Welcome to Start Competing: Bonesplitterz, long the runt of the litter in the Orruk Warclans, these religious fanatics are finally having their AoS3 renaissance and are looking better than ever. Do you like horde armies with surprising mobility and durability? Do you like your opponent exclaiming “it does what?” before demanding to read the warscroll? Are you interested in making Nurgle players sad? If so, read on, and I hope you like painting buttocks.

Overview

Bonesplitterz are one of the increasingly small number of factions with their model line deeply rooted in the World-that-was, receiving just a single Warhammer Underworlds warband by way of new miniatures in the Age of Sigmar. The whole faction operates out of two multi-part plastic kits and a gaggle of (mostly) finecast heroes, which can lead to some jank in how you end up building those kits due to the way GW have eked every possible combination of models into a warscroll.

In earlier iterations of AoS, Bonesplitterz were a faction with a focus on monster hunting and an ungodly powerful gunline that required hours of dice rolling to resolve. The new Warclans book has pushed the army in a totally different direction, with a definite melee focus. There was much consternation on release about flavour being ripped out of the book, but maybe it’s for the good of the game that Big Stabbas can’t run and charge anymore, and the huge nerfs to the old shooting build are thematically appropriate.

Strengths

• High wound count. Bonesplitterz armies that don’t lean on allying in huge models can easily creep towards a 200 wound count, having the ability to grab a 4+ ward in melee for a turn can mean that this is effectively even higher.
• Pinning, and winning (sometimes). Bonesplitterz are the original AoS3 pin-and-win army, and whilst Maggotkin of Nurgle might be the current kings of the tactic, Bonesplitterz have great options to be in their opponents deployment zone turn 1, and stay there.
• The Wurrgog Prophet. The potential of the Wurrgog Prophet to deliver infinite mortal wounds means your opponent has to think carefully about landing their units within 12” of one.
• Big Stabbas. One of the game’s most efficient melee profiles.
• Damage boosts. Bonesplitterz get the choice to juice up their fighting prowess through subfaction choice, with army-wide ignoring wards or mortal wounds on offer.

Weaknesses

• Squishy heroes. You have access to a 4+ ward artefact, but your toughest hero caps out at 7 wounds. Wurggog Prophets are very likely to be hurting themselves as the game goes on, and you need your general to be alive in order to call the Waaagh!
• ‘Basic’ warscrolls. Your standard savage orruk runs quite expensive as a result of being 2 wounds, it means you can put a lot of wounds on the table quite quickly but the rest of their profile is lacklustre.
• Weak to shooting. Shooting is still strong in AoS3 and Bonesplitterz have an acute weakness to it with the aforementioned reliance on squishy heroes and defensive tech that only works in the combat phase.
• Weird allies. Due to the way the Warclans book works, you can’t ally in any of the other orruks. If you want a Marshcrawla Sloggoth for that sweet +1 to hit aura, then you’re locked into Big Waaagh, which is a very different prospect.

Competitive Rating

High Tier. 

Bonesplitterz have crept up from second worst army in the game around launch AoS3, to a very healthy 55% win rate. This is a tricky tier rating, as that winrate puts them in the upper echelon, but as always with Bonesplitterz the number of people playing them can skew the stats. 

Why the boost in winrate? The battlescroll update to extend the exploding 6s across the entire faction, not just units of 5+ models (which locked out Big Stabbas previously) was a direct boost to the faction’s best units. The Bonesplitterz gimmicks have also just become more powerful into the current metagame, with the ability to shut down opponent’s ward saves being applied army-wide becoming increasingly powerful as more and more armies have access to good ward saves, and it’s particularly strong into the Maggotkin matchup.

Allegiance Abilities

Bonesplitterz Battle Traits

Warpaint

Bonesplitterz units get a 6+ ward. Always on, no restrictions. Bonesplitterz have terrible armour saves across the board, but you can put a lot of wounds on the table, so this is very much nice to have.

