Welcome to the Warhammer Armies: Ork edition!! Today, we’re going to be breaking down everything you could want to know about playing Goffs at a local competition. This article is a supplement to the Orks Warhammer Armies article, intended to help you play Goffs specifically alongside the information contained in Warhammer Armies-Orks. We’re going to go over everything specific to Orks, any specific units you might want to consider, a general breakdown of how Orks adjusts the general Ork gameplan, and close out with a sample 2000 point list for Goffs. With this information at hand, you should feel very comfortable using Goffs at all your local events, both casually and competitively, and even be capable of performing well at a large scale event.
GOFFS SPECIFICS ANALYSIS
To start us off, we have the Goff trait, “No Mukkin About”, which allows any GOFF unit to generate extra hit rolls on a hit roll of 6+ while you’re fighting in melee. This is an effective ~17% damage bonus on every Ork unit, and makes it abundantly clear what Goffs are good at. They punch things, and if they’re still standing, the Goffs punch it even harder. You should be aiming to take as much advantage from this trait as possible by being as melee focused as possible. A little fire support is definitely worth considering, but by and large, you’re going to get up close and personal.
Next up, we have the Goff’s unique Stratagem, “Skarboyz”. Skarboyz is a pregame stratagem that allows you to make a unit of Boyz into Skarboyz, which gives them a Strength of 5. What’s great about this is that since it’s a pregame Stratagem, you can just use it for the games that you need it. If you’re fighting say, Imperial Guard, then going from Strength 4 to Strength 5 probably isn’t that big of a deal. On the other hand, when fighting Marines or particularly Death Guard, Skarboyz will net you a large damage boost.
Be mindful that you can’t Mob Up a unit of Skarboyz with a unit of regular Boyz. For this reason, you’re usually going to be better off just trying to use Unstoppable Green Tide to replenish a unit of Skarboyz, rather than mobbing two of them up. Overall, it’s a great Stratagem. Just don’t get too crazy with it, as you have a lot of powerful Stratagems to consider.
Moving along we have the Goff’s unique Warlord Trait, “Proper Killy”, which gives your warlord +1 attack. This Warlord Trait is honestly just bad and should never be taken. For starters, it’s an objectively worse version of Might Is Right, which is just a generic that you can take. For two, it’s significantly worse than both Brutal But Kunnin, and Kunnin But Brutal. It should be noted that Ghazghkull has to take this Warlord Trait if he’s your Warlord. However, fluff reasons aside, you should never be making Ghazghkull your warlord, as doing so prevents you from using your far more powerful Warlord Traits.
Finally, we have the Goff’s unique Relic, “Da Lucky Stick”. This relic allows the bearer to broadcast an aura of +1 to hit for any GOFF CHARACTER within 6”. In addition, the bearer also gets to re-roll all failed hit and wound rolls. At first glance, this relic looks insanely good. But, first we have to remember that you will almost certainly have a Nob with a WAAGH! Banner, and consider the fact that most melee Ork characters hit on 2+. This already makes the need for a +1 to hit rather dubious. In addition, the relic also competes with Da Killa Klaw and the Cybork Body. Since this is a relic, the bearer is stuck with their default equipment options, usually a Power Klaw except for a Wartrike.
If you’re taking a Power Klaw, Da Killa Klaw is going to net you a much higher damage output than the Stick will. If we’re looking at a Wartrike, the Stick becomes a so-so melee upgrade, as his main weapon already re-rolls to wound, and he’s hitting on a 2+ with no penalty to hit. This turns the Stick into a 17% damage boost, as you get to re-roll 1’s to hit. While not bad, it does compete with the large damage reduction the Cybork Body provides. In conclusion, if you find yourself starting down an army that can impose penalties to melee, or you want a more offensive upgrade for a Wartrike, Da Lucky Stick isn’t a bad choice. Otherwise, you probably don’t want to take it unless you find a set up that really works for you.
GOFFS RECOMMENDED UNIT ANALYSIS
For the most part, Goffs can run any unit reliably. They don’t empower their fire support in any meaningful way, but Lootas are reasonably efficient without support, and Mek Gunz don’t care what you’re playing since they’re all Gretchin. However, there is a single unit that we need to readdress that was also included in the Ork Warhammer Armies article. That would be none other than Ghazghkull himself.
Ghaz is the big bad leader for the Orks, if you can say that Orks have leaders, and he plays like it on the table. His abilities buff any ORK unit, rather than any GOFF unit, which makes him useable in theoretically any Ork list. Out of Goffs, Ghaz receives two key improvements. First, Ghaz fits fare more cleanly into a GOFF list than any other list, simply because he doesn’t cause conflicts with <CLAN> keywording. More importantly however, is the math behind how Ghaz interacts with the Goff Trait.
