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AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion


Gaz Taylor

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2 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

That's in the core rules, you can make w/e you want as long as you have a leader and you dont have more than 15 models. My Untamed beast is Leader, 2 Cats, Cat lady, Spear guy that is just Scorpion, and 4 of the cheap guys. My Unmade is the Leader, 2 of the Jumping guy with 2 daggers, and then 8 of the cheap spear guys.

A BoC conversion for Untamed Beast would be really easy and cool, use Gors and Bestigors for some of them and ungors for the little ones, Warhounds or Pigs for the Cat, etc..

Heads up that warhounds apparently get warcry rules in the supplement that's up for preorder, so warhounds as untamed cats may confuse some opponents. 

Warcry lets you customize your warband. Warcry warbands in AoS should follow the original box set composition. 

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7 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

My 1x 40man block is normally one of my MVP's for every game. IDK if i would do more than one 40 block tho, taking a couple 10 man units might be good too for the first 6" movement. That can be very powerful. However i do want to try 2x40 blocks, but IDK if the raider do enough damage for that, 1x40 normally can stay out of combat with my other ungors and bestigors running ahead.

30-40 man raiders unit definitely does heavy lifting. 

While it breaks from pure beasts, I'm not sure whether an untamed beasts unit would work better than a 10 man raiders unit. Raiders are better at shooting, while the untamed beasts have run/charge. Raiders have shaman synergy, plus may be able to reduce drops with battalions. 

I'm also considering sprinkling some iron golem units into my non-battalion beast armies as objective holders. There's a bit of counter-synergy with the herdstone, but I control where the herdstone goes. For 70 pts, a unit of iron golems in terrain can take a lot of punishment. 

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26 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

Heads up that warhounds apparently get warcry rules in the supplement that's up for preorder, so warhounds as untamed cats may confuse some opponents. 

Warcry lets you customize your warband. Warcry warbands in AoS should follow the original box set composition. 

I thought he was asking for warcry it self, for the warbands in AoS you fallow the warcrolls.

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4 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

That's in the core rules, you can make w/e you want as long as you have a leader and you dont have more than 15 models. My Untamed beast is Leader, 2 Cats, Cat lady, Spear guy that is just Scorpion, and 4 of the cheap guys. My Unmade is the Leader, 2 of the Jumping guy with 2 daggers, and then 8 of the cheap spear guys.

A BoC conversion for Untamed Beast would be really easy and cool, use Gors and Bestigors for some of them and ungors for the little ones, Warhounds or Pigs for the Cat, etc..

Thanks :)

Yeah I run my regular Beastmen that fit the bill as Untamed Beasts. Beatlord, two Bestigors with axes, Spear-shaman, two Warhounds and 3 little dudes.

Not a fan of the whip girl. Honestly dropping her and one of the lil guys gets you a second beast, and the Axeman are too good to ignore.

 

But I was asking this mostly coz I wanna make a Corvus Cabal with 3 of the big crow guys, leader and the rest just regular cultists. At first it didnt strike me as an elite warband, but after playing my DoK, I came to a conclusion that those Crow guys are pretty much Melusai blood sisters, but with S4 and Dmg2/4 (kinda what you`d expected the melusai would have been to be honest) with less range but better movement. Yet the Warband is presented as a zerg mob one, with bunch of lil cultist and a 140pts dude who is really not worth the points.

Plus lets be honest the leader and the crow guys are just great looking miniatures, so thats why I want more of em :)

Was really considering going for Cypher Lords as well,  but maybe later. 3 warbands are honestly more than I`ll ever need I guess.

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I love the whip girl she makes the cats insanely strong, the Axe/Sword guys i feel are not as good when taking the Cat and Cat lady. She has some god reach as well. Odd that you are completely opposite as me in that regards lol.

Unmade are not fun at all, i have them and they just dont have as many tricks, its spam attacks to fish for crits and do Damage AOE bombs vs hordes

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14 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

I love the whip girl she makes the cats insanely strong, the Axe/Sword guys i feel are not as good when taking the Cat and Cat lady. She has some god reach as well. Odd that you are completely opposite as me in that regards lol.

