Kruleboyz: Good & Bad 2021

 Written by Benjamin Lolmaugh

GOOD:

Gutrippaz -  I'll admit it, I was orginially really skeptical on these guys. Worse Spider Riders but cool sculpts. I'm used to orruks being good in a straight up fight and that was my short coming. If you play your Kruleboyz like you play your Ironjawz or Bonesplitterz you're gonna have a bad time. 

These new boyz need to be played like Skaven or like... some smaller green ball of hatred... Like Moonclan. Each block of Gutrippaz needs their support unit. Let's repeat that for the people in the back.... I know you're there.  EACH BLOCK OF GUTRIPPAZ NEED THEIR SUPPORT UNIT!  These aren't Ardboyz, or Morboyz or Gore-Gruntas, they aren't gonna stick around and slug it out. They need their Swampcalla Shaman and their Killaboss to carry them through. Saying that, you could really stick any Hero with a unit of Gutrippaz and the boyz instantly become better. 

BAD:

Command Traits - What kind of half-baked garbage is this?! 3 sub-par, exclusive build, keyword bound command traits. Too miss for me. Slippery Skumbag which lets you run and charge right? nope its fall back and charge at the same turn. So a combat hero (of which we have few that we want to stay in combat) would have to survive several rounds of combat and hope you have enough movement left on your chart to do something useful? That's the play?? If you want mobility, take Fast Un as the mount trait  and Battle Lust universal command trait instead. Even the Snaggaboss on Mirebrute Troggoth can move 5" in the Hero phase, 5" in the Movement phase, run for D6 and then charge whatever to want to flatten. Supa Sneaky is good, if you're taking a large unit of Gutrippaz that will need support ASAP or Maybe a Rogue Idol in an Alpha Beast Pack? You should really have a nice base of Man-Skewer Boltboyz screening out the back board to save you on deep-strikes. Egomaniak could be great, if we had a 2 caster on monster mount that we could give command traits to.... but we don't. On a foot Killaboss this might be okay, but even then I think I'd take the Amulet of Destiny instead of having to always escort my big toys around with an entourage. I know the Amulet of Destiny is an artefact and I'm talking about Command Traits.... No I don't see a problem, Thank you, sir. Thank the Dice Gods that Universal Command Traits are a thing! I much prefer Battle Lust or Master of Magic or Skilled Leader instead of the edge cases we got in the book. Keep a look out for the Killer Combos for Kruleboyz to see how to use them in your games.

GOOD:

Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast - Look at this absolute beauty of a model! If any model embodied Jim Henson's Labyrinth goblins, I don't know about it. The design team perfectly married Swamp inspired Mad Max and horror puppets. The Alice Cooper wannabe riding on top actually has a great fighting profile. But the reason you take the 315 pts Monster is Sledgeraker Venom. All weapons that use Venom Encrusted Weapons deal +1 mortal wounds when they get that Most Holy of 6s to hit if they are within 12". No melee requirement. No other hoop to jump through. Even on a unit of 6 Man Skewer Boltboyz, its a considerable jump and can mean the difference between killing a support hero or not. The beast itself it super lethal in its own right, the whole profile dealing about 14.5 wounds or so vs 4+ Save units. Mount traits almost feel like cheating with this monster. Fast Un or Weird Un come to mind. The Sledgeraker is slow, only moving 8" and vulnerable to mortal wounds. So make sure you grab the Amulet of Destiny to save the bacon on your prized pig-gator. I also forgot the Snatch and Grab ability, what's worse than killing your friend's army? Auto killing his favorite character, that's what! Not sure how a Slaughtermaster or Butcher fits in one of those cages though. Jelly-bagging I guess. It's great to know, you can fit Sigvald, Lady Olynder and The Light of Eltharion into a dirty, stinking cage. 

BAD:

Murknob with Belcha Banner - Another swing and a miss for me. The miniature looks great, fantastic even. But, there is sooo much missed opportunity here that it physically hurts me. Besides the obvious Nob Banner w/Waaagh Banner that could have worked well, the range on  a banner model shouldn't be less than shouting range of a boss. The Stormcast Eternals got a re-roll charges and we got Power of Kragnos, a 5+ to ignore spells that target a unit wholly within 12", although useful, especially in this meta, it just doesn't seem right to me. Too much emphasis on a non-greenskin for my admittedly green taste. Breath of the Mire-Drakes is not even cool. Half the time you'll forget it because you're surprised the Murknob even survived to the Combat phase, and the other time it will just do 1-2 mortal wounds on some block of shitheads. At least his fighting profile is okay for 95 pts? I'm reaching here... I really which we had options to  decide what type of tongue was on the banner and what that affect was. My hope is to see more Murknobs in the future, maybe a 3 orruk unit on Gnashtoofs (Gnash-teef?).