Well it lasted longer than I thought. Sunsteala Wheelas were always gonna cop an “adjustment” in this update, so the only real question was what else Team Green can and should expect. The win rates for Destruction armies going into this update varied from acceptable to atrocious:
Nothing in our GA is overperforming. Gloomspite and Ironjawz are in the fat middle, while Kruleboyz, Ogors and Sons of Behemat are all in the sub-45% danger zone that indicates they needed help.
I picked up these stats from the invincible Woehammer Meta series, and you can read the full article on their site right here:
Win rates aren’t everything of course. The other charts I always look for in these articles are “The Fabien Chart” showing the spread of wins, and in particular I’m interested in how often a given army is hitting 4+ wins (which is what I would consider a good tournament result).
The reason this matters is that it demonstrates their top-end potential in the hands of a skilled player. Or putting it another way, if loads of the players who are picking up an army are deadshits, they will pull the Win Rate % down1, but they can’t stop good players hitting 4+ wins.
On that measure we see Gloomspite are a third of the way down the chain, with all other Destro armies in the bottom half, and Ogors and Sons of Behemat showing some really worrying results:
Another chart I rate is this one, showing how easy it is to do well with an army. As is always the case, DOK are eating way too well. Gloomspite and Ironjawz are clumped around the middle, with Kruleboyz, Ogors and Sons of Behemat yet again hovering around “The Destruction Zone” at the bottom of the stats:
So objectively speaking, and regardless of any one person’s experience or opinions, nothing in Destruction has been overperforming. Some Destro armies (Gitz, IJ) needed no net change in power level while others (KB, Ogors, Gargants) needed significant help.
So is that what happened? Did GW show a baseline level of competence and deliver the significant net buffs that Destro armies overall needed; or did they either largely ignore these armies or even give them a kicking instead? Place ya bets!
First up: Sons of Behemat
I’ll start with Giants, because I’ve been playing them a lot recently, and work back from there.
An all-green screen is the least that Sons could expect, and they got it. Was it enough? I’m gonna say no.
The Soggy Kraken is pretty interesting. Deep striking is really a gimmick but it is fun, and his damage is at least more respectable than the generic Kraken-eater, albeit that’s a pathetically low bar. 450 is attractive pricing for him I’d say.
The Mancrushers got another trim. Ring the Bell, because across 2nd, 3rd and 4th Editions we’ve officially landed at the point where the Mancrusher to Mega-Gargant ratio has gone from 3:1 to 4:1. Four Babies now costs 480 points which puts them kind of in the middle of the pack for Mega pricing.
You still can’t fit 4 Megas +1 Baby into a list with Brodd, which is a shame, but it does open up some other interesting configurations. You could already take 3 + 4 but now take all the premium Megas in that package: for example Brodd, Gatebreaker, Beastsmasher and 4 Babies now fits. And that’s pretty interesting.
Grade: D for Don’t Spoil Us Too Much.
For such a low-performing army, this really was a piss weak effort. That Battletome can’t come quickly enough – in the meantime though, I’d suggest that 4 Megas in KBS is pretty competitive and feels great to play. I’d stick with that.
Next up: Ogors
Another struggling army, another all-green screen.
Last time around GW made the stupid decision to nerf an army that wasn’t even overperforming, and whaddya know? Here they are in the doldrums. Apparently being mid is unacceptable for Destro armies, and they need to be fucked proactively into the dirt at every opportunity.
The Monster Trucks got some general love, the Scraplauncher is becoming interesting at 130 points and even -10 points on a heart and soul unit like Gluttons (and to a lesser extent Mournfang) can have a real-world impact. This one is actually a pretty good update.
The Great Glutton Yoyo
With Gluttons back at 220 points, we’ve come full circle to their starting level for AOS4. GW has a habit of giving armies a couple of shit options and one passable choice – most often observed in Enhancement tables – and then acting shocked when everyone picks the one passable option.
They seem to put a lot of weight in armies taking the same options in a high percentage of lists, while failing to understand that this doesn’t always mean that option is overpowered – sometimes it just means the rest of it is crap, and that’s what your energies should be focused on instead. If you need evidence of that, just witness The Great Glutton Yoyo of 2024-25.
Grade: B for Be More Careful Next Time
Kruleboyz
Has there ever been an army set up to fail as hard as Kruleboyz? Helsmiths are off to a rocky start, but they’ve got another 6 or so Battlescroll cycles of being dead last before they can challenge the mighty Boyz in Green for that honour.
Meaningless rubbish – none of this helps the army at all, except maaaaaaaybe the Soggy Skumdrekk. Shout out to Rob Kelly by the way for pointing out GW’s abject failure with Skummy: two bites at his warscroll, and neither of them is good enough to see much play. It’s pretty damning to see both needing an adjustment at the same time.
None of this stuff sees any play and it does precious little to help an army that copped a severe whack last time around.
Grade: Z for Zzzzzzzz. Wake me up when GW wants to see this army succeed
Ironjawz
The first of our armies that was sitting in the fat middle, with a whopping 63% of all IJ players going either 3-2 or 2-3 at event. In AOS4 I have generally found Ironjawz incredibly boring to play, which is sad for what has often been one of the coolest and most fun armies out there, but I’ve recently seen a couple of Monster Mash style lists that looked really engaging.
