Today, I present my interview with Chris Tot, a very well-respected Seraphon player who has shifted his focus to Slaves to Darkness for Masters. Enjoy.
Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness
Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount (General, Lord of Terror, Mark of Tzeentch, Ilodatrous Plackart)
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Chaos Steed, Banner of the Demagogue, Mark of Tzeentch)
Chaos Sorcerer Lord (Chaos Steed, Mark of Tzeentch)
20 Chaos Knights (Mark of Tzeentch, Glaives)
10 Chaos Marauder Horsemen (Mark of Tzeentch, Javelins)
10 Chaos Marauder Horsemen (Mark of Tzeentch, Javelins)
20 Chaos Marauders (Mark of Tzeentch, Axes & Shields)
10 Chaos Marauders (Mark of Tzeentch, Axes & Shields)
10 Chaos Marauders (Mark of Tzeentch, Axes & Shields)
Chaos Warshrine (Mark of Tzeentch)
Warscroll Battalion: Fatesworn Warband
Gabe: Ok, we'll just jump straight into it. Landing in third place on the overall rankings for the tournament season, is there one army that you can credit with you final position or did you jump between a few different armies?
Chris: Umm, so two of my ranked games were Seraphon, and one was with Slaves to Darkness, but all three were really different armies. Redland City GT was Slaves to Darkness; that was my most recent big tournament. One Seraphon event was using the Dread Saurian, which was a real game changer for my army. The other event, I was actually using a triple Carnosaur list.
G: Right, that's a bit different! Usually when you hear Seraphon, you think of all the wizards and big blocks of infantry. You don't see that many Carnosaurs in Brisbane. Certainly not three, but obviously it's performed well for you.
C: No, I think I'm one of the only people I know that runs Carnosaurs.
G: You rate them pretty highly, then?
C: I do but not for damage, which is a weird sentence to say, but do you know the rule "Blood Roar"?
G: Can't say I'm too familiar, no.
C: So, every time an unit within 8" of a Carnosaur takes a Battleshock test, I roll a dice, and if I beat you, you lose D3 models from the unit. So, I love fighting Ironjawz or Varanguard, or things of that sort, because my Skinks shoot, and my Carnosaur doesn't even have to be in combat to make them run away.
G: Oh gosh, that doesn't stack does it? If a unit is within 8" of all three Carnosaurs, do they all Roar?
C: Ha, no unfortunately. That was the first thing I checked when I first read the rule. I bought a Start Collecting Box and built it as a Carnosaur, and my first game was against Ironjaws. He killed one pig and the other two ran away, and I was like "Oh my gosh, this is amazing!".
G: Definitely. So, can I ask, was it a tough decision going into Masters whether you went with Seraphon or Slaves to Darkness?
C: I think it was. But what made the decision for me was transport. So, the only reason I'm not bringing Seraphon with me is because I did not want to risk a Dread Saurian on an aeroplane. Umm, eventually, I'm going to get around to pins and magnets and stuff so that I can take him apart and put him together, but thats a 'Future Chris" sort of problem. So, when it came down to practicality, it was pretty one sided, but in regards to what army I'd prefer to be playing with, it's definitely Seraphon.
G: You could say Slaves are a bit of a back up option in this case?
C: Yeah, I think so.
G: Alright, well, let's talk about your Slaves to Darkness list. Probably the biggest thing that jumps out is the massive unit of knights. Was there ever a question in your mind about sinking such a huge number of points into the one big unit?
C: Umm, yes and no. Initially, this list was a bit of a joke. I originally wrote the list with a big block of thirty knights in a 2500 point list, and was like "Oh, guys, how cool would it be if I ran this!" to my mates. I had Archaon on his horse back when that existed, two Chaos Lords on Daemonic Mounts, and a whole bunch of other stuff to buff them, but that list kind of died in the last Handbook. I played a list with twenty knights at RCGT, which was 2.5k, and I just really enjoyed playing with them. And it was really weird and fun to play with, because it has such a big table presence for a low model count army.
G: And it's quite an uncommon unit as well. I haven't seen Knights do really well in the times that I've seen them on the table. Usually, they're only units of five or ten, and if they can't smash off what they're fighting quickly, they just get bogged down in a battle of attrition. I'm fascinated to see a unit of twenty go at it with support, because it's a cool unit!
C: Yeah, I dunno, I don't particularly build lists to do a huge amount of damage. I've built this one to survive long enough to win on objectives. Do you know what the Fatesworn Warband does?
G: I'm vaguely familiar with it.
C: Yeah, so I have to bring nine Mortal Tzeentch units and a Mortal Tzeentch hero. So, that why I have the ten units in my army to make it a nice old "One Drop". So what it lets me do, is every weapon in the army becomes Rend -1. So, if it has no rend, it gets a point of rend on it. That's on horse attacks, marauder steed attacks, everything. It's a pretty handy thing to be in the army.
G: Does that benefit weapons that already have Rend?
