AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion

[Ganigumo]

Dragon Ogor buffs would be great and I'd love a "new shaggoth" thats proper monster sized although honestly I think the current shaggoth is the best looking dragon ogor they've ever made. Something about the clearly bipedal musculature of the shaggoth. The normal ones look a bit like the sculptor knew they're supposed to fight with their claws, but a fully reared up quadruped would look wierd, but thats just me.

I did just finish up some of the old metal ones, a shaggoth(who seems to have gone through a lot before I got him), and a herdstone though!

[Lord Krungharr]

Ooh I like that color scheme!  I'd like to have a more blueish and greenish army (maybe my Stormcast for that).

Seems like it would be easy to scale up and augment the existing designs of the plastic Thunderscorn to become a plastic Shaggoth.  They should also do things Ogors do, like MW on the charge, more damage in general, and more lightning stuff.  The Shaggoth spell should be a CA instead.

[Televiper11]

Truly functional sub-factions would be my first choice. Followed by being able to Ambush through R4. A viable Monster Mash battalion would be fun too. 

[SAWhit88]

Can you take a preyton in a BoC army? All the information I can find seems outdated (points etc). I think I know the answer to the question as I can't find the unit on Azyr... 

[Vaporlocke]

Hope: we got some kind of bone thrown to us to make it so we aren't constantly fighting an uphill battle against our own rules while being outclassed by just about everyone else.

 

Dream: we got moved up to S tier for the first time in the army's history with a huge release of new models, which would be a huge sales drive by GW for a rarely taken faction. 

 

Expectation: we remain the forgotten children and it gets even harder to win.

 

Fear: we were squatted in 1ed, but like Milton in Office Space there was a glitch in the system but now they fixed the glitch

[Maddpainting]

At this point even just points changes will make me happy.

[Lord Krungharr]

2 hours ago, SAWhit88 said:

Can you take a preyton in a BoC army? All the information I can find seems outdated (points etc). I think I know the answer to the question as I can't find the unit on Azyr... 

I think the Preyton got moved to Legends.  That was an interesting unit for a while though.  I'd add some wings and call it a Jabberslythe personally.  Jabbies 4ever!

[Myrdin]

8 hours ago, Vaporlocke said:

Hope: we got some kind of bone thrown to us to make it so we aren't constantly fighting an uphill battle against our own rules while being outclassed by just about everyone else.

 

Dream: we got moved up to S tier for the first time in the army's history with a huge release of new models, which would be a huge sales drive by GW for a rarely taken faction. 

 

Expectation: we remain the forgotten children and it gets even harder to win.

 

Fear: we were squatted in 1ed, but like Milton in Office Space there was a glitch in the system but now they fixed the glitch

This is pretty much my sentiment about BoC.

Functional examples that I remember are two: Tomb Kings (sadly someone in GW thought this absolutely awesome army is no longer "interesting".) And Ogres.

Both armies had massive boom when the new line of epic, cool monsters was released for each.

Especially Ogres with their mammoths, big cannon thing and mournfang cav. That army is going strong still and had they not squatted TK they would be the same.

 

So new line of amazing miniatures with decent enough rules (TK, in case of Ogres theirs were bonkers when released back then in WFB, and even now the latest one for AoS) can absolutely revitalize an army and kick it up from mediocrity into the higher tiers.

To me the ignoring of Beastmen seem intentional. Just to many factors are playing into this. Maybe there is a long term plan in motion to do something big with them eventually. Or maybe its just malice and hatred/disinterest for the army within the GW ranks in general. We dont know.

[Ganigumo]

@Myrdin Tomb kings were squatted in part because of their redundancy with other death armies going into AoS and because they hadn't been selling well (likely in part to some sketchy 8e rules)
I have a suspicion that BoC have always sold fairly well, at least to the point where its profitable enough to keep them around, but not so poorly, or so well that they are a priority to update the line. The amount of times you see BoC stuff go out of stock on the webstore is a sign they won't be squatted anytime soon. (At this very moment on the NA store about half the line is temporarily out of stock)

In terms of actual design the current BoC is good, and would be one of the best if some of the wierd restrictions (like the ambush only on t1, or the bullgor artifact that buffs bloodgreed being wholly within 6"...) the book is filled with that kind of stuff. If the effects were stronger than other armies' abilities with a restriction that would be fine, but its mostly the exact same abilities but with an added restriction.

As far as subfactions go gavespawn is a good subfaction, even compared to other armies. The artifact is interesting, the command ability is locked to spawn, but very powerful (and spammable still, although that might just be because of how weak BoC are in general) and getting free spawn when a hero dies is a nice bonus.

Darkwalkers and Allherd probably need some buffs.

In the next book If battalions really are being removed (I'm still not convinced) I wouldn't be surprised to see 5 new subfactions. 4 for the gods, which are cross faction so they actually work in the god books, and a Monsters of chaos subfaction seems like a slam dunk, turn on some hound/cockatrice/behemoth battleline, and let us upgrade one monster to a hero/leader.

