by Peter Atkinson

The Premise: How often will Pouch of Nulldust be useful at a tournament?

Nothing sucks like being on the outside looking in.  While I’ve got plenty of beef with some of the Battlescroll points changes, one thing the dev team has emphatically done right is tossing a bone at the armies who aren’t really part of this Handbook.  It’s the magic vs anti-magic game, which is fine even for the like of Khorne who have plenty of the latter, but what about Sons of Behemat or Beastclaw?  Are they meant to just stand there and get cut to shreds by rend -3 chaff, or blasted mercilessly with 4D6 mortal wounds?

Well the answer to that is probably “yes”, in a lot of cases, but at least they’ve been given something to work with.  Today I’ll be diving deep on the Nullstone Adornments and especially the Pouch of Nulldust: how useful are they, and when are they worth taking in your lists?

Thanks to Taco who requested this article as part of his Megaboss-tier Patreon reward – it’s a good subject to discuss.  These Not Quite Artefacts will be around for a full year so it’s worth getting to grips with them, whichever side of the table you’re gonna be on.

Ready?  Let’s go.

POV: You’ve got big feet

It’s a sprawling subject, bringing you into contact with tier lists, meta representation, maths, logic, game theory, the flow of Battle Tactics and forecasting how the anti-magic wars will play out.  So to keep it from blowing out into about 15 articles compressed into one confusing mess, let’s define our terms.

First thing to say is that we’ll be looking at this primarily from the viewpoint of Sons of Behemat.  While there are others, they’re the archetype of an army who should be considering the Nullstone stuff.

A Word on Sons of Behemat List Structure

Sons got a nice little bonus in the Battlescroll update, so that each Battalion gives them Unified as well as the extra Enhancement (or speed boost), not one or the other.

You get one Artefact and one Nullstone just for coming, so what you’ll typically see is:

Bosses of the Stomp in a one-drop with three items total (two artefacts and one Nullstone enhancement or vice versa).

Double Bosses of the Stomp in a two-drop with four items total (1 Artefact +3 Nullstone enhancements, 2+2 or 3+1).

Bosses plus Footsloggas for a two-drop with three items total (2+1 or 1+2), bringing along a smattering of loose Mancrushers to enable Battle Tactics (notably an early-game Surround and Destroy) and Grand Strats (notably Make the Land Tremble).

So keep that in mind as we work through this together.  You’ll always have three items minimum in Sons – and that’s if you push for the one-drop. 

What we need to assess today is:

• If you’re only taking one Nullstone item, is Pouch worth it?
• If you’ve got a second item, should you take another piece of Nullstone, or a regular artefact for the second slot?
• Which two Nullstone Adornments are we pairing together, if we do go with two?
• Is it worth even sticking with Nullstone over an Arcane Tome or a single basic wizard (such as a Butcher in a Beastclaw army)?

I’d say that the GHB Battalions are powerful enough to make one-drops quite rare in the early meta, meaning two-drop will often get the jump; so in other words, it’s not frivolous to talk about having two Nullstone items in your list.  You can afford them.

We’re also focusing primarily on Nulldust Pouch today and how useful (or otherwise) it really is.  So let’s approach it methodically:

• Analysis of how the Pouch works and what it can do for you in the right scenario
• Profiles of magic armies you’ll run into
• Where each of those profiles sits in the projected metagame
• The alternative enhancements: what are their relative strengths and weaknesses?
• Then we’ll wrap it up with a couple of lists, because I fuggin’ love lists

So why would you take it?  Once per game artefacts are crap, right?

There are a few reasons why it’s still worth a look, but to explain my thinking, we need to take a step back first into how I see magic playing out.

The Impact of Primal Magic Dice

We’ve got an arms race going on between magic and anti-magic.  The Primal Magic Dice (PMDs) are an unprecedented buff to both sides at once.  Look at Nagash, literal God-tier spellcasting.  We’ve all seen how Prick ‘n’ Bones can dominate a magic phase at both ends, with +3 to cast an unbind.

Well: Every PMD adds (on average) +3.5 to both.

