Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello. I am trying to improve my goblin army list. This was the previous one http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/485994.page.
Didn't work well, my ground was to crowded, i didn't have enough of hard hitting units (well, i do play goblins) and all those small units (chariots, manglers) were being removed with no trouble at all. When those units died, there was no threat to my opponent.

So i decided to add some stronger units.

The tournament is 2500 points, max 40 models per units, 4 warmachines and some other restrictions.
(spider and giant are reduced by 50 points in cost, so i am using 2600 points to build the list)

Its goblin based with some (quite a few) monsters) so no orcs. I won't come on top but i wan't to give my opponent a decent chalenge and not just giving free victory points.
So here it goes.

2600 Pts - Orcs & Goblins Army

CHARACTERS:

Leadership bunker for tarpiting other units.
1 Goblin Warboss @ 78.0 Pts Light armour, charmed shield, tormentor sword General
1 Night Goblin Big Boss @ 74.0 Pts BSB standar of discipline light armour shield

Magic battery:
1 Goblin Great Shaman @ 180.0 Pts Magic Level 4
1 Night Goblin Shaman @ 75.0 Pts Magic Level 1 Ruby Ring of Ruin
1 Night Goblin Shaman @ 75.0 Pts Magic Level 1 Dispel Scroll

Random element
1 Goblin Big Boss @ 66.0 Pts wolf, Light armour, shield Dragonhelm Warrior bane

Core - tarpit units

40 Night Goblins @ 210.0 Pts Full command, netters, 1x fanatic
40 Night Goblins @ 210.0 Pts Full command, netters, 1x fanatic

Core: character bunker
20 Night Goblins @ 95.0 Pts Musician, Shortbow, 1x Fanatic

Artilery:
1 Doom Diver @ 80.0 Pts
1 Rock Lobber @ 85.0 Pts
1 Spear Chukka @ 35.0 Pts
1 Spear Chukka @ 35.0 Pts

Hard Hitting monsters:
1 Arachnarok Spider @ 290.0 Pts (240 points)
1 Giant @ 200.0 Pts (150 points)
9 Trolls @ 315.0 Pts

Random elements, flankers
1 Mangler Squig @ 65.0 Pts
5 Goblin Wolf Riders @ 60.0 Pts Spear, shield Light armour
5 Goblin Wolf Riders @ 60.0 Pts Spear, shield Light armour
1 Wolf Chariot(s) @ 50.0 Pts
1 Wolf Chariot(s) @ 50.0 Pts


Multipurpose unit, sort of.
20 Squig Herd, 10 Night Goblin Herders@ 190.0 Pts



Models in Army: 167
Total Army Cost: 2578.0 (2478)

I didn't organize it on choices but rather on roles.
The general and BSB don't fight, they are there to give rerollable steadfast LD9 to my big goblin units.
Trolls are deployed close to general in 3x3, so my main units have decent hitting and staying power.

I only have 3 fanatics (one in each units) as in my experience i don't find them that strong.

Artillery for softening big blocks and strong units. pretty standard setup here.
Goblin boss on wolf for buffing wolf units and random charge against whatever.

Lvl 4 mage is mainly for defense, as i don't find goblin lore too strong. I know its a lot of points just for defense, but i don't see any other decent option.
Spider should take 3 cannon hits to die, so that leaves me trolls and giant to fight. Without artillery maybe even spider will see some action.

I don't relly on random elements (chariots, mangler, wolfs). If they manage to do anything decent (redirecting in case of wolfs) that's a bonus.

Basically i can wait and shoot against Close combat oriented due to decent artillery.

I am long time general but recently resurrected (played High Elves before, which were NOT fun -although competitive enough).
What do i lack this time? Any suggestions in certain areas?
In Which phases will i get owned? How to change/soften that?
Which phases are my strong points? How to best use that?


I could drop one lvl1 shaman and just give the scroll/ring to lvl4.
One option is Fanatic delivery via Troll Units (lots of fanatics behind trolls, so when enemy charges, i get guaranted 2d6hitsX fanatics againts opponent and d6Xfanatics on my trolls who should absorb it. It does sound like goblin tactics but it can be easily avoided (and pretty expensive).
I have some extra 22 points leftover for small add-ons.

And again, thanks for you feedback.

I think you may have gone too far in the other direction from your last list, but maybe it'll work out for you.

