tupavko

I'll never get tired expressing my overal disappointement when it comes to bullgors: VISUALLY: oh man they are bad; they look like a basterd child of a steroid grown bodybuilder and a hairless rat, with the same dynamism of a greek column... They are bulls... i mean we've all seen the spanish corrida or the american rodeo, those beasts are massive but they are powefull, nasty and a lot quicker than what one might think.... Bullgors should be in terms of aesthetics the most dynamic of all mostruous infantry side by side with ratogres, and at the same time they should feel massivly powerful. Just copy the models from Total War there is nothing to invent... They already did it! GAMEPLAY: everything about bullgors is wrong. They are slow, especially compared to other big dudes, but bulls aint's slow, they are big but massivly strong in proprotion to their size, so they should't run as aelven kangaroos but neither shoul be foot slogging infantry... Also, if there is a creature outhere that should be able to RUN-CHARGE-DEAL IMPACT HITS I think based on common sense it should be a massive 2-legged bull on speed with the same psychological profile of Hannibal Lecter... Let's continue: hitting on 4's... Maybe it could have been ok, but then trolls hit all on 3+... Trolls, the dummest creature in the entire universe, and they all have range 2'' by using their bare hands while a Bull-man as tall as a Troll and twice as large, with an axe the size of a horse rider, is hittin with range 1''' Keep on going: Bloodgreed, is just dumb... Bullgors seem a lot like a rampaging unit on the field, not some ghouls feasting on dead bodies... I can't imagine bullgors stopping the carnage to eat. I immagine bloodgreed like a lot more "active" thing than just feeding, I see it a lot more as a bloodbath, with these massive monsters "ignoring wounds" due to the testosterone overdrive in their bodies rather than " a poor's man vimper thing", just like it used to be in the classical "tauromachia" (roman and greek bull killing rites) spectacles. And again just look at them in Total War, Minotaurs are not a grinding unit, they are a hammer weilding a sledghammer, they hit, and than hit again, and keep hitting till their is blood in their veins, if they get bogged down theey are still naked 4m tall cows, they go down... Make them fast, super killy and force the BoC players to use them with dynamism (something that our army is already all about), and they will be great. I will not even mention the fact they have 2A (3A for a Doombull...............is the saddest thing ever since he is basically my overall favorite character in the entire WH lore since ever) and their horns are 4+/4+ NO REND 1D...... a 2m long horn is NO REND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sometimes I get carried away and I hate GW so much (which kind of is ok, and perfectly suited for a BoC player...) Sorry for the super salty post but bullgors make me so angry!

I would add to that the fact that although I did appreciate the narrative behind the faction, at the moment the BoC suffer the same issues as Destruction: a total lack of agenda. The abscence of named characters puts the beasts totally out of the narrative outside of being random canonfodder. As for the models I think that in GW's way of thinking Beasts are totally OK: BoC do have a very wide plastic range (basically all units are plastic except heroes and centigors; yes a few random monsters are resin but they will go the way of the dodo I believe) Besides that fact, according to GW's own Twitch chanel BoC are quite popular actually, they even stated they are one of the favorite "second armies", so I do believe they still sell quite a few of them. I am fairly sure we will see more BoC units trough Nurgle (Pestigors, I believe it will be a new chariot kit) and Khorne (Khornegors - I would expect Centigors... I know Minos are more straightforward but GW makes weird decisions... Minos are Slaanesh now ). BoC need more narrative, they need a godlike leader of some sort, Kholek or Morghur type of heroes to give them same story space. On the other side at the moment I think that the most needy of an update are the Skaven: they have a massive amount of 30 years old models, and some if not the worst plastic kits out there (Rat Ogors and Plague Monks).... And Skaven are the most iconic GW-only army, and have a massive amount of fans!

