by Peter Atkinson

What’s the deal?

Sons of Behemat are labouring competitively.  I was pretty upbeat on their prospects in AOS 4 Indexhammer, but it looks like I was full of shit: Nighthaunt alone will drop a couple of Megas a turn, no sweat.  I think the saddest thing I’ve ever seen was when I played against Sons of Behemat with my own Ogors at a GT last weekend, and my opponent had two Megas on an Objective – and still couldn’t hold it from my Gluttons.  Bracketing at 15 damage hits them so hard and when two Megas standing on a single objective can’t hold it, they’re in all sorts of trouble.

So what are we going to do about it?  In my case, the answer was to play an army with better rules instead, but that’s rather unhelpful as a solution for people who’ve bought a bunch of $400 models and would quite like to use them. So how about we see if we can punch our way out of trouble?

How Brodd’s Stomp Win Games

When Sons have had success over the years, it’s usually been by dominating Primaries while dying as slowly as possible.  It’s not generally the most engaging experience (for either player) and that’s why “Standing on Circles” has a stigma attached.  There have been times when you’d have to proactively sprint away from the objectives to lose games (and believe it or not, some people did).

As lethality has spiked in AOS4 (both in its own right, and as a result of reduced access to +1 to save) Giants have been exposed: it’s tricky to do well with the Big Guys when all they can really do is stand around like victims waiting to be chopped down, throwing a tiny handful of dice back at you, hitting on 4s and hoping for miracles.

But I saw this one tournament where…

It really doesn’t matter. And I’m not being facetious with that statement: an isolated tournament win is a fantastic achievement for that one person, and I’ve certainly been happy to boast about far less myself over the years. But one data point is not a trend, and I don’t consider it to be a meaningful indication of the overall health of this army.

So before you inbox me to tell me that your mate did well at this one event somewhere, be aware that I’ll just fuggin’ bombard you with links to event after event after event after event after event where Sons didn’t do well. The reality is that podiums for Sons of Behemat right now are about as frequent as Essendon Finals wins.

And yet.  As rare as the 5-0s have become, Sons of Behemat do still have a high floor, which is to say that you’ll rarely or never see people going 0-5 with this army either; there are still usually about 2 games per GT that Gargants will win by default, simply because your opponent doesn’t have the output to hack you down quickly enough.

So here’s my premise:

• Sons will, by their nature, win about two out of five games just by being what they are
• Leaning more heavily into defensive tech is effectively an attempt to eke out a couple more of those near-auto-wins
• That approach is failing competitively. You can’t just stand around doing nothing against the top armies – not for long enough to win games passively
• It follows that if our Giants are going to survive on Objectives for long enough to win the game, they will have to remove the key threats that are targeting them down – attack being literally the best form of defence
• The next problem is that your output is spiky at best, and usually underwhelming for a combat army
• So if we want to bump up this army’s output, we’ll need to lift the ceiling as well as smooth out the curve
• We can do this either by improving our To Hit rolls, or by chucking a bunch more dice at the problem

And that approach – chucking more dice at it – is where Brodd’s Stomp comes in. We can get an aura of +1 to Hit from the Mantle of Tusks and Horns artefact if we design an aggro Gargants list using the core Faction Pack, or go for a bunch more attacks right here in Brodd’s Stomp, in both cases banking the two easy victories from the classic Sons win condition and then taking aggressive and bold action to hunt down the rest.

Brodd’s Stomp is an army that wants to get on the front foot, juice up the output and throw its substantial weight around.  And that’s why we’re looking at Brodd’s Stomp today – now let’s get into it.

What you’re giving up

As with all AORs, you’re giving up the army’s core tech to gain access to new tools, so let’s lay that out as a starting point:

• No access to Manifestations (since you lose the Glowy Lantern artefact)
• You lose all your Rampages from the main Battle Trait.  They varied hugely in quality but the big one is Earthshaking Roar (which switches off CAs, like classic Roar).  You also lose Colossal Slam (aka Suplex) which will be sorely missed for both power and flavour, and the anti-horde thing (Jump Up and Down) as well as the somewhat anaemic charge mortals.
• You lose the Heroic Traits, of which the major loss is Monstrously Tough (40 wounds).
• You lose the Battle Formations, of which the most popular currently are Breaker Tribe (6+ ward when your Megas are near each other) and Taker Tribe (choose a second Artefact, among which there are loads of great options)
• The other notable Artefacts you miss out on would deliver enhanced damage: +1 to Hit aura (Mantle of Tusks and Horns – important for an army hitting on 4s), and extra output either on some of your weapons all of the time (Extra-calloused Feet), or all of your weapons some of the time (Kingslaughter Cowl)

We won’t regurgitate the full Faction pack but those are the selected highlights and the staples of the army that you’ll have to learn to live without.  So let’s take a look at what we’re gaining in their place.

What you gain

In a word: Attacks.

Or in five words: Attacks, and mortal damage shooting.

There’s a new suite of Rampages to replace those foregone, as well as a Prayer Lore of one single Prayer.  That Prayer is a straight addition to your toolkit as it complements the Power of Behemat already on Brodd’s own warscroll.  There’s one Artefact and one Heroic Trait to “choose” from, but a thread that runs through this toolkits is more attacks and more mortal chip damage. 

