‘Whenever I hear that someone has stayed monogamous for forty years it reminds me of when you see in the Guinness Book of Records that someone has walked a thousand kilometres with an egg on his head. I mean, I admire his endurance. But what the fuck did he do that for?’

~ Steve Toltz, Quicksand

Following on from our rundown on Underworlds Warbands and their Age of Sigmar rules, this week we’re smashing into Warcry. I’ll be running through my three favourites with a focus on their roles as splash units and utility pieces, then your boy Pat Nevan will hit you with an insane skew list built around spamming the fuck out of one Warcry unit in particular.

Ready? Let’s go.

The Top 3 Warbands

3) Iron Golems

Also known as the one I like because it has an Ogor, these guys have found their niche as tanky little fuckers: rocking a 4+ rerollable save right on their warscroll is just getting started.

As Cultists, they can enjoy a Mark in Idolators, which in turn means you can jack up their save with a Mark of Nurgle and a Chaos Warshrine. As soon as any derivative hack hears the word Nurgle, the question that springs to mind is can they fit into Plaguetouched Warband? And the answer, as always, is yes.

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, you can give them an extra wound from the Glottkin, but even just the Warshrine gives you chaff with a 3+ rerollable save, which is no joke.

2) Untamed Beasts

Blah blah blah blah pregame move. Untamed Beasts are crazily fragile, but who cares? You’re taking them to dominate the board from turn zero onwards.

A major application of this in the current meta is scouting ahead of your main forces, thereby pushing back any teleport ‘n’ bang units: by the time that Flamers (for example) have popped up 9″ away, you can have anything decent tucked out of their shooting range without having to backboard them. Controlling that space in front of your deployment zone has a huge knock-on effect for how oppressive (or otherwise) you are likely find the zero-skill immensely popular teleporting dakka that is dominating podiums globally.

You can also run and charge to tie up shooting units and waste their output for a turn, and such a fast cheap-ass unit is the ultimate trading piece to fling under the bus on a centre objective, setting you up to counterstrike.

But you’re taking them for the pregame move.

1) Khainite Shadowstalkers

An Order army that’s popular with playtesters gets the best rules? Who would have seen that coming?

The ability to redeploy again and again will win you games, and frankly doesn’t seem to have been costed in properly. Coming in at less than 10 points per wound, with the ability to dish out mortal wounds and enjoying neg 1 to be hit (because why not), they make a a great ally too.

Alright, over to you Pat. Gimme some of that sweet, sweet jank.

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The List: Venom Spam, by Pat Nevan

Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
– Damned Legion: Idolators
Mortal Realm: Ghyran

Leaders
Idolator Lord on Gorebeast Chariot (150)
– General
– Command Trait: Fiery Orator
– Artefact: Everspring Diadem
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne
– Prayer: Blessings of Khorne
Chaos Lord (110)
– Reaperblade & Daemonbound Steel
– Mark of Chaos: Khorne
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (110)
– Mark of Chaos: Nurgle
– Spell: Mask of Darkness
Darkoath Chieftain (90)
Bloodsecrator (120)
– Allies

Battleline
20 x Splintered Fang (140)
20 x Splintered Fang (140)
20 x Splintered Fang (140)
20 x Splintered Fang (140)
20 x Splintered Fang (140)
9 x The Unmade (70)
9 x The Unmade (70)

Units
5 x Wrathmongers (140)
– Allies
5 x Wrathmongers (140)
– Allies

Behemoths
Chaos Warshrine (170)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Eightfold Doom-sigil (40)
Balewind Vortex (40)
Extra Command Point (50)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 400 / 400
Wounds: 190

Note: All Cultist units have the Mark of Khorne, which was not an option in Warscroll Builder

How it works

Murder Chaff for days bruh.  It’s basically a Mortal Khorne mortal wound spamming army:

1. Whore for as many bonus attacks as possible, up to plus 3 in this build
2. Apply a reroll to hits buff: you have two from the General, one from the Shrine, one from the Sorcerer Lord
3. Express a little rage

Given that half of each 10-man unit is on 25mm bases you should be able to get a whole squad in.  Back of the envelope tells me that 3 attacks each should average out at a bit more than 1 mortal wound per model if you are rerolling hits from a prayer.  A decently buffed squad of 20 should put out 20 mortals, plus a who cares amount of regular hits.

There’s plenty of room to play around in this build. Unfortunately, Leader slots are at a premium due to the warshrine getting a Leader keyword.  I went with two units of Wrathmongers over an extra Bloodsecrator for the added durability and awesomeness.  I also left out the Deathbringer, because our Command Points are better spent on more double pile-ins from the infinitely more useful Chaos Lord, and the death pile-in from the Darkoath Chieftain.  Effective death pile-ins are still one of the strongest things in the game.  

Essentially you should use this list in the classic Mortal Khorne style and draw everything into a massive blob battle. Just because your cultists will hit 12 inch charges doesn’t mean they should.  The Unmade are there to keep your cowardly opponent from fleeing from your murder chaff, and their Champion is actually pretty decent in combat.  A Mindstealer Sphiranx or two is a serious consideration as well: making one opponent fight last really maximises the impact of Murder Chaff.

Why?

Why run an army of useless chaff  that can easily churn out 60+ mortals in a turn?  

1. Because you can
2. Because your mother didn’t hug you enough as a child
3. Because stop telling me how to live, you’re not my dad

In all seriousness I would back this list to win most of your traditional melee slugfests: it’s got bodies to spare, wounds for days and a shit ton of redundancy.  

Any one of your five Fang units can be given enough uninterruptable buffs to win a game for you with a double pile in. You also have some nifty gimmicks with a transport spell, and a bit of terrain destruction.  Just keep your heroes a long way from combat: I took Realm of Life for this one to give the Idolator Lord some healing.

A lot of Cultist talk seems to revolve around buffing Iron Golems with Nurgle* but why spend all that effort polishing a turd, when you all you get is a glistening lump of shit that might not die until later in the game? Saddle up with Mighty Khorne, and die historically on the Fury Road.

Why Not?

1. Because it’s a trash army

2. Because you’re mentally well-balanced

3. Because the thought of painting 100 Splintered Fang makes you physically ill

Ultimately any melee army has to have a decent chance against efficient shooting to have a hope in the current competitive meta, and it’s just not there for this list.  The warscrolls at the core of this army are just plain awful, making it useless without support.  

A real Khorne army has Blood Tithe shenanigans and summoning to fall back on when the chips are down, but it’s just not there for Idolators.  If the Marks for Cultists ever get extended outside of Idolators, shit will get very real, but the allegiance itself is a gimmicky brainfart.

But you knew that anyway. If you wanted an army that would win most of its games easily, you’d be browsing the Seraphon blog, following the latest thrilling debate on the merits of 30 vs 40 man skink blobs in your Kroakanado list, and trying to figure out why small groups of laughing, cheerful people at hobby events go silent when you join them.

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Oof! Cheers for that Pat. If anyone gives this list a go, let me or Pat know over on Twitter. I’ll be back next Friday, but until then – May Gork bring you strength, may Mork bring you wisdom.

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*I have no idea what you are talking about