Howdy Howdy Howdy everyone. So today I'm going to chat a little bit about Beastmen. They're one of the armies I'm seriously considering playing next and I'd like to share some thoughts on these furry little guys. And maybe get some feedback and your thoughts on them too. First off, let me indulge you with a little of their fluff. So basically Beastmen came into existence after the great catastrophe. Those silly Old Ones' super power gates (or whatever) collapsed and Chaos spills into the world. Huge chunks of physical Chaos comes crashing down to the ground and those unfortunate to be near them get caught up in a lot of bad joo-joo. There's lots of death and all that, but more importantly there are lots of mutations. People and animals are spliced into hideous forms filled with vile intent. Limbs bend backwards like that of goats. Minds are filled with hatred and suffering. Fangs sprout, muscles split, and the world is for ever tainted as the true children of Chaos are born. I like to picture it as, at one moment the world is like Farmville, then the next it is a vision from Hell. This is the beginning of the Beastmen.
Okay, so for a long time these terrible creatures multiply and rule the forests of the old world. They live violent uncivilized lives and feed on the puny prey known as man. As far as the Beastmen are concerned their pretty much living in Heaven. Which to us would be Hell. Anyway one day some uppety young man with a big golden warhammer (I wonder who that could be?) shows up and unites the tribes of men. Suddenly man is no longer prey and in fact re-takes much of the old world. They start building walls and cities and prosper like never before. The great golden age of man begins and everyone is pretty happy about it. Except of course the Beastmen. They despise man more then ever now. They see his walls and buildings as an insult to anarchy. They see man as a creature who has cheated his way into the world. The Beastmen want nothing more then to restore the "true" order of the universe, and thus prepare their armies and champions of anarchy for war...
Cool. So as you can tell these guys are pretty bad ass. Their fluff is a major draw for me. I love the idea of "the thing in the woods" and I feel like their latest edition (which is still super old) has turned "the thing in the woods" from being a scary monster to an entire civilization of monsters, waiting to come get us. I like the flavor of such hatred for man and lust for violence. The sheer menace of them seems so obvious and terrifying. So I think their concept is pretty darn cool but what about in game? Let's have a look at what these guys bring to the table.
So I know the Beasts don't get a lot of love out there on the net. And I will admit I definitely think there are some problems with them. But I'll get to that later because I think they have some awesome rules and abilities and could make a very decent list. First off is their speed. Your entire army has at least movement 5. This is good because you want to get these guys into combat as fast as you can. Combat is the key with the Beastmen. They have next to nothing in terms of shooting and I'd use lore of Beasts or Shadows for magic to get them into/buff their combats. They are quick. Their base troops, Gors, are moving at 5", the Minotaurs are at 6" and the Tusker Chariots and Chaos Warhounds are 7". The Gors, Tusker Chariots and Warhounds all count as core so there are going to be a fair few of them on the table and moving fast. So that's good.
Pretty much all Beastmen (though not Minotauurs unfortunately) have a bloody awesome rule called Primal Fury. What it allows you to do is each round of combat your in, your unit takes a Leadership test and if it's passed you gain hatred to whatever your fighting until the end of the combat round. You can re-roll missed hits even if it's not the first round of combat too. And if you roll snake eyes the unit gains hatred AND frenzy. For me, this is what makes Beastmen very viable. Now I know Beastmen have terrible Leadership and that's one of their biggest problems. But, if your General is around and a Battle Standard Bearer then you have a damn good chance of making these rolls. You won't get it every time but you will get it most of the time. And every now and then you'll roll a double 1 too and that will be a very pleasant surprise. To you anyway...
So the other major army special rule is Beastmen Ambush. Honestly I don't know how I feel about this.I remember how brutal it used to be. Huge units of Gors popping up behind me. It used to be intense, but now it's not so much. The way it works now is if you have a unit of Gors, Ungors or Raiders deployed on the table you can then put a smaller unit of the same type in ambush. Then each turn (including Turn 1 which is pretty cool) you roll a dice for each unit to see what happens.
1. The enemy chooses which side of the board they come out on.
2,3. Nothing happens, roll again next turn.