I had quite a few games too (I posted a couple of my BRs here) and I fully agree. Actually even in competitive terms the army is actually not bad at all it behaves a lot better than what I expected, mainly because troggoths are good at avoiding the mian issues in the game at the moment (sniping small suporting heroes, magic and even shooting in a way)... I was really suprised to see how well the Troggoth army plays against lumineath and OBR. My only fear at the moment is that I find that most of my games pivot around the Hag (because my opponents find her menacing, her vomit is devastating, she can soak a massive amount of damage output and survive etc...), and she's a FW model which means she is subject to squating, and there so real replacement for her.

Brayherd Primal Fury: Units that made a charge move this turn gains re-roll wounds rolls of 1. If the unit attacking has more than 10 models in it you can re-roll hits rolls of 1. This is for Brayherd only, this will give Brayherd that real herd mentality when there are lots of them and they are in the mist of the fight they are just enrage and their primal instincts takes over. Very nice and fluffy! Thunderscorn Creatures of the storm: In the Hero phase a Thunderscorn unit not in engagement range may Ride the Lightning., and if it is within engagement range then it may instead Thunderclap. Ride the Lightning: Pick this unit up and place it anywhere wholly within 18" and outside of 9" of an enemy unit. Thunderclap: Roll a D6 for each Thunderscorn model, on a 3+ you deal 1 MW to a enemy unit within engagement range, on a 6+ you instead deal D3 MW's. This will make Thunderscorn feel fluffy, they are suppose to come down on a bolt of lightning and have lightning abilities. I'm not a big fan of teleporting dragon ogors... They can be fast, but still teleporting mmmmh... I would prefer a constant -1 to hit for archers ina 6-9'' bubble because they carry the storm with them... You can't shoot into a blizzard... Warherd Bloodgorge: At the end of combat phase for each model slain by this unit roll a D6 and for each 2+ you heal 1 wound to that unit. If that unit was healed for the rest of the turn they re-roll off wound rolls. Bullgors are suppose to feed in the middle of the battle, this will heal them (you know b.c they are easting) and make them mad if they have to do combat again that same turn making them more scary than before. I think this is a total miss, but not on your side, at very start it's an ability that increases durability on a unit that is not supposed to be durable... It's a hammer unit not an anvil, all Bullgor abilities should be into damage output, no funky saves, healings and so on, it just does not synergiezes well with the unit. You do not gain anything if you heal even 3W ona single Bullgor they are still 4W with a 5+... They need more attacks, more mortal wounds more mobility on the charge. Monsters of Chaos Feral Monsters: Monsters of Chaos units other than Thunderscorn can re-roll failed charges against any unit that took damage in the same turn and has a Bravery of +3 the turn they destroyed an enemy unit. This makes monsters feel like monsters, they get the sense of blood and goes after them. I like this one, but I think it's still not enough to field monsters instead of regular units... They have very limited synergies so they need to hit hard and fast cause they die even faster. Monsters of Chaos additive changes Mightiest of the Monsters: Shaggoths and Jabberscythe may be chosen as a Leader, and if they are your General then all Monsters of Chaos Behemoths, War Hounds, and Dragon Ogres with the Monsters of Chaos Keyword becomes Battleline. This is to make the Monsters feel like an army, want to run lots of Cocktrices, Jabbers, and Hounds? Perfect! Love this one. Brayherd Ambush stays the same. It's a mediocre rule, I wish it was more flexible and useful, especially nowdays considering how many armies can ambush, teleport, summon better than us who are supposed to be "THE ambushing army", but again it still gives some extra options so ok...

I really want to see GW give some love to the centigors, with new models, cool rules and a new centigor Lord hero... I wouldn't mind if they made an AoS native Ghorros, a massive centigor father of a thousand sons, that would really be cool (that and a God level lord, hopefully an Ancient Shaggoth since we are talking about 4 legged dudes).

