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Hey all, after a 6 year hiatus from the hobby, I've recently gotten back into miniwargaming with an irresponsibly large bulk purchase (Maw Krusha, Footegaboss, 2 Casters, 2 Changers 80 Ardboyz, 15 Brutes, 12 Gore Gruntas.) of the best faction in the lore (Greenskins) which I understand are now called Ironjawz for trademark reasons.

Intro aside, I started playing just before the new book dropped, and went from my friend group's rusty old casual to the cheesiest bastard they know. I am having increasing difficulty even getting them to sit down with me, and when they do they try to point out how much better my units are than others of their kind or point out how my synergies make the game unfair.

I have thus far ran-

An alpha strike list:
Maw Krusha,
Shaman w/ Great Green Hand
Gorefist -3*3 gore gruntas
Ardfist- warchanter, 2*5 & 1*15 Ardboyz
1* brutes.
Ended up winning against kharadrons through overwhelming in combat.

A similar list against Anvilgard, in which the summon mechanic left a bad taste in everyone's mouth after it won me the game.

A slow footslog list:
Megaboss,
Shaman W/ bash em' ladz
Allied Orruk Warboss (finished painting up an OOP mini and wanted to show it off)
Brutefist- 3*5 Brutes
Couple lines of Ardboyz.
Kharadron opponent scooped after I got my brutes into combat with his ironclad and brought it down with a pretty absurd d6 mad as hell, 4 inch mighty destroyers, 4 in move and 10 inch charge.

Had a really fun, close game with Seraphon between these,

And most recently, a pretty sour win against Khorne:
Megaboss on foot,
Shaman w/Great Green Hand,
Ironfist- 1*3 & 1*6 gore gruntas, 3*5 Brutes
Ardfist- Warchanter, 2*5 Ardboyz & 1*15
OPP, (and close friend,) gave the all clear for battalions and synergies as he was using skarbrand and some bloodthirsters buddies and a big reaver deathball, but became pretty clearly salty after he failed to bubble-wrap skarbrand and lost him T2 to a Gore Grunta charge, went downhill for him from there.

It's starting to get to the point where games are getting un-fun, is there legitimately such a large gap in power between these armies, could my friends use advice against an army they're failing to find weaknesses in, or are there more steps I can take to make the games feel much closer? As an allegience that only has access to 8 units, four of which are heroes, one of which is a Shadespire unit, it doesn't feel like I have the room to make lists for more casual games, does anyone else have experience with the Ironjawz?


Edit: Corrections and grammar.

Ironjawz are tough customers, but I'd hardly call them cheese. This surely isn't the worst, nastiest list I've seen, and has some simple ways to power it down. Try a match or two running your Shaman without Great Green Hand, and dropping the Warchanter.

When my friends were starting Ironjawz and wanted to power up, those were the two units that I suggested they run. Warchanter is amazing, the buff works so well on ANY unit. And the Great Green Hand is a powerful tool for threatening objectives and important units that even having it in a list is a boon in itself, without even casting.

KO still aren't the strongest army, and will crumble to such overwhelming melee strength. Another thing to note is how your opponent plays the game. Sometimes the strength of your army isn't entirely caused by your army. Have a think about how they play, and how their style/mistakes plays in to the strength of your army. When I go against Ironjawz, I never deploy fully up to the deployment line. And when people play against Skaven, for some reason they always get it in their head that they need to take First Turn against me... All it does is allow me to blast away with my entire gunline on my first turn, and potentially get a double-turn. I always recommend that they make me go first, where I won't be able to fire all my guns right away.

To summarize, Warchanter is super strong, Shaman w/ Great Green Hand is a powerful tool. Consider if your opponents are playing wrong.

I think here you need to be looking at the sorts of lists the other people are building, and how well they are piloting them with the goal of actually winning games.