 

[Vaporlocke]

1 hour ago, Ganigumo said:

In the next book If battalions really are being removed (I'm still not convinced) I wouldn't be surprised to see 5 new subfactions. 4 for the gods, which are cross faction so they actually work in the god books, and a Monsters of chaos subfaction seems like a slam dunk, turn on some hound/cockatrice/behemoth battleline, and let us upgrade one monster to a hero/leader.

 

While I don't doubt that they'll waste four faction slots on the individual gods I would rather see just one going to marked and then choosing one of the four within it to get the bonuses which would leave room for completely new playstyle options. 

 

 

[Myrdin]

1 hour ago, Vaporlocke said:

While I don't doubt that they'll waste four faction slots on the individual gods I would rather see just one going to marked and then choosing one of the four within it to get the bonuses which would leave room for completely new playstyle options. 

 

 

I would prefer this approach as well.

You go Bestial, or 4God. If 4God then you select which one. I`d certainly be happier to see more focus on the Bestial part rather then being herded off into the Chaos Gods as additional firepower (no one can argue that BoC were doing great under specific God factions, hell even better than in their native armybook in same cases).

@Ganigumo I personally am not worried about squatting. What I am worried is another half baked, poorly tested, mediocre army with bunch of contradicting rules, ideas and flaws that really dont work on the table. Bad to none synergies, subpar warscrolls and low powered Artifacts, Traits and Abilities... or the combination of all 3 ending in basically the same as what we have right now.

What I meant with TK and Ogres was, that those who remember about them, those armies were bottom of the barrel as well. Then they got overhauled and became a lot better. Especially Ogres who were one of the top armies in WFB and after their latest AoS book are pretty damn strong in AoS as well. I just want to see similar super beefing for Beastmen at least once in a decade of collecting and playing this army.

Edited May 17, 2021 by Myrdin

[Ganigumo]

Having god marked subfactions wouldn't really take up any more space than the current 4 battalions (which all take a full page anyways), especially since the fluff is mostly focused on them not serving a specific god. Without battalions the only way to get them into other armies is by giving them marks on the warscrolls (which could be an allegiance ability like in std) or by creating a subfaction(s) for it, and I would prefer the latter solution, and a separate subfaction for each one so they feel distinct and also slot into the respective god book. It would also be the first cross allegiance subfaction.

There's so much interesting stuff you could do with just subfaction rules, like turning bray shamans into priests for khorne, or making slaangors playable (lol), but if you just do 1 subfaction and choose 1 of 4 marks it'll end up being bland and boring, or written messily with each part of the allegiance giving 1 of 4 things, and at that point just split it into 4 to make it more readable.

[Lord Krungharr]

Slaves to Darkness is probably a decent parallel to how a revised BoC tome should be.  StD can ally with any of the Chaos god keywords...I'd say BoC also should have that but perhaps with a different limitation of the general must also have that keyword or at least 1 hero has to have it.  Something like that.  I'd rather like that than having to buy all the tomes (and my Brass Bullgors could still get their Blood Secrators!).

The Chaos Marks for them definitely makes sense.  I like the current subfactions okay, just don't much care for the artefacts aside from Gavespawn's.  

For sure we need some monster love though.  Perhaps with a zookeeper hero of some sort.  They'd sell tons of Start Collecting Chaos Monsters boxes if it had like 10 Chaos Hounds, 3 Razorgors, a Beast-master Chariot (with alternate named hero build), and Chimera.

[Maddpainting]

Yeah, just let us pick the marks and get a light bonus rule for it or go pure undivided beats and get its own rules.

[Chaos Shepard]

Here is something I noticed recently. The Slaangors despite their faults do have the 'Mortal' keyword. Now I don't expect us to lose our Brayherd or Warherd keywords, but maybe we could gain the 'Mortal' keyword. That could be really huge, and open up a lot of options.

[Popisdead]

On 5/15/2021 at 3:06 PM, Televiper11 said:

I know I brought a lot of negativity to this thread after Kragnos was announced. I just wanted to say that BoC are still my favorite army and that this thread is full of great advice and better people. I’m hoping for BoC to get some love in 3.0.

Everyone has knee-****** negative reactions.  I've played the army for 18 years and ups and downs.  GW has not done a good job supporting the army.  Invariably the best option is to promote whats great and not the hate.  Sure, nothing great in the book but pushing in a positive direction usually gets better results

On 5/16/2021 at 4:10 PM, Maddpainting said:

At this point even just points changes will make me happy.

I want what's elite to play elite.  So Warherd has usable synergies and effective traits to make them compete on the table to a degree that isn't fluff player.  

But,.. thinking about it,.. would I trade a fix for another points drop?  Maybe.  Dirt cheap Warherd units would be kinda interesting to see.     Keep them as horde and price them accordingly.  Quantity over quality even on the "quality" units.  Maybe an utter spam of Doombulls, Bullgors and Ghorgons in ridiculous numbers could work.  

