Today our Orruk Warclans coverage continues with some good news stories: friends of the blog Frank DeLoach and Dalton Copeland both wasted no time in getting down to business, winning separate one-day events with their Big Waaagh armies, within a week of the book’s launch!

I’ll be inviting both to share their lists, run us through their games, and looking at what’s next for their armies.

I’ll now hand you over to Megaboss Frank for Part 1 in the series.

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Frank DeLoach – USA

Frank is co-founder of the We Slay Dragons wargaming club in California, USA: WSD are regulars on the top tables of the ITC competitive scene. Frank’s videos are legendary in the Gloomspite Gits WhatsApp group, and also kinda NSFW.

Oi! Get’em Ladz!!

The mantra Da Chonk Boyz holler as they push down the field smashing choppas, shooting arrows & crushing with gruntas.

I took my Big Waaagh list to a one day event at Warp Rider Games in San Diego this past weekend (October 12th 2019): Warp Rider Games is a super cool Independent game store owned by a lad named Larry Dante, with events ran by manager Benjamin Cornelius. Both dudes are some of my favorite people.

The List

Allegiance: Big Waaagh!

Leaders

Wurrgog Prophet (160) – General – Lore of the Savage Beast: Brutal Beast Spirits

Orruk Warchanter (110) – Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat

Maniak Weirdnob (120) – Artefact: Mork’s Boney Bitz – Lore of the Savage Beast: Breath of Gorkamorka

Battleline

20 x Orruk Ardboys (360)

6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320) – Pig-iron Choppas

6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (320) – Pig-iron Choppas

30 x Savage Orruk Arrowboys (360)

10 x Savage Orruks (120) – Stikkas

10 x Savage Orruks (120) – Stikkas

Total: 1990 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 219

Tactica

What makes this list work? Well, my little snottlings and rabble rousers, here’s why I chose my units.

After reading the Battletome, I took one look at the Wurgogg Prophet and was instantly drawn to a 7 wound, -1 to hit 2 spell caster, who gets a chance at an additional CP. Oh, and his spell is killer. If you read the Celebration post, he’s a top pick for Big Waaagh. He just serves the purpose almost to the “T”. 

Let’s talk Goregruntas, ok I’ll keep this quick. Take pigs, I think if you’re looking for a smash unit 6 is the magic number. I don’t rate Hackas, I think you’re asking for a perfect storm to get the bonuses; Choppas are consistent and in big Waaagh with the buffs, they’re monstrous. Move fast, hit hard & wound dense. What more do ya want?! 

Savage Boyz. They’re good. Take them. Stikkas are more reliable for more attacks, especially in big units. 2” reach is big. Don’t let the lack of rend fool you. They throw buckets of dice.

Arrow Boyz. I mean, like… ummm…. if you’ve been sleeping the past iterations of Bonesplitterz, K Rukk was a thing. You can achieve the same bonuses (except Hero Phase stuff) now with some buffs and spells. It’s why the Maniak Weirdnob is in there with Bony Bitz, getting procs on a natrual 6. With lore spells you can get these guys REALLY pumping damage. They present a threat to your opponent at arms reach. 

Ardboyz… take them, always take them. They’re too good to ignore now. With 3 saves in Big Waaagh (4+ 6+ 6+) and increased damage output, they are a hard-hitting anvil. 

Why didn’t I take a Maw Krusha… there are builds that work now. I just wanted a wound dense, board controlling list that could take a shot and swing back with a haymaker. I think my list will go through a couple more versions. But it’s a great start. 

Now, let’s get to the games!

Game 1: Focal Points

Opponent: Roberto DeCampos, Cities of Sigmar

What happened?! So… Robert outdropped me, but he ended up passing me the first turn. I deployed fairly aggressively seeing as he didn’t have anything particularly fast.. I just accepted he’d get magic off.

So, I Turn One charged with one unit of pigs, got the other pigs scoring the opposite flank objective, and ran some Savage boyz up into the center.

6 pigs on the left flank dropped 18(!) Ironbreakers in a single swing of combat! They had the +1 damage and got the Get’m beat to allow the 3d6 charge. After battleshock, he only had a couple of dudes left in that unit and now he’s playing on his back foot.

His Turn 1 was spent failing or having spells unbound… BRUTAL. As well as some movement up into position. 4-2 was the score at Turn 1.

Turn 2 I got priority, and continued to ram Orruks down his throat. Hammerers are killing some hogs now. His half, he got Racist Swords off and Shackles too, putting pressure down. 8-4.

Turn 3 he got priority, he kept killing pigs, and did some ranged damage with his deep striking shadow warriors. My half, my boys went nuts! Popped a Waaagh, deleting just about everything in his list sans Shadow Warriors and a couple of small casters. I have control of all objectives and we shook hands.

