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I want you guys to take your last tournament list (preferably from 9th) and think about how hard it would be to kill Ghaz. When he was first released a lot of people were upset about his 4 wounds per phase rule and thought it was OP, but here we are sometime later and I want to know, has anyone actually had a hard time killing him?

First time I played against Ghaz I was able to kill him in the 1st turn by taking 4 wounds off him in the shooting phase, 4 wounds off him in the charge phase and finishing him off in the Close combat phase, doing all of this with a bit more than 2 Scrapjetz.

For those unaware of his stats, hes T7, 12 wounds, 2+ and 4++ and can only take 4 wounds per "Phase". Let me know

It really depends how reckless the opponent is with him or similar models and your ability for sufficient multi-phase damage. You also have to get somewhat lucky with two Scrapjets to drop 4MW in the charge phase. A simple screen would have place him at 8 wounds and then he would have run over the scrapjets next turn.

Each of the two games I have ever played against his orks with his new rules, I had to really not screw up. It's a very important choice, do you focus on the wagons full of other big bads, or the big bad charging up the middle who can go full Hulk smash on your entire army if he gets in. I chose to avoid him both times, but mainely because the player controlling Ghaz had no idea how to grab objectives and was just trying to win by killing me off. He is a really scary model though. Like Abadon or Morty. I'd much rather spend 6 CP and transform him into a group of 3 weirdvane Psykers.

SemperMortis wrote:
I want you guys to take your last tournament list (preferably from 9th) and think about how hard it would be to kill Ghaz.

I don't have a tournament list as I'm not a tourney player. Can I still play?

Anyways, it wasn't terribly hard.
Last time I faced him was with Necrons.
I went 1st.
I put 4 wounds on him in the shooting phase with a combination of Deathmarks + my Skorpek Lord on turn one.
Then I put another 4 wounds on him in melee when I charged him with said S.Lord & his Lychguard buddies.
I put the final 4 on him in his own combat phase.

Ghaz was pushing up daisies before the 2nd turn began.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Each of the two games I have ever played against his orks with his new rules, I had to really not screw up. It's a very important choice, do you focus on the wagons full of other big bads, or the big bad charging up the middle who can go full Hulk smash on your entire army if he gets in. I chose to avoid him both times, but mainely because the player controlling Ghaz had no idea how to grab objectives and was just trying to win by killing me off. He is a really scary model though. Like Abadon or Morty. I'd much rather spend 6 CP and transform him into a group of 3 weirdvane Psykers.

How is Ghaz hulk smashing your entire army? He gets 5 attacks, against big vehicles, and units/characters without invuln saves he does work but anything else hes going to have a hard time getting through.

SemperMortis wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Each of the two games I have ever played against his orks with his new rules, I had to really not screw up. It's a very important choice, do you focus on the wagons full of other big bads, or the big bad charging up the middle who can go full Hulk smash on your entire army if he gets in. I chose to avoid him both times, but mainely because the player controlling Ghaz had no idea how to grab objectives and was just trying to win by killing me off. He is a really scary model though. Like Abadon or Morty. I'd much rather spend 6 CP and transform him into a group of 3 weirdvane Psykers.

How is Ghaz hulk smashing your entire army? He gets 5 attacks, against big vehicles, and units/characters without invuln saves he does work but anything else hes going to have a hard time getting through.

If Ghaz came out now he would reduce or simply ignore invuls like belakor, but sadly he came out at a time when the power curve was a lot lower. Very curious to see what our next codex (hopefully before orktober) will give him.
As he is now, he is quite bad, and as you just fits in a slew list (which is going out IMHO with drukari infantry coming in hot)

I've only played against Ghaz once (couple weeks back). I stayed away from the model and focussed on mission and other units until turn 3 and my opponent slipped up and pushed Ghaz a bit too far out. I dropped Ghaz in a single turn. Yncarne with mortal wounds in psychic phase. Then cast Doom and Jinx on Ghaz. Shining Spears moved up shot, doing 4 more wounds, then assaulted and destroyed Ghaz on the charge.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It really depends how reckless the opponent is with him or similar models and your ability for sufficient multi-phase damage. You also have to get somewhat lucky with two Scrapjets to drop 4MW in the charge phase. A simple screen would have place him at 8 wounds and then he would have run over the scrapjets next turn.

With genuine respect to the others who have shared their thoughts, I think this is possibly the most rational post.