58 minutes ago, Chaos Shepard said:

Here is something I noticed recently. The Slaangors despite their faults do have the 'Mortal' keyword. Now I don't expect us to lose our Brayherd or Warherd keywords, but maybe we could gain the 'Mortal' keyword. That could be really huge, and open up a lot of options.

Most likely a book-interim "typo" based on the rules writer being new and not knowing about Tzaangors and how s/he should have put "brayherd" keyword in.  I believe Tzaangors didn't have Brayherd when in the first Tzeentch book.  If there is a new BoC book and GW clues in getting the Brayherd keyword in a new BoC book would hopefully be the expected outcome.

I don't want mortal BoC.  I want Beasts.  Otherwise I would just play Slaves to Darkness.  I want Marked BoC back in a feasible playable manner.  

[Chaos Shepard]

52 minutes ago, Popisdead said:

I don't want mortal BoC.  I want Beasts.  Otherwise I would just play Slaves to Darkness.  I want Marked BoC back in a feasible playable manner.  

The mortal key word could help beasts access spell lore and artifacts when in a god specific faction. It would also allow allies to target beast with some of their buff spells and abilities.

[Vaporlocke]

I'd like to see a new and improved Ambush rule, it was something that was ours way back in WHFB but now they given out a better version, even better than our subfaction that specializes in it, to everyone and their brother. How about something like allowing us to deploy ambushing or summoned units from terrain features as well as board edges, maybe shorting the range restriction from enemy units too. Our ambushes should be feared, not a bad joke that serious players rarely use. 

 

Right now our biggest strengths are speed and the fact that most people have never even seen a BoC army, there's so much wasted potential. I don't want us to be broken, I just want to be competitive without having to play perfectly all the time.

[Ganigumo]

2 minutes ago, Vaporlocke said:

I'd like to see a new and improved Ambush rule, it was something that was ours way back in WHFB but now they given out a better version, even better than our subfaction that specializes in it, to everyone and their brother. How about something like allowing us to deploy ambushing or summoned units from terrain features as well as board edges, maybe shorting the range restriction from enemy units too. Our ambushes should be feared, not a bad joke that serious players rarely use. 

 

Right now our biggest strengths are speed and the fact that most people have never even seen a BoC army, there's so much wasted potential. I don't want us to be broken, I just want to be competitive without having to play perfectly all the time.

I often wonder if the board edge ambush rules should allow you to deploy a little closer, like within 6 or 7 instead of 9. It would certainly make the board edges a scary place against a BoC army.

[Chaos Shepard]

Being able to come in closer than 9 would be broken. Really they just need to remove the first turn restriction on ambush.

 

The thing I am hoping for, above all else, is a meaning full buff to Gors.

[Skreech Verminking]

57 minutes ago, Chaos Shepard said:

Being able to come in closer than 9 would be broken. Really they just need to remove the first turn restriction on ambush.

 

The thing I am hoping for, above all else, is a meaning full buff to Gors.

Yeah Here is what I would do If I had the power:

Make gors wound on 3s have them attack with 2attacks each.

gors with shields get a 4+ save against all kinds of attacks nit just combat.

gors with two hand weapons are able to reroll all hit rolls.

gors have a range of two inches when their unit size is ten or more.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

1 hour ago, Chaos Shepard said:

The mortal key word could help beasts access spell lore and artifacts when in a god specific faction. It would also allow allies to target beast with some of their buff spells and abilities.

Running Brass Despoilers in Khorne tomorrow, so not direct to BoC tome, but lose, for example, the Goretide ability to reroll Wound Rolls of one near objectives for them because it is keyword MORTALS.  That’s just beginning.  Tailored rest of list to make sure Khorne buffs went through and that meant eliminating some juicy options that are Khorne Mortals specific.  Think it would unlock a lot of things but guessing it will remain limited to faction specific Gors (c’mon KhorneGors and PestiGors!).

[Vaporlocke]

1 hour ago, Chaos Shepard said:

Being able to come in closer than 9 would be broken. Really they just need to remove the first turn restriction on ambush.

 

Would it though? Let's say we keep the board edge deployment, the enemy will still have the option to deploy deeper way from the edges to make possible charges longer or they could put their heavy combat units or screening units there to intercept. We can even get into some fun mind games where they now have to deploy in awkward ways to respect the threat but we end up using our ambushing/summoning in a completely different area than what they were expecting. 

 

6 away is still not a guaranteed charge by any means, but what it does do is make us a threat in a unique way, which is something this army desperately needs. 

[Televiper11]

3 hours ago, Popisdead said:

Everyone has knee-****** negative reactions.  I've played the army for 18 years and ups and downs.  GW has not done a good job supporting the army.  Invariably the best option is to promote whats great and not the hate.  Sure, nothing great in the book but pushing in a positive direction usually gets better results

Edited May 18, 2021 by Televiper11
See reply below. Sorry for double-post.

[Televiper11]

In my defense, over my two years of posting in this thread, I’ve been 99% positive. I went 10-4 with BoC in 2020 so I know where it’s strengths are.