So you’ve got a million Hobgrots – of course you do, we all do.  Well there’s a pretty obvious “build” in the Kruleboyz faction pack, which aims to solve two problems at once:

• How to make Hobgrots playable in an edition where 0.5” coherency undermines their ability to function as a small, cheap screen
• How to give Skumdrekk a purpose beyond his 3^rd Edition role of “Same as the generic Croc, but a bit cheaper cos he can’t take Enhancements”

Skummy buffs Hobgrots, Hobgrots do mortals, enemies go pop.  That would be the general idea. 

Of relevance are Kountin’ Krew and Bet Master. All rules text credit GW

We’re here today to crunch it out and analyse whether there’s actually something worth exploring here, or whether you’re better off just running with the Orruks.

Ready?  Let’s go.

The Combo

So this is how we build up the combo:

1. Skumdrekk gives your Hobgrots Crit (Mortal) via Kountin’ Krew
2. The regular Croc makes them Damage 2 via Sludgeraker Venom
3. We use the Venom Encrusted Weapons battle trait to pop Mortals on 5s instead of 6s
4. We can boost that output further with All Out Attack if desired

So the core tech really is those first three aspects: get them banging out 2 mortal damage on every 5+ rolled, and hopefully push through a few Damage 2 regular attacks too.

This is the core starting point for Hobgrots, which it has to be said, is not terribly promising:

Let’s say we’ve reinforced the unit, so we’ve got 41 attacks.  And we make the VEW roll (which needs anything from a 2+ to a 5+), and the Sludgeraker Venom roll too. 

Quick head maths tells you that 1/3 of your attack dice will trigger a Crit, which is a smidge under 14 of your 41 dice.  They result in about 28 mortal damage (!), plus any regular damage you can push through too.

Now that’s clearly a nice return for a 200 point unit, although we can’t just skate over the fact that it’s a 200 point unit that’s swallowed up 600 points of buffs from two Crocs (Skummy and a regular Sludgey) plus a once-per-turn-(Army) battle trait.

Important to note too that Skummy only ever buffs one unit of Hobgrots for the entire game: you have to pick one unit at Deployment, and that’s you done. You really are paying 260 points purely to buff that one unit of 6+ save idiots, and you still have to keep them nearby too. So in this analysis we’ll work with a single unit of reinforced Hobgrots, since you clearly would never bother doing this with just a unit of 10.

You do also get +1 to wound a specific target from Skumdrekk to offset their native (terrible) 5+ to Wound:

So assuming he’s put us on 4s and 4s and we have the Damage 2 buff in place from a normal Croc, the full damage table looks like this:

The first row demonstrates that there’s no point in really talking about this unless we’re going all the way: Skumdrekk giving the Hobgrots Crit (Mortal) on its own is just not a 460-point combo to get excited about.  So if you’re thinking about running this alongside Gutrippaz (who would take the VEW and Sludgeraker Venom buffs), don’t waste your time.  As soon as the Gutrippaz use those Venom buffs, your Hobgrots (even with Skumdrekk nearby) are a waste of space.

Once we do slap on those buffs however, you can see that it gets very interesting.  34 damage into a 6+ armour save, and because most of these are mortals, even into a 2+ armour save we’re punching through 28+ damage.  That’s not bad.

Bonus Synergy: Double Croc Chomps

There’s one extra layer here too:

Note that both abilities are Once per Turn (Army)

So two regular Crocs couldn’t do Festering Wounds twice between them.  But with Skummy, we can do Festering and Aggravate once each

If you smash into a tarpit Monster with both Crocs, you can pop off both of these two abilities sequentially at the end of combat.  If you do Festering Wounds first, you’ll hopefully add a couple of pips more damage, then follow up with Skumdrekk’s ability after that when they’re already bleeding heavily.

It’s certainly not a good reason to take both, because it’s situational as hell.  Firstly you’d hope that you’ve killed most things after swinging with two melee monsters, and secondly both of these units are relatively fragile so if you don’t kill your target, you’ll often die to the clapback.  But if you’re taking this combo anyway, it will occasionally come into play against say a Mega-Gargant, so it’s a fun little Two-Croc combo to be aware of that doesn’t come up unless you bring Skummy as one of them.

The Alternative

So we can spend a huge amount of resources to make 20 Hobgrots bang out an impolite amount of damage.  Great.  But the more relevant question is, how does that stack up against doing exactly the same thing with Gutrippaz instead?

Let’s compare 20 Hobgrots vs 10 Gutrippaz:

Hobgrots (perhaps surprisingly) cost more than Gutrippaz wound for wound –  but what you’re getting with Hogbrots is weight of dice, which is a very promising starting point when you’re primarily fishing for mortals. Gutrippaz are noticeably more durable, with their -1 to Hit (situational but important) and starting 5+ save, which makes our +1s to save (from the Swampcalla ability and spell) way better than that 6+. So what you’re getting with the Gutties is a secondary purpose as an anvil, giving your list a bit of substance and some spine.

The thing is, you’re taking a 260 point buff piece purely to buff that one 200-point unit. Assuming you’d always take the generic Sludgeraker anyway, that’s still a 460-point combo (almost a quarter of your army) and just to reiterate, when they die (which they will), you can’t move on to buffing a second Hobgrot unit. Not ideal when we are talking about the most glass of hammers.

