The Reign of the Brute is here, and with it comes a wave of reinforcements for the Ironjawz clan. In this article we will be looking at the warscrolls for these new units. Before we begin, we would like to thank GW for providing us with a copy of the Reign of the Brute book for review purposes. Right, let’s crack on.

What’s in the Ironjawz Supplement?

Released as a standalone PDF for free, as well as included in Reign of the Brute, is a selection of new units (with one updated warscroll) that help round out the Ironjawz roster and expand their options. In total there are eight warscrolls to discuss:

• Tuskboss on Maw-Grunta
• Maw-Grunta with Hakkin’ Krew
• Maw-Grunta Gougers
• Ardboys (Updated)
• Ardboy Bigboss
• Zoggrok Anvilsmasha
• Brute Ragerz
• Weirdbrute Wrekkaz

The book also contains a new Army of Renown for the Ironjawz that lets bacon enthusiasts push around up to 10 Big Pigs in one tidal wave of pork.

The Maw-Gruntas

We have to start with the Big Pig – it’s been a topic of much discussion and hype since the models first tease a number of months back, exciting players with the prospect of a mounted hero that is cheaper than a Maw-krusha and would aesthetically fit well with Gore-Gruntas, an already popular unit within the faction. Rejoice, for the harvest was plentiful and GW have blessed us with 3 pig variants from the same core kit, and the rules designers have (somewhat successfully) carved out a different niche for each of the builds by pointing them at significantly different levels.

What is common amongst all three pigs is the basic statline of the Grunta itself, as well as their core gimmick. Momentum is an interesting new mechanic in the game, generated by each Grunta when they run or charge – D3 each time to be exact. At the end of the turn (both you and your opponent’s), the Momentum degrades by 1 (to a minimum of 1), and can cap out at 6. Generally speaking, the higher the Momentum the Grunta has, the more effective they are on the table, with 4 momentum being a notable breakpoint as it allows the unit to both run and charge.

For those paying close attention, as Momentum can be generated by both runs AND charges, it’s possible (technically) to go from 1 all the way to 6 in a single turn, though it creates a difficult tension. If your intent is to charge for the turn and you don’t roll a 3 on the D3 when you make a run move, said pig will be unable to charge, effectively wasting their turn if your intent was to get them into combat. While there are ways to mitigate this pitfall somewhat (see the Army of Renown, Rabble-rowsa, Ironsunz), what it means in practice is that you will rarely want to risk performing a run move unless said Grunta is already at 4+ momentum or is near guaranteed to after the action. Another quirk of the way this rule is written is that you roll to see how much momentum you got after finishing the move, meaning you can’t see if you’ve hit 4 or more momentum before physically moving the model. Keep that in mind, as you do not want to leave one of these guys stranded away from your army because you were hoping to hit high enough momentum to subsequently charge.

For all three pigs the momentum score improves their base movement, the damage profile of their tusks (and with rend 3 and a potential D3+3 damage, this is high quality stuff), as well as the reliability of their bespoke Monstrous Rampages. In practical terms, momentum is going to be mostly something you will incidentally spike by a lucky charge roll or through a double turn, because if you start at 1, roll a 1 or a 2 on your momentum roll… you’ll be right back at 1 at the start of your next turn unless you get a double. Plan accordingly.

Finally, each pig has at least a 4+ save, at least 12 wounds and notably does not degrade at all as it is damaged – an important detail when evaluating this unit that should not be overlooked.

Tuskboss on Maw-Grunta

The hero version is the most expensive and the hero version of the three – it is both tougher, with a 3+ save, and choppier, having 2 more damage 2 attacks from the rider compared to the others. Head of the Stampede is it’s unique rule, allowing other Maw-grunta units to re-roll their charges until the end of the turn if this guy makes a charge move. It’s a minor utility rule that nevertheless is an important one if you want to be running lots of these guys.

Next, let’s touch on the two aspects of the warscroll that are shared with the ‘medium-tier’ version of the kit – the Wrekkin’ Krew, and Carve a Path. The Wrekkin’ Krew are a pair of sidecar Ardboys holding some nasty polearms, who give the unit an extra combat profile, offering 2 extra damage 2 attacks that gain extra rend based on how high the unit’s momentum goes. Carve a Path is a monstrous rampage unique to the big and medium pigs, that will no doubt confuse players for a few months until they wrap their head around it’s intricacies.

