by Plastic Craic. Pete’s been playing Gits for a long time now – all aspects of the book, and with some success. Let’s take a look at what he’s brewing up for Moonclan in Early 4th.

Troggs are all the rage in Gits right now, and understandably so. 5 Health and Control 2 really unlocks Rockguts as a unit: a self-healing anvil that dies very slowly and dominates objectives while it does. They play a lot like Mega Gargants with better PR, because Troggs somehow have retained at least partly the idea that they’re a hard army to play well (I personally like to pretend they are hard-mode at every opportunity because it makes Pat go bright purple and start spluttering).

So while Troggs are in a great spot, I do think there’s life in this faction beyond that. I’m here today to discuss the humble Moonclan Stabba, and why I believe they’ve still got game in 4th Ed. Those who frequent the Destro chat in our Discord will recall that I was constantly fapping over Grot Spam as the sleeper list of late 3rd Edition, but I never got the chance to prove it, as the Edition tapered off and our local events got canned. I don’t know that this build has the untapped 5-0 potential of late 3rd Edition Stabbas, but it can still be highly competitive for anyone who still thinks MOONCLAN ARE DA BEST.

They took a savage nerf

Let’s just start by acknowledging that although they jumped up to 2 attacks base (which was honestly pretty generous), the warscroll itself took a solid whack overall, because that’s part of understanding what we have to work with.

The frequent refrain “But everything got worse” is honestly the dumbest, most hand-waving shit ever – there were winners and losers all over the place. And this isn’t me having a trademark Destro whinge either: Ogor Gluttons’ points crashed harder than the share price in Blockbuster Video, and for no good reason (unless you think that clearing the warehouse out of dated models before they get replaced with newer sculpts is a good reason).

So we need to be aware that Stabbas lost their 9″ capping rule (which was literally game-breaking) and their trademark -1 to hit became way more situational: it’s only on a 3+ now, and only to Infantry. One key change to the core game also works against them slightly, in the sense that 0.5″ coherency makes screening inherently less powerful when you can cover off less ground with a given amount of models.

Meanwhile their points went up from 120 to 140, basically in line with CPI. I’d say they got an average points hike but an above-average reduction in rules functionality, so why the hell am I still talking about spamming them?

A dazzlingly-high starting point

Well firstly, they are coming down from a very, very high level. A reinforced unit of 40 Stabbas was not only the best unit in Gloomspite Gits, it was low-key the best unit in Orruk Warclans too. Allying in 20 or 40 Grots was the best way any Megaboss could spend their points, for real. Stabbas had plenty of room to fall and still be great, and I’d argue that’s exactly what’s happened.

Neg 1 baked in

Secondly, beyond the warscroll itself, there is some very favourable context to how this unit operates in the game. Bear in mind how much is hitting on 4s in AOS now. Previously, most armies were addicted to hitting on 2s (with AOA) and Stabbas could get them back up to 3s. Now they’re often starting at 4s, CPs are more scarce (you can’t just assume AOA and AOD in every combat phase) and there’s a real chance you can put a lot of combat units on 5s. Even if they do AOA and you bring them back to 4s, that’s a win. Relative to 3rd Ed it’s like you’re stacking the debuffs as soon as you start, so tarpit units like this one inherently have a leg up by the nature of how they go about winning games.

Capping power

And speaking about how they win games – Stabbas are an absolute juggernaut of scoring Primary objectives. You can get a boatload of 25m bases on there, and they all come pre-packaged with Control Score bonuses:

• Generic +1 for the Banner
• +3 per unit when they are under the Moon

That last one in particular is why I’m keen on MSU Grots (or at least a blend of 40s and 20s, to cover tarpitting and scoring). I just really need to emphasise how that +3 scales up with the number of units you are running: every single unit gets it, so the more units you have, the more +3s you can rack up.

A little foot hero with a Control Score of 2 becomes 5 under the Moon. If you’ve got one model from your Stabbas unit on there, and he’s holding a banner, that’s another 5 (being 1 base + 1 for the banner + 1 for the Moon). In this way even a handful of models can potentially nick an objective off a Mega-Gargant, especially if they’re bracketed.

