G’day Goonhammer readers! Over the last six months, both of us (Cytoplasm and Urr) have been preparing new armies for Kings of War. First we covered Urr’s performance with one of the early iterations of his Twilight Kin army, now it’s up to Cytoplasm to get practice in with his Riftforged Orcs!
Invasion of the Riftforged Orcs
Cytoplasm
The Riftforged Orcs are the Orcs that went to hell and were spat back out, reforged anew by their spiteful and merciless maker, Garkan. When they were first released in 2022, I bought an entire armies’ worth of the Riftforged, only to then work on Goblins, Trident Realms and Undead. Yet finally, the Riftforged Orcs have received the attention they deserve, and march to battle completely painted, and almost entirely based on 3D printed multibases.
2100 points of the Riftiest Orcs
1 x Unforged Orcs (Regiment) 1 x Riftforged Legionaries (Horde) 1 x Riftwalkers (Troop) 1 x Helstrikers (Horde) - Staying Stone 3 x Ambarox 1 x War Drum 1 x Stormforged Shrine 1 x Riftforger - Blade of Slashing 1 x Stormbringer on Helstrike Manticore **Formation: The Iron Boots** 2 x Riftforged Legionaries (Regiment) 1 x Reborn Legionaries (Regiment)
It took a while (a year and a half!) to settle on this Riftforged Orcs list. The army boxes really only provide lots of infantry, which make for a very dull army to use. The inclusion of the Helstrikers added some speed, yet still the army felt like the army had just one trick; smash face.
I wanted something to pressure the opponent into meeting me on the field of battle. Something that meant the enemy couldn’t just sit back with impunity as my Orcs slogged across. That something turned out to be the humble Ambarox.
But what is an Ambarox? It’s apparently an overgrown electric beetle that’s drawn to the energy of the Riftforged, and it likes to shoot energy bolts. What a helpful bug! Now I have nine energy bolts that have Blast (D3) and Piercing (1) pounding the enemy, along with the occasional Lightning Bolt from the Stormforged Shrine.
The rest of the army exists to support the infantry. The Stormforged Shrine has Aura (Fury) and the possibility to cast multiple Bane Chant. The War Drum has Rally (1) for Riftforged and the Riftforger adds in extra damage to key combats. Suddenly the army is doing a lot of things, all the time, and now my true enemy is time. So I need some practice on the clock, such as at a local one day tournament!
Round 1 – Scenario: Pillage
Mitch’s Halflings – 2100 points
2 x Halflings Rifles (Horde) 2 x Ej Grenadiers (Regiment) - Relentless 2 x Forest Trolls (Horde) 1 x Juggers (Regiment) - Relentless 2 x Wild Runners (Troop) - Blackpowder Weapons 1 x Aeronauts (Regiment) - Blade of Slashing 1 x Iron Beast - Pride of the Shires 1 x Sauceror - Mounted on Miniature Aralez, Inspiring Talisman 1 x Gunnery Sergeant on Troll - Relentless
Mitch has brought his Napoleonic Halflings, an army which works when nearly all Napoleonic miniatures seem absolutely tiny next to the 28mm Mantic models. There’s hordes of Napoleonic soldiers, and the Iron Beast is a guillotine! The army looks great and I was excited to smash it with my Rifty Orcs.
On the far left flank, right on the edge, my Helstrikers and Stormbringer on Helstrike Manticore (I’ll call him Stormy) faced off against all of Mitch’s cavalry – two troops of Wild Runners screening the Juggers behind. Then, left to right with not much space in between, I have my horde of Legionaries, regiment of Unforged Orcs and finally the formation, with the Reborn Legionaries behind because they are a source of Inspiring that I would rather not throw away. Also acting as support are the Stormforged Shrine and the War Drum. In the few spaces between all these units, I’ve peppered the Ambaroxes (Ambaroxi?) and the lone Riftforger.
Mitch has two other battlegroups. One is the Iron Beast with the Troll hordes either side and Aeronauts behind, safely hidden behind a forest. The other battle group are the two hordes of Rifles with the Gunnery Sergeant. That looks like it might hurt.
The scenario is Pillage, with five objectives spread out across the map. I have set up two pairs of tokens just over 12” apart on both sides, for the sole purpose of parking the massive horde of Orcs between them, claiming both objectives with a whopping Unit Strength of 4.
Which is exactly what I do in Turn 1. The horde of Orcs moves up, and stays there all game. I resist all temptation to charge them off.