C: No, so it only affects weapons with Rend -. The other thing it does is, every unit that comes in a multiple of nine, which is all of my Battleline with models dropping to make eighteen knights, nine marauders, so on, gets a 6+ Ward Save. Just, all the time. Every time I take a wound, I get a save. As long as I deploy a unit of nine or eighteen, I get that save for the whole battle. So, those two things, the big unit of knights and the formation, is what I built the whole list around, basically just to survive long enough to get me the win.
G: I noticed you've also got a Warshrine in there. Is that doubling down on those mortal wound saves?
C: Yeah, so when I built this list, all the Marauders were Warriors of Chaos. Three units of nine of them, because in the old handbook, everything was slightly more expensive for STD. And that was almost 2.5k. And the idea behind it was anything that could sit on an objective had at least two saves all the time. So, thats what I built the entire list around.
G: Do you feel like there's anything that you would have loved to have in this list that just wouldn't fit? A unit or hero that would have just made that combo pop to another level?
C: A War Mammoth. I would have loved to fit a Chaos War Mammoth in the list as well. If i took out all my Marauders and dropped the formation, I could have fit him in, but I couldn't get my hands on a model in time. Because a Mammoth and twenty knights would have been terrifying to run at people. Like, "pick which one you want to be annihilated by!". Because, one of them is going to reach you.
G: I was curious, is there a reason that you left out Sayl the Faithless, even outside of the Fatesworn?
C: No, so he's not Tzeentch, so he can't be part of the Fatesworn. And he doesn't actually speed the Knights up that much. I don't think I need him in this list at all, because of how I've built the list is to not be doing much in the first turn. My goal is for my opponent to go first, not do a lot, maybe move up toward the centre of the board. Then I'd like to line my knights up 3" away and charge as many units as I can with them. And they survive until turn three. In most scenarios, if I've held objectives until turn three, I've won the game anyway.
G: You talk about armies not doing much in turn one. Are you concerned about Alpha Strike armies? Lists that can get across the table in one turn and hit you?
C: No. Yes and no. I think I've got enough chaff that if I come up against another one drop army with a good alpha strike, I'll simply deploy really defensively. I don't particularly care if twenty seven marauders die, you know? But again, if I know that someone has a decent alpha strike army, I'll always take turn one, to get all my buffs off and get so spread out that most of the time, they can't really fit anywhere except their front face anyway.
G: Would you say there's a worst and best scenario for your army? Any scenarios where you go into it, knowing that it's going to be an uphill battle?
C: Ah, yep. Three Places of Power and Duality of Death. I've learnt the hard way that a Sorcerer Lord with five wounds and a 5+ save against nine Jezzails only goes one way. It was game two at RCGT against one of my best friends. Turn one, he put five shots into my Sorcerer Lord, four into the other. Killed both of them. Round two, nine shots into Lord on Daemonic mount. Killed him on the dot. And then he won the game in Three Places of Power 1-0, after I tabled him after that. Yeah so, those scenarios are a real struggle. The advantage is that my Warshrine is big enough to block line of sight, so not only is it hard to see him, but the shrine is also giving him another save! Startstrike is another really tough one for me, purely because twenty knights can't be everywhere at once. And if I get two objectives dropping on one side of the board and the third on the other, I just can't get to that third one, ever.
G: Is there a scenario in particular that suits your army perfectly? Where if it gets called out, you'll just be thinking, "Yes, this is my moment."?
C:Yeah, I'd love to go into Knife to the Heart, because I'm all Battleline. 18" away from each other with a 10" move, let's go!
G: Wow, that's interesting to hear! Usually, that's the scenario that make or break people's run at the podium, because armies either have the capability to get the major win or they don't. So, yeah, I'm surprised to hear that, but I guess it's a testament to the list and to Slaves at the moment!
C: Yeah, well, also I have thirty six Chaos Marauders that sit on one objective, all with at least a mortal wound save, across three units that sit on my home objective. Then thirty six horses running at you with all the heroes. Like, I'm gonna be hitting you quite hard. And because all Battleline deploys 18" away, all of my Battleline is gonna be hitting you straight away, and with a one drop army, theres nothing you can really do other than hope that your chaff survives long enough. So that's definitely my best ones. Probably the other one is Battle for the Pass. Because my knights take up the entire board.
G: Is there an answer in your list for something like a Star Drake or one of those "big bad" units?
C: Against a Stardrake, I think my only option if to win on objectives. I think that's the only way I beat a list like that. Because I can't reach. Like, I just can't do it. I just get picked apart and pinned down by the creatures. And if I try and fight it, I think I'll kill myself before I kill it. Yeah, and so what I found is the best option is to not attack at all. Just sit there, take the damage, accept it as what's happened and then retreat out of combat. And either that monster follows me, in which case my 680 points has become obsolete to a Stardrake's 500+ points, and I consider that, all things considered, a relatively even trade. Considering my knights can be fighting multiple things at once, whereas a Star Drake is just one model. And when my Knights have a board presence of 48" when I line them up, they have a far bigger impact on the board than a single model does.
G: Is there an Allegiance or a list that you really don't want to face? Say, you're at Master's and you can veto having to fight one list, what would it be? Would that be Stormcast?
