A Brief Look at the v18 Playtest Rules
The Whelps are dead, long live the Whelps.
Well there’s some new playtest rules out for the core book units and cults, and we’re expecting a follow up for the mercenary cults shortly.
You want some uninformed opinions before I’ve played any of the new rules? Well here you go.
Core Units
Whelps
NERF Whelps can no longer capture 2 objectives at a time with Dash
There’s a bit of an awkward formatting issue here, it’s not in the rules block for Whelps (which will probably cause some confusion during games). Let’s peek at the actual text under the objective rules.
Only one objective can be captured in an order. If a unit moves within 1” of two or more objectives in a single order, such as with the Whelps Dash special rule, the player must choose which objective is captured.
Whelps have fundamentally shaped how the game works for quite a while, and have done it on an axis that’s pretty difficult to affect otherwise. I really struggle to think of a top-tables opponent I’ve faced that wasn’t running at least one unit of BP/MIS whelps and I’ve ruined a few people’s games on Bountiful Harvest scenarios by running 2 units of them.
I genuinely think that this is by far the biggest change of the lot. The obvious impact is suddenly whelps become a lot less mandatory, they still have a lot of utility as positional shooters who can force a scary retreat and reposition but I expect they will now find themselves competing with chaff as their roles start to overlap more.
Stump gun
BUFF Stump Gun Grapeshot increased to 18”
This is a very welcome change, cavalry can no longer lurk outside of grapeshot range waiting for your stump gun to get a powder smoke token so they can swoop in with a guaranteed charge on 13 inches. But 18” inches is still a very doable charge, you make it 72% of the time, going up to 92% of the time with CCW. While I want to say that there’s a big difference between 100% and 92% and that you’ll actually be able to punish a bad roll with grapeshot, I don’t think it makes up for how punishing the Unstable Icon rules are.
I think that grapeshot is a trap outside of the panic token manipulation cults, Harry and Woe being the ones that come immediately to mind, and even then it’s a bit of a stretch. Grapeshot generates 2+ panic on its own about 53% of the time and 3+ panic 26% of the, this might not seem like a lot but on my tables I’d say it’s pretty common to see a stumpgun blow it’s self up on turn 3 if one of those shots was grapeshot.
Lump
Lump in the v18 Playtest
Three 5+ attacks (including the CCW bonus) is usually only a single expected hit but the Murderous Violence rules give us 2 auto wounds instead, and theoretically can spike most of the single model threats in the game (“Just roll all sixes.”, advice as old as wargaming).
But where Lump really shines is Impenetrable Bulk, it just soaks hits. Save on Panic+ is a very fun rule that tries to make sure that it sticks around long enough to do something, while increasing how much relevant design space their is for stumpgun style attacks.
I like the design a lot and it’s nice to have some high save monsters, but putting this thing out in front to soak up shots feels like a trap. It will just get shot by chaff and waddle backwards into the rest of your army or some dangerous terrain (this will probably feel very familiar to all pike block enjoyers).
Maybe the answer is to screen it with chaff and waddle it in behind them? Possibly, but 2 expected wounds on activation is a bit lackluster compared to our other melee blenders, but it’s very likely to win a fight and has a good 9” movement for a charge.
I’m struggling to work out where this thing fits, it feels like a useful tool against other monsters that just throw sheer weight of dice at you, but is that a better solution than just shooting them and making them walk backwards?
Cults
Strangling Harry’s Wretched Recruits
NERF Rootlings Cannot capture objectives the round they are placed back on the board with uproot.
Rootlings are a wonderful pile of disposable infantry and this change takes away some of the free upside without affecting their core identity of being something annoying that your opponent will have to deal with. Definitely a drop in power but it continues the theme of toning down the less interactive ways to cap objectives. I’m here for it.
The Slug’s Lament
NERF Grogs V5+ changed to V6+
We had seen some proposed changes in v17a that halved their attacks to bring them more in line with BP brutes in melee and retain their abilities as crack shots. This time around their vulnerability is going up, but they get to keep their shooting and melee.
Honestly a bit surprised by this one, Slug’s have generally been very strong, in part because of Grogs being great at shooting and melee. Losing 17% more of your saves is rough, but they’re generally the hammer not the anvil.
NERF: Old Guard’s arrival restricted somewhat.
Previously Old Guard came on within 6” of any table edge, excluding your opponent’s board edge. Now they come in touching a board edge and no model may be within 6” of your opponents board edge.
Maybe they get wiped on a few more off angle shooting attacks than usual and it restricts their ability to charge key targets, but they’re still generally 4 free hits the turn they come down.
In general I think Slug’s got off pretty light, I think this tones them down in a way that makes them feel a bit more sane but they’re very much still in contention for best cult in the game.
Tod’s Folly
BUFF: Tod Off!: Tod wins if he loses a Toff Off!
My brain is not large enough to be a Tod player but this is extremely flavourful. Todd is a pretty abysmal toff so you’re likely to win almost any toff off in the game. It’s a buff that gives Tod a bit more of a edge in headless chicken and can open up some matchups with cults like Alice and Mol, but I don’t think it will have a tremendous impact.