On the left flank, there is a brief stand-off between my Helstrikers and the Halfling cavalry, but by Turn 2 the Helstrikers eviscerated the Wild Runner troop, while the Stormbringer on Helstrike Manticore failed to rout the other troop. The Juggers tried their best to take off the Helstrikers in return, but in the end they were flanked by the Stormbringer and the Riftforged Orcs won the left flank by Turn 4.
Across the rest of the battlefield, progress was much slower. The infantry, hampered by terrain, gradually moved across the battlefield towards the gun lines, taking rounds of blackpowder volleys as they did. Thankfully, Ranged 5+ infantry are quite terrible, and the Defense 5+ saved the Orcs from any major damage.
By Turn 4 the Halfling Rifles were engaged in close combat, the guns were silenced and there was a desperate struggle for the objectives. One horde of Forest Trolls came to the aid of the Halflings, working through units and claiming back the objectives on the right.
It was only in the late game, Turns 5 and 6, that the Iron Beast and the remaining Trolls got stuck into the thick of battle, moving towards the Orcs encroaching on the center. The Halflings would have claimed the central-most token were it not for the Helstrikers, which jumped in Turn 6 and dismantled the Iron Beast.
When Turn 7 came around, the battle was on a knife’s edge. I still had the two tokens thanks to the horde of Legionaries, however the Forest Trolls had claimed the middle-right token. They had managed to remove all the regiments of Orcs there, and the Ambarox just couldn’t beat the unit strength. What remained was a contested token beneath my Helstrikers, which were currently trying to kill the other Forest Troll horde.
They had been stuck there too long, and now the Aeronauts were flying into the flank, dropping bombs, it was a bloodbath. Surely the Helstrikers were done for?
They would have been, were it not for the most fateful and timely of double one results for the Helstrikers’ Nerve Test. The Helstrikers stuck around, and the Aeronauts were just out of 3” of the token, so the objective was contested and my Riftforged Orcs won the game 2 points to 1.
Result: Riftforged Orcs Victory
Round 2 – Scenario: Hold the Line
Andy’s Nightstalkers – 2100 points
1 x Scarecrows (Horde) 1 x Reapers (Regiment) 1 x Phantoms (Troop) 1 x Butchers (Horde) 1 x Shadowhounds (Regiment) - Helm of the Drunken Ram 1 x Soulflayers (Regiment) 1 x Fiends (Horde) - Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding 1 x Needle-fangs (Regiment) 1 x Shadowhulk 1 x Esenyshra, the Wailing Shadow 1 x Dread-fiend 1 x Void-lurker - Blade of Slashing
My next opponent, Andy, is of some repute. He often reaches the podium at events, and tends to learn from his mistakes (unlike others). Like myself, he is a content creator, formally added to the cast of the Direct Misfire podcast last year. Give them a listen; they’re a great Australian Kings of War podcast with the best intro music in the business. I was excited to play against him again, but knew it wouldn’t be an easy game.
My Riftforged Orcs army is not considered a shooting army, but I keenly felt the diminished bite of the three Ambaroxes against the Nightstalkers, which are universally (and multidimensionally) Stealthy. In this particular game I, the two pieces of Blocking Terrain in front of my deployment zone forced me to squeeze in and divide up my army in a suboptimal fashion. My entire infantry contingent had to wedge between the two terrain pieces, while my fast flyers along with the Unforged Orcs ended up counter-deploying Andy’s Shadowhulk and Butcher horde. This consigned my strategy to contesting only two of the three scoring zones in Hold the Line – the middle and the left.
Andy’s forces had the luxury of spreading out as they pleased, with annoying forests in the middle to further hamper my ranged output. The situation was not looking great, but at least Andy’s army looked fantastic, so how could I even be mad?
In Turn 1, both of us move our armies up, mostly tentatively with me going first. There’s very little terrain mitigation within our forces, so every piece of terrain slows Andy down as he approaches. In particular on the left flank, Andy is wary of my Helstrikers. Notable exceptions to this are Esenyshra zipping to a blind spot on my left (in front of some Blocking Terrain), and the Void Lurker on my right (next to some Blocking Terrain). These will be fun to deal with.
Already in Turn 2 I made a blunder, moving one of the Riftforged Legionaries regiments ahead of the other in an attempt to stagger my line, I gave a flank to Needlefangs. I probably acknowledged it and thought something smart like, “What can Andy do with Needlefangs in the flank of a Defense 5+.”