C: It would actually be Tim Macdivitt's list, yeah. Because I've built this army to combat shooting armies; things like a double Kunnin' Rukk list, Kharadron Overlords, those sort of "I'll table you" types of armies, and I've built it to counter that. I've built it to deal with a Mortal-wound-heavy Tzeentch style list as well, because both of those tend to have either a lot of shots that don't do any rend, in which case my 3+, 3+, 5+, 6+, 6+ should handle it, or its mortal wounds wounds where I still get multiple saves. And something like twenty mortal wounds is not that significant to my army. Because, the Knights have 54 wounds with three saves against it.
G: Which is more than what a lot of people can say.
C: Yeah, so a Skryre pop up army, the double Gautfyre build; I theory crafted, and if 15 Stormfiends do all 6's for their warp fire projectors, I still have four knights alive. And then, considering averages for rolls and averages for all the saves, I'll theoretically lose 7 knights to that first onslaught. Yeah, then eleven Knights get to hammer back into units that are actually very squishy.
G: Yeah, because once you actually start punching on with Stormfiends, they can go down pretty hard against certain units.
C: Yep. What I was finding was that twenty Skinks will get into three storm fiends in combat, and actually come out on top. It feels like it shouldn't be happening, because they're skinks!
G: I'll ask, going into Masters, do you have a personal goal? Are you looking for the top spot, are you looking to win more than you lose, is there an ideal spot you'd like to finish?
C: Look, I think everyone attending would love to say that their ideal finish would be 1st place, that goes without saying. A realistic finish? I'd love to say top five. I'd be really happy with top five, considering the quality of players going. The other thing, probably, and it goes without saying is, to have five good games. Like, I know all the guys going up and almost all of them are just absolute legends, and I've played most of them before, and they've been fun games. So, I'd love to just relive those really fun memories. Yeah.
G: And if you can't pick yourself, who do you think will win Masters? If you had to put five bucks on it...
C: Five whole dollars! Haha, I can afford that. Ah, thats a really tough question. Look, there's definitely someone I'd like to see win, and that's Dan Brewer with his Skaven. He plays a non-Skryre, rare army, and I'd love to see an off-radar army like that win. Or, whoever comes in and just makes a clean sweep of the event. I'd love to see Clint playing for the win! I can just imagine Jesse's face. Those are the two people that I'd love to see win. In all seriousness, I'd vote Dan. But I think it would be hilarious to see Clint win.
G: Wouldn't that be a fairytale finish. Well, mate. That pretty much wraps up everything I had to ask you. I've got to say, it's definitely a list I wasn't expecting to see. It's been not a bizarre mix, but definitely a very eclectic mix of lists attending the event this year.
C: Yeah, I think looking at my list, obviously I can see very clearly what I've designed it to do, where often people look at it and see the opposite. They see twenty knights and think "Oh, that's a lot of damage". But I see twenty knights, and think "That'll last four turns". They're Bravery 11, when they have the Sorcerer Lord around. Both sorcerers are on horseback, so they pretty much stalk my unit of knights, because they have the same movement as them.
G: Here's the hardest question of all. Will you have everything painted by the event?
C: So, I've painted everything except my Marauders. And my Marauders… I'm so unmotivated to do them.
G: Are they the actual Marauder models or are you using acolytes?
C: No, they're the actual Marauder sculpts.
G: Oh, no!
C: Yeah, what I want to do eventually when I get them painted, is to use them as Acolytes just to annoy everyone.
G: Yes! Because you see it a lot done the other way round, where people use Acolytes as Marauders, because the models are just so far superior in quality. I remember when I first got into the hobby, and I thought the Marauder models were amazing, but they are reeeaaally starting to show their age! A whole unit of tanked-up, roided, He-Man-looking bros!
C: Yeah. I have the Marauders about 70% painted. I haven't done any proper highlighting on them yet. Haven't done any freehand on them either, which is something that I've done with a lot of my stuff. A lot of converting and free hand; I've gone to a lot of effort with this army. Like, my Chaos Warshrine was converted using the Great Beast of Gorgoroth, which is a Lord of the Rings model. And so, it's very different to what people are used to. I've gone all out to make the army look really nice. And so, in my mind, I would love the get all of the Marauders up to that standard as well. I mean, they're already at six or seven colours, and are table-top ready, but I would feel like I'm cheating myself if I did!
G: Well, mate. I hope that Master's is a great event, hope you do well, and can't wait to see the results!
C: Yeah, thank you heaps for this, mate.
G: Thank you for taking time out of your evening for me mate, I know it's a busy time of year, so I appreciate that. Appreciate you setting aside time and giving me half an hour of your life. But we'll wrap it up there, mate. Thanks again and have a good one.
C: Cheers, bye.
Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interview. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 December 2017
Sunday, 26 November 2017
#110: Masters Class 17 - Matt Gammie Bonesplitters Interview
I had the pleasure of interviewing a good friend of mine, Gammie, as he heads into Australian Age of Sigmar Masters 2017. I'll post his list for context and then move straight into the interview. Enjoy :)
Maniak Weirdnob
Maniak Weirdnob
Savage Big Boss
Wurrgog Prophet
10 Savage Boarboy Maniaks
10 Savage Boarboy Maniaks
30 Savage Orruk Arrowboys
10 Savage Orruk Arrowboys
4 Savage Big Stabbas
Kunnin' Rukk
Gabe: Well, thanks for taking time out of your evening to chat, mate! So, I'll kick things off by asking what your position was in the final rankings? 19th?
Matt: So I finished in twentieth place. Another guy beat me just before rankings finished.
G: Pipped you to the post? Spewing. So what armies got you to masters. Was there a particular event or allegiance that really got you to where you are today?
M: I'd definitely say that Bonesplitters got me there. So, I registered four ranked events, umm, and of those four, three of them were Bonesplitters and one were with Wanderers, but Splitters were my highest placings. I got third in a tournament in Toowoomba a couple of months ago, and came in at number twelve at Briscon. I also took them to Redland City GT, so they definitely got me in there.
G: Righto.Was that the influence between taking Splitters over Wanderers to Masters?
M: Oh, definitely! I had a couple of practice games with the Wanderers with all of their Allegiance Abilities, and they just don't have the staying power against those higher-powered lists at the moment, as they are very nuke-heavy, and theres a lot of anti-"horde-meta" ways of mortal wounding, particularly with armies like Tzeentch. I've got no saves against mortal wounds with Wanderers, so they dissolve pretty quickly.
G: Was there a minute there, when they got the new Allegiance Abilities that you thought you might make the jump?
M: Definitely! Definitely! They actually were the only army that I've played consistently in the new General's Handbook. I've only played one game with Splitters since the handbook dropped. The Bonesplitters have changed a little bit with their points adjustments, so you can't fit as much as what you used to.
G: Is that mostly to do with Battalions?
M: Yep, so I used to run the Icebone Warclan with the Kunnin' Rukk, and I used to be able to fit everything quite comfortably into 2000 points, but now I can only really fit one or the other.
G: Ah ok, and Kunnin' Rukk is naturally the go-to out of the two of them.
M: Definitely. I actually think people are starting to gradually move away from Kunnin' Rukk these days. People know how to deal with it if the person isn't a very good general and can't hide their war boss well enough.
G: Fair point. Alright, well, do you want to quickly go through your artefacts and spells then?
M: So, I'll go through the Artefacts and then the spells, as it will make a heap of sense regarding the combos. What I run is the Dok Juice on the Savage Orruk Warboss. So what that is, is you roll a dice in the hero phase, and you can drink it. On a 1, you suffer a mortal wound, on a 2-5 you heal D3 wounds, and on a 6, you heal D6 wounds. And he can do that every hero phase.
G: And that's purely to keep him alive for the Rukk?
M: Yep, absolutely. Then, because I have a Battalion, my second artefact is the Mystic Waaagh Paint which goes on the Wurrgog Prophet, which basically means he can unbind two spells a turn.
G: And is the Wurrgog Prophet your general?
M: No, so the Warboss is the general so that I can run his ability to generate extra attacks.
G: Ah, gotcha. I thought you might have gone for the double pile in command ability.
M: Yeah, I've actually looked at running that in another list with the Icebone Warclan, because you can charge the Boarboys in the Hero phase, and also do the Wurrgog's pile in.
G: Ah, that's pretty cool!
M: It can take out some key sort of things, and get a few more pile ins. So, that's another list that I've been playing around with. So, with the spells that I'm running, both Maniak Weirdnobs actually have Hand of Gork on them, only because they've got their signature spells, which is re-roll ones, but it's handy being able to chop and change as I need them. Then I've got the Brutal Beast Spirit on the Wurrgog, which buffs really nicely with the Savage Boarboys!
G: Now, I'm assuming that the big Arrow Boy unit puts in most of the work, but do you put a fair bit of stock in the lifting power of the Maniaks?
M: Yeah, definitely. I actually think that the boars with the same buffs as the Arrowboys will do more damage than the Arrowboys will. They have four attacks with each model, so that's forty attacks from a unit of ten. You're hitting on 3's with the +1 to hit on them, re-rolling ones to hit as well, if you're in range of one of the Weirdnobs, and then generating extra attacks on 5's which is the riders as well as the boys. Plus they get the double pile in, so they can get up to 80 attacks in a turn, and then generate another 1/3 of their attacks from the triggers. Plus you can Hand of Gork them and fly over stuff, which makes them a bit more of a threat than Arrowboys. I think Arrowboys are a bit restrictive with how they play.
G: Hand of Gork would be your cheeky little movement trick in the bag for this army then?
M: Correct. Because it is a pretty slow moving army on the table. My fastest unit is the boars at 9", and while the army gets across the board, I'd rather have something that can fly up and do a bit of damage first as the horde moves up.
G: Sort of calling the shots on where and how you start interacting with your opponent's army, then.
M: Yep, and I definitely think that the boars create a nice screen for the arrow boys as well. A lot of people tend to avoid the boars.