If he’s well insulated, he’s likely to be right sod to deal with before he’s done damage to something you’d really rather he didn’t. But. In the hands of a foolish player, he’s still toast.

It’s kind of a double edged rule, especially on a model as slow as Ghaz. You either need to slow down your main advance, and only let him off the chain a turn earlier than a character without his special rule, or risk your opponent not being able to dish out reliable wounds in each phase.

I’d say the Void Dragon is possibly more of a threat with what is an identical rule. It’s way, way faster, can spam MW, and recover wounds by giving any vehicle of any weight a bloody good fisting. For instance, you could do 8 wounds as an IG player, only to have him knack a squadron of Sentinels and be back good as new.

If I had to sum up limited per phase wound potential? It’s the different between insurance and assurance. Understand the difference, and you’ll have a better chance of terrorising your opponent

Not as a DE player, Reavers can deal 2-4 MW's in the movement, a few in shooting (most likely maxing the damage for that phase), 2-3 on the Charge, and 1-2 in melee just by themselves. Hellions can do something similar as well, just not on the charge phase.

 Sarigar wrote:
I've only played against Ghaz once (couple weeks back). I stayed away from the model and focussed on mission and other units until turn 3 and my opponent slipped up and pushed Ghaz a bit too far out. I dropped Ghaz in a single turn. Yncarne with mortal wounds in psychic phase. Then cast Doom and Jinx on Ghaz. Shining Spears moved up shot, doing 4 more wounds, then assaulted and destroyed Ghaz on the charge.

Yea, that's a misplay there for sure since Ycarne only has one decent MW spell so smite had to get on there as well. Markari can be crucial to keeping a phase below 4 and extending the lifespan.


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SemperMortis wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Each of the two games I have ever played against his orks with his new rules, I had to really not screw up. It's a very important choice, do you focus on the wagons full of other big bads, or the big bad charging up the middle who can go full Hulk smash on your entire army if he gets in. I chose to avoid him both times, but mainely because the player controlling Ghaz had no idea how to grab objectives and was just trying to win by killing me off. He is a really scary model though. Like Abadon or Morty. I'd much rather spend 6 CP and transform him into a group of 3 weirdvane Psykers.

How is Ghaz hulk smashing your entire army? He gets 5 attacks, against big vehicles, and units/characters without invuln saves he does work but anything else hes going to have a hard time getting through.

6A with trait up to 8A as he is damaged with 6s exploding into an extra attack. On his last bracket he should throw 9A or more at S10. He can be healed if so inclined and can fight twice on death.

Is he worse than C'Tan? Nightbringer is 370 and W9, 4+/4++, and 6 S14 AP4 D6 attacks. Ghaz is W12 2+/4++ so more safe from small arms should they come his way.

Nightbringer does 6 * .833 * .833 * 3.5 = 14.5 to a 4++ character

Ghaz does (6 * 1.195) * .998 * .833 * .5 * 4 = 11.9 ( still rerolls his own 1s )
up to (8 * 1.195) * .998 * .833 * .5 * 4 = 15.9

He has an ok gun aside from that. Nightbringer drops the pain with his spell for sure though ( and has a sweep ). But then he doesn't buff the rest of the army. So the end result should be that Ghaz supports the army and makes them stronger as well as being decently strong himself. You just can't throw him to the wind and expect magic.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sarigar wrote:
I've only played against Ghaz once (couple weeks back). I stayed away from the model and focussed on mission and other units until turn 3 and my opponent slipped up and pushed Ghaz a bit too far out. I dropped Ghaz in a single turn. Yncarne with mortal wounds in psychic phase. Then cast Doom and Jinx on Ghaz. Shining Spears moved up shot, doing 4 more wounds, then assaulted and destroyed Ghaz on the charge.

Yea, that's a misplay there for sure since Ycarne only has one decent MW spell so smite had to get on there as well. Markari can be crucial to keeping a phase below 4 and extending the lifespan.


My opponent advised it was the first time he had lost Ghaz in a single turn. He did not anticipate Yncarne teleportation and how powerful the 'fly keyword is on Shining Spears. I baited Ghaz out with a Vyper to assault.

Ghaz ALWAYS dies, unless the ork player tables the opponent in 2-3 turns.

If Ghaz manages to last 3 whole turns and gets his points back by killing stuff and/buffing units that's a win for him. He's the opposite of an unkillable character.

