This is my army. I love Gloomspite and I’ve played them for years – dammit I’ve even played full Gitmob armies in 2nd Ed, before they got squatted. And going one step further: I’m not only a Gloomspite guy, I’m not only a Gitmob guy, I even have a particular love for Gitmob chariots. The first Warhammer models I owned were the 5th Ed WHFB starter set with its cardboard Grom the Paunch:
This starter set was High Elves vs Goblins, and it was love at first sight between me and Grom – in fact he’s the reason I love Destruction to this day. I’ve played AOS all the way through from 1st Edition, and I’ve played Destro armies in every single game. All of them. And all thanks to Grom the Paunch and his Gitmob chariot.
What’s more, I’m a massive Mad Max fan too – I rate all five movies, although of course some higher than others – so believe me, there’s nothing I want to do more than to ride on Fury Road with a hit and move army of Gitmob desert bandits. Nothing.
So I’m invested in this army more than you can possibly imagine. I’ve read the teaser from GW and read it again to digest it properly, and I’ve got a lot of opinions on what we’ve seen, plus a few prognostications on what we haven’t yet.
Hang on, what’s the point in even talking about this if we haven’t seen most of the rules?
Because speculation is A) natural and B) fun. If you don’t agree, and you just want to digest the full rules when Men Read them out, then fair play to you – maybe this article’s not for you. But I’m hanging on every word and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to reflect on what it might mean.
Will every extrapolation in here be vindicated? Of course not, there’s going to be some surprises and curveballs once we see their rules. But I’ve been playing this game and this army for a long time now, with some success, so I’m going to say that I’m entitled to have an informed opinion on what we’ve seen so far. And if you think I’m full of shit, then you’re also welcome to share your own opinions in the comments – but here are mine.
The Preview
What they’ve previewed here is the contents of the FOMO box:
It doesn’t strike me as tremendous value for money, and as a reminder, we do pay cash money for our own models here. We’re not paid by GW in plastic and access to promote their products, so I’ll be making a fully-independent decision on whether or not to pony up for this one.
Let’s take a look at what they’ve shown us so far.
Droggz Da Sunchompa
First up, we have an excellent debuff and a slightly disapponting buff. Neg 1 to hit and no AOA is awesome: that’s borderline crippling for a lot of units, and it doesn’t matter what’s around him, they all benefit. So while it might not be enough to keep some 5+ save Snarlfangs alive, it’s great for blocks of 40x Grots or 6x Rockguts. Love it.
The sequential fighting thing, however, is undercooked. These rules normally come with a bonus, such as +1 attack for the following unit (see: Megaboss and Savage Big Boss) so this diluted version does feel lacklustre.
Still, there’s certainly something to work with here, and the prospects for Droggz seem sunny. I like it.
Snarlpack Cavalry
This one however is a miss. Described as “the closest thing that the Gitmobs have to shock troops”, hats off to the fluff writer for having the nous to recognise that they are actually no such thing. We’ve already got light cav in this army in the shape of the existing Snarflang Riders, so the Snarlpack’s role is heavy cav, which can mean one of two things1:
- Tank Cav, whose role is to tie stuff down. They are durable, get up the board and pin stuff in place, either due to an elite armour save or a good ward. Skullcrushers and Nurgle Flies are the archetype.
- Killer Cav, whose role is simply to smash stuff up. This is usually through brutal melee output with maybe some charge mortals splashed in, and some classic examples are Gore Gruntas or the various SCE Dracoths when they have been good.
Snarlpack fits neither of the above roles and therefore they have no reason to exist. Further, their failure to deliver on their supposed role gives me grave concerns that this army-within-an-army can be played as such.
They’re not going to be tank cav. They’re just not. They won’t have the 2+ save or 5++ ward that mobile tanks come equipped with. They’ll be 3 or 4 wounds on a 4+ save, and those 9 or 12 wounds will just get deleted by anything that goes near them. 9 or 12 wounds on a 4+ save is not a tank and if your goal is to tie stuff up and waste its time, you’d be better off just stringing some cheaper light cav sideways. Since they’ll both die anyway you might as well save a few points and cover more space.
They are supposed to be heavy-hitters, and that’s what the army needed, but they are not fit for purpose. The Grots wound on 5s with no rend, so you can forget about that one straight away. You could make the Grots damage 99 on the charge and they’d still do fuck all, because you’ll never get a dice through.
As for the wolves, 3 attacks each hitting on 4s with no rend is deflating. How the hell was this warscroll ever put to print with Rend 0 on those giant wolf bites? This is where Destro players have a chip on their collective shoulder, because that kind of insulting profile just gets slapped on our units so damn often. Rend 0 is an absolute embarrassment and in an S2D and SCE meta (which is to say a 3+ save meta) this unit is dead on arrival. Awful.
No, we haven’t seen the full book, and yes, they might get some rend or whatever from supporting rules. What that means is that your army rules are being burnt just to get this warscroll back to where it should have started.
