The Night Rider, that is his name.

Remember him when you look at the night sky.

~Toecutter, Mad Max (1979)

by Peter Atkinson

What if Gloomspite, but none of the most popular units? A few weeks ago, I took Spiderfang to Victoria’s premier Age of Sigmar event, with little more than the venom dripping from our fangs and the optimism glowing in our hearts to guide us to victory. No Gobbapalooza, no Skragrott, no Snufflers, no problem!

My headline goal for the event was 3-2, which I think is a fair target with Spiderfang. I also set a lot of qualitative targets revolving around the Scuttleboss: he can be an absolute killer with the right loadout (more on this below), and my goal for the event was to keep a tally of mortal wounds he injected as well as taking the scalp of a big monster with him.

I’ll be following a similar format to the Bonesplitterz write-up here, which is to say I’ll be focusing first on how the army crafts its own Win Condition; running through some key moments (and photos) from the games; and finishing up with the key takeaways and learning points. What this report won’t be is an endless stream of “Then I did this, and then I did this” because frankly I wouldn’t enjoy reading that stuff myself, and I think we can do better than that. Hope you enjoy it.

Why Bother?

I’m about to launch into a discussion about winning games with Spiderfang, which by necessity includes their limitations. There certainly are a few of those, so let’s take a moment to look at what we do like about this army before we get into the downsides and how we work around them to win games. Why are we running Spiders at all?

1. They look pretty fucking baller. When I’m introducing new players to Age of Sigmar, I often crack out the Spiderfang and people instantly fall in love with the game. When you’re already deep into the hobby, it’s easy to become immune to just how sweet goblins riding around on giant frickin’ spiders actually is. Rivalled only by the players of other systems you get crowding round your table when you play Mega-Gargants.
2. They can be really good at secondaries. We’ll go into that in a bit more detail below but while they can’t fight for shit, they certainly can score.
3. The army has effective role players. Spider Riders are fast and good at screening. The wizards have decent magic at an affordable price point. Warparties count as 10 on objectives, and you can draft in a bit of help from the Grot side to shore up Primaries even further.
4. The Scuttleboss is an absolute Mensch. If you’re not familiar with what he can do, he’s basically a little Terrorgheist, except he’s 130 points and has a way cooler mini. Like I said – an absolute Mensch.
5. Skitterstrand Arachnaroks are 170 points of cash money. I’ve been ringing the bell for this unit in our Patreon articles for a while now – they are massively underused, both as a tool within Gloomspite and an Ally within Warclans. I’m always keen to put a Monster in every list – not just for Roar, but also for Smash to Rubble which is critically important in matchups like Gloomspite and BOC. Having a Monster that can deepstrike and then bugger off again is an incredibly powerful (and unique) tool, but best of all, GW keeps dropping their points because the rest of you are crazy.

The List: The Full 9″

What we’ve got here is a deep-striking army with no bonuses to charge, and fuck all damage when you get there. This isn’t Annihilators cracking off a 7″ charge then doing Stonehorn charge mortals and a bunch of rend -2 damage 3 attacks; and it’s certainly not Bullgors, zipping in from 5″ away to apply infinite damage anywhere on the table.

Nope, when we pop up with our Skitterstrands, we’re getting there hardways. It’s gonna take the full 9″.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mej5wS7viw

Winning Games with Spiderfang

So what do we have here? First thing to understand is that there’s limited damage in the army. And I’m saying this not to whinge (well not only to whinge), but to establish how we’re going to approach winning games here. They can do some mortal wounds, but by way of context, you can accurately describe Spiderfang as “Worse Kruleboyz”. There are close parallels between Spider Riders and Gutrippaz as 2-wound models doing buffable mortals on 6s, but crucially Spiders are more expensive and only have 1″ reach.

So if Kruleboyz often struggle to muster up enough oomph to clear out 20 Clanrats for instance (which they do), then Spiderfang are really praying for miracles. Where Spiders have the edge is that they are fast – just don’t expect too much once they get there, so they really are designed as role players within a broader Gloomspite army (or even allied into Orruks). If we’re doing a full or mostly Spiders army, we need to know what we’re dealing with – and that is high mobility, but extremely low DPS.

Meet Marsellus

…Except for the Scuttleboss.

Thanks to Bragg for naming Marsellus in our Discord – this wee man is the main reason you run Spiderfang. You wouldn’t spam the unit, because he needs the Enhancements to really shine, but his standout loadout is absolutely off its chops for 130 points. Let’s take a look at what he can do.

