ok, so im planning on starting an beastman army since I find them cool. they have good rules and operate a bit more different than most standard armies, that is what im looking for.

I would like to hear some pro´s and con´s about the beasties. do they work fine as an army of their own or is it better to bring in mortal/demonic assistance? things like this is what I´d like to hear. effective tactics and combos and the likes is also appreciated :)

furies and the like are always good to bring in but I don't like the flavor of 'em, so I like to keep it all beasts.
a big con for them is their low leasership, even with a general so you always need a banebeast and a BSB, so you ain't going magic heavy with this army...
their pros are their many skirmishers and ambushrules with makes them extremely mobile and sneaky, so they are realy fun to play!!

well in 2000p you can still get 2 bray shamans if you want to ;) I´ve got the impression that this army is and by right should be very fast so I guess that lack of magic is that big of a deal anyway :) wainting for more comments.

to be honest with you i have mostly seen beastman armies with a bray shaman in to be effective as their braystaffs and the lore of beasts can be a great combo.

i find that beasts normally do not need demons to work well IMO the only ones i would take would be furies or screamers to get rid of those pesky war machines also beastherds and warhounds are a must (in 1500pts take 2 herds and 4 dog units, if you wanted to of course) as the fact you can ambush means the enemy will get a nasty surprise which can make the lose sight of their battle plan during the game ^_^

so yeah as i said, beast herds and war dogs are a must while some added chaos warriors work well with great weapons (nice models to paint aswell)

IMO beastmen are a nice army with many different options open to you as far as collecting and modeling goes, have fun

dan

thank you Dan :) yeah, I love herds so at least 2 of them and hounds are a neccesity in armies like this. how much should one keep as ambushing units? also beastman chariots looks yummy ^_^

deffinetly going for some big beasties aswell, minotaurs looks quite effective IMO. not seen many magic items that are THAT effective, tho horn of the great hunt, the dark heart and staff of darkoth seem all to be worthwile. other than that I guess fighting characters would do just good with either a great weapon or additional hand weapon while shamans get a dispel scroll or two.

what characters setups do you guys use and do you play undivided or follow any particular god?

If you were undivided you could still use helm of many eyes, chaos armour and a great weapon. Don't forget you can use HoC magic weapons as well, so long as they are not arcane ;) .

Although I don't play beastmen I do have a beast herd and a bray shaman lying about and they can be very useful. Slaanesh tends to be a useful mark with the generally low leadership and what-not; don't overlook the fact that (like marauders) beast herds do not gain marks.

Beastmen have the potential to be very fast; a beast herd or two, two chariots and something meaty to back them up with (minotaurs, chaos ogres, trolls even) are deadly, you could always ambush two small units (5-6) of those loveable puppies just for annoyance sake.

My thoughts anyway, Omid B)

yes omid has just asnswered what i was about to say ^_^ , basically do not forget that you can ambush warhounds so what that means is if you have 4 hound units and 2 herds a herd and two dog units can abush to give the opponent a nasty surprise when they pop out behind there lines, shame they cannot charge when they are revealed mind <_< but you cant have everything.

for itenms i like the staff of darkoth for bray shamans and the 6pt staff thing they can have (beasts of chaos book) Tyrion have you got a list yet, If i were you i would design a 1000 or 1500pt list so you can see what you will need to get if you collect plus you can get humble advise from us lot, but you dont have to of course :lol:

yes I know I can use the HoC items too. helm of many eyes is great, especially when you can re-roll that failed stupidity test ^_^ nice combo there.

it´s a shame they cannot charge when they ambush but there is a way tho. staff of darkoth provides you with a great movement spell. use that to charge the herd in the magic phase ^_^ just need to get a shaman nearby and hope that the ambushing unit arrives where it is supposed to.

centaurs seem cool to, deffinetly getting some of those. oh and do you guys bother giving the herds standards?