So roll in two PMDs, and you’ve got an unheard-of +7 to Cast on any Wizard in the game; but even bumping in a single PMD is bigger than the difference in casting power between Nagash and a Madcap Shaman for that one roll.  That’s what we’re dealing with here, and that’s our first lesson:

The Acolytes Battalion is outstanding, and worth building around.

So where your mind goes straight away is an escalating duel, with your Wizard pumping in PMD after PMD to hit a surreal casting value, followed by your opponent doing the same with their Unbind – probably throwing the kitchen sink at Blizzard or Geminids.

I’ve started playing the new GHB and I can tell you that this does happen.  There’s a hipster inclination to say that Merciless Blizzard is not a thing, but being able to bash out 4D6 MWs with any cheap dickhead is not to be sniffed at.  I’ve already felt that buzz, Hand of Gorking a Fungoid up the board and blasting 19 MWs into a Stormcast army at the top of turn 1, and it’s cheap enough that I’ll build it into a lot of competitive lists.  You don’t give up a lot to get access to it.

So that aspect of the Hero Phase – a cinematic duel with all the PMDs flung into a turn-defining cast and unbind – is real.  And Pouch of Nulldust skews things massively in your favour.  Let’s say you want to hit a casting value of 12+, either to cast Blizzard specifically, or just to punch an important spell through a boosted unbind.  How likely is that to happen with and without casting bonuses or PMDs?

Chance of hitting 12+
Casting Bonus	0	+1	+2	+3
Two dice	2.8%	8.3%	16.7%	27.8%
Three dice	37.5%	50.0%	62.5%	74.1%
Four dice	76.1%	84.1%	90.3%	94.6%

As you can see, the numbers jump way quicker as we move down the rows than they do as we move across the columns; which is to say that the chance leaps exponentially as you add more dice to the pool, in a way that static casting bonuses just can’t keep pace with.  So if you want to reliably hit those big casting values as part of your strat, you’re going to need to throw extra dice around – whether that’s PMDs, Cabalist-style abilities or a combination of both.

And the next question is, when we do throw those extra dice, what is our chance of hitting a Primal Miscast (PM)?

Chance of Primal Miscast	1s	1-3s
	Normal	Pouch
Two dice	2.8%	25.0%
Three dice	7.4%	50.0%
Four dice	13.2%	68.8%

So as we work down the first column, we see how the chance of hitting a Primal Miscast ramps up as we add dice to the pool.  While it’s not to be taken lightly, it’s hardly terrifying to the caster, especially when they have the chance to see whether there are any 1s in the pool before they commit further dice.  The chance of getting off a big cast significantly exceeds the risk of popping a double 1, even with large dice pools.

But in the second column, we see how that changes exponentially with Pouch activated – you’ve got them running through a minefield in clown shoes.  At this point, you’re actually weaponising your opponent’s own PMDs against them: there’s a 75% chance that the initial roll on two dice will have at least one 1-3, at which point they’re dicing with death if they choose to proceed.

So you’ve effectively engineered a situation where your opponent can’t use PMDs, but you still can: so all of the explosive outcomes in the bottom rows of the first table are accessible to you, but not to your opponent.

The implication here is that Pouch is great on its own, but far better when combined with an Unbind or three:

• For high-volume magic armies, Pouch will outright stop some casts right in their tracks (just by doing what it does at face value).
• For the spells it doesn’t stop, you will usually be primed to selectively Unbind with your PMDs (which they themselves can’t risk using).

So you really are in great shape whichever way you look at it – to stem the flow of volume casting, as well as pinch-hitting individual key spells.  You’ll want to use the Heroic Willpower action on the turn you pop the Pouch, and potentially bring in other sources of Unbinds too – more on this to come.

Alternative Paths

Now, while the one climactic megacast is one aspect we will see, it’s not the only aspect to magic vs anti-magic that we need to prepare for.  You’ve also got to consider whether your general anti-magic will work at all:

• Null Myriad or Stormdrake players might be patting themselves on the back and thinking “none of this will apply to me” because they can just shrug the likes of Blizzard.  That’s going to blow up in their face big time when they get rinsed by Zombies with Hoarfrost.  Spell ignores are dope, but only for the aggressive half of the magic minigame: they won’t do shit against buffing spells.
• On the subject of buffing spells, those jacked up super-Unbinds or even Knight Incantors are great for defusing a Mortal Wound bomb that’s right up in your business, but they won’t help you much against spells that are out of Unbind range.  I like having redundancy on Hand of Gork in my lists for example, so I can backboard one cheeky boi and cast the most important spell from way out back. 