What sets him apart is that his Spider Venom ability applies to both weapon profiles – it’s the only one where the Grot gets the mortal wounds as well as the beasts they rode in on. So when he’s near those Sporesplattas, you’re adding an extra attack (and extra mortal wounds) to both profiles every time, and likewise if you can fit some Sneaky Snufflers in your army, you can get him all the way up to 12 attacks (6 per profile).

That Command Trait is essential for the combo and multiplies everything up further:

And remember that he’s getting even more mortals if he’s near the Arachnarok Shammy. So under the Moon, he’s doing 4 mortal wounds on every 5+ (across 8, 10 or 12 attacks) plus up to 6 mortal wounds on every natural 6 (+1 from the Arachnarok’s artefact and +1 more from its spell). I’ve legitimately had 30 mortal wound swings from this 130 point hero. Madness.

Then on the defensive side, we’ve got the Headdress of Many Eyes (see above), so he can only be hit on 5s and 6s; the Scuttle Away warscroll ability to get him out of trouble or onto an Objective (and maybe reset a screen in front of himself); and potentially the 5++ ward from Snufflers if you do dish out the truffles to him. Insane.

You can see how the Scuttleboss is a mini you can fall in love with.

The Choice

So broadly, I think there are two competitive directions you can go with Spiders currently:

• You can draft in Kragnos for support. He helps you nail those 9″ charges out of deepstrike, and he gives you a really reliable hammer for those times you really need to smack something right off the table. Capping as 30 on objectives plays into the objective-shenanigans theme of Warparties (count as 10 models) and Stabbas (cap from 9″ away).
• You can play the 1s and 2s. Forget about killing anything outside of maybe a lucky spike from Marsellus or Merciless Blizzard: aim every unit in the list and every choice at the tabletop directly towards scoring primaries and secondaries. Gloomspite have really good Battle Tactics and Spiders excel at scoring them, so by playing the game passively, and maybe denying a couple of VPs to your enemy with your objective-thief shenanigans, you can really put them on the clock – because you’re probably max scoring every round until you get tabled.

I’m not one of those people who hand-waves away any list with Kragnos in it, insinuating that it somehow doesn’t count because it’s “A Kragnos list”. He synergises with Spiderfang in multiple, specific ways (especially when you pop up out of deepstrike but need a hand nailing the charge), so I think there’s a bit more to it than that – however, it’s already been done by other people.

I wanted to forge my own path here, so let’s see if we can make that 1s and 2s angle work.

The Subfaction

There are two choices with Spiders: King’s Gitz, or Grimscuttle. King’s Gitz is the summoning subfaction, and never an outright bad choice. But are the units we’re summoning back really game changing?

Game-changing summoning is Morbheg Knights coming back on, then adding more models for an explosive punch off a shorter charge. Game-changing summoning is 8 Boingrots coming back from a unit of 15 and mercking what’s left of your opponent’s army. Heck, game-changing summoning is 40 Stabbas coming back as a unit of 20 and stealing an objective from 9″ away. Game-changing summoning is not getting back a tiny handful of Spider Riders back who are crap at taking objectives and do no damage whatsoever.

So screw King’s Gits, we’re going Grimscuttle today. Being able to pop up haphazardly gets your opponent’s mind working overtime before a dice is even rolled. They will respect the mortal wound spike potential of your units – perhaps they’ll pay it a little too much respect on occasion – but most importantly, it gets units where they need to be on the board for our Battle Tactics and objectives. Keep scoring those 1s and 2s.

Plus, it’s the Spiderfang subfaction, so there’s also a Rule of Cool element here. It’s a proper Spiderfang army when we go Grimscuttle.

Battle Tactics and Playstyle

So now that we’ve seen what the list can do, let’s go a bit deeper on our pathway through Battle Tactics through Rounds 1 to 5.

The Surround and Destroy Rollercoaster

Anyone new to Skitterstrands will go through a little journey:

• Hey, I can just pop my stuff up on the other side of the board and auto-score S&D!
• Oh shit, the Skitterstrand base is bigger than 6″ across! It can’t get wholly within 6″ of the board edge!
• Ah well, fuck that. Back on the shelf they go

But in Grimscuttle, you can bring up other units with your Skitters. And those other units are the ones that will score us S&D.

But don’t they need to be on the board to score S&D?

