by Peter Atkinson

So you’ve got a unit that can do 100 damage to a 4+ save, hey?  Well I guess I’ll be picking up my 3x Ragerz then.  I’ve been working on an Ironjawz list whose response to all the giga-damage from people with no self-respect imagination shoving various Squigs forward again and again is the old “Joke’s on you”…yeah you can wipe my unit, but what about the next one, and the next one, and the one after that?

Sometimes the answer will be “Yep, I can wipe all of them too” because life be hard for an army that is quite good at fighting and abysmal at everything else.  But hey.  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, wouldn’t they?  We’re here to win games with Ironjawz, and with this list I’ve been winning a lot more than I’ve been losing.

Today we’ll take a look at the list, with a detailed run through the tech and how its win condition operates in practice. The list only changed very slightly with the latest Battlescroll update (it came down 20 points, which is reflected here) so we’ll wrap it up with a brief look at one new option that’s been opened up by that update.

Ready? Let’s go.

The List: Clean Energy

Allegiance: Ironjawz
– Warclan: Ironsunz
– Grand Strategy: Waaagh!
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Orruk Megaboss (140)**
– Artefact: Destroyer
Orruk Warchanter (120)**
– Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat
Orruk Warchanter (120)**
– Warbeat: Killa Beat
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)*
– General
– Command Trait: Shaman of the Chilled Lands
– Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork
– Lore of the Weird: Bash ‘Em Ladz
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)*
– Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork
– Lore of the Weird: Foot of Gork

Battleline
10 x Orruk Brutes (280)***
– Jagged Gore-hackas
– Reinforced x 1
5 x Orruk Brutes (140)***
– Jagged Gore-hackas
5 x Orruk Brutes (140)****
– Jagged Gore-hackas
20 x Moonclan Shootas (120)**

Units
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*****
– Jagged Gore-hackas
6 x Brute Ragerz (200)****
– Reinforced x 1
3 x Brute Ragerz (100)*****
3 x Brute Ragerz (100)*****

Behemoths
Maw-grunta Gougers (160)

Core Battalions
*Andtorian Acolytes
**Warlord
***Ironjawz Fist
****Ironjawz Fist
*****Ironjawz Fist

Additional Enhancements
Spell

Total: 1970 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 174
Drops: 14

Bigger Waaagh

What we’re really doing here is ramping up the buffs with layers of redundancy.  We’ve got a huge range of +1s to hit and to wound, so we should really be on 2s and 2s the whole time. 

We can actually get there a lot quicker than Big Waaagh, with full access from the top of turn 1:

• Hoarfrost does Hoarfrost things, especially useful on the Chain Ragerz who would otherwise hit and wound on 4s.  A common Round 1 ploy for me is to cast Hoarfrost from out of unbind range to grab the spellcasting Battle Tactic too.
• The Ironjawz custom battalion also gives +1 to hit without needing to spend a CP.  Very useful for CP economy when your key army rules (Mighty Destroyers and countercharging) are locked behind a CP paywall.
• The Megaboss can pop CAs on two units, so that’s two instances of All Out Attack in every combat phase.  He’s also a totem so that’s at 18” range.
• Killa Beat on the Warchanter makes an enemy unit +1 to be hit by your entire army. Bosh!
• The Brutes have a native +1 to hit against all models with 4+ wounds, so they’re straight to hitting on 2s in a lot of combats anyway.
• If I get lucky with the Triumph bid at 1970, I can usually bank +1 to wound from that for a crucial combat.
• Best of all: the spell Bash ‘Em Ladz blesses all of your units wholly within 16” with +1 to wound.  This is more powerful than you think, more addictive that you think and more important to the list than any other spell (including Hoarfrost).  You’ll regularly have your whole army wounding on 2s and getting those Smashing and Bashing chains pumping; I’ve won loads of games with this list on the back of devastating Smashing and Bashing chain of destruction at a crucial point, and this spell is what really makes it flow.

It might sound inefficient to have so many sources of the same thing, but it’s really the heartbeat of the army.  You have ways to stack past negs to hit, and ways to still keep the damage flowing even if you fluff your casts.  It would be pretty common for example to whallop a unit with Killa Beat on one side of the board, and pop a free AOA on the other side, to get the whole army hitting on 2s and get that Smashing and Bashing chain cranking while keeping all my CPs for Inspiring Presence, Mighty D and countercharges.

