AoS 2 - Beastclaw Raiders Discussion

[RocketMan]

On 11/8/2018 at 9:10 PM, Spooksmcgee said:

I was the same mate. Jumped in the day the book released and the icewind dropped. Used to do pretty well with them, it sucks BCR aren't competitive anymore. Breaks my cold icey hungry heart

They’re really that bad now?

[Luzgurbel]

I've played few games with BCR (I have 3 starters, very cheap army to start with) and I realize they don't make good performances. Their to hit attribute is really poor for a melee (almost only melee) army. They have little models and you find difficult times to achieve the objectives (your units are 4 max size usually). And they don't have freat allies, with expensive mages (140) that don't have good synergy with the rest of the army.

[CompBiochemInfo]

Been playing around with ScrollBuilder:

420 FL on Stonehorn (Shyish/Ethereal Amulet, Everwinters Master)

340 Huskard on SH (Pelt of Charngar)

320 Mournfang pack x 4

320 Mournfang pack x 4

320 SH Beastriders

170 Eurlbad

80 Fungoid Cave Shaman (Allies)

30 Prismatic Pallisade

I figured the Shaman can hold the point and be unshootable, while everything else does maximum smash.

[Lughaidh]

Butcher with Cauldron, worth it?  I’m having a hard time finding one and buying it from GW site is expensive. There are are other casters I could use but with so little magic available to BCR is there a school of thought that just says “****** it, no magic!” ?

[CaptainSoup]

2 minutes ago, Lughaidh said:

Butcher with Cauldron, worth it?  I’m having a hard time finding one and buying it from GW site is expensive. There are are other casters I could use but with so little magic available to BCR is there a school of thought that just says “****** it, no magic!” ?

If you don't mind it being not completely authentic, I managed to find a guy who 3d printed cauldrons that you can add to a regular butcher. Just rebase the butcher model and glue the cauldron with the base.

[Malakree]

8 hours ago, Lughaidh said:

Butcher with Cauldron, worth it?  I’m having a hard time finding one and buying it from GW site is expensive. There are are other casters I could use but with so little magic available to BCR is there a school of thought that just says “****** it, no magic!” ?

From what I remember, and have read, the only wizards which are good for BCR are the fungoid and Butcher with Cauldron. As @CaptainSoup said you probably just want to do a conversion, the GW one is expensive and resin which really sucks.

Not to mention that the moment someone says "butcher with cauldron in beastclaw" my mind jumps to this by @heywoah_twitch 

That gives you a perfect excuse to not buy the expensive resin kit, instead using an Ironblaster as the base model which is both plastic and only £21! You can really convert it into a beastclaw aesthetic to fit in with the rest of your army.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Malakree
Thanks mutter, completely forgot about the hag.

[Mutter]

5 hours ago, Malakree said:

From what I remember, and have read, the only wizards which are good for BCR are the fungoid and Butcher with Cauldron.

I think the Troggoth Hag is also pretty good ...

[heywoah_twitch]

Well the call for points recommendations has begun, so let's get to it!

Stated Goals:

1. Make Beastclaw competitively viable without giving the opponent a negative play experience (thundertusk spam). 
2. Encourage players to actually use our Faction instead of taking the 2 good models and dumping the allegiance for GA: Destruction. The ways this is possible are by unlocking battleline-ifs and making the battalions a central part of lists.
3. Disincentivize other armies from just poaching our stuff, similar to the above.
4. Make sure the Start Collecting box is worth buying, both to help people pick up the army, but also to avoid the new player bad experience of getting the obvious box and then later realizing the units within are real bad.

Battalions:

• Skal: 150->60 - Attempts to make this worth it are pure sunk-cost fallacy, even at a low price, but it's possible to try now. Whatever the cheapest a battalion is allowed to cost is what Skal should cost.
• Eurlbad: 170->130
• Jorlbad: 160->120
• Torlbad: unchanged - this battalion is so bad it doesn't matter what it costs, but in an effort to curb 'tusk spam keeping it pricey.
• Olwyr Alfrostun: 190->100 - taking a page from sylvaneth on this mega-battalion with lots of reqs.
• Braggoth's Beast Hammer: 230->290 - this may seem like a lot, or strange to go up in cost, but I'm concerned about it being too good after the other points updates.

