by Peter Atkinson

I’m heavily into Kruleboyz listbuilding right now and while I’m yet to see the Killaboss making a lot of lists, this is a faction that’s spoilt for choice and I do get why most people think he’s an easy one to put a line through. And yet a lot of people will be putting the Kruleboyz on the table for the first time, and building out their collections from Dominion models, so if you’ve got a Killaboss and want to put him in your lists I’ll be taking a look today at the specific role he can play for you and how he can still add value to the army.

Defining our terms

First thing to note is that he is in direct competition with Monsta Killaz. He’s one of those Heroes that can slot in underneath another hero’s Regiment, so he’s not costing you a drop;

Monsta Killaz clearly don’t cost you a drop either, so it’s just a level playing field from that viewpoint. This fella comes in at 130 points and they’ll cost you 120, meaning they’re very comparable in that regard too. So Monsta Killaz are the unit we’ll be benchmarking him against today.

What’s the point in him?

In terms of his abilities, banging out a couple of mortal damage out with the lil Stab-Grot at the start of combat is a story waiting to happen – I’m usually pretty high on abilities like that because you semi-regularly have moments where something survived on 1 or 2 health, and you just pop them out of sequence. Maybe I’m over-indexed on this kind of thing and I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you value it.

The signature ability though is that enhanced AOA.  The difference between 3s and 2s versus 4s and 3s is just night and day. The likes of Gutrippaz were classically fishing for mortals, so it’s easy to get stuck in that mindset, but in AOS4 you can jack everything up to Damage 2 with a Croc nearby, meaning that every attack you can force through is dynamite.

On your own turn, you can apply the Venom buffs we’ve discussed already, and use Keep Em In Line to force through more of those beautiful Damage 2 attacks.  You could reasonably have the Purple Sun on the board for Rend 1 but I’ve left it out of these numbers so we’re not basing it all around the dream scenario:

The amount of damage he adds scales pretty hard with your opponent’s armour save, because the mortals happen anyway and what he’s doing is pushing through additional forced saves at Rend 0 Damage 2.  But what’s notable about this damage table is that it helps you hit that 40-damage tipping point that can blow up a lot of Reinforced units in one swing, so you don’t get bogged down in combat or have to face your opponent rebuilding their unit by adding back replacement models.  Yes, you could get similar extra damage from some Monsta Killaz at a similar cost (as we’ll see below), but there’s still some value in getting it from one unit on one big swing. The major factor here being that the removal of casualties by your opponent could mean that your second unit doesn’t get all of its attacks in: it won’t always matter, but it’s not nothing either.

Another reason I like the Killaboss though is not so much about raising the ceiling of your big combo, but how he raises the floor: when you make your opponent Strike Last on their turn you can throw out some slightly anemic numbers, and Keep Em In Line can help a little here.

Let’s say you get charged by your opponent but make them fight last via Noisy Racket. A very common scenario for Kruleboyz.  You could reasonably expect to already have VEW in place (as noted in our Faction review, it will last you through a double), but you won’t have the Sludgeraker Venom because the Croc’s ability will only ever trigger on your own turn. So on your opponent’s turn, it’s a fair working assumption that you’re Critting on 5s, but only Damage 1. 

A lot of times we’ll be running Gutrippaz in 20s and Monsta Killaz in MSU, so as a starting point, let’s look at the kind of damage you could expect when fighting first with each unit (with and without VEW already in place):

Missing that Damage 2 buff in your opponent’s combat phase is a killer.  Now if we do take the Killaboss and add +1 to hit and wound, this is what your 20 Gutrippaz are crashing out when they swing first. So assuming VEW is online, this is what we’re adding with the Killlaboss involved:

Again it scales pretty hard with your opponent’s armour save and it’s scarcely worth a CP against elite armour, let alone a 130 point hero. But it does again hit some tipping points for popping 20 damage into low-armour-save targets, so it’s going to help with clearing out a unit of Clanrats on their turn.  There’s also a reasonable chance it could make the difference into elite units like Brutes with their 15 wounds on a 3+ save. Even leaving one of them alive can really hurt – and again just remember that when you’re swinging first, anything you can smash through reduces what comes back at you.  So there’s some strategic value in making your one big swing really count, above and beyond the raw damage added, and with the Killaboss there’s a decent chance you pop one more elite combat model before it gets to hit you.

What’s he adding with the Sludgeraker buff in place?

So that’s where I see his real value. But what about our own turn, and ramping up the megastack combo? And circling back round to our initial proposition, how does he stack up against taking a raw unit of Monsta Killaz unit at 120 points instead?

You can see that the increment from the blue line to the green line is very similar to the height of the orange line, which is to say that the damage added by using Keep Em In Line is right in line with what we could have got by just taking some more Monsta Killaz instead. In fact against low armour he’s adding more raw damage than the unbuffed Monsta Killaz would.

The lesson is that the extra damage added by the Killaboss’s enhanced AOA is at least comparable to what you’d be getting from those 120 points MKs.  Yes, the MKs represent way more meat as a full unit (bringing 14 wounds on a 5+ save, compared to 6 wounds on a 4+ save plus potential baked-in ward), but you’re also getting some mortal damage and Rend 1 Damage 2 attacks from the Boss himself that we haven’t factored in.

So is he any good? When would I run one?

Let’s be clear, I’m not saying you should put him into every list ahead of the Monsta Killaz. I’d definitely take one and even two units of MKs before I’d even consider taking a Killaboss, purely for the “Boots on the Ground” factor. Where he really sits is in competition with the third or fourth units of Monsta Killaz in your list – at that point, I’d put a Killaboss under serious consideration.

Aside from the purely optimised angle, he’s also got value when you’re building out from Starter Set models, and operating on a budget or a painting timetable: hopefully this article can provide some reassurance that you’re not completely ruining your army by running this fella instead of buying another expensive Warcry kit that might get nerfed in the near future. And if Monsta Killaz do get a points hike down the track, then that’s all the more reason to take the Killaboss seriously.

Ultimately it’s a judgment call whether he’s worth his spot, but that’s a far cry from the no-brainer auto-exclude he’s been treated as by most people up until now.  I’m definitely not putting one in every list, but all I’m saying is don’t write him off out of hand either. The Killaboss has got some play.

Cover image credit: Games Workshop

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