I use every source of every buff in every game, and I’ve never once felt like any of it was wasted.

MSU Combat

So you’ve got target overload, meaning that your opponent can’t just eliminate (or Be’La’Kor) your one key unit and then sit back and relax, because there’s always the next threat and the next threat after that. We’re fighting with rend -2 and 2″ reach right through the army.  But is the damage there?

Ideally in a list like this, you’d want to have a source of Fights Last, so when you run up against a big bad that you don’t have the juice to detonate in one swing, you can dog pile it then drag it down with unit after unit.  In theory you do have that via the Gougers and their Monstrous Rampage, and hopefully with the changes to Momentum mechanic you might occasionally be able to use it. 

It’s still dicey, but I can tell you that even with the previous (unusable) version that has never really been an issue.  What happens in practice is a combination of the following:

• I park my combat units 2.1” back from the screens, so I get to pile in and attack over the top on their turn.  So they’ve copped a bit of damage and we’re halfway there before it even gets to my own combat phase.
• I countercharge and fight on their turn, again getting me a headstart on the damage needed.
• I have multiple damage spells that can punch in a bit of pre-damage and again help me on my way.
• 10x Brutes with Frenzy of Violence are a true sledgehammer, delivering a large volume of high-damage, heavy-rend attacks.  They’ll pop most units they run up against – you need to preserve them.
• Worst case scenario, you multi charge the big threat and tag both ends, then swing first with the unit in the middle.  Given your 2” range you should be able to pile in and swing with at least a couple of units regardless of how they remove casualties, and at least lock them down to prevent Rally.

Really I’d love to reinforce another unit of Brutes, but the points aren’t quite there with Ironjawz currently.  What I can say is that in practice it’s the high-armour-save armies I’ve struggled against moreso than getting bogged down by wound density.  The mortal wounds you do have are dicey and you only get one turn of enhanced rend, so even your widespread rend-2 can sometimes bounce off save-stacked units like Varanguard. 

The best tool you have here is whinging online to get more points drops for the army targeting your PMD unbinds against Mystic Shield when your opponent has a key unit starting on a 3+ save. You might also get lucky and hit a home run with Foot of Gork or Merciless Blizzard, but at the end of the day, we’re playing Ironjawz here; the list does have its weaknesses, and that’s one of them.

The Tech

I’ve mentioned already the importance of two buffing spells (Hoarfrost and Bash Em Ladz).  We’ve got Acolytes to boost our chances of getting them through, which is an important boost for our Bin-tier casting. 

We’ve doubled down on this with extra spells from the Lore.  Redundancy on Hand of Gork matters for a couple of reasons:

• If you don’t have a teleport, your opponent has a far easier life.  Keeping the potential for flinging a unit across the board keeps your opponent honest and increases their mental load.
• Your Grand Strat (Waaagh!) hinges on having a hero or Battleline unit in enemy territory.  The opportunity to dump some Brutes in the far corner – or for the wizards to port themselves over there late game – gives you additional pathways to achieve this.
• The army is mostly foot-slogging, so we do need that injection of speed.
• Since we’re going the high-drop route, we need to threaten turn 1, and the teleport unlocks a classic Ironjawz combo.  More on this below in “Turn 1 Threats”.

So you can see how important the wizards are to the list, and that’s without the 4D6 Damage Hail Mary.  It’s always fun explaining how many times you can actually cast with these one-cast Wizards too:

Cast your spell, cast another spell for going second in the Round, cast Green Puke.  You’ve got a 1-cast Wizard who knows 9 spells* and can cast 3 of them. And then the other Wizard casts Green Puke too. They’re casting from scratch but eh, if you keep throwing darts at the board, you’ll hit the bullseye eventually. 

Old mate the Megaboss with Destroyer is still an absolute Mensch, not forgetting that he fights on death too so you can usually get some joy out of him.  He’s a Totem with 18” CA range even if he’s not your General, and double-issuing those CAs is clutch for a thirsty army like this.  In your head when you write an Ironsunz list, you’re countercharging with two units every single turn, but in practice you’re really looking for those one or two really clutch charges that batter an opposing unit on their turn, getting rid of a screen they were counting on or costing them a Primary objective, and turning the tide of the battle.  Countercharging Brutes into 1-wound infantry can really screw up their day.

