What would make Ironjawz players happy? I could write you a whole article on what we want and need, but we ain’t getting everything this side of a new Battletome. In terms of realistic hopes for a set-piece update, I reckon Maw Krushas that feel like real Maw Krushas would be pretty high up the list for most IJ players, more stuff hitting on 3s, and some unique bullshit to make the army less vanilla to play with and against. Like any other faction we would also hope for a new competitive build to emerge and make list building more interesting, and Ironjawz could probably use a net increase in raw power level too.

I’ve played the shit out of Ironjawz over many years and many editions, with some success, so let’s make a 3D6 charge into the guts of this update and see what we can tease out of it. And we’ll judge it against those criteria at the end.

Ready? Let’s go.

Battle Formations

We got two of ’em. I like the first one, but I’m kinda lukewarm on the second.

Mightiest Destroyers: Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first FAQ requirement! I still don’t know what they mean by Megabosses, and whether or not that includes the Maw Krusha or Gordrakk, but at least GW will have the opportunity to address that before these rules are legal. It amounts to a bribe to jam a Megaboss of any stripe into your list, when ideally they should just have better warscrolls¹: But it’s a bribe that I may be willing to accept².

Bigsnikkaz is too situational to be a serious contender outside of a Skew List, a Teams List, or an “I’m a dedicated player and I’m determined to give every Formation a hit out” List. I’m gonna sidestep this one.

All in all, I still think you run the modern Ironjawz Brawl if you have Kraggy in the list (since he helps you hit those 8+ rolls); but if you’re not running old Donkey Dick then I’d push Mightiest D right near the top of the shortlist.

Monstrous Traits

Cha-Ching! We’ve got a free hit. You just get to take one of these with no opportunity cost (which is to say you don’t have to forego an artefact or anything like to that). Maw Krushas and Biggle Piggles are your potential recipients.

All of these are dope. Big Un would get the most mileage on a Krusha, since they have more base attacks with higher damage. Frankly the Maw Krusha should never have been saddled with Rend 1 to begin with, and you might still decide you prefer a Big Pig overall. But it does at least elevate the cabbage, which is what we wanted.

Mad Un is basically the Wurggog Mask – it took me a minute to get there, so let me explain:

The damage does not stop after two dice rolls – it keeps going as long as you keep rolling hot.

The reason why (and I missed this myself on the first read through) is that last clause: “this unit can immediately use this ability again”. And what’s “this ability”? All of it! So the whole thing procs again, including the check at the end to keep going.

Note that your opponent does get to remove models before you go again, so if they’re smart, they will remove the models closest to you and potentially / eventually pull you out of combat, at which point the insanity comes to an end.

This ability is cool, powerful and – since you have a better chance of staying in combat throughout the whole process on that big pie plate base – it’s another small shadow buff for the Maw Krusha. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be making myself a Wurrgog Prophet on Wyvern to represent this one on the table. Starey McLaserface is back!

Fast Un is also really sweet, and some welcome fan service as a beloved signature rule that was lost along the way³. Even in a stacked field this is arguably the most competitive choice – but you can do what you want, I’m taking Mad Un and you can’t stop me.

Warscrolls

One of these is a near-auto include and the other is… I’m gonna be the bad guy here, and say that the new Gore-Gruntas could be a trap. I don’t hate them but I’m not totally sold, so let’s get into it.

Gore-Gruntas (200 points)

There’s a surprisingly large amount of changes here, both up and down:

• Up 20 points from 180
• 1 fewer attack on both profiles
• +1 damage on the charge for the rider
• Rend 1 added to the Tusks
• Pseudo-Fly through Infantry
• Anti-Cav is gawn
• Charge mortals are gawn

Let’s break down what that all means.

Output

When they cost more you might reasonably expect them to be better – and sometimes they are, but not always.

You will be shocked – shocked – to learn that those new ones are of course better on the charge. It needs to be said though that not only will your opponent sometimes charge you (how rude), you’ll often get stuck in protracted combats – or at least you’d hope so. These are tanky cav with 5 health on a 3+ save, so you’ll often want to keep units tied down with them.

So as a starting point, for a unit of 3 with no buffs (and not on the charge), you can expect the following output:

When you do get the charge off, and you get those Damage 2 attacks cranking, the new warscroll leaps ahead:

And on your best day, assuming you’ve charged, added extra attacks (from your Waaagh and the Ironjawz Brawl) and slapped Killa Beat on the riders, you can really get some decent damage cranking:

The extra attacks you’ve added do have more value when they’re each at Damage 2 base, so the new GGs widen the gap slightly – but you’re still only looking at a few extra pips of damage on the charge, and less if you don’t.

Tech

You lose the charge mortals, so I wouldn’t even consider the new GGs in the Pigs AOR, which is the most successful Ironjawz build currently. You need to remember here that the D6 charge mortals are an enhanced version of the warscroll ability, not a standalone rule: so when you lose the one, you lose the other.

That pseudo-fly is handy though. The obvious application is vaulting screens to get into the sweet, soft meat in the backfield. It’ll also just generally be useful for getting your big-based shit out of the way of your other big-based shit as you work through your charges. And the one that you might miss at first sight is that it makes Power Through way easier to use effectively – units with Fly are exponentially better at using that game-warping ability, because your opponent has usually had a turn to pile in and wrap a bunch of bases around you. Just trampling straight through them and off to an objective will occasionally win you games on its own, and best of all – it gets you out of combat to start charging again, and banging out those Damage 2 attacks. BAM!