I see it this way: it all depends from the warscrolls. If the warscrolls stay as they are, we definitely need a wide range of massive army wide boosts, and +1d3'' movement after ambushing in a single subfaction is definetely not game braking rule, in a universe where armies can pile in twice (whit multiple units like FeC), fight in the hero phase, shoot you off the board, suffer 3W max per turn or activate whenever they want, or even charge you on turn 1 with 30''+ charge. (several armies do not need ambushing since they just get to charge you on turn one DoK, FeC or IJ for example) Let's say we apply the +1D3'' movement after ambush: what are we ambushing? 6 Bullgors with big axes? If those guys even charge in 50% of the cases they will bounce off the unit they charged unless it's some sort of chaff, or they get a support from a hero and some other unit. I'm playing Troggoths at the moment and let's say those 6 bulls charge 6 trolls... On avarage they will be inflicting around 9,7 wounds, in exhange the 4 remaining trolls will inflict 11 wounds to the bullgors... And trolls are not even the worst thing out there. We can say we wouldn't want to charge a rock hard unit, but in that case the whole theory falls apart because if ambush is good only for clearing chafg with some fancy charges it's still not a massive ugrade for the army. In the actual game +1d3'' is just a placibo, but still it is a good start and perfectly suited for the army (and fluff). Now if let's say Bullgors (or Dragon Ogors) should get a better warscroll maybe a 3+ to hit, and 1/2A more then a +1D3'' would be a very powerful tool, but still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less influencing the game than Be'lakor, Morathi, the eels, the naked dwarfs, Seraphon or Lumineth magic phase, the reliability f the Mortek Guard and so on... In this game an army that has to fight in melee to win (even a bit) is always the underdog, because by going into HtH you risk getting hit back, while shooting, magic or passive abilities (such as Might makes Right or Mightier makes Rightier) are far superior. Now if you ask me what would I love to see than I would say: leave the overall feeling of the army the same, a horde of super fast disposable bodies, with some really killy units and monsters. That means giving us a more complete set of army rules (just like Gloomspite Gitz we suffer the issue of multiple non interracting keywords, this is one of the reasons why we work better in Chaos God armies rather then on our own), some good subfactions and especially good warscrolls since at the moment we get 4 good warscrolls: ungors, ungor riders, bestigors and the shaman, the rest is pure or half trash with some really honorable mentions such as: Cygor (this dude makes no sense at all), Bullgors of all sorts Hero included (the absolutely worst warscroll out of all monstrous infantries, even a humble ogor is better) and Dragon Ogors (again another warscroll that makes no sense in terms of stats, 2 Bestigors get to hit better and harder than a single half dragon half ogor... )

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.

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...

