500 Series: Horned Skull Brutes!!!

[Zarrath]

Hey there! Zarrath again and I'm here with another Competitive armies discussion on the Horned Skull Brutes!! Now before I dig into the armies strategies, cores, combos, etc. I will like to first analyze their stats:

Life 1-low
Move 5-average
Range 1-melee
attack 4-average
defense 4-average

Expendable Rabble:
If your defending Horned Skull Brute were to take one or more wounds from an opponent's attack. you may destroy an adjacent small goblin figure you control to ignore any wounds this figure would take .

Barge into Battle:
When you end your movement and before you attack you (he must be unengaged if you want this to work) can change or swap locations with a friendly small or medium Squad figure that is at most 3 clear sight spaces from the Horned Skull Brute, and is no higher or lower than 2 spaces of the Horned Skull Brute's base.

Expendable Rabble makes these guys last a heck of a long time. Really long. Barge into battle is the equivalent of the Warforged Warriors tactical switch. Still great though!

In generality these guys are to be used as a screen/can opener unit. When combo-ed with there goblin buddies the goblin cutters these guys become a force to reckon with!!!

Let's Take A Look At the Army Lists:

Goblins, Brutes, and...........Pointy Sticks???:
3xHorned Skull Brutes 225
3xGoblin Cutters 150
Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (ROTV) 80
Marcu 20
Total Points: 475

AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!:
2xHorned Skull Brutes 150
3xGoblin Cutters 150
Krav Maga Agents 100
Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (ROTV) 80
Marcu 20
Total Points: 500

Strategy Review of "Goblins, Brutes, and..........Pointy Sticks???: I love these guys!! The basic input for an effective to use and execute for this army is by this. Use your Goblin Cutters to act as a screen (much like the Rats). These little dudes will clog your opponents way to you main core. Smartly, spread the Goblin Cutters out onto the map. Like if there's an important narrow passage between to giant heights, clog it with Goblin Cutters. Claim the heights with the Goblin Cutters. There are so many ways to use the Goblin Cutters it's insane!!! It will usually take 3-5 turns of Goblin Cutters to have them dominate the map. It varies with the terrain of the map. Well when all of the Goblin Cutters are out (yes I said ALL) mobilize the Horned Skull Brutes and Raelin. Weave Raelin and the Brutes through the Goblin Cutter swarm and make your way to where the opponent is tied with the Cutters. Pick apart there army with the Horned Skull Brutes. 3 attacks of 4 is nothing to meddle around with. When the sweep of Brutes is started it will take about 1 or 2 more rounds until you have completely wiped the opponents main core of their army. Raelin is there to make them live forever. With her Defensive Aura she gives them a bonus of +2 defense!! If we look back at the stats of the Brute's their defense is 4! Making them go up to 6!!! Your opponent will die trying to kill them!! Plus, if they manage to break through the defense of 6 just use Expendable Rabble and blow up a Goblin Cutter! They still live!! This army is durable to the max!! If executed and properly used this army will win 90% of the time!!*

*Yes I did the math!! On a trial of 10 matches this army won 9 out of 10. Against acclaimed "top tier armies."*

Strategy Review for AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!: Basically the same as the last army. Goblin Cutters as screen. Raelin for protection. Brutes for Killing force. KMA for ranged assault. Marcu as clean up.

All in all I see these armies to be really good. Try them out and give them go. You'll like them! Well that's it for today folks. Until next time play hard, and play fair!!

Comments, Critique, Questions, are all welcome!!

Zarrath

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/mark/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG]

[Frylock]

Have you considered Raelin SotM? She helps out this kind of fast melee army quite a bit with her extended range. Even if it's one less defense than her alter ego, it's worth it just so you don't have to keep piling OMs on your cheerleader. I would like to try this one at 520:

Goblins x4
HSB x2
Raelin SotM

[Killometer]

Originally Posted by Zarrath

Goblins, Brutes, and...........Pointy Sticks???:
3xHorned Skull Brutes 225
3xGoblin Cutters 150
Raelin the Kyrie Warrior (ROTV) 80
Marcu 20
Total Points: 495475

You've got 25 more points to work with here.

Because of their already awesome durability (Scurry and 4 defense+Expendable Rabble) and mobility (Scurry and Barge keep everyone moving all the time) I don't think that Raelin+X is really the best compliment to a Goblin army. In the Brute army thread I paired Cutters x3 and Brutes x3 with Kaemon to give them some range and a Special Attack.

[Kaiser Cat]

Very well done. Keep it up!

I personally prefer Army 1.

