Hello

After looking through the new beasts Army Book I was wondering if anyone else finds fault with it as much as I do?

Unlimited Core Chariots (80 points each). Anyone remember Gazzor & his 14 Chariot army of doom? Though very much weaker that the old book with the loss of the Tusker charge rule, the automatic spell is 1d6+1 area movement spell. This is just perfect for chariot hordes.

Hapries 11 points (special). 3 points to make them scout. March block your enemy before he gets his first move,

Minimum Core is too cheap - 3 units of skirmish Ungor with bow at 30 points each.

Bestial Fury on Gors, Ungors, Bestigors & Centigors. This is basically, if you pass a leadership test you get hatred in close combat. Considering that the army can have leadership 9, this is extremely powerful. Note that Bestigor are strength 6 & the Centigor have two strength 5 attacks on the charge.

Very heavy Magic. How about a 16 PD army (before power stones) with two bound items & one good, one use only, item that destroys arcane items. The top spell is 16 to cast but summons a Monster. The Beastman wizard Lord is toughness 5 & mages can have chariots as mounts.

And?

Lol you are the first to complain about the book being strong, everyone else considers it weak to medium...

You failed to mention that the army has no armour saves at all, best is 4+ save for Centigors and Chariots, Minotaurs can get 5+ but then dont get additional hand weapons or great weapons, Ungor and Gor are limited to 6+...

The list basicly consists of rather pricy, glass hammers...

Christiaan

I find this post rather amusing

your sense of humour is top notch

Broken as in horrible design, perhaps. Probably not broken in overall power level.

The unlimited chariots is dumb. The magic phase insanity is dumb. The big monsters are dumb. The uselessness of several units (bestigors) is dumb.

I burst out laughing when I saw this thread. Seriouslly. Thanks!

Yes - Hate filled Ungors are going to sweep all the armies of the old world before them I did not make that clear. I am clearly wasting my life thinking about GW products when I could be looking at pornography. Seriously, is eight chariots okay in a friendly game with the outrageously 'elite' beasts, or should I stick with tarts?

Thanks! This topic made my day after all the "I hate the new book" topics I've been reading.

I think its going to be a fun list. Fast infantry, chariots to keep pace, big ugly specials, and flying diverters, I think is going to be a harder army than people expect.

It isn't going to be broken though, not by a long shot.

The book is not broken at all.

The new lore is not that intimidating due to 1/2 the spells being near useless and the other half being incredibly hard to cast.

As for the large terror causers ... they are strong, assuming they don't get shot down by repeaters or poisonous attacks.

Meanwhile, the core chariots aren't exactly a surprise. However, the 7th edition rules regarding fleeing chariots, and their susceptibility to fear, mean that an all chariot army is unlikely to work in this environment. The new books will handle Beasts just fine. The old books will suffer as usual.

I really like the new book, but then again I didnt like the previous book or the way it played. I suspect the new one will play around the heroes considering how good they are, around the monsters but not around the core, which will usually be 3 units of Skirmish Ungors.

Chariots also are much weaker than they were before for that 5 pt price drop. Gain primal fury...lose tuskgor strength. That's about fair. Then lose scythed wheels and mark of chaos undivided? Ouch. They're still good....but a 6th edition beasts chariot army is much worse than a 7th edition one, and in the scale of cheesed out armies...all chariots has always fit on the "most armies that know what they're doing can deal with it" side of things.

I actually quite like the new book-it seems to be far better than the old one and far more "random" so to speak, giving Primal Fury and Ambush rules.
Chariots as core are fine-they are not overpowered in my opinion.
This army is going to be much harder than old Beasts and it will be great fun to play it-in my opinion it os not broken-it is powerful (as any new army coming out...) but not nearly as broken as Daemons or Vampires.

The new movement spell is crap. It will only make your units die faster.

(This thread)

The book may be a little bit powerul in some areas, but in others - as mentioned above is rather weak.

My take is that GW have actually tried to make an army that is fun o play rather than stupidly powerful.

As a BoC player, and one who has used them with success, even recently, I can say this - even the previous incarnation of the BoC book, with no magic items, limited list construction, and no real variety, was more potent than this new book.

GW has declaws the Beasts more with this book than they did when they dropped HoC and left BoC on their own.

And the new models for the most part, are completely balls.