Frankly, Ironjawz are decent but by no means brokenly powerful. They're just a solid mid to upper mid tier army. It looks like your opponents are also running mid tier armies mostly (Cities, Khorne. Overlords is probably quite a difficult matchup tbf. Seraphon may turn out to be top tier, but too early to say).

Basically, I think they are misappropriating their salt, and should look closer to home for why they are losing. That said, a power disparity for whatever reason is often a sore topic in a lot of gaming groups, so to keep peace toning down may be appropriate. Maybe look at using 400 points to ally in some wacky stuff?

Unfortunately points don't reflect actual army power in AOS.

The quickest way since we don't know what army lists they are running is to calculate your average damage output every turn with mortal wounds and then normal hit odds with expected damage.

Then compare theirs. Adjust accordingly.

Its true that Ironjaws aren't that OP... *in relation to other tournament powered lists*.

However when it comes to the casual arena, this is a problem AOS has a lot of - how to make the game fun for both sides outside of a tournament environment.

Also without seeing the context of how they are playing, the issue could easily be that they are just playing ok lists very poorly. And that is a player-issue, but no one can say for sure thats the issue without seeing a battle report.

Dropping the teleport and dropping warchanters will reduce your potency significantly. You can also handicap yourself by bringing less points, or choosing second turn and never taking the double.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I've considered a points handicap but I feel they may be insulted by the prospect. I have noted several times that they have refused to guard their expensive units, KO player, who ran 1 ironclad, frigate and a gunhauler with some fly infantry support was surprised when I got Brutes 20" across the board and took down the Ironclad.

Likewise, even after telling the KO player he should have bubble wrapped, the Khorne player instead just tucked his greater daemons in the corner and waited for me to come to him, instead of advancing with a meatshield unit in front to take the charges.

The anvilgard player had by far the most well constructed list and best played game, several large boxes of corsairs to block the flanks from summoning Ardboyz and teleports, with a kharybdiss, sorceress on black dragon and some chariots for mobility and striking, but still felt it was a little unfair when the big Boyz unit I had that had successfully chewed up his front line respawned and finished off his infantry to claim his objective.

At the moment I'm trying out a no-battalion list, with-
Megaboss,
Weirdnob Shaman,
Warchanter,
2*6 gruntas
2*5 Brutes
9*5 ardboyz

Which I'll be trying out tonight in a rematch against khorne. But I'll take into account how powerful the support heroes are and consider taking them out in future games. I can 100% agree that flat out *doubling* the damage output of 6 gore gruntas makes for an absurdly powerful haymaker with their ~30" threat range.

Thanks again for the feedback, I'll update tonight following the game!

TBF, Ironjawz are OP compared to Anvilguard; Anvilguard is among the worst allegiances in the game.

Also you don't TELL them you did a points handicap, you just slice up units a bit differently and say you 'shifted things around' and quietly leave a hundred or two points out.

Bad news lads, end of turn two and I have learned that Warchanters are by no means, casual.

Turn one and a unit of 6 Gore Gruntas wipes two units of 20 bloodletters deployed in front of his bloodthirsters and objectives. (Diagonal deployment so only 18" between.)

Skarbrand and an Unfettered Fury countercharged and both lost half their wounds before the piggies perished.

Meanwhile I still have waves of Ardboyz and brutes sitting on 3/5 objectives (Focal Points).

I have absolutely learned that minimum unit size should be avoided EXCEPT for gore gruntas which are just too good to run in medium units. (3/2/2/-1/2, 4/3/3/-/2) on the charge with the warchanter buff.

And that, leading into that, Warchanters should be used sparingly.

Edit- unit numbers and specifics added

Edit Edit- despite declarations that I was playing an objectively better force, Khorne player is now in a good position and the game is a close one.

I really do appreciate you trying to find a way to make the game fun for your group and not just telling them to "git gud" or "go buy a powerful list instead".

 blood guard26 wrote:
Bad news lads, end of turn two and I have learned that Warchanters are by no means, casual.

Turn one and a unit of 6 Gore Gruntas wipes two units of 20 bloodletters deployed in front of his bloodthirsters and objectives. (Diagonal deployment so only 18" between.)