Pain in the ass

So that MSU approach gives us exponential help in capping Primaries – but it simultaneously helps us tarpit our enemies. Imagine that you’ve got say 3x MSU units of Stabbas all toeing an objective – a big investment at 420 points for sure, but Sons of Behemat have been running an entire Podium Factory for years now based on slamming similar chunks of points down on an objective, and just staying there. You’ll regularly be able to afford to dedicate two units on most battleplans, and there are a few 3-objective missions in this GHB where it’s very viable to devote 3 units to a single Primary.

Think about what that does to your opponent. They are so fucked. You’ve not only got a butt-load of bases on there, but you’ve got multiple +1 banners and multiple +3 Moon bonuses. Splitting attacks is always a mug’s game, but now you’re giving them no choice – it’s the only way they’re clearing your bodies off the point. And they essentially have to kill all of them to the last Grot – because that last solitary dickhead in every unit is Control Score 5 alone, plus whatever is left in the other units. Once your house has an infestation of these things, it’s an absolute nightmare trying to clear them out.

More units = more opportunities

And it doesn’t end there. Check out the Netters rule:

Locking the rule behind a 3+ is sad face for sure. But if you’ve got two or three units on the objective, your opponent will have to engage with all of them, and at the point you’ve really got your foot on their throat.

Brilliantly, there are no limitations on how many times you can attempt the roll with different units. Fail the first 3+ and try again – your opponent is the one who is quickly praying for miracles.

Note that per Core Rules 28.1, this becomes a persisting effect, and therefore a passive ability for the Rules of One. Which is a nerd’s way of saying it can’t be stacked up on the same enemy unit – but you can certainly keep trying to hit that 3+, as many times as you have units in combat.

We’re not done yet

So then we get to the end of the turn, and we’ve got a few Grots alive in a few units. We’re just getting started.

This is where you can really start having some fun.

• This ability works before contesting objectives (Core Rules 31.0) so you can pile onto an objective and then steal it out from under them
• It’s capped at 3 units total, but the more units you have in combat, the more D3s you crank out. So the army’s rules again support the MSU format
• You can potentially bring an enemy Hero into combat and ping some wounds into them, effectively giving you a form of unexpected Hero sniping
• There are no restrictions on picking the same enemy unit, so you can potentially pop a Hero with 3D3 mortal damage
• Perhaps best of all, you can creep your tendrils through your opponent’s army and tag a bunch of units in combat. Shut down shooting, tie up a combat unit. It’s like a little Murderlust!

You just need to be aware that piling in is not a complete free-for-all in 4th Edition. To use the Moonclan Skrap ability, your unit needs to be in combat; and when it piles in, each model in your unit must end up no further than they started from the target unit.

So there’s plenty of room for skill expression here as regards to positioning your models in the combat phase, to allow an optimised Moonclan Skrap pile in later in the turn. And by “optimised” I mean “frustrating as hell to your opponent”.

The rules support is there

There’s a few more parts of the book that support Moonclan Stabbas really well:

Sneaky Snufflers still do Sneaky Snuffling. 40 wounds at -1 to hit with a 5+ ward is going nowhere in a hurry. DPS that, ya bastard.

Sporesplattas caught a buff for sure. Well for our purposes they did at least. They were a criminally-underused unit in 3rd Ed (slapping extra attacks on Rockguts was solid gold, but true connoisseurs used them to jack up the attacks on a Murder Spider to pump out comical volumes of mortals). Spores still give us fistfuls of extra dice to chuck around, but now with added debuffs. Neg 1 attacks is a beautiful thing, even if they are fragile AF.

The Loonboss directly supports your Stabbas in a couple of ways: we’ll talk about the damage buff at the end of this section, but the returned D6 models (plus the potential for enhanced Rally which we’ll see in a moment) is the one I really like. He’s expensive for what he is at 130 points but he can fight a bit too, he contests as 5 under the Moon himself and at least he doesn’t cost you a drop.

The Clammy Hand Heroic Trait puts back about one and a half extra Gits per Rally roll. Not earth-shattering on its own, but it can help keep your Heroes alive too, and the recursion from a couple of sources does start to add up: 9 dice fishing for 4+s plus an extra D6 in each of your Hero phases could make a big unit pretty exasperating to deal with.

Skraggy is bloody expensive at 220 points, and I’m big sad that he isn’t +1 to cast. He’s an iconic wizard and most prominent named character in one of Age of Sigmar’s most popular armies: +1 isn’t too much to ask, FFS. Anyway. He’s a Level 2 Wizard with a good Warscroll spell and crucially, control over the placement of the Moon. Wait until it hits the centre of the board and then keep it there, would be the general idea.

