AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion

[tupavko]

10 hours ago, Apok said:

Hi!

   The Crown of Command provided Stubborn for You and Your unit. It was a common EQ to have a Stubborn Beastlord with a 1+ Sv with a reroll and a 5 point magic weapon (-1 AP for example). And Have him in a unit of Bestiors with a Banner of Discipline. That way You were stubborn 10 on the unit and thanks to the FaQ and other things, Your general was providing LD 10 all around

   The Beastmen got some teeth in the End Times though! Becasue our Lords were good and our units not, the ET solved the problem becasue the point caps in heroes and lords went up. And We received a propper beatstick in the likes of a Doombull with Fly, AoD and Mark of Tzeentch (Flying monster with a 3+ RR1 Ward Save with 6 Str 8 attacks!)

We all trully miss the Murder Cow! Now we have:

 "Consumed by bloodgreed, Doombulls lay waste to their prey in an orgy of slaughter, maiming everything within reach of their gargantuan axes. " - basically nothing since they have range 1'' (less then ungors with spears) and 3A, basically the same as a regular bestigor fighting a horde...

[Myrdin]

26 minutes ago, tupavko said:

We all trully miss the Murder Cow! Now we have:

 "Consumed by bloodgreed, Doombulls lay waste to their prey in an orgy of slaughter, maiming everything within reach of their gargantuan axes. " - basically nothing since they have range 1'' (less then ungors with spears) and 3A, basically the same as a regular bestigor fighting a horde...

>___>

<___<

T___T

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

...correct

[Popisdead]

19 hours ago, decker_cky said:

@Popisdead - you just need to work out your brain by describing what "unmodified leadership" was in 8th edition WFB. 

boo hiss, no.  It was a nightmare set of rules and wording issues.  

[decker_cky]

I loved running triple doombulls in one of the last 8th edition tournaments. It was not amazing, but it was one of those fun lists that could kill a pile and stress out your opponents with every combat round. 

[Popisdead]

33 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

I loved running triple doombulls in one of the last 8th edition tournaments. It was not amazing, but it was one of those fun lists that could kill a pile and stress out your opponents with every combat round. 

I ran that at the second to last Gottacon and it was so fun.  I sure turned heads with the list.  I wish I could run it effectively in AoS.  Maybe Khorne.  I used to run triple Doombull in early AoS 1.0

[decker_cky]

Triple doombull is easy to run now - its only 300 pts! Back then those three bad bulls would fill up 50% of your list. 

[Myrdin]

11 hours ago, decker_cky said:

Triple doombull is easy to run now - its only 300 pts! Back then those three bad bulls would fill up 50% of your list. 

"You get a Doombull!, You get a Doombull! Everybody gets a mf Doombull! There`s plenty of Doombulls for everyone!"

Edited January 8, 2021 by Myrdin

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

On 1/8/2021 at 2:24 AM, Myrdin said:

"You get a Doombull!, You get a Doombull! Everybody gets a mf Doombull! There`s plenty of Doombulls for everyone!"

That's a load'a bull.

(Someone had to. I'm not proud)

[cyberhawk94]

Would there be any interest in a "community-aproved" set of house-rules for Beasts? just like a few small tweaks and/or additional special rules to act as a stop-gap until a new Codex comes out to make casual games less one-sided?

[The Red King]

8 minutes ago, cyberhawk94 said:

Would there be any interest in a "community-aproved" set of house-rules for Beasts? just like a few small tweaks and/or additional special rules to act as a stop-gap until a new Codex comes out to make casual games less one-sided?

Judging from the reaction to that old batallion maybe the easiest tweaks would be to make a few good batallions?

[cyberhawk94]

4 minutes ago, The Red King said:

Judging from the reaction to that old batallion maybe the easiest tweaks would be to make a few good batallions?

That would be easiest, but it comes with other problems:

Limiting the use of current favorites like Desolating Brayherd

Ramping up the number of artefacts we have access to in a given game if we can easily take multiple battalions

Not allowing fixes to things like Gors or subfactions. 

[The Red King]

Well I mean starting small seems like the easiest way to get people to agree to trying things.

[cyberhawk94]

Maybe just a new allegiance like they tried to do with Legion of Grief for nighthaunt? leave the warscrolls alone, but give a new set of alliegeance abilities and maybe subfactions so instead of "Allegience: Beasts of Chaos" you'd be "Allegience: Beastmen" and everything else would run the same?

