AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion

[Moleculeaxium]

Just bought a unit of dragon ogers. 

Which weapon option do you think is the best. Not sure which to take. 

Maybe I'm just going to magnetize them. To have some options for Warcry. 🤔

[Maddpainting]

Paired does the most damage, but a Glaive in them can help if you are worried about pile ins as its 2" range.

[Myrdin]

With the spirit of what could use some love, this is my take on Dragon Ogors and Shaggoth.

Feel free to take a look if you have a minute or two of time to burn  

Considering their fluff these things should be much more umpf. And Shaggoths, were it not for the pathetic horrible ancient sculpt should be some demigod like beings that lived for millennia. That being the case I updated the warscrolls. Not changing the identity of the unit, rather beefing them up to where they should be.

Before you comment on how OP or what not these things are, take a moment and remove yourself from the current form and look at the wider picture. The spectrum of different units of this type that are in the game.... now its not so powerful anymore right ? I`ve noticed BoC players often get used to the low power level of this army and tend to have this weird regressive reaction towards buffing stuff. Leave that mindset behind when looking at this. Instead look at the price tag and compare it with 

 

Summary of changes, since sometimes the smaller details on the warscroll might not be immediately visible. Take a look at the Warscroll first.

Spoiler

Dragon Ogors:

Price: 160/180 per pop

Draconic Crushers up to DMG3 to keep in line with the changes in Ogor Mawtribes.

Now has a unit Champion option in the form of an Ancient. Ancient gets +1A

Each weapon now has a special ability that goes along with it. Other armies have units with multi weapons as well, and many of the more elite ones have specific abilities tied to those weapons. Same here. Each weapon combination confers some sort of ability.

Paired Ancient Weapon: Re-roll hit and Wounds.  Sounds powerful at first but then you remember its Rend - DMG1. Much less powerful then the initial first glance.

Draconic War-Glaive: 6 to hit cause 2 hits instead. 

Draconic Crusher: Wound rolls of 6 are resolved at -2 rend. Now an actual viable option with DMG3 and a chance for big rend on 6. No longer subpar when compared to the Glaive and Paired weapons.

Added a general ability: Draconic Blood > unit gains 6++ against wounds and mortal wounds.  Its not much but it should help with the survival a little bit, and give the feeling of them being the tough guys they are presented to be.

Moved Storm Rage ability  to Shaggoth. This never made any sense to begin with. Buffs of this type should be tied to the hero not the unit, since the unit still requires the hero in vicinity.

Keywords: Forgot to add them, but they remain unchanged and I didnt wanna rework the whole thing again just to add them.

 

Shaggoth:

Points 220/230 pts

Lot of changes, to go along with a new model kit that would gives the amazing feel of fielding something big powerful and ancient on the table. Shaggoth should be our BoC version of the Big boy lords of other armies like Verminlord, Demon Princes and such. Thats what I believe and thats what the fluff makes them out to be. So here is my take on the Shaggy

New alternative  weapon profile added (since new kit would certainly have at least two): 

Thunder-forged Blade: 6A 3+3+ -1 1. Hitting on unmodified 6 cause extra 1MW in addition and the attack continues.

Storm-wrought Axe: +1A and improved rend of -2. The original axe was pretty pathetic weapon for the Shaggoth, people not only dont fear it, but they didnt even respect it and charge him without care. With the extra offense added, enemies should now give a little thought before charging a Shaggoth, since the retaliation can now really ruin that units day.

Taloned Forelimbs: Now DMG2. Adds more umpf to the Shaggoth. If DP can have his claws deal 2DMG so can a house sized amalgamation of dragon and an ogor.

Beneath the Tempest: In addition, each unit of DO on the table now adds +1 to the initiative roll off result. This ability was a joke. Now it has some actual tactical use. The more DO you have the better the chance of you getting that turn. The effect still procs only on 4+ which serves ans a necessary limitation.

