'Ard Boyz

Since I've noticed that quite a few otherwise productive threads have gotten dragged off-topic by questions about this tournament, I figured I'd post a basic overview here.  That way any questions about it can be added here and save everyone some hassle.

'Ard Boyz, for WHFB, is a 3000-point tournament held throughout the country with zero composition restrictions and a "bring the best" mentality.  As it is a 3000-point tourney, it uses the Grand Army rules.  It is also known for having some "wacky" scenarios in the past.

At the lowest level, the tournament is held in a store or suchlike, with the winner(s) progressing on to Round 2, and then Round 3 for the winners likewise.  Prizes are somewhat fabulous if you are in the habit of collecting multiple armies, as they tend to be of the "2500 points of new army" type.

There is currently no information regarding 'Ard Boyz this year, and a rather persistent rumor floats around stating that it has been canceled.  If memory serves, the gentleman who was in charge of GW's "official" tourneys is no longer with the company, so this may very well be the case.

Hopefully this helps and we can keep the discussion here.

Am I right in thinking that 'Ard Boyz is US only?

Sorry for getting off topic earlier. . Thanks!

Thanks for the post Gralph Boardbiter!

To add to the post, I go further into what Gralph Boardbiter was talking about in my 'Ard Boyz Article 1: Before List Creation found here: http://bellower.blogspot.com/2012/01/tactics-for-tyrants-ard-boyz-training_30.html

I have a lot of other articles, but the others talk about strategy and tricks/tips to use during the event.

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With that said - I doubt that 'Ard Boyz is canceled... its too big of an event to be.  Last year's wasn't announced until March and this one will be the same I am sure of it.  I'd place a wager that it gets announced March 14th - give or take.  Let's see if I am right!

I feel that, even with the improvements of this book, that Ogres are simply not a top contender for Hard Boyz, at least not in the way Dark Elves, Skaven, or Lizardmen are.  The extreme vulnerability to the most common lore of magic just cannot be worked around when your army wide initiative is 2.  I think a few good generals will make a very good run with them, but ultimately it will come down to Quad Hydra Dark Elves, Slaan Shack, and the dozen jackasses who brought Kairos.

Phazael: that's why I would really recommend a horde-style army for Ard Boyz. Suddenly Shadow isn't really that big of a deal.

6 Sabertusks, 4 Ironblasters, 2-3 units of Mournfangs and a single all-consuming massive horde of practically immune-to-magic Ironguts with the requisite characters. If you work the points enough, you can likely take a Deathfist and a normal SM, thus really making magic somewhat less of an issue.

Well if there is a ard boyz this year I'm gonna try and use my ogres. My goblins didnt do well but than games 1-3 of ard boyz last year were games 2-4 I played with them. Not best of plans. My dwarfs got me to the second level but I feel my ogres would do better than them

I think a flying deathfister and triple ironblaster + 3 Poison sniping flaming double gun toting maneaters could be good.  It will allow you to pick off hydras one a turn, fly over to kairos and make him eat a purple sun (might be able to get him under the template even on a misfire roll if you go the big one and stand 1" away lol), or try to drop his levels to 0 so he can't cast no matter how many spells he's got,  or take 3 ironblaster shots at him a turn .  Mournfangs would make quick work of flamers and can get to them I think.  Take a beefy unit of Ironguts and pair them with an other tricksters shard to take care of bloodletter hordes.

Sounds fun, looking forward to it.  I'm crossing my fingers to get a chance to at least try.

I know most people here feel the deathfist is a valid tactic but what do you say to people who feel its bending the rules and wording of the FAQ to let it fly? Seems it would be a source of hot argument at tournaments like ard boyz and could make it so your carefully laid setup falls through if the judges say its no good

The GW store managers/staff seem to accept it as valid around here.

Its generally accepted as valid.

The rules support the Snipe spells as being ranged attacks, the arguments against it are extremely weak.

Its not bending the rules at all. In fact, its impossable to bend the rules. Something is either legal or its not. There is no grey area.

People just say that when they actually mean its against their view of how the game should work.

I ask mostly cause a friend of mine that in no way really tries to break rules for his own favor etc is doubtful so am looking for a good way to explain why it is valid to him. now the death sigature spell does not work for it right?  but what spells do?

Any spell which causes Hits as a hit is what activates the Greedy Fist's abilties.

Caress and Bjuna both cause "a number of hits equal to 2D6 minus..."

Spirit Leech simply skips hitting and causes Wounds.

hmmmm gotta get him to let me sometime lol

I'm waiting for scenarios before building my list. But yes, I feel that hordes would have a big place on the battlefield. Literally. Still working out tactics for LDBLCHRS.

