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I have enough Greenskins to last me a lifetime but I do like these guys. I don't mind the new aesthetic direction (though the mild scale creep annoys me as always).

I'm all for AoS doing it's own thing rather than clinging too much to the past, and I'm happy that there's a more "common orc" archetype to play with than the Bonesplittas or the Ard Boys.

I'm not a fan of the silly names, I preferred the older naming scheme of Savage Orc, Orc, Black Orc and so on, but hey, that's nu-GW.

 Da Boss wrote:
I have enough Greenskins to last me a lifetime but I do like these guys. I don't mind the new aesthetic direction (though the mild scale creep annoys me as always).

There isn't actually much scale creep when you handle them. The Orruks are more upright so they're taller but not more bulky and the Hobgrots are actually smaller than the old Hobgoblins.

So I was able to play with mine today and here are my thoughts from what I experienced.

The star unites were:

Swampcalla Shaman
Man-skewer Boltboyz
Murknob with Belcha Banner
Killboss on Mount

The Swampcalla basically never casts his spell and just keeps buffing the Boltboyz to get those Mortals on 5+. Very effective, which surprised me due to the low number of shots that they get when using the aimed profile. Crude, but very effective.

The Killboss on Mount is weird because the Boss himself is quite lackluster, but that mount of his is downright nasty in CC, even when not finishing a charge.

The Murknob banner is fun, and pairs well when targeting multiple units. He's also a lot meaner in CC than I expected him to be.

Sadly, Hobgrots are just absolute trash. They should be hitting & wounding on 4+. The Wound of 5+ just shuts everything down. After three charges with Hobgrots today, they were able to successfully get 1. ONE wound through onto a unit of Vulkite Berzerkers. The 6s become 2 hits just isn't enough for them. Grenades are kinda cool though, so there is that. I hope that Meth Dobby gives some kind of cool buff to the Hobgrots, extra grenades or something like that.

The Gutrippaz were okay, but as a single unit that I had, they really need a lot of help. The Scare takktiks rule is ultra cool and quite effective, though not reliable. Gutrippaz really lack any umph with the spears, maybe the axes in the full kit will fair better.

The on foot Killboss is okay, nothing super impressive about him. But he's useable.

Overall, they are a simple faction. I'd like a few more rules and I'm hoping the new battletome will bring them into their own.

To be honest, the quality of the models is so much better than the other two clans of Orruks. IronJawz really just look silly and out of place, almost like saturday morning cartoons while the savage orks still have too much of the old world in them to really feel like they belong in the higher fantasy setting of AoS. I honestly wouldn't have been upset had they just squatted the others and used these going forward as AoS Orruks.

I assume by Meth Dobby you're referring to the Sloggoth. If so, sorry to burst your bubble but its ridden by regular Grotz, not Hobgrotz. So I think its very unlikely that it synergises with Hobs at all.

Anyway, yeah Swampcallas are very clearly the MVP right now. As it stands, you probably want 3 in a 2k list to make use of potions, elixirs, and Boggy Mist every turn. They're that good, at least compared to the rest of the units.

I find my Gutrippas fair pretty well when backed up by a Shaman. Their normal attacks barely do anything, but the supported MW’s is pretty nutso.

Otherwise I’ve pretty much found the same results. The poor Hobgrots! They’re so cool, but so useless.

Yeah, Gutrippaz get pretty good with 5+ mortals... which is all the more reason that multiple Swampcallas is basically a must as it stands.

I'd run at least 2, one at the back with the Boltboyz and one up front with the Gutrippaz. If the Boltboyz don't have targets, the backfield Shaman would cast Boggy Mist.

From a design standpoint I really like their look. I don't want to start a new army (especially a horde army) but they may end up as allies of my Ogors at some point.

 Gridge wrote:
From a design standpoint I really like their look. I don't want to start a new army (especially a horde army) but they may end up as allies of my Ogors at some point.

I initially considered this before jumping in fully. Currently though they are a pretty poor choice of ally as they really need their allegiance ability to get them up to an average damage output for their cost even comparable to other datasheets without allegiance abilities. Without the poison, they are so much worse than Ardboys on the table...

Obviously that's only a mechanical argument, and pre tome so a lot could change!

When putting 5+ poison on the boltboyz, one will probably want to do the rapid fire profile to get more chances for MWs. If possible, of course.

It does suck with the hobgrots, I was hyped then saw their warscroll and just went "ah well, save em for when they get better" because they aren't viable now.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
When putting 5+ poison on the boltboyz, one will probably want to do the rapid fire profile to get more chances for MWs. If possible, of course.

It does suck with the hobgrots, I was hyped then saw their warscroll and just went "ah well, save em for when they get better" because they aren't viable now.