Beast characters cannot use the helm of many eyes because it is an enchanted item.

that seems to be totaly correct :)

I thought beastmen couldn't have arcane items? not enchanted. :huh:

so, I guess they can have arcane items but not enchanted then. oh well, it´s not too bad :)

whoops, my bad, heh heh ^_^ . it appears that the beats are refrained from using enchanted items, not arcane items. (It saysat the top of the magic items page).

Still, a good combination is hvy armour, enchanted shield, scimitar of skultar, pelt of the dark young. If you don't like the scimitar, you can use biting blade for 5 less points. If you don't have the book I can explain what all of these things do. ;)

EDIT: this combo is for a wargor, a good combo for two shamans is one with the staff and a scroll, the other with power familiar.

Well IMHO I think these meaty combos go well

1. Minotaurs with MON, these guys will get an increased armour save which can be really helpful if you ever get those greatsword units or anyone with great weapons to fight against, remember a 6+ armour save is better than no armour save :lol:

2. From what I hear Dragon Shaggoths in small games are lethal so if you wish to go to torney's and such then these monsters will go through units as though they weren't really there...

3. Always remember that beast men fighty lords and such work well with 2 hand weapons as if you have small packs fighting alone and the lords/heros in there, its best to dish out as many attacks as possible to weaken the enemy......infact beast herds should all be armed with 2 hand weapons rather than the shields spears option as the shields won't offer that much protection.

Thats all i can say from my general knowledge of beastmen ! Hope i've helped !

yeah a 4+ save (with light armour) on minotaurs arent that bad, gets a bit costy tho.

chaos armour seems to be worthwile, a very cheap 4+ save. seems like these guys wont be getting much better armour saves than that. but some of those suits of armour in the HoC seem to be pretty good, armour of damnation and armour of tortured souls both springs to mind.

it´s a real dilemma, having two hand weapons or a great weapon. both options are really good. guess it depends on what is needed for the job, a lot of attacks or fewer high strength attacks, hmmm, will have to think about that <_<

also seems like the magic weapons arent that good for what they do, so I guess I´ll be going for mundane equipment.

would be fun to see what a dragon ogre shaggoth could do in 1k and 1.5k armies :P

depending on the points and what style you want I would go with two wargors and a bray shaman. If you don't want a pure beast army get a aip. champ in there so were you to give him a great weapon he'd be S7 (for getting rid of those pesky chariots), then give the wargor an additional hand weapon and any other combo you want.

Have you decided on a mark? If so, Make a list! post it here given the advice on thid thread.

for 1.5k I think I would go for that character setup yes. just to get some sort of magic defence. I will start working on my list, it´ll be up sometime this weekend hopefully :)

sorry for the double post, but here is my army so far:

Beastmen (1500p)

Wargor: horn of the great hunt, chaos armour, add.hand weapon 104p
Wargor: BSB, armour of damnation, hand weapon 115p

Bray-shaman: staff of darkoth, dispel scroll 160p


beast herd: 12 gors & 8 ungors, gors have 2 hand weapons, ungors have shields, foe render & musican (BSB goes here) 141p

beast herd: 12 gors & 8 ungors, gors have 2 hand weapons, ungors have shields, full command (general goes here) 151p

4*5 hounds 120p

2 chariots: 170p

3 minotaurs: add. hand weapon, Bloodkine 152p

6 centigors: shields, gorehoof, musican 135p

6 furies: 90p

grand total: 1338p


so, I have around 162 points left to use and there is a number of things that can be done.

a) get an additional herd
b.) get two spawns + boost minotaurs with one extra for a unit of 4
c) one spawn + 1 extra chariot
d) get a bestigor unit

maybe there are more options, but those are the ones that I can think of right now. any suggestions?

I would go for B. Mainly because I love spawns. :wub: Especially if they are fiends of slaanesh (that actually doesn't give them the mark). They can hold up units for ages, stand a good chance against characters and are in general pesky little ermmmm, things. :rolleyes: Also I think it is the cheaper option if money is tight.