Draconic Blood: Shaggoth being the even more ancient and powerful than his kin gets a 5++ instead. Adding more wounds would require a damage table. And I didnt want to go the 3+ Save route either. Since Shaggoths are ancient and they keep on growing and getting stronger with time this is a fluff way to show just how tought they can get.

Storm Rage: Same as before, now tied to Shaggoth instead of regular DO. Range increased to wholly within 18" instead of 12". Improved range to 18" only makes sense when you consider that our base sizes are 32mm+ unlike many armies who run tons of 25mm stuff and can easily fit into the 12" bubble. This and the fact that other Chaos armies had the range of theirs increased in general so yeah.

Lightning Strike: Just little fluffy gimmick. Once per battle, Shaggoth may use this ability in the Hero phase. Any unit that dealt an unsaved wound to the Shaggoth this or the previous turns and is within 18" will suffer D3 MW on the roll of 4+. You still need to suffer taking some damage and surviving to trigger this, the effect also procs only on 4+ and is once per battle. Its not much but its a nice little gimmick to have just for the fun and it represents the whole theme of Shaggoths channeling lightning and such. And yes the base for this was reworded Dark Walkers artifacts, but that one is a tax on your item slots. This is an inbuilt gimmick. 

COMMAND ABILITY added

Envoy of the Storm: Allows 1 BEAST OF CHAOS unit to Run and Charge/Shoot. If the unit is a THUNDERSCORN unit, that unit may in addition re-roll its charge roll.

*Finally a skill that affects the whole herd, instead of splitting its effect on only tiny fraction of the overall army. It keeps the theme of more manouvarebility that BoC have. While most of our units do have Run & Charge, there is the monster part of our army that cant. This should help with that, hence the universal BOC keyword used. Oh and with this our Heroes can now Run & Charge as well! More synergies, more working combinations! Yes!

This should be the case for all our Command abilities tbh. Also....  A command ability ! On Shaggoth! Yes! How this was not a thing I do not know.... wait I know... ****** old sculpt that nobody buys thus GW doesnt give 2 shaits about.

Magic: Same as before, the range reduced from 20" to 18" to be in line with the standard range for magic not some random weird number.

 

 

You dont have to agree with me on this of course. But to me DragO and Shaggoth should be more of an elite type of unit and hero unit. Not just a cheap throw away they are now. The lore and the whole feel this unit gives off is that of ancient badas*es. BoC Varanguards so to say. I`d much rather see them become more expensive but really brutal on the battlefield than be the cheap roadblock that they currently are. And with the price drop the Minos fill that role now so even more so.

God I really hope we can get a new amazing looking Shaggoth one day... that thing... I am not even sure where I put it, it was so ugly. Instead got one from Mierce Mini to represent the size and visual power that a Shaggoth should radiate.

Edit: And look at that, just as I was typing you guys started talking about DO  funny coincidence.

EDIT: Ok it seems the issue is with the page itself. In the end I had to resize the picture and use a cutting tool, but manage to get a .jpg version for the Shaggoth in here instead of the PDF. Due to the resizing you might need to zoom in a little though

 

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Myrdin

[tupavko]

2 hours ago, Myrdin said:

With the spirit of what could use some love, this is my take on Dragon Ogors and Shaggoth.

Feel free to take a look if you have a minute or two of time to burn  

Considering their fluff these things should be much more umpf. And Shaggoths, were it not for the pathetic horrible ancient sculpt should be some demigod like beings that lived for millennia. That being the case I updated the warscrolls. Not changing the identity of the unit, rather beefing them up to where they should be.

Before you comment on how OP or what not these things are, take a moment and remove yourself from the current form and look at the wider picture. The spectrum of different units of this type that are in the game.... now its not so powerful anymore right ? I`ve noticed BoC players often get used to the low power level of this army and tend to have this weird regressive reaction towards buffing stuff. Leave that mindset behind when looking at this. Instead look at the price tag and compare it with 

 

Summary of changes, since sometimes the smaller details on the warscroll might not be immediately visible. Take a look at the Warscroll first.