Spirit of Gorkamorka

Unmodified hit rolls of a 6 in melee count as two hits instead of one. The first but by no means not the last mechanic in the army begging you to drop the arrowboys. This is obviously always useful in getting extra hits, and the army has no access to a priest so no fear of overlapping ability triggers by throwing Curse into the mix. 

Generating more hits is good for Icebone armies, who want to be getting maximum hits through to try and generate mortal wounds. Being able to get this ability on Savage Big Bosses and Big Stabbas, who were already very good combat units, is even better.

Tireless Trackers

A post-deployment pre-game move of 5” for up to half of the units in your army. Here we’ll have to address some controversy: there’s a school of thought that RAW you can use this ability multiple times on the same model. The use for this reading on the rule is to catapult the Wurrgog up the board to within 12” of a target turn 1. Absent an FAQ, this is a reading that you should be checking with your TO before an event, if you’re planning on abusing it. Your opponent is likely going to hate this, so probably don’t use it on your pals in a friendly game either.

RAW wrangling aside, this is still a potent ability with multiple use-cases. You can get a screen out into the mid board if you need it, you can move your combat units up further to attempt a pin-and-win strategy of a first turn charge into your opponent’s deployment. There’s a way later on to extend the range of this pre-game move, so that you can start the game already controlling mid-board objectives.

Bonesplitterz Waaagh!

So, you want an army wide 4+ ward? You can have it, but with some restrictions. Once per game, combat phase only (though crucially, it doesn’t have to be your combat phase), and your general has to be alive to do it. It’s specifically a Bonesplitterz general so no, Kragnos doesn’t count. 

Cutting the damage your army takes in half for a combat phase is incredibly powerful, and plays into Bonesplitterz ability to pin the enemy in place. Using this at the right time will be key, sometimes you will have to blow this ability to keep one key unit alive and knowing when to do that and when to wait is an important skill.

The restrictions here mean you can still get shot off by armies aiming to do that, and requiring a general means that those same armies can remove this ability entirely by killing it. You can try to hide your general in these circumstances, losing out on one single hero probably won’t be as impactful as losing this ability (unless, I suppose, your general is a Wurrgog). Unless you’re against Sentinels in which case, well, good luck with that one.

Bonesplitterz Warclans

Bonegrinz

+1 Attack to Arrowboys missile weapons, and they’re Battleline. We’ll uh, we’ll cover Arrowboys in their own scroll I guess.

Icebone

Unmodified wound rolls of 6 in melee deal mortal wounds equal to the damage characteristic of the attack. It’s melee only Venom Encrusted Weapons, but on the wound roll (because your 6s to hit explode already). You also get battleline Boarboys, which is the army’s one non-Galetian Veteran battleline choice.

Mortal wounds are always good, especially in giving your many rendless units some bite against the heavy armour out there. It’s basically a meta call between this and Drakkfoot for boosting up your melee power.

Drakkfoot

Enemies cannot take ward saves against wounds or mortal wounds caused by Drakkfoot units. This is a feast or famine ability, sometimes it is going to do nothing but against armies reliant on ward saves (hello, maggotkin or namarti stood next to a gloomtide shipwreck) this is a dramatic boost to your damage output and is fuelling a lot of the meta-spoiler Bonesplitterz lists using MSU Big Stabbas to good effect. There’s a definite trend towards more ward saves in AoS3, so the value of this is going up and up.

Drakkfoot also gives you access to battleline Morboys, who are fine.

Artefacts

This is a pretty weak section overall, with the exception of one total banger. This is kind of a shame given how easy a double Warlord battalion is for the army to achieve, and how little it gains from other enhancements.

Boss Bones and Other Gubbinz

This list is for any Bonesplitterz hero.