4. They enter play from the Beastmen players left
5. They enter from the right.
6. Beastmen player chooses where they enter (including behind the enemy!).
So it's kind of quite random where they come out. My problem with it is that they may well be out of range from your General or BSB especially if the enemy chooses where they come out and then if they need to make a panic check and fail they're straight off the table again. So I might have to tinker with it a little bit to see how well it works or not.
Alright lets have a look at some troops and characters. So there a 3 types of lords you can take. Beastlord, Doombull or Great Bray Shamans. The Beastlords are pretty good. Nice and hitty with pretty descent stats and a lovely Leadership of 9 (remember Primal Fury). Once their tooled up with 100pts of items and Chaos Gifts (oh yeah Beastmen get gifts!) they become pretty damn good. Not all that survivable but they can certainly dish it out. A fine choice for the General. Next up is the Doombull. A Minotaur lord! This guy is tough. He weighs in a little expensive for points but that's okay. His stat line is lovely. He has Blood Greed (so everytime he wins combat he gains another attack for the rest of the game "WOO WOO"). Plus he gets D3 impact hits and a stomp attack. However there are some issues with these big boys. Their Leadership is only 8, they can only over run D6" and they don't get Primal Fury. Still if you want a hard hitting, flesh eating, enemy shitting their pants lord, the Doombull could be a good choice. Finally there are the Bray Shamans. These are your casters and their not too bad either. Look the Lore of the Wild is honestly pretty rubbish but they can use Death, Shadow or Beasts and any of these seem to work well with Beastmen. Again these guys are only Leadership 8 but for a caster they have a surprising amount of punch. So they could do well in a unit. There are Hero versions of all 3 lords with exactly the same special rules just with slightly crappier stats.
Now in terms of troops you have a bunch of fast, lightly armored combat goats. Gors are pretty descent. Weapon Skill 4 and Toughness 4 is pretty good for core troops. You can give them an extra hand weapon too giving them 2 attacks re-rolling (if you Primal Fury). Coming in at 8 pts a piece with the extra attack their pretty solid. I'd suggest big blocks of them as they have NO armor. Ungors are crap versions of Gors and at a starting price of 5 points each I'd give them a pass. Although Ungor Raiders are half descent. They are skirmished Ungors with short bows. These guys could make a real nuisance of themselves as they can Ambush. Although watch out cause there only Leadership 6. Tusker Chariots are good. Their fast, hitty and core. Could be used well in supporting combats with ambushing Gors. Chaos Warhounds certainly aren't the best unit in Warhammer but they are bloody quick and as I said earlier speed is you ally. I'm sure I could find a use for them. Then things start to get bigger. I quite like Bestigors. Heavy armor and Great Weapons so their punching at Strength 6. And their Despoilers rule means when they capture enemy standards they can use them for combat resolution. Units of Minotaurs seem scary, they get the impact hit, Blood Greed and stomps. They're Strength 5 with 3 Attacks. Nice and brutal. Razorgors seem nice too (although they have the worst models of all time). Again fast, tough and hitty. Plus they can pull chariots. Stick a Hero in that chariot and he'll make a dent alright. Centigors, for me they're too expensive and their models are way too shit. Sorry but pass. Harpies are cheap and fast = good and good. Also they have 2 attacks which is handy for a flying unit. Try to get them up against war machine crew or archers on the flanks to allow your ambushers a clear passage.
Then things get bigger again...
The Cygor has an awesome model but unless your going up against an extremely magic army (like Grey Knights or something) I think they're a bit crap. True you get essentially a Stone Thrower with them and they have some strange abilities but if you want a big scary brute go with either a Giant or a Ghorgon. The Giants are fun to play with their random attack styles and the Ghorgon? Let's just say it puts the Beast in Beastmen. The Chaos Spawn is too expensive for something so random. Which is a shame cause they're unbreakable and (I think) really cool. Then there's the good old Jabberslythe. This thing is tough, it flies, it has a shooting attack, it's poisonous , causes Terror and it makes peeps turn insane. Awesome.
