Taking WAAGH! to Masters

Written by Elijah R.
05.05.20

Everyone plays Age of Sigmar for different reasons. For some, it’s all about the hobby, for other’s it’s the game play or the community building. In the past, those things have been enough for me to enjoy on their own. But this year, I’m taking the next step: competitive play.

Howdy guys, I’m Eli. I’m one of the players for the Austin Weirdnobz who plans on making a run for the Texas Masters Grand Tournament this season. GT’s are all about what list you bring to the table on the day of the competition, and building that list is a hobby all its own.

I’ve played a few different armies over the years, but this season I’m going with Ironjawz. Why? Because I like to Smash (and Bash). I think the Orruk Warclans battletome gave the army some goodies that really put Ironjawz, and Orruks in general, into a flexible and powerful position in the game right now, competitive or not. Making “Mighty Destroyers” into a command ability rather than a luck of the dice roll, and giving them the “Mad as Hell” ability to allow a unit some extra movement if they took damage turned these Orruks into a deceptively fast army. This is on top of the fact that Ironjawz are an elite army, so they’re designed for smaller numbers but high damage output. I can take my hammers and get them across the table on turn 1 and that’s a threat that some armies can’t do anything about. Except for Slaanesh, they like me. They soak up all that sweet, sweet depravity.

Now for the good part: the actual list. I call it “Sunz Out, Jawz Out,” for no other reason than I like silly names for my lists. Alternatively, “Porkamorka’s Devoted,” since this list runs a whopping 15 BOAR RIDERS. Now, that’s a lot of pork!

Allegiance: Ironjawz

• Warclan: Ironsunz

Mortal Ream: Hysh

Leaders:

Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)

• General
• Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist
• Command Trait: Right Fist of Dakkbad
• Artefact: Sunzblessed Armour
• Mount Trait: Mean ‘Un

Orruk Warchanter (110)

• Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch
• Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat

Orruk Warchanter (110)

• Warbeat: Killa Beat

Battleline

10x Orruk Ardboys (180)

• Ardboy Boss
• 1x Gorkamorka Banner Bearer
• 1x Gorkamorka Glyph Bearer
• 2x Waaagh! Drummer

10x Orruk Ardboys (180)

• Ardboy Boss
• 1x Gorkamorka Banner Bearer
• 1x Gorkamorka Glyph Bearer
• 2x Waaagh! Drummer

3x Orruk Gore-gruntas (160)

• Gore-grunta Boss
• Pig-iron Choppa

6x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320)

• Gore-grunta Boss
• Jagged Gore-hacka

6x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320)

• Gore-grunta Boss
• Jagged Gore-hacka

Battalions

Ironfist (160)

Didn’t I say that was a lot of pork? We’ll get to that in a sec. Right now, let’s talk about why I chose Ironsunz for my warclan over Bloodtoofs. Bloodtoofs is speedy as all get out; buffing run and charge, getting a command ability that allows me to make a normal move at the end of combat, and this list works well with that having 15 models with 9” move. The warclan also has access to the Quickduff Amulet for its artefact which is a guaranteed teleport that can’t be unbound once per game. It’s super useful, especially for lists like this one that distinctly lacks a wizard and therefore doesn’t have access to the Orruk teleport spell, “Great Green Hand of Gork.” I talk up all the good things that Bloodtoofs gives to this list to tell y’all one simple truth: Ironsunz is better. This army already moves fast enough, so instead of having an allegiance ability that buffs my run and charge rolls, I instead took one that subtracts 1 from ALL hit rolls that my opponents make in the first battle round. That’s both turns! With how hard and fast this army hits, it forces your opponent to change up their game plan turn 1 which is a great advantage for us. Ironsunz also gives access to the “Alright – Get ‘Em!” command ability that allows a charge at the end of the enemy charge phase, so if the opponent fails a charge roll or tries to not get in combat, I can spend a command to ensure my Orruks get the fight they’re itching for. It also allows me to get my charge bonuses on enemy charge phase, like mortal wound output which I will get into later. The Ironsunz-specific command trait gives an extra command point, good for an army that needs a lot of them like this does. The artefact that the Ironsunz has access to is the Sunzblessed Armour, worsening all rend against the bearer by 1. This artefact is basically the same as the Ethereal Amulet for most attacks in the game. It’s awesome.

Now let’s break down the big boi: the reason people are attracted to playing Orruks. Fondly nicknamed cabbage, it is the Megaboss on Maw-Krusha. 460 points of pure muscle and Waagh fury! He gets the nice buffs from Ironsunz, with the Sunzblessed Armour that pairs nicely with his natural 3+ save. He is also equipped with the Boss Choppa and Rip-toof fist because save rolls of 6 on melee attacks deal a mortal wound back to the attacker. All of this combines to make him deceptively defensive. This is great when he comes in for the attack, since he deals an average of 2-3 mortal wounds on a charge with his Destructive Bulk ability. He also gets an additional attack and an additional wound at the end of every combat phase as long as he’s killed a model in that phase, allowing him to get stronger as the battle goes on. This ability also doesn’t degrade as he takes wounds, so it balances out with the degrading Mighty Fists and Tail attack. Speaking of, let’s talk about why he’s got that Mean ‘Un trait. The trait gives +1 to damage from the Might Fists and Tail attack, bringing up damage per successful attack. Pair that with Violent Fury from the Warchanters and that goes up to a whopping 4 damage per successful attack! This makes him a certified hero killer, able to fight off even the bigger baddies in the game, save for maybe Archeon once he’s got all those sweet buffs.