• Dokk Juice. Once per battle, in your hero phase, heal d6 on the bearer. Quite nice to either combo with or use in lieu of a heroic heal. The trigger means this heal happens after the Wurrgog prophet has to use its Wurrgog Mask, so you can’t heal and then do that.
• Lucky Bone. A once per phase re-roll on either a hit, wound or save roll for the bearer. The latter in any other army would be quite juicy but our heroes have terrible, awful saves. Rerolls are very rare in this edition and it’s not awful on a Savage Big Boss but realistically there are better options.
• Glowin Tattooz. +2 to the bearer’s ward rolls. You take this artefact, every time. This means at minimum your basic ward is 4+, and you’re looking at a 2+ on a turn you call the Waaagh. Given their predilection for self-damage this is usually stapled onto a Wurrgog Prophet.

Reservoirs of Waaagh! Energy

Wizards get two extra artefact options.

• Mork’s Boney Bitz. +1 to cast, dispel and unbind for every enemy monster within 24”. That’s a big bubble, but obviously very matchup dependent. Because it’s an enemy monster, not friendly, you don’t get to combo this with a Rogue Idol for a cheeky +2 out of the gate. What you’ll find is that two of the Bonesplitterz wizards quite often don’t want to be casting, and the third probably prefers the arcane tome. That said, even one enemy monster on the field is still handing out a welcome bonus.
• Beast-lure Glyphs. A somewhat confusing artefact. Once per battle the bearer gets to attempt to cast a spell from the Lore of the Savage Beast that they don’t already know, in addition to their normal spell casting. If you run a pig heavy build there are 3 good spells in the lore, otherwise there are only 2, so the flexibility is nice but of limited value.

Command Traits

This is another middling section of the tome, largely ill-thought out filler abilities with some standout picks.

Savage Warlords

Savage Big Bosses only.

• Killa Instinkt. Hit rolls of a 6 do one mortal wound in addition. This was bad before and now that Big Bosses get exploding 6s it’s even worse, as both effects can’t resolve.
• Great Hunter. Upgrades the move from Tireless Trackers from 8”. Seems small but the extra bit of move is enough to let you stand on objectives that are 11” away from your territory. Because this move happens before the game, this means you start the game in control of that objective, and if you’re going first you are free to move off and charge the enemy whilst maintaining control of that objective. You probably need a good reason not to be taking this.
• Monster Killa. After they fight, a model with this can fight a second time if they are within 3” of an enemy monster. This, Killa Instinkt and the Lucky Bone feel like some really early edition rules writing – where they wanted to write options for a combat hero but didn’t want to make them too good and instead didn’t make them any good at all. Savage Big Bosses are 65 point little dudes, it would probably have been fine to spice these up a bit.

Shamanistic Quirks

These are only for Wizards

• One Wiv Da Beast. You can pick (but not cast) one extra spell from the Lore of the Savage Beast. See my earlier comments about the beast-lure glyphs. Fine in a vacuum but in the context of the army it’s not a great use of your command trait.
• Voice of Da Great Green God. Your general gets a 24” range to issue commands. Everything in the army has a champion for command issuing, apart from Big Stabbas. If you’re running reinforced units of Big Stabbas and you’re not bothered about upgrading Tireless Trackers then this is probably the only other pick worth considering.

Mount Traits

Bonesplitterz have one hero riding a pig, so they get access to the Orruk Warclans mount trait list. Half of that list is monster only, so we only need to think about 3 of them.

• Fast ‘un. Once per battle you get to make a normal move in your hero phase. Not as explosively powerful as in the other Warclans but still probably the best pick. Letting a hero with wholly within buff spells move before casting is very handy once battle has been joined. Or hell; Tireless Tracker, Fast ‘un, cast Purple Sun.
• Weird ‘un. 4+ ward vs mortal wounds caused by spells or endless spells. Nice if you’re playing against Teclis, Kroak or a Warsong bomb. Otherwise, not super useful as the Maniak Weirdnob is not a high enough priority target to need this kind of defence.
• Smelly ‘un. Enemies are -1 to hit this model in melee if it hasn’t charged. Of the two defensive buffs this is probably marginally more useful, as small units of stuff trying to assassinate your heroes is a thing that does happen.

