[Nightmare]

He's the boss. The big bad boss. The closest thing to an emperor that the Orks have. Yet for the same amount of points as him you could comfortably take 2 Warbosses with your favourite gear. If you're looking for mega armour then you can get it for cheaper:

Warboss:

Mega armour
Cybork body
bosspole
attack squig

130 points.

This is 95 points cheaper than Gazza, allowing you to take another warboss (or even a Mek) to bolster your attack elsewhere in the army. For Gaz, you are venturing in greater daemon range, yet he seems ever so weak in comparsion. So, what do we get for said points?

-Extra stat bonuses: Extra weaponskill, and wound. Thats pretty damned good - an extra wound is always handy to have around and I don't know about you - but thats a very hard thing to pass up. After all - if that space marine commander comes running up with 3 attacks, he can kill an Ordinary boss potentially. Gazza will just stand there, take a few wounds, then slice said commander in half whilst the Nobz deal with the oomans mates. It's not about getting a return - a 100 point model isn't worth taking a 200+ point model for. But when you realise that said uber model is still alive and not been assassinated in such a simple way, then you realise just why that extra wound is helpful. Oh, and thanks to that weaponskill boost, said space marine will be hit on 3's. Thats kinda cool huh? So how much of the 95 points chunk does this eat up? The only other wound upgrade that I can remeber was in the old Chaos marine codex and was priced at 15 points, and I'd probably be safe to put the WS upgrade at 10.


70 points to go... Whats next?


- Adamantium skull: Can you say "immune to instant death"? Pretty snazzy. Whilst Force weapons very rarely seem to leave the cupboard share with the good crockery (ya know - the ancient stuff ya mum takes out only for Christmas) it does make more of a pain to deal with. If your opponent isn't aware of this little number and tries his best to insta-gib him then he's essentially going to be trying to kill a bull by tickling it. Plus, it'll always be nice to lug around when having a good old Ork Vs. Ork fight just to prove who's boss is 'arder - his warboss can be killed by Gazza's Power klaw, but the other one (the weedier one) is going to have to do it the old Skool way. The second bonus is the fact that Gazza will be getting +2 attacks on the charge. 7 attacks. With a power klaw. "But how will he make the charge if he's slow and purposeful, boss?" I here you cry, simple answer - stick him and a Wagon with a few boyz. Drive up, sit tight in your AV14 basket, then disgourge yourself on the enemy. Time it right and you can spring a table wide Waargh! and have the enemy trapped in combat without much to counter. SNP is a handicap, make no mistake, but theres ways to reduce its effect.

Points? I'd guess somewhere around the mark of the Adamantine mantle (or whatever) for the immunity to instant death, so 30 points ish, and about 10 more points for that extra attack.


30 points left.


- Big shoota: you may snigger, young yoof, about this actually being note worthy in an Ork army list. But aside from the Tau Shas'O think of the ranged upgrades for the other characters in the game. There aren't all that many in the range of the big shoota, save for the occasional psycannon or plasma pistol. But neither of those has the amount of shots of the big shoota, especially at the 36" range. Whilst it certainly aint worth relying on, the ability to wipe the smug space marine players smile off of his face as a terminator is downed by a Gazza drive by is enough to actually remember to fire this. Same amount of points as paid for in the slugga boyz list: 5.


I should rephrase then - what do we get for 25 points?


We pay 25 points for the Prophet of the Waagh!! skill. This, my friends, is the Icing on the cake, freshly baked cookie and last rolo all mashed together as one.

- Fleet movement: This is the big one. When this is activated you're boyz are moving, essentially, 12" in one turn. Thats a potential of 18" of charging range if you're still paying attention, 3" less than a trukk boyz mob!! Hell, said trukk boyz will still benefit from this movement for a whopping 27" assault threat meaning you don't actually need to worry about the flimsy nature of the trukk. Park it behind some LOS blocking cover, then just charge away when the waaagh! is called. The best part of this is that it is guaranteed. Before I started using Gazza (yes, I can't spell his name without looking) I would always end up rolling a a collection of Pathetic 1's and 2's when all that I needed was a solid 3. I can't stress it enough - the ability to have sure fire "weapon" in the Ork army is worth it, time after time. The major disadvantage to this is that grot shields don't get to benefit from this extra movement (I think....) which might cause problems resulting in you not being able to move through them and causing a pile up. Although the Slavers do get the rule...

- Fearless: If they aren't fearless already (thanks to mob rule) then the army become fearless until your next turn. This results in a massive tarpit effect across the table - units that would have otherwise have ran away thanks to casualties are now going to stick around for longer. Whilst this won't benefit the larger mobs, who are alreaady fearless, it will most certainly help your smaller, more specialist units. The kommandos coming for a rear attack aren't going to be worrying about suffering enough attacks to stop them from holding up that devastator squad, your bunas will get a second chance to take down the chunkier terminator squad and your Nob squads of both flavours all of a sudden become a massive threat now that their major weakness has been written off. You try tackling a Nob squad when they refuse to run, not much fun. And I know it's a silly thing to mention - but that 30 mob of grots is suddenly fearless too!! Now you are guaranteed to hold up a dreadnaught or a bloodthirster for at least 2 turns. Hell, get lucky and it will get eliminated from the entire game. Not bad for a 3 point model with stats worse than a conscript.