Next up, let’s look at the honest to goodness priests that the Orruks got with the new book! The Warchanters got a nice upgrade in the new battletome. Their ability went from buffing hit rolls to buffing damage as the army got a nice upgrade on hit rolls as whole. It makes it worth having 2 in the army to have my 2 units of 6 Gore-gruntas dealing 2 damage with every attack that goes through. It adds up. They also became the priests of the army, getting prayers in the form of “Warbeats.” There are 3 in the book, and I took 2 of them here. The Get ‘Em Beat allows me to have a unit charge from 18” away instead of 12” and roll 3 dice to so as long as I roll a 4+ in the beginning of the charge phase. Super useful for getting that unit of ardboys into scree positiong or making sure my Gore-gruntas get in the thick of the fight when I need them. The Killa Beat then allows me to pick an enemy unit at the beginning of each combat phase and add 1 to all hit rolls I make for attacks that target that unit, again as long as I roll a 4+.

Next to discuss is the artefact: the Aetherquartz Brooch. This artefact is the whole reason the army is from Hysh. Remember I said that this army likes to use command points? Well, with this artefact, every time I use one, I can roll a dice and get it back on a 5 or a 6. The more command points I can use in a game, the better, so this artefact is super helpful for that plan.

Now the real meat of the army: the battalion. The Ironfist consists of every battleline unit this list fields;  the 2 units of Ardboys and the 3 units of Gore-gruntas. The battalion ability gives my battalion boss the ability to use the Mighty Destroyers ability as if he were a hero once in each of my hero phases for free! Now that’s a great ability! That frees up a command point to let me get an extra Mighty Destroyers use I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten or save a command point for something else later. I usually give this ability to the boss pig of one of my 6-man units because come on, I need to move that pork.

Speaking of, gotta talk about all those boar riders. They’re the real teeth of the army. 2 units of 6 Gore-gruntas each can really deal a bunch of damage. They inflict mortal wounds on charge, and get to add 1 to hit and wound rolls for all their attacks because they use Jagged Gore-hackas, whereas the 3-man unit only gets the buff on the boar attacks because they’re using the Pig-iron choppas to make up the attack numbers they’re missing from being half the size of the other 2 units. This means that on a charge, the 6-man units are only failing their spear attacks on hit and wound rolls of 1 and the boar attacks on 1s and 2s. Pretty reliable damage output from there. Normally dealing 1 damage each, which isn’t bad when you consider they’re averaging 32 wounds on that attack sequence. However, with violent fury I can make all of those attacks 2 damage each for serious output!

Last, but not least, we have the 2 units of 10 Ardboys. These are the real flexible unit of the army. They’re great damage on their own, rolling 22 attacks for each unit, but their strength comes from their numbers. They make a solid 2 wounds a model screen,  with 4 of those models getting a second chance to save the wound. I can also make them run twice in a turn if I use Mighty Destroyers on them to make sure they grab that objective that’s otherwise just too far away. They also get an additional 3” on charge between Ironjawz allegiance and the banner they take with them, so I can pretty much guarantee most charges I need them to make, especially when they successfully have Get ‘Em beat applied. A 15” charge from these guys can get them almost anywhere they want to go.

That’s the list! I’ve been really happy with its production so far. I wanted something that was not only going to hit hard, but fast too, and this does the job well. The biggest weakness of the army is magic, as I clearly have no unbinds. My previous list ran a Weirdnob Shaman over the second Warchanter, but I found that more often than not I wanted the flexibility of having 2 units with violent fury over the ability to teleport and deep strike a unit. Teleportation is incredibly useful, but higher potential damage output simply fits this list better. Also, only 1 unbind doesn’t actually help much against the armies I’d really need it for. Many of those armies have quickly able to adapt with one spell not going off or can put the unbind roll out of reach anyway. It just took away from the army. I’ve been much happier with the second Warchanter. On that note, however, I am experimenting with using the Weird ‘Un mount trait to give the Megaboss on Maw-Krusha some protection, giving my general a chance to ignore spell and endless spell effects on a die roll of 4-6. I haven’t had much of a chance to test it and see how it works, but I know the extra protection would be beneficial.

As far as Texas Masters goes and why I’ve chosen to go hard in the competition this year… well I got the bitten by the bug. I competed in a couple of the GTs last year as I was getting into the game just for the hell of seeing what they were like. I didn’t even have a fully painted army when I went to Warzone in Houston last summer. A friend of mine lent me his Ironjawz army, which I then had to learn how to play in the span of a week because I had only considered playing the army from afar and had yet to actually watch the army, much less play it! I went in looking to get one win and I came out with 3 against Stormcast, Nighthaunt, and Seraphon. It turned out that playing Ironjawz came natural to me, and those wins made me itch for more! I went to Wargamescon with my own Seraphon army and….did much worse. I had just as much fun though, and that’s when I really knew the game had its hooks in me. I just loved playing competitively, and knew that next season I wanted to come in fresh and make a run. My current goal is to make the Grand Tournament in January. I don’t even care if I win the whole thing, I just want to prove to myself and to others that I can hold my ground with the better players in the state, and enjoy being a part of a community that loves the game as much as I do. Without the community, without the fun, I wouldn’t enjoy competing as much. The community got me whole hog into this game, and they are going to be what keeps me playing.

With that, I’ll have to say goodbye for now. I need to get some games in, and luckily there are plenty of Weirdnobz willing to oppose me in battle. Here’s to crossing paths on the tourney scene! WAAAAAGH!!