I’m not exactly an expert of these guys (read: faced ‘em just twice). But hey, you just need to lower your head, charge and head-butt your enemy ‘til he’s dead, right? Right?
BEASTMEN
Few things to know about beastmen. They are fast. They can deliver a lot of attacks. They have a nice number of wizards. They have lot of units with different keywords, so they don’t mix well together. For this last reason, I’ll keep them divided (as you should).
BEASTMEN - BRAYHERD
These ones are the physically weak beastmen. But they can hurt you, a lot.
Heroes
Gorthor the Beastlord: your general on chariot, he’s fast and strong, on charge he delivers mortal wounds, can re-roll failed hits, and does a lot of attacks. Deadly against heroes. His Command Ability, adds 1 to charge, run an to hit to brayherd units within 16”. Really good ability. It’s our first “
must have”.
Khazrak the One Eye: he’s moderately useful agains small-models hordes. Nasty for opponents’ wizards, that must subtract 3 from their casting rolls, but only if within 12” from him. Interesting command ability: the brayherd units can retreat and still charge in the same turn.
Beastlord: a sort of toned down Gorthor (for example, he’s got the same combat ability of Gorthor, but works only if he killed an enemy model in the previous turn).
Wargor Standard Bearer: 4 attacks, and if he plants the standard, he gives to Brayherd within 16” a sweet +1 to wound. “
must have!”
Malagor, the dark omen: he’s got a strange spell that gives him a sort of bizarre missile weapon. His most peculiar ability, it’s the “harbringer of disaster”, that gives him a chance to be immune to attacks in the combat phase. Don’t count on it, against units with high bravery.
Great Bray-shaman: our third “
must have!”. A wizard that gives a +3” move to brayherd for just being near them, and knows the fantastic spell “Savage Dominion”: the casting value is 9, BUT you can summon one monster, adding it to your army (Beastmen’s monsters are great), and the only limitation is that it must be summoned within 6” from the battlefield’s edge and more than 9” from the enemy!
Morghur, master of skulls: a 2° lev. Wizard, with a really interesting ability, “Spirit essence of chaos”: you can kill one of your models within 12”, and on a 4+ replace it with a Chaos Spawn.
Troops
Gors: on paper they’re weak; a decent save 5+, but 1 wound, 1 attack 4+/4+, no rend. But they’re far from bad… move 6”, and, as many Brayherds, they can run and charge, and move an extra 1” when piling-in.
You can bring them at save 4+ with a shield, of give ‘em 2 weapon, so you’ll re-roll 1s to hit (“rend and tear”).
The nice ability “Anarchy and Mayhem”: in the first combat phase, you roll a dice (adding +1 if near a hero and another +1 of they’re at least 20 models): on a 4+ you add +1 to wound, on a 6+, all models have an extra attack.
Bestigors: 2 attacks each, 4+/3+, rend -1 (can run and charge, with an extra 1” to pile-in). They gain a +1 to hit attacking units with standards.
Tuskgor chariots: 6 wounds, save 4+; move 10”, can re-roll charges and failed to hit during the charge.
Ungors: a weak version of Gors. They seems useless, but in truth they have a niche...
Ungor raiders: they have bows that can run and also shoot at 18” at 4+/4+. They could be useful, given the lack of shooting of Beastmen, but you need at least 20, if you want to re-roll 1s.
Monsters (none of them is a Brayherd)
Cygor (warherd monster): our wizards killer: not only he can unbind spells (inflicting also mortal wounds if successful) but his missile weapon 4+/2+, rend -2, range 18”, deals d6 dam… and re-rolls to hit against wizards!
Ghorgon (warherd monster): a melee machine, up to 6 attacks, that delivers from 3 to d6 wounds, and for each 5+ to wound, does extra attacks. And can also heal himself
Giant (monster): again, melee machine. More attacks but less damage output than the ghorgon
Jabberslythe (monster): move up to 12”, fly; up to 6 attack 3+/3+ with rend -2, plus a tail for d3 dam; interesting abilities: 1/6 chance to “freeze” enemy units within 6” and, most of all, inflicts mortal wounds to those that hurt it in combat.
