Cogforts for everyone! GW has made the Regiment of Renown versions available to all armies, so today we’ll look at the nuance around their rules – there’s definitely some detail you could skip over if you’re a dumbass¹ – and how to use them optimally in your armies.

They are a little bit cheaper than the Cities versions (as they should be, without the access to that Retreat + Shoot enhancement and Special Ammunition):

But coming in below 500 points puts them in a really sweet place to slot into your lists, and I’ve got a couple of tricks and combos brewing for the factions I play competitively that I’ll share here today. Hopefully a lot of the principles will apply to other armies too so if you’re working on your own Merc Cogfort lists right now, feel free to chuck them up in for consideration in our Listbuilding Challenge (which is free to enter), and if you’re a tight-arse², there’s also a Cogfort scratch build and conversions challenge underway for our Patrons.

The high-level view is that both versions are tanky, and both offer good shooting. But whereas the Cannonade offers a higher volume of dakka and a great suite of buffs, the Conqueror offers less output but can act as a transport and boost the damage on its cargo. We’ll go through both versions in detail and I’ve got loads of ideas for how I want to use each of them in various Destro builds, so let’s kick off by looking at the overall picture, then we’ll move into the specifics of each variant.

Benchmarking: Merc Megas

The obvious comparison for both units are the Mega-Gargant RORs that are also available to all armies in one form or another. In both cases you’re getting a ring-in centrepiece and an anvil, and at a very similar points cost. There’s a whole spectrum of rend that you could be facing, but as common benchmark, I reckon we can use their base save: you’ll very often use AOD and get hit with Rend 1.

In that case:

• It takes 70 damage to drop a Mega (with 35 Health on a 4+ save, you’re shrugging half of what comes in)
• It takes 75 damage to drop a Cogfort (with 25 Health on a 3+ save, you’re shrugging two-thirds of what comes in)

You could spend all day bouncing around different scenarios but long story short, they are very comparable to Megas as an anvil, and then they offer you meaningful shooting on top. I love taking One-Eyed Grunnock in my lists for the Neg 1 to hit aura but I think Cogforts will now edge out Merc Megas in most builds.

Baseline Good Shooting

How much are these things pumping out? Let’s benchmark it against a baseline-good shooting unit like Blissbarb Seekers, which cost 150 for 10 (putting 30 of them at 450 points, bang into Cogfort territory). Those Slaanesh archers are a glass hammer by design, and don’t do much else for your army, so as a starting point I would expect that a similar number of points cranked into Blissbarbs should deliver a lot more pure bang. That would be a fair trade-off given the buffs and durability the Cannonade offers. So how does that shape up to reality?

What we’re looking at here is every unit on their worst day: no All Out Attack, and I haven’t included combat damage since you don’t necessarily want them in melee anyway. The Cogforts would stand to benefit more from AOA than the Archers, since the latter would have to be spread across minimum 2 units.

While it’s hardly one-shotting entire armies, I’m going to say that I’m quite impressed with how the Cannonade in particular holds up to those Archers. The fact that the output is comparable to a glass hammer unit feels great for a durable piece that also does loads for your army. Off to a good start.

A Note on Combat and Counterplay

Both versions have identical combat profiles which you’ll see on their warscrolls below. Don’t be fooled by that Damage 4 – these things are not good in combat.  It’s an eye-catching number but at the end of the day, you’re talking about four attacks hitting on 4s, and that’s got “Whiff” written all over it.

And that’s the best way to deal with them: get them into combat.  Don’t be overly scared of those Damage 4 attacks – they’ll miss with half of them before you even roll for wounds and saves.  They don’t have retreat + shoot and very little shooting in combat, so bog them down and you’ll remove the lion’s share of their output.

Cannonade Cogforts

So the shooty version offers a respectable rate of firepower alongside some interesting buffs. The buff table in Mercenary Attitudes has been crafted to add value to just about every army, so that’s well played by the Devs I reckon:

Now, as always, there are two questions to ask here:

• How can we maximise those buffs?
• And what does it mean for Kragnos?

The one that jumps out straight away is protection from shooting. The big thing to note is that you can’t pick Unique units to be the target, so there’s already an emotional rollercoaster that Kragnos Stans have been riding:

So it’s no good for Kraggy, King Brodd, Ushoran, Terrorgheists or any other Monster that you were hoping to keep nice. That’s a damn shame, so what can we slap that protection bubble on instead?

1. The Cogfort itself.  “I can shoot  you, but you can’t shoot me” is a dick move almost as old as wargaming itself.  And it never gets old (as long as you’re the shooter, not the shootee).
2. On similar lines, an allied Dakka unit like those reinforced Blissbarbs we were talking about.  They might be a better option to protect, if your Cogfort can handle the incoming punishment but they can’t.
3. Any combat glass hammer will enjoy that option – the shadow of the Cogfort can help you march up the field and get into melee without getting shot off.  And if it’s something that punishes you for killing it in combat, there’s a little dollop of extra synergy:
   • Squigs spring to mind, so your opponent is forced to hit them the civilised way and cop 5++ death mortals in return.
   • Similarly any unit with anti-charge tech (like Ardboyz) will appreciate having your opponent funneled towards fighting them.