There’s always an exception – and it’s usually gifted to an Order army that’s popular with playtesters – so Seraphon can of course intervene with boardwide Unbinds.  But in most hero phases, I’ve seen some people coming out with sweeping statements about shutting shit down that just won’t stand up in practice.  The magic vs anti-magic battle will have multiple subplots, and you need nuance here.

And that’s where Nulldust Pouch is so bloody powerful:

• It’s Boardwide.  Flogs like me who are used to comfortably casting their crutch spells from out of Unbind range are suddenly (and emphatically) in danger.
• It gives zero fucks for your stacked bonuses.  Seraphon stacking PMDs to the moon are still capable of being reeled in – in fact the more PMDs they use, the more likely they are to fuck themselves (as illustrated above).

In short, Pouch often works where Unbinds or spell shrugs don’t.  It won’t stop every spell in its tracks, but the boardwide factor matters greatly, and it’ll stop a lot.

Is stopping a lot for one Hero Phase enough?  Maybe.  You can only expect so much from one artefact, but dedicated magic armies are usually on a timer.  Their win condition is blasting chunks out of your most valuable units before you reach them and kick the shit out of them – or, in the case of Sons, run up an insurmountable lead on the Primary objectives.  Getting one whole extra round to do your thing before they deplete your army past the tipping point can be huge. 

For Sons specifically, if you can dominate Primaries for three rounds you usually win; and Pouch can get you a 1-0 headstart in that race to 3.  Massive.

Which armies does it help you against? 

We’ve talked a little bit about the cadence of a modern Hero Phase, where you have the ongoing tension between spiking supercasts and the rhythm-casting of multiple spells, and how PMDs interact with both.

Let’s take a look at the Profiles of various magical armies, and how they use their magic.

• Magic Doms: These armies have high volume of impactful casts with good bonuses.  Examples: LRL, Seraphon, Tzeentch, Nagash.
• Dreamers: Armies with high-impact spells but low bonuses to cast.  Powerful spells that they can’t reliably force through, but which can turn a game when successful.  Examples: Nurgle, Kruleboyz.
• Pinch Hitters: Armies with powerful spellcasting applied to a smaller number of popular spells.  Reliably casting these will often be a major factor in their crafted win condition.  Examples: Cabalists, Skaven.
• Upsiders: Armies with nominal magic only that didn’t play a major factor in their win condition.  Any Wizards were mostly included as an “out” or as a Mystic Shield / Unbind bot.  Examples: Ironjawz or Slaanesh in the last GHB.
• Checked out: not playing the magic game at all.  Examples: Khorne, Sons of Behemat.

I think the important thing to bear in mind here is that each of these categories interacts with one another in different ways; and the dynamics of the new GHB will vary depending on which category your own army falls into.  Today we’re coming at it very much from the outside looking in, as Sons of Behemat players interested in Nulldust adornments, and that will inform our perspective on everything.

Note too that from a Sons of Behemat viewpoint, there has been a general shift upwards and to the right under the current Handbook.  Access to the powerful Andtor lore and improved Endless Spells in the current paradigm means that the Upsiders category has arguably been made defunct, since they all now have multiple powerful uses of their casting. 

Our goal as a Checked Out army is either to push our magical opposition back down and to the left, or accept that magic is just something that happens to us and find another way to compete*.  So which of these archetypes will Pouch of Nulldust help us against? 

First thing to say is that anything in the left-hand column is easier to deal with.  You know that there’s no point fighting Skaven units with Death Frenzy in melee, so you either shoot them off or engage with something else while you bide your time for them to fail the cast.  Similarly with S2D, you know they’re going to try and charge you with their giga-damage units, so blocking the teleport and 3D6” charge is a huge part of their win condition and you can save your best Unbinds for that.

