Versatile List (ETC Comp / Draft 2.0)

Hi everybody! The draft 2.0 of the ETC has just come out and it will be the one I'm gonna play in my next tournament: a team turnament in february. I just saw that the double IB was again a possibility (with taking no SM, hellheart, crown of cd and another few little things) and I was thinking about trying a new versatile and original list (2400 pts).

Bruiser: GW, AoD
Bruiser: BSB, ToP, enchanted shield, HA
Butcher: lvl 2, beast, iron fist
Butcher: lvl 2, great maw, dispell scroll, tour. sword
9 Ironguts: FC, stand. of disc.
3 Ogres: add HW
3x10 gnoblars
3x1 sabretusk
7 Maneaters: muso, brace of pistols, poison, snipers
2x2 Mournfangs cav: muso, 2+/pary
2x1 Ironblaster

I really think this list can be strong. I am a bit weak in magic but my snipers maneaters should be able to deal with those lvl4 mage after a few shooting turns. My characters are still very cheap and pretty effective in my opinion. I have 6-7 "free Drops" which allow me to deploy all my forces on one side and take advantage of a few shooting turns before combat against other mixt-offensive/offensive opponent. Against defensive list with a lot of shooting like dwarf I can still go quickly forward with everything or hide my bigs units behind the gnoblars (get the heavy cover) and shoot with my IB at ennmy's canons during the time I'm mooving forward. To sum it up: versatility! 

I'm still not 100% sure about wether I should take 2 firebelly lvl1 or 2 butcher lvl 2. But I admit that I really hate the feeling of not beeing able to try to force a single spell during combat intense rounds (because when both firebelly are in combat they can't throw fireballs...) and +2/+3 to dispell seems more secure than +1 so that's why I prefer the butcher who can give me some nice buffers for combat phases. Btw I can really enjoy some Irr. Force with them because I really don't care if they die! I really like the 2x lvl2 caster because they are less risky than a lvl 4 who's often the general in OK armies...

I really would appreciate if you could give me some of your thoughts on this list before I'm going to play it for the first time.

Before i give a more in depth comment i want to ask where all the characters are going? I am assuming 3 in the Ironguts and 1 in the Maneaters but which ones

On first looks i really like this list, i like the way you have thought out your list. I believe if you were playing in a non comp environment our lists would be similar because apart from your characters my most recent list is very similar indeed

Thx. Of course General + BSB in the IG and then 1 Butcher in the Maneaters and the other one in the IG. It will depend on the spells I'll pick to choose wether I put the Maw Butcher or the Beast Butcher within the Maneaters unit.

Hi guys!

I played a 2-days team turnament this week end with this list and I would like to give you some feed-back about the list and my games.

Game 1: Lizardmen
We face the strongest team on the first game. They are good players with a lot of experience so it will be difficult to score against them. I face the following list: Slann lvl4 high magic with lot of item in a skink unit (24 with 3 kroxi), 3x 10 skink skirmishers, 2x10 skinks cohort, 4 terradon riders, 2x5 chameleon, 2x5 ripperdactyl, 1 saurus oldblood 1+ rerollable OTS GW 4++, tetto eko.

Good magic, lot of shooting and movement and 1 very strong guy. I get the first turn and try to push forward because i know that if i stay behind i won't get points. The slann unit also include tetto eko and the points are there. As expected he flies over me and turn around while shooting. The magic do some damage on the mournfangs. All skinks and chamelon will kill my 2 ironblasters. My Irongut unit will get blocked in close combat against the saurus oldblood and kill him after 3 combat turn but i will never get into the slann unit in 6 turns. My snipers maneaters didn't get any sniping opportunity on the slann who was far away. At the end I loose my general and everything excepted some ironguts and 2 characters (BSB) but i lose 20-0. The rest of my team gets crushed so we get the minimal amount points which is 30 and the winning time gets 50

Game 2: Dwarf
General on shield 1+/5++, 2 runesmith with 2 rune of spellbreaking, 19 quarrelers GW, 20 longbeards rune of stoicism, 2x canon, 1 grudge thrower, 1 organ gun, 2x gyro, 20 irondrakes 2x rune of slowness

Another difficult game against a difficult opponent. I tried to hide my important things behind the gnoblars line while I'm going forward. I lost some time by doing this but my units stayed protected against some shootings. The grudge thrower was the MVP with 6 hits in 6 turns! Turn 5 I take the risk to charge into the longbeards unit with my ironguts while redirecting the quarrelers who were near. My general did his best to try to kill his general but at the end he has 1 PV left and I died. He gets most of my other units by shooting and it ends being a 16-4 for him.

