During listbuilding for the last tournament I played (small 7 players local event) I had an idea that I sadly wasn’t able to prepare in time for the event. That concept was – make the biggest listbuilding mistakes and still try to end up with a good list. Let’s make the task even more interesting and add “collecting mistakes” to listbuilding errors.

“Don’t build a list around quad” is a first mistake we will make. The second big mistake we will do will be to not “Have enough fighters in a warband” and as the event I wanted to play this list had randomized missions with potential for up to 6 objectives in one round and up to 6 treasures in another round the numbers were a big deal. My personal listbuilding goal is to “Have access to strong S6 attacks” as T5 chaff and big guys with T6 are quite common in the higher part of the standings, so we will create a list with no S6 attacks. In addition to the mistakes above I think it would fit the theme to avoid the warbands that have positive competitive winrate (I will use stats from theSaltySea Winter meta review, as always I highly recommend Dan’s content)

To make life more difficult and really on theme here is to also add “collecting mistakes” to the requirements for the list. As collecting mistake I simply mean “a bad investment” or focusing on a box that is very difficult to get. As many other people in the community I believe that the factions that were removed from AoS will also disappear from the next edition of Warcry that we will most likely get next year, so the list of factions to chose from is very limited. Lastly lets use the bladeborn fighters from Warhammer Underworlds boxes that you can no longer buy (if possible).

The main idea

If we are to build around quad we need to find a great one, that will swing the game in our favor. Thankfully the faction limitations won’t stop us from using the one that would be my first choice here – Bone Krusha.

[Quad] Bone Krusha: Pick a visible enemy fighter within 12″ of this figther and roll a number of dice equal to the value of this ability. For each 2+, allocate 3 damage points to that fighter. If the enemy fighter is within 3″ of this fighter, allocate 5 damage points to that fighter for each 2+ instead.

From average damage point of view we are looking at Gutlord attack action (against T5 or less) with ability value of 3 or Chimera attack action with ability value of 6. Obviously the key fighter in our warband will be Hedkrakka, Gob of Gork, as only he can use Bone Krusha.

Counting on quads is a bad idea, but if we are doing it Bonesplitterz are the best place for it thanks to their Battle trait – Primal Beliefs, which makes them the faction with the highest probability of getting a quad.

Primal Beliefs: When a player whose warband has this battle trait makes an initiative roll, before initiative is determined, they can re-roll each result of 1.

The math behind it is quite complex (and I skipped some unlikely possibilities, like rerolling 5+ ones into a high triple/quad so actual result should be slightly higher), that’s why I will only present the results. With every other faction you have a 5,35% for a triple of sixes (or any other triple), but Bonesplitterz ability to reroll ones is increasing this chance to over 8,2% (over 50% higher chance, I was not expecting this). After adding a chance for a “natural” quad we got a chance for a quad of sixes grow from 6,22% (for other factions) to over 9,73% (more than 50% increase again). Long story short – under the assumption that Bone Krusha quad has a gamechanging potential with ability value of 4+ then every initiative phase you have 29,2% chance of rolling it, which is a reasonable chance (without the battle trait its 18,68%).

We are ignoring Hedkrakka critboosting triple as its not that good in my opinion, but the other triple he has access to that is worth mentioning (in addition to a great Waaagh!, that thanks to the battle trait will work even better than in Ironjawz), as it allows our crazy shaman to play both offence and defense:

[Triple] Beast-mask Dance: Until the end of the battle round, subtract 1 from the Attacks characteristic (to a minimum of 1) of attack actions made by enemy fighters while they are within 6″ of this fighter.

Our key fighter is unavailable in basically any store (at least in my part of the world – second hand is where you should look for him), so he fits our requirements perfectly. Bonespliterz also have negative win rate and meet all the other requirements, now lets continue building the rest of the list.

The rest of the list

We won’t use enough fighters and as I mentioned there is a chance for up to 6 treasures and objectives, so what number is between “unplayable” and “reasonable” here? I think we should go with 7 (I know that for some people 7 is a perfectly normal and viable warband size, but we are expecting a bit of a horde meta for the reasons I just mentioned), as I can’t imagine playing a 6 objective mission with a 6 body warband without any titans or a monster.

There is a limited number of ways we can get to 7 with this faction and I think we should also include at least one additional hero to guarantee that we can use Waaagh! first turn (and thanks to battle trait we have a very big chance of actually getting it with a high ability value)

After examining our options I think we definitely want to use few of the Big Stabbas, due to a decent number of wounds combined with nice damage and ability to use Charge! (with 6″ threat range, a bonus move on a double and T3 big guys this warband will probably feel a bit like playing Gorger Mawpack)

[Double] Charge!: A fighter can only use this ability if there is a visible enemy fighter within 6″ of them. This fighter makes a bonus move action and must finish closer to the closest visible enemy fighter than they were at the start of that move action.

With quite expensive chaff (80 points or more) we are a bit forced to go with this list:

Savage Orruk Morboy Boss (175pts, Hero)
Hedkrakka, Gob of Gork (170pts, Hero)
Savage Big Stabbas (165pts)
Savage Big Stabbas (165pts)
Savage Big Stabbas (165pts)
Savage Orruk with Chompa and Bone Shield (80pts)
Savage Orruk with Savage Stikka and Bone Shield (80pts)

One Savage Orruk has a spear to not prevent Hedkrakka from shoooting and the other one has Chompa so he is more efficient while tanking for Big Stabbas (with T3 and 2″ reach they won’t feel bad attacking over their smaller friend shoulder). Two Stikkas are also an option.

Our second hero isn’t that impressive, but with access to Charge! and Waaagh! he will do work

With 5 fighters with 3/6 damage profile this warband will do significant damage to opponents with lower Toughness (due to less impressive Strength). The biggest advantage of this list is a sick tempo it generates thanks to 2″ range on Big Stabbas and Charge! on all the big guys and ability to win some games due to relatively high chance for a big impact quad. Cutting activations from this list by focusing unactivated chaff will most likely ends badly due to Orruk reaction – Get Stuck In, that will bring reinforcements

Get Stuck In: A fighter can make this reaction after an enemy fighter finishes a move action visible to this fighter and within 3″ of this fighter. Pick another friendly fighter within 3″ of this fighter. That fighter makes a bonus move action. After that move action that fighter must be within 1″ of the enemy fighter that made the move action.

Having a threat that can get to you and attack from 10″ away in every deployment group (and not end up engaged) seems like a great plan so the split to deployment groups I would go for looks like that:

• Hedkrakka, chaff with spear and Big Stabba
• Second hero and Big Stabba
• Chaff and Big Stabba

Because of the strange set of requirements this isn’t the S tier warband, but I believe that this list is actually quite scary. Additional benefit is the simplicity as this list only has access to 6 abilities, from which you will use only 4, but this 4 are great – mobility double, mobility triple, -1 attack bubble on triple and nuke on quad. I think it might be the best out of my worst ideas, so I consider this list as a success.

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As always thanks for reading, I hope you had fun and in case I inspired you please remember that Bonespliterz aren’t the best “investment” at the moment. As 2024 is now over I plan to publish a short summary of the past year very soon (currently I try to figure out how much personal stuff to put there). Hope 2025 is better than 2024 for all you guys (and gals), bye