 Blackie wrote:
Ghaz ALWAYS dies, unless the ork player tables the opponent in 2-3 turns.

If Ghaz manages to last 3 whole turns and gets his points back by killing stuff and/buffing units that's a win for him. He's the opposite of an unkillable character.

Yea. he does make a great distraction though. He will suck in MM shots making the table safer for other vehicles for a couple turns.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
6A with trait up to 8A as he is damaged with 6s exploding into an extra attack.

I agree with the rest of your post, but there is no strong reason to make him your warlord. Orks have a few really good warlord traits, and putting one of them on another character is usually superior to giving +1 attack.

Wouldn’t he be very strong if you stick a painboy with him? You can buff him up with 2d3 lost wounds on a turn.

 Nerak wrote:
Wouldn’t he be very strong if you stick a painboy with him? You can buff him up with 2d3 lost wounds on a turn.

Can only be 1D3 per turn and that’s only with the Medi-Squig stratagem to heal Characters. The Painboy’s normal ability only works on Infantry or Bikes.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
6A with trait up to 8A as he is damaged with 6s exploding into an extra attack.

I agree with the rest of your post, but there is no strong reason to make him your warlord. Orks have a few really good warlord traits, and putting one of them on another character is usually superior to giving +1 attack.

Yea, fair point.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Ghaz ALWAYS dies, unless the ork player tables the opponent in 2-3 turns.

If Ghaz manages to last 3 whole turns and gets his points back by killing stuff and/buffing units that's a win for him. He's the opposite of an unkillable character.

Yea. he does make a great distraction though. He will suck in MM shots making the table safer for other vehicles for a couple turns.

on average it takes 2 Eradicators with the upgraded melta rifles to inflict the 4 required dmg. (4 shots, 2.6 hits, 1.8ish =.88 going through invuln which = D6+2 or average is 5 x .888 = 4+dmg) Not exactly a great distraction unit, sucking up MM shots, its even less if the Eradicators are in half range. The point is that getting that 4 dmg isn't the hardest thing in the world to do in the shooting phase, nor is it that hard to do in the CC phase. The trick is to get the other dmg either earlier in the game in shooting phases OR to have other phase shenanigans like I have in the charge phase.

Also, on the idea of him being this amazing buffing character....he does the same thing (for the most part) as a weirdboy casting warpath and basically a WAAAAGH banner. The big difference is the weirdboy can only buff 1 unit where as ghaz can theoretically buff 2-4 units, in reality he will probably be buffing 1 or 2 at the most.

So for the cost of Ghaz you can get a WAAAGH banner, a weirdboy and a Warboss with Da killa Klaw while also getting character protection AND putting out a lot more dmg in CC...ohh and you will still have 54pts left over (when compared to Ghaz's price)


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 Nerak wrote:
Wouldn’t he be very strong if you stick a painboy with him? You can buff him up with 2d3 lost wounds on a turn.

You absolutely can using the Medisquig stratagem (1CP). So 2 CP a turn to heal 4 wounds on average, and likely 3 CP because you are going to want to command reroll a result of 1 or 2.

SemperMortis wrote:

on average it takes 2 Eradicators with the upgraded melta rifles to inflict the 4 required dmg. (4 shots, 2.6 hits, 1.8ish =.88 going through invuln which = D6+2 or average is 5 x .888 = 4+dmg) Not exactly a great distraction unit, sucking up MM shots, its even less if the Eradicators are in half range. The point is that getting that 4 dmg isn't the hardest thing in the world to do in the shooting phase, nor is it that hard to do in the CC phase. The trick is to get the other dmg either earlier in the game in shooting phases OR to have other phase shenanigans like I have in the charge phase.

Also, on the idea of him being this amazing buffing character....he does the same thing (for the most part) as a weirdboy casting warpath and basically a WAAAAGH banner. The big difference is the weirdboy can only buff 1 unit where as ghaz can theoretically buff 2-4 units, in reality he will probably be buffing 1 or 2 at the most.

So for the cost of Ghaz you can get a WAAAGH banner, a weirdboy and a Warboss with Da killa Klaw while also getting character protection AND putting out a lot more dmg in CC...ohh and you will still have 54pts left over (when compared to Ghaz's price)

Which either creates a scenario where the third eradicator is wasted ( a plus ) or where they split and lose shoot twice ( unlikely ). You otherwise need 2 to 3 attack bikes to make sure they get through ( but with the advantage of doing one at a time until one gets through ), which is the total anti-tank for a lot of lists.