You get to hit on a 2+. 5 rounds of shooting yesterday and none of them missed.

Togusa wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
When putting 5+ poison on the boltboyz, one will probably want to do the rapid fire profile to get more chances for MWs. If possible, of course.

It does suck with the hobgrots, I was hyped then saw their warscroll and just went "ah well, save em for when they get better" because they aren't viable now.

You get to hit on a 2+. 5 rounds of shooting yesterday and none of them missed.

Yes but you whatever you're hitting on you're getting mortals on a 5+ with shamab. You'll do more damage overall with the hasty shots.

Confirming hasty shots are lovely if you can get within 12". All Out Attack bumping them to 3s means you're functionally only trading a 2+ for a 3+ to hit but doubling your shots.

Yeah, so far, I'd say the crossbow kruleboyz are the ones that garner my interest the most. I was hoping that they would be more from the Ardboyz side of things initially since Ruglud's Armoured ladz was a thing back then, but I guess this works too.

I keep forgetting you can do All Our Attack on ranged units for some reason. I like to get to hasty shot range regardless, since statistically you hit with the same amount but get double the chance of mortals and potential dmg. But doing it and using AOA makes them super sweet!

I played a 1500pt Game on the weekend with Kruleboyz. With my opponents permission, I used the 2.0 Orruk Warclans Big Waaagh Allegiance ability. Since it's generic, I felt it was fine to use, so keep in mind that this may skew my view of them. I played against mostly the Stormcast Dominion Box. No Yndrasta, but taking a bunch of Sancrosanct stuff to fill the rest and a lord-arcanum.

Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof - RR Run n charge rolls CA. 5+ Ward Relic.
Swampcalla
Swampcalla
Murknob - Caster Relic, took Flaming Weapon.

10 Gutrippaz
10 Gutrippaz
10 Gutrippaz
6 Boltboyz
3 Boltboyz

Gutrippaz were decently effective at not dying, once I was buffing up their saves with Mystic shield from Murknob and Elixer from one Swampcalla. The other Swampcalla was palling around with the 6-strong Boltboy unit and wreaking havoc.

Turn 1, Stormcast player surprises me with infinite range spell and other casting and nearly wipes the unit of 3 boltboyz. Otherwise, buffs up and gets in to position. Holds back his deepstrike reserves.
Turn 1, bottom. Hot roll on my Killaboss generating Waagh points, and the Command ability nets me another 4, up to 10. I move up, start taking objectives. Largely uneventful, as my 6-strong unit Boltboyz had no range or sight on anything. I built my table with the recommended amount of terrain pieces, quite a lot of chunky buildings and rocks to hide behind, and the other guy used this well to hide first turn.

Turn 2 Top. Double turn babyeee! And another decently hot roll on Waagh points. I'm up to 18 points on the top of turn 2. Murknob shields Killaboss. 6 Boltboyz soften up a sequitor unit, Killaboss finishes them up, and now the bulk of his heroes are exposed to the boss. Other than that, I'm still keeping things safe, trying to not overcommit and keep generating more points as I hold the middle.
Turn 2, Bottom. Stormcast Reserves come in. 10 Vindictors in my backfield try to take an objective from the single boltboy, 10 gutrippaz and 1 shaman. 3 Annihilators pop infront of my Killaboss. Vindictors fail their 7" charge with a reroll. Annihilators get in, smash up my Killaboss, leaving it with 4 or so wounds because not a single 5+ Ward went off. Killaboss hits back hard, kills 2 Annihilators and nearly dies for it. Gutrippaz get charged by Praetors. Praetors don't do well in that fight. Lord-Imperatant fails a charge.

Turn 3 Top. Kruleboyz time. I'm trying to pop heroic recoveries on my Killaboss, so I can keep him up. Get heal off, roll a 1. Sad time. But, now I get over 24 Waagh points, so it's fun time. 6 Boltboyz split fire. Finish the Annihilator unit, and my Boss is down to 2 wounds. They finish the Praetor unit. Gutrippaz turn and charge the 10 vindictors behind them. 2 other Gutrippa units get on to heroes. Murknob juices himself with Flaming Weapon, charges Lord-Imperetant. Killaboss hangs back because he doesn't want to die. Use the Big Waagh CA, kill a bunch of heroes with Gutrippaz. Even the Boltboyz get stuck in melee, no real reason not to. Nasty damage dealt to Vindictors, Murknob buffed up with Flaming Weapons and Big Waagh juices shreds the lord imperetant.

At that point, I think the stormcast player was waiting for a hail mary of some sort, since we weren't actually that far away in Victory points, but the damage to the army was done, and the next turns was just mopping up and me claiming victory points.