As for the list, I like it. I would ambush the warhounds personally. This list is damn fast with some heavy hitters in there. Also if you get the chance, give the centigors throwing axes, turns out they're S5, not bad for a bunch of mutated cows. :D

Actually........why not dragon ogres to fill those points? they can be real mean and they real fast fitting into this list perfectly. You might have to do a bit of trimming mind.

ooh dragon ogres, brilliant models with great stats but the models are rubbish IMO aqs there faces make them look like they are constapated or something, personally i would go for a bestigor unit of a unit of chaos warriors, i would give them mark of nurgle but it's up to u, with these guys you have a relitively solid centre, abloe to hold up most units,

farsight

yeah, I figured that the beastmen are supposed to be fast and get in grips with the enemy as soon as possible. no need to stay around to get shot to pieces or even worse :D

you guys bring in some good points, something for me to consider. spawns are very nice, especially when they are deployed as a unit of two. one is pretty hard to kill, now the enemy will have something else to consider :P dragon ogres sprang into my mind aswell, but for that I need like 50p that would mean getting rid of the centigors but I really like the models. another option would be to trash the furies since my army is 1) fast and 2) have ambush.

also thought about a bestigor unit, if just to give my opponent to give something to fix his gaze upon. just that those odd 160p or so isnt enough to get a decent unit. would have to get rid of something (furies :P ). will be getting dragon ogres for 2k tho.

throwing axes are S5? :blink: if so, they are something worth having :P I´ll keep thinking about my options.

oh and about ambushing units, I think one of the beastherds will be ambushing. dont want to have all the hounds ambushing since their first priority is to give my enemy some target practice, they are there to die so that my other units will be spared, meatshields.

throwing axes add +1 strength to the thrower so centigor are strength 5 axes while marauder horseman are str 4 etc etc.

bestigor ambusihing :lol: , never seen that done before, should be quite good ^_^ .

good luck :thumb:

where did I say bestigors would be ambushing? don´t think they even can.

nowp they can't

that´s what I thought, but I said that I´ll be having one of the beastherds in ambush :)

ooh, my mistake i thought u meant the bestigors were ambushing but their obviousy not, sorry

not to worry :) anybody has any more suggestion? and what about the last 500p up to 2000p?

For 2000 points I would up the Wargor general to Beastlord, take another Bray Shaman, and maybe a Shaggoth too if you feel inclined (not a champ though, as that would make you lose the Ambush rule if he was your general), and if you have the points, another beast herd. I would also suggest the minos with GWs... but that's just me. I'm not sure what that would all tally up too... probably more that 500 points, but i'm not sure.

Stratos

yeah, deffinetly need that little boost in the Ld section and more magic support. a shaggoth would be nice too, either that or a unit of dragon ogres. if there is room for an additional herd, well we shall see :)

what about a doombull with the aces fo khorngor who can lead the minotaur unit, ouch ^_^

Doombulls are nice, but I belive they are counted as lord choice. expensive aswell, a beastlord is dead cheap for what he does :) and I do not think that a doombull has the ambush ability. my whole army is centred around ambush.

but i thought you meant how to get your army up to 2000pts or ami i mistaken?

which is why i suggesterd mr bull ^_^

yes, you are correct there :) but I think a beaslord will suit my needs better than a doombull. tho the doombull has it´s advantages, Ld 9 is very lovely. also he takes a LOT of punishment before he die, but the beastlord is more supportive and very nice in close combat :)

but but but, okay i guess its your army and evrything <_<

tell me how your first battle goes ^_^ and good luck with the beastlord, also dont forget that you can take items from the hordes of chaos book aswell as the beasts one

He's right about the support. Only the Beastlords and wargors can take Horn of the Great Hunt, which is one of their best items. That extra +1 leadership will prove to be extremely valuable on those tests.

Stratos

and they have ambush ^_^ it will take some time before I get this army up and running since I´ve only recently started it.