# Beatial Surge WD article



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Hey all... Ive just been reading the latest WD and have got to the beastial surge artical and I was just wondering if I was the only one to think it complete garbage. Rhil Kelly is a legend but in this case I really couldnt get what he was aiming at.
Seems to me that his plan is to surround and destroy the enemy with combi-charges on turn 2-3 by combining ambush re-rolls and beastial surge... which is what he calls a little risky. OK, I can see this working againt the almost pure gunline armies, especially if they are M3-4, but anything that is M5-6 is going to laugh, and any army that has good combat units probably wont be caring at all about this tactic.

If you have movement 5-6" then you can just charge your way out of being flanked... if the beastmen manouver into a position to get a front and rear charge on you- unless they have made some beautiful positional decisions- then you will be able to charge the units to your front... since gors/ungors need that bonus from having a unit in your flank/rear almost anything should beat them on the charge.
If you are M3-4 then you might not be able to avoid getting charged... but you should certainly be able to move either forward or backwards to face 1 attacking unit without the other being able to charge you (eg an empire greatsword unit might be <2" out of charge range to get into the frontal unit, but about turn and move 3" backwards to face the unit behind you and then not only are the previously 'frontal' unit no longer able to charge you but the weak rear unit will now be unable to avoid you charging them next turn unless they charge you first, which you should win. If you are dwarves then the rear unit needs to get incredibly close to stop you just marching out of range- a beastial surge to get them within 4" would be great, but wasnt mentioned.


I felt a little let down by the article- Im sitting around reading it and thinking that what Phil Kelly says is kinda all true, but will only work if your opponent is a complete muppet or is somehow kept immobile for a turn (ah the gunline making a last desperate volley... but how many pure gunlines do people play anymore).
Meanwhile Ive come up with some great beatial surge thoughts of my own. I think the spell is an absolute godsend but in only about 1-2 situations. I would always through a cheap mage into ambush just to get them on the table then able to move far quicker: when they enter play they can only move 5", but add in a bray-shamen and they can double that on average. I think this is more useful if entering play from the flanks or if you roll the wrong board edge and for getting into position to screw over 1 enemy unit by yourself (so basically the weaker enemy units that have been harassing your flanks) rather then getting a co-ordinated strike going (simply because the enemy get the chance to move before you can charge ...
The second situation I think this is a godsend is if the enemy ever miscasts- getting a beastial surge in your turn means the enemy gets the chance to charge first.. but get it as a miscast result and the enemy will be in some serious trouble- suddenly you'll be racing into charge range *and* have the next turn, but I'm guessing it would simply cut short an opponent's magic phase as he wastes the dice used on the miscast, and then dispels your surge.. leaving him only few if any dice left and your dispel pool still unmolested.


I would rate this spell as a measely 4/10- a nice bonus at times, gamewinning in some limited situations but mostly pretty useless.


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## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

If what I hear is true, they might be changing around the order of the turn when 8th edition arrives, putting magic before anything else. If that's true, then you could use surge and then charge afterwards, so it would make Bestial Surge a very useful spell, just like "wolf hunts" or "danse macarbe". That's the rumour at least.

As for the article, well, I don't actually get WD any more, but I wouldn't trust most White Dwarf tactical advice, they have a habit of talking up rather improbable ideas to make bad things seem not-so-bad. Probably he was just putting out a defence of it from all the people who think it's completely useless, and he went a bit too far in praise of it. I like your assessment of it personally, useful sometimes, but not all that often.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

I find it difficult to read GW tactical advice with a straight face these days.
Anyone reading a battle report can see that GW make things up purely to sell things in their magazine and are probably trying to shift some overpriced beastmen after a poor release.
As the game stands at the moment bestial surge is a poor spell that is as likely to set you up for a fall as it is put you in a game winning position by twisting its actual abilities to make it seem game winning GW probably hope to shift a few more units of beastmen and a load of the pig ugly shamen models before people realise it's crap and revert back to just fielding the models that GW haven't got round to making yet (The ones that can actually influence the game)


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

The spell is a bit "uuhh...." yea. You hit the nail on the head for all Im concerned. The miscast detail is by far the best use of the spell, perhaps more so if combined with the Cygors that hopefully can cause mishaps to happen more often:dunno:

If the magic phase will get moved to the start of the turn instead of its current place however this spell will suddenly actually become really useful! Right now the whole Beastmen Armybook and Fantasy as a whole is a huge bit "meh" in my eyes. I really hope (which I also did for the Beastmen book release and that failed me) that 8th ed brings some new life into WHFB. Everything with Warhammer Fantasy is on ice for me now...


Fun side note is the whole evolution of the magic phase from 1st-5th where it was last, 6th-7th where its somewhat in the middle of it all and now perhaps at the start of the turn! Softening up the target (s) with spells before a charge sounds nice:grin:


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