G: And you've also got that little ten man unit of Arror Boys?
M: Yeah, so they fill the other requirement of the Kunnin' Rukk, but an extra ten Arrow Boys never hurt anyone. So, typically they will either sit on objectives, or act as a screen to protect a more valuable unit. But I like them because they can sit on an objective and still have an impact on the game. In another list I was toying with, I dropped the Big Stabbas and ran a unit of twenty Savages, but they just don't have the staying power and Bravery, and they just kind of disappear too quickly.
G: While we're on that, I did want to talk about the unit of four Big Stabbas. That is… some would say unconventional? Can you explain a bit of your thought process behind the inclusion of such a big unit of them?
M: Yeah, well, I've been listening to a fair few of the podcasts from England at the moment, and one of them was saying that Big Stabbas seem to be the hidden gem of the Bonesplitters at the moment, and I tend to agree with them. But a lot of people kind of ignore them, because they ask what they do, you tell them, and they just see them as a little damage output unit. I've been talking to Dave (Kerr) a bit, because he wants to start Bonesplitters, and we wrote up a list with eight.
G: A single unit of eight?
M: Yeah, a single unit. We looked into it, because he's got some spare Big Stabbas as well, but decided to go with the Maniaks in my Masters list, because it's the list I have been running, and I feel much more comfortable using them.
G: So the unit of Big Stabbas, are they pretty much just going to be running at the biggest thing they can find?
M: I'm looking at pointing them in the direction of things that won't die to Arrow Boys. The biggest issue with Bonesplitters is their lack of high rend and mortal wound output, unless you're running the Big Wurrgog Mask, but then you have a potential of wounding yourself and dying. So, for me, the Big Stabbas kind of provide that high rend source of damage. At Rend -2, they provide an answer to a lot of things. And Damage 3 per attack means that they're gonna be putting out some hurt. I've even thought about buffing the Big Stabbas instead of the Boarboys unit, and throwing them into something.
G: See, I was always under the impression that you kind of buy Big Stabbas because of the mortal wounds they kick out when they go down, but looking at them, the attack profile is actually pretty scary!
M: Yeah. When you're facing down against stuff like Stardrakes, which you're almost guaranteed to see at Masters, I think they're the threat to those kinds of terrifying models. Im not adverse to putting them behind a unit of Arrow Boys or boars, and sacrificing the screen unit to get the charge, because they do an extra D3 damage with each of their attacks against monsters. They're my answer to those super units. And you know, I think with the new GHB, you're going to see a lot more monsters on the table, because they're cheaper and you can ally them in much easier.
G: Yeah, thats one thing I've really enjoyed about the Allies system, is it brings in units that you'd otherwise never see! Like Giants; you never saw Giants, whereas now they're a plug & play unit!
M: Well, funny you should say that. I've got a list at the moment with a hundred and twenty Morboys in it, and a Giant allied in. And basically, their special rule is that when a Monster dies on the board, they all get +1 to hit,
G: Oh, so you sacrifice the Giant?
M: Yeah, so you just throw the giant in, and let him die! It's a bit of a funny list that functions differently, but it's a lot of fun.
G: Now, with allies, I know that you were play testing with a unit of six Gore-Gruntas for a variety of reasons, being less susceptible to Battleshock and such. Is there a reason that you decided against taking them?
M: I play tested them a little bit, and they're not as reliable as you would think a unit like that would be in regards to damage output. They're more of a defensive unit with a big footprint. Giving them a 3+ save with thirty wounds is nice, but they don't get the buffs from any of the spells. Bonesplitters do really well at just buffing other Splitters, so I actually found that ten boar boys was far more comfortable, because I know their limitations. I think I overestimated the staying power of Gore Gruntas a bit. They were still dying in droves, and I didn't really want to take a half cooked list to Masters. It's not really the environment to take an untempered list over a well oiled one.
G: Running a horde army, do you have concerns about the clock? Having played Bonesplitters enough, is it one of those things that you can compensate for now with good head knowledge and familiarity of the army?
M: Yeah, when GHB first came out, I started using Kunnin' Rukk and learning how to play it without "cheating", if that makes sense. A lot of times, you're rolling such a huge number of dice, that your opponent can lose track of what you're doing and what can be re-rolled and so on and so forth, so I've gotten into the habit of explaining every batch of dice as I roll it, so that there's no confusion and my opponent can't be mistaken into thinking that I'm bending any rules. So, I count out all my dice, roll them, re-rol the ones, pick out the misses… there's a system there, similar to your Nurgle Rat-Bros. It's about working through a set of steps. A lot of people complained about Kunnin' Rukk for a long time with two units of forty Arrow Boys, and it was slow and it was not fun to play against. Even now, you can still come up against double Kunnin' Rukk, but you're just not gonna have fun with that kind of list. I think the age of the Kunnin' Rukk is dying. I think people have realised that if they go balls to the wall into a unit of thirty Arrow Boys, they'll remove it. It doesn't have the staying power. A lot of people overestimate how good big units of Arrow Boys are in combat, which sometimes works to my favour, but I think that once people realise how quickly they crumble, it stops being as scary.
