Goblin tactics
For 6th edition Warhammer
by Raymond Janssen



Hi there, my name is Raymond Janssen and i live in the Netherlands. I’ve played an all Goblin army for a couple of years now. In the 5th edition of Warhammer I won about 40% of the games I played, and I was pretty fine with it (Thank you Crown of Command). But once 6th edition was released, I almost lost every single game I played.

After losing a lot of games (and I do mean a LOT) I started to develop a new strategy for an all Goblin army. Since then I’ve won all of my battle’s.



The Problem

To find a new tactic, I had to ask myself a few questions, The first question was: “what’s wrong?”

When you play an Orc & Goblin army, you normally start running to the enemy and get your troops in hand-to-hand combat a.s.a.p. But when you do this in 6th edition Warhammer, with an all Goblin army youre troops will flee in the 2nd or 3rd turn. And when Goblins start running it’s difficult if not impossible to stop them, because of their low leadership. And that’s not the only problem I encountered. To help me find a new strategy, I made a list with everything what was wrong with my army.

Problems:
A) Low Leadership. Night Goblin Warboss ld. 7 and a ‘normal’ Goblin warboss ld. 8.
B) Goblins are not so good in combat, shooting, hitting, saving, etc, (they are very, very bad soldiers).
C) Nobody and I mean nobody is afraid of them, with the exeption of Fanatics ( until now that is).
D) They are very expensive (in $, £ , ect.) for 15 pounds you have only 20 Goblins.

Strengths:
A) Waaaagh magic has one of the best lists available.
B) You can get an extra character (big boss) for every 1000 points.
C) Goblins have very low point cost. A normal trooper cost only 2 points.

The low leadership is the biggest problem, Ld 7 or 8 just doesn’t cut it. Mainly because only your general has access to a leadership that ‘high’.



The Solution

So, how can we solve the problems and use the strengths to make a winning army? Let's take it one problem at a time.

A) Leadership

  1. Take a Goblin Warboss ( ld. 8 ) and not a Night Goblin Warboss ( ld. 7 ).
  2. Take the Rowdy’s Grotts Big Red Banner ( Ld. +1, ‘normal’ Goblins only) and put him in the same unit as your General.
  3. Take very big units (at least 40) so you can take a lot of wounds before being forced to take a panic test.
  4. Keep away from terror creatures or keep them busy (using snotlings for example).
  5. Stay away from combat. Hide in trees, houses, mountains, under the table, etc.

B) Lousy soldiers:

  1. In combat use big units (40+) and make them 4 goblins wide, so you can still get the rank bonus and only 6 enemy models can fight your gobbo’s in the front rank. Always take a standard for the extra bonus. Even if you not kill a single soldier you get 3 point for the ranks, 1 for the standard and 1 for the Unit Strength, a total of 5.

    You can put netters in the front rank to avoid that more goblins get killed. Don’t take spears but stay with normal hand weapons so that you get a +1 save extra in HTH. This also means the goblins will only cost 2 points.
  2. In shooting they gobbo’s has a Bs of 3, which is pretty standard, but the single worst missile weapon in the game, so don’t use it. It’ll cost 1 extra point and you’ll never hurt a thing with it (except perhaps when shooting your own troops due to animosity – Michael).
    On the other hand, spear chukka’s are very cheap (35 points) and they scare your enemy. The best use for spear chukka’s is of course shooting at cavalry. Rock lobber should be used for killing war machines and Doom diver to kill enemy troops with high armour save.
  3. Hitting , don’t fight (thats easy).
  4. In saving throws, a ‘normal’goblin with a handweapon and lightarmour has a armour save from 4+ (for only 3 points) and when a goblin is killed, who gives a damn. It’s there job top get killed, so don’t try and save them.

C) Afraid already? When playing like this your opponents are going to find out an all-goblin army is no less than any other type of army and they’ll know your a force to reckon with. And remember. Even if you don’t put Fanatics with your Night Goblins, everyone will avoid them like the plague. Use this to your advantage.

D)Money This last problem is a big one, a goblin army cost a lot of money and time to paint. Try to buy Goblins on Ebay or something like that. And convert your shamans, netters and other characters from the plastic regiment boxes.



The Army List

Characters

Because you’ll want the Big Waagh list(more on this later), you’ll have to take a lvl 4 Great shaman as youre Lord choice, don't make him youre General because he is already expensive enough (195 points for a Nightgoblin) and if he get’s killed it would be another 100 points for being the general. And with the Waaagh magic his brain will probably cook sometime.

Next, take 3 lvl 2 Shamans as your other character choices, now you have 12 power dice to rule the magic phase.

Nightgoblins are the best Shamans because they get the Mushrooms but "normal" Gobbo's on wolfs is also a good option, but it does effect your Line of Sight.

And then the best part of being a Goblin, you can take 1 extra Big Boss for each 1000 points. Make one of these your general and the other your Battle Standard Bearer. Take a normal goblins for these, because their leadership is very high (for a goblin that is). You should buy them any expensive stuff, because they don’t need it. A real Goblin General NEVER EVER fights. Don't be brave with him, he’ll only get killed. And he cost 55 points so PFFFF.

Core Units

Okay, you need 3 core units but with goblins that’s easy. Take 1 with the same type of Goblins as your General and put your General and Battle Standard with them. Take 40 goblins for this and DON'T give them shortbows or spears, now they only cost you 2 points each, with a 5+ save in hand-to-hand. You can give them Light Armour if you want.