Gotta' say, I'm not fond of your Warboss and Big Boss builds; they make me more than a little nervous. I'd try something like:

Goblin Warboss with a great weapon, Armour of Silvered Steel, Talisman of Preservation, and an Ironcurse Icon. For 166pts, you've got a General with a 2+/4+, who gives his block a 6+ versus Stone Throwers and such, and who has 4 S6 attacks.

Night Goblin Big Boss with the battle standard, a great weapon, and the Armour of Destiny. He doesn't have the +1Ld, but he's got a 5+/4+ and 3 S6 attacks for 109pts. And that way, he'll at least have the option to go in a unit other than the General's. Which is handy if your opponent has something like Dwellers in their arsenal.

Giants are not good. They're not awful, but I'd get his equivalent in Trolls, Squigs, Chariots, etc. instead.

At 2500pts, I think the list is a little small. I'd try to run two units of 50 Gobbos. If you can get nets in that bunker and increase the size to 30, that will be enough to hold them, by the time they get through everything else, hopefully.
On that note, sticking 5 characters into a unit with 20 models makes me more than nervous. I prefer to put my geared-up BSB and General into the big blocks, one each, and my Shamans into two smaller blocks behind them. I always lose a few characters, but I (almost) never lose them all.

If you're not a fan of the Little Waaagh! spells, why not increase the two Night Shamans to lvl2's and drop the lvl4? If you're worried about magic-defense, take a Feedback and a Dispel Scroll. That usually does it for me, though I like to run up to four Shamans with the Forbidden Rod, Power Stone, and/or Channeling Staff, to really capitalize on the Lore Attribute and get tons of dice.

Ok. First thanks for advice.

The size of goblins stays at 40 which is part of rules set.

Antimagic and Feedback scroll: max dice to cast is 5, 4 for death and shadow. So the spell will go of and i won't even kill a lord wizard. I don't really like the idea.

The bunker units hosts 3 character, and is basically headquarters: lvl4, general, and BSB. Increasing size is not that hard.
Other 2 lvl1 shamans go in main units. Anything that would like to get there has to face trolls, which are deployed in the middle of both units.

Goblin general gives leadership. It's the only way to keep my goblins from running. 9 LD with reroll (also on trolls, which are centerpiece of my army) is worth it. If enemy reaches the general, well, he has to save the last bullet for himself (or run away). I don't want to fight with goblins. Not in character, aka not fluffy, so not a part of my plan.

I really don't like my goblin characters to fight. Yes, they hit hard for their points but they are glass cannon. Since they are not supported by combat resolution which would give me a win, i instead rely on holding my ground. Weird for goblins so i can slap than not-in-charecter in my own face.

The GIANT... well, i just receive a model for it. So it's sort of tempting to use him. I also just bought some alternative trolls which brings my unit to, well, 9. So i am afraid that i can't really change much here.
But just ignoring the advice while asking for it...
What should i use instead of 150 points giant? Mangler squig at 85? I don't see any point in increasing the size of trolls and starting another unit will give me trouble keeping them in the range of general.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another thought.
I could drop mangler squig, giant and doom diver.
And put another spider in. I would also put another spear chukka and snotling pump wagon in the process (rare choices restriction).

And exchange lvl4 with lvl2 and forbidden rod (60 points less for +1 to dispell less) or simply put Dispell scroll on lvl 4 and droping one lvl1 shaman (another 50 points for maybe one unit of wolf riders)

I've never heard of such composition rules. In the future, you might want to post those ahead of time, to let people know what kind of limitations you're working with.

I'm not saying you should throw your General and BSB into the fight, but durability is something to consider. A Warboss with a 2+/4+ is not even remotely a glass cannon. Let's say he's facing some Khornate Warriors with halberds, and your opponent directs as many attacks as they can against your Warboss. That's 12 Attacks, 6 Hits, 4 Wounds, 2 after armour, and 1 after Ward. That's a durable Goblin!

The composition rules are similar to ETC, which is setting standards for many other tournaments and events across Europe. It's considered decently balanced and accepted by a lot of Warhammer gaming communities.

I admit it, the canned goblin general looks tempting. But the way i see it then i would put him in Front ranks. Where he would kill a trooper or two but will eventually die. Goblins are tarpit unit, not a killing machine.
If instead those troopers die, well, they are little greenskins. It's their way of life. If i put him in back ranks, his shiny armor is sort of wasted. I have to rethink about it.

Or you could give me a couple of reasons so i can see the wider picture. Always looking for advice, that's why i post here.