G: Do you think that there is an Achilles Heel match up for you? Any allegiance or list that you really think will be an up-hill battle?
M: Stormcast, definitely. I played against Tim (McDivett) at RCGT, and I kind of played the game in mind of "Let's fight for a draw" instead of going for a win, and I made a silly mistake which gave his Stardrake enough room to get into an objective. But yeah, Stormcast are definitely the ones that I'm most worried about. Tzeentch has a great amount of mortal wound output against large units, but I get a save against mortal wounds and I can make a big unit immune to Battleshock, but against a Mirror Shield Stardrake, my Arrow Boys are useless. Even if I buff them, they can hit on 6's without generating extra attacks, and then what often happens is that the Stardrake will heal more wounds than I inflict.
G: Looking at the GHB17 scenarios, do you feel that there is a best and worst scenario for your army?
M: I think the ones that sit really well for Bonesplitters is Duality of Death and Battle for the Pass, where you've got objectives in the middle of the table, whereas Knife to the Heart and Scorched Earth are probably a little bit trickier. I think in Scorched Earth, Splitters have to burn objectives as they go, because if they sit and try and hold, anything that hits them back is just going to kill them.
G: Going into Masters, you're obviously pretty stoked with having made it from outside the top sixteen ranked players in the country. Do you have any personal goals leading into the event? Where would you like to finish, a win-loss ratio, and so on?
M: With the five games, I would not mind having more wins than losses. I'd love to get three wins. I know that in Masters, thats probably not going to happen, because theres some really solid players bringing some really scary lists, but who knows. I don't want to finish last, but if it happens it happens. I'm currently in last place if you look at the ranks, so anything above 16th place would be great.
G: And if you had to predict a winner (and you can't pick yourself), who do you think is going to take out AOS Masters 2017?
M: I reckon Tim McDivett is in with a chance with it. He's got a really well-oiled Stormcast list that he's been playing for a long time, and he plays the game really well. It'd be really nice to see him win it. I think Luke Taylor is probably the overall favourite, but it's Masters. You're looking at the best players in the country, and at the end of the day, someone has to win and someone has to lose. I'm genuinely not even sure who could take it out. It's anyone's game. Everyone I've talked to is bringing rock-solid lists, and I think the victor will be whoever makes the least mistakes on the day and has a little bit of good luck from the dice!
G: Well, mate. That pretty much wraps it up! Thanks for taking time out of your evening to chat, and I wish you the best at Masters!
M: Thanks.
Maniak Weirdnob
Maniak Weirdnob
Savage Big Boss
Wurrgog Prophet
10 Savage Boarboy Maniaks
10 Savage Boarboy Maniaks
30 Savage Orruk Arrowboys
10 Savage Orruk Arrowboys
4 Savage Big Stabbas
Kunnin' Rukk
Gabe: Well, thanks for taking time out of your evening to chat, mate! So, I'll kick things off by asking what your position was in the final rankings? 19th?
Matt: So I finished in twentieth place. Another guy beat me just before rankings finished.
G: Pipped you to the post? Spewing. So what armies got you to masters. Was there a particular event or allegiance that really got you to where you are today?
M: I'd definitely say that Bonesplitters got me there. So, I registered four ranked events, umm, and of those four, three of them were Bonesplitters and one were with Wanderers, but Splitters were my highest placings. I got third in a tournament in Toowoomba a couple of months ago, and came in at number twelve at Briscon. I also took them to Redland City GT, so they definitely got me in there.
G: Righto.Was that the influence between taking Splitters over Wanderers to Masters?
M: Oh, definitely! I had a couple of practice games with the Wanderers with all of their Allegiance Abilities, and they just don't have the staying power against those higher-powered lists at the moment, as they are very nuke-heavy, and theres a lot of anti-"horde-meta" ways of mortal wounding, particularly with armies like Tzeentch. I've got no saves against mortal wounds with Wanderers, so they dissolve pretty quickly.
G: Was there a minute there, when they got the new Allegiance Abilities that you thought you might make the jump?
M: Definitely! Definitely! They actually were the only army that I've played consistently in the new General's Handbook. I've only played one game with Splitters since the handbook dropped. The Bonesplitters have changed a little bit with their points adjustments, so you can't fit as much as what you used to.
G: Is that mostly to do with Battalions?
M: Yep, so I used to run the Icebone Warclan with the Kunnin' Rukk, and I used to be able to fit everything quite comfortably into 2000 points, but now I can only really fit one or the other.
G: Ah ok, and Kunnin' Rukk is naturally the go-to out of the two of them.
M: Definitely. I actually think people are starting to gradually move away from Kunnin' Rukk these days. People know how to deal with it if the person isn't a very good general and can't hide their war boss well enough.
G: Fair point. Alright, well, do you want to quickly go through your artefacts and spells then?