Boltboyz are solid, they did decent work. Make sure you don't play on planet bowling ball though. The table won't look good, and in the shooting meta it's very important for balance. I'd like to experience more armies and games, but I felt like they did solid. My opponent wasn't too experienced with Stormcast, and was generally newer to AoS than I, so more testing against a variety of foes is needed.

If the alternative weapon load out to the spear is an axe. The one leader has an axe, at 3+, 3+ rend 1 D2. Assuming the load out will be something like 4+, 4+ rend 1 D2 would they be good? (I assume that it will not be that as an extra rend and D2 is a very strong profile over the spear.) But if you can not fight in 2 lines because of a short reach the perhaps they are even with Spears. But pumping it to 5+ poison from a shaman on a damage 2 weapon sounds tasty.

Leader with an extra spicy melee weapon in the front would be nice. I doubt the shorter weapons teased in the recent GW Livestream/release article will have much use unless you can take Gutrippaz in 5s.

Well... If the only trade off is range for D2 you can probably shufel the bases so you get more attacks inn. Also if you can not and the damage output is the same they just fight better with 5 models left.

I cant see them being D2. It'll be 1 point better hit, wound, or rend.

Agreed. I maybe should've been more clear, I reasonably expect a Nob/Boss/Sergeant weapon to be D2. Having mass D2 weapons would be a bit too much with Poison Weapons.

1" Hand Weapons with marginally better stats on 32mm 10-man units are not terribly usable this edition right now.

Hey, maybe GW is just trying to go for realism in the end, and they're trying to make spears the best weapon with this coherancy change?

Spears, halberds, naginatoes, lancesthe list goes on. There could be many good 2" range weapons this edition.

Possible, though these days they almost always just do +1 attack for unit leaders. Reason being you can roll them in the same pool as the rest of the unit.

Obviously there are some exceptions even on newer units though.

I can not speak for the rules side of things,and do not care too much there anyway.

As for the models: they have not grown on me by now, and I doubt they ever will. The attempt to bring oldschool designs into the present is obvious and well done on a technical level - it is jsut not to my taste. I also abhor the thin spikes and spindly parts everywhere. This is nothing new with GW these days, just even more prominent with the Kruleboyz. Last, but not least I hate how little the models fit into "their" army - which is not a faction of itself, but the Orruk Warclans. As if it was not enough to have the visually distinct Ironjawzs and Bonesplitterz "share" a book... no, we double down and throw a third faction in that fits even less.

Having said all that: there are some things I can work with, mostly conversions into models that look like I want them to. In terms of rules I should get quite a bit of the old O&G range to work again, which is something I definitely appreciate.

Finally: the new Hobgrots are the early vanguard of Chaos Dwarfs 2.0, and those I really look forward to!

 Thadin wrote:
I played a 1500pt Game on the weekend with Kruleboyz. With my opponents permission, I used the 2.0 Orruk Warclans Big Waaagh Allegiance ability. Since it's generic, I felt it was fine to use, so keep in mind that this may skew my view of them. I played against mostly the Stormcast Dominion Box. No Yndrasta, but taking a bunch of Sancrosanct stuff to fill the rest and a lord-arcanum.

Big waagh includes all orruks including kruleboyz...so yeah you absolutely can without even needing opponent permission.

Kruleboy is own subfaction like ironjaws but just like ironjaws you can take them as part of ironjaws.

If it's got orruk keyword it's fair play.

I agree with you from a RAW standpoint, but from books and rules understanding it may be murky to other people looking in. I feel it's safer to just explain the situation to them, how it's an old book that they're not in, but the keyword is appropriate. Thus far, everyone has understood that it works.

Raw they don't get venom encrusted weapons in Big Waagh right?

Though GW has said they will down the line.

IIRC, they get it from Kruleboyz Orruk keyword, Big Waagh doesn't replace anything.

GW also said somewhere that even in mixed armies they get their poisoned weapons, but I can't recall where.

 Thadin wrote:
IIRC, they get it from Kruleboyz Orruk keyword, Big Waagh doesn't replace anything.

GW also said somewhere that even in mixed armies they get their poisoned weapons, but I can't recall where.

It's explicitly a Kruleboyz Allegiance Ability, which means strictly you only get it with the Kruleboyz Allegiance, not Big Waaagh.

It was in the stream I believe, they said they WILL have access to it in Big Waaagh, but there's no such rule currently.

For casual games, I think its reasonable to allow it though as they're pretty terrible otherwise!

Won't have to dwell on it too long. Only a few weeks from a new book release. I don't see issues running it a bit off the cuff until concrete rules surface.