Its a better idea to build a solid all around competitive list before you see the scenerios.

Then you can tweak your list to match if you need to.

Last year it wasn't until a few weeks before that the scenerios were released. 40k was even worse as they wern't put up till a couple days before(and were a plain old document with none of the usual graphics to make them pretty, like they had been hastily hashed out right then)

Yeah, I'd be more focused on making a solid list and then adapting to the scenarios as they come. Of course, if you get enough notice, you can do some tweaks, but mostly it's all about making sure you have a strong list you feel comfortable with running.

Thanks for the advice guys! Should be posting a list in the armies of the kingdoms section soon.

yeah for ard boyz I tned to just build a list I like and than tweak it till its competetive enough. Funny thing was my dwarf ard boyz list was just my normal 3k list since it was lots of guns and a horde and bugman with 23 longbeard rangers

I think a firefister might be better for taking these levels off a lone caster. Only reason for taking death is to pick a character out of the unit. But if your including ME's with sniper they can do that for you. Your FFister will get fireball automatically and that can take out those lone casters running around and you only have to take a L1 or L2 freeing up your L4 for whatever Lore your looking to use.

Agreed, but can your firebelly take a carpet and the greedy fist?

You want to build a balanced list certainly but you should bring whatever you are most comfortable useing.  I made it to the finals last year with the old book because my list had been tested and tweaked extensivley until i had something i really knew how to use.  And i had wins over Teclis, Warshrine Spam, and Kairos on my way.

That being said i think you can prepare to a certain degree for what you will see. 

The "strongest" army in the game is the leadership bomb daemon list.  You really need to take out a lynchpin to that plan turn one if you want any hope of winning and even then that build has so many ways to win its still not easy.

The Kairos lists are very popular as well. look out for purple sun, and transformation with a 3+ward save.  Kill the giant blind bird though and its only a regular daemon army from there.

Double Slann is a popular build but i personally feel as though lizardmen are a good matchup for us in alot of ways.  Out manouvre this list and bring a hellheart and you can do just fine. 

2 warriors of chaos armies you'll see is are Troll Horde with warshrines, or chosen with more warshrines.  Avoid the 3+ward save unit like the plauge and hit it with doom and darkness/braingobbler, or a tarpit if you have it.  The troll horde is extremely annoying, but if you can outmanouver it or hit it with the maw spell you can take it out. 

The Abomb list is way more managable with the inclusion of the firebelly and ironblasters.  After that its just tiny rat people getting squished.  There doom spell doesnt even work on us (first time for everything).  Personally i'd be more worried staring down the Quad laser list.

Hydra list is a similar issue as the abomb list for us, in that the hydras arent scary anymore.  However, the cauldron, unbreakable banner, guy with pendant of kaeleth, mindrazor/purple sun w/ 12 dice and a free spell that makes more dice, ring that blows up wizards, and generally high manavourability can cause serious problems for us.  I think dark elves are a rough matchup for us currently and it would take disciplined fire and well managed magic phases to beat someone who knew how to weild this army

Thats my overview of popular cheese from last year and some things you can expect to see at some point this year.  Good luck to all my ogre friends and i hope you get as much enjoyment as i do when you prove that tactics and intellgence beats special characters and cheese.

What does the leadership bomb daemon list do?

Agreed, but can your firebelly take a carpet and the greedy fist?

You really don't need the carpet since your trying to IF the spell anyway and the range of the fireball can be anywhere from 24" to 48". Plenty of range to reach out and burn someone.

frankanelli said it pretty well!

Ogre Kingdoms are a threat because at the end of the day the only thing that people are going to "prepare for" is Hell Heart and death-fisting and MAYBE Maneater Snipers.  But past that, we're really a very very wild card army able to bring a little of everything. 

No one can predict how an Ogre Army will play, while every other powerful army is extremely predictable (Like Frankanelli said).

What does the leadership bomb daemon list do?

Daemons of Chaos have several items that stack that each reduce Leadership values.  When they all add up, they basically reduce your leadership by -5 and before you know it a model with terror is killing everyone and everything.

But we would only have fear...

Which is still horrible for us because we would practically fail every test and would end up getting hit on 3s and only hit back on 5s every combat.

That really hurts us.

it also effects our break tests(because we will lose combat with the above to hit rolls)

They have banner that gives -2 to ld in a 12" bubble.

The masque of slaanesh has a power that knocks d3 off of a units leadership (also it can fight and has a great ward save for under 100 points ). 

