I asked – you answered! I put out the call for some Kragnos lists and I got loads of responses – and it turns out you guys really like Kraggy in Ogor Mawtribes. You can have a lot of fun now with the synergy and combos on offer, so let’s take a look at some of the best and most interesting armies you put together – plus a couple of my own because surprise surprise, I can’t help myself. Wrapping it up at the end of the article we have the next List Building Challenge for you to dive into, so let’s fucking do it!

Key Points

There’s some key tech that’s worth covering once, up front:

• Ogors – especially Monsters or larger units – do charge mortals. More dice means more charge mortals, capeesh?
• Everything that deepstrikes has to make a 9″ charge…which is pretty damn easy on 3D6. So expect to see loads of shizzle teleporing or starting off the board.
• Natively rerollable charges are even better when you have a strong chance of making them, so the rerollable 3D6″ charge will have you fairly zinging around the board.

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List of the Month: Jack Davenport, Ogor Mawtribes

Jack is a hardcore Destro player and a stalwart of both the Bonesplitterz WhatsApp and the rolling Twitter conversation. Give him a follow here and let’s check out his list.

– Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes

– Subfaction: Winterbite

– Grand Strategy: Beast Master

– Triumph: Bloodthirsty

LEADERS

Kragnos (720)

Icebrow Hunter (125)* – General – Command Traits: Wintertouched – Artefacts of Power: Frostfang

Butcher (135)***

BATTLELINE

2 x Frost Sabres (55)

1 x Thundertusk Beastriders (285)**

2 x Frost Sabres (55)**

ARTILLERY

1 x Ironblaster (130)*

1 x Ironblaster (130)*

1 x Ironblaster (130)***

1 x Ironblaster (130)***

OTHER

1 x Gorgers (80)**

CORE BATTALIONS – *Grand Battery – **Hunters of the Heartlands – ***Grand Battery

TOTAL POINTS: 1975/2000

In Jack’s own words…

So Ogor charges get better when you’re a Monster, even better when you roll higher. So as long as you consistently roll really high you’ll be fine, right? That’s the secret of Warhams, just roll 6s. So we cram in as many Ogor monsters as we can: the secret ingredient is quantity.

Blubbergrub Stench turns our Ironblasters into cheap-ass Monsters with all the right keywords, so we can fit 4 of them as they’re 130 points each.

Battleline next. Our cheapest hero is an Icebrow Hunter for 125, which unlocks all the lovely BCR options. Looking past the Stonehorns, there is allegedly a SECOND Ogor monster called a Thundertusk; I’ve never seen one in the wild, but I checked and they are actually there. We can get two of those in with enough points left over for 2 Frost Sabers to fulfil our 3 battleline.

We’ll go Winterbite so you don’t immediately get shot off by shooting, unless it’s the MW top tier shooting in which case you’re fucked anyways. There is also a small buff to Frost Sabers, but that’s inconsequential. You’ve now got 6 potential monsters as well as Kraggy to charge, so you can crash forward in waves, while you keep the pressure up with ranged output.

Your Thundertusks can hang back until the perfect charge opportunity: you’ve got a lot of shooting at 18-24″ (yes its shit, but roll hot dice and you *might* hit something). Between the Thundertusk and four Ironblaster shots, it should be enough to at least deal with screens and open up charge lanes for your big hitters. You also get a free all out attack once per game on one of them, so you can still miss.

Two Harpoon Launchers bring added damage potential (not really from my experience), and you’ve also got 2 Vultures to chip away at heroes or chaff, as well as the 18″ MW breath weapons. If you’re hitting a 10 man chaff unit, that’s 3 MWs, so you should be able to focus down chaff screens with it.

Then we get to the fun bit. Each charging monster with a 3d6 charge should get an average of a 10″ charge, with 5 MWs after the Ogor Charge. Get 3 in and that’s 15 MWs plus spike potential, even before Kraggy smashes into their ranks himself. You’ve got the Hunter deepstriking in with 2 Frostsabers with a 3d6 charge to eat any Unleash Hells, and likewise the Gorger with a native reroll to his charge. Even your Ironblasters are fairly cheap so they can be sacrificed where needed.

And then you get to the combat phase: this is sadly where it all falls down, but fuck it, we are here for the memes.

Thanks Jack!

