I asked for your Skitterstrand Arachnarok lists, and after the absolute deluge of Kragnos lists I received…it’s fair to say this challenge was a bit more of a niche interest. You have to be pretty fucking brave to play Spiderfang, but it’s still the coolest army bar none on the tabletop and we’ve selected a couple of absolute gems for you here today.

The deep-striking potential keeps your opponents honest and your games exciting, the models look fucking baller and the drop to 180 points in the most recent FAQ was a pleasant surprise for what I already considered a playable unit. So let’s get into it.

List of the Month: Adam Colgan, Republic of Ireland

Adam is a legendary hard-mode player, and recently piloted Spiderfang to a 38th place finish (from 101 players) and Winner of Best Sports at War in the Heartlands GT. If you think you can do better than that with Spiders: go ahead, I’ll be waiting right here.

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Beast Master
– Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

Leaders
Scuttleboss on Gigantic Spider (105)*
– General
– Command Trait: Tough ‘n’ Leathery
– Artefact: Web-strung Cloak
Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)*

Battleline
10 x Spider Riders (200)*
– Reinforced x 1
5 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*
5 x Spider Riders (100)*

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)**
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)**
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)**

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Alpha-Beast Pack

Total: 1965 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 126
Drops: 4

There’s a lot to like here. First thing to point out is that those Skitters are all deepstriking 9″ away, and then Kraggy struts up to give them 3D6 and consistently nail that charge. You do have a general shortage of bodies, but again Kraggy can counteract that by utterly dominating one objective at a time:

Clean house and move on. Meanwhile you can have Trip Skitters capping as 15 models and dishing out a barrage of mortal wounds, while your Spider Riders string out sideways to control space around the board, and help your boy Kragnos by wearing any rampant Maw Krushas to the face. Meanwhile Adam’s general has the full “pain in the ass” loadout of extra wounds and an artefact that stops you retreating from him, so he can tag the side of a unit and bog it down for a couple of turns while your beasts of war rampage around the board.

If you’re a shit player reading this article and looking for easy answers, you’re not gonna find them here, so my advice is to scrap Spiderfang and just run some combination of Fulminators, Dragons and Longstrikes. But between the harassment factor, the board-zoning factor and the blunt force trauma of Kragnos, this list gives a determined player all the tools they need to play the objectives game better than you might think.

The Battalion gives your beasts a shuffle on missions where you can’t start off the board, and even a quick glance at the multiple Monsters and hypermobility in this list tells you that it just oozes potential for scoring Battle Tactics.

Adam’s army will be cracking off those long bomb charges on 3D6, and he’s getting rerolls from three different sources:

• The strong Triumph bid
• The Scuttleboss Warscroll CA
• The generic CA

12″ on 3D6 with a reroll is nothing, so he’s gonna be ramming those Spiders in places you won’t believe. When you add in the late game summoning to scramble for objectives, this list has “stories” written all over it. You’re not going to torch your opponent’s army turn one, but you can keep the scoreboard moving, crack off unpredictable charges from obscene distance and ultimately leave your opponent scratching their head after you beat them and wondering what the fuck just happened.

Adam is an outstanding opponent and an outstanding list builder*, and no wonder he finished ahead of two-thirds of the field at a major event with Spiderfang…fucking Spiderfang. Love your work mate.

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Justin Ironhelm, USA

Triple Skitters? Kids’ stuff. Fair to say that Justin is not fucking around here:

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
– Option: Gloomspite Gitz
– Grand Strategy: Predator’s Domain
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Skragrott, The Loonking (230)**
– General
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork
Loonboss (75)**
– Artefact: Spiteful Prodder
Fungoid Cave-Shaman (95)**
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Great Green Spite

Battleline
40 x Stabbas (300)**
– Stabbas & Moon Shields
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Stabbas (150)**
– Stabbas & Moon Shields
20 x Shootas (140)**

Units
6 x Sneaky Snufflers (75)**
5 x Sporesplatta Fanatics (135)

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)**
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)*
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)*
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Emerald Lifeswarm (60)

Core Battalions
*Alpha-Beast Pack
**Battle Regiment

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 168
Drops: 5

As Justin pointed out, you can use those big pie plates to really gum up the board. Skraggy gives you a bit of Moon control if you want to showcase the Spiders and get their mortal wounds pumping turn after turn, and the buffed Grots (with extra attacks and the Loonboss CA) can still jack out a lot of mortal wounds.