Units:

• Icebrow Hunter: 140->80 - Simply one of the worst heroes in the game. Comparing him to soulscryer, runesmiter, warp-grinder, etc is pretty depressing.
• Huskard on Stonehorn: 340->280 - This guy is better than magmadroths, which themselves are very bad and expensive. Can't hold an artefact well due to lol punches and kicks and a 4+ save.
• Stonehorn Beastriders: 320->260 - Rend -2 and fast is good. Fragile and inaccurate is bad. 2 morghasts with same wounds and save do better damage but slower and no charge mws for 220, both battleline.
• Mournfang Pack: 160->120 - Yes, 60pts per guy, which for what they do is fair. Two of them do the same damage as 3 Ogors, slightly faster, worse banners. Model count and base size are both huge disadvantages, and so 10 points per wound is right I think. Still worse than the "great" battlelines in AoS that aren't about to get nerfed (Skeletons, Sequitors, Arkanaut, Blightkings, Bestigors, etc).
• Frost Sabres: 40->40/200 - Battleline-if BCR allegiance plus a nice little massive reg discount.
• Both Frostlords: 420->400 - basically just to give Gutbusters a cool ally choice, ogor bros stick together.
• Thundertusks of all types: These are all extremely overcosted competitively, but to avoid NPE I'm keeping them as is. 

Thoughts?

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by heywoah_twitch

[Malakree]

1 hour ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Thundertusks of all types: These are all extremely overcosted competitively, but to avoid NPE I'm keeping them as is. 

Just throwing out there that Prince vordrai does exactly this...maybe change them to 6/5/4/3/2 shots at 2+/2+/-3/1. Then add a special hero Thundertusk who has the snowball.

Mournfang should be 140 inline with ggs but have a 400 for 8. I'm a fan of unwieldy units like mournfang, ggs and brutes having some nice massive regiment discounts at the point where it IS a pita to use them.

Means you could have small units at 70 a model, easier to use and more mobile, or a huge unit at 50 a model but very rarely going to be fully attacking and at much greater risk of being tarpitted. 

Edited November 16, 2018 by Malakree

[heywoah_twitch]

32 minutes ago, Malakree said:

Just throwing out there that Prince vordrai does exactly this...maybe change them to 6/5/4/3/2 shots at 2+/2+/-3/1. Then add a special hero Thundertusk who has the snowball.

Mournfang should be 140 inline with ggs but have a 400 for 8. I'm a fan of unwieldy units like mournfang, ggs and brutes having some nice massive regiment discounts at the point where it IS a pita to use them.

Means you could have small units at 70 a model, easier to use and more mobile, or a huge unit at 50 a model but very rarely going to be fully attacking and at much greater risk of being tarpitted. 

If we're allowed to change warscrolls there are a bunch of fun ideas for thundertusk, yours included, but sadly it's points and battleline-if only for this one.

On comparing mournfang to gore-grunta: 

Ironjawz are bad, and so I'm not terribly interested in making our guys equivalently balanced with a different army that also sucks. I'm trying for competitively viable, and so the sights must be set higher. I wish IJ luck and hope they get some needed updates as well (they are getting hammered in LLV stats, worse even than us, though that's certainly due to representation in part).

If both were at 140, gore-gruntas would still be the clear winner, at 3 more wounds and 1 more model for capturing, not to mention the army they sit in has lots of stacking attack and hit buffs to absorb as well as superior allegiance abilities, which should factor into the point cost of a unit when making a direct comparison.

[kenshin620]

Yea point cost modifiers can only go so far for destruction, we need more 2.0 books! Hopefully with less obnoxious (to the owner) subfactions! (isn't it nice the aelves dodge that bullet 😉)

[Malakree]

13 minutes ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Ironjawz are bad, 

To be fair goregruntas are our one unit which is well costed! 

[PlasticCraic]

I think you have hit the nail on the head @heywoah_twitch, the problem is that the book is so bad, there is precious little incentive to take pure BCR.  If you point them appropriately to reflect their abysmal Allegiance Abilities, the key units become too good in a Mixed army.  It's quite a pickle.

I believe that playing with the Batallions and Battleline If (as you have suggested) is the best way of achieving that given the contraints. 

And although the Batallions themselves are generally of limited use, a second Realm artefact on a second Frostlord would be dynamite.

Keeping the Tuskard down is a smart political move, in terms of heading off the easy complaint at the pass.  380 points is horrific compared to units like a Frostheart Phoenix or Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, but people don't want to hear it.  Let him take one for the team.

Just make Yhetees and Frost Sabres Battleline If BCR Allegiance imo, stop messing around with Generals altogether.  Yhetees are still a pretty strong (albeit extemely fragile) unit.

This army could be so, so cool with a new book.  In our lifetime, I think your suggestions are the next best thing.