Result: Major win for the Da Chonk Boyz

Game 2: Battle for the Pass

Opponent: Cory Szabo, GA Order

So here Da Chonk Boyz faced off against their nemesis from the Old World! Brettonia!

With the Mission being Battle for The Pass, I knew I had to apply pressure early and begin scoring.

In typical Chonk Boyz fashion we hit hard and hit early. Cory gave me the first turn after much deliberation, so I took this opportunity to gain some ground, setting my pigs up to act either as an anvil or for second turn charges. His turn, he slammed all 16(!) Knights into my Gruntas unit that had mystic shield and +1 damage. Doing a few wounds almost killed a pig, but the Ladz punched back something fierce, picking off 12 of the 16 knights! This left his force fairly gutted.

My half, we came out and did some more charges…smashed up many Knights and by Turn 3, he was left with very few units to stick around. Just the King, Wizards and 3 knights. He had positioned his King in hopes he’d take off 6 Savage Boyz, but with their 5+ up save in combat and the 6+ FNP they were a tough nut to cracl. They passed their 6++ saves with ease, and couple that with potato level rolls from Cory, only one boy was slain.

They returned fire with Da Waaagh popped and easily dusted him off, meaning the game was over by the end of Turn 3. Cory was a great sport and was totally aware he had no business winning games with Brets. He smashed off a triple Thirster Khorne list in round 1! So I knew he’s an experienced player. Hats off to that lad, playing what you love. (He made me very aware, he typically plays Slaanesh and that he wants a rematch with his Daemons!)

Result: Major win for the Da Chonk Boyz

Game 2: Total Commitment

Opponent: Chris Hernandez, Seraphon

This game was intense. Not only is the deployment long ways, but Seraphon in his build can teleport two units a turn, and Chris is a top player with the Dino Dreams.

So, Chris gave me Turn 1. I spent this turn putting up buffs and jockeying for position. On his Turn 1, he teleported tons of skinks into my face, blocking off half of the board. Score even.

Turn 2, I won priority. Shot those skinks off, got the Gruntas into positon and made a nice big charge into some more Skinks. I also managed to clip a Bastiladon with both units of Savage Boyz.

One unit of pigs on the left flank did get bogged down a bit with Rippers and Skinks, but I wasn’t too fussed because I knew I had to keep pressure up while maintaining board control.

Chris’s Turn 2 was really all about moving units out of combat to be able to shoot next turn, summoning more Skinks & Rippers, and trying fight his way back onto board space. Fortunately for me, I had tons of board space covered meaning he couldn’t just make me lose out on scoring.

Turn 3! BIG TURN. I again won priority. I needed to keep the pressure up and not give an inch.

After losing my left flank of pigs I had to make a move. I decided the Arrow Boyz would better used spidered out on my home objective to hurt his teleport abilities, and I moved up the Ard Boyz up into charge position, with the plan of just hitting the front line of Skinks/ Rippers/ Razordon. But after hitting them with Get’em Beat, and rolling a natural 16″ charge on 3D6, and adding +3” to that with Ardboyz, I decided to go for broke and wrapped as much as possible.

This was the game winning moment.

This charge enabled me to clear another 40 Skinks, severely damaged one Bastiladon and kill off the Razordon. Chris’s half of the turn was played extremely well; he is a true warrior and did everything he could recover.

Mind you, at this point I’m only up by 2 points. So, in his Hero Phase he used the Banish spell, to send my Ardboyz packing! They ended up 9” away from the Rippers on the left flank which took some pressure off him.

Turn 4. Chris won priority. Knowing he’s going to lose if he can only keep 3 objectives, he spent all of his summoning to drop another 40 Skinks onto that objective. He shot up some Savage Boyz and finished up the left flank pigs.

Unfortunately in his quest to finish off my pigs, he had to charge big and pile into range of my Ardboyz. Big mistake, simply cost him the game. He killed the pigs, and I piled in my three inches. Killed some Rippers. Turn over.

My half I buffed up my Ardboyz again, ran my Maniak Weirdnob 18” (6” run CP) in the hope that I can end up with more models on the Objective if things get tight. In combat I cleared all of the Rippers and a few Skinks. The Ardboyz had won the day!

This game was INTENSE. Tons of jockeying for position and really well played by Chris.

Result: Major win for the Da Chonk Boyz

3-0, all Major Victories and that’s the event in the bag!

In Conclusion

I love my list, and at this stage the only thing I might change is to give more Savage Boyz a go.

This would possibly mean dropping some pigs and taking it to 2×3 to make room, but I don’t know. This book is so deep, the possibilities are endless.

So Ladz! Get out there and Waagghh!!

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Thanks for the write-up Frank, and congratulations once more on being the first Megaboss in the world to rack up a win under the new book!

We’ll have a report in a similar format from our boy Dalton Copeland coming up in the near future – Dalton also won a one day event with a very different Big Waaagh list on the other side of the world, later on the same weekend. How exciting is that!