree, doesn't help that even if you do get into the archers now they're most likely going to be -1 hit / +4 armor / +5 ward which is a respectable defensive state line for pretty much any army., especially for one of the premier long range units in the game. I know they mentioned the intent this edition was to move away from Deathstars, but what they actually did widened the gap between the haves and have nots in that area.

Recounting my 3.0 games from the perspective of a fairly competitive Big Waaagh! player (I win ~75% of the 15-25 local events, score in the top 25% at least at GTs). Writing this for fun, rather than any serious, reasoned criticism of the new edition as I'm sure some salt will seep through. Caveats: All my experience in 2.0 was Mawcrusherless, board/objective control style, Big Waaggh! I wanted to try out a Mawcrusher Build in IJ for my first 3.0 games I'm rusty from the pandemic + playing other table top games I know the warclans book is coming out soon. Game 1 vs. Lumineth Played against a 1-drop Teclis+30 Archers+Cathallar+stuff to stand in front of the before mentioned things. Lumineth T1: Shoots all my warchanters off the board and buffs his army (very hard to hide with shortened board + no-LOS restrictions). IJ T1: Sacrifice a unit 5'ardboyz to unleashed hell. Mawcrusher and a unit of goregruntas get engaged. Net result, 10 spears dead and 0 archers (Archers took 0 damage from 3 goregruntas). Lumineth T2: I ignored a few of the spell directed at Mawcrusher, but "reroll shooting against target" spell attacks goes through. Archers delete mawcrusher in one turn (this is the defensive build - Ironclad, 5+ Ward, ignore spell on 4+), teclis and spears deal with engaged gore gruntas. IJ T2: Sacrifice another 5'ardboyz to unleash hell, goregruntas+ a different unit of 'ardboyz sneak around screens and hit archers. I actually kill 6 this time. IJ T3: All I had left was a unit of Brutes, a larger unit of 'ardboyz engaged with his archers, and a couple 5 man units and wizards. I was ahead on objective points, so figured I'd play it out. I end up not doing much. Lumineth T3: Pretty much tables me. Take-aways: I have no idea how archers slipped through cracks this edition. They were already good, and just got better with the introduction of unleashed hell, shortened board, more levers to pull to increase defensiveness. Scenario played a big role, as he was able to castle and remain in protection of Teclis with his entire army while contesting half the objectives. Game 2 vs. Slaves to Darkness: coming once I get some more spare time at work.

I was able to salvage about 30% of my models moving over to AOS, but it still hurts seeing my very substantial old painted O&G collection on the shelf.

I like the idea, but not being able to use Mighty Destroyers more than once per hero phase kind of killed the fun of double-cabbage lists.

Yea, agreed. The shaman change seems silly. The 'ardboyz and Brute change is much better for internal balance because of the trade-off you outlined (damage/tankiness efficiency vs. +3 charge, more bodies per point for objective grabbing,screening, and Big Waaagh's CA). As far as external balance... my list got hit fairly hard as I was running 'ardboy focused Big Waaagh! Personally, I thought that type of list was going to sort itself out as it relied on foot heroes grouped up, and the new armies introduced in the last 6 months really easily punish that type of strategy. Maybe the 10 point increase was a little bit of an overkill, as they only really got ridiculous in very specific Big Waagh/ardfist lists and even then it was RNG reliant. That coupled with the fact they lost some tankiness in Big Waaagh! not being able to stack the shield save with the DPR roll. No more realm artifacts also is a fairly big hit, and I think it makes Ironsunz a completely no brainer choice if you're running a MK now. I would have liked to see him go down 20-40 points at least. Losing aetherquartz is also a fairly big deal, there's alternatives through both shaman's artifacts to generate CP and clans, but aetherquartz made it into 70% of my lists since it was introduced.

Oh ******, duh. I don't know how that slipped my mind as well.

It can put you within 12" of something in the Hero phase, so you can then MD-charge, retreat, and then pile-in. So, perfect example is a screening unit across the front of the opponents entire army with supporting pieces and hammers spaced to deny deepstrike (so, 9" from board edges). You can teleport your MK to an extreme flank, MD-charge the corner of the screen, retreat over the screen so you're 3.1 inches away from a supporting piece and then just go to town in their backfield.

I would love an answer to this as well. This never rears it's head in situations just like C, but it does frequently when considering large flying monsters landing on terrain pieces and then piling down the cliff facing 3" to attack enemies at the base. We currently play it that the model can move up and down the cliff faces in a way similar to picture C (model positioned so the base is perpendicular to playing mat).

The teleport is crazy good, and very reliable with good positioning in Big Waaagh! I garentee you will see it 75%+ competitive Big Waaagh! lists. Probably a good idea to include both the Wurgog and the Weirdnob anyway, having two wizards to spam Zap Em!(not just casts) seems like the sweet spot for me.

Yea, for a couple of reasons. The redundancy protects against character sniping, and I'm running 4 units that pretty much always want +1 damage (you can get away with 2 Warchanters easier in lists like Malkree's that split one of the 'ardboy blocks). Doubling the offensive output of a unit without an opposed roll from your opponent is crazy good, and the Warchanters are always the first targets if your opponent has ranged threats. You also have to factor in the 'ardfist Warchanter having to position more defensively to ensure the threat of the 'ardboyz recycle. The only real viable swap for those 110 points is a Wardock or 5 more ardboyz. I think a beat-less warchanter brings more to the table than the Wardock or the 'ardboyz(even if you factor in the triumph), but the margin is petty slim and there probably isn't a "bad" choice between the 3.