  Hide contents

Dragon Ogors:

Price: 160/180 per pop

Draconic Crushers up to DMG3 to keep in line with the changes in Ogor Mawtribes.

Now has a unit Champion option in the form of an Ancient. Ancient gets +1A

Each weapon now has a special ability that goes along with it. Other armies have units with multi weapons as well, and many of the more elite ones have specific abilities tied to those weapons. Same here. Each weapon combination confers some sort of ability.

Paired Ancient Weapon: Re-roll hit and Wounds.  Sounds powerful at first but then you remember its Rend - DMG1. Much less powerful then the initial first glance.

Draconic War-Glaive: 6 to hit cause 2 hits instead. 

Draconic Crusher: Wound rolls of 6 are resolved at -2 rend. Now an actual viable option with DMG3 and a chance for big rend on 6. No longer subpar when compared to the Glaive and Paired weapons.

Added a general ability: Draconic Blood > unit gains 6++ against wounds and mortal wounds.  Its not much but it should help with the survival a little bit, and give the feeling of them being the tough guys they are presented to be.

Moved Storm Rage ability  to Shaggoth. This never made any sense to begin with. Buffs of this type should be tied to the hero not the unit, since the unit still requires the hero in vicinity.

Keywords: Forgot to add them, but they remain unchanged and I didnt wanna rework the whole thing again just to add them.

 

Shaggoth:

Points 220/230 pts

Lot of changes, to go along with a new model kit that would gives the amazing feel of fielding something big powerful and ancient on the table. Shaggoth should be our BoC version of the Big boy lords of other armies like Verminlord, Demon Princes and such. Thats what I believe and thats what the fluff makes them out to be. So here is my take on the Shaggy

New alternative  weapon profile added (since new kit would certainly have at least two): 

Thunder-forged Blade: 6A 3+3+ -1 1. Hitting on unmodified 6 cause extra 1MW in addition and the attack continues.

Storm-wrought Axe: +1A and improved rend of -2. The original axe was pretty pathetic weapon for the Shaggoth, people not only dont fear it, but they didnt even respect it and charge him without care. With the extra offense added, enemies should now give a little thought before charging a Shaggoth, since the retaliation can now really ruin that units day.

Taloned Forelimbs: Now DMG2. Adds more umpf to the Shaggoth. If DP can have his claws deal 2DMG so can a house sized amalgamation of dragon and an ogor.

Beneath the Tempest: In addition, each unit of DO on the table now adds +1 to the initiative roll off result. This ability was a joke. Now it has some actual tactical use. The more DO you have the better the chance of you getting that turn. The effect still procs only on 4+ which serves ans a necessary limitation.

Draconic Blood: Shaggoth being the even more ancient and powerful than his kin gets a 5++ instead. Adding more wounds would require a damage table. And I didnt want to go the 3+ Save route either. Since Shaggoths are ancient and they keep on growing and getting stronger with time this is a fluff way to show just how tought they can get.

Storm Rage: Same as before, now tied to Shaggoth instead of regular DO. Range increased to wholly within 18" instead of 12". Improved range to 18" only makes sense when you consider that our base sizes are 32mm+ unlike many armies who run tons of 25mm stuff and can easily fit into the 12" bubble. This and the fact that other Chaos armies had the range of theirs increased in general so yeah.

Lightning Strike: Just little fluffy gimmick. Once per battle, Shaggoth may use this ability in the Hero phase. Any unit that dealt an unsaved wound to the Shaggoth this or the previous turns and is within 18" will suffer D3 MW on the roll of 4+. You still need to suffer taking some damage and surviving to trigger this, the effect also procs only on 4+ and is once per battle. Its not much but its a nice little gimmick to have just for the fun and it represents the whole theme of Shaggoths channeling lightning and such. And yes the base for this was reworded Dark Walkers artifacts, but that one is a tax on your item slots. This is an inbuilt gimmick. 