- Invulnerable throw: Whilst this is something that only effects the big guy it certainly is a massive ability to lug around in a game of top-trumps. A T3 dark Eldar Archaon is hard enough to take out with a 2+ inv save, now imagine if he was immune to instant death and had 4 toughness 5 wounds to deal with? Whilst this isn't the greatest thing in the world (doesn't last forever) it does mean that Gaz is able to stand toe-to-toe with the best characters in the game and potentially win. Yes he costs as much as a bloodthirster, but thanks to this little gem he can kill the thing! Now, how would a bloodthirster skull look on the front of your wagon?


So, there you have it, the reasons why I think Ghazghkull costs the amount he does. Not only is he himself a rock solid charachter, able to beat up anything you throw him at and take a punch in return, and is a massive upgrade compared with the ordinary warboss with similar kit. He also offers an army wide boost which is seriously deadly when pulled off right. The only reason not to take him over the ordinary warboss is if you have something against mega armour (hey! Ooman! Wherz ma Turbo boosta?) or you are wanting him on a bike (which case, take wazzdakka). The only reason not to take him as a HQ choice is if you have something special planned with meks (dual SAG?) or with mad dokk grotsnikk.

[Thor{DoH}]

Great writeup and karma well deserved. Also adding this to the Library.

[jimmy_mymail]

If you don't mind i'll add it to the website as well

[Atticus]

Tiny critique: I'm pretty sure Waaagh! was removed from slavers in their errata, but I'm not sure. Otherwise, great write-up. I need to grab my model for Ghazzie (yep, I can't spell it either ) and stick him on the table again.

[Warboss Vandersnag]

Not to mention that the reason you don't take two warbosses instead is because orks already have so many good HQ choices that you want slots to remain open. So with a more powerful warboss (a 1.5 warboss) you still have one slot open for your sag mek, kff mek, or warphead

[Orkish_Fiend]

Lol I warboss is exactly the same as the one you described SILK except I replaced the Attack Squig with a Big Choppa so It will have 7 strength, plus furious charge meaning he'll have 8 strength, a complete rampage on tanks.
But anyways, I think SILK is correct. I'll rather take the Warboss instead of Ghazghkull but Ghazghkill model looks awesome!

[Nightmare]

Originally Posted by Orkish_Fiend

Lol The warboss is exactly the same as the one you described, SILK, except I replaced the Attack Squig with a Big Choppa so It will have 7 strength, plus furious charge meaning he'll have 8 strength, a complete rampage on tanks.

You can't take a Big choppa with a suit of mega armour. The advantage of taking a Power Klaw over a big choppa is that you will not only be the bane of ALL vehicles (you see if that land raider can laugh off 5 strength 10 attacks.) and also all enemies. The only real disadvantage is striking last. Which is about the only reason to take a big choppa - if you need something big, fast and killy. Hell, I'd much rather stick with a regular choppa and gain an extra attack. However, the disadvantage of striking last with a power klaw is much less with Ghazghkull's waaargh! ability. Just Waargh! into the enemy command (or the next beefy unit available) and just watch as Gaz takes numerous power weapon attacks and then just slices through those that just tried to kill him.

Like I said - thanks to this one ability gaz has the potential to take down any character in the game. From a meagre imperial commander, to a migthy bloodthirstser all are fair game. Can an Ordinary warboss do that? No. Well... with a whole lot of luck, yes.

But anyways, I think SILK is correct. I'll rather take the Warboss instead of Ghazghkull but Ghazghkill model looks awesome!

Wait...

Did you actually read what I wrote?!

The only reasons not to take Ghazghkull would be:

- Running a Kult of speed list: Gazza works best with a horde list (or at least with a good portion of the amry foot slogging) alowing 100+ Orks to move 12" and then charge. That said, having a charge range of 27" with the transports (thanks to red paint) is certainly something not to sniff at, and could justify the points on Gaz alone. Also, in the Deffsquig variant of this list (Mimicking deatwing of the dark angels with lots of mega armour) Ghazghkull will guarantee a 6" movement for the ludicrous amounts of SAP presnent.

- Have something against PKs and/or Mega armour: Unless you have something horrifically against either power klaws or Mega armour, then I struggle to see the point in not taking Gaz if you are opting to take either of these simply because Gazza take with him all of his abilities too - the upped stats, immunity to insta-gibbing and his Waargh! power. Unless you really, really favour that big choppa then I could begin to see why you would forgo taking the big boss.

- Running a bike heavy (ravensquig?) list - As I already mentioned before, if you are wanting dubious amounts of non-Nob bikers then take Wazzdakka. Gaz won't help you here.

- Taking a Meks for KFF.