by Pat Nevan

Image: Games Workshop

I’ve been a bit disengaged from the whole Armies of Renown thing so far. They seem to be the sort of half-baked, half-assed brain sharts that GW pump out when they are out of ideas and clearing the decks for the next edition.¹ The teleporting nonsense in Brodd’s Stomp and the “Fire a second shot when you feel like it” routine with the KO indicates a level of playtesting and rules writing well below the normal Pumice standard that has exemplified 3rd edition.

Think I’m being to harsh? It took the intellectual might of the Craichouse’s Gargant fanatics about eleven seconds to realize they could use the Gargant terrain-destroying rules to teleport their big Oafs around like methed-up Seraphon, but apparently no one amongst GW’s rules writers or playtesters figured it out before the book went to the printers. As for the others, the power level is so variable I’ve already forgotten what the Big Pig one does and I more or less instantly dismiss anything Gloomspite-related like it’s the comic relief creature in an anime.

“Whatever the fuck this thing is, that’s all you are to me Trugg”

I was honestly hoping they were stupid enough to get comped out of competitive play but, credit were it is due, GW bought out a solid FAQ for them and they are here to stay. With that in mind I figured that, as Australia’s reigning Overtyrant I should put my shoulder to the wheel and have a look at the Ogors AOR, The Roving Maw

What is The Roving Maw?

Images taken from the guy who took them from Guerilla Miniature Games man reads book series, thanks all.

Straight off the bat, The Roving Maw is a Gutbuster faction which means its potential for competitive play is pretty close to zero. The Mawtribes as a whole aren’t doing big numbers on the top tables and what success they have tends to rely heavily on hitting all the charge mortals, and these guys don’t get ’em. Limiting yourself to Gutbuster units means you are going to have to play well to come away with a 3-2 at a competitive event.² When I talk about the power level of The Roving Maw I’m really comparing it to the sort of Gutbuster-heavy armies favored by tragic Ogor nerds like me.

TLDR: Worse than regular Ogors, could be a project for Ogor nerds who are used to disapointment.

Anyways, no BCR, no Firebelly, no Maneaters, no worries. The mighty Gnoblar is eligible and that’s all that really matters. I can only assume they put the bit in there about no unique Gutbuster Heroes to rub salt in our wounds.

Here’s the main rules for the AOR:

I’ll be discussing the Mawpit a bit later but these guys get good old Might Makes Right and Ravenous Brutes like regular Ogors. Gobbling Bites is an upgraded version of the Gutbuster ability that is much more reliable and does a bit more damage. Each Butcher lets you take a unit of Gorgers as Battleline and Gorgers can run and charge if they are not wholly within 1″, which basically means don’t stand on terrain.

A few takeaways here.

• Everything that is keyworded BUTCHER also applies to the far superior but equally (over) priced Slaughtermaster, so leave the Butchers at home unless you don’t have the models.
• Gnoblars have the Gutbuster keyword and do Gobbling Bites like regular Ogors. Expect an FAQ on this one.
• The Slaughtermaster’s warscroll spell to improve the Gulping Bite of Gluttons won’t work on the Gobbling Bites in this faction. This would be more of an issue if it wasn’t one of the most infrequently cast and useless warscroll spells in the game but it may be FAQ’d.
• Thanks to keyword bingo the “Make Gorgers Battleline” rule applies to the goofy pre-existing single model Gorgers, what you can do with that is anyone’s guess. Then again single Gorgers are vulnerable to the warscrolls effects of the Mawpit.
• As noted earlier these poor saps lose their Trampling Charge ability.

Enhancements

Only one on offer here. I guess you could technically give this to a Bloodpelt or Tyrant but they’d never be able to cast any spells. Not the worst trait for you general, who will presumably be squatting in your Mawpit and using the second cast as an Andtorian Locus. They do get to pick additional spells so it’s not too bad. Probably on a par with Master of Magic or the Andtorian CTs, and you’ve effectively lost access to the better command traits anyway without Maneaters or Brawlerguts on a Tyrant.

One artefact, situational as hell given that you are relying on someone to smash your Mawpit, but better than the generic items. I suspect having one of these around plus the chance of the Mawpit biting whoever smashes it will make people pretty reluctant to go after your Mawpit. Annoyingly it works at the start of your hero phase whereas Mawpits do their thing at the start of the Battleround, so you will miss out. Hats off to the designers for bringing flavor and utility with this one.

