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AoS 2K Thunderquake

Here's my thought on a thunderquake list.
Slann
Engine of the gods
Astrolith bearer
Skink starpriest
Skinksx40
Skinksx10
skinksx10
Salamander x4
Skink handlers x3
Bastilladon
Bastilladon
Thunderquake

Haven't looked through artifacts and traits fully to decide quite yet, but the astrolith bearer is key here. With choosing savage and the astrolith bearer, your salamanders and bastilladons, and heck even the skinks won't do too bad having rerolls for hits, wounds, and saves. Try to give the enemy first turn, so in their combat phase you can declare savage, so on your first turn you get to make use of the ability in the shooting phase. Also your salamanders can't get in range if you take top of 1. So go 2nd, have incredibly reliable shooting, and if you manage to get a double turn it will be pretty tough for them to recover.

Just my thoughts on paper, I will be giving it a proper test within a week.
 
Skinks and Bastiladon buffed by an Astrolith Bearer are great.
 
Update:

I tried the following list against Ogors, Ironjawz and Khorne mortals over the weekend.

1x Slann Starmaster (Great Rememberer, Incandescent Retrices)
1x Saurus Astrolith Bearer

40x Skinks (Boltsplitters and Moonstone Clubs)
10x Skinks (Boltsplitters and Moonstone Clubs)
10x Skinks (Boltsplitters and Moonstone Clubs)

1xThunderquake Starhost
1x Engine of the Gods
2x Bastiladons with Solar Engines
3x Kroxigors

140pts for reserves.
Here's what happened.

Game 1 vs. Ironjawz
Battle plan: Scorched Earth
Opponent's list:

1x Mawkrusha
1x Warchanter
1x Weirdnob Shaman

3x Goregruntas
10x Brutes
30x Ardboyz

30x Savage Orruk Arrow Boys (Allied)

I deployed everything except 40 skinks on one corner and the 40 skinks on the opposite corner. I finished deployment first but decided to take turn 1 for myself (Mistake No.1). Everything was out of range so I just scored the 2 objectives I held. Then he took a double turn and destroyed two out of three objectives in my table half with the Mawkrusha and the Goregruntas (I left only one out of 40 Skinks within 6" of the objective, Mistake No.2), shot my Skink screen to oblivion with the Arrow boys. When I got my turn I teleported the 40 Skinks closer to my battle line, summoned 20 more Skinks for screen and thinned the Arrow boys. I lost the initiative for next round and the Mawkrusha obliterated my 40 skinks, remaining arrow boys shot out a significant amount of my new Skinks and the Ardboyz moved forwards. I retaliated by killing the Mawkrusha and killing off most of the remaining arrow boys but at this point it was becoming obvious that I was losing on objectives. I destroyed the objective opposite my battle line (previously held by arrow boys) by teleporting what remained of my Skinks there and scored a 3 on the D3 but in the end it wasn't enough by the end of turn 5.

Even though I could teleport two units every hero phase, it was clear from this game that I couldn't shift enough force to where I needed to be. Since the Bastiladons, the Astrolith Bearer, the Engine and the Slann practically needs to stay together, moving any two away takes away from my advantages. So the only units left to send out are the Skinks but they are helpless against the likes of 10 Brutes or 30 Ardboyz camping an objective. This leaves me crippled in games with 4+ objectives where you need to shift some of your forces in order to score points for a win.

Game 2 vs. Gutbusters
Battle plan: Battle for the Pass
Opponent's list:

1x Tyrant
1x Butcher
1x Butcher

12x Bulls
6x Ironguts
6x Ironguts
1x Gorger
40x Grots
20x Grots

Not repeating Mistake No.1, I let him have the first turn. He moved forwards with everything he had except for the 20 grots he left behind guarding the objective near his table edge. I saw my opportunity and took it by teleporting 40 Skinks and 3 Kroxigors there in my turn. The skinks shot out the Grots with the help of my triumph for re-rolling wounds and secured the objective. I took the lead with 5 objective points. This move paid off more than I thought it could when he diverted both Butchers, the Tyrant and 6 Ironguts towards this new threat and divided his forces. My Bastiladons managed to kill off most of the Bulls and the advancing Ironguts, after which I teleported them to help against the Tyrant, Butchers and the other 6 Ironguts. I managed to hold on to my initiative and with the remnants of my Skink screen picking up one of the objectives in the middle against the remaining 4 bulls and the Gorger, I managed to land a major win on this one.

Here, the teleport mechanism only worked because my opponent left the weakest unit in his list behind. If he had left the 12 bulls, or even the 40 grots behind, I probably couldn't have managed to pull off that teleport assault. The main weakness from Game 1 was still there but wasn't as severe due to my opponent's mistake and my luck in not letting him take a single double turn.

Game 3 vs. Khorne Mortals
Battle Plan: Total Conquest
Opponent's List:

1x Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut
1x Bloodsecrator
1x Bloodsecrator
1x Bloodstoker
1x Bloodstoker

6x Mighty Skullcrushers
3x Mighty Skullcrushers
3x Mighty Skullcrushers
5x Chaos Knights with Mark of Khorne
5x Chaos Knights with Mark of Khorne
10x Skullreapers
10x Skullreapers

Sayl the Faithless (Allied)
Bloodmarked Warband (Alied Warscroll Battalion)
(NOTE: I am still not sure about taking battalions with allied points (Azyr allows this so I assume it can be done) and only after the game did I realise that this list was 2360 points in total with 10x Skullreapers extra!)