COMMAND ABILITY added

Envoy of the Storm: Allows 1 BEAST OF CHAOS unit to Run and Charge/Shoot. If the unit is a THUNDERSCORN unit, that unit may in addition re-roll its charge roll.

*Finally a skill that affects the whole herd, instead of splitting its effect on only tiny fraction of the overall army. It keeps the theme of more manouvarebility that BoC have. While most of our units do have Run & Charge, there is the monster part of our army that cant. This should help with that, hence the universal BOC keyword used. This should be the case for all our Command abilities tbh. Also....  A command ability ! On Shaggoth! Yes! How this was not a thing I do not know.... wait I know... ****** old sculpt that nobody buys thus GW doesnt give 2 shaits about.

Magic: Same as before, the range reduced from 20" to 18" to be in line with the standard range for magic not some random weird number.

 

 

You dont have to agree with me on this of course. But to me DragO and Shaggoth should be more of an elite type of unit and hero unit. Not just a cheap throw away they are now. The lore and the whole feel this unit gives off is that of ancient badas*es. BoC Varanguards so to say. I`d much rather see them become more expensive but really brutal on the battlefield than be the cheap roadblock that they currently are. And with the price drop the Minos fill that role now so even more so.

God I really hope we can get a new amazing looking Shaggoth one day... that thing... I am not even sure where I put it, it was so ugly. Instead got one from Mierce Mini to represent the size and visual power that a Shaggoth should radiate.

Edit: And look at that, just as I was typing you guys started talking about DO  funny coincidence.

Had to upload Shaggoth as PDF, because the Warscroll creator page is giving me error when trying to download it as JPG. Will try to do so later if it works.

 

 

dragon-ogor-shaggoth.pdf 2.21 MB · 2 downloads

I think you did a great job, I really like ow you infused some vitality into these guys and gave them some interesting choices. I don't think at all you went too OP, or Op at all, maybe rerolling both hits and wounds with paired weapons is a very powerful but still not compromising. But at the same time I still feel that there is an issue "lore-wise" with the Shaggots (as you said too).

A Shaggoth is a creature as old as the Realms itslef, some of them were alive even before Sigmar arrived to Azyr... We're talking about  a massive amount of time. There is even a hint some of them are from the Old World. These dudes get bigger and stronger as they age, which means even if this process is slow, they should be Demi-Gods. I still do belive that an Ancient Shaggoth should be able to  put some fear even to the greater deamons. Yes they are made of flesh and blood, but also storm and chaos, so I still believe a Shaggoth should be a 300-500pts behemot of ancient evil and destruction. 

[Myrdin]

21 minutes ago, tupavko said:

I think you did a great job, I really like ow you infused some vitality into these guys and gave them some interesting choices. I don't think at all you went too OP, or Op at all, maybe rerolling both hits and wounds with paired weapons is a very powerful but still not compromising. But at the same time I still feel that there is an issue "lore-wise" with the Shaggots (as you said too).

A Shaggoth is a creature as old as the Realms itslef, some of them were alive even before Sigmar arrived to Azyr... We're talking about  a massive amount of time. There is even a hint some of them are from the Old World. These dudes get bigger and stronger as they age, which means even if this process is slow, they should be Demi-Gods. I still do belive that an Ancient Shaggoth should be able to  put some fear even to the greater deamons. Yes they are made of flesh and blood, but also storm and chaos, so I still believe a Shaggoth should be a 300-500pts behemot of ancient evil and destruction. 

Thanks! Actually I wanted to make Warscroll with Kolek Sun Eater as a 450 pts super buff (greater demon level) monstrosity   (but I wanted to see the response to this first).  I can whip it up after I figure out the stats and skills since I usually dont write rules for the really big and expensive stuff as thats very hard to get right balance wise.