Put simply, they pick an enemy unit within 3″ with 4 or less for it’s wound characteristic, and roll a dice – if the result is less than the pig’s momentum score, they deal mortal wounds to that unit equal to the roll and can immediately make a charge move, ignoring models with a wounds characteristic of 1 or 2 as if they were a flying unit for the purposes of said move. The idea of charging a screen unit, generating momentum, using this MR to then charge again to gain additional momentum and flying even further into their backlines to hit something fragile and valuable deeper in the castle is an appealing one, but the key drawback of this ability is that if you don’t roll lower than your momentum score, then the rampage doesn’t actually do anything.

There’s a debate within the community as to whether this ability works as intended, with some arguing that you have to kill the unit it’s engaged with via the mortal wounds if they want to actually make the charge move, because of the way charge moves are written as forbidding said action if you’re within 3″ of any enemy units. I believe that this is not the intent of the writers and will be cleaned up in an FAQ, but be aware that for now the rule is a bit foggy.

Clocking in at 380 points, this expensive bit of meat is already going to draw comparisons to the Maw-krusha, so how does it stack up? Well the problem is that this guy isn’t a megaboss, and thus doesn’t get to hand out commands multiple times like candy like the classic megaboss warscrolls. Compounding these problems is that he lacks any appropriate keywords to take any of the Ironjawz command traits or artefacts, meaning to access to destroyer to help this guys damage out. Ultimately, unless you’re running the Army of Renown (or have dreams of battleline Gougers in a main Ironjawz army), you’re much better off just taking a cheaper Maw-grunta or a Krusha instead.

Maw-Grunta with Hakkin’ Krew

The medium version of the pig is perhaps the easiest of the three to discuss, because it’s essentially a Tusk-boss with the hero keyword removed (and it’s associated Head of the Stampede rule), a 4+ save instead and 2 less attacks from the rider.

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If you want to play around with Carve a Path and live out your mad max dreams with the sidecar Ardboys, this version is what you want. 270 points is perhaps a little bit high for what you’re getting here, but the Monstrous Rampage is undeniably a powerful tool if you can get the unit’s momentum score to 5 or 6 to make it mostly reliable.

Finally, as the Orruk Warclans book is currently worded, this guy (and the Gouger below) cannot take the main book mount traits, as that table is locked to units with the hero keyword.

Maw-Grunta Gougers

The cheapest version of the kit, the lil big pig (or More Grunta if you want endearing but crummy wordplay) is a bargain basement 180 points for a 12 wound monster that has all the momentum shenanigans as their bigger brother, but without the sidecar or the Carve a Path monstrous rampage. In addition, this unit isn’t Single (sorry ladies) and thus can be reinforced once, or even twice if you unlock these guys as battleline.

It’s Monstrous Rampage is unique to it – Flattened into the Mud. It can only be used against enemy units with a wounds characteristic of 1 or 2, and requires you roll lower than your current momentum score to do anything. Additionally, you can only use this ability if the unit has charged this turn. So what does it do? Bestows Strikes-last effect to the target unit until the end of the turn. A very potent effect that is situationally useful, but will mostly be forgotten about in favour of Roar or Stomp.

Anyway, for 10 points more than a Gore Grunta unit, you could take one of these guys – and there’s a fairly compelling argument for doing so. It’s a little less tough (12 wounds versus 15 total), but doesn’t degrade at all (whereas the Gore Gruntas lose attacks as they lose models). It’s slightly less damage when both units have Violent Fury from a warchanter, but ends up being better in prolonged combat if you’re unable to keep feeding it the VF buff. As a Behemoth, it can also go in a separate slot in a battle regiment, which is handy for list building if you want to make a low-drop army.

As you can probably tell, I’m pretty high on this guy – it remains to be seen if the unit ends up being top shelf competitive, but it’s much easier to justify putting 1 or 2 of these in your army compared to his two older brothers.

Ardboys

Perhaps the most singularly impactful thing here isn’t even a new unit, but a new sculpt and a rewrite. Ardboys were previously an incredibly cheap 80 points for 5, giving Ironjawz and Big Waaagh players alike access to a very cheap way to put screens in their list, or simply fulfill battleline requirements.