The idea is to make him tough so that when he ends up in a fight and the target of spells (which he will be, since he's the only thing holding your tar pits together), he'll be able to survive. Since, hopefully, the rest of your Gobbos held up the enemy for most of the game, the chances are pretty good your General won't die.
Plus, there's a good chance that a durable and semi-killy Goblin Warboss can wade into a combat and finish off a much-depleted unit (such as those that have barely survived your magic, war machines, Manglers and Fanatics), which can often mean the difference between a draw and a win, or a defeat and a draw.

Worst case scenario, you spend 100-ish points on your General without needing to. But that means he didn't need to get into combat, so things were going well for you anyway.

Ok, i need to give you some feedback, now that i played at the tournament.

The change from small units to couple of bigger ones really did the trick.

We played predefined mysterious terrain which mostly helped my goblin army.

Here is quick report. I don' remember all of the units, but just a quick review.
Battle 1 VS Empire with Flying circus.
Lord on Griffon, a lot of Flying characters, Cannon, halberdiers, pistoliers, Demigryphs.

I made a mistake during deployment and left warmachines and flank open to pistoliers. Bad because of my low leadership, but i got lucky and panicked the pistoliers.
Spider managed to lock Demigryphs for entire battle, although it died in the procces. Gamebreaking moment was charge from Griphon Lord on my main Gobbos, i had to take terror on 3d6, discarding lowest, but due to rerollable LD9 managed to hold, and Lord got insanely high charge (21), bringing him on top of my single fanatic (5 wounds on Griffon), a round latter breaking the general. Animosity forced my gobbos to charge halberdiers, killing my lvl4 and bsb, but i think i managed to break them eventually. Oh, cannon misfired itself out of the gme on 1st turn. In the end, i managed to win by around 300-400 VP.

Battle 2, VS orcs and goblins. List not unlike mine.
LVL4 orc, B Orc BSB, Biguns, 2x8 trolls, spider, doom diver, 2xspear chucka, 2x chariot, 3x gobbo cavalry, 2x mangler squig. I managed a charge with my cavalry on his, broke it, he fled through one mangler,my pursuit through other, which removed a decent threat.
Fun part, when his spider got Biona's Time warp on him due to mysterious terrain. But then giant killed the spider. The giant then locked one unit of trolls but died in the end. Sorry, but i sort of forgot other details. I ended up with decent win.

Battle 3 VS Bretonia. one big block of KOTR, one of Grail knights, some smaller cavalry units, 1 unit of pegasus knights. lvl4 and 2 other lvl 1 or 2.
Pretty hard match for him, i had no troubles redirecting his big units, he didn't have decent answer to mangler, and failed lookout sir from Rock Lobba killed his lvl4. So i had upper hand in movement, magic (Itchy Nuisance helped here) and shooting, and he didn't do much combat. He did do the Killing blow on spider though, but in the end lost almost all of his units. He did kill that spider and few smaller units, so i believe it was 18:2 for me.

Round 4 VS Empire
Arch lector, lvl4 and 2 lvl2, so str 7 banishment. BSB, 2xDemigriphs, Cannon, 40 Helberdiers, some detachments, 2x pistoliers, Steam tank, 2 knights
Hard list for me, with 2 cannons but they didn't do much.
On one flank i left spider, hiding from cannons, that was out of the game (we didn't finish whole 6 turns). Other small units on same flank died due to panic, dangerous terrain, shooting, leaving one brave wolf hero dancing around and basicaly locking 1 Demigrphs and pistoliers for the rest of the game.
Manglersoaked a lot of punishment but was eventually killed with suicidal knights.
Stema tank with Biona's Timewarp did a 24 charge and removed Squig herd, his magic removed my warmachines, i stupidly charged with goblins (or did i fail animosity) and lost lvl4 that was in unit, but the goblins and giant managed to hold the line against demigriphs, leaving my trolls to advance towards halberdiers. I lost a lot of units and didn't managed to kill a lot in return. Steam tank did suicidal6 wounds on it, but by that time i didn't have anything available to deal with it.
The last turn would be charge from halberdiers against my 8 trolls in his turn and them my spider against his flank or rear). Probably better for me that it ended, because i am not sure the trolls would hold (40 str4 attack, probably buffed with light magic). it was 14:6 for him and my first lost game.