I m still not sure if i did a mistake by hiding my units behind gnoblars lines. The problem is that I wasn't sure if i could survive to the longbeards in the front + quarrelers in the side. So I had to be very careful. My canons didn't win the warmachines battle and run quite poorly.

At the end we end up losing with 33 or 36 pts I m not sure. So 2 defeat for my team

Game 3: Empire
We face the 2nd team of our club and clearly the empire list was strongest one in my opinion. HEre is his list: archelector 4++ ogre blade on a war altar, sorceler lord lvl 4 light on steed, captain bsb, sorcerer lvl 1 beast, 13+14 handgunners, 13 knights inner circle, 2 canon, 25 wrodplayers, hellblaster volleygun, steam tank

Another shooty list so I go forward again but carefully because I don't want the 13 knights to charge one of my units except the ironguts who would kill them without problems. Turn 1 my maneaters try to snipe the lvl 4 and only manage to get 2 PV so turn 2 he decide to hide her behind his lines. My canons did run below average again and I think I only managed to kill some knights and 1 canon. On turn 5 I charge my ironguts into the archlector but I won't be able to kill him in 4 combat turn. My maneaters did charge the knights but were unable to kill them. 1 ironblaster, most of my ironguts and my mournfangs will die because of the canons shoot. On the last combat phase he managed to kill my last maneaters (he needed 2 wounds on 2 attaks and did it) and get the 444 pts --'. At the end I lost 8-12 so hard to swallow but my team mates had better match-ups and we managed to get our 1st win with 50 points!

Game 4: Skaven
I m quite happy about the match-up because I think that my list can shine against his list. I got a lot of attaks and 2 canons. He seems to be also happy to play against me so we'll see who is wrong! his list: grey seer, bsb stormbanner, 2x assassin (sword of anti heroes, ots & potion streght weeping blade), 4 warlocks (brass orb, DS, rocket, lvl 2, lvl 1), 3x 40 slaves, 2x1 rat pack, 51 stormvermins, 2x5 gutters, 2 canons, 1 hellpit.

I get the first turn and I go forward again. I get no sniping opportunity because the characters are in a bunker behind the lines. My mournfangs are on both flancs the rest is in the center. On the first turn I managed to kill 1 of the canon. He was quite confident about this stormvermin going against my units so he decided to moove them forward on turn 2 after his 2 nd canon gets killed. I charge with both my maneaters and my ironguts and I managed to win it. His assasins didn't do much and he flee 7 inch. My units roll 6 and 5 to persue and then he rallies. My 3 ogres manage to charge the bunker on turn 3 on the side while my mournfangs will be killed on one side by the hellpit and on the other by a crackhole. I charge again into the stormvermin and this time only 7-8 survive so double 1 to rally. I only persue with 1 maneater and 1 butcher. The guts reform to face the bunker. I charge and finally kill the bunker but the grey seer managed to go out with a spell. What stays at the end: grey seer & 2x5 gutters.

I win the fight 16-4 and we did win 50 points in total. So a great victory against a good team.

Game 5: Orks & Gobs
I know O&G pretty well and I know that it will be about luck when i see his list. He has 1 orc warboss 4++ crown, 1 lvl 4 shrunken head fencer blades, 1 bsb MR 3, 1 lvl 1 gob, 1 gob on wolf, 30 savages big uns, 20 night gob 2 fana, 2x5 wolves riders, 3x1 wolf chariot, 2x1 troll, 10 trolls, 2x1 mangler quig, 2x1 doom diver, 2x1 rock lobber. Plenty of redirection... I move forward carefully because I need to avoid being charged or being in combat against both the troll and the savage. My canons runs well again and I kill quickly the warmachines while they were protected by a troll line. I finally go forward to try to snipe the lvl 4 and be ready to charge with my 2 combat blocks. I failed to kill him and then it wend tricky. He charges into my maneaters who decided to flee then he redirected on the cat who was before my ironguts and I flee again when he declares a combo charge with the trolls on the cat. So both unit faild their charges. Then I charge with 1 mournfangs + my gutstar into the savages. I won and kill the bsb and the lvl 4 but he is stubborn and stays. My mournfang died and i reform into 2 lines in order that he won't be able to countercharges with his trolls on turn 6 because they are still 7 wide! On his las turn I did plenty of wounds again and this time he failed his 9 stubborn and i catch him. 20-0 for the ogres! We win 44 points on this game.