Skarbrand and an Unfettered Fury countercharged and both lost half their wounds before the piggies perished.

Meanwhile I still have waves of Ardboyz and brutes sitting on 3/5 objectives (Focal Points).

I have absolutely learned that minimum unit size should be avoided EXCEPT for gore gruntas which are just too good to run in medium units. (3/2/2/-1/2, 4/3/3/-/2) on the charge with the warchanter buff.

And that, leading into that, Warchanters should be used sparingly.

Yeah, GW didn't calculate that the warchanter buff giving double (or close to it) damage to most units just might work out to be overpowered. But they have about as much grip on balance as an anti-vaxxer on the scientific method.

Or they did calculate it and put it in anyway for no extra cost like they do summoning because it appeals to the Spike personality and helps drive their sales.

I wish some of the people defending lack of balance could be directed to this thread for the problems it causes among casual players and how difficult it can be to correct. We had a discussion recently where people were blithely telling others to tone down their lists for games and some of us asked how exactly that should be done. This thread is a good example of how it is harder than it seems at times.

When you see someone defending lack of balance I find that more often than not they are either

1) tournament players who use tournament results to show balance (in a venue where everyone should be using power lists) so to them the game is fine because at the power list level where everyone is running very powerful lists the balance will seem a lot better. This is what the Honest Wargamer and his site preaches and is the holy grail of where the "proof" that the game is balanced comes from. The casual players playing weak lists are the fault of the casual players playing weaker lists and they should learn to play better and play stronger lists because then the game is better balanced. This also means that as GW changes the rules and power twice a year, that those players accept and be ok with also buying and painting new models to keep up with the top of the curve to keep the balance ok for them.

or

2) true beer and pretzel players who honestly don't care about outcome and are here for the huge community. Gettiing crushed by bad balance (or crushing by bad balance) simply does not negatively concern them, so long as they get to hang out with friends and toss dice and their investment in the expensive models is safe because everyone is playing what everyone else is playing. Casual players complaining about getting crushed don't make sense to them because those players are taking the game too seriously and should just enjoy the experience and the models and the social interaction.

Those two camps also make up a gargantuan chunk of poll voters, forum posters, and discussion participants online indicating that those that really care about balance aren't very well represented or even a marginal concern.

And many of those that do care about balance will still play anyway which further plays down the need to actually tighten the game down.

 auticus wrote:
When you see someone defending lack of balance I find that more often than not they are either

1) tournament players who use tournament results to show balance (in a venue where everyone should be using power lists) so to them the game is fine because at the power list level where everyone is running very powerful lists the balance will seem a lot better. This is what the Honest Wargamer and his site preaches and is the holy grail of where the "proof" that the game is balanced comes from. The casual players playing weak lists are the fault of the casual players playing weaker lists and they should learn to play better and play stronger lists because then the game is better balanced. This also means that as GW changes the rules and power twice a year, that those players accept and be ok with also buying and painting new models to keep up with the top of the curve to keep the balance ok for them.

or

2) true beer and pretzel players who honestly don't care about outcome and are here for the huge community. Gettiing crushed by bad balance (or crushing by bad balance) simply does not negatively concern them, so long as they get to hang out with friends and toss dice and their investment in the expensive models is safe because everyone is playing what everyone else is playing. Casual players complaining about getting crushed don't make sense to them because those players are taking the game too seriously and should just enjoy the experience and the models and the social interaction.

Those two camps also make up a gargantuan chunk of poll voters, forum posters, and discussion participants online indicating that those that really care about balance aren't very well represented or even a marginal concern.

And many of those that do care about balance will still play anyway which further plays down the need to actually tighten the game down.

I agree with most of the points you have brought up

There is one question though.
Are there really people who believe AoS is balanced, based on Honest Wargamer stats?
Because if anything, all I saw was horrible state of balance.
A few top factions that were doing extremely well a year ago continue to do so.
Meanwhile bottom tier factions are still relegated to footstools for the top factions.