That said, this will make someone bring a Tod to tourney, and you will forget this interaction exists.
The Fungivorous Herd
NERF: The Herd Vuln changed to 6+. Stampede Changed to +6” Movement.
Thinning the herd looks a lot easier now which I think keeps it a bit more interactive, and you can pseudo bracket them by taking them below 10 models now.
The stampede change is more interesting, lets assume on your first activation you march through deadly terrain, you go up to 6.7 models on average, second activation you charge and you make it, you go up to 11.1 models. So we’re making 22ish attacks on 4+ so we have 11 expected hits. This is generally what the herd is trying to do, get to 12 models as efficiently as possible and delete something.
After the change we need to walk through two pieces of dangerous terrain to make a charge with the same number of models, but we gain the same movement as cavalry after. But we’re also losing out of the fact the unit we’re charging doesn’t make a dangerous terrain test, so we don’t have a 1 in 6 chance to just delete their big single model unit, or trim a couple extra bodies from a big fodder block.
I think these changes mean that the herd requires considerably more setup now and have to play into things like being frightened through multiple enemy units. The extra movement is nice, but I think this significantly lowers the power level of our little piggies.
QUESTION: Should Stampede add +1 A as well?
Is there really a substantive difference between 20-24 and 30-36 attacks? Yes, 10-12 expected hits and 15-18 expected hits is the difference between usually wiping everything in the game and pretty consistently wiping everything in the game. Obviously you have to work for it and there should be a solid payoff but I think. It’s probably overkill but not in a way that I think is harmful, and it feels great to roll a small bucket of dice on the table.
The Grand Bombard
NERF Grand Bombard: Can no longer take Stump Guns.
This is the most confusing change to me, the only reasonable strategy I’ve seen with GB is using chaff and/or Whelps to grab two or so early objectives and then rolling one or two 50/50s. So in general not great.
I guess that this means that you have to use Aristocratic Ammunition more often, because you don’t have the option to use another stumpgun. Which means they play into idea of the theme a lot more but, it also means your ability to actually cap points becomes a lot worse.
I do wonder if this is a pre-emptive nerf as with Backward Observers bombard is the only cult that can still double cap with Whelps (Cap first objective with a Snob, cap second with Whelps).
I’m surprised to see a cult that’s generally considered quite weak get such a substantial nerf.
The Brotherhood of Greed
NERF: Mutations:Bulbous -1 V instead of -2, Tuberous Tendrils +1 A instead of +2.
Obviously a pretty clear nerf here. I Like Bulbous going down, it stops 4+ V fodder block, but you can still have 4+ on smaller model count followers. Tendrils dropping is a bit sad as it removes some of their ability to delete units entirely, but is still a solid thumb on the scale to turn a lot of fights in your favour.
I like turnip being about multiple engagements between units and building panic, so I’m happy to see that some of the ways to build crazy melee blenders being pulled back a bit.
Procession of Woe
BUFF: Rootshrine: U Shrine increased range, from 18 to 24”. Wounds increased to 5 (from 4).
A nice little quality of life change to make the Rootshrine a little easier to use and more resistant to getting plinked is quite welcome. Particularly as now we can throw panic tokens onto units that can’t shoot our Rootshrine without a move and shoot.
Red Ribbon Society
REWORK: Tuft Tokens generate with panic tokens. Upgrade your units every turn, grow a lump. QUESTION: How is the economy? Does the trigger and placing of Tufts slow down the game too much? Can you remember all the upgrades?
This is a big rework, I may have to cover this in a separate post after some games, persistent buffs are potentially massive but it all depends on panic generation.
BUFF: PLOTS now DEF (defensible terrain) for friendly units.
Damn, this is pretty huge and really adds a whole new dynamic to Ribbon. As a Shellwood enjoyer, I expect this ability to be very strong.
Extremely interested in trying something like 2 BP Chaff, CCW Bastards & BP Fodder with Ribbon.
Feast of Charybdis
NERF: Scuttlers: Movement 10 -> 6”, more interactive.
Any Scuttler movement nerf is a blessing, finally we’ll be able to out position crab charges! Right?
NERF: Rise From the Silt: Burrow limit to 1 unit a round. Counts as an order.
Okay great, I’m only dealing with one crab jump a turn. What could possibly go wrong? Why are you all looking at me like that?
BUFF: Can unburrow anywhere outside of 12” with blunder risk.
Remember when I said that for cavalry they can make a 18” charge 72% of the time, well this is the same math. If you were paying attention you might remember that I said with CCW you make this 92% of the time with the reroll. Crabs have CCW. They can teleport behind you and make a charge 92% of the time.
EVEN. IF. THEY. BLUNDER. They will just take D3+1 wounds. If you blunder a normal charge they’ll be stuck on M+D6”.
Not only does this work on crabs, but you can just do this with bastards to have a 100% chance to make the charge.
This is a level of consistency we have never seen in Turnip and it’s honestly terrifying.
