by Peter Atkinson

We all know the drill by now: Warband comes out, Warband has sexy rules and an eye-catching points cost, Warband gets spammed.  Points go up and dude who bought 10x kits because he “really liked the models” has a tantrum. 

Destro players have been on the outside looking in for most of that cycle with Warcry warbands specifically, but now we’re getting the love.  So let’s take a look at the Kruleboyz Monsta-killaz and what they can do for your army (which is, in a word, “plenty”).

Ready?  Let’s go.

The Warscroll

Click to access 3AvUmpR7caClqXZF.pdf

You get 8 of these guys for 135 points:

There’s loads to get excited about here.

Core Stats

Pretty standard stuff for Kruleboyz: 2 wounds each (including the Grot and War Baboons), with a crap save and bad bravery.  5” move is also as expected but worth flagging up is that the unit does have the Orruk keyword, so they all get the Venom-Encrusted Weapons ability for proccing MWs (including the Grot’s one attack, if you’re feeling lucky).

The full suite of buffs is available in KB or BW armies: a Shammy dishing out Poison can get your MWs proccing on 5s, a nearby Croc will grant additional MWs on 6s, and the unit can be Supa Sneakied.

The unit size of 8 is a bit awks for coherency purposes, which does impinge on their effectiveness as a screen.  Bear that in mind as we run through their utility.

Output

BAM! 3 attacks each, that’s what we like to see.  I tried to punch these things through a damage calculator, but ran into to trouble with the double-proccing mortals on different triggers.  What I can tell you, though, is this: KB famously fish for 6s to punch out MWs, and when you’re fishing for 6s, weight of dice is king.  You don’t need a damage calculator to tell you that 3 dice per model is just what the doctor ordered.

They do have fewer models than the Gutrippaz though, and the Grot has an appropriately shit melee profile of his own.  So in terms of total dice chucked, you’re looking at 7×3 + 1 +1 = 23 attacks, compared to 21 attacks for Gutrippaz. 

The core melee profile gets even better and this really starts to separate them from the Gutrippaz.  4s and 3s with rend -1 is getting close to a proper combat unit profile, so you can reasonably hope to put some normal damage through in addition to the MWs. Let’s compare it to those Gutrippaz:

What you’re getting here is:

• The 2” range from the Stikka
• The 3+ to wound from the Hacka
• The rend -1 that is missing from both

It’s better than the best of both worlds, and importantly that 2” range really opens it up to making a reinforced unit work.  Sublime.

Durability

Comically fragile despite the 2 wounds.  If you’ve played Orruks, you’ll know they just evaporate with a 5+ save and Bravery 5.  And that’s fine – they’re not meant to be an anvil.

Gutrippaz do edge them out here, with their slightly-conditional -1 to hit and +1 bravery from the banner.  They also pack in a bit more wound density, with 20 wounds in a unit of 10 (7.5 points per wound) vs 16 wounds in a unit of 8 (8.4 points per wound). 

So in pure stats, that’s your choice: a bit more damage from the Monsta-killaz vs a bit more sustain from the Gutrippaz.  What I would argue here is that while Gutrippaz might be the more durable of the two, that’s pretty faint praise, and they make a very poor anvil with their own durability issues.  In practice both are glass hammers, and the Monsta-killaz are better in that role.

Utility

Yeah this is where it gets exciting.  When you push two monsters of a similar points cost together, which one wins?

The biggest determining factors usually are:

• Whichever one swings first, and
• Whether one of the two can secure Roar supremacy (and therefore All Out Defence supremacy)

Monsta-killaz address both of these at once, and that’s some pretty heavyweight utility on a unit of this nature. 

For context, the other place you’ll see A Tough Grot to Swallow is one of the signature abilities on a 520-point unique character:

And here it is again, on a 17-point Grot.  Lol.

Quality of life on these No Rampage and Fights Last abilities is SKY HIGH.  They both trigger in “the” phase (i.e. on both players’ turns), and what’s awesome is that you don’t even need to get within 3” for them to pop off.  So if they’re well-positioned, your opponent can’t avoid it by just not charging them.

For completeness I’ll mention too that the musician prevents enemy monsters within 3” from retreating.  It’s not generally a huge factor, and not a reason to take them on its own, but you might occasionally find it spoils a Stonehorn’s plans to moonwalk away and steal an objective, or stops a Mega-Gargant from nopeing out of combat for another turn.  And at least they won’t miss the classic Musician +1” to charge as much as most units would, because their core abilities have that generous 6” range meaning that a flubbed charge won’t completely switch them off.