Then tzeentch loremasters of death give doom and darkness to knock 3 off of another units leadership.  This also gives them access to purple sun. 

A level 4 Keeper of Secrets causes terror and that makes everything flee.  But there is also a power that requires ever model to pass a leadership test in order to attack it, so the build still sees effectivness against the immune to psycology armies, cause the thing has a large number of attacks that hit on 3's with rerolls and a good strength

The lore of slaanesh has a spell that does d6 hits at a decent strength, and you have to pass a leadership test or have it happen again, it can wipe a whole unit once their ld is really low. And the 6 spell in slaanesh makes it so every ld test you take on the table is with 3 dice and you disgard the lowest. The 1 spell also gives a unit stupidity for the rest of the battle.

couple that with siren song to dictate the enemies charges, use fiends like we would use sabertusks, and have blocks of bloodletters to go along with your daemonettes and you are pretty much winning everytime.

Except we cause fear so will never run away, just suffer the WS1 in combat.

And get sliced apart by the Shards. And lose combat and flee.

Right yeah i was more just summarizing what the build was trying to do.  Against the Keeper we wont run but we'll never even have a chance to attack it because we need to pass a ld to even swing against it.  We also have to deal with purple sun. 

Luckily for use we also have a better chance of making those long distance charges, and enough impact hits on top of a cannonball could get to that greater daemon.  A firefister can take care of the loremaster death guys and the lore of slaanesh.  Cannons are helpful for obvioius reasons.  Leadbelchers are good for taking out fiends.  Bloodletters dont benifit from killing blow against us.  If flamers dont make a strong appearance then trollguts helps alot.  Hellheart is nice for its chance to rip the keeper up and might protect his unit from getting siren songed by it. 

Theres alot going on for both sides but if the daemon player is well practiced its a hard army to overcome.

couple that with siren song to dictate the enemies charges, use fiends like we would use sabertusks, and have blocks of bloodletters to go along with your daemonettes and you are pretty much winning everytime.

Heh, you just described last year's Ard Boyz for me... 

I would agree, Daemon Ld Bomb is definitely one of the lists to try and beat. Skaven are also a nasty matchup  with all their multi-wound stuff.

I am a slaanesh guy, though I don't run khorne stuff unless its a huge game and I am playing the entire pantheon.  Hard boys around here was pretty much kairos and double blood letter horde for every army.  Skulltaker saw some play, but literally none of the seven doc semis lists had the masque in it, mostly because she dies fast to light shooting.  I would practice against double letter kairos with a side of double flame and the -2 leadership banner on a shadow loremasterr tzeench guy.

And for the record dark elves with quad hydra, unkillable peg lord, and shadow boosted witches is way more dangerous than daemons could ever hope to be.  Slaan shack life lizards are up there to.

I always had issues with DElf lists. Than again the guy I was playing most often was likely cheating when I look back at it.

The dark elf list is rough defintely i was just making the point that the hydras arent the worst part of the list anymore.  And that dark elf list finished below me in 'ard boys last year, and Gutlord ran roughshod over people with that Slaanesh list. Im just not as scared of dark elves.

The good news is that sniper/poison maneaters take care of a lot of the leadership bomb list for you if you have a sufficient quantity.  The BSB is emminently snipable, and either your opponent runs masque in a unit for a look out sir, meaning shes static and in the front row, or is out and about, allowing you to shoot at her with impudence.  Same goes for a tzeench caster on a disc.  If you can knock off one or two leadership abilities, then you're definitely going to see a very different match.  If I have to eat this opponent at 'Ard Boyz, I think a backline setup, with sabretusks or other chaff sitting in front of my shooters so that Sirens Call cant be used, will give at least two turns as your opponent advances in order to get you inside that 12" bubble.  If he moves up with his M10 lord and/or masque, you've gotten free points as Masque folds like card paper to massed shooting (a 3++ only can stop so much when she's only T3 W2), and a Keeper of Secrets, at T6 W5, cant exactly take cannonballs like a champ with only a 5++.  Otherwise, you've got time to take called shots and well placed IB fire to fix the situation before things get really bad, really fast.

Masque can't join units.  One unit of furies in front of the horrors stops the bsb snipe, but it sucks for him if he is using flames as his bunker then snipers will wreck him.

Phazael, I know we've discussed this before. If you can deal with the Masque then rock on. She's one of my favourite characters and I'm all for improving her PR ... but I find she's pretty filthy.