Then some of the allegience rules could touch on the struggling units in some way. 

EDIT: How about something like this? (couldn't get it out of my head lol) https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MQjmI5TazedXA2t3CBf

Basically just buffed the 3 "Herd" rules, added a generic rule (since for some reason we didnt have even one) based on Primal Fury from WHFB, buffed the two lesser-used Greatfrays, and freed them to be able to take other command traits (Seraphon did it like this and its really nice). 

I did limit the Primal Fury to Battleline to curb possible edge cases with our monsters, and to make your chosen army theme matter more, since your general choice causes either Bestigors, Bullgors, or Dragon Ogres to get the rule.

Allherd now has a small combat benefit, and synergizes the best with the core rules (summoning and Primal Fury), and Darkstalkers actually have scary consistent ambushes, especially if you taken the Brayblast Trumpet and a maurading brayherd battalion.

I know a few people in here were saying our big issue was the lack of internal synergies, but I think that is actually proper for Beasts. Too chaotic for organized combos and such, plus it lets us be way more flexible in movement phase since we dont need to keep things near a bunch of support heros like Seraphon or Nighthaunt do. 

Its not going to top any tierlists, but it should be both more viable and more importantly more flexible. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by cyberhawk94

[tupavko]

9 hours ago, cyberhawk94 said:

 

I know a few people in here were saying our big issue was the lack of internal synergies, but I think that is actually proper for Beasts. Too chaotic for organized combos and such, plus it lets us be way more flexible in movement phase since we dont need to keep things near a bunch of support heros like Seraphon or Nighthaunt do. 

Its not going to top any tierlists, but it should be both more viable and more importantly more flexible. 

The synergies are not only tactical skill and forward thinking. It can also be a consequence of simply translating basic animal instincts into rules:

Ex: Beastlord preventing units from taking a battleshock is more pure fear rather that his capacity to be a great orator. 

On the same level more blood is spilled and more beasts get into combat should trigger their pack animal instincts and make them go berzerk. 

Also in practical terms not only narrative ones the game at the moment is all about good synergies or super strong warscrolls... I do not think beasts should have super beefy all around fighters (except Shaggoths and dragon ogors) so no super strong warscrolls. 

Otherwise no matter how willing we are to play this army even if it is not S/A tier being a constant underdog gets frustrating after a few years... 

I just got myself a new mono Troggoth army which is definitely not S tier but still, their warscrolls are good and the new alligence abilities from the WD makes this army appear in my eyes as super reliable and functional since I've been used to beasts... Just the fact that rockguts swing 12-15W on avarage in 4+ save models is a massive thing to me after trying to use Bullgors for the same cost... 

Edited January 11, 2021 by tupavko

[cyberhawk94]

11 hours ago, tupavko said:

The synergies are not only tactical skill and forward thinking. It can also be a consequence of simply translating basic animal instincts into rules:

Also in practical terms not only narrative ones the game at the moment is all about good synergies or super strong warscrolls... I do not think beasts should have super beefy all around fighters (except Shaggoths and dragon ogors) so no super strong warscrolls. 

Definitely fair points, though I was also speaking from a place of making my "house rule" tweaks as simple as possible, something like that would require new warscrolls and vastly change how the army is played. As I said, we would have to care way more about positioning and support heroes than we do now, which I do think is an under-rated strength of the army, as it really allows us to focus on the objectives

[tupavko]

18 minutes ago, cyberhawk94 said:

Definitely fair points, though I was also speaking from a place of making my "house rule" tweaks as simple as possible, something like that would require new warscrolls and vastly change how the army is played. As I said, we would have to care way more about positioning and support heroes than we do now, which I do think is an under-rated strength of the army, as it really allows us to focus on the objectives

Oh i am absolutely Ok with that, I just read the whole armybook you wrote. There are several good ideas there I could write about for hours but what I think overall is that in terms of game design you got it right here, actually I think you really nailed it:

Shadowbeasts

The Darkwalkers are apex ambushers, luring their foes into the shadows before pouncing upon them.

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 3). In addition, when you set up a DARKWALKERS unit using the Brayherd Ambush rule, that unit can immediately move d3".

This type of rule is exactly what makes good armies good and what we lack: coherent army-wide fluff-powered rules.