Knights of Shellwood
NERF: Lumps exist now
This is very true, even worse Lumps are 9” Movement. But the reason why Shellwood is one of my main armies isn’t them being super tanky, it’s their interesting dynamic of staging round, go round. They’re a great army to play because they live and die on how you position them and when you decide to trigger mucous manoeuvre.
They’re a resource dependant combo army that reward patience and positioning.
BUFF: Snail Knight: BP Snail fires mini cannon shot, counter to Lump.
50/50 on a stand and shoot to do 2 wounds, without a preliminary bombardment option. It’s cool that there’s a decent BP option for a single model follower, and I’d like to see more of this kind of design in future, but I’m still taking the CCW for 4+ in melee.
I’ll counter lump by pinging it with chaff if it starts to get into threat range.
BUFF Mucous Manoeuvre: Every Turn but less reliable.
So instead of having 2 turns of getting to press the 18” button, we get random movement that averages a little higher than normal cav.
Kind of struggling to see how this is a buff honestly. On demand 18” movement with a 30” threat range was the reason to play this army.
CHANGE: Extra Turn Removed (was a bit of a pain for tournaments).
Honestly this change is fine, winning or losing with this faction you know how it’ll end on turn 4 either way.
Lopers of the Maudlin Marsh
CHANGE Lopers: 6 -> 4 Models, V7-> V6, Can take any equipment.
Losing 6 attacks hurts a hell of a lot on a 5+ model, but I must profess I haven’t played with or against lopers much. Taking any equipment is very nice on a profile with dash for some shoot and scoot, but I’m tempted to stick with CCW just to convert more attacks to hits. V6 is a hell of a lot nicer than V7 though.
Though, walking through a BP screen and the melee threat their trying to protect just to shoot it in the ass and watch them take a big dangerous terrain test and wind up out of position. That’s whelps on steroids, probably the best scoot and shoot in the game.
I think they wind up in position where they have solid options with multiple loadouts and that’s pretty ideal for making the game more diverse and interesting.
Retreating over units cause DT tests for that unit.
Extremely fun and flavourful, and awkwardly how I thought Lopers worked before this playtest.
BUFF: BOTH armies’ followers are exposed.
Congratulations, you are the new designated shooting army. Exposed is particularly great for stand and shoot fodder, who don’t want to pour their dice into chaff, and particularly nasty on a stump gun, who can make sure their always pointing at a good target.
Gets into some awkwardness where there’s a real incentive to base models individually instead of as a block.
Aunts Ascendant
NERF: Balloon: Movement reduced to 12”. Can’t cause unlimited DT tests.
Very sad about losing 24” movement but it was definitely a bit silly and limiting the DT tests to once per unit per move is just the sensible interpretation of the rule.
BUFF: Snarky Tourists: Moved to global ability. Mirror match tweaked.
Nice that you keep the core ability of the army even if the Balloon is off table, removes the feel bads when you suddenly become a vanilla army.
Flipping the mirror match to be you only control your opponent’s retreats is a lot more fun in my opinion and extremely turnip.
Leech Lovers
REWORK: OH NO! Another attempt to make em fun. Theme is panic tokens cause wounds combined with lifesteal. QUESTION: How does this feel when fighting Cults that manipulate panic. Is it too oppressive?
Okay this is a biggie and might get it’s own post.
TL;DR:
- Toff looses 4 attacks and two wounds
- Swole toadies are gone
- Lifeblood is at the end of the fight using the numbers from the last melee bout (still works for shooting as normal)
- All your followers start with 1 panic (this was tested a couple turnip cons ago but didn’t change much on its own)
- Every round start units lose wounds for each panic they have, every 2 panic removed from a unit deals one wound to it.
- No more action economy cheating.
- Toff healing now a single wound per round with no condition.
Damn, that’s a lot. Definitely something that I need to play around with to get a feel for, my instinct is that this guts the faction. But lifeblood and new panic wounds might be strong enough to make them into a proper attrition cult.
Uprising of the Louse
REWORK: Attempt to make the Tall Man more interactive. 4 years of horror and sacrifice have brought the construct to some limited form of life.
Terrifying. But mainly a way of manipulating your aura now that it’s 24”. Nice that it can charge with some attacks if needed.
Aim to make blundering theme more consistent. Now Rabble is just a generic theme for your units, old rabble were fun, but broke the activation economy. QUESTION: How does this play with scenario blunders?
Max: Gosh, rabble can really skew the action economy.
Also Max: What if they could just do two orders every activation?
I’ve been waiting for some kind of Dragoon faction for a while, the vibe of firing then charging is peak napoleonics for me. Stacking a little extra panic before a BLC is very appealing but opponents taking two retreats might be difficult to capitalize on.
Units of Rabble never lose models, instead the entire unit is essentially treated as a single model with Wounds equal to the total of every model in its unit profile.
Unbracketable Bastards. Unbracketable Fodder. Unbracketable Brutes.
I’m so here for uprising of the louse.
A phenomenal rework and probably the one I’m most excited about.
Saint Alamies Rocket Battery
BUFF: Rocket Battery: Rockets can move, and are less likely to explode, 7+ to 5+ Vuln.