Joebungaloe, firstly the Masque is always going to try and hang out with some infantry (furies if all else fails). So she has a 3++ and a 4+ look out sir, as effective as a 2+ ward save. She's never going to be standing around in the open if it can be avoided - her ability doesn't require LOS so she'll try to hang out behind units or terrain where possible. Let me put it this way, I don't think I've ever had Masque killed by ranged fire in 8th edition. You're also assuming that the Ld-banner is going to be inside an infantry unit. You're finally assuming that you can block a single Siren Song - but multiples can be used.

Now, don't get me wrong, Ogres are finally a real threat at Ard Boyz. Sniper Maneaters in respectable numbers will give Daemon players kittens. Ironblasters are going to be a serious pain, particularly when you have 3 or 4 of them. Hellheart is a major problem. But there's no doubt that Ogres need to watch out for Daemons at that sort of level.

I'm still unconvinced that Ard Boyz will happen. It's March and there's nothing in the Event Calendar (not even a "to be determined" placeholder). The tab for Ard Boyz doesn't exist under the community menu any more. Rumours abound that it's been cancelled - or at least that the guy who usually runs it has left the company. Hopefully someone else will pick up the reins if that's the case, but I'm not terribly hopeful anymore.

Sniper Maneaters in respectable numbers will give Daemon players kittens.

I too am terrified of those fluffy little monsters....

I'm still unconvinced that Ard Boyz will happen. It's March and there's nothing in the Event Calendar (not even a "to be determined" placeholder. The tab for Ard Boyz doesn't exist under the community menu any more. Rumours abound that it's been cancelled - or at least that the guy who usually runs it has left the company. Hopefully someone else will pick up the reins if that's the case, but I'm not terribly hopeful anymore.

They can hire me to do it. I'd gladly run the giant tournament. Where does one apply? haha

As a general thought though i think that ogres are a strong army. If you are comfortable with your list and stick to the competative options we are a strong "all comers" book.  'Ard Boyz, however, is based more on being able to make a "close your eyes and bend over" list. So if you want to run ogres just know youre going to fight some of the most uphill battles out there.  I personally take it as a challenge, to test myself to see if i can win against these super armies. 

At the end of the day i find that the guys who throw these cheese lists together cause they saw it on the internet and whooped their friends twice with it, are not used to fighting talented generals and can be beaten. The guys like gutlord, who bring the pain and have the tactical intelligence to back it up... well lets just say you cant really make mistakes. Which honestly is why i find it fun.

Yeah, in fact thats why you can sometimes see off the wall lists at Ard Boyz. Those are the ones getting done by experienced generals who have built a list they are comfortable with, and consequently are the more dangerous lists.

I made the mistake at last years of running goblins right after the book came out going ont he idea of "no one will now how to fight them" while somewhat true... I didnt know how to play them either and got stomped. I should have ran dwarfs like the year before or gone with ogres that I was comfortable with at the time

I will say that ogres did seem to throw people when I played.

I faced a fairly nasty Skaven list last year(Double Abomb, Doomwheel, 2 WLCs, Slave horde, Plague Furnace) and just whomped it, with our old book no less.

And then I faced a double Stank/Popemobile/lvl4 life Empire army ....

popemobile?

Arch Lector on War alter, usually with the Speculum

ah

Oh yeah last year was great.  In the final round this guy in the game next to me goes "woah man ogres? what are you thinking?" as he starts taking wood elves out. 

We dont have that element of surprise anymore but i still think that people struggle with our army unless they see it regularly. other armies you can at least compare, but ogres are truly unique.

Ogres have a pretty descent advantage against Skaven, though.  We can cannon their rares off the board pretty early and our entire army basically does not care about 13th.

Also, there are so many different types of ogre lists, like who in the world is going to see my list coming (besides the other people on this form kind of): http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=23852.0

Yeah, that list of yours is going to blow people's minds.

God help them if you go first.

I think most of us had our armies mostly painted. Maybe they will run a different type of tourney...

Guess I won't be needing that 3rd Ironblaster... Anyone want it?

its still usuable in 3000 pt games against other people and such. I do need to work on painting my army. Gotta figure otu theme fully and stuff. start green stuffing characters and the like. Also need a color for skin chosen. I dont like the current flesh tone. the original plan I had was the kommando khaki with purple ink wash but with pirates out in the sun a pale color like that might not work

I think that someone will organize a replacement tournament if it is indeed kaput.

Someone needs to fill the void left by a no holds barred, no comp, 3k cheese fest.

Someone needs to fill the void left by a no holds barred, no comp, 3k cheese fest.