The Warbeats are 3D6 charge (important with foot sloggers) and Killa Beat (important for the whole army).  You’ll regularly surprise people by cracking off a long-bomb charge with Brutes and so with regret, I’ve had to leave Fixing Beat on the bench this time.

Biggus Piggus gives us relatively cheap access to Rampages – obviously Roar, but also smashing up a Loonshrine or Herdstone.  Against some armies the Faction Terrain is so important that you can basically Kite their army and make them rush over to wherever your mobile Smash to Rubble threat is headed.

The Allied Grots are money.  They are a good value screen, whose importance I shouldn’t need to explain, but the -1 to be hit is massive for the army too.  It really slows down your opponent in some matchups and I’ll quite often charge them in first not only to draw out Unleash Hell, but also to have -1 to hit locked in for the following combat phase. 

As an added cheeky bonus, they can even contribute to your Grand Strategy as a Battleline unit. Couldn’t play a game without ’em.

We’ve gone high drop with Acolytes and a Warlord, but we’re not done yet: the Ironjawz Battalion doesn’t need a hero, so you can always just take a fuck ton of those Battalions with every unit you have left in the list.  The more you take, the more free CAs you get, so I just keep slamming two units in each Battalion as far as possible. 

Outside of our heroes, we have 9 units. The Grots clearly can’t go in there so they’re slotted into the Warlord, and that leaves 8 Ironjawz units. Big Pig is a Behemoth in this list, so he’s out, and that leaves 7 eligible units wrapped up 3x Ironjawz Fists, with two units in two of them and three in the third. We’ve got a buddy system here, where every reinforced unit is paired with a small unit (minimum Brutes), so every larger unit gets to use their Battalion CP if needed without stepping on each other’s toes. 

A note on Gougers in Battalions

The Gougers would love to have access to free CAs since they’re not Elite and they can’t issue CAs to themselves. The only way to make them fit Battalions is to have a Grunta Boss as your General, which gives them the Battleline battlefield role (and ditches Behemoth), at which point they can go into your Ironjawz Fist (for access to AOA) or even Vanguard (allowing them to reroll a charge or 6″ a run when there’s no hero in issuing range). Have you ever even seen a Vanguard Battalion? I reckon it would be a nice flex to take that one if you have enough Heroes, but Big Waaagh lists with Battleline Big Pigs are a discussion for another day.

Shoutout to audiotronic in the Woehammer discord for reminding me that Gougers can’t actually go in the Ironjawz Fist. I tried cheating, but you wouldn’t let me, you bastard.

Turn 1 Threats

So we’re high drop: the standard play will be for our opponent to make us go first and try to double us.  How can we hurt them if they do that?

It starts at deployment: make sure you have one wizard within 30” of your enemies, and one unit outside of 30” from all of them.  That’s the luxury of going high drop:

• If you go first you can attempt the Mastery of Magic Battle Tactic from safely outside of range, quite risky to achieve otherwise since your casting is shit.
• Advanced mode: keep some duders nearby to your backboarded wizard, and you get a free second bite at the cherry from Green Puke if your first attempt fails.  That’s a nice little 1%er for you.
• If your opponent takes first, you at least have one wizard in range who can attempt an unbind.

My preferred turn 1 spell is Hoarfrost.  What I suggest is usually deploying as follows:

• Put down 3x Ragerz up front as a first drop
• Do the same again as your second drop
• Next you put down the Grots in front of your army (with only the Ragerz in front of them) as a screen.  At this point your opponent will mostly have shown their hand
• Then deploy your castle at your leisure: you should be able to have every unit within range of at least one Warchanter
• I usually put the Cav units on the flanks so they can peel out around the Grots if needed
• If your opponent is really fast and aggressive, the 5x Brutes are disposable enough to protect the sides of your castle
• Your combat units mostly have 2” range, so set them up 2.1” back from your screens.  So when you get charged, they are tagged into combat, and can pile in to fight over the top
• Do the thing with the Wizards I explained above (one up front to unbind, one further back with some mates around him to have a crack at casting the Battle Tactic spell)

If you do get put in first, those Ragerz have a guaranteed 14” movement turn.  Warchanters put them both on Damage 3, your Megaboss pops one CP to make them both move 4″ with Mighty D, Megaboss pops a second CP to make them auto-run 6” (and they run and charge).  You’ll always have 2 CPs at the top of turn 1 and can use your Warlord one if you need one in the tank.

