# Do beastmen suck?



## mahavira (Jan 10, 2010)

Vaguely looking around for an alternate army (not that I intend on giving up Dark Elves any time soon) and Beastmen seemed to be about as far removed from DE as you can get, and have some interesting options, but I note that virtually nobody seems to play them (I think they're the only battle magic cards that didn't instantly sell out, for example). Am I missing some hideous flaw that renders them garbage, or do people just dislike the fluff and models?


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

I think a lot of "competitive" gamers find them underpowered. But there really is nothing wrong with them. The Ambush mechanic has always been a little dodgy, I think... but you can do some really cool things with the Beastmen. They have more monsters to choose from than anyone else, and can nicely compliment them with Ungor Skirmishers. I always liked the idea of a Doombull leading a bunch of berserk minotaurs through a whole mess of enemy infantry while the Ungor bowmen take care of cannon crews and whatnot. 

The more "traditional" Beastmen army that's a tide of Gors and Ungors doesn't seem bad either. They're fast, they've got a decent weapon skill, and they're not expensive points-wise. They don't take hits back very well, though, so they have a sort of "one round of combat" style to them-- you either win or lose on round one, and if you lose, the unit's done. Almost like a 7th edition cavalry army, but with 200 infantry models instead of like 30 horsemen.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

They're kind of a glass hammer... Hard hitting if you use it right, but fragile as hell if used wrong. 

The real problem with them is that everything they try to do, theres already an army out there that does it better.

Monsterous infantry? Ogre Kingdoms.
Magic? Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen. Pretty much everyone.
Hordes? Skaven and Orcs.

And so on... They're not a bad army if you know how to play them, but if you don't know how to play them you will get screwed over alot.


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

I think that in the right hands they are a great army to play against, I have played them a fair few times each with skaven and with empire and with both armies it was a real challenge.

The Core choice of Gors can be complete combat monsters especially if you horde them up and roll lucky on your bestial fury rolls -double 1 is frenzy and hatred if i remember correctly, ok so they are lightly armoured but anything with S4 or less is going to struggle against T4 core troops.

The ambush rule is very hit or miss since the ambushing unit is usually far from the Generals leadership if they lose a combat and flee you've just thrown a load of victory points in your opponants lap.

I do like the army and do think that it is under represented and would collect them but have just finished painting my last skaven (500th model) and cannot face painting anymore fur.


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

The vocal minority on the interwebs cried foul because the Beastmen weren't given any 'instant win' button options... (ie: they're balanced!)

Beasts work well in 8th ed, though the rares might be a tad over-costed and will require alot of finess to use well. (cygors are nasty as hell though this edition with the prevalence of magic!)

While the lore of the wild can be hit or miss, even having just a couple of Lv1's wit hthe signature lore of beasts spell is rather tasty! Sure those gors die in droves against S4 enemies, but get off a +1S/T buff on them or god forbid, those minotaurs and those beastmen start turning most opponents into little red smears...

Beasts are a fun army, they require forthought in how to get the most out of them and they don't take hits much better than elves do.
And while they don't get the shiny toys & insane amounts of special abilities that other armies get, they have their own tactics & tricks and you can't get around their single-minded savagry! (primal fury - which gets infinitely better near a BSB)

Cheers!


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

*orly, interwebz?*

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say "beastmen suck". However we have a book that is f_or the most part_, balanced. (Rares, I'm looking at you!) 

The trouble arrives when you meet the armies that are not balanced. There are many. 
Our book was written with some aspects of 8th, and many thoughts of 7th still in the designers minds.

*
Lore of the WILD*
Right off the bat, the 'lore of the wild' is rubbish. There's nothing to it. I've tried and tried to make this lore work, but it's like taking a rubber chicken to a bazooka fight (in the magic phase).
Everything this lore has, the lore of Beasts does better. 
Others, are questionable. leadership tests nullify some spells in the edition of BSBs and decent to good ldr.
The sig spell can actually make you collide with your own units....cutting it short. Not so handy. 
Vile-tide is pretty good, but there's a bound item that does it without having to chance you'll get the spell.


There's many good things about the army and many bad. I love the beasts, but there are some glaring short comings. 

First the good.

*Primal Fury:* This is a LD based hatred that can be infinite. Amazing for our army, but near useless w/o BSB/ gen nearby as our leadership is sub-average to poor. The BSB/Gen bubble becomes *incredibly* valuable in this army.
When you have re-rolls to hit on gors w/AHW in horde formation, you'll love seeing the dice fly on 40+ re-rolls. ...just through sheer strength of numbers can you pull down most units. 