PS.  I'm cautiously optimistic that Gutbusters could get a new book in 2019, which would help a little with Allies potentially too.

[Verminlord]

Just had a thought. If all battletome armies are supposed to get a set of endless spells how will BCR even cast them without their own wizard?

[CaptainSoup]

1 minute ago, Verminlord said:

Just had a thought. If all battletome armies are supposed to get a set of endless spells how will BCR even cast them without their own wizard?

Where is it said that every army will get their own spells?

[kenshin620]

17 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Just had a thought. If all battletome armies are supposed to get a set of endless spells how will BCR even cast them without their own wizard?

 

15 minutes ago, CaptainSoup said:

Where is it said that every army will get their own spells?

I think he meant that the 2.0 armies have ES

 

But of course said armies have new books and...well new books with new models. So BCR would have to actually get a new book (and thus at the very least some form of wizard) and then get ES! Happened to SCE who also lacked wizards (oddly enough)

Edited November 16, 2018 by kenshin620

[Verminlord]

17 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

 

I think he meant that the 2.0 armies have ES

 

But of course said armies have new books and...well new books with new models. So BCR would have to actually get a new book (and thus at the very least some form of wizard) and then get ES! Happened to SCE who also lacked wizards (oddly enough)

with the exception of beasts of chaos. If the rumours about wave two ironjawz and fyreslyers are true then i could see beastclaw getting some spells and a couple much needed models (wizard, artillery, plastic yetis and cats).

[kenshin620]

Well yea BoC is different but they already got wizards anyways! SCE and Nighthaunt had to get theirs. Bring on the ice magic! Kislev be proud.

 

Though on that note curious if Fyreslayers will get wizards. Non-chaos dwarf wizards do sound a bit strange. Unless they get Endless Prayers!

Edited November 16, 2018 by kenshin620

[Reuben Parker]

18 hours ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Well the call for points recommendations has begun, so let's get to it!

Stated Goals:

1. Make Beastclaw competitively viable without giving the opponent a negative play experience (thundertusk spam). 
2. Encourage players to actually use our Faction instead of taking the 2 good models and dumping the allegiance for GA: Destruction. The ways this is possible are by unlocking battleline-ifs and making the battalions a central part of lists.
3. Disincentivize other armies from just poaching our stuff, similar to the above.
4. Make sure the Start Collecting box is worth buying, both to help people pick up the army, but also to avoid the new player bad experience of getting the obvious box and then later realizing the units within are real bad.

Battalions:

• Skal: 150->60 - Attempts to make this worth it are pure sunk-cost fallacy, even at a low price, but it's possible to try now.
• Eurlbad: 170->130
• Jorlbad: 160->120
• Torlbad: unchanged - this battalion is so bad it doesn't matter what it costs, but in an effort to curb 'tusk spam keeping it pricey.
• Olwyr Alfrostun: 190->100 - taking a page from sylvaneth on this mega-battalion with lots of reqs.
• Braggoth's Beast Hammer: 230->290 - this may seem like a lot, or strange to go up in cost, but I'm concerned about it being too good after the other points updates.

Units:

• Icebrow Hunter: 140->80 - Simply one of the worst heroes in the game. Comparing him to soulscryer, runesmiter, warp-grinder, etc is pretty depressing.
• Huskard on Stonehorn: 340->280 - This guy is better than magmadroths, which themselves are very bad and expensive. Can't hold an artefact well due to lol punches and kicks and a 4+ save.
• Stonehorn Beastriders: 320->260 - Rend -2 and fast is good. Fragile and inaccurate is bad. 2 morghasts with same wounds and save do better damage but slower and no charge mws for 220, both battleline.
• Mournfang Pack: 160->120 - Yes, 60pts per guy, which for what they do is fair. Two of them do the same damage as 3 Ogors, slightly faster, worse banners. Model count and base size are both huge disadvantages, and so 10 points per wound is right I think. Still worse than the "great" battlelines in AoS that aren't about to get nerfed (Skeletons, Sequitors, Arkanaut, Blightkings, Bestigors, etc).
• Frost Sabres: 40->40/200 - Battleline-if BCR allegiance plus a nice little massive reg discount.
• Both Frostlords: 420->400 - basically just to give Gutbusters a cool ally choice, ogor bros stick together.
• Thundertusks of all types: These are all extremely overcosted competitively, but to avoid NPE I'm keeping them as is. 

Thoughts?

 

I think any battalion can’t be below 100 as they give you CP and artifact plus lower drops. 