Well, not any more, because the core components (Maws, both -Krusha and -Grunta) have tipped it over the edge. So I guess that’s the end of that then.
The foot Megaboss coming down does help slightly if you want to run the Brutefist battle formation, so that’s something, and it’s interesting to see Ragerz and Wrekkaz converging on 100 points. I always value Strike First very highly in this army so 100-point Ragerz do appeal to me.
They also got the first FAQ that’s worth mentioning for these armies:
Thank fuck Zak published this article last week before GW stamped on it.
Grade: F for Fun Not Allowed. Farewell Ironjawz Monster Mash, We Hardly Knew Ye
Last of All: Gloomspite
Gits units will often look cheap in a vacuum, because their battle traits are shit so they’re mostly playing off their Warscrolls2.
A splash of red here and there isn’t the end of the world, because even allowing for the lazy non-Battletome they got, a lot of units were very sharply pointed. We’d seen the rise of the Double Doom Diver list for example, so we can’t really have many complaints with +10 for them. And 150-point Dankholds are a great little unit.
The bigger knocks however came in the shape of FAQs:
The good old triple nerf: points and rules getting hit at the same, plus warmachines (chariots and Doom Divers) can now be targeted around Obscuring. GW just yanking multiple levers at the same time like a mad scientist.
Careening Destruction now requires you to be locked in combat before you can use it. Of the many ramifications of this change, the one I’d most sad to lose is the One-Two Punch that Chris Riley flagged up on the Sacred Centrality3 battle tactic.
Spinning Loons means that Sporesplattas can’t lock something down as soon as they pop back out of the Loonshrine. Note that it only applies in the End of Turn phase (which I learned today is an actual phase), so they can still do it after a teleport like Hand of Gork – no issues there.
“Well you should have expected some changes here”
Absolutely, I did. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy with these specific changes.
As an example, when Foxes were nerfed all the way down from shooting you and running away to [checks notes] shooting you and running away, they changed it to a 2D6″ move. Something like that for Careening D would have made it a lot less reliable (whether that’s to get onto an objective, or to get enough distance to finish up out of combat) but still kept the movement jank online.
The other thing to note is that Gloomspite weren’t overperforming – they were in the fat middle. If the game can’t handle this army having something so unique, then you’ll need to give them back something else instead to compensate. There’s a lot of 6+ saves and 5+s to wound in the units that just took a nerf here.
My gut feeling is that these two undoubtedly bent units were propping up Gloomspite’s results quite a lot. Even with those maxed out versions of the rules, Gits were good but far from dominant, so coupled with the points hikes it’s gonna be interesting to see how hard they drop. These are still good units (and they’re still a good army) so I’d venture that their next Win Rate % will be in the high 40s. Let’s see how that prediction ages.
Grade: F for Fs in the Chat
Getting an army with a truly unique play pattern into the fat middle was actually a masterpiece of engineering by GW. Sadly, that was never gonna stand, and they’ve been given nothing back in exchange.
Regiments of Renown
A few ups and downs there, but the first change to note was Big Grikk’s Kruleshots coming down 20 points to 320, which I’d say is pretty generous.
The Ironjawz Big Pigs regiment went the other way, +10 points to 430. An ever-popular choice for access to the Strike Last Rampage, and likely to remain so.
Podium of Oops
Let’s wrap it up with a few interesting things to note that really showcase the care and attention that Destruction armies are lavished with in these updates. In reverse order….
The Mancrusher Mob now costs more than three solo babies. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but they literally just adjusted the Mob below the solos in the last update, so it looks like they might have just forgotten them here. Given the main role of Mancrushers in this army – being 10 OC to stand in places – I’d argue solos are significantly better, and the Mob should come down in points to reflect that.
Kraggy still costs 590 in SOB. This outlier seemed to be inserted at the last update to make a specific build (also featuring the Big Pigs ROR in Sons of Behemat) illegal. With Big Pigs themselves going up 10 points in this update, that is no longer required – but they either forgot to move Kraggy back down, or just don’t care.
And the winner is…
Sunsteala Wheelas can only use their ability if they are in combat…and also are allowed to do so. Cheers for that. Another one they forgot they’d put in at the last update, again showcasing the diligence and professionalism that Destro armies always benefit from in these updates.
Closing Thoughts: Salty Much?
Damn right I’m salty, this was a pretty dispiriting update for my favourite armies. And this isn’t just me having a whinge – I’ve had about 20 messages from people who play Destruction-and-Something-Else, saying well, I guess I’m playing Something Else for a while4.
I’m sick and tired of seeing Destro armies clustered around the bottom of those Win Rate tables, and I don’t believe there was enough help for those factions that needed it. Gloomspite could have been adjusted in different (better) ways, and Ironjawz had a really fun build choked out for no good reason.
So ueah, not a great update, all things told.
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- What I like to term “The Skaven Effect”. ↩︎
- -1 to incoming rend on Troggs in combat being a notable exception. That does need to be pointed in. ↩︎
- TLDR: Chariots and Snarlpack both move into the middle to score the tactic, then on your opponent’s turn they moonwalk back to safety. ↩︎
- Quite often incredulous that their Something Else – usually FEC – got off so lightly. ↩︎
Plastic Craic 
We should not forget that the nerf to warmachines affects also the Sloggoth… even if it’s smaller than a Gnashtooth
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