All in all, when facing Pinch Hitters, Pouch of Nulldust is right where you want to be.  There’s a good chance they’ll bork themselves outright, and if they don’t, you’re ready to step in with Heroic Willpower and stop the clutch cast with your own PMDs (which they can’t risk using).

As for Magic Doms, you need a lot more knowledge of the meta and game state to make your own judgments on when to step in.  I can’t give you a universal rule that tells you whether you’re better off pouncing on a lower cast to try and get value out of your limited unbinds, or throwing the kitchen sink at a big one.  What I can say is that Pouch will just automatically stop some of their attempts for you, simply by doing what it does, and that effectively downgrades Magic Doms into Pinch Hitters for the purpose of your counterplay, with a bit of good judgment required. 

The Pouch of Nulldust plus Nullstone Icon double-bill really shines against these armies.  You’re going to have to switch your brain into gear to assess which one or two spells you really want to stop, and if they don’t naturally hit a Primal Miscast, that’s when you step in with your Primal unbinds to overwhelm them.

With regards to facing the Dreamers, it’s as above, except easier to pull off.  Where you might need two PMDs to shut down a Magic Dom that gets past your Pouch for example, you could find that one PMD is enough to stop these guys. 

So if Andtor has pushed all magic-users up and to the right in our grid, the Nulldust tech is pushing them back the other way for one crucial early turn.  It stops some spells in their tracks, heavily disincentivizes the use of PMDs for casting and gives us the opportunity to selectively unbind (with the dice stacked in our favour) those that do get through. 

Against armies that are Checked Out on the other hand, Nulldust enhancements are a complete waste of time.  You’d be better off taking wards or utility artefacts against these armies. 

So with that framework to help us organize our thoughts, which armies will we get a big boost against, and where are those armies at in the game right now?

Meta Analysis

Let’s run through a loose tier list to get a handle on it.  We’ll use the known quantity of the meta as it stood at the end of the most recent GHB as a starting point, to pick out some powerful armies that are likely to remain popular.  We’ll then run through the armies that might be on the up, and the ones that could be sliding down the other way, to get a feel for the weighting of how powerful Pouch is in the emerging meta.

Power Armies

Highly competitive and likely to remain so.

• SBGL: Arguably the strongest army in the game right now – and most definitely one that enjoys its spells (with decent casting bonuses from the likes of Corpse Cart).  Neffy’s Ethereal spell and Spirit Gale (boardwide MWs) are both cast from the backboard in the early stages, and therefore tricky to stop without Pouch.  Flaming Weapon is another favourite.  In the mid-game onwards, Waste Away (-1 to wound and -1 damage) is 18” range and a prime target for your unbinds.  You’re still probably pushing shit up a hill because Zombies were dramatically under-nerfed, but Nulldust Pouch is a big asset and denying them Hoarfrost certainly can’t hurt.
• Khorne: Anti-magic army and the Pouch won’t help you at all.  You’re better off with defensive tech (such as Wards) in this matchup.
• Serpahon: Idiot-proof Magic Doms and an absolute menace. Where other armies need to make difficult choices about where to apply their output, Seraphon players sit smugly in the space of “Why choose when you can blast both?”. The Slaan is a laughably-overpowered Locus, and Lizards are the army most people are thinking about when they question the wisdom of leaning into wildly unbalanced magic for a year. Will the Pouch help you? You’re still playing on hard mode, but I’d argue it’s your best shot.
• OBR: Will usually take the Dark Acolyte CT, so their first spell cannot be unbound.  Forcing a Prime Miscast is a great tool against this.  OBR brings a portfolio of useful buffing spells, notably Reinforce Constructs and Empower Nadirite Weapons, safely cast from the backboard early on.  Plus Drain Vitality (powerful debuff spell, 18” range).  There’s also a useful horde-clearer on the Boneshaper’s warscroll that is unlikely to be relevant to Nullstone armies.  This is a matchup where the boardwide magical interference is potentially a big factor.
• Slaanesh: Hilariously, the dev team thought that Blissbarb Archers and Fellwater Troggoths needed the same points increase.  These pricks will still be shooting you off and they don’t really need much magic to do it.  Awful job on the Battlescroll, and Nulldust will do fuck all to help you.