Lore of the Savage Beast

Three bangers and a swing and a miss isn’t too bad. You can really load up on Bonesplitterz wizards if you want, but because some of them have to give up their casting for another effect, you may want to think about how important each spell is to you and how much coverage of it you need in your army.

• Squiggly Curse. CV6. Targets an enemy hero within 3” and does d3 mortal wounds. If that hero dies from those mortals, you get +1 to cast for the rest of the game. Weirdly high casting value, abysmal range, an extra rider that is desperately unlikely to happen. Not even the payoff of an unusually large mortal wound potential. Arcane bolt is leagues better than this.
• Glowy Green Tusks. CV5. Pig a mounted unit within 18” and make their mount attacks rend -2. The mounts in question throw 3 attacks each on 4s but with +1 to hit and wound on the charge so this is a really nice upgrade, even on a unit of 5.
• Gormakorka’s War Cry. CV7. Pick an enemy unit within 12” and they get the fights last effect. This is always helpful, and if you’re running multiple small units of Big Stabbas it gets even better.
• Power of the Were-boar. CV6. A big old wholly within 24” range for +1 to run, charge and hit for a unit, but it loses the ability to shoot for some reason. Nothing in the army runs and charges, so the run bonus is deeply minor here but otherwise this is a straightforwardly good utility spell that can free up CP.

Core Battalions

There’s one, and it’s a bad one.

• Bonesplitterz Rukk. One leader with a wounds characteristic of less than 10 (so, all of them), two non-leader/behemoth/artillery units and then optionally three more of those. For this you get the Swift ability. You might notice this as the core book Vanguard battalion but with one more mandatory unit and one more optional unit. Why bother. Core book battalions aren’t even limited and it’s not like hero slots are a problem for this army so if you desperately want the Swift ability, double Vanguard double dips on it. Realistically though Warlord, Battle Regiment and the GHB battalions are all better than this.

Battle Tactics

Previously all a bit nothing, the new GHB tactics have given this list a bit of a new lease on life.

• Time to Get Stuck In! You can only do this in your first or second turn. Your general and every other model in your army has to be within 12” of an enemy unit at the end of the turn. This is… quite tricky to achieve in practice, Bonesplitters put a lot of models on the table with a big footprint. You generally want to be in your opponent’s face early, but this is probably only ever going to be doable in battleplans without objectives in your own deployment zone, or against an enemy who is bringing their whole army to you.
• Kill Da Big ‘Un! Pick a monster, kill the monster (with attacks! So not the Wurrgog Mask) and collect VP. Previously this was a double dip on a GHB battle tactic so of limited use, but now it’s very handy to have in your back pocket.
• Destroyer of Empires. You have to have Kragnos in your army for this to be available. You complete it if you demolish a faction terrain feature. The only source of demolishing for this army is through Monstrous Rampages, which means it’s probably Kragnos doing it. Lots of ifs or buts, and it’s a dice roll but as with Time to Get Stuck In! It’s always there if it comes up and you need it.

Grand Strategies

Of the five available in the Warclans book, Bonesplitterz can use three of them.

• Get Dem Bones! Pick a terrain feature wholly within enemy territory, you complete the Grand Strategy if you’re controlling it at the end of the game. There’s a potential here for this to be unscorable if there happens to be no terrain wholly within your opponent’s territory, depending on how the events you are going to run their terrain. Otherwise, this is actually a pretty good Grand Strategy, especially in Gallet where the generic ones are more difficult.
• Waaagh! At the end of the battle your general or one of your Battleline units is wholly within enemy territory. An interesting alternative to Take What’s Theirs, you don’t have to worry about what the enemy units are doing but it’s more restrictive on the units you can use to complete it.
• Krump ‘Em All! Kragnos only again, you complete it if there are fewer than 3 enemy units on the battlefield when the game ends. Bonesplitterz are maybe not the killiest to be doing this compared to say, Ironjawz, but in the context of the current GHB season, it’s doable.