M: So, I'll go through the Artefacts and then the spells, as it will make a heap of sense regarding the combos. What I run is the Dok Juice on the Savage Orruk Warboss. So what that is, is you roll a dice in the hero phase, and you can drink it. On a 1, you suffer a mortal wound, on a 2-5 you heal D3 wounds, and on a 6, you heal D6 wounds. And he can do that every hero phase.
G: And that's purely to keep him alive for the Rukk?
M: Yep, absolutely. Then, because I have a Battalion, my second artefact is the Mystic Waaagh Paint which goes on the Wurrgog Prophet, which basically means he can unbind two spells a turn.
G: And is the Wurrgog Prophet your general?
M: No, so the Warboss is the general so that I can run his ability to generate extra attacks.
G: Ah, gotcha. I thought you might have gone for the double pile in command ability.
M: Yeah, I've actually looked at running that in another list with the Icebone Warclan, because you can charge the Boarboys in the Hero phase, and also do the Wurrgog's pile in.
G: Ah, that's pretty cool!
M: It can take out some key sort of things, and get a few more pile ins. So, that's another list that I've been playing around with. So, with the spells that I'm running, both Maniak Weirdnobs actually have Hand of Gork on them, only because they've got their signature spells, which is re-roll ones, but it's handy being able to chop and change as I need them. Then I've got the Brutal Beast Spirit on the Wurrgog, which buffs really nicely with the Savage Boarboys!
G: Now, I'm assuming that the big Arrow Boy unit puts in most of the work, but do you put a fair bit of stock in the lifting power of the Maniaks?
M: Yeah, definitely. I actually think that the boars with the same buffs as the Arrowboys will do more damage than the Arrowboys will. They have four attacks with each model, so that's forty attacks from a unit of ten. You're hitting on 3's with the +1 to hit on them, re-rolling ones to hit as well, if you're in range of one of the Weirdnobs, and then generating extra attacks on 5's which is the riders as well as the boys. Plus they get the double pile in, so they can get up to 80 attacks in a turn, and then generate another 1/3 of their attacks from the triggers. Plus you can Hand of Gork them and fly over stuff, which makes them a bit more of a threat than Arrowboys. I think Arrowboys are a bit restrictive with how they play.
G: Hand of Gork would be your cheeky little movement trick in the bag for this army then?
M: Correct. Because it is a pretty slow moving army on the table. My fastest unit is the boars at 9", and while the army gets across the board, I'd rather have something that can fly up and do a bit of damage first as the horde moves up.
G: Sort of calling the shots on where and how you start interacting with your opponent's army, then.
M: Yep, and I definitely think that the boars create a nice screen for the arrow boys as well. A lot of people tend to avoid the boars.
G: And you've also got that little ten man unit of Arror Boys?
M: Yeah, so they fill the other requirement of the Kunnin' Rukk, but an extra ten Arrow Boys never hurt anyone. So, typically they will either sit on objectives, or act as a screen to protect a more valuable unit. But I like them because they can sit on an objective and still have an impact on the game. In another list I was toying with, I dropped the Big Stabbas and ran a unit of twenty Savages, but they just don't have the staying power and Bravery, and they just kind of disappear too quickly.
G: While we're on that, I did want to talk about the unit of four Big Stabbas. That is… some would say unconventional? Can you explain a bit of your thought process behind the inclusion of such a big unit of them?
M: Yeah, well, I've been listening to a fair few of the podcasts from England at the moment, and one of them was saying that Big Stabbas seem to be the hidden gem of the Bonesplitters at the moment, and I tend to agree with them. But a lot of people kind of ignore them, because they ask what they do, you tell them, and they just see them as a little damage output unit. I've been talking to Dave (Kerr) a bit, because he wants to start Bonesplitters, and we wrote up a list with eight.
G: A single unit of eight?
M: Yeah, a single unit. We looked into it, because he's got some spare Big Stabbas as well, but decided to go with the Maniaks in my Masters list, because it's the list I have been running, and I feel much more comfortable using them.
G: So the unit of Big Stabbas, are they pretty much just going to be running at the biggest thing they can find?
M: I'm looking at pointing them in the direction of things that won't die to Arrow Boys. The biggest issue with Bonesplitters is their lack of high rend and mortal wound output, unless you're running the Big Wurrgog Mask, but then you have a potential of wounding yourself and dying. So, for me, the Big Stabbas kind of provide that high rend source of damage. At Rend -2, they provide an answer to a lot of things. And Damage 3 per attack means that they're gonna be putting out some hurt. I've even thought about buffing the Big Stabbas instead of the Boarboys unit, and throwing them into something.
G: See, I was always under the impression that you kind of buy Big Stabbas because of the mortal wounds they kick out when they go down, but looking at them, the attack profile is actually pretty scary!
M: Yeah. When you're facing down against stuff like Stardrakes, which you're almost guaranteed to see at Masters, I think they're the threat to those kinds of terrifying models. Im not adverse to putting them behind a unit of Arrow Boys or boars, and sacrificing the screen unit to get the charge, because they do an extra D3 damage with each of their attacks against monsters. They're my answer to those super units. And you know, I think with the new GHB, you're going to see a lot more monsters on the table, because they're cheaper and you can ally them in much easier.
