# How do YOU handle Beastmen?



## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Ahoy ahoy.

I am trying to do some proactive homework on Beastmen as well as provide some open discussion on strategies and maneuvers.

What I'm looking for is an open answer to see what YOU would do and field, if you were facing Beastmen. There are quite a few armies that I haven't really faced off with, and I know that they will pose problems, and curious to see the 'stimulus-response'.

Yes, their army list CAN vary. However, knowing what you know (and will list below), what would you bring from your army(armies) to best the herd?

Beastmen often have:

large units of T4 AHW gors.
miscellaneous 'lone units': chariots, razor pigs, etc
Minotaurs
Large blocks of str 6 Bestigors
little to no shooting
ambush threats for warmachines /rear charges
Possible hatred/ frenzy on most units (bank on hatred for 8/10 of times)
access to lores: Shadow, death, Beast (and wild, but used less than 5%)
Movement that is at least 5 and on up to 8. a fast army


Hopefully this will give some good thoughts to both sides and encourage some creative thinking.


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## Tatsumaki (Oct 22, 2009)

Okay, I'm not sure how I would play an entire list as such, but I can think of one or two tactica on the unit/character level if it would help you ^^.

*1) Why does nobody ever take the Brass Cleaver with a Doombull? Even a Gorebull? With the number of enemies you can get in base contact, you can get 10 attacks in total! Now, try combining this with the main rulebook's potion of strength! BOOOM!! Dead chaos knights!!

2) The common entry-level Gors are much better than people seem to want to give them credit for, and I have no idea why. If you're T4, you already have the edge on empire state troops. Big hordes (around 50 models/unit) are more than capable of killing equivalent troops, and at 7 points a model you can easily afford a LOT. Don't worry too hard about ambushing war machines, by the time your ambushers show up the damage will have been done, bringing me to the next point...

3) Harpies armed with the scout ability, if you bring 3 or 4 units, will be more than enough to start nomming on your enemy's war machines before your they even know it! There's no need to have ambushers when you can get such effective warmachine killers.

4) Now for all these nice things, there has gotta be things to avoid sadly. I would avoid Minotaurs, Razorgor, or anything that has a high points value with T4 and no saves. Minotaurs only have 3 wounds and they *will* be cut to pieces before they can make it into combat. T4 with no saves and I2. Same goes for the Razorgor. High toughness is pretty much your only defense in this army, that and numbers.*

Okay if I left anything out, do tell me. 

P.S: You're definitely right, beastman shooting is rubbish as hell! The only reason you want raiders is warmachine hunting xD


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

When I face off against Beastmen although I don't ever tailor my list I do tend to deploy differently.
All my artillery goes inbetween infantry units to prevent rear charges (and with the fear of the volleygun protect the weaker state troops) it cuts down visibility but is worth it in the long run.
Outriders are great for killing of the smaller disruptive units where normally they would be deployed to anchor a flank or protect artillery.
Halberdiers with a warrior preist can really make a mess of T4 but swordsmen with better ws can hold them up just as well luckily I have both.
Magic doesn't bother me I have warrior preists to help me weather the early stages and plenty of long rifles to make sure there is little to worry about in the latter stages.

With my other armies Ogres just bash through them (sometimes) And chaos dwarf blunderbusses laugh in the face of puny beasts and petty much any single wound model if I'm honest.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

As a Warriors of Chaos Troll Player, the same way I deal with others.

I use Galrauch to hunt after fast movers, and to cast spells at small enemy units - and of course attempt to cast Gateway on your biggest units, before committing to the attack in the rear, flank, or already engaged units.

Trolls are usually good enough to whether the shooting, and T4 basic with a 4+ Ward Save is good enough to hold on to much of what's put across - and backed by the Warshrines gain some useful benefits.

The Dragon Ogres counter any big nasty threats. With 4 wounds, they're going to survive a round of attacks mainly, and have a large base size, so usually only 2 will make contact with something like a Chariot, Cygor, or Minotaur Hero. They're often good enough to survive the initial attacks, and the retaliate with S7 Attacks. If none of these are present - they have 4 S5 attacks each, and with a 4+ Save and 4 wounds are able to keep the lesser units away.