Battle 5: Vs skaven
Lvl4, Lvl1 on plague furnace, engineer, warlord, abomination, 3x slaves, clanrats, stormvermin, plague monks, cannon

I managed to neutralize abomination with wolf riders. His frenzied plague monks were horded away by another wolf riders (they really did shine in this battle), the furnace was shot by artilery. Spider was charged by slaves (took him three turns to remove them, with help of chariot).
Infiltrators died mostly due to fanatics. Meanwhile he charged my gobbos unit with his stormvermin, i fled, he redirected in orther not to expose himsels but rolled insanely and charged trolls instead. The spider just managed to chew through slaves and flanked the stormvermin. When we finished, i lost 2 wolf riders, magler and misfired one chukka.
I believe Abomination received 5 wounds from stone thrower but it remained on it last wound. Due to Itchy nuissance on it and Gork will fix it on stormvermin i managed to secured a decent victory. It was also the only game when my magic did anything decent.

In the end i ended with best position due to Generalship points and ended up 3rd because i didn't have the painted army. Skaven player (my last opponent) was first, my fourth opponent (Empire player) was second.

Some overall thoughts, from competitive point of view (which i didn't really have in mind when this list was constructed - i usually ended in the lower half with my goblin army)
The protection on general was not needed. He is not there so see combat. Ever. Period. Well, his just in case items are pretty expensive. I Might just leave him with charmed shield.
Giant = not worth is, even at 50 points reduction. too random.
Spider, even at 50 points reduction, also does not bring enough to the table. But coupled with giant, that are 2 big threats. And goblins desperately need it. The drawback was that i could only put one mangler in the list. And that units gives every opponent a lot of trouble. Not damage, not kill, but trouble
Trolls are a big win. They didn't meet flaming attacks though, but at that point cost they are mandatory in an army that doesn't include orcs. And they were lead by troll matron with PMS, so nobody wanted to cross them!
All my small units were used mainly as diverters so i am thinking of dropping spears and maybe even shields on Wolf riders. The army was surprisingly not that bad. And some mistakes that i made were repaired by a bit of good luck.
I big drawback is only Little waagh. At the point cost of lvl4 and lvl1 shamans it is not bringing much to the table. Itchy nuisance is nice but not comparable to spells of Big Cousins.

Well done! It sounds like you had some good luck (with Goblins, it seems to always be either good or bad, never equal parts of both), but good nevertheless.

That second Empire list and the Skaven one look brutal. I don't know how you could have possible dealt with the A-bomb with Wold Riders, but you pulled it off somehow.

As to your overall thoughts:

- protective gear on your General is always an insurance thing. I don't ever invest points in my Goblin characters expecting those points to do anything in particular. But they have saved my BSB and General from Death magic, skirmishes with small units, and the like.
Try it without, if you want. The first (and only) thing I do against lists with character-heavy bunkers is to lay down the hurt with shooting and magic as much as possible. I'm pretty sure I've taken 20-man bunkers down to 5 or less models, characters included, in the first turn at least half the time I've faced those lists.
But my lists usually have a lot of ways to deal with that sort of thing. Others don't. And that's why I prepare for the worst.

- Giants are great at killing other big monsters, but that is it.

- the Spider is usually a good way to protect a good chunk of points while nabbing up a few in return. He's not the best offensive monster, but W8, man. W8.
Try a few games without him. See if you miss it.

- Manglers are pretty much The Way To Go with Goblins. A common selection is 2XRock Lobbas, 2XDoom Divers, and 2XManglers.
The Giant+Spider combo is putting a lot of danger on the table, but I don't think Goblins "desperately" need them by any means. Fanatics, Wolf Chariots, Trolls, war machines, Pump Wagons, and Manglers do enough of that, and usually more efficiently. Than the Giant, anyway.

- Trolls are really good, honestly. They're not all that reliable, espcially since 8th says Stupidity doesn't let you bumble into combat.
Still, as long as Flaming Attacks aren't an issue, they do quite well. If they are an issue, though, T4 and I2 = lots of dead trolls.

- The Little Waaagh! is all about the tricks. I run two lvl2's and two lvl1's, with a Channeling Staff, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Dispel Scroll, and Power Stone. That means I'm getting four Channels (one on a 5+), I've got 7 spells, and +2 Power Dice once. I always throw out just enough dice on my lvl1's to get the spell off, on average (usually 1 die). Then your opponent can either (1) try to one-die it, risking LoC, the spell going through, and the loss a Dispel Die, (2) letting it go through, risking the loss of a Dispel Die, or (3) throw two dice at it, probably dispelling it.
So you get your spell, put them at a Power-to-Dispel die disadvantage, or both.
I guess what it all boils down to is: the Little Waaagh! is good at getting a few spells off every turn. They're not devastating on their own, but there's good synergy, and they're pretty consistent in their (however minor) use.