I’m liking this new 0” M non-immobile statline for opening up options, but I can’t see myself giving up a volley fire for it. And V5 means that it’s a lot harder for it to get picked off by some sneaky whelps.
BUFF: Pocket Rockets: Trigger on retreat and only target enemy followers.
This is very nice, incidental panic build up on enemies is extremely welcome, 2 panic every retreat is a lot better than 2 panic when your unit gets wiped.
St. Alamei’s Rocket Battery considered to be equipped with Missile weapons.
I’m sorry, what? We no longer generate a powder smoke token and can always stand and shoot. This one might actually be a typo so expect an amendment soon.
We do however seem to lose the ability to torch a model in exchange to clear two panic tokens but that seems a fair price to pay to improve our ability to generate panic tokens on enemy followers.
I’m extremely interested in this one too. Yet another secret cavalry regiment ready to feed my bowel loosening charges.
Temple of the Swelling
NERF Swelling: When placed no longer kills a model. Tendrils cause panic tokens instead of DT tests.
Loosing out on killing a 2W model is a shame but not a huge problem. No more DT on placement is a tough hit, but building panic is going to help us in the long run with more retreats, so maybe not the end of the world.
NERF: Its Everywhere: NERF single model units only fail DT test on a 1.
This may be a pretty big nerf, but losing 8 wounds one in three times was a devastating feelbad.
NERF: Rootlings cant cap when they return (see Harry), can only take 2 max.
As we previously discussed I think this is fine and removes some of the less interactive elements of the game. Capping to two is good and stops unkillable skew lists.
Conclusion
These are some very spicy changes. A lot of winners and a lot of losers. I’m not as keen on the Lump as I want to be but I’m sure someone’s going to find a cool way to use it.
In general I’m definitely going to test the following:
Knights of Shellwood
Very sad to see these changes, but worth seeing if we can salvage something from it. Maybe there is potential in it being a tanky high variance cavalry army. I’m tempted by Snail Gunners but I don’t think they’re really going to move the needle. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
St. Alamei’s Rocket Battery
God I love spamming panic, and this is a cult that can really spam panic now. Double Rockets are for sure, but I’m tempted to go for the BP bastards and rely on running people down on failed panic tests.
Uprising of the Louse
This is a faction I’ve avoided playing for a long time, there’s been a good few versions of it but this is by far the one that has appealed to me the most, I’m probably gonna wind up taking more cavalry than I should. If this is the only way I get to run dragoons I will probably play it to death.
All in all I like how bold the changes are, it feels like there’s some core goals with these changes, particularly around reducing the less interactive elements. Which is why I’m so confused about the crab changes, board wide teleport with a 92% charge is not what I was expecting at all.
Crabs can go do one.
Thanks for reading! - Toff Club
What I Brought to Turnipcon 4
The call is coming from inside the shell.
Honestly, I loved Turnipcon 3 with all my little heart but this was such a massively marked improvement. The venue was tSN arena up in Nottingham just 15 minutes walk from the train and coach stations, next to some great lunch spots (A strong recommendation for GB Cafe, a greasy spoon with great malay and japanese food), at least twice as many tables as Turnipcon 3 and a tonne more players (I think we reached about 44).
The List
- Toff
- Whelps (BP)
- Bastards (CCW)
- Toady
- Snail Knight (CCW)
- Toady
- Snail Knight (CCW)
Speedpainted the day before while cat sitting.
So after Probby’s performance at the last turnipcon I was trying to narrow down a cavalry list that plays well into Slugs Lament and Leech Lovers. We nerf Grog shooting and can Mucous Manoeuvre to instagib their 6 panic reinforcements and against leech lovers, we’re relying on our improved Vulnerability save (particularly on our Snail Knights), to give them less opportunity to sustain in combat and auto win melee engagements.
In terms of actual list composition, we have:
- Black powder Whelps for 18” move-shoot-move and objective control.
- CCW Bastards for Anti-Monster and BLC autogibs.
- 2 x Snail Knight for anti-medium (chaff/whelps/snobs) and enabling two Mucous Manoeuvres.
Testing
I didn’t get in as much testing as I wanted to with this list, I focused primarily on Slugs and Lovers getting in a few games a piece against both of them. The Good news, -1 to hit, +1 save and fearless is real. The Bad news, this disappears the second you have to move a unit. So the common pattern of events is you move a unit, it gets hit as hard as possible by the opponent, you try to clean up whatever unit charged/shot, repeat. You end up trading back and forth until there’s so few units on the board that you can talk out the game.
There’s a couple ways out of this trap. You can try to out activate your opponent by self ordering snobs to take 0 inch advances before ordering any of your followers, but good players will probably be wise to this and you’ll end up at square one. You can send in the the snails first to soak the hits on a 3+, which is generally the best move in most scenarios. Or you can Mucous Manoeuvre turn 1 and commit to the trade war, but I think that probably requires a pretty skew list of 1 BP/MIS Snail Knight and 3 CCW Bastards (Move & Shoot the Snail Knight to powder token someone, trade bastards until the end of time).
Now I’m generally of the opinion that Stump Guns are BadTM, but boy does Round Shot kill things with good saves. Luckily snail knights are always -1 to hit which means that stump guns generally have to spike two sixes to kill (foreshadowing).