Had two more games this weekend first with an OBR army and then with a Sons of Behemat force. I will not go into detail cause it would be very long but here are some insights. My list was still: Boss Hag Fungoid Madcap 2x6 Rockgut 3x3 Fellwater Cauldron Megamob Battalion GAME 1: OBR Katakros 2x Boneshaper Harvester Crawler Catapult 2 x Harbingers 2x20 Mortek 10 Mortek This game was against an experienced OBR player, thing that will prouve very important, since my opponent used really well all of his card. We played the Total Conquest Battleplan. I mights say that this game was far easier (not easy just easier) than what I thought: rend -2 and high damage output of the troggoths especially the rockgut actually managed to go trough OBR's wall of shields quite nicely. What I messed up was that I horribly underestimated how much they can ressurect while under the aura of both Katakros and the Boneshapers. I managed to take both big units of Mortek down to 1 and 4 models but then decided to commit my forces to other things instead of cleaning them forever so at the last turn my opponent ressurrected a congaline and managed to steel an objective from me ending the game 12-12 (we forgot to decied the secondary objectives so we called it a draw). I had some bad rolls, like loosing the Dankhold by missing 3 out of 3 save rolls from a catapult shot, taking 15W and then manging to swallow the Glowin' Howiz at my first roll... Again the big blocks of rockguts proved to be essential as well as the hag, which is a point sink but a massive distraction for the opponent since it takes a huge commitment of forces to bring her down (she survived, killed 10 mortek and 2 Harbingers). I still have to get used using such a small force and get the proportion of how much a very small amount of attacks from the rockguts can decimate enemy units (in a single combat they were killing something like 12 Mortek .... an insane amount especially since I am used to BoC, so usually it is me removing bodies and counting how many more I can send and still keep the objective). At the end I think OBR are actually a good matchup for troggoths: they tend to look for melee but are quite less effective as an indistructable wall when you can bring an army wide -2 rend and high damage attacks, and also they lack magic protection or powerful spells which gave me the upper hand to cast, the Hag's Curse (-1 to hit and -1 to armor save which is massive against the Mortek) and Itchy Nuissance. GAME 2: SoB Taker Tribe Kraken-eater general Warstomper 3 Gargants 3x single Gargant Oh boy... we played Shifting Objectives. Since the very beginning I must admit I had no idea how to face this army: they do not hit hard as a Mawkrusha ut still they can take quite a lot of trolls down and I do not have a lot of them to throw away. besides that, the scenario was a really bad one for playing giants since only 3 objectives ment they'll have the numbers to fight for each one of them. At the end of turn 3 we wer 12 to 3 for my opponent, but eventually the Fellwater managed to bring down most fo the small gargants with the massive amount of their attacks, and the rockguts although I lost 5 of them in 1 unit and 3 in the other killed both of the Mega Gargants (with his general falling to the Hag's Vomit... best attack ever). At turn 5 the impossible happened since my opponent had a single mancrusher on the last objective, and he was leading 18 to 13... At that point I had Battlelines on the other two objectives so if I manged to kill the last gargant and grab the objective... But unfortunatelly I had no units available that could reach him so I had my Fungoid cast the Hand of Gork on the Hag and teleported her 9'' from the Gargant. Then in order to get a better chance of charging I had the Hag cast the couldron and placed it in front of her toward the gargant (the two models count as a single one for all purposes of the game, de facto reducing the range of the charge), then during the shooting face I vomited on him and the impossible happened: I hit with 4 attacks and managed to roll four 6 for the dameg roll, making it 12W killing him and leaving the Hag unable to charge and still not within the range of the objective... So my opponent won 17-18. However it was a super amusing game, with some really cool fights and things going on (HtH armies for me are still the best gaming experience withou negative gameplay) and although I lost because I was too gready still melting down a garagnt was a nice touch. As for the overall impression, fighting SoB is a mess for us, it would have been a lot easier in a different scenario, Shifting Objectives is one of those that is really suited for them and we don't have numerbers to push them away before they score a massive amount of points. However they actually do die, the Boss and 6 Rockgut killed 1 almost in a single turn, and the small ones are super squishy when hit with some high quality attacks (and that is basically the only thing Troggoths do)... I also got the feeling that Fellwater are best for dealing with the small ones, and even 3 Fellwater hitting first can actually bring 1 down on avarage, Rockguts are better for dealing with the big ones because of the 4+ save, but still they will be dealing 15-17W per turn on avarage. Hope these reports are somehow useful or at least interesting. Next stop Cities of Sigmar

Khornegors and Pestigors are a lore thing but have no models Beastmen heroes on chariots are as well, but at the moment they do not exist Ancient Shaggoths are a thing (there is a comand trait "Ancient beyond time" I beleive, that should mimic that, but the actual shaggoth is just too small to represent those mighty creatures) Krakanrok the Black is still a thing in the lore, the father of all dragon ogors from the Old World which makes him the oldest living being in AoS, since he was so even in the Old World, compared to him Nagash is a newborn, and it turns out he is actually the Godbeast of Azyr sent into exile by Sigmar and Dracothion who managed to send him away but not kill him (might be a God level lord for Beasts of Chaos although he should be the size of a mountain) Morghur the Shadowgave again from BoC is mentioned as a sort of avatar of Chaos Undevided and he's still a thing (so again might be a god level Lord for BoC) Throgg the Troll (troggoth) King seems as thing since he is mentioned in the lore (Realmgate Wars) but it is unclear who is he allied too (but he is still a king of a monstruos horde - wouldn't be suprised to see him come back trough Gotrek's books since the too met already during End Times, and the Troll King was the last villain to face the slayer). This even more possible now that Sigvald is back and the two have a rather messed up past full of unsolved issues .