Warpsolution wrote:
I don't know how you could have possible dealt with the A-bomb with Wold Riders, but you pulled it off somehow.


- Manglers are pretty much The Way To Go with Goblins. A common selection is 2XRock Lobbas, 2XDoom Divers, and 2XManglers.
The Giant+Spider combo is putting a lot of danger on the table, but I don't think Goblins "desperately" need them by any means. Fanatics, Wolf Chariots, Trolls, war machines, Pump Wagons, and Manglers do enough of that, and usually more efficiently. Than the Giant, anyway.



- The Little Waaagh! is all about the tricks. I run two lvl2's and two lvl1's, with a Channeling Staff, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Dispel Scroll, and Power Stone. That means I'm getting four Channels (one on a 5+), I've got 7 spells, and +2 Power Dice once. I always throw out just enough dice on my lvl1's to get the spell off, on average (usually 1 die). Then your opponent can either (1) try to one-die it, risking LoC, the spell going through, and the loss a Dispel Die, (2) letting it go through, risking the loss of a Dispel Die, or (3) throw two dice at it, probably dispelling it.
So you get your spell, put them at a Power-to-Dispel die disadvantage, or both.
I guess what it all boils down to is: the Little Waaagh! is good at getting a few spells off every turn. They're not devastating on their own, but there's good synergy, and they're pretty consistent in their (however minor) use.

I didn't even know what to do against the empire. As far as Skaven went, i outdeployed him, putting mangler last, so he went around and behind terrain with A-bomb on order to avoid the mangler. With vanguard and march i did not-so nice trick in moving wolf riders as close as possible and aligned it so that when charged the A-bomb would overrun over table edge. Due to proximity of building (he was one inch from tower) and my unit he couldn't pivot enough to go in any other direction except charge. 1st turn move, 2nd turn charge and overrun, 3rd turn back on the table, 4th turn Itchy Nuisance and it was left with only one wound due to hit with Rock lobba, so it went away saving Victory points. Would he played it more offensively, it would had to deal with 2 more rounds of my Artilery (which was unable to shoot at it due to terrain) and mangler, but surviving that, it would wreck my lines.

All those small ''dangerous units'', aka chariots, pump wagons, fanatics, i did play them but my deployment was to crowded and opponent can score a lot of really easy kills and Victory Points, and then i am left without anything dangerous. It didn't work for me. My chariots were mostly used as redirecting units. I didn't even charge a lot. Combined charge would do, but they mostly were used the same way as wolf riders. Maybe a bad way use them but it worked.

I am still unsure about little waagh and shamans. A lot of small ones or a lvl4. That +4 to dispel is really helpful. And playing a lot of shamans means i have to horde them in same units.
I might still try that one next time. After all, its not just to improving the list, its about changing in, adding some interesting elements.

The warmachines are usually played under similar AC as ETC, So max 4 of them, no doubles except chukka.

Those terrain-shenanigans make sense; that's about the only way for such a wimpy unit to hamper an A-bomb. Random movement is awesome.

Crowded deployment zones are an issue, to be sure. I've never had much of a problem with giving up Victory Points, though. They're all T4, usually with armour and/or a penalty to hit, so they each take a semi-decent spell or volley to down them. And when my opponent tries to focus on them, they can't get rid of them all (hopefully), and they leave the vast majority of my forces (which, being Goblins, are vast indeed) untouched. So it's a bit of a gamble for them, too.
The only real issue with this tactic are panic tests, but that's mostly just chariots, and a multiple attack wave-approach helps mitigate that.
I always look at the Wolf Chariots and consider that they're 50pts. The same as a unit of Wolf Riders. So however you use them, as long as it helps, is seldom a waste.

A cabal of little Shamans is mostly an offensive trick, rather than a defensive one. Still, a Dispel Scroll and a Feedback Scroll can make a pretty hefty defense (even if they're maxed out at 5 dice to cast. Every wound helps).
I usually run four Gobbo blocks; one for my General, one for my BSB, and two in the back lot with two Shamans each.