This rules is faction wide, it does give benefits to all units from the humble ungor to the mighty Bullgor, it has still a certain amount of randomness so it is not a nobrainer, and it is totally coherent with what this army is all about: positioning, hitting at the right moment the soft spot. Those +d3'' would actually make ambushing interesting and paired with the chance to delay the arrival till turn 4 would protect our more precious units from being killed on turn 1, besides it woul actually make BoC a very tactial and sort of kunnin' army to play.

The funny thing is that it is actually quite simple to fix BoC, just write the rules that fit the narrative just as you did sir... We are the ambushing race that actually has the worst ambushing rule in the game at the moment. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by tupavko

[cyberhawk94]

Thank you for taking the time to read through it! 

 

The ambush rules have always bothered me. I used to run One-eye just to try and make is usable back when each unit had to roll to come on the board, and currently I have a whole Darkwalkers Brayherd army that I just run as Gavespawn because the ambush faction doesn't actually really give any benefits to the ambush units (just lets new ones ambush), and has 2 useless required upgrades. 

 

Like was have an ambush battalion, ambush artefacts, ambush synergies, let us use them!

Edited January 12, 2021 by cyberhawk94

[Maddpainting]

I like our Ambushing rules personally. 

For its its mostly Warscrolls, battalions, Monsters allegiance abilities and Monsters has zero support in our book. PS our Summoning points are all off now that points has changed so much.

[Myrdin]

5 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

I like our Ambushing rules personally. 

For its its mostly Warscrolls, battalions, Monsters allegiance abilities and Monsters has zero support in our book. PS our Summoning points are all off now that points has changed so much.

Personally I really dont. They are too constrictive, and often times less worthwhile than deploying on the board.

The problem with our Ambush is that rather than makes us faster it makes us slower. The ambush should be much more umpf. Either closer to the enemy, further than 6", allow for some move, or give reroll to charges. Basically it should play into our strengths. Just like you would think when hearing the word ambush, when the enemy is on top of you before you can react.

Instead how it works more often than not. You ambush something, that thing most likely fails the charge, then proceeds to glare at enemy units, that reposition, and either shoot you to pieces, or charge you, or otherwise completely take over the initiative of what was supposed to be YOUR moment of sowing discords and catching your opponent where they are weak.

Worse even, there are faction or units that ambush better than we do. Thats just shows how pathetic our "main army rule" in all actuality is.

The concept is not bad, but it needs to be upscaled by 120% to be worth consideration.

My favorite "fix" to Ambush is: With each additional turn the unit that is ambushing can go 1" further up the board and 1" closer to the enemy.

And thats merely a fix, that wouldnt make Ambush a worthwhile thing still, but at least it would add a little bit of speed to the otherwise severly slowed donw unit. Better chance of pulling of a turn 3 charge since now you are not forcing a 9" roll but a 7" roll.

Another thing entirely would be if we had the army wider reroll to charges as our army rule. Ambush could do that, keep it as is, but guarantee a charge reroll for the ambushing units.

I mean there are several other things you can do with this rule for it to actually feel like it does something instead of the absolute gimmick it is right now. I`d much rather take the nonsense the Ogors got, the "Hungry/Sated thing" that completely throws away some of their biggest weakness out of the window just like that on top of everything else they`ve got going o for them.

[Popisdead]

39 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

Personally I really dont. They are too constrictive, and often times less worthwhile than deploying on the board.

The problem with our Ambush is that rather than makes us faster it makes us slower. The ambush should be much more umpf.

The Ambush should make us a threat for a pincer move and not so much a speed issue.  

I've run it in Shadowalkers with Warherd and it was pretty good and useful.  You can just pop on some distraction threats early on and move up the rest of the herd.  

I don't see it as a mechanic that needed a vast alteration but a couple improvements.  The opponent can screen out against it but at the same time you can pop in 10 Ungors to help block in.  (ugh I keep bringing him up) but Joel McGrath's last BoC vs KO he did this very thing.  Used ambush and board control in a dominating way to win.  

[Chaos Shepard]

I'm sorry but I must object to braking the 9" deepstrike limit. Being able to place a unit and reliably charge any  where on the board edge would be incredibly unfun to play against. Not to mention you would essentially be letting the genie out of the bottle, this would not stop at beast of chaos.

That's not to say Ambush couldn't use some improvements. You shouldn't have to take a command trait or darkwalkers in order to hold units in reserves past the first turn. You also shouldn't have to take the horn artifact to get the small attack bonus on arriving from Ambush. Also so Darkwalkers aren't left in the wayside, perhaps they get an automatic re-roll to charge when coming out of ambush and an artifact that can grant +1 to charge to a unit that came out of Ambush that turn.