The second list would be my preference, both seem strong though. I like the 5x3 'ardboyz in each, one thing I did miss from the list I brought was some expendable roadblock/objective sitters. One thing I would be worried about is only bringing 2 warchanters, but that's mostly a local meta call based the prevalence of character sniping (think we'll be seeing more with the tzeentch book).

Completely overlooked that rule. Only real change I would make is switching the Aetherquartz Broach to the beat-less warchanter.

I went to an LVO prep tourney last weekend and brought a very IJ heavy Big Waaagh! list. I'm unfortunately not going to be able to attend this year, but brought about the hardest list I could come up with to help the guys practice. Here's the list (posted earlier but for convenience): Picked Attrition for my army mission for the tourney (Kill 2/3rds of your opponents starting units). I'm not going to get into too many details about the scenerios, realms, hidden objectives, but we played the first 3 missions of the tourney pack for those interested. Rnd1: Played against a Blisterkin list (Double Terrorgheist hero, Summoning heroes, ghouls). He made a mistake, and charged one of my 15'ardboyz blocks on the flank with both Terrorgheits T2 even though he was still in my GGs threat range. He pretty much wiped out the unit, but it left him open for me to Mighty Destroyer my GGs , move them 18", and killed both Terrorgheists by splitting attacks. Just a matter of cleaning up a bunch of summoned ghouls/knights from there. Again, 1 unit of 6ggs took out two Terrorgheists with defensive buffs up , they're absolutely insane in Big Waagh! Scored the full 25 points available Rnd2: Played against Gristlegore (Double Terrorgheist hero, Double Terrorgheists, Summoning hero, less ghouls). It was the old Duality of Death, so he moved all 4 Terrorgheists onto the points to score T1. I landed some absolutely insane charges with my 'ardboyz (rolled 12 for two of the units and 11 for the third), popped some CP for reroll 1s, ended up killing all 4 Terrorgheists T1 and only lost about 20 boyz. IJ Victory T1, I think I only scored 24 that round because my opponent completed his hidden objective to control 2 more points than me. Rnd 3: Played against Seraphon ( He ran some combo that gave his Saurus guard 2+ armor, ignore rend 1. Backed by Engine, Slaan, some support heroes). The scenario was one that you could only score a major victory if you controlled all 4 objective markers. He's a really solid player, and ended up tricking me into deploying sub-optimally by weighing one side and then using his first turn teleports to bunker on the weak side objective. I pinned the majority of his army with one of the 'ardboyz units (later regretted this), and just sat on 3 of the 4 points for the first few turns. He kept in the game by summoning skinks, teleporting them, and picking on the objective that wasn't protected by the other two 'ardboy units (he couldn't have done that if I didn't pin with the third 'ardboy unit, lesson learned). That said, I was scoring 3 objectives per turn, he was scoring two. He was about to escape the pin and I really wanted that Major Victory, so I geared up to hit him with my GGs (another bad mistake), we were playing in Ashqy and I got the +1 damage spell off in addition to the Warchanter buff and for some dumb reason thought I could shred his Saurus Guard even though he had a CP in the bank for reroll 1s to armor. Anyway, I hit that wall, he suffered 48 wounds at 3 damage a pop, ZERO Saurus guard died and they killed the entire unit of GGs.... Math says that kiling 0 Saurus Guard is a fairly reasonable outcome, so mistake on my part, but I've never had the GGs not shred anything they touch... they met their kryptonite. Ended up winning like 19 to 6, but it was extremely hard fought, ended up placing first overall. Anyway, really good opponent who is probably just held back by his army not being top/top tier. His army is still good though. Wouldn't be surprised if he goes 4/5 wins at LVO. Only real take-away from the tourney is I didn't activate 'ardfist once. It might be worth dropping the battalion and the Megaboss, and switching to ironfist and another unit. That said, my first two rounds were probably not good indicators of how long I can expect my 'ardboyz to survive, thus I didn't really get a chance to recycle. Anyway, really good time, and I love the tourney pack this year.

I didn't really consider using the banner boss... actually a great idea. I think the trade off for Megaboss Brutish Cunning + 'ardfist might be worth it for Banner Boss + Ironfist + different command trait. Then again, it's still 30 points more, which basically equates to sacrificing a unit as well. I'd have to mess around with the points a bit, but I think it's worth a try.

I would have to write-up a whole post about how I think you should play this type of Big Waaagh! list to give the full picture but, the short of it is you're mostly sitting the pigs in a central, protected location with your casters, footboss, and the 'ardfist warchanter so you can respond quickly to whatever 'ardboy unit they eventually are forced to plow into as you creep up the board. I'm really not playing aggressive with them until T2 or T3.

What @Malakree said. It's pretty much just a bonus if he gets into combat and spends most of his time running to where I anticipate he'll be needed. He mostly just sticks around behind the 'ardboyz units to threaten MD if they don't kill the majority of the unit and were hoping to pin me in place. That, and threatening an 18" move on the GGs makes the list surprisingly responsive to teleporting hammer units, capitalizing on openings, etc., etc.