Also, the major benefit of beastmen, being fast, is cancelled by my own Movement of 6/7/20" Flying moves.


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## stevenhassell (Aug 5, 2009)

I use a death star of minitors, 2 lords and 2 or 3 bulls and almost always take the brass cleaver on top of a bunch of other power boosts.. and usualy they plow right through. the whole front rank ends up with a magic weapon minuis the standard very nasty. pluse after the first or second cas. you wind up putting wnds to the heros which are armored up and can take it with a t5


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

I've never had a problem with beastmen with either my ogres or my WE: ogres dont care if the beastmen outflank (and fear/braingobbler are shockingly effective against beastmen) while my units are powerful to take on anything the beastmen can throw at me while the WE just avoid and decimate: glade guard and wardancers love to fight T3/4 low armour enemies


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## Shadowfane (Oct 17, 2007)

Using Dark Elves, a game against Beastmen is an interesting one. The majority of Beastmen units are designed to try and break through their opponents in one round, what with their general lack of armour and multiple attacks through lots of weapons and the like.
Against the druchii, this generally doesnt work, since I can field units that are bigger than his, and, in that first round, at least, are better than his in a fight (he gets the edge in round 2 onwards due to primal fury being every turn and my hatred only lasting one round against him).
Bearing that in mind, I generally work to make sure he can't charge me with multiple units at once. One on one, my regiments can take beastman ones (witch elves, in particular, turn gor units into unpleasant stains on the table), even spearmen - for the same points cost, I get higher weapon skill and an armour save, which evens out the T4, and the extra rank of attacks lets me compete with the 2 hand weapons.

So, for me, my fast units and magic work to prevent multiple charges and therefore forcing the beastman player to commit to charges that wouldnt be his first choice. It helps that he doesnt have a speed advantage over me, and that I don't care too much about ambushers, since I have no static units in my dark elf armies.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

As Lizardmen player, I'd do what I always do. Cast Life spells, make my saurus hard as hell and minimise your combat res through stopping you from being able to touch me. Target your hordes with dwellers and shut down your magic phase with the becalming cogitation. Send salamanders out to try and force panic tests on your hordes (from memory your leaderhip is rather average?). The only thing I would do differently is perhaps include some small saurus cavalry units to protect my flanks, but since you have minimal shooting I'd probably just use my skink skirmisher units already in my list for that. The only annoying thing is that I'd have no real use for my terradons against you, since it's so easy to get around march-blocking tactics these days.

I have no real static units in my army either, so outflanking isn't a worry. the only thing that is scary is the prospect of fighting lore of shadow/death, for which all lizardmen lists should already have inbuilt defenses, and your minotaurs, which I gather are high strength, and may cause some problems for an army based around hard units.


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## Khorothis (May 12, 2009)

From the looks of it people don't have a hard time dealing with Beastmen. 

@coke123

Minotaurs die just as fast as Gors; basically, they're just 3 Gors on a bigger base with S5 for much more points because you have to pay for special abilities you rarely get to use because they get shot up with guns/warmachines/spells. 1 Minotaur (no upgrades) = 7 Gors with AHW (which happens to be the backbone of any decent Beastmen army). Sure worth taking.


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## Shadowfane (Oct 17, 2007)

Khorothis said:


> From the looks of it people don't have a hard time dealing with Beastmen.


To be honest, it very much depends what the periphery of the beastman army is. Gor units, I can deal with; Bestigor, I can deal with, even Minotauts I can deal with - its what else turns up that can possibly put a crimp in my plans.
Jabberslythes, for instance, are IMMENSELY annoying, whilst Cygors are a particular problem for me, and require rapid removal (I use a convent-based druchii force), which then means I dont focus on other things as much, etc.

Its not so much that no-one has a hard time dealing with them, and more that in general, working out how to deal with armies isnt too hard, its *applying* it in the middle of a battle when things dont go to plan.
Oh, unless you're a lizardman player - they use the same tactic to deal with everyone *grumbles about fecking life-toads and T8 saurus*


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## Flindo (Oct 30, 2010)

I never fought beastmen before, there is only one beastmen player at my hobbystore and he rarely shows up.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Dark elves I find get it a little bt easy with Beastmen.