The answer is not much in terms of damage, but so much in terms of disrupting my army. This is because the Needlefangs are right in front of the other regiment of Legionaries; they can only see the rear and were to charge, they would be thrust right out from the protection of the Blocking Terrain and my battle line, surrounded by Nightstalkers. At the same time the Void Lurker has made its way around the Blocking Terrain, and I cannot just let it get a rear charge.
On the plus side, the Helstrikers are keeping the Shadowhulk back.
My solution in Turn 3 is to back up my two regiments of Legionaries, but the shooting was not accurate enough to take out the Legionaries. I turn my Riftwalkers to face the Void Lurker, and the Riftforger hero has come along, too, because little heroes are perfect for grounding annoying flyers.
True battle commences in Andy’s Turn 3; the Needlefangs pounce on the Ambarox that shot them, and the Soulflayers and Dread-fiend charge the right-most Legionaries. Phantoms get in the way of the Legionaries horde, giving the Fiends a chance to move up behind. The Shadowhulk goes into the Unforged Orcs that went in front of the Helstrikers. Finally, the Void-lurker goes into the Riftforger, seeking to kill this miniscule threat and wreak havoc unopposed.
Somehow, all of Andy’s Nightstalkers bounce off their targets, doing negligible damage. A window of luck for the Riftforged Orcs!
Charges and countercharges abound in my Turn 4. The Helstrikers and Unforged Orcs do a hefty amount of damage to the Shadowhulk, but it survived. The same could not be said for the Soulflayers, Phantoms, Needlefangs and Void-lurker. Yes, the Void-lurker was single-handedly dispatched by the Riftforger, boosted to a new power level by the Stormforged Shrine.
There’s still the second wave of cheeky flankers in the form of the Shadowhounds, but compared to a Void-lurker, they’ll be easy.
It’s at this point that Andy decided to focus on the scenario, and the horde of Scarecrows went off wandering into the abandoned right scoring zone. They had some distance to cover, but there were at least two more turns to go.
The Butchers went right through the Unforged Orcs, while the Shadowhulk struggled against the Helstrikers. The Fiends mauled the Legionary horde, but they held their nerve. Unfortunately, I managed to give a flank to Reapers with the middle regiment of Legionaries. This is generally considered a bad move and it resulted in a dead regiment. Thankfully the other regiment held their own against the Dreadfiend, so that side of the army was still standing. The Shadowhounds rounded the corner of the Blocking Terrain but came face to face with the Reborn Legionaries.
In my Turn 5 I demonstrate the enduring power of regiments by doing a Withdraw move and turning to charge the flank of the Reapers with my remaining Legionaries! Sweet revenge! Alas, the damage was lacklustre and the flanking Dread-fiend and Reapers in the front brutalized the Legionaries. Yet with 21 damage they survived thanks to a timely Double One! Meanwhile, the Shadowhulk fell to the Helstrikers, who in turn were dispatched by the Butchers, leaving just Butchers and my Stormbringer on the left flank.
Esenyshra this whole time had been harassing various units, but died in Turn 5 from natural causes (Stormbringer squished her). Unfortunately, the horde of Legionaries, despite putting in a lot of hurt to the Fiends, perished.
In Turn 6, the Stormforged Shrine surprised everyone by reminding us all it has 8 attacks with Crushing Strength (1) and promptly obliterated the already damaged horde of Fiends. With the Stormbringer and Shrine in the left scoring zone, Andy realised he needed to kill the Shrine, but couldn’t do it in a single round with the Butchers in Turn 7, leaving it contested.
The Scarecrows successfully took the rightmost scoring zone, and so it was up to me to control the middle and get a draw. So I had the War Drum and an Ambarox against the Dread-fiend at the end of Turn 7… but I neglected to actually measure the Hold the Line scoring zone, thinking I could just whiff it. Turns out I was on the wrong side of scoring with the War Drum and Andy won the game!
Result: Riftforged Orcs Loss
Round 3 – Scenario: Stockpile
Andrew’s Abyssal Dwarfs – 2100 points
2 x Gargoyles (Troop) 4 x Abyssal Grotesques (Horde) - Brew of Sharpness, Fire Oil 3 x Angkor Heavy Mortar 1 x Hexcaster - Hex (3), Weakness (3) 3 x Abyssal Halfbreed Champion - Gnome-Glass Shield
One would expect that after a single win and a single loss that the final opponent of the day would be someone on my own level – someone middling, perhaps? Instead I was surprised to find myself up against Andrew (AG) and his very favourite Abyssal Dwarfs. He’s loved Abyssal Dwarfs for years, and is very excited to use the new updates they received in Clash of Kings 2024. I am less excited to experience them, but I know it will be a good game with absolutely no quarter given.