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Honourable Mentions: Ogor Mawtribes

There were a couple of skew lists I really liked, including this one from Joel McGrath:

Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes

– Mawtribe: Winterbite

– Grand Strategy: Dominating Presence

– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Icebrow Hunter (125)***

– General

– Command Trait: Wintertouched

– Artefact: Frostfang

Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)**

Battleline

2 x Frost Sabres (55)**

2 x Frost Sabres (55)**

2 x Frost Sabres (55)**

Units

1 x Gorgers (80)**

1 x Gorgers (80)**

1 x Gorgers (80)***

1 x Gorgers (80)***

1 x Gorgers (80)***

1 x Gorgers (80)***

1 x Gorgers (80)***

2 x Gorgers (160)* – Reinforced x 1

3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)*

3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)*

Core Battalions

*Hunters of the Heartlands

**Battle Regiment

***Battle Regiment

Total: 1970 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 1 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 106 Drops: 5

What I love here is that you can start so much off the board, and then just fucking BLAMMO – and the fun really starts if you can outdrop a Stormcast list, then checkerboard them out of the game turn 1.

Shout out to Nathan Krungharr for sending in virtually the same list, except with even more Gorgers. I went with Joel’s version because I don’t want to get kicked out of Measured Gaming I just think Yhetees are a really underused piece currently – maybe it’s because of that crappy and expensive Finecast kit? You know what, an updated, dual purpose Gorger / Yhetee plastic kit would be one of my biggest wishes for the next Ogors book.

And finally in the Ogors space, we have the classic smooth ABC (Always Be Charging) list designs, of which I think Ollie Fox sent in a really good example with his Battleline Stonehorns stomp ‘n’ smash build:

– Army Faction: Ogor Mawtribes

– Subfaction: Boulderhead

– Grand Strategy: Beast Master

– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS

Kragnos (720)

Frostlord on Stonehorn (430)*

– General

– Command Traits: Lord of Beasts

– Artefacts of Power: Brand of the Svard

BATTLELINE

1 x Stonehorn Beastriders (320)*

1 x Stonehorn Beastriders (320)*

2 x Mournfang Pack (160)*

CORE BATTALIONS – *Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1950/2000

Not one, not two, but three wild bulls, just rampaging across the board and trampling motherfuckers underfoot. Love it.

Shoutout to Pete from Essex Mawtribes who sent in his “Screens are for Wimps” list on these lines, in his case going for double Frostlords threat overload. Both super smashy, and I’d happily run either.

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Honourable Mentions: Sons of Behemat

I’ll take point here and post up the obvious “6++s for Days” build:

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat
– Tribe: Breaker Tribe (Fierce Loathing: Idiots with Flags)
– Grand Strategy: Beast Master
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)*
– General
– Command Trait: Monstrously Tough
– Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (525)*
– Artefact: Enchanted Portcullis
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)

Battleline
1 x Mancrusher Gargants (170)

Core Battalions
*Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1940 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 100
Drops: 4

You’ve got the 6++ Ward on all three big boys, everything counts as a bajillion models on objectives and the whole army oozes rend -3. You could sub out one of the 6++s for Wizard’s Hat and maybe take an Endless Spell (Lifeswarm?) at that point too, but all in all this is where I’d be starting with Kraggy in Sons competitively.

And for the second and final list of my own, let me take you for a wander through Stomper Tribe:

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat
– Tribe: Stomper Tribe
– Grand Strategy: Beast Master

Leaders
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)**
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (470)*
– General
– Command Trait: Monstrously Tough
– Artefact: Mantle of the Destroyer
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (470)*
– Artefact: Ironweld Cestus

Battleline
1 x Mancrusher Gargants (170)**
1 x Mancrusher Gargants (170)**

Core Battalions
*Bosses of the Stomp – Magnificent
**Battle Regiment

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 112
Drops: 3

Why bother with this over Gatebreakers? Well firstly it buffs your Mancrushers – which is handy, because we can fit in a whole extra one of those. But the real fun of Stomper Tribes comes with the Artefacts.

Ironweld Cestus gives the Big Fella a fully rerollable save – and those things are like chicken’s teeth in 3rd Edition. That would be enough on its own, but given that it bounces back Mortal Wounds on 6s (which you can totally go fishing for), this thing is dynamite.

Importantly, it goes on your Not General, because the General can’t use Command Abilities – so no All Out Defence for him, and rerolls are exponentially better on a buffed save. What your General does instead is supports all four Giants in your army, dishing out Bravery 10 and rerollable charges to the lot of them. 3D6″ rerollable charges…don’t mind if I do! Mancrushers have native access to run and charge on their warscroll, so they’ll be fanging it around at the speed of light.