Climbers

Up-and-coming armies whose playerbase will be excited by the possibilities of this Handbook.

• STD: 3D6 teleport, 3D6 charges.  The maths above should be enough to demonstrate that you can’t count on an Unbind when they have a 1 dice headstart.  They will occasionally hang themselves with a regulation miscast – though as the table shows, not as often as you might be hoping – but once Primal Miscasts come into play, the balance shifts dramatically.
  • They can’t really afford to pump in those extra PMDs with Pouch active, whereas you most certainly can on the Unbind.  So Pouch effectively removes their inherent advantage and as a Pinch Hitter, you can target down the key casts.
• Skaven: As above, another 3D6 Pinch Hitter.  They’ll still get some important casts through but you can use your judgment to target down one or two big ‘uns.
• Big Waaagh: Fairly low casting power but a handful of clutch spells (tend to be “outs” rather than mission-critical).  Hand of Gork, Andtor spells, maybe the KB Ward-removal spell if you’re using Wards?  You can selectively snipe these guys’ spells. Their own magic power is really unbinding with Gobby, about which you give zero fucks.
• FEC: Ferocious Hunger is the big daddy spell.  Plus Spectral Host for run and charge, and they do like Endless Spells too.  You really don’t want them to have their way with you magically, so anti-magic tech is extremely valuable, and again with Pouch you’re spell-sniping here.

Magical Enigmas

Where they will land is up in the air currently, but these Magic Doms need a special mention:

• Lumineth: Helon binned, cry me a fucking river.  I guess we’ll find out how much all the Aelf wankers spamming Sentinels for years “just really love the models” now.  Teclis takes a risk if he casts four spells on a 10 now, since you can snipe the Ward or teleport spells with your Unbind.  Pouch won’t help you against Tecky, but they’re still rolling a high volume of casts from their unit champs and if you stop the Cathallar’s particularly bleak warscroll spell until you get where you need to go, it’s worth it.
• Tzeentch:  Arguably belongs in the Power Armies category.  They can bypass casting rolls entirely with Blue Scribes – Wards will be more useful there (noting they are Unique and can’t cast Blizzard or Hoarfrost).  Can use Destiny Dice to force casts through and (in a masterpiece of terrible design) replace the DDs after they’ve used them.  They will have to roll some dice, and they do like pounding out the damage spells, so stopping a couple of them will never be a bad thing; Pouch will shut down a couple and bring others into Unbind range.  Pouch might take the edges off their magic a little, but they’re still likely to bring a hell of a lot of pain.

Sliders

Forces to be reckoned with under the last GHB, but likely to trend in the wrong direction this time around.

• KO: So apparently the KO playerbase is moaning about Thunderers going up?  LOL.  As is too often the case, the classic refrain “it’s a dice game” doesn’t apply to Order wankers, so they can just choose to cast their Spell in a Bottle.  Nulldust no help here.
• Gits: Hand of Gork is a big deal (another backboard spell) and Grots are big beneficiaries of Hoarfrost.  That’s the way I’ll be pivoting after the nerfs to Squigs (deserved) and Troggs (not so much).  The Grot spam direction I’ll be going can win without magic, but the potential MWs that Pouch will force into their 4- and 5-wound wizards are enough to make me shudder.
• Fyreslayers: Largely Checked Out of the magic game, but could draft in a Knight Incantor or two with Endless Spell support. Occasionally pops up with a good result and an interesting list direction, but life has generally got tougher for their foot troops as more Ward-ignoring tech has crept into the game. Usually a decent enough matchup for Nulldust armies, even if your Enhancements don’t explicitly help you in it.

So there’s a whistlestop tour through which armies Nulldust tech will help you against most, and where they could shake out in the early meta. I’m aware that I’ve skimmed over a couple like IDK, but we’ve covered a big chunk of the big dogs – there’s a mixed bag here, but I would argue that in general the armies it’s most useful against project to skew high, with Khorne being an important outlier.  You’ll have to face those guys a lot this year if you’re playing competitively, so if you do invest in extra Nulldust, you’d want to have a solid plan for taking on Big Red. Blissbarb spam is another one where you’d be better off with defensive tech, but most people seem have too much self-respect to run this build, or at least didn’t want to invest until they’d seen whether GW did a reasonable job nerfing them (they did not). If you expect to see a lot of these two armies locally, that could tilt the table back to loading up on alternative tech.