Absolutely – the units you select must be on the battlefield, but that’s OK. What we’ll do is bring up our units in a corner and score Intimidate first:

Two Skitters with their entourage is 6 units in the backfield, so it’s pretty easy to score Intimidate. Then in your next turn (once they’re already on the board), that’s when you use the other units that came up with them (the ones that can actually fit on the board edges) to score Surround and Destroy.

This gives us a few considerations as to which units we put in deepstrike with the Skitters:

• Fellow A-Roks such as Spiderfang Warparties are too big to contribute to S&D. You can still put one or two in deepstrike, and you might still have enough to score it with the other units you bring up, but just keep that in mind. You don’t want too many in there.
• Putting your Scuttleboss off the board can be quite powerful to threaten your opponent with a truly scary unit, but also to protect him from shooting (Mounted heroes can still be targeted despite Lookout Sir; they only get the -1 to hit benefit).
• When you pop up, you can set up a little castle and screen your units with each other, so you reliably keep something on the board to score Surround and Destroy next turn even if your guys get assaulted inbetween.
• Spider Riders placed sideways are a great screen, and if you’re not planning on pulling a disappearing act with the Skitterstrand, the Webspinner Shammy can hide behind him quite effectively in the corner.
• Slapping Merciless Blizzard on that lil Shammy is just a crazy trap you can set for his points. You can really make people think twice about engaging with your castle by popping him up there, or pay if they do.

Just think for a moment what this does to your opponent’s mindset. You’ve got your main castle with a bit of wound density and stacking negs to hit around your Loonshrine, then you’re popping a second and third castle in corners of the board that are automatically scoring Battle Tactics and promising to automatically score more.

Suddenly your opponent is pulled this way and that, needing to assault multiple castles in disparate areas of the battlefield, all of which are capable of striking back hard with the Scuttleboss, Merciless Blizzard trap and spike mortals from the big Spiders. Then once the board is strectched, your Skitters piss off back into deepstrike, your Warparties toe the objectives to cap as 10 models and the Stabbas cap from 9″ away and suddenly they’re dropping Primary points too.

You can see how this is an easy army to lose games to.

The best Magical Dominance play in the game?

Outside of true Magic Dom armies, I reckon Spiderfang have one of the best turn one Magical Dominance plays around right now.

What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna deploy your Webspinner Shammy on Arachnarok prominently but inside your on-the-board castle, and your Lil Webby right behind him:

So if your opponent goes first the former is in range to unbind (at +1 natively), while the latter is outside of 30″ and so can’t be unbound himself. The wee man is +1 to cast just for being near his bigger mate, and if he casts Scuttletide, that’s +2 to cast (plus any PMDs) with him casting from out of unbind range on a spell that has a boardwide threat:

That backboard-to-boardwide threat is pretty unique, and it sits in the nexus of being a tricky unbind that’s easy to cast with an impactful payoff. It can easily spike and pop a hero anywhere on the board in one go – and even if it doesn’t, once your opponents have seen what it can do, it’ll soak up Heroic Recoveries and PMD-boosted dispells until they can get rid of the damn thing.

The movement mortals stress people out massively – I normally give people one takesy-backsy and then they can live with their actions after that. This spell is meant to flood their mental load, that’s what it does, so there comes a point where you have to wear the consequences of walking into its trap. Scuttletide is worth every point and then some.

Bring it home

So our pathway through BTs is starting to look pretty clear: a great Turn 1 Magical Dominance play, followed by an easy Intimidate and an easy Surround. We’re three-fifths of the way home and honestly spoilt for choice about where to go after that.

The army is perfectly capable of scoring current-GHB tactics like Bait and Trap (people will often get bogged down by the 40 Grots, so you have retreat options) and Maelstrom (you’ve got a huge number of Battleline units, and Warparties for example are quite good at charging something without killing it):

Then the Gloomspite book tactics really put us over the top. The Spiderfang one (Venomous Assault) is highly achievable, especially mid-game when the Moon is boardwide for the mortals on a 5+, and all of the BTs for taking objectives are unlocked by the 40 Stabbas and Warparties with their borderline bent Objective-taking power:

Similar to the one I’ve put together for Bonesplitterz, I printed out this cheat sheet and brought it to the event for a quick summary of my options as each game progressed. Thinking about this stuff in advance is like money in the bank – I absolutely love it when we get to Round 4 and my opponent starts flapping around between the GHB and their book to see what tactics are possible, because I know their mental load is being blown on that instead of making optimum decisions on the table.