- Larry

Can't we at least wait and play with the list competitively before we come out with statements like this?

Sorry, as an experienced beasts player I agree with Larro 100%.

In every other army book that has come out up till now, core infantry got cheaper. If a unit lost skirmish, it got cheaper. For whatever reason, Beast infantry lost skirmish and went UP in price. Lets see, Gor with xhw is 1 pt cheaper then a HE spearman. Tell me which is better by a LOT? and no-one really considers HE spears to be the shiznit.

They got overpriced characters, terribly overpriced monsters, horrible spell lore, overpriced core, overloaded and overpriced specials, loss of the few key magic items available in the old list, no decent protection items (read no ward saves), and core chariots that have been neutered.

Sorry, this is the WORST army book GW has put out since the 6th edition DE book; and even that was probably better. Like Larro said, the neutered 6th edition book can run rings around this one, and most people consider it to be one of the LEAST powerful army books. Right down there with DoW and OK. It really looks like they just threw it together without playtesting it at all (or only against Empire/OK/O&G/Dwarf armies).

The lore does seem particularly weak. Even the magic missile is pants.

The monsters I would need to see on the table before final judgement but they seem over priced. In fact alot of the troops seem over priced. And the magic items are none too funky.

Yea, I have played Beasts on tournaments since the WD list and I don't think the new list is bad att all. I.e. the argument has little merit. The basic fact stands, lets wait, play some games, and then argue please.

People that dont understand the use of the number 0 spell dont think enough about it's uses. And I am not going to explain them because the fewer people play an army and known it's secrets, the better for me...

Christiaan

Shame to hear people writing the book off so soon. I play in a very laid back environment and quite fancied getting updating my Beastmen army inline with the new book. I'm sure in a friendly setting they'll be a lot of fun.

For those of you clamoring to wait and play with the new book first, that's your right, but it's not the only way, and it certainly isn't the only meritorious way to judge a book - you simply don't need to play with a book to truly understand its strengths and weaknesses. I've attended tournaments with new army books that I've played 1, or in some case, 0 games with, and found a way to win 4+ games at both events. I mean, I didn't play with or against the new Skaven book once before my first GT encounter with it, Game 5. But I had read the book thoroughly, and I *know how to play Warhammer*, so I managed to win a tight game. No playtesting needed. We've all had these experiences, where you play with/against something for the first time, but you've read/thought enough about it to formulate a solid opinion/gameplan, so let's not make it that because the book isn't out, we can't knock it.

In the case of BoC, TheoryHammer works just fine at times, particularly when it's so clear what was neutered in relation to how things played previously. The magic item list is good but not great, which is obviously a step up from the BoC book which had no items. Win for the new book. Skirmishing Ungors with Bows, are also, in my opinion, a win.

But the wins stop there. Magic is a huge fail compared to Slaanesh magic, and there's nothing even close. Notwithstanding the fact that we knew Slaanesh magic was too good, the fact is that there is NO diversity in Lores. There's one Lore. They didn't even throw us a bone with a Lore for the magically-inclined Chaos Gods. Nothing.

The Beastlord is better, sure, but the Doombull doesn't let you get Core Minos. Minos are true Special, and increased in points. Stronger, yes, but still equally flimsy, and in theory, you'll have less of them because most things increased in points, and your slots are limited. Chariots are overall MUCH weaker, between loss of MoCU and the S5 Tusks, and options for Marks.

I mean, am I supposed to get excited about the still-horrible Bestigors? Or Hatred-S3 Gors that are ranked up? Oh, I know - I'm supposed to run out and go buy GIANTS!!!!! kits, and make a WS2 Cygor points-sink. Or the other inferior monster choice, the Gorgon?

Furies, Minos, and Centigors are all useful, sure. But you can't fit them in to your army anymore, as they're crowded at the Special slot. Your Cores aren't winning you any games, your Rares are vulnerable points-sinks, so it comes to the Specials to do the lifting. But without Magical support, or above-average Magic Item potential, they're hard pressed to do it.

Last but not least, PSYCHOLOGY. This is the check-mate of BoC now. Without MoCU, or access to MoK or MoS, the army is just an unreliable unit that is forced to win games solely in the HTH phase, yet aren't close to the best HTH units in the game and will be taking average to below average LD checks by Panic forced as early as Turn 1 thanks to the fact that the army doesn't operate with large units.