Feces might fill that void.

Someone's not a competitive gamer...

Either way, I'm very saddened by the cancellation of 'Ard Boyz, though I would like to take this opportunity to suggest they drop it to 2500 points if/when it gets reinstated. 3000 is hard for some people to get up to.

There is competitive and then there are a few people I know who are a notch above that into the annoying range. They ~love~ 'ardboys and strive to make it as miserable as they can for anyone else attending. Not all the people who attend are jerks, but it seems to attract a few that know they would get poor sportsmanship scores at any other tournament.

*shrug* That's the nature of the beast sometimes. I don't really see it as all that different from the passive-aggressive fluff Nazis that look down on people that don't take "themed" choices in their lists, and then cry cheese when you put their list down in the game. There are bad seeds in every group.

Oh, it definitely goes both ways and I tend to straddle the fence on fluff/rules. It could be the local 'ardboys that has been ~annoying~ with gits that insist that since Monstrous Infantry includes the word infantry in it they can affect it with the 13th spell and other such nonsense. Could be perfectly fine in other parts of the country but I've heard similar comments even from people that LOVE hardcore play about some of the people that crawl out of the woodwork for the tournament. Basically the people who can only get games with those who have not played them before. All it takes to ruin the fun for me is to be across the table from one of them.

dropping it to 2500 might be interesting cause it would limit things. Ya wouldnt see those massive multi hydra lists cause they cant fit

While I'm sad that the tournament is going to not happen (this year at least), I think the bigger problem is that our weekly article is now threatened!

I demand my tactics articles!  He promised me one on Wood Elves! I'VE BEEN SOLD A BILL OF GOODS AND DEMAND TO BE SATISFIED!

I will miss 'Ard Boyz simply because it's the only real tournament we get around here.  We don't have any GTs or Throne of Skulls or anything else with that kind of prize support.  Making it through the local level provided a good excuse to travel to the semis with a couple of friends, for the chance of winning a real prize.  'Ard Boyz was the event to look forward to.

The problem with 'Ard boy's can be easily realized by everyone with the mention of but a few facts in a certain order:

1) Inconsistantly run

2) lots of prizes

3) No oversight

This is vastly different to say....Magic the gathering which also offers excellent prize support but has Strict rules that must be followed for all events as well as a great deal of oversight that can and has resulted in many organizers losing their permission to run sanctioned events when they misbehave.

No consistant rules, no oversight and big prizes = the worst kind of hobby scum come out of the woodwork to game the system, bad organizers stack the deck as it were for friends and many people get left with a bad experience. This is NOT to say that many event organizers didn't do EXCELLENT jobs, it's just that it wasn't consistent across the board and MANY MANY people had truly terrible experiences.

How is it "inconsistant"?

GW lays down the rules and they are followed. They list all the army books/codices that may be used and they stipulate that all models used must be GW models/conversions of GW models. They also say that all GW FAQs and Erattas will be used.


I would say that any issues with the event are with the person organizing the event and not GW, who simply gives the rules and prize support. Its not their fault if the TOs change things or are dishonest.

your right, it's NOT GW's fault if the people organizing the events change the rules, don't follow the rules or are dishonest but it IS Games workshop that often gets the blame. And I didn't mean game rules grey templar I meant rules reguarding how teh event is run. Take magic the Gathering for instance, WOTC requires organizers to collect specific information and report it to them in a certain timely matter for every event held. Personal information, a DCI number and deck lists are all collected from players on specific fourms and sent back to a specific department run by WOTC. Even the matchings and W/L records are sent back to make the greatest effort to ensure WOTC are run fairly and above board. GW had no such safeguards in place and as such HOW events were run was inconsistant.

To use the standard internet cliche of an extreme irrational example, if you handed four kids dangerous chemicals and told them not touch them and stay still thenwalked off only to come back to find one had moved further way from them, one had done exactly what you'd said, the third was spilling them everywhere and the fourth was drinking them ould you hand out chemicals to kids? (You know, assuming you want to do the proper thing)

GW canceled 'ard boyz, but they didn't say they wouldn't replace it with something. My guess is they will eventually bring back a similar tourny but one with better oversight to make sure EVERYONE taking part has fun. Or at the very least that experiences are consistent and that the problems that plagued 'ard boyz don't come back.

Yeah, there wasn't much background checking done when we went to the Semi-finals. They didn't even ask for the forms we did fill out for who placed 1st, 2nd, etc...

We probably could have just waltzed right in there without playing the Prelims(of course the fact only 3 people showed for our Prelims made it easy)