So what are those alternatives?

What else could we take instead?

Even with two or three Enhancement slots, the opportunity cost is real.

• There’s always value in leaning heavily into your main win condition of existing near objectives.  Wards will be useful against magic armies and Khorne alike – the Crouching Gargant, Hidden Stonehorn combined with Amulet and Brodd is a lot of effective wounds to work with.
• Sons have some great utility artefacts, for example Taco’s trademark Rocket Boots build with the run + charge and charge 3D6″ combo (see Lists below).
• True DPS armies will walk right through your Wards, in which case the best answer is at list selection.  An aggressive option or two – like the Extra-Calloused Feet or Manticore Venom – will be super valuable in shattering a glass hammer.
• And speaking of aggressive options: the Polished Nullstone Pebble will give you a 4+ magic shrug on one unit.  I’m generally less excited about this one, because it just opens up your other units to be targeted down instead, but you can force the issue to some extent by ramming an angry Gatebreaker right up in their business.

In terms of that last option – take the Pebble and force the issue – I do want to mention one combo I’ve not seen anyone else talking about. If you take a Beast Smasher as your General, you can load him up with the Sees Green Command Trait, and put the Pebble on a second Mega-Gargant. That way both of them are ignoring half the magical output for that phase, and you’re able to exert even more control over what your opponent can effectively target down. Food for thought.

In Conclusion

Where I’m going here is that I would argue that the Pouch of Nulldust is worth a slot in most lists that have access to it. I’d bypass Arcane Tome or the Kraken-eater artefact to keep access to it; I’d take it first over the alternative Nulldust items; and I’d strongly consider spending an Enhancement slot on pairing it with the Icon too, rather than grabbing a second Artefact.

If you expect to play disproportionately against Khorne, Fyreslayers and Slaanesh you might go down a different path, but for most people I would argue that it will be highly impactful in enough games to earn its place, and the judge’s call in Sons of Behemat is really whether you lean in and pair it with Nullstone Icon too.

In the case of pure Beastclaw Raiders, it’s powerful enough I’m making it the one Artefact Adjacent Thing in most initial lists, and it would push me to take a single Tyrant or Bloodpelt Hunter ahead of a Slaughtermaster in a predominantly Beastclaw army.

So if we agree that you can write a good, competitive list by leaning into Nullstone artefacts or treating them as pure upside, shall we have a go at doing both?

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The Lists

So today we’ve got one that I think could be quite competitive, and one where we just cut loose and have a bit of fun.

The Nullstone Fetish

If it’s the Megas that you’re here for, and you want to feel like you’re participating in the Handbook, this is the way I’d go.

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat
– Tribe: Stomper Tribe
– Grand Strategy: Make the Land Tremble
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (450)*
– General
– Command Trait: Monstrously Tough
– Artefact: Club of the First Oak
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (500)*
– Nullstone Adornment: Pouch of Nulldust
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (500)*
– Nullstone Adornment: Hand-carved Nullstone Icon
King Brodd (520)*

Battleline

Core Battalions
*Bosses of the Stomp

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 145
Drops: 1

You’ve got the modern classic Crouching Gargant, Hidden Stonehorn stomping around like he owns the place, backed up by another 40-wound Giga Chad in King Brodd, for a really solid foundation to the list.  You could easily run this army as a one-drop with two artefacts, but today I’m going to lean into Nullstone and grab the Pouch + Icon double bill.  Forcing through an Unbind with the Primal Dice will give us a free hit at a second and maybe third Unbind to snipe key spells, and liberate us to use Best Days Ever rather than Heroic Willpower most turns. 

Because we’ve invested in that sound platform, we’ll build on it with Double Gatebreakers and Broddley for a truly scary counterpunch.  Hoarfrost is good and all, but you’ll often be able to stop it for long enough while smashing back with a mighty Rend -4 on your Broddley Rend turn.  Gatebreakers are in a great spot right now because they can just bypass a lot of bullshit – their mighty swing is a pure warscroll ability, so a lot of things like All Out Ghost miss their trigger of being targeted with an attack. 