At first glance these were pretty ordinary and only get worse with closer inspection. Compared to the utility of the normal spell lores they’re crap. Still the Roving Maw is all about the Mawpit and two of these back that up. Whether or not you will ever successfully cast these against magic doms is another story.

• Marrowmeat seems ok: decent range, low casting value and it will prevent people from cowering on a lump of terrain. The permanent effect is a bit unusual but pretty cool. Not sure if you’d take this as a single spell enhancement.
• Retcher. Aww yeah an enhancement to give rend to a model you really don’t want anywhere near combat. That’s the “Fuck it, it’s Friday afternoon let’s get to the pub already” Ogor design we know and love. In fairness there is a chance to get the double Andtorian cast and throw this and Flaming Weapon on a Slaughtermaster before he is smoked in melee, so good luck. Or you could throw it on your Slaughtermaster’s Gnoblar companions for the lols.
• Offal Bringer. Forcing compulsory moves on people à la Bloodbind is always useful but this one is short range. To use this properly your opponent needs to be within 9 inches and they have to be vulnerable to the Head Butcher’s Mawpit ability, which is pretty crap unless you are facing the scourge of one wound infantry. Not useless but way too situational.

Battle Tactics and Grand Strategy

The Battle Tactics are ok but worse than the Ogor standard ones, and I don’t see these clowns being particularly adept at scoring GHB tatctics. The grand strat is classic Games Workshop “Who-wrote-this” shit that will be straight up impossible against most armies.

• That Was Just a Morsel: Situational and risky even when available. Hits on a 3+ vs one-wound models, a 5+ vs two-wound models and a Go Fuck Yourself against anything else. I suppose if something is in range you could double dip on this one with the Offal Bringer spell.
• Slavering Ambush: Not too shabby. The risk involved depends on the number of Gorgers you bring on. Probably not a bad one to throw the dice on first turn if you can’t hit anything else.
• We Eated ‘Em All: Loses points for Greenskin-style comic spelling, but still the pick of the litter for blowing opponents off lightly held objectives. Unfortunately you have to clear everything off, so you might get cucked out of this one with movement hijinks or one surviving model. Best used on an objective your opponent has abandoned.

You would assume that an army with only one grand strat would get something half decent but this is even worse than it looks. It’s doable against armies with a lot of one wound models if you hit a couple of 4-ups to kill 3 enemies at once, but entirely useless in a general sense. It’s not quite as bad as the Brodd’s Stomp one that was literally impossible to ever achieve but you have to marvel at the laziness behind this as the one available Grand Strat. Bet those Friday afternoon beers went down a treat.

The Mawpit

This AOR is centered around the new and pretty durn badass piece of Ogor Terrain. Mawpit or Mawpot? is a question for another article but it’s worth having a look at what this thing does for the Roving Maw both on its warscroll and with its other abilities.

It’s a lot bigger as well. Thanks to Xander from the Craichouse for the pic

First up the Mawpit is Garrisonable by one Butcher, refered to as the Head Butcher in the rules, who is probably going to be your General in this AOR which means he will get a fair bump on the range of his spells and command abilities from garrisoning a huge lump of terrain.

rules credit the GW App for this stuff

So in your hero phase you can blast enemy units from 18 inches away meaning you will probably want to deploy this one fairly close. As noted above this one is really only useful against one wound models, and you don’t get to pick the model which is destroyed but it’s still kind of fun. I initially misread this rule so editor Pete was kind enough to make me a handy chart to explain it.³

So it’s pretty much useless unless you are up against 1 wound infantry which is just swell as it powers up the Mawpit ability for the AOR. Doing D3 mortals on a 2 + would have made this generally useful but Ogors got a Saarlac pit that only eats Jawas.

Just gotta grind that pepper Baby

The Throat of Ghur⁴ is probably where your mortals will be coming from in this AOR. You wang everything that comes within 18 inches of you at the end of their charge phase on a 3 plus if they aren’t in combat. This feels like it’s more suited to protecting a gunline than hard-charging Ogors, and that may be the best way to approach this AOR. Throw in a couple of Gnoblar screens and your melee opponents are getting whacked for all sorts of mortals on the way in. Either way this is going to be a real pain in the balls for your opponent, especially as this GHB has a lot of close-set objective battleplans. Still they can always come across, kick your dick in and smash your fancy Mawpit, unless….