Is the book the worst thing ever? No. But it's bland and boring, and is a blatant attempt by GW to dumb down the uniqueness of beasts. From a tournament standpoint, it's a very mediocre book.

- Larry

Whydjahafta go and end a thoughtful post with this silliness?

First, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Why in the world would GW want to release a book you wouldn't want to play? That is just silly. Second, a new lore that only one book gets, a slew of new monstrous units, and the removal of a ton of overlap from other books makes beasts less unique?


I personally am not at all upset that this isn't going to compete WAAC vs DE or DoC. The army books have never been 100% balanced and probably never will be, and I think trying to use the strongest possible builds as the standard is silly. This book so far seems perfectly playable in most settings, and frankly all settings that GW really even claims to give a hoot about.

Larro....you're comparing to the old list, which is the failing of your comparison. The list is 100% new. Think in terms of the new list, not how it's changed.

Decker - That's nonsense. I analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the new book.

I'll summarize it this way - one dimensional offensively, far too vulnerable defensively, and MAJOR psychology issues at a time when Psychology issues are more prevalent than ever.

If Giant MONSTERS OMG!!!(tm) are supposed to be our saving grace, count me out. They're easy to kill as T5 Large monsters with little to no armor, and at 230+ points apiece, totally worth dedicating the 1.5 shooting/magic phases to drop (or fewer, depending on opponent...). I stand behind my statement that it's a disappointing tournament book.

And to say that you're happy it's not a WAAC book, that's fine, but don't act like there's no middle ground between horrid and WAAC. HEs, Empire, WEs. They're all competitive books, that are far cries from DE/DL, yet much better overall products than this Beastmen book could ever hope to be. The tournament-going optimists amongst us will likely change their tune 6 months from now.

- Larry

As you put, at times. But there are two important factors you are ignoring. One is that you may have missed something. None of us are omnipotent, however much we may think we are. I've certainly missed things in lists that others have not. Secondly, playing can often prove TheoryHammer wrong, especially when it is something that has not been played with. Best example of that is the Eldar in 40K, which got heaps of abuse about how weak it was when the last codex came out, but in reality emerged to be a strong list.

It makes far more sense to be general in your statements about power levels until you have fully sampled and played with a list in a real environment (hence my comments on competitive play) rather than your statements that categorically list the beasts as weaker than just their book post removal of HoC access.

Frankly on Theoryhammer I can see some reasonable builds in there that whilst not being able to compete overall with the all round strength of DE and Daemons can compete with a fair amount of lists out there, including being able to beat DE (although Daemons will be far more of a problem). Whilst Beasts may not consistently be at the top of tournament rankings, they will not be at the bottom unless comp systems 'outlaw' the decent builds.

As for it being boring, that is really hard to judge without playing. I see where you are coming from as they have removed some of the individuality of the list (and I agree that is a big negative, but I like armies having very different playstyle) but if you enjoy Warhammer then over time I would be surprised if you still did not enjoy playing with them.

I have not read through the book a lot, but from this topic I have to agree with Larry. I mean if you are going to say that he should playtest rather than theoryhammer you have to point out where his arguments have flaws rather than vaguely argue there might be faults in some vague area in his argument.
I have looked at the magic and it is crap. I mean 5 D6 hits does 3 wounds on average before saves, who are you targetting with this? The 1 spell is crap, does more harm than it will ever do good. Traitorkin is interesting. It's funny that this is by far best against top armies (hydras, dragons, kbing your own juggernaught herald) but against most armies it is useless. Summoning a monster from the table edge is not nearly as good as GATEWAY. The main thing is this lore has no way to reliably do any ranged damage, that is huge.
When you add in the fact that there is no shooting the only way you can get points in combat meaning you can't build a solid take on all tournament list. Oh sorry I forgot about ungors with bows. Just my first impression.

Made my first list today with the book, i do love all 3 of the new Rare choices but they are damn costly in comparison with other book's rare monsters. (275 points each) None of them has any kind of save.

The Spawns should have been given regen i think, too expensive for a 3 wound creature. Giant meh they got worse sadly with the loss of Mutant monstrosity.

Without playing a game with my list i would probably put Beasts just below HE on a power level, obviously i need to play some games with them before whining too much.

But on the whole i'm fairly dissapointed.