Thats a great question. Whenever I ask that question I usually get shouted down pretty hard and most people evade the question or fall into the two categories above. (there are outliers of course where people will say "yeah the balance is great").

I read on twitter a few times a day someone celebrating the balance in the game as a good thing so I'd say yes people believe that the game is balanced for whatever reason, and when I query those people they are usually tournament players who fall into category 1.

And Honest Wargamer's stats are quoted and touted daily as the proof that the game is balanced, so again I would say yes those people firmly believe the game is in a great place because tournament results at the high levels show that so, and people having issues below that just need to get better and build better lists and better educate themselves on what factions are bad or meh so that they avoid them, even if those are the models and the vibe that they really like. Either that or be ok with getting seal-clubbed. (which many people have vocally expressed being ok with getting seal-clubbed because they love an inferior meh or bad faction)

You can search this forum for a lot of that circular debate.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773473.page

62 pages of it going back and forth here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/763364.page

45 pages with it going back and forth here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1290/763465.page#10650449

There is also an AOS balance thread somewhere which is dedicated entirely to the topic.

But yes go through those you'll see a lot of people defend the balance as being just fine, or go into the defense that balance isn't really what they care that much about in the first place so the game is fine.

My personal opinion is that AOS is chosen by a lot of people because it has a huge community and thats the sole primary reason. Having a huge community means your investment is safe, you don't hhave to worry about not having opponents, and there will be huge events for it world-wide you can travel to. As such, much like politics and religion, the downsides will be downplayed so long as the primary motivator remains strong (and actually will cause anger and resentment if you bring up the negatives. One of TGA's top dogs Joe Sledoba actually was nice enough to be honest in his flaming rebuttals stating that he had money in GW stock and a ton of models he wanted to keep using which illustrated for that individual why he was so on top of anyone expressing any negativity)

Its been a fascinating journey over the past five years.

Not every thread that's even a little related to balance needs to become a soapbox to talk about how unbalanced the game is. I hardly see anyone on this forum that would argue that the game is fine to begin with, so it feels like a strawman to claim otherwise.

Instead of just endlessly talking about how the game is unbalanced across most threads, stick to the topic of the thread, where someone's asking for advice on how to power down.

It seems that OP is experiencing what others have said, that Warchanter is an exceptionally powerful support tool and can probably be dropped for casual games. Or, another option is to still take the Warchanter, but just not use that specific Buffing chant, and only use the extra ones that he gets. It's difficult to just not take one of your few Hero options and limit yourself to the already limited pool.

Edit: Auticus sneaking a post in before me

I've read through the threads too, what I've found is it's mostly people discussing how to get around the issues in balance and deal with the issue, rather than just hitting the same talking points on repeat. The people 'shouting you down' such as myself at times are just tired of seeing essentially the same points on repeat over and over again. It gets tiring to only hear about problems, instead of talking about the solutions that can be made.

Thadin, I apologise. You are right.

Post battle recap:

Ironjawz:
-Megaboss
-Warchanter
-2*6 Gore Gruntas
-2*5 Brutes
-9*5 Ardboyz.

Khorne:
-Skarbrand
-Bloodthirster of Insensate rage
-Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury
-Bloodsecrator
-2*Slaughterpriest
-3*20 Bloodletters
-10 Blood Reavers

Game type: Focal Points.

T1, OPP gave me first turn to force me to advance into a countercharge, both armies deployed in a few lines along diagonal deployment zones, his masses of daemons with his heroes tucked behind to avoid the T1 charge, my units staggered in three lines with Gruntas on left flank and centre right, and brutes tucked behind a line of Boyz in the centre left and right flank.