What’s changed is considerable, as they are now a 3+ base save and come in units of 10 rather than 5. There’s many other considerable changes but I think it’s important to discuss how impactful the armour change first. Destruction armies tend to lack high armor saves compared to armies like Order or Chaos, and to have access to a battleline unit that can rather easily get themselves to a 2+ save is already going to considerably warp what is possible for both Ironjawz and Big Waaagh armies. The tradeoff for this is that they’re significantly more expensive, as they are now 220 for 10 – a far cry from 80 for 5 (an effective increase of 60 points, and a reduction in versatility when listbuilding).

But those aren’t the only changes – let’s mention what else is gone before we gush about what else they have gained. Ardboys seemingly lost all their drum circles, and now must go without musicians and the associated +1 to charge bonus. They also can no longer rally on a 4+ when near a Warchanter, which is a shame but I kind of get, as GW has realised lately that maybe 4+ rallies aren’t very compatible with making a unit balanced and fun. Lastly, their stupid 2 in 5 get shields and a 6+ ward ability is gone, which is good riddance (despite it being a nice ability) because I don’t think any Orruk player was ever happy having to factor in casualty removal in the movement phase because they want to ensure they don’t find themselves breaking their own coherency because Derek and Bob didn’t line up correctly when shuffling up the board.

In return, they gained a new weapon option, a Shield Bash ability and a decent jump in damage output against armoured stuff. Shield Bash is an ability that triggers immediately after the unit fights, rolling a dice for each Ardboy within 1″ of a chosen enemy unit and doing a MW on a 6+. It reads as low impact on first glance, but I’ll never say no to incidental chip damage and you should mentally factor in 1-2 MW in your head when calculating the unit’s typical damage output. Stikkas are a new spear option (with 2″ reach) that only hit on 4s but are rend 2 when attacking a unit that charged this turn – a useful option to have now if you wanted to take 20 of these guys and form a defensive anvil on a center objective.

As for the classic Choppa, it’s third attack is now only available to them when the unit charges, but they now hit on base 3s and even gained a point of rend as well. This change means that the army (especially in Big Waaagh) is capable of putting out quite a bit of damage for an anvil unit, and I have plans to run at least 20 of these in all my Big Waaagh lists. Lovely.

Ardboy Big Boss

Fulfilling GW’s contractual obligation to itself to give factions new random foot heroes every time they update a faction, here comes the bridge in culture between the lowly Ardboys (look at them, unable to punch their own armour, pathetic), and Brutes (majestic, powerful, seemingly incapable of consistently wearing shoes). This guy is a reasonably interesting little combat dude incidentally, with 5 damage 2 attacks and a 3+ save, which isn’t bad for a 100 point goober.

As for why you would actually bring him, he comes with two abilities to justify himself – Iron-fisted Commander let’s him issue the rally command twice if both units have the Ardboys keyword (second use being free), and they rally on a 5+ instead of a 6+. Secondly, ‘Get Bashin!’ means Ardboys wholly within 12″ of him do mortal wounds from their shield bash rolls on a 5+ instead of a 6+, a doubling of chip damage that suddenly has the possibility of spiking for a lot of damage and a sad opponent.

This guy is rather basic and feels like a warscroll that was created because a cool sculpt was made – he’s very narrow in his use, but if you have a lot of Ardboys in your army then he’s cheap enough that you may want him. I wouldn’t even consider the lad though if you have 20 or less Ardboys.

Zoggrok Anvilsmasha

First of all – cool model, pose is a bit stiff but I love the concept of an angry Orruk blacksmith who channels Waaagh beliefs into his followers. He’s got a Ward-smashing Choppa ability that can disable an enemy unit’s ward save if you pick the Choppa weapon option and do an unmodified hit roll of a 6 with it, but the profile only has 2 attacks and I think it’s so much worse than his second weapon option, the Grunta Tongs.

Power of Da Great Green God is his other ability, that gives mortal wounds on 6s to an Ironjawz keyword unit wholly within 12″ until your next hero phase, provided you roll a 2+ (or 4+ if for some mad reason you picked the Choppa). Ironjawz have never really lacked for damage output, but mortal wounds are something they don’t have nearly as ready access to, and I could see an argument for Zog if you’re running a reinforced Gore Grunta unit or 20 Ardboys with spears, where you’re throwing over 40 dice and suddenly 6-7 mortal wounds in addition is a serious boost in potency.