It’s not a huge document, so let’s take the time to run through each item individually and pick out any nuance.

Timber is what it is, and Prophet means that Brodd keeps his 5++ ward in his own army, with the asterisk that you are palming off the damage to a nearby sucker friendly unit rather than ignoring it outright. It’s arguably somewhat underwhelming that you don’t reduce total damage like a “proper” Ward but Brodd is of such crucial importance to this army, bringing you access to the (excellent) Prayers, that even redirecting damage away from him does have value.

It’s the Rampages that are really interesting:

Wrath of Brodd is another one of those Stonehorn Rampage things, except with no damage, and it only happens on a 3+.  Note that this one is Once per Battle (Army), whereas the others are all Once per Turn (Army).  Is that 3+ roll really necessary, given you can easily roll crap on the 3D6 anyway?  Seems a bit stingy, but it’s still a great tool for reaching a screened unit, a soft hero or even just some terrain to huck in the next Shooting Phase. Which brings us to…

Smash It All To Bits. This is your mortal damage shooting.  Big thing to note here is that the 3+ is not a D3 roll: it’s a straight D6.  Longbeards will remember the rightly-feared Magma Cannons from 1^st Edition AOS and this works in the same way.  Mortal shooting is vanishingly rare in modern AOS, so access to this kind of sniping on both players’ turns is immense.

Crafty Creepers is situational but terrifying.  In a game where almost all armies have one artefact (and one alone), the ability to whip it away is huge.  Yes, you’d like to think you could kill them in combat anyway, but any Sons player will be all-to-aware that it’s perfectly possible to do zero damage in a round of combat with these 500-point melee units.  Also note the timing window: you can roll for this in combat before activations start, on your opponent’s turn, potentially whipping away something useful before they even get the chance to hit you.  I like it.

Watch This uses your opponent’s own armour saves against them.  Larger units with good saves are the perfect target, like maybe 10 Stormcast troops for example, or even a block of 20 Ardboyz if your opponent is a staunch Ironjawz loyalist.  A big fistful of dice fishing for 3+s should wipe out of a big chunk of them, and even a reinforced unit of 1-wound models on a 4+ save will really feel the pain.  What does this rule actually represent?  Gork knows what is meant to be happening here, but I like it. 

Double Stomp is more attacks – but only to one profile, and only for one unit.  It’s dicey as hell but noting that again this is actually a D6 roll, that can be a significant volume of high-quality attacks.

Prayer Lore

And while we’re talking about extra attacks:

BAM!  Now you’re talking!  4+ is very achievable.  9+ will take a little more work, and the trouble here is that you’ll probably need three bites at the cherry to get there – so there’s a decent chance you hit a 1 along the way and break the whole chain.  In practice, most times I’d recommend just banking the 1 extra attack and run with it.

Wholly 12” means you’ll have to bunch up, but that’s either 3 or 6 extra attacks per Giant across their three profiles.  And when you also hit lucky on Double Stomp to wrack up +6 attacks on your Stomp weapon profile, it’ll certainly be pretty funny – although I’ll let you decide whether that qualifies as a strategy or as wishful thinking.

Enhancements

Slim pickings.

Is I Can Do That Better a miss?  I think this is a miss.  It allows one Mega to use two Rampages, as long as one of them is the once-per-game movement one (Wrath of Brodd): what you’d really like to do is to trample through to reach a Hero at the back, and then use Crafty Creepers to steal their artefact.  But you can’t. 

The wording is “even if it has used another Rampage ability in this turn” (past tense), implying you need to have used the other Rampage first, before you reposition.  And that’s no good.

Fundamentally I view this as poor design.  The whole point of “Reposition and do something cool” is that you get to pick a better target for the latter – but if you can only Reposition after doing your other thing, the tech is scarcely fit for purpose.  Just getting additional access to the movement tech is nice, but you could still easily flub the 3+. Not bad, but frustrating, because it could and should have come with much better quality of life.

Lucky Shiny Hat is one of those “Eh I guess it’s ok” artefacts that would never or rarely get chosen in a competitive list.  Except here, we have to.  You’ll occasionally be glad you have it but all in all these Enhacements are a minor handbrake on the AOR, rather than a reason you’d take it.  The main Faction Enhancements are better than this lot.

C-c-c-combo

I would hope it goes without saying, but stacking extra attacks through the prayer and rampage can get pretty spicy.  Just for fun, here’s how it’ll look on your birthday, with +2 attacks on every profile and a further +6 on your Stomps.  We’ll put it on Brodd, because he’s Da Best, and also because those Obelisk of Tor Crania attacks at damage 5 are a juicy target to pump up:

That’s how it looks with +2 attacks on every profile from the Prayer, an extra +6 Almighty Stomp attacks and of course a cheeky All Out Attack.  There’s potentially a bit of extra mileage here because I haven’t factored in his Anti-Unit rend, and of course the Prayer bonus attacks can benefit his mates too if they’re nearby.

