Hey Guys
I used the list in a 2k event at the weekend and in some practice games, so thought i'd stick down some musings about it and how it went.
In terms of the event, managed 2 wins and a draw, which i was pretty pleased by overall, especially when the draw was a gainst a nasty Chaos Slaanesh list with two Subjugator scout titans - however, the Gargants were helped somewhat by the reduction in board size down to 4x4 which of course helped mitigate the speed and range issues, along with having a less pronounced activation disparity compared to at 3k.
I went with a Great Gargant, armed with pretty much the stock weapons loadout with a minor adjustment - so 2 Twin Soopa Guns and a Lifta Droppa, along with reinforced boilers and the head of Gork, 2 supa stompas (with 3 soopagunz) both with reinforced boilers, and finally a unit of 6 stompas all armed with kombat hammers.
Overall i was pretty pleased with how the list got on, the big stompa mob probably being the biggest surprise. Granted it was the blitz guard, but often by turn 2 they were peeking over whatever terrain they were hiding behind and killing the odd small unit, and did a bang up job of protecting the blitz. The extra movement on the rest of the army was a big help, and of course being able to throw macro barrages into your opponents deployment zone on turn 1 is always nice, even if it doesn't achieve much. The Great Gargant was overall pretty underwhelming in terms of impact most games, although no-one really even bothered to have a go at it, so it was at least a very safe blitz. However, in CC and FF he just didn't do the business, primarily due to a distinct lack of TK and macro, meaning that while he was winning the combats he was going into, he wasn't often killing what he fought (except notably a Dominatrix after it failed most of it's armour saves), the worst case being a Reaver Titan that survived two engagements with the Great Gargant - granted he made a lot of armour saves, but that really shouldn't happen. In testing it got routinely smacked about by the Warlord titan as well, despite the warlord being cheaper and armed up for ranged combat! The Head of Gork was a huge boon of course, giving the Supa Stompas a chance to actually rally once broken - at 3k i'd definitely run a 'shepherd' ranged Gargant for the express purpose of rallying them i think.
So overall thoughts:
I like the Kustom upgrades, although to me the reinforced boilers are a no-brainer compared to the others, closely followed by the Head of Gork. The rest are ok, but for a list that's cripplingly slow, the movement buff is just too good to leave.
One of the big issues i see with the list is to a degree that of what tools you have at your disposal to start narrowing the activation gap before turn 3, as otherwise like AMTL you're effectively looking at the best result you're normally going to get being a draw unless people are crazy enough to come into assault range of the GG. for E-UK they tried to sort this out on the AMTL by up-gunning them, giving them a chance to actually wipe out small to medium sized formations if you go ranged heavy, along with some pretty reasonable firefight and close combat options, adding multiple macro or TK attacks respectively, allowing them to be a very solid assault force potentially as well. It's hard to do a direct comparative of course, as the Gargants are... just not as good at the end of the day for a number of reasons, despite being either the same price level or actually more expensive. The other problem the bigger gargants have is that other than durability, the Supa Stompas are overall much better - especially for the price. Unfortunately i think the original list had issues - the core one being that everything from a supa-stompa upwards all have 3 core weapon slots, so the differentiation is just not that pronounced compared to say a warhound and a warlord.
Anyway, fundamental issues aside, a few thoughts on changes:
Reinforced Boilers - overall these are great, i do see there's a desire for more speed though, and it would be nice to extend the threat range to that of say a warlock if you're prepared to take a risk. One thought on this is rather than have a lower DC faster war engine, how about the ability to 'push' the boiler to take it to 10cm extra movement? Then on say a 1-2 the boiler blows a hole and it doesn't work for the rest of the game, reducing the Gargant to it's base 15cm movement.
On weapons:
For CC the options really do need a shot in the arm, given Orks currently have the most naff CC options of any Titan in the game (note the horrifying Power fists available to Eldar and Imperials), which given they're supposed to be very CC orientated is pretty sad. It's bad enough that a Warlord has a better 'to hit' in CC comparatively, but that's just 'insult to injury' territory.
For Firefight again, it's mediocre to say the least. You can get a bunch more attacks, but no macro or TK? TK might be a bit much, but a macro firefight weapon (maybe something like a supa-shokk attack gun) would i think be reasonable, and maybe even one that ignores cover (like a supa skorcha).
For general shooting, overall it's not that bad if a bit underwhelming, with blast output being good, TK being pretty reasonable, but massed shooting options being lacklustre at best giving them big issues dealing with anything else with shields in anything but an assault. For something like a gatling kannon i'd suggest if you keep the range the same i'd whack up the shots to at least 8, maybe even 10. Again, comparatively a ranged warlord can throw out 24 shots a turn on better dice at 60cm range (admittedly this is the E-UK version mind you).
On the Gargants themselves:
Oddly the Great Gargant currently appears to be 25pts more expensive in this version compared to the standard one in the Ghazghul list if you take the same loadout, which seems a bit harsh overall.
The Gargant is ok, but as always falls into that rather unfortunate territory of being not as hardy as the Great Gargant and still having relatively the same firepower as the Supa Stompas.
Supa Stompas are unsurprisingly great. One thing i'm surprised at is that they don't have an option to switch Soopa Guns for Supa Zzap guns (especially given models were released with them on), but perhaps a balance issue on that?
Stompa mobs are solid, and fine as they are
Haven't tried a loota mob, but tbh given for me it's all about the big guys they don't interest me as much.
Air is fine, and tbh when you have such activation issues on the ground they seem quite a difficult one to justify squeezing in to a list.
I'll give them a few goes at 3k when i get the chance to see how they get on