At 160 points though, he’s a bit pricy, and for many of the standard unit loadouts that Ironjawz armies run, it’ll typically only be a handful of mortal wounds on average. He’s cool and potentially useful in certain skew builds, but he’ll need a slight discount before I’d recommend him in more generalised BW/IJ lists.

Brute Ragerz & Weirdbrute Wrekkaz

I’m lumping these guys together because the Wrekkaz are effectively just a more expensive variant of 1 of the 3 weapon options the Ragerz have access to. Both units have innate run and charge and a base 5+ save, as they have shed their chest armour for varying reasons (shame and madness respectively) and are thus a little faster than your average brute.

Ragerz come at a bargain basement 100 points and have access to a wildly variable but potentially devastating mortal wound weapon in the Brute Crusha, a healthily vanilla but decent all rounder in the Mighty Gore-hacka, and the Chain-smasha, which hits and wounds on 4s base but has 6 attacks each (the Wrekkaz are forced to take Chain-smashas).

All three weapons have their benefits, but I don’t love the idea of the Brute Crusha unless you’re running a build where you don’t want to invest a Warchanter’s Violent Fury buff on (+1 damage for those who don’t remember), as this units damage is largely tied to just rolling sixes. For my money, you want either the Gore-hackas as the safe option, giving you a steady and dependable floor that can be hitting and wounding on 2s in Big Waaagh (or in Ironjawz if you jump through some hoops). Alternatively, gamble and run the Chain-smashas, as 18 dice means you get a lot of benefit from Violent Fury on these guys, with Hoarfrost and Big Waaagh buffs giving you the ability to mitigate against it’s low rend and poor hit/wound base stats respectively.

Weirdbrute Wrekkaz are 25 points more per 3, come with an exploding 6s ability if they’re targeting an enemy unit with 10 or more models, and a 5+ ward if they’re within 3″ of any enemy units. A 25% increase in cost is significant, and while a 5+ ward is appealing, it only effectively means the unit is about 13-14 wounds rather than 9. I think these guys sit on the shelf unless the meta has a lot of horde units OR heavy shooting, which sounds counterproductive but means these guys have better defenses against Unleash Hell.

I love Brute Ragerz, and think they are an absolute bargain at 100 points – I think they will see widespread play in Ironjawz once players start playing around with them (Brute keyword means they get a lot of value in Da Choppas subfaction), as well as in Big Waaagh, where +1 to hit and wound makes these guys absolutely bonkers in terms of damage output for cost, with innate run and charge giving them the ability to sit back in your castle and hurtle forward to unleash devastating violence.

What are Armies of Renown?

Reign of the Brute contains a new way to build your army for a handful of factions in the game. “Armies of Renown” are themed lists built around only using a particular type of units, in exchange for their own exclusive allegiance abilities. Each Army of Renown will name a specific keyword restriction you must follow for list building in order to be able to use it.

While Armies of Renown still count as part of their parent faction (effectively functioning as a brand new subfaction), there are some differences. Armies of Renown have their own Army Rules which replace the core battletome the faction comes from. This means you cannot use the following from the original battle tome:

• Battle Traits
• Command Traits
• Artefacts of Power
• Subfactions

In addition, you cannot use the book’s original:

• Grand Strategies
• Battle Tactics
• Core Battalions (Core Rule and General’s Handbook core battalions are still OK)
• Warscroll Battalions (if in Narrative Play)

You can still use the army’s terrain piece, if applicable. Ultimately this means that the factions portrayed in Rise of the Brute are standalone. Since all the necessary Warscrolls and pitched battle profiles are freely available you do not need the original Battletome to play any of the Armies of Renown in this book.

Army of Renown: Grunta Stampede

This all new army is very restrictive in it’s construction, limiting you to only units that have either the Maw-grunta or Gore-grunta keywords. Right from the top I think it’s important to point out this means no access to Warchanters and their ever potent Violent Fury ability, meaning the Gore-gruntas damage output falls off considerably.