If I prove to be full of shit the meta evolves in a different direction you can easily strip out the Icon and go back to the Wards.  I’d be happy to run this at an event this weekend, no worries.

Nothing In Life Matters

What if we don’t stress about stopping our opponents, and we just enjoy doing our own thing instead?

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat
– Tribe: Stomper Tribe
– Grand Strategy: Make the Land Tremble
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Warstomper Mega-Gargant (450)**
– General
– Command Trait: Eager for the Fight
– Artefact: Amberbone Totem
Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (500)*
– Nullstone Adornment: Pouch of Nulldust
Beast-smasher Mega-Gargant (480)*
– Artefact: Extra-calloused Feet
Beast-skewer Killbow – Big Grikk’s Kruleshots (290)***
– Allies

Battleline
1 x Mancrusher Gargants (140)**
1 x Mancrusher Gargants (140)**

Units
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz – Big Grikk’s Kruleshots (0)***
– Allies
3 x Man-skewer Boltboyz – Big Grikk’s Kruleshots (0)***
– Allies

Core Battalions
*Bosses of the Stomp
**Footsloggas
***Regiment of Renown

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 290 / 400
Wounds: 146
Drops: 3

This ends up being a 3-drop package that feeds my unhealthy obsession with Big Grikk.  I’m kind of keen to kitbash myself up another one, this time a toddler Gargant called Lil’ Grikky who’s packing serious heat.

We’ve got Nathan’s patented Rocket Boots build Warstomper zooming around the board – your opponent will be absolutely reeling the first time you ram a Mega right in there where the sun don’t shine.  I’ve ran this loadout once, and zipped 26” across the table in Round 5, and that’s a high I’m going to be chasing for the rest of my life.

Beast Smashers have always been savage craic as kings of the wrestling moves and ludicrously spikey attacks.  We’ll kit them out with an aggro artefact for a second meaningful profile in case they crap out on the Menhir Club, and just let the Gatebreaker do his Gatebreaker things.

Two Mancrushers will play the role of screens and pile-in minimisers along with helping us secure our Grand Strategy and Battle Tactics (especially an early Surround and Destroy).  Lil’ Grikky also helps with both and gives us some scary shooting output – he won’t contribute regular damage every game, but he and his mob will do something ridiculous about two or three times in a 5-round event.  These guys are Monster hunters and I’m seeing a lot Krondspine Incarnates cropping back into lists right now – a full volley into their notional 18 wounds should have a good chance of bracketing them, and anything that limits the amount of time I have to spend looking at those ugly-ass 3D printed centipede pieces of shit gets a big thumbs-up.

I reckon 3-2 is probably the ceiling for this list, but you’ll walk away from the event with plenty of big stories to remember.  So the next time someone tells you Giants are boring, tell them they need to broaden their horizons.

Footnote: Does it even work?

Nah, they fucked it up. As a reminder of the wording on Pouch:

The issue is that it’s not possible to roll a PMD as part of the casting roll, because the FAQ tells us so:

They even tidied this up for the way primal miscasts work, but forgot to do so the same for the Pouch:

I know some events have started issuing house FAQs for this using similar wording to the “Page 12 – Primal Magic” erratum above, because it’s a pretty clear omission, but in the interim I’d just check in with your TO if you’re planning on using it. Hopefully GW cleans it up at the next FAQ.

What’s Next

We’ll follow up with a broader anti-magic piece – picking out some key tech from across the whole game.  I’ll also be playing some games with these Gargants lists and will write them up as a Patreon article.

That ended up being a bit of a journey through the early game state as I see it, examined through the lens of Sons of Behemat but hopefully helpful whether your running Sons or not (I’m no more than a part-time Giants player myself).  I’d be pretty keen to put the Pouch in my own lists while we see how the meta shakes out, and if you do give it a try, let me know how it goes for you.

Have a good weekend nerds – see you on the other side.

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*I suppose we could shelve the Giants and play Seraphon instead, but if you can’t win games without picking up an Order army you might as well save a few bucks and just buy yourself a plastic trophy.

Credit for all rules text to Games Workshop

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