Units

Leaders

Savage Big Boss

Cheap, cheap, cheap at 65 points. The Savage Big Boss is a nice inclusion for access to their excellent Command Trait alone, but there is actually quite a bit to recommend in this scroll. Firstly, they’re actually a good combat unit for their cost – packing 6 attacks with rend -1 and 2 damage, now with extra hits on 6s. 

The problem with units like this more often than not is charging them into combat can get them killed through activation order, you probably want to fight with something else before the foot hero, so they get killed. 

The second thing that’s great about the Savage Big Boss is their Let Me At ‘Em ability, which triggers after they have fought to let you immediately pick another Bonesplitterz unit wholly within 12” to fight. It’s not a Command Ability, there’s no restrictions on how many times an ability with that name can trigger in a phase, and it doesn’t specify what kind of units you can pick (beyond not being able to select units that have already fought). This means that if you have, for example, 3 Savage Big Bosses and a Big Stabba in combat with something, the Big Bosses can chain fight off of each other and then hand the baton to the Big Stabba before your opponent gets to fight. 

This means you can basically spam this model and get some real poke out of it, especially in an army that’s otherwise hurting for rend out of the majority of its warscrolls. The 12” range means you don’t even need to be in the same combat to start chain fighting.

Wurrgog Prophet

If you’ve heard anything about Bonesplitterz, you’ve heard about the Wurrgog Prophet. A 150 point two-cast wizard, with a cheeky 7 wounds. Their warscroll spell is not bad either, a CV5 24” range ‘roll a dice for every model in the target unit and do a mortal wound on a 6’ nuke with a cheeky extra rule to do those mortals on a 4+ if the casting roll is 10+. Fine. You’re here for the Wurrgog Mask.

Wurrgog Mask is an ability you trigger at the start of your hero phase, and in doing so give up any dispeling or casting you would otherwise have with this unit. Then you pick an enemy unit within 12” and roll a dice, on a 3+ they take d3 mortal wounds. You can then roll that dice again, and again, and again, forever. Kind of. On a roll of 1-2 on the dice, the Wurrgog Prophet takes d6 mortal wounds, and you stop rolling if the Wurrgog dies. So infinite mortal wound potential, with a price.

There’s a couple of intricacies to take note of here. Firstly, the start of the hero phase means you can’t surf up on Lauchon or otherwise teleport to get closer, your opponent is going to have to land a model within 12” of your Wurrgog for you to be able to use this, generally. This is something your opponent can play around of course, but if they’re terrified of it that is also something you can play around.

Also, note that the Wurrgog doesn’t inflict any mortal wounds on itself if you fail the very first dice roll on the mask, and that even if you’re not running the 4+ ward artefact to tank the wounds from this you can’t lose the model from one failure because you are taking d6 mortal wounds on a 7 wound character.

Wurrgogs are good on a base rate for being reasonably tough double casters with a good spell and a lore that you generally want access to, Wurrgog Mask puts them into a territory where you can strongly consider taking multiple of them.

Maniak Weirdnob

Your wizard on a pig, with the ability to get a mount trait as discussed earlier. At 100 points, these are a nice take if you’re not filling your boots with just Wurrgogs and Big Bosses. Otherwise, this is a speedy but standard wizard. Their warscroll spell is +1 to wound in melee at CV7 with a range of 12”. That’s a tasty spell, and makes this probably the best bearer of arcane tome so they can cast this and then glowy green tusks on another unit.

Wardokk

The cheapest wizard at 80 points and also the one you will probably never see, but they’re actually pretty neat. No warscroll spell and no stats to meaningfully speak of but they do get a unique dance-based mechanic. 