Chaos Spawn (not a monster): 5 wounds, move 2d6”, 2d6 attacks at 4+/4+, with 1/6 chance to attack at 3+/3+
Harpies: 1 wound, and 2 attacks each at 4+/4+. The nice thing is that they have move 16”, and an ability that let then devour for free additional models, if a model within 16” from them is fleeing (you need to roll a 6, but you roll for every model fleeing).
Army List & strategy (125 wounds)
We’ll use the formation of
Furious Brayherd (1 beastlord, 1 shaman, 3 gor units, 1 unit of ungors, 1 unit of bestigors/centigors/tuskgor): they can do one extra attack when within 8” of their beastlord OR Shaman, AND re-roll 1s on “to wound”. We are going to have FUN!
Heroes (total 38 wounds):
Gorthor (8), 2 standard bearers (10), 3 Bray-shaman (15), Morghur (5).
Troops (total 87 wounds)
3 units of 23 Gors (69 wounds); 1 unit of 10 Ungors (10 wounds), 1 units of 8 Bestigor (8 wounds).
(
alternate version: 22 gors, 7 bestigor, 4 shamans).
You don’t have shooters, but you can run like hell toward your enemy. Tnx to the nearby shamans (+3”), the banner bearer ot the units (+1”) and the command ability of Gorthor (+1”), your units will have a move 11”, plus run and charge.
But you’re not going to do only that. You need to weaken the enemy, and you have 3-4 shamans, that are going to cast savage dominion: keep an eye on terrains that give a bonus to casting, and with 3-4 castings that need to roll a 9 (or an 8), you’re almost sure to cast one succesful summon each turn (with some luck, even 2!), to give the enemy something hard to deal with, while you run toward it.
You can place the monster you want, in the place you want, and they will hurt.
A wizard in the rearguard? Let him enjoy the Cygor’s boulder!
A strong melee unit with good saves, or a unit of kinghts? Lure them into attacking a Jabberslythe.
Some dangerous monster? Go with a Ghorgon.
So yeah, your advancing horde, will be helped by heavy hitters, and your casters will stay alive, because the enemy will have too much targets more immediately dangerous (the summoned monsters and the units of gors).
But your magic phase won’t end here. Do you remember that unit of Ungors? They’re our less valuable troop… the perfect “victims” for Morghur, and his “Spirit essence of chaos”: turn an ungor into a Chaos Spawn, throw the beast toward a target and the ungors toward another, ready to be turned again into other Chaos Spawns…
Anyway, soon you’ll arrive at charges’ range with your gors, bestigors and also with Gorthor. Let’s see what 20 Gors can do.
Keep them near Gorthor or the formation’s Shaman, and they will do 2 attacks each, instead of one… and, tnx to “Anarchy and Mayhem” and the bonus for heroes / unit’s size, you roll a dice, on a 2+ you add 1 to wound, on a 4+ they do another extra attack.
So, those 20 Gors, are going to do 40 attacks, with a 50% chance of
60 attacks. Given the +1 to pile in, you should be able to maximise the number of models in contact with the enemy.
They hit at 4+/4+, but tnx to Gorthor’s command ability (+1 to hit), “Rend and Tear” (re-rolls), the Standard bearer (+1 to wound), “Anarchy and Mayhem” (+1 to wound), and the formation (re-roll) they’re going to hit at 3+ (re-rolling 1s), and wound at 2+ (re-rolling 1s). This means around 45 saves…
The 8 Bestigors will go toward a unit with a standard / banner / whatever, so they’ll do 25 attacks, hitting at 2+ and wounding at 2+ (re-rolling 1s).
And at that point, your caster will be at range also to spam Arcane Bolts.