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...

Hi all this is my first post here, and my first game experience with a non Chaos faction in 20 years of hobby, and what a joy it was. I had my first game with a Glogg's Megamob a few days ago against a FeC army and here is a quick recap and a few observations: My list: Dankhold Troggboss Troggoth Hag Fungoid Madcap 2x6 rockgut 3 rockgut 2x3 fellwater scrapskuttle cauldron Megamob battalion My opponent: (I'm not very familiar with Fec so do not remeber all the names) King on Terrorgheist 2x Archregents ghoul courtier 40 ghoul 2x10 ghoul 3 horrors +3x 3 flyer units to be summoned King's ghouls battalion Calice We played Gifts from the Heavens ( at turn 2 two objectives fall randomly one on each side). I had a 4 drop, my opponent 5 so I ended my deployment first and decided to go second. TURN1: Since objectives were not yet revealed and we were distant my friend played a quite defensive first turnbasically moved only his king on terrorgheist and the ghouls to screen off my main line of trolls and prepare for the falling goodies. My turned turned to be quite more interesting, cause my Fungoid shaman hidden behind the Loonshirne and over 30'' away from the enemy managed to cast Hand of Gork on the Troggoth Hag and teleported her on my opponents left flank 9 awat from his 3 horrors and 10 ghouls. Then the Hag spit on the horrors and basically erased the whole unit. During the charge phase I manged to get an 11'' charge with the Hag into the 10 ghoul unit and destroy them too, leaving the left flank of my opponent completely unprotected. TURN2: An unlucky roll from my opponent made so that the objective on his side fell directly onto the Hag so without doing anything I was controlling both objectives (since there were no enemy models on my side, my unit of 3 rockguts got the control of my objective. We rolled for initiative and my opponent got a 6 so it was his turn: oh boy, do those ghouls fight well.. So he charged with his King my unit of 3 fellwater I sent in support of the Hag on the left flank, and he sent his 40 ghouls into a unit of 6 rockgut and a Dankhold, he also managed to cast the Calice right next to his block of 40. He summoned also his 3 units of flyers 1 next to the Hagt and 2 behind my 3 rockguts holding my objective, and later charged, the unit next to the hag failed but the 2 behind my lines both managed to charge. During his combat phase he decided to go first with the ghouls and rolled something like 70+ attacks twice with his mob of 40 ghouls... I lost 4 rockgut and half of my wounds on the Boss, in exchange however the 3 fellwater fighting his king managed to push 10 wounds on his King, which was super lucky since basically by lowering his stats they guaranteed 1 of them survived although he piled in twice (such an annoying mechanic Once per phase is ok, but spamming CP for every combat is horrible, my friend rolled attacks for like 35min while I just rolled save roles and aftersave rolls). Then he chose to fight my rockguts defending my territory but the flyers with their 12 4+/3+ -1 D1 A are just rubbish managed to score 2 wounds on the troggoths that in exchange killed 2 of the flyers form the other unit facing them the remaining flyer didn't do anything but still he took control of the objective(this match up started 6 vs. 3 and yet it was already 4 vs.3). I got to fight with 2 rockgut who behaved ok vs. the ghouls, and managed to kill 9 of his ghouls, then the Boss swung his mace and exploded 10 more... All in all things went well, as a BoC player I was amazed to see how much punishement can take my troups without falling apart (the rockguts with the 5+ aftersave and the fellwater -1 to hit are massive boosts to their survivability). During my turn I tried to cast several spells but got dispelled except for the Madcap's Itchy Nuisance on the unit of Flyers (those that were still 3) facing my rearguard Rockguts. I vomited with the Hag onto his King taking off 3 more wounds (he was down by 11 at this point) and then charged his flyers with the Hag, the other 3 fellwater went back to try and take back the objective in my territory and help their rockgut cusins and my other 6 strong rockgut unit marched forward getting ready to enter the fight where needed). During the combat phase my opponent managed to kill of the last fellwater fighting his King, the Hag kille 1 flyer only and crippled another by I rolled really bad, the ghouls killed the 2 remaining rockguts and wounded