*Speed:* we're a maneuverable army w/ M5. Not that special, but with fast moving Razorgors and some ambushers (don't go overboard on the ambushers) you'd be surprised how many good flanks you can smash into....moreso with all the 'elite' armies out there. 
*
Nasty tricks:* The herdstone, Jagged dagger, hag-tree fetish, stone of spite, gnarled hide, Ramhorn helm are all some of many tricks that have some opponents swearing that beastmen are 'too powerful'. (most people don't like you imploding their grey-seer)
*
Rough and tumble characters*: Doombulls are essentially Bloodthirsters for much less and more customizable. beastlords can dish out the hurt and can stand up to most everything.
*
Magic*: Magic is what keeps this army alive. Through augments and hexxes, we can swing key fights our way....that being said, it's also an Achilles heel.

*Bestigors:* The hard hitting gors with a shred of armor. Amazing. Don't underestimate them. However, know that most other 'elites' will rock them. So be careful. 

*
The Baaaaaaaaaad:*(sorry, I had to) 

*What army again?*: Our price isn't truly a 'horde' army, yet the stats are nearly that of a horde army. Zero armor on most and 'heavy' on our elite means you'll have many heartaches at the hands of shooting. 

*I can haz moo-core?:* Last edition we had 'core' minotaurs if you took a doombull as a general. No longer. 
Minotaurs are incredibly difficult to field properly, and in a 'all comers list', they'll get picked off one by one by most armies. 
Minotaurs are very point inefficent and easy targets. 
*
Lack of Variety:* there's honestly not a lot units we can reliably choose from. 
Gors, ungors, ungor raiders, Bestigors, Razorgos, harpies. That's it for most 'competitive' lists. 

Rares: Our rares are horrible. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. In a vaccum, they're not too bad, but outside of it....they go down. Lack of any saves or wards that most rares rock, our overpriced (near 2 hydras for one ghorgon...) rares are surprisingly delicate. For being the 'monster army', we sure do suck at monsters. 



Many things I'm torn on, or just take moderation. One is AMBUSH. The brb rules are far better, without a doubt. While nice for our raiders, they are out of the ld bubble, making any loss of numbers a near certain loss of the unit. To make the ambush rules useful, there needs to be a re-write.

Lack of some phases hurts bad. Many people cite their weaknesses of their 'super kill units' (Sword masters etc) as shooting. When you rock pretty much negligible shooting, this hurts. We don't have the sheer numbers to put up with that as our units are fair priced to over-priced. Elite meat grinders will run through you unless you think of new and effective methods.

Don't get me wrong, Beastmen are very fun. You need to be on the top of your game as one mistake and you'll see your army go down in flames. 
We don't have any "win button". We don't have stubborn/5+ ward, no hordes of poisoned attacks, no monster that makes enemies crap themselves....but we have solid waves of infantry that can pound the enemy into the ground and rub their banner in their own blood and our feces.
*
Then watch the besotted banner fly as the world burns. *

In an age of infantry, we do well. 
Play to our strengths, know your enemy and don't get too fancy.

and in playstyle, almost as different from DE as you can get. No shooting (effective), no super elite, higher toughness, less fancy footwork, more charge and hack (with a infinite hatred like black guard i_f you do it right_) 

Hope that helps!


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## mahavira (Jan 10, 2010)

Thanks for the feedback, all.

I'm a little surprised that Minotaurs get such low marks - I would have thought impact hits, possible frenzy, and T5 to go with the S5 and ability to take armor looked good. Cygors, as moving stone throwers with the ability to throw down against the usual war machine hunters likewise looked pretty good.

I think I'll proxy a few games (assuming I can find enough models) and decide after. No surprise the core lores are stronger than the race lore, most race lores are like that.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Yeah, it's a shame.
I love the minos and it's a good point of why I started the army.

They only have access to light armor. Shields are near worthless as they lose parry save in frenzy....and the shield is pretty expensive. If they could have heavy armor, i could be swayed.

Plus they're only T4. Not T5. That means they're super beefy gors.
Bestigors, point for point out perform them in nearly everything. 

That being said, don't count out the doombull/ gorebull.


