Christmas boxes are usually a steal, and we already know that the Orruks Battletome is next cab off the rank. So is the Ironjawz Wrekkamob a good jumping-on point for the Faction? The short answer is yes, it offers a really solid core at a decent price point. So how about we see what kind of army we can knock up on the cheap?

I ran the maths and roughly speaking there’s a 26% “Discount” in this bundle relative to buying the pieces individually. Buy from a 3rd Party retailer and it’ll be cheaper again, typically offering a further 10% to 20% off full retail.

There’s no junk or padding in this box – it’s all good stuff to have in your collection and sweet new models. If you follow the blog, you know that if I thought this was a bunch of crap or a cynical warehouse-dump I’d say so, but this is nothing like the notorious “Chuck an unusable Aleguzzler in there” shemozzle from a few years back.

So today I’ll be taking a look at how you can build out from the Wrekkamob into a full army. The criteria we’ll be working towards are:

• Cheap to buy
• A good foundation for collecting the army longer term
• Functional on the tabletop

In this article we’ll run through the value proposition in this box and the Spearhead, to compare a couple of options for building out, then share a functional 2000 point list you can put together on the cheap.

You’ll notice I said “Functional”, and not “An easy 5-0 for even the most inept filth-chaser”. We have to be realistic about what Ironjawz are achieving currently, which is very little:

What’s more, the upcoming Warclans book has been reviewed in full by the Honest Wargamer, so we have a good idea of how it’s looking:

There doesn’t seem to be much light at the end of the tunnel here, presumably because the Battletome was written before AOS4 even released and thus before GW realised how utterly awful the faction pack would prove to be. So those abysmal rules were duly copied across, and now we’re stuck with them.

The main upside as far as I can see is that Ardboyz offer a solid amount of wound density on a 3+ save, and there’s a pretty high floor on how bad that can ever really be. The good news? The Wrekkamob is packed out with loads of them, so it positions you well to build around the army’s best unit.

Big Waaagh looks solid too, but that’s really a discussion for another day, and you can profitably use your Ardboyz there too. So shall we get into it?

WITB?

What you get is:

• 2x 3 Ragerz kits
• 2x 10 Ardboyz kits
• And one Big Pig

So that’s some elite combat infantry, the backbone of your army and a sweet centrepiece Monster. All of them are new-release minis so they presumably have a decent shelf life ahead of them too. Probably. Hopefully. We’ll see.

Next Steps

So the box is good. How are we going to build it out to a functioning army on the cheap?

A solid starting point to expand from these big boxes is topping up with a secondary box – usually a Spearhead.

The Ironjawz Spearhead has been announced but not yet released, and you can see there’s a huge amount of overlap between models included there and in the Wrekkamob, so we can do a direct comparison of the value in both.

Now Spearheads are all priced differently in Aussie Dollars, and we don’t know the exact AUD price of the Ironjawz Bigmob yet, so I’m going to make these direct comparisons in GBP, because we do know how they’ll be priced in that currency. The ratios might be a little bit up or a little bit down in your own local currency, but it will give a good indication.

Let’s take a look at the value proposition when you pick up the Spearhead vs the Wrekkamob:

First thing to note is that the Spearhead box has a very eye-catching nominal discount, although that’s propped up somewhat by the inflated sticker price of the Megaboss – and owning a second Megaboss adds way lower value to your collection than that.

If you’re going to collect Orruks, you’re gonna want one for sure, but while it’s possible that you’ll have a build that requires multiples, it’s never happened yet. In the real world the second Megaboss from buying a couple of Spearheads is most likely going to become conversion fodder, so in the spirit of keeping it cheap, I’ve included a couple of ways you might put him to good use in an Appendix to this article, after the Patreon stuff but before the footnotes.

Anyway. Going the Spearhead path gets you Brutes and a Footboss, but you miss out on Biggus Piggus. So I’ve worked through a couple of scenarios in the table above and this is where it ends up:

• If you grab 2x Spearheads and top up with a loose Biggity Piggity, you end up paying GBP 225 at full retail. So that’s GBP 75 more than the Wrekkamob, and it gets you the same models plus two Megabosses and two lots of 5 Brutes. The Brutes alone would cost GBP 80 so if your budget can stretch that far, it does offer a little more value overall.
• If you want to build a full starter army in this way, you could quickly get 2000 points on the table with two Spearheads plus a Wrekkamob, or two Wrekkamobs.
• The former costs slightly more and you trade out the second Biggle Piggle for a bunch of Brutes ‘n’ Bosses, along with offering a bigger nominal discount. Two Wrekkamobs on the other hand costs less in total (GBP 300 vs GBP 325) while still getting you everything you need to start playing Ironjawz in a reasonable manner.

It really is your classic “No wrong answers” and they do offer comparable value, but today I’ll focus on that final option of building around two Wrekkamobs for a couple of reasons:

• They’re all-new models, and every one of them will be useful in your lists
• The total buy-in to get a decent army on the table top is slightly cheaper, even if the nominal discount % looks less exciting

So just be aware that if your local store is all sold out of Wrekkamobs, you can build up a similar value bundle from Spearheads ‘n’ Bacon in the near future. You won’t really have missed the boat.