Common result
We won 2 times 50, 1 time 44 and lost 33 and 30. We ends up being 7/12 so not a bad result for our first event team. By the way we are only 8 points away from the tird team!
I won 2 games and lost 3. I think I had very few chances with my list against both of my first opponents so the lose was quite logical. Lizardmen are not a good match-up: too much movement, poison, good magic and against dwarf it always depends on what survives to the shooting phases. On the tird game I think I can say that my opponent did roll above the average. I should have won this one or at least make a draw. He was a bit lucky to get 2 wounds on 2 attaks against maneaters (4+ to touch and 5+ to wound then I failed my two 6+ AS) to get 222 pts which change the game from a 10-10 to 12-8. Against skaven I only played 2 times and both times in tournament against good opponent. I really think it is a good match up for ogres. We got too much attaks for them. 2 mournfangs or 3 ogres can easily defeat 40 slaves. And the last one as I said against O&G it is about luck in my opinion. If I managed to go to combat without having get so much damage I can win it because I m better in close combat.

List analysis
To sum it up I really enjoyed playing my list but I think she got quite a lot of nemesis. In most of the paring I was thinking that I was able to beat 2 lists on the 4 opponent’s but never 3 or 4 so too much bad match ups. I wasn’t expecting to face 3 canons which leads me to loose the warmachines fight. I will know analyse unit per unit:
General: Cost effective! For 160 points you got a good character and quite resilient! I like him but he won’t kill opponent’s big characters. I don’t think the tyrant would have been a necessarily choice because he would have cost me too much.
BSB: Also very resilient with 3+/4++. I never lost him so I really like this build which allows me to move on the first rank without fears
Butcher Maw & Beast: they were okay but I admit that it was difficult to get some good spells at the right time. On the anti-magic side I needed to focus on the opponent’s biggest spell and I did it well without getting too much damage.
9 Ironguts: a classic
3 ogres: they were able to make some surprise with 12 attaks strength 4 + stomp + impact hits!
3x10 gnoblars: they allow me to play the refuse flanc or play a redirecting role. Quite usefull but you need to be carefull where you move them because they only move 4 inch and can slow down all your army!
3x1 sabretusk: classic
2x2 mournfangs: very mobile, lot of attaks, I love them
7 maneaters: I m really not conviced about the snipers option. I made no real use of it and didn’t killed a single character with it. Good players know how to hide their characters. I would rater go for scouts! Be carefull with them. They are really good and put a lot of attaks but they are really really fragile and can die quickly!
2x1 ironblaster: They were really good in 2 out of 5 games. I thought they would be more dangerous and I would face less war machines. I am not sure I would take them both again. At the end it cost me a lot of restrictions to put them both.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that you’re going to try out this list!

Great write up and sounds like a good tournament

I agree with you that double ironblaster is the way to go and i like your list. I do believe some of your analysis of individual units are correct Scout on Maneaters mainly. As your your level 2's have you thought about dual firebellies instead.

For ETC i have been considered something similar so i will be interested to see how your list develops

Thanks!  I have also tried the double firebelly in my test-games but I changed my mind because of the lack of buff in combat phases... You send some fireballs (if they go through) and when you're in combat you have nothing to do in your magic phase...

I will keep you informed on my future changes

I like your list a lot and I'm gonna give a slightly modified version a try.

Bruiser(gen) AHW HA Destiny
Bruiser BSB Runemaw
Butcher lvl 2 Maw dispel GW
Butcher lvl 2 beasts

9 guts FC std of disc look out gnob
3 ogres champ AHW
10 gnobs trappers and Standard

6 Maneaters 6x brace FC HA Eternal Flame, poison, scout
2x2 Mourned HA IF standard bearer
3x1 tusks
2 Ironblasters

the only trouble I have with the list is the mournes. I usually run them in a unit of 4 with Dragon so it'll be a change. But I can see where they would excel at chaff clearing.

You'll see that they can be very useful and mobile in 2-wide. They play a support unit role for the 2 mains blocks that are maneaters and ironguts.

I also decided to play them 2x2 because of my local meta where the most powerful armies play 1 or 0 infantery block...

Give them a try Btw I wouldn't play the runemaw. You'll quickly remark that most of the spells will target the mourfangs, the 2 IB and the Maneaters. Why not put a hellheart on your 2nd butcher?