Unmade are not fun at all, i have them and they just dont have as many tricks, its spam attacks to fish for crits and do Damage AOE bombs vs hordes

I guess it might be the way each of plays, or just general experience with this or that unite : P 
While she has very nice reach, and is a nice miniature, the way I move on the board, tend to activate units and use my dices, she never gets the chance to use that skill on the Cats before the Cats go, as most of the time I activate the Cat first, to remove a priority target, that could otherwise remove one or multiple of my models, Meaning I dont have the time leisure to wait another turn, after buffing the cat, till it gets its chance to dish out those super powered attacks.... now granted with two Cats it might be feasible to do. I have yet to test that, since so far I`ve been running the pre-made out of the box group.

Regarding the Axe guys, they have proved to be very reliable, decently durable roadblock that serve as a great Leader bodyguard and damage dealers. I prefer them over the Sword guys, as the S4 is more valuable in my meta, and them being Dmg 2/4 means I can bash stuff even with regular attacks, rather than just spam Double for extra attacks and just hope for crits (like DoK do... darn I am still salty about how their elite cards turned out).  Since I have my BoC, all I had to do was just get the cards and the warband was ready to rock & roll. I would skip them otherwise me thinks.

For a actual new warband I wanted to go with either Cypher Lords or Corvus Cabal, mostly for the looks, and the fact both the warbands have some neat stuff going on, but seeing how brutal the game get, I think Cypher Lords are way to squishy despite their high dmg output. Meanwhile the Cabal has fairly durable leader and the big Tengu guy, who can also dish good amount of hurt and have great movement. Plus while I do like the Tzeentchian look of the Cypher lords (would swap the heads, and add some knick knacks to spiffy them out a bit though as they are kinda plain looking), the Cabal in general looks very cool even without any customizing added :)

Edited by Myrdin
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Thats assuming you are doing whatever it is you are doing. 
My cats are similar to my Razorgors. They shoot forward to tangle the priority target, even double tapping the movement for the full 16" if necessary. There is no way she can keep up with that.  As I said, it depends on how you tend to play.

When I play Warcry I go full BAAAAAH ! BoC rush. For me this is not a game of fine tactics and deceitful strategies, its a game of getting into the face of your enemy as soon as possible and introducing them to your axe :D (granted some strategy is required to lure the enemy out, or get an objective, but I call that Beastmen cunning, rather than strategy hahaha... make Khazzrak proud! ^^ ).  The game is just to short most of the missions being 3-4 rounds at best. Thats honestly one of the things I dislike, but you can always agree to add one more round, simply because some scenarios are auto win/loose depending on your warbands`s mobility and how short the game is.

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So, Im trying to make good ole Brayherd work....i really like the flexability of the ambush and the hard hitting-ness up bestigor, but im finding them a bit underwhelming. Is it just me or do the characters in the book seem meh in general. Sure a DMG 3 beastlord seems legit....but he dies to a stiff breeze. Are we just not that reliant on characters? Also are the monsters just a giant trap? I want sooooo badly for them to be good...

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Aside from Gnarlblade/Volcanic axe beastlords, I jump very quickly to the casters. Bray Shamans are amazing support pieces with decent spells. Shaggoths are great all-rounders with a solid lore. Their D6 movement in the hero phase is interesting for better positioning endless spells. Tzaangor shamans are tzaangor/enlightened buffs, super mobile, and our best casters. 

Doombulls are fine, but unless you want some battleline bullgors, there's not a lot of reason to take one. 

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9 hours ago, Oreaper84 said:

So, Im trying to make good ole Brayherd work....i really like the flexability of the ambush and the hard hitting-ness up bestigor, but im finding them a bit underwhelming. Is it just me or do the characters in the book seem meh in general. Sure a DMG 3 beastlord seems legit....but he dies to a stiff breeze. Are we just not that reliant on characters? Also are the monsters just a giant trap? I want sooooo badly for them to be good...

1 BL for sure with a good relic, 2-3 Shamans, lots of Bestigors, Ungors, Raiders, thats my core army and i do really well. You really need to relay on timing and movements more than most armies, we are not a top tier army so a miss play hurts us moreso than many others.

If you like Ambushing tho, play Darkwalkers with Desolating and lots of Raiders, take the Relic Brayblast Trumpet "when ambushing get +1 to hit" on another Shaman or BL, use the hero to ambush at the same time with some Raiders, then take lots of Bestigors/Ungors, a couple chariots for a 1 drop, your General shaman now makes units move an extra 4" instead of 3". I've done that a few times, its actually rather fun, 1 shooting good heroes (not really tough ones, but many heroes) on a turn 1 ambush (40 shots, hitting on 3+, re-roll 1s and 2" 6's generate another hit, you CAN get more hits than shots).

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Going Darkwalkers also makes some of the monsters more interesting. 