Without a true hammer – and this is not a true hammer – I’m very skeptical about how playable a full Gitmob army can possibly be. If you’ve seen Gits players crying about these reveals, what they’re actually crying about is this melee profile, and what it means for the army.
As an added kick in the guts, that Strike First is Once per Turn (Army), so only one unit actually gets to Strike First. You can still make yourself a little chain on the charge:
- Strike First with a unit of Snarlpacks
- Make Droggz your first normal activation
- He chains straight into another unit
From what we’ve seen so far, you’d better hope that Kragnos2 gets the Gitmob keyword, because nothing I’m seeing tells me that chaining into another unit of Snarlpack cav is going to do much.
Sunsteala Wheelas
These little chariots come with a sweet name, it has to be said. As you would hope and expect, they do impact mortals. Shout out to Izen on Bluesky too, for pointing out that they actually proc in the movement phase, and not the charge phase:
It’s nice that it’s a straight D3 (no 2+ required) and it heavily implies that they can be reinforced. Izen3 also pointed out that Core Rule 3.3 stipulates that a unit of 1 cannot be reinforced, so that’s probably telling us that they start at 2 and reinforce to 4.
What else will they do? Well there’s going to be too many 5s in those melee profiles for the Grot attacks to amount to a hill of beans (in shooting or combat), and I’d bet on those two wolves being standard Snarlfang-style hitting on 4s with no rend for damage 2. Don’t expect too much.
These fellas can be useful Battle Tactic scorers and all-round contributors, if the price is right. Fast, cheap units are just generically good at wargames so it will come down to points, but they do show promise.
What else is coming?
Well you’ve got the hero chariot which as you can see above is on a larger base, and can built as a Snarlboss or wizard variant. Best of all, the Doom Diver looms menacingly on the horizon:
Update: The warscroll for this little sausage just leaked! And it’s in line with what we thought:
For each dice you reroll, every attack drops a pip of rend, which will create some really interesting decision points. There’s a world where this warmachine could have targeted heroes as the little Grot pilot pivots mid-air, but that’s not the case, so you’re probably left using this thing as an Elite killer.
I’ll have to give some thought to how you can run the numbers and stimulate rerolls vs declining rend, but at a high level you’ve still got that 3+ to Wound roll to get past, plus potentially some misses and saves, so it’s unlikely you’ll get more than 6 damage out of this on a good day. The beauty of shooting is that flexibility to target the right unit at the right time, but assuming a cost either side of 200 points, Elites will usually be the most bang for your buck.
The mini is awesome and is a Day 1 purchase for me, and I’m sure you’ll see some sick conversions too. It looks like it comes on a Rogue Idol base and I’m excited to see somebody make Pebbles throwing a Doom Diver like a little paper plane. Also, the rules look great, so that helps.
Finally, there’s an Army of Renown in the book “that specialises in flanking the enemy and using their momentum to pick and choose fights.” I’m not sure how well Hit and Run will work when there is no “Hit”, but it will be interesting to see what they do here and it could be cool to play with its own unique feel. It sounds like they’re starting off the board so I’d love to see some kind of “strike and fade” ability to slip back into reserve, a little like the classic 3rd Ed Skitterstrand. I’m hopeful that we’ll get something very playable here, but let’s see.
Overall Thoughts
So will I be buying one? Tough call. ~$400 AUD isn’t exactly an impulse purchase and the value proposition doesn’t make me salivate. I’ll be more likely to pinch hit the units I want to run up front, and maybe bulk out the collection later down the track when I can pick up an abandoned project on Marketplace.
The heavy cav are a crushing disappointment, but there are still some interesting rules and units in here. The debuffs from the boss are great, but probably best applied to true bruisers from the Not Gitmob sections of the book; and tarpitting opponents while your Doom Divers bang away sounds like fun4, but those tarpits are probably going to be reinforced Grots or Troggs5.
You might grab a chariot or two as a flanking unit and BT scorer, and I’m already on record that one unit of the light Snarlfangs is a great inclusion in any list.
So where my head is currently is that you’re probably going to be better-served using a Gitmob module within a broader Gloomspite army, than running a full-on Mad Max wolves and chariots force.
If you aren’t bothered about that, and you’re happy picking the eyes out of this release, I reckon you’ll have some excellent new tools in your army:
- Slippery tactics scorers
- Banging artillery
- And a hero with a great signature debuff
So in my own case, was it unfair to hope that you could run a full army of them effectively? No, I don’t think so. The reason being that it’s the absence of a heavy-hitter that has got me worried, and yet the heavy cav was right there.
Their role is supposed to be “heavy cavalry and main damage-dealing unit for the Gitmob”. It’s not unreasonable at all to hope that they’d be fit for that role, but nothing I’m seeing so far tells me that they are. If that changes, I’ll hold my hands up that I underestimated them – and what’s more, I’ll be delighted.
I really, really want this army to be good.
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