The List

Ironjawz
Weirdfist

Tuskboss on Maw-grunta (260)
[An Eye For Da Fight]
– 1 x Maw-grunta with Hakkin’ Crew (250)

Weirdnob Shaman (130)
– 6 x Brute Ragerz (260)
– 3 x Brute Ragerz (130)
– 3 x Brute Ragerz (130)

Warchanter (120)
[General]
[Trophy Skulls]
– 20 x Ardboyz (360)
– 20 x Ardboyz (360)

[Lore of the Weird]
[Warbeats]
[Primal Energy]

2000/2000pts
3 drops

What we’ve got here is two Wrekkamobs plus a couple of foot heroes. Ironjawz are a buffing army and you’ll always need a couple of lil guys in there pulling the strings: the Ardboy Boss and Zoggy are both going to make their way into your collection eventually, but today we’re gonna take take it back to the concrete streets¹ and run the modern classic Warchanter and Weirdnob.

Both have the keywords to grant a Ward from the Weirdfist formation:

Ardboyz are a truly efficient unit, offering a solid volume of health on 3+ saves and 6++ wards. They can be tough to shift once they plant their feet on an objective and if your opponent charges in, you can get them up to rend 2 damage 2 with a lucky Warchanter roll.

So while they are the stable platform that your army is built on, you have the Pig contingent zipping around while the Ragerz also run and charge. The latter will Strike First when they charge – including the Countercharge.

Every Maw Grunta variety has their own trademark, useful Rampage and I like all three. In this list, the Tuskboss and Hakkin’ Crew will enjoy hunting in pairs. The former ratchets up the Momentum, so they can both go to town with those spiky Damage 5 Tusk attacks, while the latter zig zags through your opponent’s army, dishing out damage and reaching valuable units cowering in the backfield.

The Gougers are arguably the pick of the bunch, offering more Strikes Last, so ideally you’d magnetise your Maw-gruntas during assembly. A little tip if you’re not confident with magnets is the lazy boy version, which means sticking on switch-out-able bits with a tiny dab of superglue, so they just ping off when (not) needed.

So you’ve got a definitive playstyle and a rock-solid core to the army, plus a bit of pace and a small foothold in the Activation Wars – and all your models will be useful in a lot of lists as your collection grows. This list is not going to 5-0 any time soon but can hold its own in garage gaming or casually-competitive club days, or even if you wanted to set yourself the goal of pushing for a Hard Mode 3-2 at a competitive event with da coolest of Boyz.

Buyers’ Guide

I’ve used GW sticker prices today for comparison but since this is a noob-friendly article I will reiterate: do not buy directly from GW if you have any other choice. You’ll always get more competitive prices by going through an independent store, plus you’re supporting a small business, so that’s always my first port of call.

And specifically, I’ll always advise people to pay where you play – if you have a local store and you’re using their table space, you really should give them your business.

If you don’t have your own local store to support, then you can always help us out by going through our Affiliate links at the bottom of each article. We have one partner each in the UK and in Australia: good independent businesses ran by people we trust and respect, who offer competitive prices and great service. We don’t deal with dickheads.

So given that context, if you’re buying into or expanding Ironjawz with the Wrekkamob, you can pick em up from Just Play in the UK, who at time of publishing do have a bunch in stock. Top it up with a couple of foot heroes of your choosing and you’re ready to go:

Ironjawz: Wrekkamob

~£300 for a decent 2000 point army, not bad

Further Reading: Options for building out

If you didn’t want to go as hard on the Ardboyz and Ragerz, and wanted to build out from a single Wrekkamob, there’s a couple of other good bolt-on options with a competitive dollars-to-points ratio.

All of the Destro Regiments of Renown are useful, interesting and competitive, and none of them are bad things to have in your arsenal. But it’s Kragnos (580 points) that has the most direct synergy in Ironjawz.

As a Warlord he unlocks some unit choices that can otherwize be hard to fit into Regiments, everyone loves a 3D6 charge and the cobber slaps. That 4+ save makes him too easy to kill but he does offer hard synergy in Ironjawz since he makes it exponentially easier to hit those 8+ charges and trigger bonuses:

Worth considering in any Destro collection, for sure.

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So that’s a wrap! I do think a Wrekkamob or two is a solid way to start collecting and playing Ironjawz at a good price point – and if I didn’t think that, I’d say so. The minis are sweet, they skew towards some of the better choices in the Faction currently and they should hopefully be reasonably future-proof in terms of staying useful in the longer term.

Lemme know what you think and I’m particularly interested in any Ardboyz spam lists you’re all cooking up – access to that unit at 180 points seems like a rare source of competitive advantage for Ironjawz currently. So I definitely don’t mind getting a whole bunch of them in these starter bundles – the Battletome looks crap, but we’ll figure out a way to make it work. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.

If you’d like to help us continue our work, we’d love to have your support. All Patreon Tiers include Discord access, exclusive articles and regular contests. Our Tiers are priced to be within everyone’s reach, so please click here to join us today!

Appendix: Putting your Megaboss to use

Here’s a couple of ideas for using that second Megaboss, given that you probably won’t run multiples in your list:

• Put him on a pie-plate base standing beside a big Monster, and that’s a custom Maw Krusha. I’ve done exactly that with my own squatted Magma Dragon so if I ever have call to run two Krushas, he’s ready for action.
• Get the hobby saw out, repose him a little so he looks different (and fits a 50mm base) and go to work on a Squig with some putty. Hey presto, you’re now the proud owner of a Zoggrok Anvilsmasha with Klonk.

1. Original beats with real live MC’s ↩︎
2. As a side note: If you decided to pick up one Wrekkamob, or went with two Spearheads plus a single Big Pig, I’d probably look at running it as a Hakkin’ Krew. That one works really well on its own in basically any list. ↩︎