So given that Skummy is entirely dedicated to buffing that single unit of Hobgrots, I think we need to at least compare it to reinforced Gutrippaz at 340 points to start getting a feel for what our other options are.

Applying VEW and Sludgeraker Venom in both cases, 340 points of Gutrippaz winds up basically the same as 200 points of Hobgrots + 260 point dedicated Skumdrekk buff:

As that turquoise column shows – there’s little point in running a Skumdrekk + Hobgrots module alongside a Gutrippaz + Sludgeraker core.  That’s just a 460-point Nothing Burger.

All you’re doing with fully-buffed Hobgrots is catching up with fully-buffed Gutrippaz.  You’re not moving past them, and it’s costing you way more in total to get there.  So although that damage table is pretty eye-catching, and it initially feels like you’re cheating the system by getting crazy output from a dirt-cheap unit, Hobgrots are actually surprisingly expensive. The output they bring to the army is just the same as Gutrippaz, but without giving you an anvil, and you end up paying more points to get back to a similar end point.  And that, my friends, is what we call a trap.

The List: Totally Sludgealicious

Look, it’s not like it’s crap. In the table above we aren’t allowing for the output from Skumdrekk himself – but if we just run with 20 Gutrippaz, we could also throw in a unit of Monsta Killaz at the same price of 460 points.

So I just don’t think it’s optimal. But if you still like the idea, you could run a perfectly serviceable tournament list along these lines:

Kruleboyz
Light Finga

Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast (320)
[General]
[Egomaniak]
[Morks Eye Pebble]
– 20 x Gutrippaz (340)
– 6 x Man-skewer Boltboyz (220)

Swampboss Skumdrekk (260)
– 20 x Hobgrot Slittaz (200)
– 1 x Beast-skewer Killbow (160)

Swampcalla Shaman with Pot-grot (120)
– 7 x Kruleboyz Monsta-killaz (120)
– 7 x Kruleboyz Monsta-killaz (120)

Swampcalla Shaman with Pot-grot (120)

[Lore of the Swamp]
[Morbid Conjuration]

1980/2000pts
4 drops

If it looks weird that I’ve loaded up a General + Trait + Artefact in classic AOS2 style, it’s mostly because the Sludgey is the only decent-sized base that can hold Mork’s Eye Pebble. We’ve made him an Egomaniak because he’s critical to the entire army – just remember to pump that damage into the Monsta Killaz or Gutrippaz, because they’re actually cheaper ablative wounds than the Hobgrots themselves. If you’re up against a lot of Monsters, both Crocs can have their own personal escort of Monsta Killaz in this list to tilt the table with Rampages and Activations.

Morbid Conjuration is there because we’re already trying something quirky so I reckon we’re allowed some filth, and extra rend from Purple Sun will really help push through those Damage 2 attacks (our Dakka contingent doesn’t hate it either). Sludgealicious himself is General because we want the full suite of Honour Guard options open to us: +1s to our Gutrippaz hammer (and Boltboyz), extra rend (handy vs Cav lists) and Bodyguards to keep the cobba alive. He really is indispensable to the army.

I reckon this is about a 3.5 win list, depending on how and when you get randomly getting stiffed by failing 2+ dice rolls. But really I would suggest you just take it back to the concrete streets, with original beats from real live MCs.  I’d stick to packing out your list with Gutrippaz and Monsta Killaz instead; they’re both great. 

The Verdict

It’s a trap

My belief is that “The Hobgrots Build” comes out worse overall than a Gutrippaz list: as soon as those 6+ save idiots collapse, your army is left with a crap Croc that buffs nothing, and a gaping hole where a Gutrippaz anvil should be.

More than that, beyond raw competitive power, it’s a failure on its own terms.  It sounds like a cool, hidden corner of the army to explore, and at the very least it should give you something fun to do when you’re getting tired of the Kruleboyz Plan A. 

But it doesn’t do that.  Literally all you’re doing is setting up a melee unit to chuck 41 dice, and bang out 2 Mortals on every 5+.  Sound familiar?  At the end of the day, you’re just doing the same old shit with worse minis.  Imagine my excitement.

The Skumdrekk Build

It’s only weak compared to doing it with Gutrippaz, and it’s only boring compared to the ideal of doing something truly different. But those are the terms it will be judged on. Ultimately the Gutrippaz are way cooler minis, and they execute the same gameplan better; so it’s back to the drawing board with this one I’m afraid.

Skumdrekk and the Hobgrots is very much Not A Thing.

Further Reading

Don’t worry if I was a Debbie Downer today, because there’s plenty of life in Kruleboyz.  I’ve been going really deep with the army and working hard on a detailed Faction review which will be going up one week from today. 

We’ve also got a collaboration underway with our friends at Woehammer: Pete Holland and I are both Kruleboyz players, so we’re writing up a list together which we’ll both play independently (against our own opponents) and batrep on both blogs.  Should be fun.

And last but not least, Plastic Craic Patrons can check out this article on what to watch keep an eye on when you play against Kruleboyz: there’s a couple of specific places in this book where it would be very easy to make a mistake in your own favour, so take a quick look and you’ll know what to watch out for.

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

Credit for cover image to NC Dave

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