So after going 3-0 with a bunch of Ardboyz and a slightly broken Unlimited prayer, I thought I’d share my thoughts¹ on how to play (and counterplay) this army.

The List

Ironjawz
Zoggrok’s Ironmongerz

[Master the Paths]
[Attuned to Ghyran]

Zoggrok Anvilsmasha (160)
[General]

• 20 x Ardboyz (340)
• 20 x Ardboyz (340)
• 10 x Ardboyz (170)
• 10 x Ardboyz (170)

Weirdnob Shaman (120)
Da Great Wollopa

• 10 x Ardboyz (170)
• 6 x Weirdbrute Wrekkaz (180)

Warchanter (110)

Warchanter (110)

Ardboy Big Boss (110)
Oi! Back to it!

1980/2000pts
5 drops

How it works

First off – I bet you’re thinking, Ardboyz are getting a bit cheap. It’s a lot of wounds for 170 points and even more so when the Army of Renown gives them a 5+ Ward. This list totals 140 wounds of Ardboy on a 3+ Save which is insanely tanky. The trade off is that the army is slow – it doesn’t hit very hard and really struggles to score Tactics.

The upside is that this army has A LOT of chip mortals. First off Zoggrok can hand out crit-mortal to a unit, so the 41 attacks from a 20 block of lads does like 6-7² mortals in a swing. Pairing that with enhanced Shield Bash thanks to the Ardboy Boss is roughly another 6-7³ mortals – and we haven’t even gotten to the good part.

I Introduce to you – the best prayer in the game, Get ‘Em, Gork! with a Prayer value of 5 making a terrain feature the most chaotic thing for your opponent to deal with.

It gets even better when you read the FAQ they made for this prayer. Basically, how it goes is:

Opponent: I am going to move this unit over here.

Me: Okay since you started the move within 6″ and ended within 6″ of a trampled terrain feature that’s two rolls of Shitty D3

4 Mortal Wounds Later

Opponent: I am going to charge this unit here

Me: Okay since you started that charge within 6″ and ended within 6″ of a trampled terrain feature that’s two rolls of Shitty D3

4 Mortal Wounds Later

Opponent: Okay – fight phase,

Me: Cool my Ardboyz are going to shield bash

6 Mortal Wounds Later

Opponent: I am going to pile in

Me: Okay since you started that pile-in within 6″ and ended within 6″ of a trampled terrain feature that’s two rolls of Shitty D3

4 Mortal Wounds Later

Anyone counting – that’s 18 MW before a unit has even fought, and with some good planning and positioning you can usually get it all to work.

An example from Bountiful Equinox: with this positioning of the Bossrok Tower you can get two prominent terrain features trampled very early in the game, as you’re only needing 5s on the prayers to get it off (you shouldn’t need the enhanced version).

This leaves the majority of the board difficult for your opponent to move forward, without copping an insane amount of mortal wounds. So it leaves your opponent with two options: move around the flanks to fight the weaker sides, which exposes them to the trampled terrain, or come and fight 40 Ardboys in the mid board. And Idk about you but there’s not a lot that can one-shot 80 wounds on a 3+ save and 5+ ward.

Another illustration of how powerful this can be is that I’d often deploy my Warchanters on the line so they can get that early game trampled terrain:

In summary

So that’s enough of me talking about how good I am. To sum up, the strengths of this army are:

• Super tanky
• Plays the center of the board really well
• A landslide of chip mortals

And the areas it struggles in are:

• Slow
• Fighting on the flanks
• Tactics are difficult⁴

How to play it

So how do you win with it? This army is pretty much rinse and repeat in terms of hero phase and how it goes about playing the board – where it really comes to life is in the ability of the player to read their opponent’s line up. You need to think about how to strengthen your weaker areas and force your opponent into situations where they cop lots of MWs.

This army needs to be as quick as it can down the board – it can’t afford to hang back or it will struggle to score its tactics and struggle on the primary. This is definitely something that seems easy to do, but hard to master. One trap in particular is to shove everything forward, then get rolled because of a decent Redeploy or a bit of a phantom in 4th edition, screens.

Zoggrok’s is strongest when reading your opponent’s actions. If an opponent is tending to favor a flank over pushing all their toys that way, adjust your board presence to prepare for their advance. Running a Warchanter up a flank to trample a terrain feature may usually result in their death, but if that terrain feature is going to rack up a lot of damage, or if the opponent is forced to be more conservative by a massive roadblock, it can be worth it. Remember even if your Chanter dies, the terrain stays trampled for the whole game so that can be job done for him.

In a lot of instances your opponent will crack the tempo up and full-send everything because they feel like your toughness puts them on the clock. The 3+ save and 5++ ward on the 100s of wounds you have will keep you in the game, but it can also set you back as you can’t really progress the game forward favorably, as you don’t do that much damage in return, particularly when opponents are careful about their positioning to reduce damage. So a bit of pre-planning and you’re set.

On the flip side, if your opponent has some decent shooting output⁵ and ends up hanging back – forcing you to come forward – that’s a bit of a trap, and usually by turn 2 or 3 you can have 40+ Ardboys in their face pinning them in their own deployment zones.

So what’s the counter play?

Some armies can output an insane amount of damage and just wreck a Zoggrok army⁶ but if you are at a singles event with a freshly painted army, how do you win?

Firstly, split the army up, force them to split in two and then punish the weaker side. Most armies should be faster, and you gotta punish where you can. If 10 Ardboys are alone on an objective and you have a risk-free way of killing that unit and taking that objective, it can usually throw a spanner in their gameplan. This army is slow – force them to commit to areas of the board they don’t want to.

This army would be defined as a “Front to Back” army. It wants to play the game very linearly, so the mission or fast-moving units that threaten their heroes can disrupt their slow march forward. If you choose to run headlong into them – you will probably bounce and die.

Be careful of your movement: every move around their trampled terrain just hurts you. Use the charge so you don’t have to pile in and cop another hit. Additionally, tag the sides of units to reduce the volume of dice they’re throwing with Shield Bash rolls. Plan around centrally-located Places of Power which are great for the additional healing to keep your guys in the fight for longer.

Aim to deny their tactics, as this army can’t reliably score the non-interactive tactics – aim to exploit their slowness to prevent them from wracking up points.

See? Easy!⁷

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1. And a Deez Nuts joke. You’re welcome. ↩︎
2. Don’t. ↩︎
3. OK I give in. ↩︎
4. More than usual for Destro players – as Zoggrok players actually have to think. This is VERY HARD for most of us. ↩︎
5. Who does in the days of Obscuring? ↩︎
6. FEC review coming soon to a blog near you. ↩︎
7. Except that it wasn’t for all of my opponents. Did I mention that I went 3-0 last week? ↩︎