I reckon the next-best option on that list is adding +10 to your OC, and that will see plenty of play.  It’s also another one that’s great on the Coggy itself, because slamming +10 OC gets you to 20 OC overall, putting you on par with a Mega-Gargant.  That’s kinda nuts, no?

This is particularly important when you remember how little shooting in combat the Cogfort has.  Once you’ve unleashed your payload and planted your feet on an objective, getting bogged down there isn’t the end of the world, because now you can usually control a point for a couple of turns while you’re standing there.  So it really helps the Coggy keep playing directly into your win condition as you progress through the turns.

And on that theme, anything with OC fuckery is going to be a good target for this – bonus points if they’re fast (although they do have to stay in range) and / or tough.  One little combo that I’m gonna enjoy is slapping +15 OC on the Gitmob wolves and stealing an objective you should have no business taking:

Similarly, a single Moonclan Grot under the Bad Moon can count as 17 models on an objective:

• +1 natively
• +1 if it’s carrying a Banner
• +5 for being under Da Bad Moon
• +10 from the Cogfort

So when you’re under Da Moon you can steal an objective from Kragnos, and even outside of that, a lonely Grot can outcap Archaon.  Ladies and gentlement, we’ve circled back to AOS1! A tiny handful of Grots with this buff can even hold a point from a Mega-Gargant.

The Other Options

These five options are not the same and the two we’ve discussed above are the real A-Graders.  Best of the rest is probably +1 to wound which is massive for certain armies: in a shocking turn of events, Aelves and Aelf-adjacents are mostly OP currently, so that 3+ 4+ combat profile is everywhere.  Those armies generally already have some workarounds, but they’re certainly not gonna complain about +1 to wound. 

A knock-on effect of GW’s serial failure to keep Aelves in check is that any armies who do have access to Neg 1 to wound will tend to load up on it, meaning that this +1 to wound becomes a good tool into the broader meta.

Reroll Runs and +1 to Charge are both pretty situational.  I’m not saying you’ll never use them but I do believe that they’re likely to see the least play on the list, and they have the “Friday afternoon” vibe of rules that were rapidly tacked on before the Devs clocked off and went to the pub.  Well, I guess not everything can be super-special and unique. One thing to note is that because the buff lasts right through, you’ll keep that +1 to Charge on your opponent’s turn³, so it works on Countercharge too. That could swing you a game.

Overall Cannonade Verdict: A-Grade

These are a real asset in almost any army.  A durable unit with withering output that can switch gears to become an objective-control beast, just don’t expect them to demolish the opposition in combat and you’ll be grand.

Conqueror Cogforts

The transport option, and note that they do have the same miserly 6” move.  That being said you can also jump out 6” away, for a 12” effective move, so in practice you’ll be looking for that 9” charge on a unit that’s up to 21″ inches away. If you’re looking for an alpha strike (or alpha pin) strat, I’d keep looking elsewhere, but in the normal course of business it does help you get around the table and it’s hitting the 9″ charge that will be the hard part.

So you can protect a unit by holding it off the board, march it up the field and unleash. And when you do, that unit gets +1 damage in combat… I mean, that’s pretty spicy. A couple of things to keep in mind though:

• If your Coggy gets shot off, smashed up or otherwise mercked while the troops are still inside, you’re SOL. You’ve lost your only way to deploy and the stuff that’s inside will be insta-jibbed at the start of your third turn.
• The unit inside cannot be reinforced, which instantly punctures a lot of deathstar dreams.

Getting +1 damage on your units is still pretty nuts though and should really get the Listbuilding juices flowing.  One thing we have to remember is that you can’t buff a unit that’s off the board, meaning they are out of scope for any buff spells and prayers you might have, so all in all there’s a few things we’re looking for to make the most of this one:

1. Bonuses to charge (since you will be minimum 9″ back)
2. Units that have a decent volume of attacks without being reinforced (such as 6x Ogor Gluttons or even 4x Ironguts)
3. Access to buffs that happen after the hero phase, once you’ve already jumped onto the board
4. Bonus points for Infantry Heroes that can fight themselves and / or buff the units they go in with in the combat phase

Auras in general are great here and to give you an example, Moonclan units can pick up an extra attack just for being near Sporesplatta Fanatics. So that’s 61 attacks at Damage 2 on your Stabbas.

Now I know what we’re all thinking…

Yup, Special K is great for helping units to stick those 9” charges, so he’s just generically good with a Conqueror.  But if you don’t play an army that can take Kraggy, well firstly you need to get your life in order, but secondly there’s a nice bit of free tech available to everyone:

If you know your dice maths, you’ll understand immediately how powerful this is.  With a reroll, the chances of hitting a 9” charge go from roughly 1-in-4 to a coin flip⁴ and if you can work in a +1 to charge from somewhere (we’ll come to that soon), then you’re looking at an 8” charge which is a 42% chance without the reroll or an 83% chance with it – almost exactly the same odds as hitting a 2+ on one dice.