Next, take 2, 3 or 4 units of Night Goblins (40 goblins each) and give them Fanatics. Always do this. Also give them some netters. You can give them spears if you want but then a goblin costs 3 points, so it’s up to you.

If you want to take wolf riders that is ok but they are very expensive and you need a very large unit 30+ if you want to be safe from shooting. I sometimes use them in small groups as light cavalry to irritate my opponent. But don't use them close to your other units , because of the panic test.

Snotlings are very cool and you can keep a Greater demon or Dragon busy with them for the whole battle (when you take enough snottie’s), but against other enemy’s they cost to many points.

Special Units

Take rock lobbers and spear chukka's (never take bullies), there shooting won’t be devastating, but your opponent will be afraid of them. And if you aim at expensive troops they might earn you some points. At the very least they’ll negate a few ranks, gaining extra advantages for your troops when they get into charging range.

Never take chariots. I actually love them, but they’ll get killed easily and if you want to win you can't use that. Especially with an all-goblin army, where small units are a rarity, they’ll get shot at a lot.

I have a large squigherd that I use in my army with 12 squigs, 4 hoppers and 4 gobbo's. The hoppers are the best and with only 4 goblins, they don’t have animosity. The unit isn’t that good in hand-to-hand. Squigs are good fighters in dealing damage, but not good in taking it. So if you know something else to spend your points on, use that in stead.

Rare Units

Never take a Giant! He’ll get killed in the first or second turn and they cost 205 points (the same as a large unit Nightgobbo's with fanatics, netters and other extra’s)

In stead take one or two Doomdivers.

Trolls are an ok, add-on to your army. I love Stone Trolls and have a small unit of 5 with me al the time. I never let them go in HTH and try to let them become stupid and effectivelly move 3 inches every turn. In this case everyone will shoot at them and when they are stupid the never have to make a test. When taking into account magic resistance and regeneration they can stand up to a lot of damage.

Magic

This is what it’s all about when using an all Goblin army.
Use Big Waagh magic and use all of the powerdice (this should be 12) for casting big whaagh spells.

First cast “Mork save uz” 5+ (d3 rerolls this turn), but use 3 or even 4 dice to cast it. This is because when your enemy wants to dispell it, it cost him a dispell scroll or a lot of dispell dice and from then on you’ll probably own that magic phase.

Then use Foot of Gork or Gork’s Warpath and destroy your enemy with it. If your enemy has a wizard not in a unit, kill him first making sure you totally control magic. Put youre own shamans in a unit, because when Gork slips your opponent gets the chance to kill your shamans (and you wouldn’t want that).

Remember your level 2 shamans are only for the powerdice so be sure to hide them somewhere inside units and refuse as much challenges as possible.

Magic Items

I don’take a lot of magic items for my units.
Take Rowdy’s Grotts Big Red Banner for the +1 ld.
Maybe you’d want to take the Knobbly staff for any miscast reroll, Diito’s double dooin doo-dahs for the second Gork’s warpath is also a good option.

Don’t take any dispell scrolls, with 7 dispell dice you don’t need them and even if you are unable to dispell a spell,
remember it’s just goblins who are dying.



Race Specific

High Elves, Wood Elves and Dark Elves

Elves love to shoot, so let them its not a problem, your magic and war machines will crush them. With large unit of Night goblins you can advance to bring your fanatics in position. But if you attack, you’ll get a lot of casualties. So if in any way possible, let him do the attacking.

Dwarfs

Winning from Dwarves is easy, just act like a real Goblin. Never attack a Dwarf in hand-to-hand. Because they have no magic you can put your shamans alone, so they don’t suffer from animosity.

First kill his war machines with Gork’s warpath and then advance with your Night goblins and your fanatics. While advancing, you might want to take some shots at any remaining missile units. Other nice targets are large units with 2 or 3 ranks. Because every rank that is negated gives you goblins better chances of winning combat.

Vampire Counts

Vampire players are proud of there powerful magic, but they tend to overlook the fact that your magic is usually more powerful (or at least the most useful) and you get the most power dice anyway, so wait for his attack and crush his wizards with your magic.

When fighting any fear causing enemy, your troops should stay close to your General for the fear and terror tests. Go for the best troops and leave the other undead alone, go for the Banshee she will cause your troops to run. Use your best magic against her: The Mighty Foot of Gork.

Tomb Kings

These are somewhat difficult to beat because of their scrolls, try to finish the tomb king but watch out for his curse.

Empire

The empire army is a shooting army now, so hide and kill the war machines first.
After you’ve destroyed his hell blasters, mortars and canons he has no other option but to charge you. If he does so, shoot at troops that are expensive (and probably small) and use your rank bonus and unit strength to win hand-to-hand.

Chaos

Chaos warriors are though, but a doom diver and some fanatics can kill them easily. Just remember to take out any cavalry and chariots first.

Demon hosts have lots of magic dice, which makes for a very interesting magic phase.
Try and get irresistible force when casting or chances are your spells won’t be cast. You must take a lot of risk against deamons, but you can win.

Against Khorne, don’t use magic on his troops. In stead use it on your own troops.

Other

Since I haven’t played against any other armies, I can’t give you advice on them. Yet if you play like a goblin, run, hide and backstab, you’ll have a lot of fun and a decent chance of winning.

Greatings

Raymond (a.k.a. Mushroom Mighty Nightgoblin Great Shaman, Leader of the Stonedmoontribe.)