These are just the regular "younger" Shaggoths. You know younger being several hundred thousand years old, while still few millennia younger then the "old folks"

The idea was not to completely rework them, just adjust them within reasons. If I had a contact at GW, I would have already submitted a full BoC rewrite to them by this point, alas I know not of such a person, and I dont think they will hire me just to write that book we all so much deserve xd
 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Myrdin

[Maddpainting]

Cygor honestly is a very good Rock, Paper, Scissor unit if you manage to be the Scissor vs their paper. I've ran a couple of them a few times and against armies with wizards it can be nasty. Sadly, without fighting those armies its almost worthless.

[Derptau]

20 hours ago, Moleculeaxium said:

Just bought a unit of dragon ogers. 

Which weapon option do you think is the best. Not sure which to take. 

Maybe I'm just going to magnetize them. To have some options for Warcry. 🤔

War glaives are the best general purpose ones I use. I run 2(3) with glaives and 1(3) with crushers. Glaives rending is super helpful when backed up with a Shaggoth and then I usually add rend to the crushers with his spell. The block of them run me up to 55 wounds, which at 4+,  survive a lot longer than they probably should. 
 

Always back them up with a Shaggoth though as that makes them so much more reliable.

[Great Bray Tom]

So.. what do you guys do against Frostlord on Stonehorns? I played against a list yesterday in which he had an artefact that dealt D6 damage at the start of every combat phase so all my screens were like instantly killed after that and like 1 attack..  And in the end I tried putting my Bullgors in and he killed all 6 in 1 combat phase...

In total he killed: 20 ungors, 10 gors, 2 chimera's, 1 ghorgon and 6 Bullgors with a little help from 2 Mournfang to take down the Ghorgon. I really seem to struggle against Ogor mawtribes. It's mostly due to the fact that the models count as 2 or sometimes even 10 models so I can't "out-horde" them because everything just gets completely murdered..

[Sauriv]

4 hours ago, Great Bray Tom said:

So.. what do you guys do against Frostlord on Stonehorns? I played against a list yesterday in which he had an artefact that dealt D6 damage at the start of every combat phase so all my screens were like instantly killed after that and like 1 attack..  And in the end I tried putting my Bullgors in and he killed all 6 in 1 combat phase...

In total he killed: 20 ungors, 10 gors, 2 chimera's, 1 ghorgon and 6 Bullgors with a little help from 2 Mournfang to take down the Ghorgon. I really seem to struggle against Ogor mawtribes. It's mostly due to the fact that the models count as 2 or sometimes even 10 models so I can't "out-horde" them because everything just gets completely murdered..

The d6 mw in the combat phase is a mount trait but it only does that against war machines and units with 4+ or better save, so 5+ and 6+ save cant be hurt by that ability. If he does that to, lets say Gors, he is playing it wrong because Gors have a 5+ save with +1 to save rolls in close combat (if they have shields of course). 

Stonehorns are one of mawtribes strongest units so i would try raiders to soften it up. If he plays with ethereal amulet you are going to have a hard time no matter what you do but if he doesn't then you can try to use wildfire taurus to make him go last and focus the stonehorn with bestigors and/or bullgors. Rend is key so try bait him to the herdstone. 

[Karazla]

Question how many bullgors would you play per squad 9 or 6?

[Great Bray Tom]

4 minutes ago, Karazla said:

Question how many bullgors would you play per squad 9 or 6?

Mostly 3 or 6. 9 is very hard to all get in combat and the bad saves dont help either with me approving big squads. 
I would consider 9 for like an alpha strike darkwalkers list that pops the Doombull and Brass despoilers traits to make a huge t1 dent in an army.

[Karazla]

Thanks, i was thinking of going to play the spawn making herd and the pestilence throng for max fun other option was the brass despoiler deepstrike thanks for the info.

 

Another question, is the pestilence throng worth the  big point sink

Edited February 14, 2020 by Karazla

[Maddpainting]

If you want nurgle heroes/book/abilities then yeah. If not then no. For BoC battletome and not MoN one, its not a good battalion, it cost to much for so little.