Repeater Crossbows are accurate, thus pin cushion beast men troops. 

Black guard and Executioners don't really have an equal from the Beast men. So they tend to slaughter whatever they touch.

Frenzied Corsairs with 2 hand weapons are a cheap and effective unit to run. Often chewing through Gor units like no tomorrow.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Wow!

Some amazing feedback.
How would most of your core units deal with t4 troops. The aforementioned DE corsairs would inflict decent wounds, but that's a fair amount of 5+s to wound.

Just adding some thoughts, do chariots as flankers concern you? They're cheap enough that most beastmen have 1-4 of them in most armies.


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## sybarite (Aug 10, 2009)

blackspine said:


> Wow!
> Just adding some thoughts, do chariots as flankers concern you? They're cheap enough that most beastmen have 1-4 of them in most armies.


with my WoC that is one of the few thing's that worry me as anything eles due to my I5 men l can kill most of them before they swing (yey for 3 str 5 attacks each) flankers are not that much of a worry unless the unit is very big 30-40 in size.


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## Tatsumaki (Oct 22, 2009)

Chariots have gotten less scary for everyone these days except for High Elves and Daemonettes (Impact hits don't care who strikes when!!). Beasts lack any decent knight-level units (Centigor maybe, but they are a little unreliable and fragile in terms of armor) so chariots are the only choice I can think of...

Though if you wanted to throw a Razorgor or two into the flanks, yes, that would scare the hell out of corsairs!

I should also add that I too play dark elves, but I find my corsairs struggle with anything with t4 or better. This is partly about causing wounds, but also because they are very fragile too. Anyone have this experience too?


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Corsair's rely on sheer attack volume over actual strength.

As for Chariots, no matter the race, since I've started running a Manticore Dreadlord, they are easy enough to stop. However, unless taken apart by magic or a Hydra, DE do suffer against them.

BG and Executioners (the latter needing our ASF banner) tend to be great against any kind of Beastmen. Even MoK bestigors won't be so scary when a whole lot of them get cleaved apart.

Again, back to the Manticore Dreadlord. The Volume of Str5 hits from the model (8-9) is a real pain for rank and file. 

Corsairs with Hand bows. A little unit of 10 can be great at intercepting low armour save units. Again, the shots are only str3 and 8", but 20 shots will cause a little bit of damage. Worst comes to worst it'll whittle down a rank.

As I'm a serious player (at least when it comes to DE) I run Dual hydras and a BG unit. As I've mentioned...not much can stop these guys.


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## Kiwikid32 (Jul 16, 2011)

I am a Beastmen player and i have never had to go up against anyone but my brother (no other warhammer players around) and he's a dark elves player. my beasts are actually decently better than his. we play every now and again and i either win or it's a tie. i don't know what people mean by dark elves easily beating beasts. they can certainly take on anyone with the appropriate amount of preperation.


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## Tanarri (Jun 23, 2011)

I haven't played beastmen yet. I don't know if there are any in the area actually. However were I to go up against them I wouldn't change my army list. The armies I go up against the most are my wifes WE and TK, a friends DE, HE, and Dwarves and a different friends WoC and Lizards. Like I said I don't really change my list but depending on the army I do a threat assessment and deploy accordingly. I do the same thing at tournaments. 

I usually force my opponent to come to me. I keep my units that guard the warp lightning cannons guarding them. I use the cannons to take out any multiwound models. Send my doom wheel at something. Use magic to thin the herd and then make sure I am in a position to have atleast 2 units in the same combat. And use storm banner and howling warp gale to take care of any fliers and hamper enemy shooting. Oh and either gutter runners or night runners with warp grinder to take out enemy war machines. 

Those are my general tactics every game. For the most part the only things that change are the targets. I realize this isn't really what the thread is about. My point is not to tailor your list to a specific opponent but to take a general list with answers to most things and just to adjust your tactics/targets to what your opponent throws at you.


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