Don’t miss the latest Warbeats, Warscroll, and Battalion rules for the new Orruk Warclans AoS battletome that were just spotted!
You might have already seen a preview on the new book showcasing some of their rules. However, there GW’s Warhammer TV Live Twitch Stream gave us a great deeper look into some of the rules. Before we jump into the latest, here are the previews from earlier!
Iron Jawz & Bonesplitterz Rules Previewed for Orruk Warclans
Battletome: Orruk Warclans isn’t just one battletome – it’s a twin-headed monster akin to Gorkamorka himself! In this book, you’ll find absolutely everything you need to field an Ironjawz or Bonesplitterz army, with both factions receiving improved allegiance abilities, their own spell lores, command traits, mount traits, artefacts, and all the good stuff you’d expect from a contemporary Warhammer Age of Sigmar army. Both forces are free to ally with one another, or join forces as part of the Big Waaagh!
Playing With the IronJawz
Playing as the Ironjawz, your key goal is to get down the board in hacking range and proceed to blend things in combat. However, if you go against shooty forces like Stormcast, this Battle Trait will speed up the death of your enemy. Mad as Hell gives you a free D6 inch movement if any Ironjawz in your army took a wound or mortal wound! Yep, you can even game it on yourself!
There aren’t just the vanilla Ironjawz in the book. There are different tribes of Ironjawz with their own unique rules, command traits, etc. Looking at the Ironsunz, they’ll have a bit of protection in the first battle round making them -1 to hit across the board. This can be a pretty big deal if your opponent makes you go first-effectively letting them get the charge off if you’re too aggressive.
Playing With the Bonesplitterz
Being that the Bonesplitterz sole existence is to hunt monsters between the realms they have an ability called Tireless Trackers. They’re glass cannons but deceptively fast. Before the game starts, you can pick half of your force and get a free 5″ move. This is huge as you can turtle up a bit if you ended up not going first. Or you can just charge straight ahead and charge turn 1.
Warpaint is still the same making up for your army’s lack of an armor save. You get a free FNP on each unit which is always nice.
You’ll also bully enemy monsters in combat with Monster Hunters. You now get to pick which rule you want to activate instead of rolling randomly. If you do manage to kill the monster, the unit that killed it also becomes immune to battleshock.
Bonesplitterz Subfaction Rules Previewed
Just like the Ironjawz, the Bonesplitterz also have their subfactions of tribes. These all come with different rules and ideas on how to wage war.
For the Drakfoot units, they ignore the (basically) 4++ invuln that Nighthaunt armies have. These guys will melt spirits.
For the Bonegrinz, they can taunt the enemy if they’re close enough forcing them to charge in and fight. Plus, they can never retreat once there. You want to keep your Bonegrinz meaty and ready to take a beating because they DEFINITELY will.
Combining Armies for a Big Waaagh!
If you combine Ironjawz with Bonesplitterz, you’ll get some bonus rules showing off the effects of a Waaagh! in-game. Similar to the summoning points Daemons, Seraphon, and other factions get, the Orruks will generate Waaagh! points.
With this army, you’ll generate Waaagh! points every turn, representing the savage energies of Gorkamorka that crackle around such massive gatherings of Orruks. This powerful and unpredictable resource can be generated in several ways. Warchanters, Wardokks and Wurrgog Prophets all provide Waaagh! points, while particularly Orruk-y play will reward you with even more as you charge foes and get stuck in with your Heroes.
Spending your points, you’ll be able to give powerful combat bonuses to your units in a pinch. While Smash’em and Bash ’em are powerful, there’s one that’s unparalleled.
If you’ve got a whopping 24 Waaagh! points, you can launch Da Big Waaagh! giving everybody in your entire army an extra attack. This should be enough to turn the tides of war when you’re even clinging on to the last few units in your army. However, this power comes at a hefty price. You have to roll to see how many Waaagh! points it really costs. It could drop you down to 0, half your points, or cost you completely nothing! Just remember the magic number to use this ability is 24.
Warscroll Battalion, Mout Traits, Relics & More Revealed
Spotted on a Live Stream, here is a pic of an Orruk Warclan list overview. We can see some of the units will cost point-wise in the book as well as a few other rules over to the left. We’ll be going over the stuff we haven’t seen anywhere else just yet.