[Zarrath]

Originally Posted by Frylock

Have you considered Raelin SotM? She helps out this kind of fast melee army quite a bit with her extended range. Even if it's one less defense than her alter ego, it's worth it just so you don't have to keep piling OMs on your cheerleader. I would like to try this one at 520:

Goblins x4
HSB x2
Raelin SotM

sorry for the slow response. yes actually i have thought of SOTM raelin but she doesn't really cut it. only a plus 1 def to ROTV raelins plus 2. sorry but ROTV wins out here. this army was designed to out last the opponent always. against 4th Mass, Rats, KMA, AE, 10th Reg. for that matter just can't effectively kill against these guys. thats why this army does so well, because 1. of its durability against top tier armies 2. its Anti-Meta. against top tier.

Zarrath-always making Anti-Meta armies

[Looking East]

I posted this army I proxied recently in another thread but this is probably a more suitable place for it since the army I played was almost identical to your "Arrrrrrrg!" build, except that I paired the Brutes up with rats instead of the cutters.

At first it seems like an odd choice given the obvious synergy between the goblins and the brutes, but I found the rats to excell in this combo. My main reason for choosing the rats goes by the name of Q9. The cutters are so utterly destroyed by Q9 that it's not even funny. You can lose 4 or more a round, and it completely negates scurry and your abillity to sacrifice them. The rats won't scatter against special attacks, but at least thier beefy defence prevents them from being rendered useless unlike the cutters. I found the rats to be perfect for setting up the Brutes since they are more mobile and tougher than the cutters. Scatter is superior to scurry for getting the rats where you need them. Free disengagement is great and perhaps most important of all, the rats have 4 defence. This is the army I proxied.

2 Squads of rats
3 Squads of brutes
1 Raelin
Krav
Isamu

495 points and 22 Hexes.

Normally 8 rats is a bit too light for seriously tangling up a battlefield, but the Brutes barge in and relieve the rats of much of their duty. Pluss my opponent became very wary of attacking rats since he would just end up with rats scattering towards all his nearby pieces which would be followed next OM by Brutes. In the end the screen was as much charging and raging Brutes as it was rats. After the initial harassment and threat removal, the Krav just kicked back and watched the Brutes go to work until a threat showed up that required range to fix. It was a lot of fun to play and very effective.

My only real problem was keeping the battle inside Raelin's aura. I think that suggestion that was made earlier in this thread about using the 120 pt Raelin is interesting advice. I will probably experiment with that next time or possible replace Raelin completely with some sort of hero assasin to help deal with special attackers. The rats and brutes are pretty darn tough as it is and the pts and OMs that Raelin uses might be better spent elsewhere given how quickly this army shifts around.

[Looking East]

Originally Posted by Zarrath

sorry for the slow response. yes actually i have thought of SOTM raelin but she doesn't really cut it. only a plus 1 def to ROTV raelins plus 2. sorry but ROTV wins out here. this army was designed to out last the opponent always. against 4th Mass, Rats, KMA, AE, 10th Reg. for that matter just can't effectively kill against these guys. thats why this army does so well, because 1. of its durability against top tier armies 2. its Anti-Meta. against top tier.

Zarrath-always making Anti-Meta armies

Your point about the meta game is a good one. Against armies lacking special attackers the cutters and their abillity to be sacrificed make them perfect against the builds you mentioned. Better than the rats even. I think the goblin army is going to force some serious changes onto the meta game.

[Devil's Advocate]

Originally Posted by Zarrath

sorry for the slow response. yes actually i have thought of SOTM raelin but she doesn't really cut it. only a plus 1 def to ROTV raelins plus 2. sorry but ROTV wins out here. this army was designed to out last the opponent always. against 4th Mass, Rats, KMA, AE, 10th Reg. for that matter just can't effectively kill against these guys. thats why this army does so well, because 1. of its durability against top tier armies 2. its Anti-Meta. against top tier.
Zarrath-always making Anti-Meta armies

An army is not really Anti-Meta if it gets decimated by Special Attacks since many of the stronger figures in the game do not rely on Normal Attacks

[Zarrath]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

An army is not really Anti-Meta if it gets decimated by Special Attacks since many of the stronger figures in the game do not rely on Normal Attacks

Let me make clear of the definition of metagame. Meta-Game simply means, what is the most popular and used strategies/armies/techniques in competitive gameplay. Besides most special attacks that would be used in the Meta Game would be strong ranged attacks (i.e. Ice Shard Special Attack, Fire Line Special, etc) so that's why KMA are so often drafted and "teched" into many armies. Cuz they can defend against those attacks very easily. Hence in the concerned army like Looking East pointed out (ARRGH!!!!) KMA were specifically drafted to counter this problem. make sense?