Battle Traits

Because the stampede is an Army of Renown, it means that we lose all the battle traits from the Orruk warclans book – this means no Smashing and Bashing, no Mighty Destroyers and no Ironjawz Waaagh. If it sounds like I’m focusing on the negatives for this part of the review, it’s because I think it’s important to establish context here – losing these tools is huge and means that the army plays very differently from Ironjawz.

Grunta Waaagh!

Replacing the IJ version, this can be called by your Maw-grunta general at the start of your charge phase, and means that until the end of that phase, each time a friendly Maw-grunta unit finishes a charge move, you can roll a dice for each enemy unit within 1″ of the pig unit and on a 3+ do d3 mortal wounds. Note that because of the wording, this can be stacked with Carve a Path to create an opportunity to do these mortal wounds twice with one unit, which is neat.

Hogs of War

Gore-grunta units gain the Battleline battlefield role, for those of you too afraid to who don’t want to leave home without the lil pigs.

‘Ere We Come!

We hit our first big pay off for the army, as ‘Ere We Come! stops Maw-grunta units from losing momentum during the first battle round. What this effectively means is that it is much easier to hit that crucial momentum 4 breakpoint for run and charge by battle round two, as well as making the army better able to leverage their monstrous rampages that become more consistent the higher momentum the big pig has.

Rampaging Maw-Gruntas

Big Pigs also gain two new rampages while played in this army. Greedy Gobble is a fairly standard ‘eat a model’ ability we’ve seen on other units, though it can only be used when the pig has momentum 3 or less – pick an enemy model within 3″ and roll a dice, if it’s at least double that model’s wound characteristic – it is slain. Fringe utility against 1 or 2 model units for breaking coherency, it’s mostly going to be forgotten about entirely.

Charge Down is a little more interesting – you can only carry it out with a model that made a charge move this turn, and must be a single model (so no reinforced Gouger units while the extras are alive) – That model can make a d6″ move but must finish that move within 3″ of any enemy units, then add 1 to the momentum score of the model. This gives your bigger pigs a little bit more reach, as well as extra control over your momentum for situations where you want to hit the highest momentum breakpoint to make the sidecar Ardboys or the Tusks that little bit deadlier.

Command Trait

You get one. Monsta Hunta improves the rend of the general’s personal weapon by 1 for attacks that target an enemy monster. You’ll probably rather take the generic Battle-lust trait for the innate reroll to charges, because this thing is fringe and crap when compared to a lot of the high powered options we’ve seen in recent battletomes.

Artefact

That’s right, you get just one option. Da Boom Skull lets the bearer issue commands to any friendly unit on the battlefield. In addition, each time he issues a command you can pick an enemy unit within 3″ and on a 3+ do a mortal wound to them. Having the ability to issue commands to Gouger units (who are not Elite) is useful but Arcane Tome is generic and a significantly better option.

Mount Traits

Oh hey now we’re getting somewhere – you can pick up to 3 different Maw-grunta units to each have 1 different mount trait from the table. If it’s a reinforced Gouger unit, each model in the unit gets the same mount trait. There are 3 to choose from here, and luckily for my spirits, they’re all great.

Propa Wild is probably the most entertaining of the bunch, as at the end of the enemy charge phase, before any monstrous rampages are carried out, this unit (if outside of combat but within 12″ of any enemy units) can (on a 3+) attempt a charge. Counter charge abilities are always very useful to have access to, though this one being at the end of the charge phase does mean your opponent has a bit more ability to play around it. That said, getting to counter charge (and gain momentum) and subsequently rampage means you could have your Tusk-boss charge on your opponent’s turn, hit high momentum and Carve a Path for a second charge that slingshots the Tusk-boss elsewhere to cause carnage. I like tools that can punish mistakes, and this one is a doozy.

Propa Nasty makes sense for a reinforced Gouger unit, giving the unit +1 to hit and wound for the unit’s mount(s) if the unit had taken any damage in the same phase. Gougers stand to benefit the most from this as they can be reinforced to double/triple the value here, and most of the unit’s damage comes from the mount anyway.

Propa ‘Ard is what you’ll want for your general, as it changes the rend characteristic to 0 for any rend -1 characteristic melee attacks against it, giving your general Tusk-boss a bit of a survivability boost against units that rely on high volume, low quality attacks.