Command Ability: Alright Get ‘Em- This command ability is done at the end of an enemy’s charge phase. And if you’ve got a unit within 12″ of an enemy and 18″ of a hero, you can pick a unit to charge in yourself. This is really powerful because you can keep your high-value units back and let the enemy throw themselves at throw-away units in your force.
Command Trait: Right Fist od Dakbad- This just gives you a guaranteed CP at the start of the first battle round. Nothing busted by any means.
Artifact of Power: Hand O’ Big Tree- Once per game, you can soup-up your melee weapon and increase its damage characteristic to 3. This is incredibly useful if you need to get yourself out of a tarpit or fell a Monster you’re locked into combat with.
Artifact of Power: Itz Bright Armor- You absorb the first point of rend you take on your hero (which is very powerful). Keeping your save as low as possible is always a good thing to go for.
Mount Trait: Fast ‘Un- This gives your mounted hero a bonus 2″ of movement. It may not seem like a lot on paper, but if you’ve seen the way Beastclaw Raiders work, they can make a lot happen out of a few bonus inches of movement.
Mount Trait: Mean ‘Un- This adds +1 to the damage of the mounts’ fist and tail. It seems good but the bonus movement is probably the more powerful of the two.
Warbeat: Get ‘Em Beat- This Warbeat lets you charge outside of the normal 12″ range and even gives you a 3D6 total to try and make it. The cool thing about this is that you can still use this on a unit if you’re within 12″ but need to guarantee that you’ll make it in.
Warscroll Battalion: Brutefist
Looking at our first Warscroll Battalion, Brutefist needs 3-5 Orruk Brutefist units. When you take this Battalion, you can pick a Boss from a unit to become a Big Boss giving him 5 wounds instead of 3.
Essentially, the Brutes in the Warscroll Battalion slam into the enemy with their bodies and can dish out a mortal wound on a 4+ for each model within 1″ of an enemy model. If you get a point-blank charge off and envelope the enemy unit, they could be taking 5-10 mortal wounds realistically. Not bad considering that you can bring five Brute squads in this Battalion! These guys act a bit like the Boingrot Bounderz from the Gloomspite Gitz and that mortal wound ability has proven themselves insanely good.
A Word on Brutes: Brutes are cheaper at 140 pts. However, the claw and choppa now share a weapon profile. Grabbing and auto hitting with the club might be gone.
Other Orruk Updates
Sprues & Brews did a recap of everything that was talked about on-stream giving us a deeper look into some of the updates and changes coming to the faction as well. Keep in mind there may be some minor transcription errors between the stream itself and here:
Gordrak/Mawkrushas: Mighty Fists and Tail a combined attack profile. This gives you 9 total attacks hitting on a 3+ and wounding on a 3+ for -2 Rend, 2 damage. Axes are now 5 attacks each at -1 Rend 1 or D3 damage. The Mawkrusha’s Bellow attack now does D6 attacks hitting on a 2+ and wounding on 3+ at -1 Rend. But instead of D6 damage, it only does 1 damage. You get more attacks, which is nice but you probably won’t be nuking an enemy like before. Just chipping wounds away with its breath.
Destructive Bulk: The unit essentially smashes into terrain and takes away the enemy’s cover from a piece of terrain while also dealing damage to them. Looking at the game Warhammer TV Streamed, it seems that Destructive Bulk also only does mortal wounds on a 5+.
Strength From Victory: This lets your hero stack extra attacks and wounds based on any models being killed during a combat phase, not just Heroes. Throw this dude into a group of Goblins or Skaven and let him farm up, becoming a wrecking ball for the late game.
Ard Boyz – No matter the weapon equipped on your Orruk, he gets 2 attacks hitting on 3s, wounding on 3s, -1, 1 Damage. At least we know that it doesn’t matter how you modeled your units, right?
Warchanter – His ability now does +1 damage instead of +1 to hit. He’s also responsible for giving “prayers” called Warbeats that look to go off on a single D6 just like Fyreslayers, for example.
Orruks had a lot more previewed in this wave and with a deeper look into the faction, what are your personal thoughts?
Do you think this army will have a ton of combat tricks up its sleeve? What’s your favorite Orruk unit? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group, and sign up to get your free hobby updates newsletter (with discount coupon codes) each morning as well!
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials: @RealmbrushPainting
About Wesley Floyd: Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He is known for his satirist takes on trending topics and imaginative yet amazingly affordable hobby solutions to painting Warhammer miniatures.
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4. If you like what he writes and want to contact him or have your tabletop minatures painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