[Maddpainting]

Getting closer will be a huge problem, you would just ambush everything and always charge. Thats not tactical or fun. Ambushing should be used to forgo a turn on the table to protect you, to get into a position to apply pressure, and make your opponent have harder choices as to where to move, what to shoot/magic, etc..

Ambush does just that. What is a problem is we do not have units that are strong enough to really want to Ambush, so for me Ambushing is great, the units are not tough enough to warrant it most the time.

Example: Imagine a unit of 6 Dragon Ogres, but pretend they are same points as now, 3+ save and a 6+++, with rule that lightning strikes the turn they are or did charge (like Morrsarr Eels) now they are a serious threat, you don't want to charge them but next turn they are getting a D6 move + 8" move so they will be in charge range. Do you attack them with magic or the 6 Bullgors coming closer from the front. 

Or if Hounds where cheaper and had traits for our Monsters to Ambush also and able to Run and Charge, imagine Ambushing 20 wounds for cheap as a 6pts a model. Now that unit poses as a serious tarpit threat, 16" move on a flank and charge. (though I would make them battleline if I could also if you had a Monster hero).

Edited January 14, 2021 by Maddpainting

[cyberhawk94]

On 1/13/2021 at 1:10 PM, Chaos Shepard said:

I'm sorry but I must object to braking the 9" deepstrike limit. Being able to place a unit and reliably charge any  where on the board edge would be incredibly unfun to play against. Not to mention you would essentially be letting the genie out of the bottle, this would not stop at beast of chaos.

That's not to say Ambush couldn't use some improvements. You shouldn't have to take a command trait or darkwalkers in order to hold units in reserves past the first turn. You also shouldn't have to take the horn artifact to get the small attack bonus on arriving from Ambush. Also so Darkwalkers aren't left in the wayside, perhaps they get an automatic re-roll to charge when coming out of ambush and an artifact that can grant +1 to charge to a unit that came out of Ambush that turn.

The new Cities faction (Misthavn) already has this. Theirs costs a CP but also is d6 inches. Not to mention the shenanigans Living City could do before that (more restrictive but still)

 

The problems I was trying to fix with the ambush rules changes I had were two-fold:

1) We are the worst ambush army of all the ambush armies in the game (Draco Tail, Nighthaunt, Stormcast, all arent limited in turn or to board edges)

2) Shadow walkers is the "ambush subfaction" that doesn't really do anything to make your ambush better, it just lets more units ambush. 

 

I changed the core rule so we at least can pick the turn, still limited to board edge so still worse than those armies but its at least closer (like living city).

And the d3" move was pulled from Misthavn but toned down to a non-Command ability. I thought it fit the lore of shadowwalkers best. Any other bonus on the ambush turn would work here just as well (re-roll charges, +1 to hit or wound, etc) it just needs something to actually be the ambush faction.

On 1/13/2021 at 6:12 PM, Maddpainting said:

Getting closer will be a huge problem, you would just ambush everything and always charge. Thats not tactical or fun. Ambushing should be used to forgo a turn on the table to protect you, to get into a position to apply pressure, and make your opponent have harder choices as to where to move, what to shoot/magic, etc..

+d3" is mathematically the same as re-rolling charges, and we aren't always ambushing chariots, and other deep-strike factions dont always ambush things that can re-roll charges. It wouldn't make it a no brainer, it would just make aggressive ambushing an actual option

 

On 1/13/2021 at 1:10 PM, Chaos Shepard said:

Also so Darkwalkers aren't left in the wayside, perhaps they get an automatic re-roll to charge when coming out of ambush and an artifact that can grant +1 to charge to a unit that came out of Ambush that turn.

Darkwalkers were the ones that got the +d3", and +d3" and re-roll charges are almost exactly the same mathematically, its just more unique and slightly more flexible

Edited January 15, 2021 by cyberhawk94

[Maddpainting]

But you have to consider that with re-roll charges.

[cyberhawk94]

I guess, we have so few units that can re-roll charges (as far as I know only chariots and Warherd near a specific general) that I didnt think it would be an issue. The rule can easily be changed to re-roll charges, thats just less flexible since it is only a benefit for charging, not getting to an objective / in range of a spell / moving a character to buff a charging unit etc

 

Misthavn's +d6" and +1 to charges on their units musicians seemed much stronger to me, since it could even be a 3" charge out of ambush

Edited January 15, 2021 by cyberhawk94