Now let’s talk about the 0” Movement. It sucks. If you want to bring anything like a balanced list you need to take two snail nights to get at least 2 turns of 18” movement. I think the intention is to stall out the game for the first couple turns, whittling down the opponent before you commit to your big charging turn, but I don’t think that’s a sound game plan. There’s too many things in the game that can take good shots on your non-snail followers or hunt your snobs for headless chicken. I found myself using both my Mucous Manoeuvres by Round 3. Getting in and moshpitting as hard as possible and letting whelps take 18” move-shoot-move to grab objectives or snipe Snobs. There are games where you wish you had a third Manoeuvre, but it felt like a lot of the times I was wishing for it was when people were taking 10” retreats from me and I was already ahead.
Event Rules
So we’re up for a tight 5 game event with the army that goes to round 5, a challenge already. Ahead of time we knew the first to scenarios: Crossing the Dredge and Trouble in the Fog. With the 3 games in the afternoon being randomly assigned.
Scoring was as follows: 3 Points for a win, 1 for a draw, 1 for a loss and 1 additional point for each Toff-Off won.
Additionally secondaries had changed from turnipcon 3, now at the start of the game you rolled for two of the following:
- Pick a follower unit you control. If they are alive at the end of the game, gain 1 point.
- Pick a snob you control. If they ever enter your opponents half of the table, gain 1 point.
- You charged an enemy and the enemy failed their panic test, gain 1 point.
- Fighting words! If you declare a Toff Off you gain 1 point.
- If you force an enemy to lose at least one model to Impassable Terrain, gain 1 point.
- If your army has touched every piece of Dangerous Terrain on the board, you gain 1 point.
Each of these had a max of 1 point per game, so you would cap out at 2 points of secondaries per game. Putting a perfect run at 30 points (outside of respawning Toff shenanigans).
As for army changes, grapeshot range increased to 18”, Grogs went to 1 attack, dangerous terrain was unchanged and leech lovers could no longer “do the broken thing with regaining Wounds on their own. But I don’t know the rules enough to explain it. There’s a sensible interpretation and a bonkers one, take the sensible route.” as Ben put it (🤷♀️).
The Games
Game 1 - Fungivorous Herd on Crossing the Dredge
Poor Snope, drowned in the mud. What would the Snaple Snates say?
First game was against a new player with herd. Unfortunately not a lot to say on this game, we sandbagged round 1, took good charges with Mucous Manoeuvre round 2 (Also managed to lose my toff to dangerous terrain) and by round 3 there was only really a small token force and the herd. Whelps cleaned up the objectives and snail knights steamrolled the rest.
I was however a little underwhelmed with Mucous Manoeuvre, I had this nagging feeling that I probably could have made all these charges with cavalry on their normal movement.
Win.
Game 2 - Brotherhood of Greed on Lost in the Fog
First of amazing army, instead of a banner there was a Menu for Restorante Giuseppe, everyone had hand modelled chef hats on top of their helmets and were done up in gorgeous clean Green white and red.
The snobs had Bulbous (+2 vulnerability), Vegetable Bloom (Skirmish) and Root Sight (Ignores Dangeorus Terrain). And the list was CCW Fodder, Stump Gun, BP Bastards, BP Chaff.
Preliminary bombardment put my snail knight on 2 wounds from the get go which was incredibly spooky. His chaff reserve moved away from my bastards and I ended up having to commit to Mucous Manoeuvre turn 1.
We wiped the chaff and lost the two wound snail to bastards, the ccw fodder block got slowly whittled down by whelps as they took midfield. I played pretty sloppily and left myself open to a potential loss from headless chicken, which ended up becoming my immediate priority, whelps got to do a lot of toff sniping after I lost my Toff to a Toff off. The remaining snail crunched through the CCW fodder since they had skirmish and eventually chewed up the Toff ending the game at round 3.
Dinner at Giuseppe’s
All in all an outstanding game, a tonne of back and forth and close to the end. I don’t know why his chef’s hat kept rustling though.
Win.
Game 3 - Knights of Shellwood on Save the Bacon
A beautiful day for the Snirror Match. My opponent’s list was 2 Snail Knights, CCW Bastards, BP Bastards.
Save the bacon is always an absolute clusterfuck. Honestly I don’t have anything intelligent to say, it was total carnage, Mucous Manoeuvre turn 1. Spiked a lot of rolls and just went as killy as possible. This was the most back and forth trade game I’ve had and I probably only won it because the bastards were on BP against a lot of -1 to hit targets.
Truly glorious Snarnage.
Win.
Game 4 - Feast of Charybdis on Thin Ice
I was riding high on my 3-0, matchups were random so there was a real possibility of me going 5-0.
That all stopped when the crab arrived. Or in fact didn’t arrive. I lost a snail to dangerous terrain round 1, in a five game event it’s bound to happen at least once, that’s turnip baby.
My second snail got caught out of position by CCW bastards and got chewed up. And my remaining whelps despite putting in a valiant effort of grabbing objectives in the early game didn’t get me enough points to still win, we talked it out and I took the L before the Crab even hit the table.