Unsurprisingly to nobody, after a Mighty Destroyers and Violent Fury, the Centre Gore Gruntas tore into two units of 40 bloodletters, dealing a total of 38 wounds. Slow crawl advance otherwise, claiming 6 points as piggies managed to catch his objective. Skar and Unfettered wipe the centre piggy unit. Score is 6-2

Turn 2 the first lines of Ardboyz attempt charges and mostly wiff, 2 units of 5 chew through some Reavers and Letters. Insensate Rage charges my flank Piggies & a unit of flank Ardboyz, this combat will take some time. Slaughterpriests and Khorne infantry manage to take out most of the first wave, and charge on his turn into brutes. Bloodletter bomb wipes the unit.
Score is 12-8

Turn 3, bloodthirsters manage to collapse my right flank, losing one to a unit of fresh Ardboyz after chewing through 6 piggies, the warchanter, and 2*5 units. Gruntas and Ardboyz on left flank finally kill the insensate rage. OPP summons another insensate rage to lock down his grip on the right.

Bloodletters and Slaughterpriests crash into what's left of my core, two units of Ardboyz and the megaboss, taking the centre objective in his turn.
Score is 18-14

Turn 4, Left Flank piggies move to take the rear objective, Zagrak Stunty-Munted and the last centre Ardboyz unit, Da Red Menace manage to chew through the last Bloodletters and Slaughterpriests, take the centre, and opponent calls it at 24-18.

Lessons learned from this game.

Minimum units of most units in this army have the edge, especially when not receiving buffs.

Warchanters are a force multiplier and turn the already absurd Gore Gruntas into a Cease and Desist for half the opponent's board.

And that Gore Gruntas are ideal in units of 6, and to tone down should be run in smaller units to avoid a single unit doing 18+24 attacks averaging on 24 wounds on the charge.

Thanks for all the positivity guys, I had no idea the state of the game balance was so lopsided and I appreciate all the advice thus far.

Point of note: Opponents mood drastically worsened after T1's piggy shenanigans and promptly lifted after remembering what Bloodthirsters were capable of doing to the average (or above-average) infantry unit.

EDIT- Typing on my phone is hard, and some irritatingly repetitive word choice annoyed me.

I hardly see anyone on this forum that would argue that the game is fine to begin with, so it feels like a strawman to claim otherwise.

There are literally dozens of responses with the "its fine everything is fine" response though. Not a strawman. You'll elicit a response from me when that experience is downplayed mightily as it was with that quote that hardly anyone on this forum argues the game is fine to begin with. If you dig through those three large threads you can pull quotes from most of the pro-regulars stating its fine everything is fine in some fashion.

The people 'shouting you down' such as myself at times are just tired of seeing essentially the same points on repeat over and over again. It gets tiring to only hear about problems, instead of talking about the solutions that can be made.

While reasonable to an extent, I have also posted several ways around balance issues, such as my sudden death houserule for dealing with the broken summoning. I'd be happy to talk about solutions to the problems but when it comes to the point system, I don't have any other than as Ninth has suggested self regulation and self handicapping, which comes down to hoping your opponent can play nice.

However I do note any other suggestions and have used several in my own area.

As to the seeing the same points over and over again, there are also usually newer posters that have never had the conversation before, and I only usually bring it up whenever someone else is discussing the bad balance. I'm not obliged to censor myself in someone else's thread about bad balance, I just don't create them myself. I'm passionate about the subject because I want the game to be one of the best out there and to me game balance is part of that equation. Picking a trap faction and spending several hundred on a faction to find out the rules are out of whack and gimp is not a good experience or a good use of time for most people that I know of, to include myself. I want GW to focus as much on the game as they do on their models and art and the "this is fine everything is fine" status quo doesn't work for me because nothing will ever be done when everyone just toes the line so they aren't being negative.

Yep, if buffs are getting too effective in your army, split units up. Skaven had a problem with Stormfiends in units of 9 being such an amazing target for many buffs, so GW hit them with a nerf that limited them to units of 6. You can do the same without an actual ruling from GW, by just not taking large units of Gore Gruntas.