Honestly, no notes here, this is the best thing they have done for Ogors since the original Hungry / Eating and Trampling Charge rules. Especially with the artefact to restore a smashed Mawpit in this AOR:

So we get to the actual Mawpit of Ghur rules for the AOR and there is a bit going on here. Before deciding priority you roll 2d6 (plus one for the Head Butcher you deploy in it). From Battleround 2 you get to add any models you have killed with the Head Butcher ability to the total. Then you can pick your ability and inflict it on units that are vulnerable to Mawpits, i.e. not within 1″ of terrain or flyers. Pretty sweet but I do have a few quibbles:

• Vulnerable to Mawpits. So you can avoid the effects by standing on terrain which can be kind of awkward or you know, FLYING. The way the important units, monsters, heroes and entire fucking armies can. It makes narrative sense but really limits the ability. Never mind the Nighthaunt, you are going to routinely face armies where half the units are immune to your key ability.
• Garbage effects. So on an average roll you are going to do one mortal to whatever of your opponents units are vulnerable on a 5+. Is that worth giving up charge mortals for? You will take Famished in most situations but needing an 8 plus you will hit it 2 rounds out of 5 on average.
• Your bonuses suck. As noted above a lot of your opponents will be immune to the Head Butcher ability. Even if they aren’t, it will take you a couple of turns to amass the bodycount to determine your effects, so it will kick in by turn 3 when a lot of your games are over anyways.
• The whole thing is reliant on 7-wound, wardless, bodyguard-less guys surviving to garrison the Mawpit. With the changes to targeting, support heroes are a bit more survivable, but plenty of armies can flatten a vital support hero on a whim.

Even with all that I still think it’s a pretty solid mechanic for a Destro army. If it works it can turn battles. Think of an OBR army unable to issue the zillion stupid command abilities to themselves. Or you get the wrong dice rolls or the wrong opponent and it does nothing. What they should have done here was just applied it to every unit on the battlefield instead of fooling around with eligibility criteria.

The Verdict

I really want to like this one a lot more than I do. It’s designed to run with the new Gorgers and terrain which are damn fine models that I would love to get on the table. Editor Pete did a pretty solid write up⁵ on the new Gorgers and I tend to agree that they are worth putting on the table.

Without the BCR and the charge mortals, the AOR will never be as competitive as regular Ogors and I suspect it would not be as much fun as regular Dadbods long-term. Spiking and whiffing on charge mortals is a big part of the joy of the faction and you aren’t going to drag enough people into the Mawpit to make up for that.

The whole AOR project just seems a little bit off to me. They are working on the narrative arc of 3rd Ed but it needs actual matched play rules or the whole thing will be regarded as yet another Path to Glory by the competitive community.⁶ The rules themselves seem a little bit half-baked. Was the intention of this AOR to give Ogor players a less competitive version of half their army so they could experience a different type of frustration?

The whole thing feels like a missed opportunity. This is the Butcher / Gorger Maw Magic subfaction. Gorgers become battleline and get run and charge, whoop de doo. Butchers get a sub-par spell lore and become worse at magic than they are in Bloodgullet. I have been harping on Verisimilitude a bit lately but there isn’t much here that suggests a horde of starving Ogors.

It wouldn’t take much to improve this. At a minimum some sort of mechanism to improve the roll for the Head Butcher’s model-slaying Mawpit ability, to give you a chance to knock off tougher models, seems like a no-brainer. No Gnoblars and an army-wide plus one attack – but unable to retreat while Eating – would change the complexion of the army. A command ability Butchers could use on Gorgers. A way to infect your own regular Ogors with the Gorger curse. A choice of two command traits?

There is a fair bit going on in this army and we won’t know how effective some of the tech is until we try it. The Throat of Ghur and Gnoblars aplenty have some real potential but nothing you couldn’t do with regular Gutbusters. Maybe just get the guy who wrote the It Fights Back rule to do all the Ogor stuff from now on.

I seriously love that rule

1. As a content creating blogger I’m something of an authority on half-assed brain sharts. ↩︎
2. I would be delighted to be proven wrong on this one, seriously. ↩︎
3. He is also the exact sort of person to use the word treble in place of triple. ↩︎
4. Known as the Throat Goat of Ghur in the Craichouse Patreon discord because we are pretty easily amused. ↩︎
5. By his standards that is. ↩︎
6. Yes Redditors, I know most players aren’t competitive and blah blah blah but comp players and the content creators who cater to them are the ones that keep the whole hype train rolling. ↩︎

If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!