I was given the first turn since my opponent had fewer drops, which was a huge problem since I didn't have anything in range for my Bastiladons to shoot at. I straight up summoned 20 more skinks and prepared a double screen for when the eventual charge came. I teleported my 40 Skinks to the top right corner objective with only one within 6" since this scenario allows a 20+ strong unit to hold on to an objective (not to repeat Mistake No.2). When he diverted the Juggernaut lord, 10x Skullreapers and 3x Skullcrushers to the top right objective I teleported my Skinks out of there towards my battle line and teleported the summoned 20 Skinks to his backfield which was held by Sayl and 5 Chaos Knights. In the end the fighting dragged on for 5 turns but as soon as I lost my Skinks I had no way to score objectives. Plus, since all of his units were tanky with multiple wounds and good saves, I couldn't really kill off as many of them as I thought I could. Which meant he always had a surplus of units out of combat to outmanouvre and deny my troops any objectives.

The illegality of the list hardly mattered in my opinion. What those 10 extra Skullreapers did was to camp an objective all game, which any other unit of Knights or Skullcrushers could easily have done.

This game showed me another weakness of this list: it is helpless towards multiple threats. I could concentrate all my firepower at any one unit and the others would still be able to destroy my skinks, and without Skinks I can't score objectives. Which was the case here. My limited mobility (despite Great Rememberer) and my inability to bring down targets fast enough ended up with me being swarmed with Khornate cavalry all across the board. Even when I used my teleport to challenge his backfield, one Sayl and five Chaos Knights easily sent my Skinks running.

Findings:

The Thunderquake is excellent in defending a single point and against elite armies. But it fails against fast hordes and in 6-objective maps, with severe challenges in 4-objective maps. This has got more to with the level of synergy needed to utilise the advantages that this battalion offers, than lack of capabilities from the units themselves. Which essentially means that you need to keep a lot of units together or there is no point in fielding them all in the first place. Re-roll hit + re-roll wound + re-roll save Bastiladons are GODLY, so is the Engine consistently scoring 6-9 and 10-13 for dishing out mortal wounds and healing all these units at least D3 per hero phase is just icing on the cake. But for tactical flexibility, moving them around is a nightmare that the teleportation allegiance ability can't solve on its own.

Since the Thunderquake, as I field it, takes up the majority of points and you have to take 3 battlelines at least, you can't field anything else that can be much of a threat to your enemies. I have considered using Stormcast allies (the only allies we can have) but without their allegiance ability to teleport, they cannot be much help either.

So, the question remains: is the Thunderquake viable? What weights can be dropped to provide it with room to include more threats for the opponent?
What I could think of so far would be better used in Heavenswatch or Shadowstrike Starhosts :)
 
I think it really depends on the type of game. For a tournament I'd say it isn't worth it for the reasons you stated. In a not too competitive environment it is decent.

As for your games:
Good reports!
Normally I'd say you should have won that first game. Either by going second, letting him spread his forces and then attacking (pretty much what you did fighting the Ogres) or by alpha striking his archers and/or his MK to weaken them before they manage to do something against it.
 
Findings:

The Thunderquake is excellent in defending a single point and against elite armies. But it fails against fast hordes and in 6-objective maps, with severe challenges in 4-objective maps. This has got more to with the level of synergy needed to utilise the advantages that this battalion offers, than lack of capabilities from the units themselves. Which essentially means that you need to keep a lot of units together or there is no point in fielding them all in the first place. Re-roll hit + re-roll wound + re-roll save Bastiladons are GODLY, so is the Engine consistently scoring 6-9 and 10-13 for dishing out mortal wounds and healing all these units at least D3 per hero phase is just icing on the cake. But for tactical flexibility, moving them around is a nightmare that the teleportation allegiance ability can't solve on its own.

Since the Thunderquake, as I field it, takes up the majority of points and you have to take 3 battlelines at least, you can't field anything else that can be much of a threat to your enemies. I have considered using Stormcast allies (the only allies we can have) but without their allegiance ability to teleport, they cannot be much help either.

So, the question remains: is the Thunderquake viable? What weights can be dropped to provide it with room to include more threats for the opponent?
What I could think of so far would be better used in Heavenswatch or Shadowstrike Starhosts :)[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the reports and your thoughts, both were really useful !

I have never tried Thunderquake so far and the Findings were the exact reason. While you can never tell the exact impact from paper, having to have a 10" bubble at the most important part of your army, seemed too restraining now matter how I looked at it. Your battlereport - with the comments for the new scenarios as I have stopped considering it even from GH1 - makes it even more clear. With multiple objectives being around, its cons become even bigger.

Thanks again !
 
I think it might just be that the units you're using are too defensive when used in a thunderquake. What would happen if you swapped Bastiladons for Stegadons? I think if you had a Trog and 2 stegadons or a Trog, Stegadon and Bastiladon you would be able to do more offensively. Porting the Trog and the Stegadon to a back objective would give them a lot more to worry about than Skinks and you could leave your Skinks shielding your Slann and the Basti, leaving them free to cast/shoot. With the port you can probably get the extra 3" charge from the Trog so you dont have to worry about missing the charge as often. And if the Stegadon doesnt get in it can at least still do some shooting depending on its loadout.
 
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