AG’s list has a simplicity like that of a falling wall of bricks. It’s all hard and if it’s facing you there’ll be difficulty avoiding it. There’s four (count ‘em) hordes of Abyssal Grotesques, and the whole list is about delivering these, while keeping the pressure on with a trio of Angkor Heavy Mortars. I knew they would be targeting the Helstrikers, but what would I do about it?
I deployed my infantry across the middle, with my right flank butting up against a building. Horde of Legionaries on the right, and the various heavy infantry regiments snuggly laid out on the left. On the other side of the aforementioned building, occupying the right flank, were the Helstrikers along with the Stormbringer.
The battle commenced, with the first turn going to me. I moved up, but already I knew I would have trouble using the Helstrikers effectively. AG had his Grotesques split into two pairs on either side of the battlefield. Each pair was accompanied by Gargoyles and Halfbreed Champions that would ensure I would not get a charge off onto the Grotesques, but instead kill a Halfbreed Champion or Gargoyles to only end up stuck right in front of them.
Then the Heavy Mortars started.
First round was lenient, and the Helstrikers survived. This should have been the moment I threw them into combat anyway, but instead I decided to back off. While it took four more turns of concentrated fire, the Helstrikers eventually died, achieving nothing but being a distraction.
Meanwhile the Riftforged infantry ‘forged’ on, maintaining a holding pattern as the Grotesques closed in. As always, it is a single mistake that starts the carnage: a flank unchecked, taken by AG’s leftmost Grotesques into my Riftforged Legionary regiment. The left flank of my battleline was under pressure now, and much of the army had to turn to deal with it, leaving just the horde of Legionaries to stare down the other pair of Grotesques.
This horde of Legionaries was would stare down the pair of Grotesques for five turns. The Stormbringer would take out some Gargoyles but then was obliterated by one of the Grotesque hordes. At the same time, the Halfbreed Champion went into the horde of Legionaries, holding them up just long enough for the two hordes of Grotesques to smash through the Orc horde and render the entire right side of the battlefield Abyssal Dwarf territory.
On the left, while it was initially the worst off when that flank attack happened, it wasn’t all bad. The other Grotesques bounced off one of the regiments of Riftforged Legionaries, and was in return double charged and routed. This was aided by the multiple Bane Chants the Stormforged Shrine can cast thanks to its Anvil of the Rift ability. Suddenly the Grotesques on the left were all alone, and would struggle to get through all the Ambarox chaff I put in the way.
The only problem was the entire game I really wasn’t playing the scenario. AG wasn’t much either, except he had one Gargoyle troop dedicated to pinching loot tokens in the last few turns. This was the real decider and won him the game.
I should have charged as soon, hitting first with Helstrikers to clear chaff and then the horde of Riftforged Legionaries to start kill Grotesques. My hesitation saw the waste of the Helstrikers and this was a real shame. I also shouldn’t give up flanks, but that is obvious. Remember everyone, giving flanks to the enemy, especially Grotesques, is a bad idea.
Result: Riftforged Orcs Loss
Age of the Orc
The day’s final outcome at the tournament was one victory and two losses; not bad for my first go with the army at an event. I have started to get a feel for what the units are capable of; the ability to know a unit can do this much damage without needing to recall the exact numbers. I also got faster at the game, yet I need to work on explaining how the Stormforged Shrine works to players so there’s no bad feelings when it whips out three Bane Chants and a Host Shadowbeast.
Regarding army composition, the one thing I feel I need is a little more flexibility in the list. The Heavy Infantry regiments and hordes are slow and cumbersome, and when threats come up from multiple angles I have limited ability to respond. The Riftforger and Riftwalkers cannot put out all the fires by themselves. An iteration of the list has dropped the Stormbringer on Helstrike Manticore (and the items) for Thonaar. This Individual can zip around with the Helstrikers, but with Stormstrike and Thunderstruck special abilities it can actually hit just as hard as the Stormbringer. The best part is I don’t need to keep saying Stormbringer on Helstrike Manticore, I can just bellow “THONAAR!!”, as is customary.
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