Cats I would go to 30 per two as at 10 ppw they are too fragile. Agree on hunter, I think some of your other drops in points are a bit too large though. 

 

I think with your changes Eurlbad would be a really strong army build. 

[Baron Wastelands]

I think part of the problem is that you can’t address the challenges BCR faces with points alone. One of the key challenges is low model count. To really address this with points, you’d have to slash the cost of mournfangs or yhetees, both of which become too powerful/resilient for the cost, or make taking large numbers of cats a viable option by making them cheaper either at base or when in large units - but cats in skals become too useful in that case.

The other challenge is that abilities traits and artefacts don’t help much, and buffs are hard to come by (expensive battalions notwithstanding). Lowering the cost of big beasties doesn’t help significantly with either challenge, but does potentially make them too good as allies. 

Maybe lowering battalion costs is a reasonable shout, as some of the bonuses are worth having, especially if slightly wider ranging. But again, to cost them at such a level that you can take more significant units overall would have to absolutely slash their costs, making them potentially unbalanced.

Tough one. New book is the only solution 😉 Right after Gutbusters, that is 😁

[Pitloze]

On 11/16/2018 at 3:36 AM, heywoah_twitch said:

Well the call for points recommendations has begun, so let's get to it!

Stated Goals:

1. Make Beastclaw competitively viable without giving the opponent a negative play experience (thundertusk spam). 

• Skal: 150->60 - Attempts to make this worth it are pure sunk-cost fallacy, even at a low price, but it's possible to try now.

• Mournfang Pack: 160->120 - Yes, 60pts per guy, which for what they do is fair. Two of them do the same damage as 3 Ogors, slightly faster, worse banners. Model count and base size are both huge disadvantages, and so 10 points per wound is right I think. Still worse than the "great" battlelines in AoS that aren't about to get nerfed (Skeletons, Sequitors, Arkanaut, Blightkings, Bestigors, etc).

Thoughts?

 

These are your best points imo. But we are never getting mournfangs for 120. 140 is probably the best we can do. They just look too good on paper. Which means nothing. But BCR is already easy to get salty about as a non BCR player. I want Skal to become a summon battalion and probably around 100 points and keep the hunter at 140.  So 240 points for a cat producing factory. If an Icebrow hunter can keep summoning cats, then he becomes a threat and the enemy has to come to him while he shoots n scoots. it might stop some of the attrition bleed BCR is feeling right now MAYBE making him worthwhile.

I honestly think though that shuffling points around won't fix BCR any time soon. We need a new book with new rules. We need magic, prayers, battalions that are post 2.0 and are made for the new meta climate.

Mournfangs are maybe the ones that needs a point reduction the most. Or we need Frost Sabres to come in bigger numbers so they can be the chaff instead of Mournfangs.

But lets hope that we get SOMETHING at least.

Edited November 17, 2018 by Pitloze

[heywoah_twitch]

2-Day 2k tournament report with beastclaw episode up. Joined by Mr_Mephisto, my teammate, who was on Nagash. First third is about the tournament itself and the doubles event  we also did, second third is LoN rounds 1-5, final third is BCR 1-5. Please enjoy.

 

Edited November 18, 2018 by heywoah_twitch

[Malakree]

Was this at blood and glory?

EDIT: Side note, Flesh Eater Courts came 24th at Blood and Glory.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Malakree

[Kyriakin]

This is what I am now buying and painting towards, as I am now firmly in the "Thundertusk sucks ass" camp.

I feel Yhetees and Frosthorn are the best things we have, while MSU Mournfang are there to just be cool models in a sea of Finecast.

As for Skal, I just like it. We're going to lose anyway, so why not make the game more interesting by popping up all over the board with 6" charges?

Allegiance: Destruction
Mortal Realm: Ghur
Icebrow Hunter (140)
- General
- Artefact: The Pelt of Charngar 
Frostlord on Stonehorn (420)
- Artefact: Gryph-feather Charm 
Butcher (140)
- Allies
2 x Mournfang Pack (160)
- Gargant Hackers
3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)
3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)
3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)
3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)
3 x Icefall Yhetees (120)
4 x Frost Sabres (80)
4 x Frost Sabres (80)
4 x Frost Sabres (80)
4 x Frost Sabres (80)
Skal (150)
Chromatic Cogs (60)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 140 / 400
Wounds: 131

Edited November 19, 2018 by Kyriakin

[Lughaidh]

@Kyriakin I’d find some room for a Huskard on Thundertusk to get that run and charge with your Yhetees.