Loss.
Game 5 - Procession of Woe on Grave Matters
I absolutely fumbled the bag on this one, I won the roll to choose attackers or defenders and I thought “Man snails can really tank some hits” so I took defenders. This was entirely on me, I had only half read the rules for the scenario. My poor snail and Toff died of a million cuts before the rest of my army came on. Luckily some greedy panic stacking on my opponents part let me instagib full health bastards and full health fodder. Letting me snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Win.
4-1 with 21 Points
This put us in tied 3rd, or tied 9th. The winner had 23 points, 2nd was a three way tie on 22 and third was 21 with a 4 way tie. Extremely close all round.
I think I did a bad job trying for secondaries in general though. There were a few games that I missed maxing them out even though they would have been trivial. I scored 14 points on W/L/D, 1 point on winning toff-offs and 6 points on secondaries.
Winning felt worth a lot more this time around and secondaries didn’t have quite as much points inflation for normal gameplay as the last turnipcon. But random pairings and capping out on 2 points of secondaries per game led to a lot of ties.
What Went Well?
Game Knowledge
I really felt in the drivers seat this time. Snails really get to dictate the pace of play since you have a magic switch that says “I make every charge this turn”, but beyond that I felt like I knew my rules and threat ranges well for both my cult and almost all my opponent’s cults (and luckily when I did play off against brotherhood of greed all the mutations were explained to me).
Getting to offload all of that to the back of my head really let me focus on order of operations and the push and pull that turnip being an alternate activation game brings.
Around the start of game 3 I was really feeling my oats and felt like it was a very winnable tournament for me.
Defensible Terrain and 2+ saves
-1 to Hit and fearless is great. You don’t budge. Everything but grogs is going to have a hard time landing shots. 2+ saves however enter into the problematic zone in my opinion. I feel like snails probably need to be tweaked to 4+ base and get 3+ with the bonus. There’s just a lot of cults that don’t get to participate against snail knights.
Whelps in General
I said in November and I’ll say it again. Whelps are the best core unit in the game and I will keep taking at least one unit of them in every list I make.
What Didn’t Go Well?
Dangerous Terrain
The real downside of snail knights is not having access to ignoring dangerous terrain. I think is a bit of a tricky spot, we know that picking up your cool unit because you walked into a puddle feels bad, but we don’t really want every monster unit in turnip to have the crabs ability. We’ve seen previews that Probby is getting the ability to ignore one piece of dangerous terrain per round. I’m not sure that’s the right answer, I’d rather see cult specific units have different ways of dealing with it.
There’s two elegant solves for Shellwood that come to mind:
- Ignore Dangerous Terrain on Mucous Manoeuvre turns
- Make the snail knight a multi model unit (2 models with 2 wounds a piece)
Mucous Manoeuvre
This may be a controversial opinion but 18” of movement on cavalry for a max of two rounds is not that much in exchange for 0” on everything for the rest of the game.
I want to be clear, Shellwood is one of my favourite cults. I think it’s probably the biggest winner for me thematically, but I think it’s tradeoffs are too big.
Cavalry in any other cult has 12” base, so you’re only getting a 6” bonus. Yes, a free 6” before the 2d6” is great, but Turnip is usually a 3ft by 3ft or 4ft by 4ft board with no impassable terrain where cavalry are comfortable making 19” charges against the nearest target. There’s very few points in a game where an extra 6” on top of the 12” is really going to matter (How many 18” retreats have you seen that didn’t hit a board edge and stop?). Where bonus move speed really matters is infantry, it’s one of the reasons why CCW Fodder work so well in Probby.
Maybe Mucous Manoeuvre needs to apply to infantry as well but only give them 12 inches, this stops you getting pidgeon holed into a cavalry only list while avoiding giving infantry the ability to sweep the board. Or lean even harder into Shellwood being a setup and combo cult, maybe the Mucous Manoeuvre could cause them to lose their defensible terrain and save bonus in exchange for getting bonus attacks, innacuracy or even enemy vulnerability penalty on charges.
I have a slight preference for the latter since it feels the most “Knightly” to me, but I also expect that we won’t see any Shellwood changes in the near future, they only feel a little behind compared to some of the other cults which are in desperate need of a buff, and I think we all know that the next balance changes will probably be targeted at Leech lovers and Slugs Lament.
Ones To Watch
We’re expecting a v18 update soon and we pretty much know it will change Slugs Lament and Leech Lovers, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. I expect we will see some kind of crab changes too, possibly limiting them to one crab per army or increasing the distance it must be away from enemy units to make it a little easier to screen out.
Closing Thoughts
Damn what a great event. Everyone was an absolute delight and there were some real quality games with a lot of interaction and back and forth. Just absolutely wonderful to see so many people jamming games of turnip. I was a big fan of the scoring in this event it felt like the right mix between turnip’s relaxed vibe and the competitive aspect.
I do still have some concerns about random pairings instead of bracket based. I feel like I noticed a couple new players who had just had bad luck with their pairings and gone 0-5. I feel like some of this could be cushioned a bit by moving to a five round swiss so that you’re always playing someone with a similar running score.