And when you do find yourself in a scrap, your Stabbas can get some serious weight of dice going. Starting out with 2 attacks each, maybe another one from your Snufflers and probably another one on top of that from your Sporesplattas. 3 or 4 attacks each from a 40-man block will get raw volume pumping for you, and you’d probably consider AOA and the +1 to wound buff from the Loonboss to get them hitting and wounding on 3s and 4s. 120 or 160 dice will force enough saves to pop most units, especially if you give them the Gobbapalooza rend in a post-Mystic Shield world. If you load up on all the buffs – which you can afford to in this army – one optimised unit will blast a hole in almost anything.

Quality of Life

Cavalry are already popular in 4th Edition, because there’s a heap of anti-Infantry and anti-Monster tech around but very little anti-Cav. So units like Varanguard will zoom across the board and smash your head in. But on the plus side, at least Varanguard will not be able to shoot off your Shrine: keep Endless Spells away from it, and you should be able to force most high-DPS armies to try and table you twice.

And there’s also the minor fact that you don’t have to worry about Battleshock now.

Technical Briefing

Orruk Brutes are a popular unit that love playing against 1-wound objective-scoring units….like Stabbas. If they stand on the objective itself, anywhere within contesting range is by definition in their combat range, so you’re SOL. You’re gonna have to kill them.

If you can get there first, though, be aware that even a small handful of models can hold the point off them:

Let’s say the Brutes manage to run up as far as halfway across the objective, or you do and they countercharge you to get onto there. In that case any models you have past the second (purple) dotted line will be outside of their combat range: in this example, you’ll have 20mm to play with, which is more than enough to get a few bases on there. Which should be enough to hold it from 5 Brutes, especially if they’re spread across a couple of units.

The further back you can push them, the more capping room you have, and for that reason you should try and hold a high line, to prevent them piling around you in a U-shape, and bringing the rest of your models into combat.

One more thing to think about: Counter-charging onto the Objective yourself can be a great way to deny Primaries that your opponent was banking on. And even better is that you can deny a whole bunch of Battle Tactics with this technique:

• Take Their Land. Deny control of a terrain piece.
• Attack on Two Fronts. Deny the objective and therefore the BT at the same time. Cha-Ching! A two-fer.
• Seize the Centre. Hinges on not being in combat, so countercharge them into combat and try not to laugh out loud.
• Inevitable Demise (Death). Again depends on not being in combat.
• Reclaim the Realms (Order). They need to stay outside of 6″ of your units. Shame for them.
• Ordained Charge (Chaos). Requires control of the objective – an extra unit of Stabbas toeing it can shift the equation.

For all of these reasons, I’m quite keen on Kragnos supported by a fuck ton of Stabbas as a list paradigm, and it’s something I’ll be exploring. If you’re sinking 2 CP into a Countercharge you really want to stick the bloody thing, and his 3D6 helps you nail it. It’s also true that the best form of defence against a glass hammer is often lifting them clean off the table, and Kraggalicious he helps us with that too.

Bringing it together

So we’re winning games by tarpitting and scoring objectives, and running MSU Stabbas helps us with both. Multiple units means multiple +3s for an escalating Control Score, while also making our units more survivable, as multiple Netters rolls back each other up and we force our opponents to split attacks. Our rules support our unit selection, our unit selection supports our playstyle and we’ve got a really clear win condition established.

I’ll be writing a couple of competitive lists up this weekend over on the Patreon, based around a couple of themes, but I broadly see three directions to go:

• Triple down on the theme by investing directly in Moar Stabbas and Moonclan support pieces
• Half and half: 900-1100 points each of Moonclan and Troggs to use screens and anvils from both sides of the book
• Cook up a Kragnos list where he’s your shatterer, and 3d6 countercharges really help you screw with your opponent’s plans (and Battle Tactics)

I’m leaning towards the latter two ideas currently, not least because there’s a ceiling on how many models and buff ranges I feel like wrestling with as we’re all relearning the game. But if you’re here for the Grots, you’ve got a bunch painted and you want to put Stabba Mountain back on the table, I think there’s plenty of life in the sneaky bastards yet.

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

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