The Minis

The models are outstanding and the kit is around about the price point you’d expect (AUD 98.00 / GBP 35.00 / USD 60.00). Thing is though, GW already sold me an entire army of Orruks who specialise in hunting monsters for Age of Sigmar, so I don’t really feel like dropping another $400 on four of these kits no matter how nice they are.

If you’ve got the cash they’re a great purchase – awesome minis with the rules to match – but personally I’ll be getting out the hobby saw and repurposing some of my Bonesplitterz. I’ve got hunnits of ’em.

Would Bonesplitterz with some conversion work make acceptable Kruleboyz Monsta-Huntaz?

— Peter Atkinson (@PlasticCraic) October 31, 2023

Can you spam them?

Nah, not really.  They’re not Battleline and they require expensive buff pieces to operate effectively.  As cool as they are, you’ll struggle to fit more than 4 units in any list, and 1 to 2 will probably prove the most common.  Hopefully that spares them the worst of the nerf bat further down the track; but on the flipside, they do have the Destruction keyword so let’s be honest, they’re likely doomed.

Allies Watch

A lot of the power of these guys is right there on the warscroll.  They’re not Battleline anyway, so all you’re really losing by putting them in Gits is the MW proccing, but their conventional fightin’ remains decent enough. At 8.4 points per wound, they only owe you so much, and they stand up at that price point even without buffs.  Are they worth putting in a Gloomspite list for their anti-monster tech?

Maaaaaaaybe.  The fighting-est Monster in Gloomspite is the Mangler Squig, which will be off and over the horizon while these fellas are still lacing up their boots.  Their true power in a Gits army could be loitering behind the Loonshrine, stopping Smash to Rubble and helping to keep your crucial terrain rules online (potentially therefore your Grand Strat too).  Again that 6” range is piss funny because it makes it so much more practical to switch off Rampages without actually having to get charged.

Food for thought.

What’s Not There

It’s a minor shame that the War Baboons have no rules of their own, but eh, whaddya gonna do?

How to Use Them

Our friends at Woehammer have covered this unit in an article of their own and there’s a neat diagram of how to place your models, so check that out, but in essence they are superb at accompanying any monster of your choice and giving them a leg up against opposition monsters. 

They’re literally good at everything though.  135 points is a decent price point for a screen: you’d rather have 20 bases for 120 points from some Allied Shootas, but when points are getting tight in Listbuilding, you can reasonably drop one screen and throw these guys under the bus instead.  A coherency-fucked unit size of 8 means that they’ll never be the most efficient screen in the game (and nor should they be), but as a dual-purpose fighting screen they have that flexibility.

As we discussed above, the damage is there: the 2” range makes them worthy of being reinforced and they take buffs really well at that point.  The Croc and Shammy pump up the damage and then the core melee profile is solid enough to be worth issuing an All Out Attack.  Again they’re not Chaos Chosen or Squigs, but they can definitely fight.

Fully buffed, you’re looking at 20+ mortal wounds from a reinforced unit plus normal damage on top. Fucking BAM! that’s the sweet spot for banging off most monsters in a one-er, which is beautifully appropriate. You always get cracking value out of MWs into expensive elite units and anything paying for powerful armour saves: invest in this unit and you can definitely cause some “What the fuck just happened?” moments*.

In Summary

They can fight, they can screen and they can just fucking obliterate enemy monsters.  This unit is just champagne and foot massages all over. The only reason you’ll still see Gutrippaz is because they’re required as Battleline, and you can forget about reinforcing them: I’ll be taking minimum Taxrippaz in my armies going forward, and reinforcing the Monsta-killaz instead.

I’ll be taking at least one and ideally two or three squads of Monsta-killaz in most Kruleboyz and Big Waaagh armies, with 405 points tipped into two units (one reinforced and one solo) being a really solid investment if you can make the points work. I’ll write up a list or two on the Patreon this weekend.

If the points do creep up, I’d dial that back to 1 or 2 units, because their efficiency is a big part of the appeal; but so too is the tech, and that’s here to stay. 

Unlike, it would seem, Bonesplitterz.

*Strip his ward first with Nasty Hex, and you could feasibly one-shot Archaon. Lol.

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