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

blackspine said:


> First the good.
> 
> *Primal Fury:* This is a LD based hatred that can be infinite. Amazing for our army, but near useless w/o BSB/ gen nearby as our leadership is sub-average to poor. The BSB/Gen bubble becomes *incredibly* valuable in this army.
> When you have re-rolls to hit on gors w/AHW in horde formation, you'll love seeing the dice fly on 40+ re-rolls. ...just through sheer strength of numbers can you pull down most units.
> ...


The amount of times I have targetted Minotaurs over a horde of Gors is just stupid, I know that the Gors will probably hurt me a lot more then Minotaurs could but still I just can't help myself shooting the bigger beasts and ignoring that massive tray of Gors heading my way oh and Beastial Fury double ones...


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## BozlyLittle (Jul 3, 2011)

I once played beastmen now a days i think they are prepping them for an update maybe but yes they did get the short end of the stick especially on physical price 10 packs when you need hundreds of the buggers. now the good thing is almost all of them hit like a charm in close combat but your like a cuddly kitten you will hit but will make wonderful scratch art on their armor. And then you'll die. As far as being a chunk of cheddar list its hard to make it that way but they deffinately are a fun army. and i agree with the comments take lore of beasts never underestimate that lore.


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## Firefighter X (Apr 21, 2010)

My mate runs a Gorthor Beastman chariot army with like 8-11 chariots and a 60 strong block of beastmen as an anvil, to great effect. He steam rolls everything that's put on the table against him. Which is great considering we've got some real powergamer choads at my FLGS that are real sore losers/winners.

It's agrivating as hell to play against but great fun to watch.

FFX


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## KarnalBloodfist (Jan 30, 2010)

Blackspine pretty much hit it right on the head. Out of the trinity of Chaos books (Beastmen, Daemons, and Warriors), Beastmen definitely got the shaft. The book came out during 7th Ed. but had 8th Ed. in mind. Their "cheap" horde unit (ungors) aren't super cheap like marauders or slaves. The mainstay core unit (gors) are sort of in that nether region - they could be a point cheaper but then some might complain about the _Primal Fury_ rule. Beastmen infantry relies a lot on getting buffs or having the crap hexed out of the enemy. Their elite unit (bestigors) don't hold a candle to other armies' elites and like Blackspine has mentioned, the _Primal Fury_ really relies on the BSB/Ld bubble to work correctly.

I think the tuskgor chariots are slightly overlooked. They supply great support for out infantry heavy army, help fill the points for core, and are relatively cheap. Some people really fear chariots and will shoot them until they are wiped out leaving our relatively fast blocks almost whole and ready to beat them down. It is a shame, though, that the tuskgors themselves got neutered - why did GW take away the _Tusker Charge_? Regular boars in O&G still get it. Tuskgors are supposed to be mutated, more fierce boars!


The thing about minos is that their points went up but they became less useful. The minos were great in 7th as MSU was still a great way to play due to lack of _Step Up_ and _Support Attacks_. Now, small units of them get thrashed where the ubiquitous "Mino-bus" just can be avoided/fed chaff/magiced and/or shot to death. I have found one thing that works well for me: Since I play against a flamer heavy Daemon list a lot, I take a unit of 6 minotaurs w/ AHWs and a bloodkine (unit champion that can take up to 25pts of magic items) and the Blackened Plate which gives the bearer a 2+ ward vs _Flaming_ and the unit gets a 4+ ward. But that is very situational. I know some people like to run a pimped out doombull/gorebull connected to a unit of ungors and then charge out of them to pound face. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds interesting.

The rares are really, really cool ... but basically USELESS!!! No uber-T like the Sphinxes and no saves of any kind make them HUGE targets for anyone who wants to throw a stick at them. Some of the abilities are cool on paper but not very useful game wise. You're better off taking another unit of 30 gors w/ AHW and FC or a unit of 50 ungor w/ FC (both of which, btw, are cheaper than any of the new rares by 10pts). I'm also still trying to figure out why the Beastmen giant is 25pts more than the O&G giant. Is _Immune to Psychology_ and _Longstrider_ really worth 25pts!?!? Spawn are nice fluffwise, but really nothing to write home about.

I think Beastmen are a really fun army to play. They are more akin to Warriors of Chaos w/ their "in your face combat" style of play. They take a LOT of practice to win with. Everything has to work well together or you're basically screwed. They are balanced but to the point of mediocrity. All of the new books are, IMO, better than Beastmen. If you're an uber-competative player, Beastmen are probably an army to avoid. If you love fun lists, fluff and converting, this is the army for you. Especially converting as there are no models for the new rares (don't get us beast players started on that one ).