You do need a Wizard to cast this thing near themselves in order to increase the time flow, so you can’t chuck it the full 12″ down the board unless you teleport that Wizard first, before casting Cogs. That being said, you can drop it just over 4″ in front of your starting point (with the back of the ~40mm base just within 3″ of the Wizard), and then you do get a 12″ aura around the Cogs themselves which is equal to your 6″ move plus 6″ drop. So it shouldn’t be so restrictive that it’s impossible to use.

I understand that this is starting to become quite a few hoops to jump through, and hitting this big combination is verging more into Johnny play than something truly competitive.  But Aethervoid Pendulum is already good, so if you’re looking for a free Mani lore, then it’s well worth considering because sometimes the stars will align.

And if you want a much simpler universal Manifestation combo, may I present to you the humble Purple Sun? It’s effectively giving all your units +1 rend, which the Conqueror can benefit from while it’s shooting, and then the troops can jump out and join in the party. Even 20 humble Moonclan Stabbas with 61 attacks at Rend 1 Damage 2 is starting to get interesting, no?

Case Study: Ironjawz

Let’s look at one of the armies I play competitively, because it’s what I know. We’ll see what kind of rules are stronger or weaker in conjunction with the Conqueror, and hopefully that will give some good illustrations for how you can use it effectively in other armies too.

Ironjawz in fact are a bit of a rollercoaster:

• “I can load up my Brutes with Crit Mortal from Zoggy and another +1 Damage from the Warchanter!”
• Wait, they’ll be hiding in the Cogfort during the hero phase, so they can’t be the target for those abilities
• Well that sucks

But they still have some important synergy here, since you can pop your Waaagh! in the Charge phase and get +1 to charge on all your units, and then extra attacks all at +1 damage:

The Ironjawz Brawl formation dishes out another set of +1 attacks at +1 damage:

Gordrakk supercharges your Waaagh! so that’s another way to jack up your units after they’ve jumped out:

And as a little bonus, if you can get your Megaboss to land his charge as well as your Brutes, they can fight back-to-back with another +1 attacks:

So after an unpromising start, given that your buffing Spells and Prayers all need to find their target in the Hero phase, there’s actually a fair bit to work with when you’re loaded up in the Cogfort.  You might be able to cook something up where you buff one unit of 10 Brutes with your Warchanter and Zoggy, buff a second of 5 with the Conqueror and fight first with both thanks to the Gougers Rampage (or buffing 6 Ragerz on the table).

Conqueror Verdict: B

While I do think the Dakkafort is better overall, the Conqueror still has its uses and it’s great fun trying to cook up the ultimate combo for easiest charges x maximum damage.

“Ask not what your Cogfort can do for your Army…”

Finally, there’s a few pieces of “Friendly unit” tech that your Cogfort can benefit from.  One that jumps out for Ironjawz is the Hand of Gork teleport: you can chuck these things right across the board and dump your troops 9″ out all the way over there⁵:

Meanwhile in Ogors, you can heal the Cogfort with your Mawpit:

NGL I kinda like the idea of a Gutbusters gunline.  11 years into AOS and those poor Leadbelchers are still waiting for the Devs to write them a functional warscroll⁶ but the Soggy Ironblaster is an absolute menace, and Soggy Scraplaunchers are a competitive staple right now.  You can back it up with a barrage of mortals from the Mawpit and Keening Gale prayer too.  I don’t hate it.

———–

So all in all, I’d say we hit the jackpot here. These warscrolls are a big hit, fun to work with and not so broken that they’ll swarm the game. I prefer the Cannonade overall and that’s the one I’ll be taking in competitive Destro lists, but the Conqueror is still fun to build lists and combos with. I reckon the raw firepower from that Cannonade does quite a bit for most Destruction builds and the output is pretty damn respectable, given that it’s also an anvil and offers some interesting buffs for your army.

I’d say that the points cost are about right too, although maybe the Conqueror might creep down a little, because the gap between the two variants is probably more than 20 points. I’ll close out with a reminder to get involved in our Listbuilding Challenge if you like Cogforts as much as I do:

June ’26 Listbuilding Challenge: Merc Cogforts!

…and meanwhile I’ll get back to painting up my own scratchbuilt Scrapfort.

Have a good weekend, nerds – catch you on the other side.

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1. Like me. ↩︎
2. Also like me. ↩︎
3. Unless you happen to double them after issuing the buff, then it’s your next turn and it resets. ↩︎
4. The odds of hitting 9+ on 2D6 jump from 27% to 48% when you have a reroll. ↩︎
5. But not with the Gloomspite equivalent, which is keyword-locked. ↩︎
6. They never will. ↩︎