This gives you a bit of an out against things like flying fox fuckers, Shackles and Khorne Daemon Princes, so whether this list is worth considering over the Breakers variant depends entirely on how prevalent anti-charge tech (or armies that prey on low bravery) is in your local meta. My gut feel is that the Gatebreakers are generally more competitive, but if you’re feelsbad-averse like I am – or just looking for a change – it’s certainly worth a hit out.

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Honourable Mentions: Gloomspite

OK then, who in the world has big enough balls to run Kraggy and the Gits? Well I do for one, and I’ll be mucking around with my Squigs lists again for sure. But the list I really like is this SpiderKragg build from Stuart McCowan (aka Irongutsman):

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Option: Grimscuttle Tribes
– Grand Strategy: Beast Master
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Webspinner Shaman on Arachnarok Spider (295)*
– General
– Command Trait: Prophet of da Spider God
– Artefact: Totem of the Spider God
– Lore of the Spiderfangs: Sneaky Distraction
Webspinner Shaman (85)**
– Artefact: Shyishan Spider-sigils
– Lore of the Spiderfangs: Gift of da Spider God
Madcap Shaman (80)**
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)**

Battleline
10 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Emerald Lifeswarm (60)
Soulscream Bridge (70)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 104
Drops: 4

There is loads to like about this. First thing to flag up is that Kraggy’s 3D6 charge applies to himself too, so if you could find a way to teleport him then he’s likely to smash into whatever the hell he likes. No Fly: no problem!

Kragnos has no useful keywords, but you know what does have access to teleport? Literally everything in the entire game, thanks to the Soulscream Bridge. Chucking a shooting unit across the Bridge has always been the zero-skill play of choice for shitheads, and for complete wanker status you had to move a unit across it that gets shooting bonuses for “not moving”. Golf clap.

In all honesty I’d happily see this and the Spell Portal removed from the game entirely, but here they are so let’s be the ones to use and abuse them for once. Stuart has really gone down the well on this and found a new avenue to explore, which is manipulating your own wizard’s location first (in this case via Hand of Gork) and then casting Bridge to redeploy Kraggy.

Because you can chuck the Bridge 18″ forward and 18″ back it gives you a really cool way to get around screens, and overcome his miserly 10″ footslogging move – or to throw forward a meat wall, and run Kraggy up the board so he gives them the 3D6″ charge from 9″ away. I really liked seeing a genuinely clever and innovative use for this Endless Spell, so bravo Stuart.

There’s a few other neat touches here that mark out Stuart as one of the game’s great list builders:

• Good luck denying his Grand Strategy, which only requires keeping one monster alive, when he has D6 heals and multiple D3 heals from the Gift spell and Lifeswarm respectively. And if he finds himself in a pickle, he can always corner deploy the Skitter out of harm’s way as late as possible
• Speaking of the Skitter, that’s a unit that natively starts off the board, so he loves a nearby Kraggy for his 3D6″ charge off the deepstrike
• Aaaaaaand…as a Monster, he fits neatly into the Battle Regiment, keeping Stuart’s drops right down
• Spider Riders are a cheap and efficient screen, to protect your key units, score Battle Tactics – and always KKC (Keep Kragnos Charging)
• The Grimscuttle ability ties in with Kragnos’s Shield Inviolate to give you army-wide magical resistance

If you just can keep a toehold in the game, you’ll (maybe?) summon back units for that late game scramble onto objectives, when every model counts, for some really interesting and exciting games with loads of key decision points.

Now let’s not get carried away – this is not a top tier competitive army, and nor is it meant to be. But it’s got enough tricks up its sleeve to keep you engaged right the way through, and it could surprise one or two if people take it lightly. I would back Stuart to win games with this that Spiderfang have no business winning – and I saved it until last, because it leads us nicely into this month’s challenge.

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January List Building Challenge: Spiderfang

I’ve been wanting to work on Skitterstrand-heavy lists for a while now, and it’s something I flagged up in the Gloomspite WhatsApp back in November, and again when the December balance patch came out:

So I’m going to be challenging you all to come up with lists built around Skitterstrand Arachnaroks, and their shiny new 180 point cost.

Why should you bother?