However, I have to imagine your dice must be hot I've eaten turn-1 charges from a unit of 3 juiced up Gore Gruntas, and they failed to kill an 8-wound model with a 4+ save. Made my opponent feel bad.

While the game is lopsided, I don't believe that it's as awful as it can be made out to be. It's not like there's no solution to unbalanced armies, and you've already made a great first step. You've went to a forum to get opinions on how to tone down when you've found your list to be too powerful, which is probably the best option aside from waiting for GW to attempt to address balance issues. Keep at it, get more games in and see how things work out with changes. I know for myself, I've not had major issues playing in to Ironjawz with my armies. Major issues as in getting facerolled, even though I've sen it happen to others.

To Auticus; perhaps a good time to agree to disagree and not bog the thread down with our personal differences for much longer. In my eyes reading the threads, while I agree that there are people who say the game is fine, I feel its far outweighed by people who take issue with the balance, but search for ways around it. The people who claim it's fine typically stop posting for a good while after their points get refuted by a bunch of the regulars around here.

@Blood Guard, he needs to be running blood letters in units of 10 or 30 due to their scaling buff and horde discount. 2x30 is notably stronger than 3x20 despite being less points. There are even enough points saved to bring a khorne chaos spawn so it can pester until death for an easy blood tithe.

Difficult to say more without seeing the game in person but I suspect part of the problem is skill differential; I estimate that you are simply much better at the game than your usual opponents. Bar perhaps the Anvilguard player, because it takes skill to make that allegiance perform even competently. At any rate, this is where the art (and believe me, when you get good it really becomes an art) of intentionally-losing-without-showing-it comes in. That can become a meta-game in itself!

Updated casual list for upcoming game;

Allegience: Ironsunz

Megaboss on foot- Right fist of Dakkbad/Sunzblessed armour. -150


Weirdnob shaman- Brain Bursta/Great Green Visions -110
_

3 Gore gruntas- Jagged Gore Hackas -160

3 Gore gruntas- Jagged Gore Hackas -160

3 Gore gruntas- Jagged Gore Hackas -160

Brutefist -120

5 Brutes- Pair of choppas, Klaw & Smasha, Gore-hacka -140

5 Brutes- Pair of choppas, Klaw & Smasha, Gore-hacka -140

5 Brutes- Pair of choppas, Klaw & Smasha, Gore-hacka -140

10 Ardboyz- Banner, Icon, 2*Musician -180

10 Ardboyz- Banner, Icon, 2* Musician -180

10 Ardboyz- Banner, Icon, 2*Musician -180

10 Ardboyz- Banner, Icon, 2* Musician -180


Leaving us with exactly 2,000 points.

I wavered on a Gorefist but evening out points to ~2,000 was getting annoying, and getting 3 or 4 free 9" moves without punishment felt a little too smashy.

Idea is to trudge the Ardboyz up the map with the pigs dealing with the big threats early, before they can engage me, and the brutes sitting mixed into my front line to deal with the nuts zi don't want to waste Ardboyz trying to crack. My two biggest advantages in the last game against Khorne was that my small.unit spam made my army exceptionally difficult to crunch through if they were spaced out enough, while the chanter and 6piggy combo became an unpunishable delete button for half my opp's army. So neutering the cavalry and condensing my army should help rectify both issues.

Thanks again for all the positivity and cordial discussion in my first revisit to this site in half a decade!

I think I that is a good list for what you are looking for; it will give opponents a fight without anything being a delete button.

Yep, I agree. Harder to trigger Smashing and Bashing, or whatever the Ironjawz rule is called to fight with another unit after wiping an enemy unit completely. Ironjawz are really good with maxed out or just generally big units, to just roll over the enemy if you get a good chain of unit-wipes.

Strong suggestion, is to give yourself a points handicap.

It isn't insulting, if the books aren't balanced. You're just finding a proper balance point where armies are balanced. That way, you can play what you want, as hard as you want, and have balanced games.