the Boss a few more times leaving him with only 2 wounds while I manged to kill just a single ghoul with a double poker of aces for hit rolls with the Boss... However the Hag was still at full health bogging down his army as a contant threat to his objective (she was outnumbered by now but still at full health and right next to the objective), and my rockguts managed to kill 2 more flyers, and with the help of the fellwater vomit erased the remaining ones, so my objective was secure once more. The score was: 4 - 2 for my opponent. TURN 3: Once again my opponent rolled the first turn so once more I had to face countless double piling in attacks, and some healing and casting, nothing especially important except for the spella that got his King on Terrorgheist back to 11 or 12W (I really regretted there my bad rolls with the Hag's vomit there from the previous turn). His King charged the Hag engaged with 2 flyers, his ghouls surrounded my Boss still holding on for the 3rd phase of combat against them, at that was basically it. During the combat phase I was saved by the Hag's -1 to hit and the Aetherquarz Hide allowing her to survive with 2 wounds left and in response kill one more flyer. My Boss kille 9 ghouls more before being killed by the remaining ones (around 18 or something, cause keeping track is impossible due to the resurrect ability and the calice ability). In my turn the rockguts holding my objective and the fellwaters supporting them moved towards the middle to bog down the mob of ghouls the 6 rockgut unit still unsratched and unused moved toward the middle too, the Hag inflicted 8 more wound on the King and killed the last Flyer but was struck down by the king. the score was: 7 -5 for my opponent. TURN 4: For the 4th time my opponent went first casted healings, and some buffs moved his terrogheist to get a charge into my 6 rockguts,, with the support of his remaining 20+ ghouls, he rolled 11'' but fortunatelly for me, I positioned the fellwater in such a way that because of the terrain and the unit behind the Terrorgheist could not land with his massive base so he failed leave his ghouls at the mercy of the rockgut and decided not to charge with them too. This was the crucial moment. In my turn my sneaky Fungoid for the second time in the game cast the Hand of Gork, this time on the 6 strong unit of Rockgut and teleported them onto my opponents objective and this was basically the game winning move. The 3 fellwater firs vomited on the King then charged the king while the 2 rockguts stood in front of the ghouls to screen the fellwater and let them do their job. The Fellwater again proved worth their money, inflicted 6 wounds on the King he saved all bu 3, but those 6 wounds were enough to kill him. At this point my opponent was left with 2 archeregents and 18 or so ghouls, while I had 2 rockgut, 3 fellwater and 6 more rockgut and both of my shamans still alive. As if it wasn't enough I managed to summon back 3 more rockguts from my unit of 6 I lost the round before to the ghouls... At this point the score was: 7 - 13 with both objectives in my hands and with my opponent unable to do anything to take it from me. OBSERVATIONS: I was very surpreised to see how resistent the troggoths are. They really can take a hit and give it back quite hard. Rockguts especially surprised me since heir stats resemble those of Bullgors but the 3+ to hit instead of 4+ and the huge Dankhold's aura for rerolling 1s really manages to push those few highly effective attacks and cause havoc. The Fellwater too are super versatile, with the armor piercing vomit and 12A on only 3 models and -1 to hit they can really bog down massive mobs of small hordes. I didn't have the chance to test the battalion's ability to retreat and charge back mainly due to the fact that FeC either kill you by overkill of 100, or they die when you fight back, but it looks like a quite useful tool to have. I also think it is an army really fun to play against unlike the FeC that are just an awful experience in terms of gameplay even if the opponent is a super cool friend 8as it was in my case) beacuse so much rolling, so many cosecutive pile ins that sometimes you get the feeling you could go grab a sandwich and a drink, come back and still have time for a coffee and a cigarette. This weekend I will be facing some OBR with a double catapult I think, and a Sons of Behemath list, so I'll let you know how it goes, but I just wanted to share with all of you the joy of playing this (unexpected) army!

