How to Play Gloomspite Gitz in Warhammer Age of Sigmar (4th Edition)

Everything Gloomspite revolves around the Bad Moon. At the start of each battle round it shows one of four faces, cycling unpredictably — commonly reported as Grinnin', Scowlin', Sulkin' and Cacklin' — and the current face changes which of your units gets a bonus that round.

• Under the Light of the Bad Moon: the active face hands out a rotating buff. Broadly: goblins (non-Squig Moonclan) get a control-score boost for holding objectives; squigs get better movement (a reliable value instead of an unpredictable roll); troggoths get better durability (reducing enemy Rend against them); and spiderfang get improved critical hits. The exact face-to-bonus mapping is what you plan around each round.
• Creeping Gloom: your non-Monster, non-War Machine units hugging a friendly terrain feature become effectively unseeable to distant enemies — a strong tool for protecting fragile screens and objective-holders.
• The Moon itself can drift off the board or into awkward positions, and manifestations/other rules can provide alternative light, so you are managing a semi-random buff engine rather than a guaranteed one.

The key mental model: you don't fully control which buff comes up, so you build a list that is happy under most faces and sequence your aggressive plays for the round the Moon favours the relevant unit type.

The 4th-edition battletome offers several battle formations, each granting one signature ability. Confirmed formations include:

• Gloomspite Horde — the generalist grot/spider option ("Spreading Loonacy"): lets a few of your Moonclan/Spiderfang units in combat pile in and deal mortal damage, rewarding wide, grindy infantry engagements.
• Troggherd — the troggoth anvil build ("Herd Healing"): your troggoths heal whenever they fight, making already-tough monsters absurdly sticky on objectives.
• Squigalanche — the aggro squig build ("Bouncing Fury"): charging squigs gain extra fang attacks, leaning into fast alpha strikes.
• Gitmob Pack — a mobile raider build ("Git and Run"): gitmob units can deal mortal damage and slip out of combat in your movement phase, enabling hit-and-run play.

Other formations reported in the battletome include Sunbiter Pack (gitmob Rend support on the charge) and Gittish Tide (grot objective-control). Pick the formation that matches the core of your list — troggoths, squigs, grots or gitmob — because the formation ability should reinforce your main win condition, not sit unused.

• Rockgut / Fellwater / Dankhold Troggoths — durable, self-healing anvils. In Troggherd they become premier objective-holders that shrug off damage and mend every combat.
• Squig Hoppers, Boingrot Bounderz, Mangler Squigs — fast, high-volume glass-cannon hitters. Great damage on the charge, fragile if left exposed; your hammers.
• Stabbas / Shootas (Moonclan grots) — cheap, numerous battleline. Screens, objective-holders and control-score bodies that soak buffs from the Moon.
• Loonsmasha / Sneaky Snufflers and Fanatics — ambush/trap tools hidden among grot units to punish enemy charges.
• Skragrott, the Loonking — a signature wizard and support piece who helps manipulate the Bad Moon and boosts your casting.
• Loonbosses (foot and on Mangler Squig) — cheap heroes providing buffs, orders and squig support.
• Spiderfang (Arachnarok Spider, Spider Riders) — highly mobile flankers; strong movement but generally considered the softer of the army's themes.
• Gitmob units — the newer raider element bringing mobility and ranged pressure, enabled by the Gitmob Pack/Sunbiter formations.
• Loonshrine (faction terrain) & manifestations/endless spells — support the Bad Moon theme and can return slain grots; part of the army's staying power.

Gloomspite Gitz is a horde-control army with a monster spine. You win primarily on objectives: flood the board with cheap grots, protect them with terrain and Creeping Gloom, and use control-score buffs from the Bad Moon to out-hold your opponent.

A typical gameplan:

1. Deploy wide. Use grot blocks and troggoths to claim and screen objectives early; keep fragile squigs and spiders back until you have a target. 2. Read the Moon. Each round, note which face is up and push the favoured unit type — charge squigs when they get their movement/attack boost, dig troggoths in when they get Rend reduction, contest hard with grots when their control score spikes. 3. Anvil and hammer. Troggoths hold the line and grind; squigs (and spiders/gitmob) deliver the alpha strike into softened or over-extended enemies. 4. Grind them out. Between healing troggoths, cheap replaceable grots and objective control, you aim to win the attrition and scoring war rather than tabling the enemy.

Magic and support (Skragrott, Loonbosses, manifestations) tie it together, but the core loop is: screen, hold, read the Moon, then commit your hammer at the right moment.

• Over-committing squigs. They hit hard but die fast. Charging them into a full-health, buffed line — especially on a Moon face that isn't helping them — trades your best damage for little.
• Ignoring the Bad Moon's randomness. Planning as if a specific face will appear leads to whiffed turns. Build and play so you're fine under most faces, and only gamble when the payoff is decisive.
• Losing the screen. Grots are your objective engine; feeding them away carelessly (or leaving them out of terrain/Creeping Gloom range) collapses your board control.
• Leaning on spiders as a main plan. Spiderfang are mobile but widely regarded as the weaker theme; treat them as flankers, not your win condition.
• When they struggle: against elite, high-Rend armies that can chew through troggoths and blast grot blocks off objectives faster than you can replace them, or opponents who deny space so the Moon's buffs and your screens can't do their work. Grots are only good in numbers with support — isolated, they fold.