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## sybarite (Aug 10, 2009)

BozlyLittle said:


> I once played beastmen now a days i think they are prepping them for an update maybe but yes they did get the short end of the stick especially on physical price 10 packs when you need hundreds of the buggers.


while l do think beastmen need an update there is one army that needs it far more Bert. Then it will be out of BM and WE (starter set anyone?)

on the topic the main issue with beast men is choice, for example if there units could take a magic banner like most other army's it would help out a lot.

and blackshine sum up everything else.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

sybarite said:


> while l do think beastmen need an update there is one army that needs it far more Bert. Then it will be out of BM and WE (starter set anyone?)
> 
> Oh yes! Some armies need an update badly (looking at you Bretts) or just a rolling strink of WD updates would do wonders
> 
> ...


 That alone, magic banners on gors, would solve tons.
Funny enough, there's banners that are clearly designed FOR GORS, yet they can't take them.
Totem of rust: all enemy units in 6" -1AS and any contacting unit recieve -2 (including the bearing unit!!! **) So, why would we ever put this on our gorgeous bestigors who are the only ones with a shred of armor? 
Banner of outrage: Unit passes Primal fury, but enemy gains hatred (***). Clearly meant for an ambushing unit of gors (bestigors can't ambush) to gain primal fury since they'll be out of BSB/ Gen bubble.....but viloa!!! they CAN'T hold banners


**: is this the only book where the banners are as much negative as positive? And for a pretty steep price?


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## Hand of Deff (Sep 28, 2011)

I think the models look really nice


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## LordofFenris (Mar 10, 2010)

1. I 100% strongly agree with blackspine. It seems intentional on some of the banner creations to used by Gors, but alas we get no banner.

2. To the OP: It depends on what you are playing. They seem like they should be horde, but they aren't cheap. 7pts for a core unit is steep in comparison to units for Empire for example, esp. without any real armor. I use Beastmen, but only in specific lists. My gaming group has a simple rule. The core rules are 8th Edition and those are what we use. You may use anything else that has been printed by GW in the present or past. This allows me to play Hordes of Chaos, which means Beastmen. IF you want to use them, but shy away from buying a complete army since they probably won't do well against many of the mainstream armies played currently, I would talk to your gaming group and try it out. A battalion box will get you all you need if you already own any Warriors and/or Daemons models for Fantasy. The books are also cheap on ebay or Amazon. I picked up both the Hordes of Chaos and Beasts of Chaos books for $13. (You will need both) They aren't great on their own, but throw in a unit of Warriors and Bloodletters, and it can get interesting. Don't worry about fairness either. At first my group were concerned about the old Marks of Tzeentch and Khorne affecting Magic. After a few games, we found it to be a non issue because of points costs. Yes I can generate 4 extra power dice, but the Mark of Tzeentch is expensive!


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

Beastmen are below average in terms of competitiveness. They even get points comp in ETC due to that. However, two top-ranked US players play that army in our area and are able to win with Beastmen. One uses a lot of wizards with Shard of the Herdstone (one lord and up to three hero levels) and lores of death and beasts and hordes to make the army work. 

They also run interference and redirection units that are sacrificial to delay combat. Single razogors are used for flank attacks and for holding up units. Harpies are used to hunt war machines and get in the way. Raiders are similarly used for harassment and redirection. Tuskgor Chariots are used to charge something and get in the way. 

Gors point cost per model is because of M5 instead of M4, primary fury and T4 but have no armour and must pay extra for a shield, so they are probably a point too expensive. Similarly, ungors cost per model is due to coming with shields and primary fury. As long as the BSB is in range and they have leadership, both units can be surprisingly effective. Bestigors are real winners but are similarly abouit a point or two too expensive (due to GW perhaps overvaluing great weapons and primal fury). 8th edition (with the step up and supporting attacks rules) made Bestigors a lot better. 

The biggest problem for beastmen is that it does not have a lot of shooting and can struggle against an army that bunkers back and fires away with long-range magic and shooting. With the Herd Stone, the preferred strategy is to bunker back with the casters and pick off the enemy characters with lore of death and use magic to enhance the units. But, if the enemy sits back, then that strategy may not work. The beastman ambusher mechanic is not reliable enough to deal with this issue.


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## stalarious (Aug 25, 2011)

Since Olderplayer and a few others have brought this up I wonder is their a way to make ambush more reliable? If so I would be happy with the army as it stands until 8th ed codex comes out.


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