G: Yeah, thats one thing I've really enjoyed about the Allies system, is it brings in units that you'd otherwise never see! Like Giants; you never saw Giants, whereas now they're a plug & play unit!
M: Well, funny you should say that. I've got a list at the moment with a hundred and twenty Morboys in it, and a Giant allied in. And basically, their special rule is that when a Monster dies on the board, they all get +1 to hit,
G: Oh, so you sacrifice the Giant?
M: Yeah, so you just throw the giant in, and let him die! It's a bit of a funny list that functions differently, but it's a lot of fun.
G: Now, with allies, I know that you were play testing with a unit of six Gore-Gruntas for a variety of reasons, being less susceptible to Battleshock and such. Is there a reason that you decided against taking them?
M: I play tested them a little bit, and they're not as reliable as you would think a unit like that would be in regards to damage output. They're more of a defensive unit with a big footprint. Giving them a 3+ save with thirty wounds is nice, but they don't get the buffs from any of the spells. Bonesplitters do really well at just buffing other Splitters, so I actually found that ten boar boys was far more comfortable, because I know their limitations. I think I overestimated the staying power of Gore Gruntas a bit. They were still dying in droves, and I didn't really want to take a half cooked list to Masters. It's not really the environment to take an untempered list over a well oiled one.
G: Running a horde army, do you have concerns about the clock? Having played Bonesplitters enough, is it one of those things that you can compensate for now with good head knowledge and familiarity of the army?
M: Yeah, when GHB first came out, I started using Kunnin' Rukk and learning how to play it without "cheating", if that makes sense. A lot of times, you're rolling such a huge number of dice, that your opponent can lose track of what you're doing and what can be re-rolled and so on and so forth, so I've gotten into the habit of explaining every batch of dice as I roll it, so that there's no confusion and my opponent can't be mistaken into thinking that I'm bending any rules. So, I count out all my dice, roll them, re-rol the ones, pick out the misses… there's a system there, similar to your Nurgle Rat-Bros. It's about working through a set of steps. A lot of people complained about Kunnin' Rukk for a long time with two units of forty Arrow Boys, and it was slow and it was not fun to play against. Even now, you can still come up against double Kunnin' Rukk, but you're just not gonna have fun with that kind of list. I think the age of the Kunnin' Rukk is dying. I think people have realised that if they go balls to the wall into a unit of thirty Arrow Boys, they'll remove it. It doesn't have the staying power. A lot of people overestimate how good big units of Arrow Boys are in combat, which sometimes works to my favour, but I think that once people realise how quickly they crumble, it stops being as scary.
G: Do you think that there is an Achilles Heel match up for you? Any allegiance or list that you really think will be an up-hill battle?
M: Stormcast, definitely. I played against Tim (McDivett) at RCGT, and I kind of played the game in mind of "Let's fight for a draw" instead of going for a win, and I made a silly mistake which gave his Stardrake enough room to get into an objective. But yeah, Stormcast are definitely the ones that I'm most worried about. Tzeentch has a great amount of mortal wound output against large units, but I get a save against mortal wounds and I can make a big unit immune to Battleshock, but against a Mirror Shield Stardrake, my Arrow Boys are useless. Even if I buff them, they can hit on 6's without generating extra attacks, and then what often happens is that the Stardrake will heal more wounds than I inflict.
G: Looking at the GHB17 scenarios, do you feel that there is a best and worst scenario for your army?
M: I think the ones that sit really well for Bonesplitters is Duality of Death and Battle for the Pass, where you've got objectives in the middle of the table, whereas Knife to the Heart and Scorched Earth are probably a little bit trickier. I think in Scorched Earth, Splitters have to burn objectives as they go, because if they sit and try and hold, anything that hits them back is just going to kill them.
G: Going into Masters, you're obviously pretty stoked with having made it from outside the top sixteen ranked players in the country. Do you have any personal goals leading into the event? Where would you like to finish, a win-loss ratio, and so on?
M: With the five games, I would not mind having more wins than losses. I'd love to get three wins. I know that in Masters, thats probably not going to happen, because theres some really solid players bringing some really scary lists, but who knows. I don't want to finish last, but if it happens it happens. I'm currently in last place if you look at the ranks, so anything above 16th place would be great.
G: And if you had to predict a winner (and you can't pick yourself), who do you think is going to take out AOS Masters 2017?
M: I reckon Tim McDivett is in with a chance with it. He's got a really well-oiled Stormcast list that he's been playing for a long time, and he plays the game really well. It'd be really nice to see him win it. I think Luke Taylor is probably the overall favourite, but it's Masters. You're looking at the best players in the country, and at the end of the day, someone has to win and someone has to lose. I'm genuinely not even sure who could take it out. It's anyone's game. Everyone I've talked to is bringing rock-solid lists, and I think the victor will be whoever makes the least mistakes on the day and has a little bit of good luck from the dice!
G: Well, mate. That pretty much wraps it up! Thanks for taking time out of your evening to chat, and I wish you the best at Masters!
M: Thanks.
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