Tuesday, December 4, 2012

2400 2 Squig Herd List Review


The List! Over the course of this blog I will break down my lists that I play with and talk about what I was thinking about when building them, why I took what I did and what I can possibly do with the list. I will also analyze what armies I think it will do well against and how I think it will perform on the table.

Idea behind the list:
An idea was proposed on Da Warpath forums by silverbullet. He probably isn't the first person to think about this or talk about it but it was the first time I've heard of it. I have always thought about running Squig Herders, a horde of 45/15 coming out at 405 pts. Reading silverbullet's idea I decided to write a list, with some of his inputs, and play some games without changing the list. Silverbullet's idea is to include two Squig Herds at 30 squigs and 10 herders coming out at 270 points. The thought of having two Squig Herds is what inspired this list.

The List:
Lords:
Savage Orc Great Shaman - Lucky Shrunken Head, Fencer's Blades

Heroes:
Night Goblin Shaman - Level 2, Dispel Scroll

Black Orc Big Boss - Heavy Armour

Goblin Big Boss - BSB(Spider Banner)Great Weapon; Light Armour; Shield

Core:
33 x Savage Orc Big'Unz - Extra Hand Weapons, Musician, Standard Bearer
41 x Night Goblins - Shields, Nets, Standard Bearer
5 x Goblin Wolf Riders
5 x Goblin Wolf Riders

Special:
Squig Herd - 30 Squigs, 10 Herders
Squig Herd - 30 Squigs, 10 Herders
Troll
Troll
Troll

Rare:
Goblin Doom Diver Catapult
Goblin Doom Diver Catapult
Goblin Rock Lobber
Mangler Squig
Mangler Squig
Snotling Pump Wagon - Giant Explodin' Spores; Spiky Roller

Total Roster Cost: 2399

Unit Analysis:
Characters:
Savage Orc Great Shaman - This is pretty standard if bringing Savage Orc boyz. Having the shaman with the Lucky Shrunken Head, giving Savage Orcs a 5+ ward save instead of a 6+ base, is absolutely essential. Having the Fencer's Blades on the shaman just helps with his survivability and combined with Fist of Gork, giving the shaman +3 attacks, +3 strength, and a 6+ ward (4+ with the base and shrunken head), making him a killing machine.

Night Goblin Shaman - having a dispel scroll is essential but it makes life a heck of a lot easier when fighting other players magic. Upgrading the shaman to a level 2 just increases the chances of getting Itchy Nuisance, lowering movement and most importantly initiative (the bane of orcs and goblins).

Black Orc Big Boss - Sticking him into my most important combat block to help quell animosity and not lose a turn to failing animosity.

Goblin Big Boss - Making the Goblin big boss a bsb, giving him the spider banner(gives Poisoned Attacks), and attaching him to my savage orc unit was an idea I have been playing around with a while. Making my savage orcs even more killy is always good in my eyes.

Core Choices:
Savage Orc Big'Unz - In my opinion, Savage Orc Big'Unz is the best unit in the Orc and Goblin book. I never leave home without them. I always equip them with extra hand weapons. Having only 33 of them however bothers me a bit. I like to run the unit around 35-40+.

Night Goblins - Hoping to use the NG as a bit of a tarpit, with nets and a 6+ parry save, as long as they are in my leadership bubble they should be good to hold for a turn or two until help arrives.

Goblin Wolf Riders - having two units of fast cav has a dual purpose. I can use these two units to go either warmachine hunting or as cheap re directors.

Special Choices:
Squig Herd - I believe Squig Herds are vastly underrated and are hardly ever used, when people see units that they are not use to they generally make mistakes that you can take advantage of. With having 2 strength 5 attacks and running them as a horde, they will be able to take out mostly anything. With the special rule they effectively have a 5+ ward save against shooting, hoping the squig herders take an arrow to the face instead of the squig. Running both squig herd units as a horde creates a very hard hitting front.

Trolls - 3 cheap chaf units. Helps keep my savage orcs into check so they do not over pursue into areas I do not want them to go.

Rare Choices:
Doom Divers - Double Doom Diver is starting to become a staple into my list building, having a reliable.... well reliable to orc standards, shooting that does wonders when removing armor. I find doom divers to be a very good diverse tool that should be used as much as possible.

Rock Lobber - a great alternative to the doom diver. Great for taking out monsters and other warmachines with a str 9 under the hole and d6 multiple wounds just crushes anything it lands directly on... unless you roll a 1 on multiple wounds, happens to me all the time. Also a great tool against Ogres!

Mangler Squigs - Having these crazy bastards is starting to become essential for me in my lists. The most important thing that Manglers do is they make your opponent deal with them, if they don't they will regret not doing so. Putting two on the field takes a lot of attention off your combat blocks and other chaf.

Pump Wagon - Great vs armor, another alternative to the mangler squig. Giving it Giant Explodin' Spores and Spiky Roller just melts armor away which I always love.

My thoughts on the overall list:

- I would really like to beef up my units a bit more. I have been thinking abut dropping the Night Goblin Unit and adding more Savage Orcs.
- An alternative, dropping the night goblins, and adding two units of 21 x night goblins with bows and a fanatic, just to add a bit  of versatility.
- I would really like to get the Squig Herd to 35 Squigs 12 Herders.
- Initiative... as I said earlier, Initiative is the bane of Orcs and Goblins having half my squigs slaughtered before they get to attack is heart breaking, however that is why the Orc and Goblin units are so cheap, just need to take more.
- Spider Banner BSB, I don't know how I feel about this yet, I really like the idea of giving my Savage Orcs Poisoned Attacks, however an alternative would be kill two birds with one stone and give the BO the BSB and give him the Standard of Discipline boosting my leadership to 9. This is a big one for me and after 10 games I have a feeling this will be one of the places that will need tweaking.
-Leadership 8... Add a naked Orc Warboss? maybe.

Do well against:

Anything that has the same or lower initiative, I feel like this list will do really well vs Ogre Kingdoms.

Sketchy against:

Units with high initiative and a lot of models, WOC was a hard army to to beat with chaos warriors wiping out half of my squig herds before they got to attack back.

What are your thoughts? Let me know what you think in a comment below.

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