Trust me, Ambushing two Gorghons when you front line is surging towards the enemy, swarming objectives, does make for a decent "Oh sh*t" moment for your opponent.

In regards to monsters - they were trap in old WFB, but I find them decently usefull in AoS. You need to adjust your list a little bit in regards to including them though. Bu in general they are not bad.

Gorghon can do a lot of hurt. The -1 rend is pretty pathetic though, but if you can turn it into -2, it will cut through stuff like butter.  And unlike bulls, it has 3+ To Hit.  Plus the free kill nom nom ability. And the price isnt as steep as one would think.

Cygor is quite meh. But can be fun in more relaxed games where you both bring less optimized armies and just have fun with things that dont usually make the cut. Its biggest weakness is that 4+ to hit, then needs to wound and only D6 dmg (2xD3 would be better tbh, or D6+1 per each  something something). Also its caster ability is meh. Id much rather see it have a magic missile attack. Some sort of Evil eye laser beam to give it more shooting than just one rock throw.

Chimera seems great on the paper, but its a hit or miss thing. It dies to weak breeze, but it murders things like a tornado if you can get it into combat unscathed. 

Then there are the flying chickens, and Jabber. Jabber as it now stands is meh. The chickens are fun but you need at least 3 of them to make them truly work. To bad you cant have them in a unit of 1-3, but I get it, that would be to much maybe.

The problem with half of our monsters is the random factor. To many 50/50 rolls being done on single attacks, with random Damage rolls. Makes for a fun game but also can be very frustrating when trying to take them to more competitive environment. 

Darkwalkers do work rather nicely if you like the monsters though. Again Ambushing a Gorghon is fairly cheap investment and you opponent will have to play around it suddenly popping in the back line, You should always give them some screen though, some ungors will do the trick to prevent rapid charges and buy you some time.

Jabber to me has been rather lackluster. Yes it hits on 3+ but the damage is meek and the acid  blood doesn't really do much. The price hike also didnt help it much as you cant fit two under 300 pts and just sling them as suicide units anymore. It got beaten by then nerf hammer a bit too much and does require some love in return. Either make the Acid blood REALLY scary, leaving Jabber itself a weak monster platform that does a little but mostly brings that skill towards the enemy. Or buff its DMG to 2, which would make for a really nice unit that can dish out a reliable damage, but is also easy to take out for a fairly economical price.

Ambushing Dragon Ogors are also quite fun. Allows you to tie a lot of stuff long enough for your Shaman sped Bestigors to get in there.

Granted with bunch of armies getting pin point deep strike abilities like its nobody's business the appeal of Ambushing does diminish a little bit, but Its still a fairly amusing and working mechanic (unlike the old 7th Edition Beastmen Ambush, which was totally unusable), and can be used to a decent degree, especially with monster : ) 

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Oddly, all my games with the monsters are different from you, my Chimera tends to always do well and my Ghorgon has been nothing but terrible. The Chimera, Ghorgon, and Cygor all die equally the same, they all have about the same wounds with a 5+ save, but the Chimera with Fly faster mvement and a D6 MW shot with lots of weapon profiles makes him work, 2 of them tends to out preform Archaon (and im talking about super Archaon, with + attacks and double melee Khrone stuff, i have a friend that plays him and he plays him well for his limitations). 3 Chimeras has been very fun to play time to time, with Ungors and centigors to rush up and tie up or put frontal pressure and Raiders in back, I was going to use it for AoS GT's until Skaven Stormfiends and KoS became a thing.

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I think the important difference is that the Gorghons wound table has lower degradation rate than chimera has when losing wounds.

Plus depending on the target you might be able to pop Bloodgreed healing up a little. While not super relevant I remember one game where I managed to get back 2W from it, and it was just enough to get me to the dmg tier above the one it was. That extra attack was enough to help me win that combat, though I believe it got murdered shortly after.

If only we had an actual reliable heal spell, it would be very amusing to try and keep your spellcaster close to the big gribblies, making sure to keep them healthy and stacked up with bunch of attacks :D 

Edited by Myrdin
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So i was thinking about a summoning list...in Allherd, but it was pointed out to me that the Allherd CA is at the START of the hero phase, and the sacrifice ritual is during the hero phase, and thus AFTER you have to spend for extra points. Is this right?....if so it seems silly to have that CA before you find out how many free summon points you get....

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1 minute ago, Oreaper84 said:

Is that considering Aetherquartz Broche as well?