For example, let’s look at Ghaz himself. He makes 5 attacks baseline. If he’s charged, his own ability moves him up to making 6 attacks. In addition, if Ghaz is in a GOFF detachment, he’ll get bonus attacks on 6+, which is a ~17% damage boost, bringing him to ~5.83 attacks on his own, and on the charge a total of 7 attacks even. That’s a lot of chopping! However, I’d like to point out the math behind these improvements. The +1 attack in Ghaz’s case is a 20% damage boost, since he’s making 6/5th’s of his regular swings. The ability to generate bonus attacks on 6’s is a 16.667 percent damage boost, rounded off to 17. If you add these together, you get a 37% damage boost.
However, Ghaz ends up making 7 attacks, which is a 40% damage boost, not 37%. This is because multiple modifiers are actually multiplicative, not additive. In other words, it’s not 20%+~17%, but rather 1.20*1.1667. The moral of the story here is that Ghaz makes the Goff trait actually slightly more powerful than it already is on top of being a steroid for nearby INFANTRY. Wrap these facts along with Ghaz’s very potent equipment and statline, and you have a great model at 235. He’s expensive, but you get what you pay for.
GOFF’S SAMPLE LIST
Goff’s have a pretty straight forward gameplan. They run forward, and they punch things until they’re dead. Let’s take a look at a sample 2000 point Goffs list that takes advantage of their strengths, and how to play it.
Goff Battallion
HQ’s-334
Ghazghkull-235
Warboss on Warbike, Da Killa Klaw, Warlord, Brutal But Kunnin 99
Troops-669
30 Boyz, Boss Nob has Power Klaw-223
30 Boyz, Boss Nob has Power Klaw-223
30 Boyz, Boss Nob has Power Klaw-223
334+669=1003
Goff Battallion
HQ’s-225
Big Mek on Warbike, Kustom Force Field-101
Weirdboy, Warphead Stratagem-62
Weirdboy-62
Troops-270
30 Boyz, Boss Nob has Slugga/Choppa-210
10 Gretchin-30
10 Gretchin-30
Elites-382
5 Meganobz with PowerKlaws-175
Nob with WAAGH! Banner-77
Painboy-65
Painboy-65
Heavy Support-120
Battlewagon with ‘Ard Case-120
225+270+382+120=997
1003+997=2000
And there we have it, right at 2000 points. This is a very straightforward list that’s designed to try to get as much mileage out of Ghaz as possible. Ghaz, the Weirdboy without the Warphead upgrade, the Nob with a WAAGH! Banner, the Meganobz, and optionally a Painboy all pile into the Battlewagon. The Weirdboy on the Wagon should have the Fists of Gork power.
Turn one, the Battlewagon flies up the board while you jump the unit of 30 Boyz without the Nob with a Power Klaw into the enemy front lines to make a hole. Every turn after that, you advance up the board and use Da Jump to toss another unit of Boyz with a Warpath buff right into the enemy’s army. Meanwhile, your giant character party piles out of the Battlewagon Turn 2, and gets ready for the charge. With a 12” move plus an advance, on top of the Turn 2 3” Disembark, 4” movement+ advance, and charge roll, you’re looking at a 19+4d6 threat range. That’s an average of 33” from where they deploy, which is way more than enough to get you into dug into the enemy.
For heavy lifting, we actually have a triple threat between Ghaz himself, the Meganobz, and our Warboss on a Warbike. With these three, we have lots of ways to threaten heavy targets. The Meganobz in particular are significantly more deadly than they appear. Baseline, Meganobz make 3 attacks a piece, and they hit half the time, giving us 1.5 hits per model. With Ghaz, the Nob with a WAAGH! Banner, and the Goff trait, you go up to 4.667 attacks (factoring in the Goff trait) that hit on a 3+, giving you a total of 3.11 hits. That’s just over double damage! If you can get in range, throw on Warpath for some extra good skull cracking!
And that actually wraps us up. Goffs are not a very complicated Clan, and they don’t offer much in the way of being tricky. What they do offer is the ability to do an absurd amount of attacks which will put out some serious damage, and that’s really where the Goffs want to be. If you want, you can cut Ghaz and possibly even a single Painboy or a unit of Boyz to include some Mek Gunz or Lootas to get some ranged support in. You’ll also have to include another unit of Gretchin if you cut the Boyz, but that’s a small price to pay for some fire support. This version is significantly more fun to play though, as the look on your opponent’s face when 5 Meganobz make 25 attacks, score 19 hits and 13 wounds on his favorite big model will be priceless.
Regardless of which avenue you take with your Goffs, as long as you have a lot of Boyz and some other big hitters, you should have no problem finding success on the table top.