And maybe if we cross our fingers and hope, there will eventually be a 2 day modified swiss event with 5 rounds of swiss followed by a single elimination top 8. 👀
All that said, another massively successful Turnipcon, these things just keep getting better and better. I can’t wait for the next one in november.
Thanks for reading! - Toff Club
What I Brought to Turnipcon 3
Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Elephant
Turnipcon 3 was my first Turnip28 event and I went in bright eyed and bushy tailed. I brought the March of the Proboscis because I am literally a sucker for any cult with a big build wanted to bring something that I thought was pretty solidly middle of the pack that let me roll a lot of dice.
The List
- Boletus
- Chaff (BP)
- The Great Proboscis (CCW)
- Toady
- Whelps (BP)
- Toady
- Fodder (CCW)
Originally I was running this with Missile weapons on everything except Probby, thinking that I could sneak a couple more panic tokens over black powder. Using Chaff to remove stand and shoot from charge targets, whelps for some cheeky retreat angling and Fodder to screen and get a few more panic tokens in as they got shot, with Probby to hit big charges on scary units and run down retreating units.
Testing
In testing that didn’t really bear out, Fodder could usually expect a to get 1 wound normally or 2 wounds volley firing, but would usually take more hits get bracketed and then start taking retreats. With Whelps it was even worse, they’d get a couple hits but usually take more back and eat a retreat. Chaff do okay, usually sneaking in one wound on a volley fire without taking any hits, but all of this really changes with 5+ Vulnerability units like Brutes, Bastards, Crabs and other Probbies. Getting anything to go through on a 3+ is a nightmare.
So I reworked the list with BP on Chaff and Whelps and gave Fodder CCW, moving them from something that could generate a few extra panic tokens with a good screening unit that could hit deeper charges and run down retreating units. Things picked up a lot, the list started winning a lot more, particularly into lists with lots of 5+ units.
Now the strategy was use Chaff to screen Probby and remove enemy shooting, cap objectives and take opportunistic potshots with Whelps (hopefully getting good angles for multiple dangerous terrain tests on retreat), use Boletus to give my Fodder block Bowl Loosening Charge and use them and Probby to hit big charges.
The Games
Game 1 - Brotherhood of Greed on Crossing the Dredge (3ft)
First game into a shooting army with lots of BP fodder was not exactly what I was hoping for and this was only made worse by losing 2 whelps to a dangerous terrain test at the start of round 1. Fodder got demolished very shortly after and I was practically tabled by the end of Round 2. Over too fast for me to really break down what went wrong unfortunately, probably over extending and playing too aggressive into a big shooting army. Wonderful paint job of satin finish inks over metallics giving the armour fabulous chitinous sheen.
Loss.
Game 2 - Grand Bombard on Lost in the Fog (3ft)
Oh boy, lost in the fog is kind of a dream scenario for charge focused lists, you’re smack bang in the middle of the action, no round 1 marches where you can get plinked down. Just keep chaff back for the end of the deployment, and try to make sure that your chaff are the only thing available for preliminary bombardment. Aggressively push objectives to keep their Bombard and Stump Gun Inaccuracy as low as possible, then clean up with Probby and the fodder. Have to say though that the modelling was absolutely wonderful, bombard was modelled as a heliograph sending messages to an off board cannon, with gorgeous little spotter tokens that were wonderfully muddy and sad.
Win.
Game 3 - Stranglin’ Harry’s on Chanterelle’s Disaster (4ft)
This game was against a new player with some borrowed miniatures so no Rootlings shenanigans. Absolutely wonderful game, I got bodied hard by lots of shooting and a long walk down the centre aisle. They played smart, hanging back getting lots of great shots in while I over extended my whelps on a flank to cap aggressively and lost them. I’m starting to notice a pattern of playing too aggressively into multiple BP fodder lists, in hindsight, the move was probably to push up slowly and well screened, making sure I try can take at least one unit’s fire onto my Chaff and wait for a good moment to charge.
Loss.
Game 4 - The March of the Proboscis on Save the Bacon (3ft)
The mirror match was very interesting, their list was Prob, BP Whelps, BP Bastards and CCW Brutes. Their Brutes charged my chaff at the start of Round 1 and I was on the back foot from the start, I counter charged with my Probby and cleared them off, but I wasn’t in a great position. Pig movement RNG was very in my favour so I bundled up in a board edge while his BP bastards harassed my Fodder, and Whelps attacked my flank. I was waiting for a very rough bastards charge to clear me out but for some reason it never came, my whelps slowly whittled down his on the flank while keeping the pig secured. At the end of round four I had almost nothing left, both our Probby’s get locked into a melee that went for three bouts before one of them dropped, but my fodder manage to hold on and keep the pig in check.
I shook hands feeling very much like I had blundered into a victory off of pig rng, but now that I look back that Bastards charge I was worried about never came and I wonder if it had whether I would be walking away with a loss. Once again some gorgeous models, probby was modelled as a big old weird monster with a big cargo rack on his back, wounds were tracked by slowly removing boxes and barrels from his back, which was such a lovely touch, the whelps were also amazing, all standing on the scaffolded back of a huge weird creature covered in ladders and ropes and Boletus was a little pig with a speaker. A+, top notch.