Like the Wurrgog, they can elect to give up their casting at the start of the hero phase and instead do a Ritual Dance. There’s three dances and you don’t have to pick one and put it in your army list, you get all of them. They all require a 3+ roll to work.

• Grimdokk Dance. Pick a model within 12” and heal d3 wounds. The order of operations here means that you can use this and/or heroic recovery on a Wurrgog that’s taken some damage before they open up with the mask.
• Glyphdokk Dance. Pick a unit wholly within 12” and give them +1 to save, you can’t stack this ability on the same unit. The absolute best armour save in the army is a 5+ (unless you dip into Forge World), so there’s a limit to how effective save stacking can be in the army but this is save stacking. Plopping this, mystic shield and an all-out defence on a unit of Savage Orruks during the Waaagh gives you a unit with 20 wounds, a 4+ save ignoring rend -2 and a 4+ ward. That’s tough for a Galetian Veteran!
• Weirddokk Dance. Pick a Bonesplitterz wizard within 12” and they get +1 cast/unbind/dispel. Always handy.

Headkrakka, Gob of Gork

Do you want a unique Wurrgog Prophet with its own retinue for 220 points? What if I told you it trades the Wurrgog Mask ability for -1 to be hit in melee and the ability to give +1 to hit to its own retinue. No? Didn’t think so.

Battleline

You only get one stock battleline, but don’t fret. Every subfaction unlocks a second one which will be discussed in the Other section.

Savage Orruks

Your basic, bog standard Orruk with a shield. 165 points gets you 10 warm bodies with 2 wounds and 2 attacks. You’ve got the classic choice between spear or shield and in our current Galetian Veteran world the sword (sorry, Chompa) is going to be better.

As discussed under the Wardokk, you can make this unit surprisingly tough for a fully nude Orruk, and they get a cheeky little +1 to wound on the charge which means in Icebone they straight up out-damage Gutrippaz for a 15 point discount. I know comparing something favourably to Gutrippaz isn’t lighting the world on fire, but these are totally acceptable Battleline and can actually go and fight things.

Other

Savage Big Stabbas

The best weapon profile in the army, Big Stabbas are the fuel behind the Drakkfoot resurgence. A mere 80 points gets you two Big Stabbas armed with the mighty Gorktoof – a melee weapon with a 3” range and 3 attacks with rend -2 and damage 2. If you’re comparing to the Big Boss, you’re getting 2” extra range and an extra pip of rend on this weapon profile, though you lose half of the attacks when the unit takes 4 wounds. The other advantage of course is that these don’t take up any battlefield role slots, so you can spam them as much as you can stomach getting a single unit out of one box of Savage Orruks.

Taking a mass of these un-reinforced presents your opponent with a kind of target priority hell, as there’s just enough wounds in the unit that splitting attacks against a mass of them can risk not killing anything, but overcommitting to a unit could be total overkill. This tactic is also great for getting the number of units in your army up for Tireless Trackers.

Savage Boarboy Maniaks

As Morboys are to Savage Orruks, Maniaks are to Boarboys. We trade the shield for two melee weapons, giving an extra attack and then another extra attack on the charge (no spears for Maniaks, so this is in lieu of the +1 to hit and wound for the rider) means you’re looking at 7 attacks per model, or 35 attacks out of a 5-model unit. Without Icebone or Glowing Green Tusks you’ll struggle into armour but even unsupported they’ll shred light units, and if you do have that support a reinforced unit can put out a murderous quanity of dice.

Headkrakka’s Madmob

Underworlds warband, No thank you.

Savage Orruk Arrowboys

Battleline in Bonegrinz. If you take 10 units of Arrowboys in Bonegrinz and get them all in range of a target, you’ll do on average 20-24 wounds to a 4+ save target. In a best case scenario shooting at a monster you get a pip of rend that pumps those numbers up to the heady heights of 28-32 wounds. The second you hit a target with a better save than 4+ these numbers fall off a cliff. You have spent 1,450 points to do this and your shooting phase takes 45 minutes of pure dice rolling. It’s 200 wounds of bodies though. 