So I won't go through the named characters cause I never use them and I won't go through the items cause I can't be fucked (sorry). But I will say this. There are 2 items I can see real potential with. First is the Beast Banner. It cost 75 points so it needs to go with a BSB but you want one of those any way for your Primal Fury. Basically it gives the unit it's in +1 Strength. This is great. Get it on a big block of Gors who are now Weapon Skill 4, Strength 4, Toughness 4, 2 Attacks and re-rolling missed hits (with your Primal Fury). That's going to hurt somebody. Then we have the Shard of the Herdstone. It's sick. At the start of the Magic Phase all friendly wizards within 6" of it generate a Power Dice? Yes fucking Please. If you ever play as Beastmen please promise me you'll use this. It's only 50 points so a Hero Bray Shaman can take it. Having 1 or 2 little wizards hanging around the shard, casting normally AND creating 1 or 2 more Power Dice is brilliant. Do it, Do it, DO IT.......
And to finish up I guess the only real tactic with these guys is to hit hard and hit fast. They have minimal armor and all their strength is in combat. So you need to make sure when you hit them, they can't hit back hard. Try to out number, try to out maneuver and surround, and try to do it fast. This is where your Beastmen Ambush could be really effective but be careful! You want to out number, you don't want a unit of Gors just popping up all by itself in front of like ten thousand orcs or something. Their Leadership isn't great so you really don't want to get locked into a combat you could lose. Shooting will be a real issue against the Beasts so use your speed. Learn to keep your units out of each others way whilst close enough for them to double charge. Charge, win combat, run down, repeat. Keep your troops within range to use the Generals Leadership and BSB to get your Primal Fury happening. Tear down their walls, destroy their icons, break their spirits and kill, kill, KILL. Return man to his true position in the world........
Well that's it from me. As I said I'm considering collecting Beasts so let me know what you think of the article and point out what I've missed/completely got wrong. I'm tossing up between Beasts, Dark Elves and Warriors of Chaos, so expect a run down for each. Until then good luck on the battlefield and beware the thing in the woods...
Jimzan.
Okay, so for a long time these terrible creatures multiply and rule the forests of the old world. They live violent uncivilized lives and feed on the puny prey known as man. As far as the Beastmen are concerned their pretty much living in Heaven. Which to us would be Hell. Anyway one day some uppety young man with a big golden warhammer (I wonder who that could be?) shows up and unites the tribes of men. Suddenly man is no longer prey and in fact re-takes much of the old world. They start building walls and cities and prosper like never before. The great golden age of man begins and everyone is pretty happy about it. Except of course the Beastmen. They despise man more then ever now. They see his walls and buildings as an insult to anarchy. They see man as a creature who has cheated his way into the world. The Beastmen want nothing more then to restore the "true" order of the universe, and thus prepare their armies and champions of anarchy for war...
Cool. So as you can tell these guys are pretty bad ass. Their fluff is a major draw for me. I love the idea of "the thing in the woods" and I feel like their latest edition (which is still super old) has turned "the thing in the woods" from being a scary monster to an entire civilization of monsters, waiting to come get us. I like the flavor of such hatred for man and lust for violence. The sheer menace of them seems so obvious and terrifying. So I think their concept is pretty darn cool but what about in game? Let's have a look at what these guys bring to the table.
Pretty much all Beastmen (though not Minotauurs unfortunately) have a bloody awesome rule called Primal Fury. What it allows you to do is each round of combat your in, your unit takes a Leadership test and if it's passed you gain hatred to whatever your fighting until the end of the combat round. You can re-roll missed hits even if it's not the first round of combat too. And if you roll snake eyes the unit gains hatred AND frenzy. For me, this is what makes Beastmen very viable. Now I know Beastmen have terrible Leadership and that's one of their biggest problems. But, if your General is around and a Battle Standard Bearer then you have a damn good chance of making these rolls. You won't get it every time but you will get it most of the time. And every now and then you'll roll a double 1 too and that will be a very pleasant surprise. To you anyway...
So the other major army special rule is Beastmen Ambush. Honestly I don't know how I feel about this.I remember how brutal it used to be. Huge units of Gors popping up behind me. It used to be intense, but now it's not so much. The way it works now is if you have a unit of Gors, Ungors or Raiders deployed on the table you can then put a smaller unit of the same type in ambush. Then each turn (including Turn 1 which is pretty cool) you roll a dice for each unit to see what happens.
1. The enemy chooses which side of the board they come out on.
2,3. Nothing happens, roll again next turn.
