In Part 005 we will look at five Battlefield Tactics cards that would compliment our example Grunt army we put together back in issue 002. Here’s the army list to refresh that memory!:
My First Grunt Army
Formation 1 (30 pts)
- Big Boss: 1 × 30 pts (Hero Tokens: 5)
Formation 2 (20 pts)
- Regular Grunts: 6 × 3 pts
- Snots: 2 × 1 pts
Formation 3 (12 pts)
- Jumpy Grunts: 3 × 4 pts
Formation 4 (22 pts)
- Gun Wagon: 2 × 10 pts
- Snots: 2 × 1 pts
Formation 5 (16 pts)
- Grunt Aviator: 2 × 8 pts
Hero Token Summary
- Hero Tokens from Units: 5
- Additional Hero Tokens: 0 (0 pts)
- Total Hero Tokens: 5
Total Army Points: 100
The Grand Plan
Grunts are more effective the closer they get to the enemy, and we we say close, we mean within arms length! Generally speaking you will want to tie up enemy ranged units with your Jumpy Grunts before rushing forward with your Big Boss and main Grunt infantry blob. The Snots will soak up a couple of hits on your way in, and the Gun Wagons can take pot-shots from the back line before moving forward to support your infantry. Meanwhile, the Grunt Aviators can whizz around, picking off lone units and lending their own support to your infantry. The key to this is keeping your squishy Grunts alive long enough for them to get to grips with the enemy and smash some skulls. We can take a couple of cards that could be used with either the Jumpy Grunts or Regular Grunts to give them a survivability boost, and the Regular Grunts can be lead into battle by the tough Big Boss who will serve as a bullet magnet!
Card 1: Flash Grenades
Flash Grenades are handy for lowering the effectiveness of enemy units around you during an engagement, and with any luck, will give you just enough of an edge to sway things in your favour! They can be thrown in your own hex, or you could use them on an adjacent hex to diminish supporting ranged fire. Your Jumpy Grunts will potentially make good use of Flash Grenades as they thrust forward early in the game, or your Big Boss and Grunt blob could use them once they make contact with the enemy.
Card 2: Dodge
Dodge is another useful card that can keep your infantry units alive a little longer. It is versatile because it can be used when rolling saves from regular shooting attacks, and also attacks within an engagement. Since Dodge will last for an entire round of engagement it is most efficient in this situation, but you never know when you will need it! You could combine Dodge with Flash Grenades in an engagement to make your units almost impossible to hit while they get to the business of pummelling the enemy. Another situation Dodge might be useful is avoiding enemy interrupt fire as your Jumpy Grunts fly in to take out those pesky ranged units.
Card 3: Medic!
For our third card we will revisit Medic! The Grunt Big Boss can use this in exactly the same way as the Star Marine Commander; allowing you to roll for many of the saving throws required when he gets hit instead of using valuable Hero Tokens to automatically save. If you roll and fail a save, play the Medic! card and take advantage of the +2 save modifier on the re-roll. The Big Boss has ‘Indomitable Save’ which can never be worse that a 4+, making the re-roll 2+ at worst! Once the card is played, you can revert to using Hero Tokens to automatically save if you wish.
Since there are no other high-value infantry units in this Grunt army, it’s unlikely you’d use Medic! on anything else, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility. For example, you might need another Grunt to survive in order to claim a victory objective!
Card 4: Sticky Mine
Sticky Mine is another card that can compliment fast attack units like Jumpy Grunts. If the enemy is fielding a tank or assault mech, Sticky Mine has the potential to cause real problems for them. An automatic Strength 6 hit will force all but the toughest units to make a 5+ saving throw, and even if they use Battlefield Support to re-roll, their survival is still by no means guaranteed!
Card 5: Hijack Vehicle
Hijack Vehicle is an interesting card that can result in some hilarious (and humiliating) moments! Assuming your enemy is fielding a suitable target (you wouldn’t take the card otherwise), it can synergise with Sticky Mine rather well. Hijack Vehicle is used after other attacks in a round of engagement have been resolved, so you could hit them with the Sticky Mine first, and if that fails, resort to stealing their unit! If the hijack is successful the hijacking unit is removed; somebody needs to man the vehicle! This card is extremely well suited to Grunts because their units are cheap. Using a stand of Grunts to gain a vehicle is a good exchange, and using a stand of Snots would be even better!
Final Thoughts
These cards are just examples of those you might take with the Grunt army outlined above. An equally valid tactic would be to load up the Big Boss with cards such as Dash and Devastating Combo, or another card that can prove very useful with Grunts is Marshal because they are bound to collect plenty of Blast Markers as they rush in.
At Gigaton, we have created a useful Army Builder tool to aid you in your discovery. This allows you to play around with units and formations and share them with friends or export them to a print-friendly list for future reference.