Yes, 6CP rolls over 4 turns will get you 2 more CP (4 for 4 turns, 1 for battalions 1 for bought CP), there is always lucky and unlucky rolls, but going by pure averages.

Turn 1-4 will give 4PC and 4CP for 8 auto PC's
4 turns of D3 sacrifice will average to 8 PC's
1 Battlaion CP, 1 bought CP will get you 2 more PC
Then the 6 you spent with Aether broche for final 2 more (I forgot it was Broche and not Branch) for 2 more (33.34% of 6 is 2)

I try to let everyone know that it will average be 20, so they can decided if its worth doing or not, i do like Allherd and it can work out well, specially if you just need a couple more PC's and you are willing to spend, or if you want a strong start with summoning, it also helps with Bravery and gives you rend, more rend on a Hero like a Shaggoth isnt a bad thing. I also think Allherd works well if you like to take lots of Dragons.

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3 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

Yes, 6CP rolls over 4 turns will get you 2 more CP (4 for 4 turns, 1 for battalions 1 for bought CP), there is always lucky and unlucky rolls, but going by pure averages.

Turn 1-4 will give 4PC and 4CP for 8 auto PC's
4 turns of D3 sacrifice will average to 8 PC's
1 Battlaion CP, 1 bought CP will get you 2 more PC
Then the 6 you spent with Aether broche for final 2 more (I forgot it was Broche and not Branch) for 2 more (33.34% of 6 is 2)

I try to let everyone know that it will average be 20, so they can decided if its worth doing or not, i do like Allherd and it can work out well, specially if you just need a couple more PC's and you are willing to spend, or if you want a strong start with summoning, it also helps with Bravery and gives you rend, more rend on a Hero like a Shaggoth isnt a bad thing. I also think Allherd works well if you like to take lots of Dragons.

So because its before the sacrifice...the basic strat is just yolo all the CP every time and then see what you can summon after sacrifice? so the breakdown would be something like (on average) assuming every 3rd CP spent procs the broach:

turn 1 - 1 PC for turn / 4 from CP (2 CP start + turn CP + Broche proc) / 2 from sacrifice = 7 for turn/total

Turn 2 - 1 PC for turn / 1 from CP / 2 from sacrifice = 4 for turn / 11 total

Turn 3 - 1 PC for turn / 2 from CP (Broche proc) / 2 from sacrifice = 5 from turn / 16 total

turn 4 - 1PC for turn / 1 from CP / 2 from sacrifice = 4 from turn / 20 total

so this looks like at least something decent every turn to summon...and a big thing every other

 

 

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Yeah, thats about it, if you can summon a 7pt turn one thats really good, Tzaangors on Disks turn 1 can change the game, or a Chimera turn 1, Come in D6 MW's and then a 7" charge to get into melee, the problem is if you get 1's on the D3's a couple times in a row, rng can be really mean.

I tend to keep 1CP turn 1 and see how my first D3 is, if it is a 2 or a 3, then i go all out turn 2.

Edited by Maddpainting
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11 hours ago, Myrdin said:

Going Darkwalkers also makes some of the monsters more interesting. 

Trust me, Ambushing two Gorghons when you front line is surging towards the enemy, swarming objectives, does make for a decent "Oh sh*t" moment for your opponent.

Presumably if you are considering ambushing monsters, chimera is top of the heap due to vicious charge. 

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18 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

Wait, i thought you couldnt Ambush Chimeras? You need Brayherd, or as Darkwalkers Warherd and Thunderscorn, the Chimera has none of those.

But i believe you can use the Darkwalkers Command ability on them, so you could do that turn 1, but it takes CP.

Snippet from the Book:
 

WARHERD and THUNDERSCORN units in a
DARKWALKERS army are considered to have the
BRAYHERD keyword for the purposes of the Brayherd
Ambush battle trait (pg 61). In addition, up to half
(rounding up) of the reserve units that are set up in
ambush can arrive in your second movement phase
instead of your first movement phase.

 

So you would be correct on that you cannot Ambush a Chimera, thus why I am a stern fan of Ambush Gorghons ^^

Best thing is, after few games, your opponents will get used to this and keep part of their army in the back to counter the big nom nom bull monsters, only for them to meet a unit of ungors archers face to face, while your Gorghons are deployed on the table turn one.

Taken from the strategy Tyranid players book: "Schroedinger Carnifex" and appropriated to Schroedinger Gorghons :D 

Edited by Myrdin
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