I recently played two games vs. the Fec, the first time I used my BoC the second time I used the new mono-troggoth Megamob. I do not believe the core of the problem is within the single profiles (although all the bullgors definitley need some reworking especially after I played with those trolls), but in the most basic interactions within the army. The FeC have countless interractions between units, heroes, magic and comand abilities and utility heroes, so even the super low end ghoul in a mob of 40 with double pile in and rerolling 1s becomes a threat, while our units are basically always on their own. Eery single unit in the BoC has no interraction of any kind with its similars, no matter if they are a monster, a hero or anything except for the shaman +3'' movement ability and that's basically it. All other armies can buff theri units in some way, sometimes they become more resistent, others turn into killing machines and so on, while ungors are always ungors, gors stay gors and so on. In my experience, this game is all about synergies and unfortunatelly we have none, and at the same time our units are not made to be stand alone powerhouses, we do not punch hard enough, we do not last enough and we do not have special abilities to make us unique, which all translates into an endless pit of bodies that plays a body count control game, what basically translates into a BoC player calculating how many bodies are disposable that turn to hold the object long enough. It can be quite effective too as a strategy, at the end I eventually won my game against the FeC, mainly due to the fact that my oponent had less that 80 models while I started with 200, and left no space for him to land his massive terrogheist where needed so he spent 4 turns overkilling 10 man ungor units... At the end however it was just a bad game experience fro both of us. The second time we played I played a mono-troggoth army and althought not the most competitive build, still the fact that those trolls are tough as nails, and have some basic synergies both with the Dankhold's massive reroll aura and some really good spells and access to a huge amount of command points made the game a lot more exciting, we ended up butchering eachother till the end, and I managed to score a victory only by casting Hand of Gork on the last turn and by doing so steal the objective (it ended 18 to 17). So I do hope they remake a new book, if not we need a massive update of NEW INTERRACTIVE rules in Broken Realms or in the WD and here are some ideas: - Destroyers of Civilization: +1 Comand Point for every HERO, MONSTER or TOTEM unit destroyed by a BoC player. (We find fullfilment in tearing down civilization so that should somehow show in the game, and it will give us some more CP to play with considering hom many battleshocks we pass every turn) - Into the Frey: +1 Summoning Pont at the end of the turn for every BoC unit engaged in melee (the sounds of battle should call other scavangers to join the fight), this will also make those multiple MSU tarpits even more strategic and make the opponent think if it is worth killing 5 units of ungors and in exchange face a unit of Enlightened or Bestigor - Bullgors: wrong in so many ways... I want them to be the ultimate glasscannons, something that you would naver want to see charge you, instead of only MW on 6s, double their attacks on charges and Mad Cows on steroids should have run and charge ALWAYS. If someone should always be able to charge those are bulls, or give them 3d6 charge. Should they cost more, I don't care, I want murder cows just as they are in Total War, if they charge you you're done, they are the hammer, if they get stuck they will suck just as now, but if they charge you're done. FUNFACT: Bullgors are the biggest two legged monstrous infantry in the GW's range and yet they are one of the worst. In terms of height only Trolls are the same, but the Bullgors chest alone is as wide as an Ogor is tall - Dragon Ogors: These should go in groups of 2, but each one of them should be a walking tank, leave them without synergies, but make them super tanky with few high quality attacks, something you would put on the flank and let them do their job. The biggest Monsters in the game at the moment are stuck with 6 D1 no rend attacks? Seriously? - Gors: 2A stop... +1A or 1 to wound if more than 20 - We need a new large hero.... If we can't get a Beastlord on a chariot, or a new Shaggoth model that stands up to its name (a Shaggoth should be a massive monster, not some tiny derpy looking dude with flimbsy limbs that is 20 years old... He was a great model and I loved him, but oh man has he aged in a bad way), than GW should create a One Eyed Ghorgon hero by putting a Cygor head on a Gorghon (just like the Fec magic) and make one. - Cygor: scrap it... make e new one, give it serious magic defence, let him eat endless spells or something really useful, like if a Wizard casts a spell within it's massive boulder's range he gets to shoot for free righ after the casting roll is done (because he is sensitive to wizards) so those pesky little wizard with 5 wounds should think twice before doing funky stuff... - if a pimped seahorse or a turtle can have a legendary name, so should a Gorghon or a Cygor. A Gorghon was the monster that actually sent Katakros to meet Nagash in the first time... let's make them scary actually! So these are just a few ideas, but most of all what I really desire is a good playing experience (I do not care if we don't end up being the top dog with the Seraphon, Lumieth and Tzeentch), cause at the moment the only way of playing a well balanced army is by being a body-accountant and it is lame as it sounds. I do understand that not everyone plays in a competitive way, but still there are armies out there that unless your opponent is kind enough will blow us from the table on turn 1.