The Games

We’ve already laid out in some detail how this army competes, so I won’t go through the actual games in too much detail. But let’s pick out a couple of key moments to illustrate:

Game 1: Steve Woolgar (OBR), No Reward Without Risk

Steve had a massive block of Immortis Guard which he rammed down my guts. I couldn’t possibly kill them so instead I drew them into the heart of my forces, then bogged them down with negs to hit and Rallying Grots.

Killing the odd Immortis here and there slowed down their output enough to keep that battle of attrition grinding away, and once he’d fully committed forwards, I popped up with the rest of my army into the space vacated to score out.

Seeing OBR with army-wide exploding 6s did make me misty-eyed for my Bonesplitterz, but Spiders got the W purely on VPs while barely killing an enemy unit. Steve was a great fella and I think I gave him my vote for Best Opponent. Fun Fact: I successfully cast Merciless Blizzard on the Immortis Guard three times and they still ended the game at pretty much full strength. 1-0

Game 2: Nicholas Zambo (Ironjawz), Fountains of Frost

I play Ironjawz all the time so this was one of those games where I knew exactly what my opponent’s list could do. It was awesome seeing Nicholas leaning into the Big Pigs and whenever you see the Paint It Black club shirt, you know there’s an absolute diamond across the table from you.

Nicholas had a good crack here but I got lucky with my Scuttletide rolls (sniped out both Warchanters by the mid-game) and he just couldn’t quite kill my army quick enough to slow down my scoring. After we both started out quite cagily, Nicholas went for a pincer move that lead to a couple of interesting fights on each flank, but ultimately my army held up to the assault and Nicholas couldn’t reel in my VP advantage. 2-0

Game 3: Kieran Coates (Skaven), Towers in the Tundra

So he were are: you win a couple of games and you cop the top players with the top armies on the top tables. Repping the Spiderfang up on the nosebleeds is exactly what we’re here for. Across the table was the standard “Screening Bell and all the PCBs” build that you’ve seen a lot over the last year or so, and I’m gonna give a little shout out to Australia’s own Stuart McCowan (aka Irongutsman) for developing what I would argue is the defining netlist of 3rd Edition. It’s an awesome build and it’s achieved so much – well done mate.

We again had a very cagey start, with Kieran taking first turn to get his buffs up and putting Skabbik’s mob on one objective (so I couldn’t possibly take it unless I could reach them and knock them over). I think Kieran expected me to throw my whole army into his Clanrats then just die, but when I didn’t engage at all and just went about my business of wracking up the VPs, he started to understand what was going on; when Scuttletide popped 30% of Skabbik’s mates in one hero phase Kieran realised it was time to smack that big red GO button, because otherwise he would probably run out of secondaries before I did.

We were well into the 3rd turn by now and Kieran did need to hit all his casts, hit all his charges and win every Prio, or else he might have been in a little bit of trouble; unfortunately for me, that’s exactly what he did. The rats got where they needed to go, and did what they needed to do. The PCBs got in and mulched my army and then mulched it again, and that was the Spiders done good and proper. Hats off to Kieran because he went on to win the event too – I found him to be a very clean opponent to play against, always declaring his intentions loud and clear, so good on him for a big event win. 2-1 overnight.

Game 4: James Hallam (KO), Spring the Trap

I’ve already written recently about current KO list construction – I’ve played it at three events in a row, Barak Zon each time – and James went for Ionus as his splash. Sadly my Spiders didn’t really have any answers to KO at all – their Battle Tactics are automatic (get into a boat, get out of a boat, shoot off a screen, take an objective with chaff on 25mm bases that capture like Ogors, and so on) and they have the output they need plus infinite movement on top.

James was a good fella and a top opponent but I was never really in this one. I was playing for “moral victories” and big moments from quite early on here – I just wanted to take a scalp with Marsellus – but I failed five consecutive charges and couldn’t even do that. James just executed everything to perfection, never giving me a sliver of an opening – probably the most tightly-executed opponent I’ve played against recently. This was a very emphatic ass-kicking, truth be told. 2-2, uh-oh.

Game 5: Jason Brown (FEC), Limited Resources

So 2-2 heading into the final round; Browny is a seasoned wargamer with plenty of runs on the board and while it was great to represent Spiderfang on the top tables and mix it with the meta lists, it would be great to wrap things up with a winning record too.

I’ve written a full Patreon article on the reasons why Stabbas break this Battleplan, so I won’t go over the whole thing again here, but in summary they “can” choose to capture from 9″ away. That reactive option is huge in a mission where you really don’t want to tap out the objectives too quickly – Stabbas can flex to tap what you want, when you want.