So you’ve got two units right up in their grill, each of them rocking 18x Damage 3 attacks.  They’re ready to batter the living crap out of any screens, and even if they don’t both get in, they present a huge threat that your opponent will be forced to tackle turn 1.  Hopefully one of them is Hoarfrosted so it’ll be pretty common for them to be on 3s and 2s using a free AOA from the Battalion.  If they’re going into something with negs to hit, maybe Hoarfrost the Hit roll instead of the Wound roll.

If that won’t work – because your opponent has backboarded and / or can mess with your CP efficiency – you can do the old Pop ‘n’ Slide on your Pigs instead:

• Warchanter gives your Pigs +1 damage.
• Wizard casts Hand of Gork from the backboard, securing 2 VPs.
• Pigs are teleported 12” away from their target (so they are far enough away to use Mighty D for moving rather than charging).
• They issue themselves with Mighty D to Hero Phase move 9”.
• Now they are 3” away from your opponent who hasn’t had the chance to Redeploy
• Profit

We mentioned earlier that the Gougers aren’t elite, so they can’t self-issue Mighty D to slide in after a teleport. But that’s OK. We’ve got a unit of pigs who can, and we’ll take one unit of Gougers anyway for the access to Monstrous Actions. They each bring something meaningful to the list and there’s room for both.

So there’s a couple of options for how you can punish your opponent for making you go first, reliably and at an affordable cost.  You’re not trading away anything you can’t live without, although I’d usually preserve the pigs over the Ragerz if you can, because that straight-line speed is otherwise lacking in your army.

Is it slow?

Honest answer?  Yes.  But not as slow as it looks. 

Look beyond the 4” move on your Brutes and you’ll see loads of movement tech:

• Mighty D (used here as more of an early-game play)
• Run and Charge (available on the Ragerz and potentially the Big Pig too)
• The Megaboss can issue 6” run to two units (and thanks to our Battalions we often won’t need to save the CPs for All Out Attack)
• 3D6” charge thanks to the Warchanter
• Countercharge through Ironsunz
• Teleports: Redundancy on Hand of Gork, potential to Mighty D after the teleport too
• All of this without even looking at the two Cav units we have in there
• Finally you do have the +1 to charge on the Waaagh turn too

The really key pieces in the puzzle are that run and charge plus the 3D6” Warbeat charge – that linear speed shocks people as Brutes go from here to way over there.  This is an army that does most of its movement in the charge phase so don’t look at the movement characteristic and think it’s plodding around at 4” for the whole game.

How are the new units performing?

Mixed bag.  The Ragerz are a very efficient combat unit, as they should be.  What sets them apart is that they trade up from the first swing: in a classic matchup with a combat army, you’ll have to invest in killing the cheap screens first before you can pick up insane points values by killing elite units and support heroes after that.  The screens are probably cheaper than your first-wave combat unit so you trade down early to trade up later.

Ragerz can flip that equation by trading up even into the screens.  You plough a buffed 100-point combat unit into them and blow them up, then even if you die to the counter swing on the next turn (you will), your opponent is exposed and you’ve basically lost fuck all.

It’s also the only time I’ve traded well into buffed Plague Censer Bearers.  I chucked in 3x Chain Ragerz with all the buffs, did the 20 damage required and although I died to Death Frenzy – who cares?  It was one of the rare occasions that a melee army could smack those dickheads off the table without throwing away a ~300 point combat unit for the privilege.

4s and 4s is hardly the stuff dreams are made of (swingy doesn’t begin to describe it, even with 18 dice) so you will need to invest some buffs in them to get them popping.  But that’s OK because it fits in with your overall gameplan and win condition – buff them up, bank a Battle Tactic and keep your good stuff nicely screened.  Meanwhile they’ve got some countercharging maniacs with 18x Damage 3 attacks that need to be dealt with, as your army steps into the middle of the board and puts on the iron knuckle dusters.