Grand Strategy

Head of Da Herd is your only option, being scored if your general stays alive and had a momentum score of 6 at any point during the battle. This is fairly achievable provided the game hasn’t gone completely off the rails, which is nice.

Battle Tactics

Three choices here, with the latter two being pretty decent and giving the army a reasonable pathway to scoring five battle tactics every game if you sequence them well.

Out of Control is scored if you carry out the Greedy Gobble, Charge Down and 2 other monstrous rampages this turn. There’s a few odd rules interactions here that might need clarifying though, like can you complete 5 or more monstrous rampages and subsequently fail this battle tactic, and could you carry out the Greedy Gobble MR when you’re not in combat, as it’s only requirement listed is that the pig has momentum 3 or less.

Da Boss Leads Da Way is completed if you call a Grunta Waaagh! this turn and any enemy units are destroyed by abilities or attacks made by your general this turn. Needs a little bit of setup but fairly achievable if you put him into a soft target.

Full-speed Stampede is a fairly achievable one if you’re going full hog and have 6 or more Maw-gruntas, as it requires that at the end of the turn you have a momentum score of 5+ with at least 3 Maw-grunta units. You’ll probably aim to score this round two, when you’ve got the momentum stored up from the first battle round and it hasn’t degraded yet.

List Building

With a whopping four units to choose from, it felt like I should

King Brodd's Stomp

The Gore-Gruntas are largely here to have some kind of screening ability to protect the big pigs behind them, with some incidental charge damage provided though no Violent Fury makes them pretty lacklustre compared to their bigger cousins.

It’s a fairly straightforward list otherwise, we want to be a 1 drop so we can (matchup allowing) deploy right along the deployment zone line, take first turn and pin them with the Gore-Gruntas and hope to line up a decent charge with one of the reinforced Gouger units, while positioning our non-general Tuskboss to ideally be able to do some counter charge shenanigans on our opponent’s turn. Hope to win the priority role going into round two and go nuts.

Closing Thoughts – Grunta Stampede

Honestly? I think it’s a bit pants. The Mount Traits would be great in an Ironjawz army but are locked to this little cordoned off playground, and the loss of Warchanters, Mighty Destroyers and Smashing and Bashing really hurt the armies damage and combat control that Ironjawz are traditionally known for. The momentum battle trait is nice, but feels like something that should be baked into the Maw-grunta warscrolls innately, because the mechanic is otherwise wildly unreliable outside of lucky setups or an early double turn.

If you really want to live your best piggy life, it might be better off just taking these warscrolls in an Ironsunz list, so you have access to better tools, allied options for screens and spellcasting.

Wrap Up – Impact on Orruk Warclans

The supplement (setting aside the pretty pants AoR) is a bit of a sidegrade for certain styles of lists, depending on your perspective. Players who were depending on cheap ardboys for battleline and liked the utility of the little 5 man squads are in a much worse place in terms of list building now, forced to consider the considerably more expensive ardboys or swapping them out for Brutes (the new cheapest battleline option in Ironjawz).

The big pigs are entertaining conceptually, but I don’t think 2 of the 3 will really make a dent in competitive play, certainly not while the smaller two are unable to take mount traits, and the Tusk-boss can’t take Command Traits or Artefacts from the Orruk warclans book. On the positive side, the Gouger is a compelling new option, and the Maw-grunta with Hakkin’ Krew might see some fringe play in Ironsunz, where the charge on your opponent’s turn can help it get to high momentum more consistently and make the Monstrous Rampage far more effective.

Moving on from the mounted stuff, I think Ragerz and the new Ardboys are a shot in the arm for both Ironjawz and Big Waaagh lists, as the two units together form a nice combination of cheap and deadly hammer and a durable anvil. For a long time, competitive Ironjawz lists have been limited to pig spam, but there’s just enough here to promote 1 or 2 new list approaches that I think are capable of going 4-1 or better. As a Big Waaagh player, I’m really excited to play around with these new toys, as the army was already strong and with some list building concessions made to account for the Ardboys cost change, can now be arguably even more effective by really leveraging Ragerz and Ardoys.

All told, I think Reign of the Brute is skippable for Ironjawz players unless they really want to play around with the Stampede. As for the units themselves, there’s enough here to excite Orruk players, and I’m really keen to get this stuff on the table and see how far this stuff can be pushed.