[Forehead]

Can i check if the doombulls slaughterers call CA makes bloodgreed go off on a 5 instead of a six or if it doesn't affect the bloodgreed ability? Cheers

[Alan Mandelson]

Bloodgreed is unmodified 6s, so no. There is a CT or Artifact (is one but can't remember which) that makes Bloodgreed affect on unmodified 5s and 6s.

[Heroflegend21]

Quick question regarding battalions. Is it possible to run the Tzaangor Coven battalion from the Tzeentch Book in a Beast of Chaos army?

[Great Bray Tom]

2 hours ago, Heroflegend21 said:

Quick question regarding battalions. Is it possible to run the Tzaangor Coven battalion from the Tzeentch Book in a Beast of Chaos army?

Unfortunately not!

[Heroflegend21]

14 minutes ago, Great Bray Tom said:

Unfortunately not!

Why is that? They all of the BoC keyword and the phantasmagoria can be run in a Tzeentch army.

[Sauriv]

The battalion have the tzeentch keyword therefore only works under a tzeentch alligiance. Our phantasmagoria battalion is special and is FAQed to work for both alligiances. 

The rule of thumb is that battletomes don't mix. 

[decker_cky]

The reason is that a battalion has a keyword.  If the battalion keyword doesn't match the army allegiance, then all the units in the battalion can only be added as allies. 

 

From the Core Rulebook designers commentary (emphasis mine): 

 

Q: The rules say that a warscroll battalion can include allies and that they don’t count against the number of allies in the army. Does this rule only apply to battalions that share the same allegiance as the army, but that have units from two different factions (a battalion in a Daughters of Khaine army that has Daughters of Khaine and Stormcast Eternals units, for example)?

A: Yes. The faction a warscroll battalion belongs to is shown on its warscroll, above the title of the battalion. In addition, the battalion is assumed to belong to the Grand Alliance that its faction is a part of. Warscroll battalions that share the same allegiance as an army can always be taken as part of the army, and if they include any allied units, these units do not count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (or against the points limit that can be spent on allies in a Pitched Battle). An army can include a warscroll battalion of a different allegiance to the rest of the army, but if it does so the units in it do count against the limits on the number of allies the army can have (and the points for the battalion and the units in it count against the points limit that can be spent on allies in a Pitched Battle).

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/8f9bd00c.pdf

 

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by decker_cky

[Hebroseph]

I recently purchased a large lot of Tzeentch and it came with a bunch of tzaangor enlighted and skyfires. I'm already running a tzeentch list so im not really interested in running them IN tzeentch. What is your best tzaangor heavy BoC list? 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Hebroseph

[Maddpainting]

With or without normal BoC units?

[Death1942]

17 hours ago, Hebroseph said:

I recently purchased a large lot of Tzeentch and it came with a bunch of tzaangor enlighted and skyfires. I'm already running a tzeentch list so im not really interested in running them IN tzeentch. What is your best tzaangor heavy BoC list? 

Can't really go wrong with 2x6 Enlightened on discs as your hammers and then toss in a bunch of cheap chaff to hold objectives.  Basically the enlightened and then spam ungors to screen.  You need a shaman on disc to buff the Enlightened to get the most out of them and I would almost always aim to take at least 1 bray shaman to buff your other units and sit near the herdstone.

[Hebroseph]

6 hours ago, Death1942 said:

Can't really go wrong with 2x6 Enlightened on discs as your hammers and then toss in a bunch of cheap chaff to hold objectives.  Basically the enlightened and then spam ungors to screen.  You need a shaman on disc to buff the Enlightened to get the most out of them and I would almost always aim to take at least 1 bray shaman to buff your other units and sit near the herdstone.

The lot i got was 6 enlightened on disk, 6 skyfire, 3 shamans on disc and 10 tzaangors. I already have a large lot of ungors/gors and bullgors and associated hero's. Only thing I don't have is centigors(hate the model) chariots and razorpigs

[Hebroseph]

23 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

With or without normal BoC units?

Either works