[Filthy the Clown]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

An army is not really Anti-Meta if it gets decimated by Special Attacks since many of the stronger figures in the game do not rely on Normal Attacks

A slight necro, but I am intrigued by the Brutes/Cutters combo and stumbled across this post. It seems like Brutes/Cutters are a perfect combo for Reverse the Whip, as the combo has a learning curve and abilities that are easy to either confuse or forget. However, not one army in GenCon 2011 featured Brutes/Cutters (either/or, for that matter). Is it because DA hit it on the head, in regards to the strength of SAs in the meta game? Or, is it a lack of experience with the combo? I have a feeling that it is a combination of both.

The saving grace against special attacks is that the Brutes appear stout enough to weather them; however, facing multiple-hitting SAs, such as from Nilfheim and Captain America, makes it difficult to advance forces quickly enough to offer some measure of counter. The only other option, besides luck, must include a hero/squad that specializes in neutralizing Special Attackers such as Q9, Captain America, etc.

As far as Reverse the Whip format, White Q Knight proved that the combo can be a tournament winner; he fielded 3xCutters, 3xBrutes, and Q10 to cruise to 5-0 in the Portland/Vancouver NHSD. He had to play against his army the last game.

[Son of Arathorn]

This might not be bad-

Cutters x2
HSB's x3
Moltenclaw
A nice little D&D themed army, but I like to go up to 560 pints nowadays, no how 'bout?-

Cutters x3
HSB's x3
Zelrig

Seems to me as though the Brutes can take out heroes, so that leaves a gap against squads. Z fills the gap.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

My take on Brutes/Cutters from a couple of my older posts:

Spoiler Alert!

Re: Horned Skull Brutes-what's your army idea?
I actually played them (with the Goblins) for the first time (today ), even though I forgot all about Barge into Battle . They ripped up chas' 4th Mass. The major way they died was from the aftermath of his Frost Giants' demise. 150 Brutes x 2 plus 150 Goblins x 3 plus 200 points would be the core for my tournament army for, say, Islandscape (based on GenCon Championship rules). I'd go with:

150 Brutes x 2
150 Goblins x 3
120 Kaemon
80 Raelin RotV
500

Expendable Rabble is so strong on its own, eschewing it would be like running Tor-Kul-Na without Nagrubs. I'd use Barge into Battle more like Tactical Switch, so that my Brutes end their turns, as much as possible, next to Goblins (until the right moment ). A case could be made for replacing Kaemon/Raelin RotV with SotM Raelin (for her aura's greater range) and Kumiko (Special Attacker), or for replacing Kaemon with Brunak (Huge and a Special Attacker) & Isamu. A trickier option would be replacing Kaemon with the Ninjas of the Northern Wind & Isamu. Barge into Battle works with any squad figure, not just commons. Otherwise, you could just take Nilfeim & Isamu for Kaemon & Raelin RotV and be done with it. Of course, dispensing with Raelin, and taking another squad of Brutes, has been suggested, but I believe that Raelin's (RotV, especially) defense aura benefits the whole army much more than that extra squad of Brutes, and Kaemon's Quick Release is perfect for killing Deathreavers and anything else that might hold things up.

* * * * *

Even though I didn't use Barge into Battle at all, in hindsight, I wouldn't use it as much as some of you all seem to. 3 squads of Goblins can keep 2 squads of Brutes viable for a long, long time (and I wasn't even using Raelin with them), as long as you are very careful to keep Goblins adjacent to them. Raelin just exacerbates the situation for one's opponent. On the other hand, I'll have to play these again, and see how easy or difficult it is to set up my Barges such that they result in the Brute's being adjacent to a Goblin, as, or instance, setting up a Barge by moving 2 Goblins up and adjacent to one another, followed by a Barge replacing one of them. Even as it was, I found them easy to play, and very effective, even without Raelin.

Perhaps Brutes/Cutters can be made to work here:

Killercactus' Reverse the Rumble (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=38103) presents so many challenges, with its wacky scenario conditions on each map, that the possibility of having to play your opponent's army is almost an afterthought. Still, it's a good place to start actually suggesting armies for reverse the whip. Considering all the nasty surprises on the maps, even with only 20 spaces being available, having plenty of "expendables" seems like a good idea.

Maybe with this variation on Whitey's NHSD army:


225 Brutes x 3
150 Q10
100 Cutters x 2
80 Raelin RotV
555, 20 spaces,

or is this too strong?