Arrowboys are paying for past sins and nothing in the book wants to synergise with them. You can probably make this army work if you wanted but I have to ask, who hurt you?

Savage Boarboys

Battleline in Icebone. An orruk with a spear and shield sat on a boar. 3 wounds a model gives you 15 wounds for 140 points, which is pretty nice for a unit that also moves 12”. You’ll probably want to take the spear, it and the mount’s attacks get +1 to hit and wound on the charge. This means on the charge the unit is putting out 25 attacks hitting and wounding on 3s. No rend by default, but chances are if you’re investing in boarboys you’ll be in Icebone for the mortal wounds. Also one of the two target units for Glowy Green Tusks, making 15 of those attacks rend -2.

These have a 5+ save so any save stacking/defensive tricks for the Savage Orruks also work on Boarboys.

Combing this unit with a Great Hunter Tireless Trackers move gives you effectively a 20” move if you take first turn, with a native +1 to charge on the scroll and the option to get that up to +2 with a spell – if you’re looking to ‘pin and win’ your opponent into their own deployment zone this is how you do it.

Savage Orruk Morboys

Battleline in Drakkfoot. Savage Orruks who trade in their shield for another weapon. Dual wielding gets them up to 4 attacks per model on the charge, and in Drakkfoot they become Galetian Veterans to more easily fight in two ranks on their 32mm bases. They’re 10 points cheaper than Savage Orruks and do put out more damage on the charge, so a no-brainer Battleline choice for Drakkfoot but probably not worth it outside of that, given the other options available.

Behemoths

Rogue Idol

An odd duck, as befits this Forge World monster. It’s the only Behemoth with the Bonesplitterz keyword, and it’s a totem. It’s pretty tough with 16 wounds, an unheard of in-faction 4+ armour save and 5+ ward. 

You get a grab-bag of abilities: +1 to cast for wizards and +1 bravery generally, a gentle smattering of mortal wounds to enemies at the end of the combat phase, and when it dies it blows up to shower d3 mortal wounds on everything within 3”.

Its combat profile is interesting, you get 10 attacks at top profile with what is effectively the Big Stabba profile and 2 attacks with d6 damage. This all degrades quite badly once it gets below half wounds, as does its movement. 

For this you’re paying 430 points. It’s OK? If you’re begging for a monster in your army it has the best synergy with your keyword abilities and is roughly competing with Mega-gargants in points. If it can get the charge, it does fight slightly better than a Mega-gargant on average.

Warmasters and Allies

Kragnos, the End of Empires

Befitting his vast points cost, Kragnos provides a lot to a Bonesplitterz army if that’s a route you want to go down. Kragnos loves to fight other high value, tanky targets which is something the army can otherwise struggle with outside of praying to the mortal wound gods. Kragnos also offers a completely different defensive profile to the rest of the army, and is a great target for Mystic Shields and All-out Defences that don’t always otherwise have an obvious home.

Kragnos provides extra value if you’re taking a lot of boards for the pinning strategy, giving your fast moving units a 3d6 charge to catapult them into enemy lines.

Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur

The Incarnate of Ghur, it turns out, is quite good and provides the same sort of tough, fighty monster that the army lacks natively as Kragnos and the Idol. Everyone can take an Incarnate though, so what are the positives and negatives for Bonesplitterz?

Inflamed Savagery handing out free charge rerolls is very nice, especially if you are planning on using your cavalry early game to pin the enemy in place. The Incarnate doubly helps out with this plan by handing out no retreat to units within domination range, meaning enemies that want to get away from you for breathing room simply cannot. A swarm of Big Bosses and/or Big Stabbas also all quite like being handed out a free All-out Attack.