I don't think he's an amazing buffer. He gives something like the C'Tan while also buffing, which is why he might be perceived as a weaker unit behind the power curve, which may or may not be correct depending on the list he gets used in.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Which either creates a scenario where the third eradicator is wasted ( a plus ) or where they split and lose shoot twice ( unlikely ). You otherwise need 2 to 3 attack bikes to make sure they get through ( but with the advantage of doing one at a time until one gets through ), which is the total anti-tank for a lot of lists.

I don't think he's an amazing buffer. He gives something like the C'Tan while also buffing, which is why he might be perceived as a weaker unit behind the power curve, which may or may not be correct depending on the list he gets used in.

True, it does waste the last melta shot, but the point I was making was that Ghaz isn't all that durable in regards to avoiding 4dmg each phase. T7 is good, 2+ is good, and 4++ is great. But against the things shooting at him, T7 is no better than T5 and T6 and the 2+ is basically ignored entirely so it goes to the 4++. So hes as durable as a Primaris captain in gravis armor for those 4 wounds.

As far as being a buff character, again I pointed out that Ghaz does the same level of buffing as the aforementioned characters who are technically more durable thanks to character protection and who inflict significantly more dmg than Ghaz. If I can get a similar level of buffs from those characters while doing more dmg in combat than Ghaz needs a price drop, and a hefty one at that. And the most telling reason for that is the fact that the Nob with WAAAAGH banner is universally considered to be meh and over priced.

Yea that's fair. I don't work him into my lists, but if I did it would probably bring a couple bonebreakas and trukks.

SemperMortis wrote:
I want you guys to take your last tournament list (preferably from 9th) and think about how hard it would be to kill Ghaz. When he was first released a lot of people were upset about his 4 wounds per phase rule and thought it was OP, but here we are sometime later and I want to know, has anyone actually had a hard time killing him?

First time I played against Ghaz I was able to kill him in the 1st turn by taking 4 wounds off him in the shooting phase, 4 wounds off him in the charge phase and finishing him off in the Close combat phase, doing all of this with a bit more than 2 Scrapjetz.

For those unaware of his stats, hes T7, 12 wounds, 2+ and 4++ and can only take 4 wounds per "Phase". Let me know

Its kind of a gatekeeper thing. An army that can't fight and shoot well can't really kill him until turn 3, [and most armies really only have 2 chances per turn to deal damage], and even then a good ork player can virtually guarantee he lives long enough to have an nonnegligible impact on the game or at least gets to fight since it essentially gives them the ability to dictate the terms of his death and get at least one thing in. Its definitely a fairly strong ability that I dont think should be in the game.

That said, in light of the later existence of Ctan, who have the same ability but also sometimes heal, Ghazskull feels like small time.

So, TLR, Ghazskull isn't hard to kill eventually, but its relatively difficult to take him out of the game before he can have an impact, so I might say sure, he's hard to kill.

Why would anyone set up Ghaz where he can be shot except by LOS-ignoring stuff and/or charged T1? That's beyond dumb.

Maybe Ghaz heard there was a good foight to be had on the Bowling Plains of Flatticus Omicron?

ccs wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
I want you guys to take your last tournament list (preferably from 9th) and think about how hard it would be to kill Ghaz.

I don't have a tournament list as I'm not a tourney player. Can I still play?

Anyways, it wasn't terribly hard.
Last time I faced him was with Necrons.
I went 1st.
I put 4 wounds on him in the shooting phase with a combination of Deathmarks + my Skorpek Lord on turn one.
Then I put another 4 wounds on him in melee when I charged him with said S.Lord & his Lychguard buddies.
I put the final 4 on him in his own combat phase.

Ghaz was pushing up daisies before the 2nd turn began.

Unless you assasinated also his doc it's ork's fault for not healing it up. If you don't kill on your own turn at once it should take minimum 4 phases or ork player is in need of relearning basics

yukishiro1 wrote:
Why would anyone set up Ghaz where he can be shot except by LOS-ignoring stuff and/or charged T1? That's beyond dumb.

No, not really. At least not in my game.
The terrain was fine btw.