Well….because you enjoy writing lists, and if you don’t, then you probably shouldn’t bother. But as an added sweetener, the prize for List of the Month is that the author gets to set a future list building challenge of their own. That will be news to Jack D, because I just made it up right now, but it’s entirely optional – so Jack, if you do have a List Building Challenge that you want to throw out there, hit me up and we’ll make it happen.

Hang on, Spiderfang? Are these ALL going to be Destruction lists, every fucking week?

No, dumbass, I literally just said that the people subbing lists will be setting some challenges too. But even allowing for that – I have loads of ideas, which means I will be setting a range of different challenges; and the next two I have lined up are GA-agnostic and Order focused respectively.

Not gonna lie, there’s probably gonna be a Destruction slant because that’s what I know best, but not to the exclusion of all else. So get involved, and enjoy it – it doesn’t come much cooler than Spiderfang, and here are the parameters for the January challenge:

• Your army must include at least three Skitterstrand Arachnaroks
• Or include two Skitterstrand Arachnaroks as Allies into another faction
• I will also consider one-drop Battle Regiments with a single Skitterstrand for inclusion

In the latter case, I will allow you to go as low as one Skitterstrand because it showcases one of their strengths – namely, cheap Monsters that fit neatly into Battalions. But in that case, I’m going to insist on the army being one drop, because otherwise you might as well use those extra drops to chuck in additional Skitters, right?

So there ya go, it doesn’t have to be Spiderfang or even Gloomspite affiliated (although it obviously can be), but the important thing is we are focusing in on gigantic frikkin spiders bursting out of hell and right into the field of battle.

I’ve enjoyed running allied Skitters in my Bonesplitterz, and the drop to 180 points came as a pleasant surprise. Deep striking and the Monster keyword are both automatically valuable, so although they will inevitably bleed out VPs for getting splattered, they are certainly good enough that you can actually have a bit of fun with them – and they look baller on the tabletop.

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Final Thoughts on Kragnos Lists

There is so much fun you can have with Kragnos lists right now. I was surprised that nobody sent in an Ironsunz list, but there’s certainly something there – you’ll get the 3D6″ (and mortal wounds) on the countercharge, and it significantly speeds up your Battleline Brutes which overcomes a major weakness of the subfaction.

My own Squigs list has got better since I wrote it – points have gone the wrong way and it was already super tight, but Squigs natively reroll charges (and have access to run and charge or teleports), so how about we make that a 3D6″ rerollable charge? Can’t wait to wrap motherfuckers in 72 wounds of Squiggly delight turn one.

Continuing with Stuart’s idea of using the Bridge to teleport Kraggy, combined with moving your caster about first for hypermobility, how about Mighty Destroyers on your wizard (Ironjawz again, probably packing an Arcane Tome), or Fast ‘Un? The whole of Warclans has access to that Mount Trait, but the cheapest way in through the back door is to slap Fast ‘Un on a 100-point Maniak Weirdnob, who comes with a useful Warscroll spell too. Zip him up 12″, cast Bridge 18″ forward and 18″ back, profit.

So get out there and write some Kragnos lists! The last thing I’ll say in this space is that getting banged off the board is still a major problem for him, and the likes of Longstrikes will just fucking smoke him. I do wish he had a 4++ “Mortal Wounds Only” shrug, like Archaon and Nagash have, rather than a 6++ universal Ward, because I think we’ll be waiting a long time for competitive AOS to work its way through the ranged mortals maze in which it currently finds itself.

If you think I’ve got a magic wand that will just remove mortal wound shooting as a problem, then I’m afraid that’s an unrealistic expectation. But what you can do is set yourself up give yourself the best chance possible: lots of small units to soak up Unleash Hell, low drop hypermobile units to get up in their grill, and threat overload to leave you with a Plan B and Plan C when Kraggy gets vaporized and leaves a gaping, 720 point hole in the middle of your army. I’d make sure you’re building any or all of these into the Kragnos lists you put together to give yourself a fighting chance in those bad matchups.

And in the good matchups – when Kragnos feels good, man Kragnos feels good. So put the Destruction God of Charges on the table, and BAM those fuckers won’t even see it coming.

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If I didn’t print your list this month, don’t be disheartened – it’s nothing personal, and I (probably) didn’t think your list was shit. In all honesty I didn’t see an army I didn’t like, but I can’t print everything, so please keep ’em coming and I’ll keep publishing a curated selection.

Over to you, ladies and gents!

Credit for the cover image to NC Dave