I did this in early 8th edition 40k. I found my (Index) Guard were just plain better than my friends' armies. So I started playing with a 10% points handicap. That worked out pretty well. 15% felt a bit much, so I eventually settled on 10% handicap giving us very close games. Until codices started dropping, and the real power creep began...

But if you're playing with friends, a simple handicap will help to put your forces on an even footing. Not about ego, because the rules provided aren't fair. You're fixing the game, not bragging.

Problem being Khorne and Ironjawz 'tomes are reasonably balanced vs each other.

Go 5% then? It's flexible. Might take 2-3 games to figure out, but work in 10% increments until you feel overwhelmed.

If you get to -30% and you're still whomping people, maybe the tomes are unbalanced or maybe your friends do need to git-not-terribad.

@Ninthmusketeer

I will definitely say that after repeat playings, the Khorne army does not seem well balanced against IJ at all. The underlying issue being ability creep, where throughout the game, a 3rd party (anvilgard player) was constantly taken aback by all the little effects I kept pulling out (free command ability trait, multiple free movements in the hero phase, army wide charge bonuses, Ardboy full command being just slightly better than average with +2 to charge and +2 bravery vs the usual +1. Etc), while the primary issue, is that the ironjawz are just far too fast.
Of course people understand that they get their bonus moves with mighty destroyers, but my base infantry also getting a +3 to charge standard, without other buffs, having an 18" average threat range, and Gore-Grunta's, (already potentially the best cavalry in the game with 160 points for 15 wounds, 22 attacks and average of 12 wounds before buffs,) having a frankly ludicrous threat range of 26" before bonus effects, more than double the average of most other units. Meant that in every game, he barely got out a single charge as J was able to keep myself just out of reach, sending my efficient, more than cost-effectivdunits across no-man's land while he could only advance into more of my charges.

The other night became a game after I whiffed lots of statistically likely charges and offered him the countercharge, but your playbook requiring your opponent to fail four charges with a 65-70% likelyhood of connecting just to have your units survive and kick back in comat doesn't make for a fair game.

Edit- tidied up typos and clarified mistakes.

I play Khorne and yeah, slaugtherpriest with gore pilgrims and Bloodthirsters can fight agaisnt ironjawz.

Everything else? You feel like worse Ironjawz. They punch harder, fight harder, move faster, charge better. When I faced 3 ironjawz one after the other in one "big" 6 round tournament with my Brass Despoilers khorne lists with barbarian hordes and minotaurs it was literally the only time since I restarted playing in 3 years that I got upset about balance, not because they were destroying me (I got handled a ton of time by pre-nerf triple keepers, etc...) but because I felt like they were doing all I did, but better. And extra things on top. And I'm know as the most chill guy in my group, being voted the best "sports" guy, etc... I chilled out pretty fast but as I said, it was literally the first time in 3 years playing aos and 40k that it happened to me.

Paying 4 blood tithe points to make one unit fight on the hero phase when ironjawz can do that freely with like 2-3 units per hero phase? Yeah. So much fun.

Again, it is really hard to say without having been there to watch. My advice for a khorne player against 'jaws is to screen with msu blood warriors who pile in & attack when they die then counter-charge with stuff 'roided out via blood tithe. Get a couple 10-man bloodreaver units for teleport screening & objective camping, or failing that just cheap blood tithe. Drop scarbrand for a regular 'thirster to free up points for that (regular thrusters are dirt cheap for what they do, while skarbrand is often overkill). The tools to beat ironjawz exist in khorne, they just may not be immediately obvious.

Put differently, ironjawz certainly have their overpowered elements. So does khorne. There's a reason triple-thirster and eyebleed skulls are almost ubiquitous for tourney khorne.

@Galas, I agree it is certainly a concern. If it makes you feel better khorne has a lot of little tricks and counter-plays that may not be particularly useful against Ironjawz but help a lot against other armies. Slaughterpriests making an enemy unit run towards you is laughable against jaws, but some armies can be utterly screwed by it, for example.