I’ve really been enjoying the blend of Ragerz: two small units with Chains, one reinforced unit with Hackas (3s and 3s, rend -2 damage 2).  That blend works well because you can use the small units as trading pieces (and they have enough dice to do something), while the Reinforced unit with Hackas is a Wave Two sledgehammer.  It’s quite important to have a unit that takes buffs well but doesn’t need them…you can’t slap the Warchanter buff on everything, so having that unit with really solid core stats is an extra link in the S&B chain.  Brutes and Pigs are only damage 1 unbuffed so your activation chain can usually looks something like: Warchanter unit, Warchanter unit, 6x Ragerz and then whatever’s left for a devastating wave of four activations.

Are Ragerz undercosted?

Yes and no.  Yes they’re pretty bloody cheap at 100 points, but no that’s not too cheap in the context of Ironjawz.  Whatever army you play, if you’re comparing your combat units to buffed Ragerz, those Ragerz are going to look cheap.  But your army is definitely better than Ironjawz at everything except combat, and maybe also at combat.  When the army does nothing else, it has to be really efficient at that one thing.  Even leaving aside the points cost of the Warchanter buff you’re probably factoring in there, they should be undercosted because IJ have got nothing else going for them.

Big Pig on the other hand is a weak link.  The hero version is still way out of the points – 30 points doesn’t even scratch the surface – but the Gougers version is much more like it.  It comes out as a slightly worse version of Gore Gruntas, but you’re paying for the Monster keyword – which is fair enough.  It’s not efficient, but it adds a dimension to the list, so he’s worth his spot. 

Does the Battlescroll change much?

As mentioned, we got a welcome boost to the Big Pig’s Momentum mechanic, as well as a 20-point drop which gives us a better Triumph bid. We could also reinvest it into some Ardboyz, which is an option I’m considering.

In the current list, 2x 5 Brutes and the Grots comes to 400 points. That’s exactly the same cost as two units of Ardboyz at their new and interesting level of 200 points for 10:

This gives me a couple of anvils that can punch a bit. It’s less screening and control than the 20 cheap bases you get with Grots, but it does help with Battle Tactics somewhat, because your screens can actively contribute to Dat’s Our Turf rather than getting in the way of it:

I honestly don’t know what’s more durable in practice. The 3+ save is awesome, but the current config has more wounds and a source of neg 1 to hit that helps the whole army, and which I would hate to lose. I could even drop the Brutes and a unit of Ragerz (keeping the Grots in there), bringing the list in at 1990. It’s food for thought and I’d love to hear your opinion on what’s the best direction in the Comments.

How competitive is the army?

I mean it’s not S-Tier filth, it’s still Ironjawz.  Your battle tactics are bad, your magic is worse and your shooting is non-existent.  If you’re not the absolute best combat army in the game, you’ve got nothing else – and you’re not the best combat army in the game.

So you need to align your expectations.  It’s an army that’s doing quite poorly competitively, but within that context, I’ve found this list can compete very well.  I’ve got quite a few reps in by now, against good players using good lists, and I’m winning more than I’m losing. I’d say roughly 10-2 in my favour, all against experienced opponents, but that’s without keeping a formal log.

It’s not been to a GT yet, and it’s unlikely to in the near future because I’m punching out the tourneys with Bonesplitterz before GW gives them the elbow.  But I did take it to a Cancon warm up event, which was a small field with plenty of competitive players practicing their competitive lists.  For context, the other guys on the podium both went 4-1 at the big show, so that’s the kind of company it can potentially hang with. 

Over the years I’ve played Destro armies through thick and thin, quite often dragging them to a 4-1, and I’ve ran some truly shit armies in that time.  Current Ironjawz are not one of them.  This is not a 5-0 list but if you’re prepared to back yourself in and get experienced with the army, it’s good enough to compete.  I reckon I could go 4-1 with this one in a competitive field given a reasonable tailwind.

If you have any changes that you’d make to the list, let me know; and if you do take something similar to an event, gimme a shout cos I’d love to hear how it goes. 

Until then – May Gork bring you strength, May Mork bring you wisdom.

---

* Are you ready?

Mystic Shield, Arcane Bolt, Hoarfrost, Merciless Blizzard, Rupture, Brutal Power, Green Puke, Hand of Gork, Bash ‘Em Ladz. 

See? 9 spells.

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