In terms of setting this up, you’ll often want to use Magical Intervention to Chant on your opponent’s turn.  Build up a few points, and get ready to Kick It and Rip It in your own turn with +2 attacks on every profile.

Lastly, if you spread the damage from Brodd around a few nearby Simps, you can use King Ding-a-Ling’s own warscroll Prayer to heal D3 back up on the lot of them.  You could feasibly dish out quite a lot of damage then get it all back for “free” by sequencing your Prayers in this manner.

Listbuilding Considerations

King Brodd is compulsory, but that’s hardly a tax.  Cobba’s the best thing in the army right now.

For his pseudo-Ward, the cheapest Bodyguard unit to palm off your wounds is the humble Mancrusher.  Keeping a couple of those idiots nearby is the most efficient sponge to soak up the carnage.

Battle Tactics aren’t the easiest with this army, but those Mancrushers will also fulfil the role that cavalry does in other armies: a couple of cheap(ish), fast(ish) units to stand in places and score VPs.  Exist in the correct location, maybe skirmish with a soft target and die horribly to anything serious.  See what I mean?  They’re cav.

In the Faction Pack we could also consider a Regiment of Renown but that’s not available in Brodd’s Stomp: we’re working with the Giants, the whole Giants and nothing but the Giants.

So I think our core structure will be Brodd, a Gatebreaker, 3x Solo Babies and take your pick for the last slot:

• Gatebreakers are punishingly strong, freak your opponents out and can fit in the list at 2k on the nose
• Warstompers are legit anti-horde and give a solid volume of output to fall back on when we don’t have the extra attacks online
• Kraken-Eaters are somewhat slept on, and I’ve covered them in detail when the Faction Pack first dropped
• Beast-Smashers have a good personality?  I dunno.  To be fair, their big Damage 5 clubs also lap up any extra attacks, so if you were ever gonna run one, now’s the time

In terms of Regiments, Brodd can be one tough hombré when he’s palming off damage, so that’s a good starting point to making Slay the Entourage a tough ask for your opponent. For that reason you’ll probably want to put any Mancrushers in the other Regiment (Sons can easily achieve 2 drops) and maybe just put one Gatebreaker in with Brodd so you’ve got a useful target for your own Honour Guard abilities which is still rugged.

The List

Sons of Behemat
Brodd’s Stomp

King Brodd (520)
[General]
– 1 x Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (500)
[Lucky Shiny Hat]

Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant (500)
[I Can Do That Better]
– 1 x Mancrusher Gargant (160)
– 1 x Mancrusher Gargant (160)
– 1 x Mancrusher Gargant (160)

2000/2000pts
2 drops

We’ve got Mancrushers to soak up Brodd’s damage and keep the battle tactics ticking over, and three Giga-Chads to layeth the smacketh downeth.  If we can get the +2 attacks on every profile that’s massive: weight of dice should help to counteract hitting on 4s in most circumstances, especially when you’re talking about 24 dice each delivering a payload of damage 4 or 5, plus a whole bunch of Stomps and Grips.

We can use mortal shooting from terrain to snipe out key pieces, because that’s our thing, and each turn one of your Gatebreakers can Smash Down to ping out further mortal wounds and potentially finish off a Hero that has a couple of lingering health:

If we’re faced with Negs to hit and / or the extra attacks are not yet online, our Gatebreakers can just Nope out of the combat sequence by rolling a couple of big dice at Pulverising Strike, and at the end of the day, we’re still Gargants – we’ll win a solid percentage of games just by showing up.  Bank those wins and take the rest as upside – and if you roll well on your Prayers, Rampages and mortal shooting at the right times, the upside is most definitely there.

This is all very nice, but can it beat Nighthaunt?

Um…can I interest you in a moral victory?

Conclusion: So is Brodd’s Stomp any good?

You might ask what’s the point in playing Sons of Behemat as an aggressive combat army when others do it so much better.  But then one might equally ask what’s the point in playing anything other than Nighthaunt or Lumineth currently.

At the end of the day, the hobby is miniature wargaming and some of us love these big chumps.  So the better question is, if we’re compelled to play Giants, is Brodd’s Stomp an effective way of doing it?  Playing Gargants aggressively to remove threats through a combination of blunt-force trauma and surgical sniping is largely an unproven and untested proposition, because it’s historically been so obviously correct to play them as a VPs army that the balls-to-the-wall approach has barely been worth trying.

Maybe now’s the time?  Playing them passively isn’t really working, certainly not consistently.  Sons are an army whose win rate will never really crash down to catastrophic lows, but they’ve rarely troubled the trophy engravers in 4^th Edition so far. 

So the next question is, if you’re in the mindset to give Aggro Gargants a crack, is Brodd’s Stomp better than the list we posted up on our Patreon, which instead uses the tech in the main Faction Pack?  It’s certainly different, and I would suggest both are worth testing (along with the Braggit’s Bottle-Snatchaz Regiment of Renown build).  The main point is that I’m currently wide open to the principle of playing Giants as an aggressive combat force, getting on the front foot and proactively removing threats.  Why die wondering?

Credit for cover image to Games Workshop

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