How they help you win games

So which is the best? In my opinion this is a side-grade, and I’ll be using both warscrolls in future⁴.

The ceiling for output is certainly higher on the new scroll, but only by a few pips, and you’ll just as often lose a couple of pips when you haven’t charged. Fundamentally this warscroll is still a bruiser unit: it’s a tank that can hold its own rather than a true smash-the-world hammer. It usually helps you win games by bullying prospector units, tying down enemies in combat and holding them up until the Brutes can get there to settle matters and/or the Ardboyz rack up the points on the primaries.

The old warscroll is just as fit for that purpose and is 20 points cheaper. I actually like the pseudo-fly more than the situational extra damage, specifically for its synergy with Power Through.

I already mentioned that the strongest way to play Ironjawz right now is the Grunta Stampede AOR, and in that army there’s no way you’d touch the new warscroll, because the Go-Turn charge mortals are crucial to how it operates. But if you want to play “proper” Ironjawz and not a skew-n-spam Pigs AOR – which is understandable – then it really comes down to whether you need the extra 20 or 40 points that it costs you to run a couple of these.

I’m leaning towards taking the new warscroll in a blended Ironjawz list, mainly for the Power Through rug pull, and they’ll be going in my tentative army lists. But if I’ve written a list I like that ends up a few points over, then I’d feel very comfortable switching the old ones back in there.

Weirdbrute Wrekkaz (110 points)

So after a qualified win, let’s get to the out-and-out win.

+10 points, lose run + charge, gain a +1 to hit aura. Badda Bing!

We already know All Out Attack is getting a nerf, and boy do Ironjawz need All Out Attack. So a second source is great for offsetting negs to hit, boosting two separate units or alleviating the need to spraff 380 points on Gordrakk. A big win for the army, and I’ll be putting a unit or two in most lists moving forward.

---

So what do we think? I reckon today was a good day! Let’s assess it against our own criteria:

Does it change competitive lists? Yes. I still believe that the top IJ list right now is the Grunta Stampede, and I’d use the old Gore Gruntas warscroll there. But both new warscrolls have a lot of play in a classic Ironjawz army, I’ve got Brutefist near the top of my shortlist of Battle Formations and the Mount Traits are just sublime.

Does it boost our beloved Maw Krusha? Yes. For an update that made no direct mention of him, there’s definitely a bit there. The Mount Traits fix one of my biggest complaints (lack of Rend on the Krusha’s attacks) and best of all, taking the Mad Un trait will deliver one of the best mini-games in AOS4 and a great hobby opportunity for a Wurrgog on Wyvern, while still allowing me to piss and moan about the lack of rend. Perfection!

Did we get any unique bullshit? Hmm kinda. The move I’m most interested in (Power Through with new GGs) is hardly new – every unit in the game with Fly can already do that. Double Mighty D is getting close but ultimately I’ll give this one a pass mark on the back of Mad Un, which really is sweet.

Does it get us hitting on 3s more often? Yes. Not as much as I’d like – I’ll say a little bit about that below – but the Wrekkaz give you a specific answer to a specific issue. Tick.

Quick Fix Wish List

I’ll close this article out with a begging letter, highlighting a couple of easy wins that would boost quality of life for Ironjawz without needing a whole new Battletome. They kind of thing that could have been done here, but could also be delivered very easily in a Battlescroll update or GHB.

1. Remove the Bad D3 roll from Destructive Bulk. It’s just mean-spirited extra dice rolling for its own sake: you can already very easily roll low on the 2D6 and find yourself unable to haul that gigantic ass anywhere useful, so an extra failure point is just brutally unnecessary.
2. Brutes and Megabosses to hit on 3s, just like so many other elite combat units. That AOS4 racial profiling went right out the window for plenty of other armies, but none in Destruction: “Elite combat units are better at fighting” is a logic that’s been applied to humans⁵, and it should be applied to Orruks too. 4s for Ardboyz and Pigs, 3s for Brutes and Megabosses.
3. Points drops for Heroes. This is an army that needs multiple small heroes to unlock its own rules and functionality – it’s been designed so that we can’t not take them, and that’s OK, but they still leave the army a bit too thin. We’re effectively paying twice via high drops too, so let’s get a bit of relief on the points side please.

---

Oh, and there was one more criterion we were going to judge this update by…

Does it elevate the power level of Ironjawz? That’s a Yes from me. Ironjawz are definitely better now than they were yesterday – leaving aside the other cool options, you could change nothing in your list other than giving whatever Big Pig you were already taking a Mount Trait, and it’s just strictly better. It remains to be seen what the GHB brings⁶, and some other armies that were already in better shape than Ironjawz might have gotten more candy than us.

But all we can really do right now is take this update for what it is – which is an absolute triumph for Da Boyz in Green 💚🔥

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!

1. Combat units hitting on 4s with low rend are lacklustre, who knew? ↩︎
2. I also accept KFC vouchers, cans of Melbourne Bitter and wristies under the gaming table. Don’t ask, don’t get, amirite? ↩︎
3. The streets will never forget Destroyer and Smashing and Bashing. ↩︎
4. In B4 “You can’t use both in the same list”. I know, I know. I’ll use both in different lists, on different occasions. ↩︎
5. And dead humans, for that matter. ↩︎
6. And that’s a very big “remains to be seen”. ↩︎