On setting up in LoS to be shot;
Because in our game, based on the terrain that evening, if he wanted Ghaz to be involved in the action earlier than turn #3 or #4 he had two basic choices.
1) Set up where both my units of Deathmarks (+ other longer ranged stuff) could see him,
2) Set up where only one unit of Deathmarks could see him (+ some 12" Reaper warriors who weren't in T1 range).
He chose the latter. Wouldn't you?

On getting charged on T1;
Well, he wasn't expecting that....
*I'm known for my dislike of melee in my 40k. If I want melee action I'll generally play Sigmar or something.
*That said, I do know how to play this game & do include {some} melee options in most of my forces. In this particular list my melee was limited to 1 Skorpek Lord + a full unit of Lychguard (with shields). And I'd already deployed both towards the other end of my DZ, apparently in response to several mobz. It looked like I was planning to use them as a response team depending upon where my line was hit/maybe wich objectives were taken.
*A Skorpek Lord + a full unit of Lychguard are a solid threat. Ghaz was nowhere near them. Or anything else that'd ever want to charge him for that matter. The worst that might've occurred would be him eventually tar-pitting himself vs a blob of Reaper warriors if he tried to clear them off an objective.
My foe didn't even consider that this SkorpLord might be packing a Veil of Darkness.
So the T1 sneak attack + successful charges came as a surprise. CCS initiated the melee attack? In 40K??

Now, before you go on about how he should've known about the Veil, etc?
In casual games between friends we don't go over our lists pre-game. It's written down. We know we're within the agreed upon pts. Our weapons are all WYSIWYG. Beyond that? We'll find out through play what dirty tricks the other guy has up his sleeve this week concerning wargear/traits/special rules/new units etc.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Why would anyone set up Ghaz where he can be shot except by LOS-ignoring stuff and/or charged T1? That's beyond dumb.

Because Ghaz cannot move through breachable terrain, moves only 7" and therefore would lose his entire first turn or more if you hide him fully behind obscuring terrain or large LoS blockers. He isn't exactly small either.
Of course you take some care to reduce shooting that can target him, but some of your opponent's more mobile guns will always be able to line up shots.


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tneva82 wrote:
Unless you assasinated also his doc it's ork's fault for not healing it up. If you don't kill on your own turn at once it should take minimum 4 phases or ork player is in need of relearning basics

Skipping the painboy is perfectly fine, as against many armies the extra 65 points don't change that Ghaz dies turn 2. Instead, he just gains your opponent an extra 3 VP for the assassinate secondary objective.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Ghaz ALWAYS dies, unless the ork player tables the opponent in 2-3 turns.

If Ghaz manages to last 3 whole turns and gets his points back by killing stuff and/buffing units that's a win for him. He's the opposite of an unkillable character.

Yea. he does make a great distraction though. He will suck in MM shots making the table safer for other vehicles for a couple turns.

If you need distractions for vehicles just bring more of them! Ghaz is the cost of 3 buggies, which can soak much more melta shots that him, as each vehicle act as a single unit once deployed (so no eradicators' double tap among other things). And typically ghaz doesn't match very well with vehicles, he's mostly played as the leader of a greentide. One of the reason behind that is that he doesn't really tank that many melta shots to provide enough saturation for other vehicles.

 Blackie wrote:


If you need distractions for vehicles just bring more of them! Ghaz is the cost of 3 buggies, which can soak much more melta shots that him, as each vehicle act as a single unit once deployed (so no eradicators' double tap among other things). And typically ghaz doesn't match very well with vehicles, he's mostly played as the leader of a greentide. One of the reason behind that is that he doesn't really tank that many melta shots to provide enough saturation for other vehicles.

Well, to elaborate a bit more it would be vehicles and trukks and an attempt to run small boyz units.

It becomes a matter or priorities. They might ignore buggies for BBs, but they probablywon't ignore Ghaz for BBs.

I have no time using him so I couldn't say if that psychology works out.

I've faced Gaz once, I went second and killed him in my opponents turn 2. I was playing Tau, specifically Farsight Enclaves, and my Stealth Suits being able to do MW on the charge turned out to be very important.

My opponent was deliberatly using him as a Distraction Carnifex, charging him straight at my lines knowing it would annhiliate Ghostkeels and Broadsides if he could get to them. He wasn't particularly scary, but I did have to plan around him so had a notible affect on the game.