Win.
Game 5 - Wandering Morris on The Smile That Wins (4ft)
I can’t quite remember the list but I think it was either 3 or 4 blocks of missile fodder. I was up the board too fast for Morris to really build up a scary pet stack and some good Whelp angles and charges kept their Fodder doing multiple dangerous terrain tests each retreat, I got a little hot under the collar when Morris started making 4 attacks and auto killing units on a 6, and Probby got almost immediately 1 shot by Morris as soon as he was, but the game was pretty much over with my fodder getting BLC every turn and running down his last two blocks on retreat. By far one of the best looking armies at the event, each pet was a gorgeous model in its own right, along with a fantastic Morris ridding around on a little tank, and little toothy panic tokens.
Missile fodder are in a rough place against 5+ Vulnerability, sorry about the stomp.
Win.
What Went Well?
CCW Fodder
Man they really pack a punch at 5+, and the reroll is no slouch either. But what really makes them is the bonus charge distance on panic tokens and getting BLC on them every charging turn, they charge way further than you would think at first blush. They make a great unit to soak up hits and stick around long enough to get those run downs in rounds 3 and 4.
Whelps in general
Even without skirmisher Whelps are still one of the most important units, dash is probably the most powerful rule in the game, they make getting objectives so much easier and they shoot like chaff. They also take to BLC very well with their 12” movement, but the real secret sauce is they let you angle for some crazy double and triple test retreats.
Probby’s new dangerous terrain rule
Like I said above Max was testing a new rule for Proboscis, where failed dangerous terrain tests were 6 wounds instead of instakill. Luckily I never had to make any dangerous terrain tests with Probby, but I definitely was stressing about his positioning less, particularly in the early game where Chaff can plink him into a bad spot. The rule feels great, no more unwinnable games because you’ve lost your centerpiece early to a bad roll. It still hurts but you’re not as completely paranoid about losing your elephant anymore.
What Didn’t Go Well?
Remembering Safety in Numbers
Oh boy. I could not remember this rule for the life of me, I lost so many positions because I forgot my fearless tests and I screened with chaff in a lot of cases where I probably should have screened with fodder.
Screening with Chaff
Yeah, they get charged by players that know what their doing. Screening with them means they’re usually a valid charge target for most of your opponents big melee threats. There’s some matchups against shooting armies where I think it’s deffo the right move, but miss deploying them straight into melee brutes in game 4 felt pretty terrible.
Playing against shooting armies
I think this is probably a natural bane to most cavalry lists, but I definitely needed more practice into how to navigate the match up. I got tabled very quickly against lists with multiple blocks of BP fodder.
Ones To Watch
Small disclaimer that I didn’t play against any of these on the day. All my matches felt winnable and I the ones I lost I feel like I definitely misplayed.
Leech Lovers
They were playing with a new rule where all their units started with 1 panic, and I think it didn’t effect them at all. I think the general consensus is that they’re the boogieman at the moment so I expect we’ll see some changes to their rules in future. I also had managed to talk one of the folks I came down with into running them for the event and he proceed to spend his entire time apologising and feeling bad for bringing them. Sorry about that Johnny, at least you went 5-0.
Slug’s Lament
This army would have shredded me, I think the ideal list is Grogs, Grogs, Whelps, Chaff/Bastards/Stumpgun. They feel like playing a different game entirely, 3+ volley fire is devastating but still being at 12 4+s on the charge is crazy. I hate to say it because their probably my favourite cult in terms of design, but damn do they do melee and shooting too well. If and when they get changed, I hope they still retain their shooting and feel more like normal BP Brutes on the charge.
Feast of Charybdis
Like Slugs I didn’t get the chance to play against them but they were the other melee threat in my mind. While they may be slightly less powerful than Probby on paper, all it takes is one bad roll for the odds to massively shift in their favour, and that’s before we get into the two crab list.
Who’s looking a bit Sad
Grand Bombard
A very cool army, but extremely feast or famine. They need to get on objectives to win engagements but they’re incentivized to take another stump gun to make the most of their rules. Spotters is a great rule but their toffs are too fragile for it to really help. Maybe bombard needs to be a free unit, or possibly give the toffs a slightly tougher profile.
Missile Weapons
I think they’re in a decent spot against 6+ Vulnerability targets but 5+ feels extremely grim for them at the moment. Not sure if there’s an elegant fix for it as they were pretty busted when they were just -1 to Vulnerability, maybe there’s a sweetspot where they take take 6+ to 4+, 5+ to 4+ and 3+ to 2+. It’s not a nice clean change but I think it would make them a lot more usable.
Closing Thoughts
Honestly it was a perfect event, I was a bit worried about the hour limit for the games since my testing tended to go a little longer but on game day everything went very fast. A five game day is still a lot and I was completely shattered afterwards but it was a complete blast, the scoring system was also great, really engaging and fun to lose. 10/10 Would recommend.