The downside is bonding, Bonesplitterz just don’t have the tough hero you want to bond an incarnate to. You can take enough heroes to have one hide at the back in matchups where that will protect them, but in some matchups you’re going to end up with a wild incarnate in your own lines.

Gloomspite Gitz

Bonesplitterz sole ‘standard’ ally, these options are limited by the power level of the Gloomspite book itself. Rippa’s Snarlfangs can provide a decent, quick screen on a budget and Arachnarok Spiders are certainly very cheap monsters that exist. How much any of that matters to you is up for debate, especially now getting ahold of a monster on the cheap isn’t so big a deal.

Mercenary Mega-gargants

The final competition for the role of jamming a monster into an army that doesn’t otherwise have them. Mega-gargants are still fine, though not having Mightier Makes Rightier lowers the appeal a lot and they don’t provide any specific synergies with Bonesplitterz.

Sample Lists

Thomas Guan’s Drakkfoot

1st place, Texas Masters GT Invitational

Fourteen units of Big Stabbas is a flex of some kind. Coming in at an RRP of £490 in Big Stabbas alone (OK, you’ll definitely have enough stuff left to build those 30 boys from 14 boxes) you’ll need deep pockets, lots of contacts to borrow from or an… alternate source of Big Stabba models to be able to play anything like this army.

For all that outlay you get an army with an intense amount of threat, in probably an unparalleled level of saturation, and all those little units add up to nearly 200 wounds over the army.

Allegiance: Bonesplitterz

– Warclan: Drakkfoot

– Grand Strategy: Get Dem Bones!

– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Savage Big Boss (65)*

– General

– Command Trait: Great Hunter

Wurrgog Prophet (150)*

– Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz

– Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry

Wurrgog Prophet (150)*

– Artefact: Mork’s Boney Bitz

– Lore of the Savage Beast: Gorkamorka’s War Cry

Battleline

10 x Savage Orruk Morboys (155)

10 x Savage Orruk Morboys (155)

10 x Savage Orruks (165)

– Chompas

Units

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)

Endless Spells & Invocations

The Burning Head (20)

Core Battalions

*Warlord

Additional Enhancements

Artefact

Total: 1980 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 0 / 4

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 192

Drops: 20

Mikey Gilson’s Icebone

4th place, Warhammer World: Battles in Thondia

This event used soft scores, but Mikey did go 4-1 and this list is hilarious. Spending 1,180 points of your army not in your primary faction is certainly a mood. This is a high octane, high threat army – no need to upgrade Tireless Trackers when you combine the 3d6 Kragnos charge with the free rerolls from the Incarnate.

The cool bit of actual Bonesplitterz tech here is the Heroic Stature generic Command Trait on a Wurrgog Prophet. Usually a terrible pick, but on the Wurrgog where you want to squeeze every bit of potential out of them it’s not bad at all and the 4+ ward makes it go a bit further.

Allegiance: Bonesplitterz

– Warclan: Icebone

– Grand Strategy: Beast Master

– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders

Wurrgog Prophet (150)*

– General

– Command Trait: Heroic Stature

– Artefact: Glowin’ Tattooz

– Universal Spell Lore: Levitate

Wurrgog Prophet (150)*

Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)*

Battleline

5 x Savage Boarboys (140)*

– Stikkas

5 x Savage Boarboys (140)*

– Stikkas

5 x Savage Boarboys (140)*

— Stikkas

Units

2 x Savage Big Stabbas (80)*

Behemoths

Krondspine Incarnate of Ghur (400)*

– Allies

Endless Spells & Invocations

Emerald Lifeswarm (60)

Core Battalions

*Battle Regiment

Total: 1980 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 0 / 4

Allies: 400 / 400

Wounds: 85

Drops: 1

Conclusion

Thanks for sticking through way too many words about naked orruks. If you find any errors, or have any other feedback why not leave a comment or email contact@goonhammer.com