Thanks for the list Justin – always cool to see someone bold enough to run the classic Moonclan, so give him a follow over on Insta.

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My Own Contribution To The Genre

I’ve got a major boner for units of 9 Rockguts right now – they’re so good, they can even make it worth taking the Derphold Taxboss as your General.

Two maxed out units of Rockies is a great use of your Reinforcement points, slamming down 72 wounds with a 5++ ward onto the table for 830 points, while covering off two of your three Battleline. They have built in healing, make great Rally targets and you can even (hopefully) bring back a unit of 5 midgame for that final push:

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

Leaders
Dankhold Troggboss (240)*
– General
– Command Trait: Mighty Blow
Madcap Shaman (80)*
– Artefact: Moonface Mommet
– Lore of the Moonclans: The Hand of Gork

Battleline
9 x Rockgut Troggoths (435)**
– Reinforced x 2
9 x Rockgut Troggoths (435)**
– Reinforced x 2
3 x Fellwater Troggoths (155)*

Units
5 x Spider Riders (100)*

Behemoths
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)*
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)***
Skitterstrand Arachnarok (180)***

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment
**Hunters of the Heartlands
***Alpha-Beast Pack

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 152
Drops: 5

One of my characteristics as a wargamer is “impatient motherfucker”, and Troggoths don’t typically give you much to do turn 1 except run into the middle of the board. The beauty of Trip Skitters is that I can flex that itchy trigger finger and throw one of them under the bus turn 1, without completely fucking my army or gameplan.

The smart play is probably a unit of Shootas for that 3rd Battleline, but I do still like Fellwaters as a skirmishing unit – not everything you will face has a 2+ save, and they tend to turn any isolated chaff your opponent leaves nursing an objective into a messy puddle. Think of them like slow-ish cavalry: sprint them up a flank early on and they’ll usually do a job for you.

With the Moonface Shaman in range your Rockies are effectively swinging at rend -3 damage 3, and that’s a spicy fucking meatball. In a dream scenario, you can even have them hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, since the Trogboss has a Warscroll CA putting out an aura (and hence not targeting any given unit):

This means that one of your max units of Rockies can be the targeted recipient of All Out Attack for +1 to hit…as long as they have another Hero nearby to issue it. If I had one wish for the Troggs, it would be to give them the Elite rule, because 3rd Ed has fucked them over somewhat as a rare unit without a Leader.

Worth noting here is that I’ve taken the Grimscuttle Tribes subfaction even though the Spiders make up only a fraction of the list. The irony is that there is no downside to taking it if you’re running a mixed list: the CT and Artefact are only locked in if you have Spiderfang heroes (and even then the CT can be quite good). You get the minor upside of the abilities (magical resistance and Skitterstrand rerolls against wizards) for no cost – so crack on.

Our Battalions will help to maximize the centrepiece units, while wrapping up the remainder in a Regiment to at least trump those lists who aren’t really competing on drops. All in all this is a fun list that would look friggin’ sweet on the table, and something I’d be happy to take to a one-dayer. And I might just do that.

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February Listbuilding Challenge: Curse Lists

Well after rattling out a couple of crowd pleasers for the Destro crew, it’s about time we cast the net a little wider and throw out a challenge that cuts across all GAs. What I need from you in February please is lists that feature the Curse Universal Prayer:

The rules for this are very simple:

• Your list must include a Priest with the Curse prayer

See? Simple!

Obviously we’re looking to centre Curse somewhat, so getting it off reliably (buffed chanting) and / or chucking a million dice at those sixes will go a long way. But your list can have a couple of things going on, and it doesn’t have to be Curse or bust.

As always, I’ve got a list of my own in mind here, but it’s yours I’m really interested in and the best way to reach out is a Twitter DM – but you can always swing by the Facebook page too. Keep ’em coming!

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Credit for the cover image to Games Workshop

*Adam’s run in the Troggoth WhatsApp group is still remembered for his Triple Troggoth Hag and Lauchon Dankhold builds. Pretty fucking wild, hey?