Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Old/Destruction/Spiderfang Grots

Why play Spiderfang

• You have one of the best mortal wounds engine on the whole of the DESTRUCTION army.
• A highly mobile army, with the Wall-Crawler ability and all your models moving at least 8".
• You have the Arachnarok spider, a cheap huge model, making your army look rad on the table.
• FUCKING SPIDERS make a very compeling aesthetic to work with.
• The Arachnarok spider with Shamman is maybe the strongest wizard in the destruction army and a heavy support for the whole army, with the Spider Gog Blessing and casting two spells per turn. A bit less useful with the rule of 1 built into the magic rules of 2.0.
• High synergy between all your models will never make you think you have redundant or useless models.

Warscrolls

Common keywords in these warscrolls are DESTRUCTION and SPIDERFANG. Except for the standalone Arachnarok Spider, they also have the GROT keyword.

Every model in the faction has these abilities:

• Wall-crawler: Can move through scenery.
• Spider Venom: If you roll a 6 to hit with the spider mounts' Fang attacks, a 6 to hit deals as many mortal wounds as the attack would normally do normal damage.

Leaders

Grot Big Boss on Gigantic Spider

The guy himself is okay. Pretty tough with 6 Wounds and rerollable 4+ saves, okay in melee thanks to his spider making 4 attacks with Spider Venom and his command ability makes the Spider Venom ability of every SPIDERFANG unit within 8" trigger on a 5+, which is incredible.

Spiderfang Grot Shaman on Arachnarok Spider

Glorious, simply glorious. You get all the awesome of the Arachnarok, a couple Grots with bows and spears and one of the few non-special-characters who can cast two spells a turn. And its unique spell, which doubles the Mortal Wounds caused by Spider Venom for one unit is so, so good.

Troops

Battleline

Grot Spider Riders

These guys are loaded to the gills with gear, carrying bows, spears and shields that flat increase your save so long as the unit size is big enough. Icon Bearer and Bone Drummer, as usual, give the unit respectively +2 Bravery as long as there are no enemies within 3" and +2 to runs. Other than that, they shoot, they have the unpleasant spider bites and meh spears, they move well and fast and they're pretty tough with 2 Wounds and a 5+ save so long as the shields hold. They're your bread and butter. Buff them with magic and Command and watch them tear anything in the game a new asshole.

Behemoths

Arachnarok Spider

Wound-to-damage, the Arachnarok is comparatively harmless. Though that is a very relative term, as its fangs are a Vampire Lord worth of attacks that can spontaneously morph into fuck-your-armor Mortal Wounds and up to 8 pokes with its legs, which are only 1 damage each, but with good Hit and Wound rolls and Rend. And if your opponent underestimates it because of this comparatively low damage output, keep in mind that 14 Wounds with a 4+ Save is still hardy enough to weather the retaliation.

Arachnarok Spider with Spiderfang Grots

Now we're talkin'! As said before with the Shaman variant, it gets a bunch of Grots giving him some shooting attacks and some extra melee attacks, and it can even get the Flinger to get one extra, slightly bigger shooting attack. Don't think this makes your Arachnarok into a gun platform though. It still feels more at home literally eating peoples' hearts out, especially since nothing stops you from shooting on the move.

Battalions

• Venom Mob

1 Chieftain, 3 Units of Riders, 3 Arachnarok (no specification, so presumably any type)

The spiders' attacks get +1 to wound and all Venom Mob units within 6" of any Venom Mob Arachnarok automatically pass battleshock tests. Sadly no longer tournament legal because the names have changed.

Army Building

A Venom Clan box is a good start and perfect if you play them as Allies. Add a Chieftain for synergy with the Shaman, two more Venom Clan boxes if you want to play the Battalion, and a box or two of Riders to give your existing units more staying power.

External Links

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-grot-big-boss-gigantic-spider-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-grot-spider-riders-en.pdf

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-arachnarok-spider-en.pdf

Age of Sigmar Tactics Articles
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