This game played out quite similarly to my first one against OBR – Jason rammed his big block of Morbheg Knights down the middle of my army, safe in the knowledge that I couldn’t handle them, but they absolutely rinsed anything they went near to way more quickly than the Immortis could manage. Honestly, they’re pretty nuts. In response I again popped up on board edges and stretched the table, picking off soft targets on back objectives. Between the various objective capturing tools in my army, I was able to precisely manage which objectives I tapped on which turns and really control the flow of the VPs.

Unfortunately for Jason he went too hard on the objectives too early, and while he was easily winning the fight, he did start to miss out on Primary points as the game went on. Being unable to control a key objective also meant he missed out on a late-game Ties of Chivalry battle tactic, and when I brought back 20 Grots on a 4+ to take back an objective from 9″ away myself, that was GG.

So that was the event done! This one actually felt like the good old days of 2nd Ed, winning a game purely on VPs despite getting pretty much tabled, and it was good to finish up on 3-2 which was my main goal for the event. BAM! 3-2.

Reflections on the List

The Warparties didn’t really pull their weight. That 400 points would be better spent in plenty of ways, but probably some more Spider Riders and another 40 Grots would do most to help you win games.

Likewise the Loonboss isn’t really worth his place in this list – but that hero slot is important for Battalions, so I’d recommend switching him for another Webspinner Shaman with Merciless Blizzard. Gives you another little unit to bring up with your Skitters and another home-run threat that has to be dealt with or avoided.

Tethering my Grand Strategy to keeping Marsellus alive meant that I couldn’t really let him off the chain as much as I would have liked. In terms of the “Achievement Unlocked” side of things, he didn’t really shine or take notable scalps, so that felt like unfinished business. I’m currently giving him another run-out in our local Matched Play Campaign to see out 3rd Edition, and hoping for more Stylin’ and Profilin’ by taking a different Grand Strat.

Scuttletide is great for Battle Tactics, great for hero sniping, great for movement head-games and really could just slot into any Gloomspite list very neatly. A Webspinner with this spell is a solid investment anywhere you can take it.

Similarly the Skitterstrand. It’s wild to me that it’s come down from 200 points to 170 points – it was good and competitive even at 200. This thing slots nicely into the Behemoth slot of Battalions and when you slip away into reserve at the end of combat, it honestly feels like cheating. An addictive unit which cannot be recommended enough as a tool both inside and outside of Spiderfang builds.

The 40x Stabbas are money. Buffed PCBs just barely killed them (and would most likely have failed if I’d managed to cast Sneaky Distraction) while other key hammers like Morbheg Knights took multiple turns to get there, with Rally opportunities inbetween. I’m currently running a second unit of 40 in my Campaign list and even with the rest of my points splashed into Spiders, they are carrying me to wins.

Final Thoughts

Well across the last two events – with Bonesplitterz and Spiderfang – I’ve beaten new book FEC three times in a row, plus OBR and SBGL. That puts me at 5-0 with underdog armies against Nagash (embarassing for him) and it turns out that Ushoran is the Mortarch of Kissing My Ass.

Next time the Devs and playtesters give themselves a pat on the back for how well-balanced this game is, ask them when was the last time they spent a weekend using Bonesplitterz or Spiderfang to tackle netlisty Skaven, KO and Khorne. Balance is way better than it was for sure, but there’s still room for improvement, especially with the armies that have been swept under the carpet – it’s balanced except for where it isn’t. If they disagree, they’re welcome to play Bonesplitterz and Spiderfang themselves against meta builds and get back to me; and if there’s anyone in that inner circle already doing consistently better than I am with these armies, then I’m all ears.

While I’m obviously sad that the Scuttleboss (say his name!) is going away, Spiderfang do not feel like an army that has been deliberately ran into the ground like Bonesplitterz were. There’s room to improve them for sure, but they do have game. I wouldn’t put anyone off giving them a go, if you’re willing to stick with it a bit.

And finally, if you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll know I’m quite honest (and usually pretty accurate) about the potential of the lists I’m running – so when I say that I’d be confident that I could get a 5-0 with 3x 40 Stabbas, that’s not just me running my mouth. I was meant to have an event in May where I was aiming to run Grot Spam, and really cut loose after playing on hard mode at both Summer Smash and Vic GT, but that was thwarted by the event being cancelled.

A lot of players in Australia have put their cue in the rack until 4th Edition, and the event was a victim of that paradigm; but I’ll try and get the list written up on the blog in case anyone else wants to run it while we still can. It’s got some spice.

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

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