CanCon is pretty massive as far as events go. If I'm not wrong, this year it sold out at 240 players. So, I wanted to break down my thought process on what army to take, what my goals are and everything in between.
The first thing to consider was physically getting an entire army from Brisbane to Canberra in one piece. Last year, I took Beasts of Chaos, which ended up being WELL over 120 models when you included the summoning pool. I don't want to do that again. With a 6 game event, and having the travel factor in there as well, I was very keen to do an elite, low model count army.
Six games also played a large part in my decision. With a weekend that jam packed with gaming, I wanted an army that had moves and plays but didn't require too much book keeping and keeping track of twenty different auras and buffs. I don't want to be thinking too hard late in the third game of a day.
I've always been a staunchly loyal Chaos player, but for this event, I decided to shift my allegiances and try my hand at Destruction. I considered Slaves to Darkness, but I don't want to rush that army!
So, after pondering for all of about four seconds, I settled on Ironjawz. For some reason that had been lost to the mists of time, I had about 3500 points of the armoured Orruks in a box in the back of my cupboard. As an added bonus, they'd just had their spicy new battletome unleashed upon the game, so it made perfect sense! I already had about 600 points painted up (so I had a bit of a running start), but the Jawz are probably my best painted faction, and therefore most demanding of my painting time. I've got free hand on every model (like some kind of masochistic moron) and it's all weathered to give the force that battered, war-torn look that suits the Jawz' aesthetic and lore.
I went with yellow as my main colour for two reasons.
The first is that I'd never painted a yellow army before.
The second was that yellow really leaps off the table, and I wanted an army that popped. In today's day and age, yellow isn't quite the torture it used to be!
With black and white checks and turquoise dags breaking up all the armour panels, it stops the army from looking too flat and plain.
With the army and colour scheme sorted, I looked at what models I wanted to include. The short answer was "all of them". Jawz don't have a massive range, with only three unit kits (four if you include Ironskull's crew) and four hero kits, so including one of everything is not out of the question.
But this is where the rules and points come in. The longer I looked at Brutes, the more I was of the mindset that Ard Boyz are just a better choice. Numbers and movement win games, and Ard Boyz have an edge in both of those departments over their bigger, burlier comrades.
I ended up choosing Ironsunz as my sub-faction, partly because of my colour scheme, and partly because nothing stood out as being a "tax" when it came to mandatory selections. The out-of-sequence charges in your opponent's turn is something they constantly have to be considering, and -1 to hit in the first turn is excellent.
From there I went about choosing my heroes. I couldn't not include a Megaboss on Maw-Krusha as not only a fast moving hammer, but also as a centrepiece model. As I'd chosen a sub-faction, he was going to end up with the Sunzblessed Armour, which lets him ignore a point of rend on incoming attacks. As far as defensive artefacts I HAVE to take, the Armour is not too shabby on a model with a 3+ save. I went with Mean 'Un as the mount trait for that extra damage on the Krusha. I tossed up going with Weird 'Un for some defence against magic, but decided against it. After all, you're not always going to face an army that has magic. But you're always gonna face an army you can punch harder.
The second hero I picked up was a Weirdnob Shaman. Having a teleport in the pocket is always handy for keeping your opponent on eggshells, and I wanted a way to either dispel or unbind, so that enemy magic didn't just run unchecked through my army. While a single wizard wasn't going to save the world, it was better than nothing, and he's not actually too bad at all. Now, I made the Shaman my general for a very specific reason. In Ironsunz, if you have a Megaboss as your general, he must take the Right Fist of Dakkbad as his command trait. This gives you another CP at the start of the game, which is crucial considering how CP-hungry Jawz are!
However...
If I make the Shaman my General, I'm no longer obliged to take the Right Fist. Instead, I'm free to take the Shaman-specific command trait Dead Kunnin', which gives me D3 Command Points at the start of the game instead of only one. The benefits far outweigh the costs.
My third and fourth heroes were a pair of Warchanters. The utility of their sick beats and ability to drastically increase the damage output of other units makes them easy picks!
Moving on to the core of the army, I knew I wanted a battalion, and the Ironfist is easily the most flexible, and lets be honest, very, very practical. Free Mighty Destroyer moves are just another thing my opponent will have to keep in mind.
The first units I put in there were two big units of six Gore-Gruntas with spears! These are pretty solid units in damage output, speed and durability. They offer some serious support for the Krusha, a good target for the various buffs from the Chanters, and some fast mobility to hit where I want. One unit is pretty self sustaining, benefiting from the free Mighty Destroyer from the battalion, while the other might need some babysitting.
Next up was Ard Boys. I was quickly running out of points here, so I dropped in a unit of ten Ard Boyz and two units of five Ard Boyz. I'm painfully aware of the need for smaller, low value units to either speed-bump enemies, screen a charge lane or zone out my back field. Even five Ard Boyz can give people grief, so if the opportunity arises, I'm not opposed to slinging them into a cheap enemy unit or hero to get their choppas slick with the blood of their enemies.
With only fifty points left over, I popped in another Command Point, and called it at day.
Now that I've revealed my list, and with the knowledge that I'm yet to actually play a game with it (so it could receive very minor tweaks before list sub), I have a lot of building and painting to do. I'm going to be pretty flat out making sure that it's all done in a reasonable time, so I'm locked into painting exactly what's in the list to a degree. I do want to get a ton of games in with the army too, so that I'm comfortable leading into the tournament itself. Which leads me to my last point.
What am I hoping to achieve at the event?
The first thing I would love is to earn an army Nomination. I managed to jag one last year with my conversion-heavy Beasts of Chaos army, and while I don't have nearly as many conversions in this army, I think it's far better painted than my Beasts. However, the hobby levels in the Aussie scene have exploded in the last year, and I don't envy whoever is in charge of judging the pool.
The second thing is to go at least 3-3 on the table, preferably 4-2. I like to try and finish every event in the top half, but at CanCon, the matchups can be absolute mayhem. I think this list definitely has some matchups out there that will give it a horrendous time, but others where it will charge on in and keep punching until the dust settles.
That's the rough idea of where I'm going with this. We'll see where it evolves from here as I play more games, but basically, I'm trying to set aside the very strong temptation to get stuck into Slaves to Darkness until February. We'll see how that goes...
It'll be my first event using a non-chaos army, and I'm really looking forward to it!
What do you think of the list? Any and all thoughts, let me hear them!
Gabe
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