4. They enter play from the Beastmen players left
5. They enter from the right.
6. Beastmen player chooses where they enter (including behind the enemy!).
So it's kind of quite random where they come out. My problem with it is that they may well be out of range from your General or BSB especially if the enemy chooses where they come out and then if they need to make a panic check and fail they're straight off the table again. So I might have to tinker with it a little bit to see how well it works or not.
 |
| Gor Herd. (Gamesworkshops) |
Alright lets have a look at some troops and characters. So there a 3 types of lords you can take. Beastlord, Doombull or Great Bray Shamans. The Beastlords are pretty good. Nice and hitty with pretty descent stats and a lovely Leadership of 9 (remember Primal Fury). Once their tooled up with 100pts of items and Chaos Gifts (oh yeah Beastmen get gifts!) they become pretty damn good. Not all that survivable but they can certainly dish it out. A fine choice for the General. Next up is the Doombull. A Minotaur lord! This guy is tough. He weighs in a little expensive for points but that's okay. His stat line is lovely. He has Blood Greed (so everytime he wins combat he gains another attack for the rest of the game "WOO WOO"). Plus he gets D3 impact hits and a stomp attack. However there are some issues with these big boys. Their Leadership is only 8, they can only over run D6" and they don't get Primal Fury. Still if you want a hard hitting, flesh eating, enemy shitting their pants lord, the Doombull could be a good choice. Finally there are the Bray Shamans. These are your casters and their not too bad either. Look the Lore of the Wild is honestly pretty rubbish but they can use Death, Shadow or Beasts and any of these seem to work well with Beastmen. Again these guys are only Leadership 8 but for a caster they have a surprising amount of punch. So they could do well in a unit. There are Hero versions of all 3 lords with exactly the same special rules just with slightly crappier stats.
Then things get bigger again...
The Cygor has an awesome model but unless your going up against an extremely magic army (like Grey Knights or something) I think they're a bit crap. True you get essentially a Stone Thrower with them and they have some strange abilities but if you want a big scary brute go with either a Giant or a Ghorgon. The Giants are fun to play with their random attack styles and the Ghorgon? Let's just say it puts the Beast in Beastmen. The Chaos Spawn is too expensive for something so random. Which is a shame cause they're unbreakable and (I think) really cool. Then there's the good old Jabberslythe. This thing is tough, it flies, it has a shooting attack, it's poisonous , causes Terror and it makes peeps turn insane. Awesome.
So I won't go through the named characters cause I never use them and I won't go through the items cause I can't be fucked (sorry). But I will say this. There are 2 items I can see real potential with. First is the Beast Banner. It cost 75 points so it needs to go with a BSB but you want one of those any way for your Primal Fury. Basically it gives the unit it's in +1 Strength. This is great. Get it on a big block of Gors who are now Weapon Skill 4, Strength 4, Toughness 4, 2 Attacks and re-rolling missed hits (with your Primal Fury). That's going to hurt somebody. Then we have the Shard of the Herdstone. It's sick. At the start of the Magic Phase all friendly wizards within 6" of it generate a Power Dice? Yes fucking Please. If you ever play as Beastmen please promise me you'll use this. It's only 50 points so a Hero Bray Shaman can take it. Having 1 or 2 little wizards hanging around the shard, casting normally AND creating 1 or 2 more Power Dice is brilliant. Do it, Do it, DO IT.......
And to finish up I guess the only real tactic with these guys is to hit hard and hit fast. They have minimal armor and all their strength is in combat. So you need to make sure when you hit them, they can't hit back hard. Try to out number, try to out maneuver and surround, and try to do it fast. This is where your Beastmen Ambush could be really effective but be careful! You want to out number, you don't want a unit of Gors just popping up all by itself in front of like ten thousand orcs or something. Their Leadership isn't great so you really don't want to get locked into a combat you could lose. Shooting will be a real issue against the Beasts so use your speed. Learn to keep your units out of each others way whilst close enough for them to double charge. Charge, win combat, run down, repeat. Keep your troops within range to use the Generals Leadership and BSB to get your Primal Fury happening. Tear down their walls, destroy their icons, break their spirits and kill, kill, KILL. Return man to his true position in the world........
Well that's it from me. As I said I'm considering collecting Beasts so let me know what you think of the article and point out what I've missed/completely got wrong. I'm tossing up between Beasts, Dark Elves and Warriors of Chaos, so expect a run down for each. Until then good luck on the battlefield and beware the thing in the woods...
Jimzan.
No comments:
Post a Comment