Indeed Morghur is still there in the fluff and he is basically a primordial God now. I would love to see an avatar of Morghur on the field and I think it would fit perfectly both the fluff and the need of the army. Tha Gavespawn Greatfray should be the only one to field it, and in my mind I image it as a super beefy anvil booster character. The thing about Morghur has always been his immortality and his aura of madness. In this new magic-shooting meta, it would be perfect to have a thing immune to arrows (as Morghur was in the past) and that totally shuts down magic within his aura (make 8-12''). Besides this he should be able to have a greater version of the spawn comand ability that comes with the Gavespawn trait and some way of popping random spawns from friends and foes. In terms of survivability, I'll make him big 14+ wounds and I would give him some sort of regen (+d3/d6 each turn), a 4+ ward save, or some cool new rule such as "on a 4+ for each model that falls witnih 6'' he regains one wound. This can take him over his original number of wounds (the idea is that he just melts and blobs with the material world becoming bigger and bigger) or merge this with the Spawn-popping thing and make it as it was: on a 4+ friend or foe within 6'' receives a mortal one, for every 3 wounds inflicted a Spawn is generated. And finally spawns arond Morghur should get some buffs to make them "frenzied" by his presence. (and it is an excellent excuse to make some really cool new spawns and add a real spawn centered army) Give him a good melee attack but not devastating (not like the mawcrusha) and some random short range shooting, and he's good to go, a perfect anvil and moving booster that fits perfectly with the army playing style (tons of dead that at the end would beef him up). The second special character should be an Ancient Shaggoth, a dude that survived the End Times, the fluff states some of the Dragon Ogors did not die during the fall so, we need a massive Death Dealer... Although I love the idea of a special Doombull, I do like the idea that Doombulls and Beastlords do not live enough to reach the legendary status, however those bulls (all of them need their warscrolls rewritten cause a 3A 3+/3+ D3 R-2 attack is not really a hand to hand specialist anymore, and bullgors at 2A 4+/3+ D3 are just plain bad at the moment)

By black&white I intend "straightforward, or somehow one dimensional and less complex, not necessarily cartoonish "I'am so evil, because aahahahha I am evil!" Both Nagash and Archaon have grown to become gods basically which places them both way above our human understanding, which on one hand allows GW to basically make them do whatever they want, but makes them a lot less relatable to human readers. This is one of the reasons why Black library authors love and use often mortal men and women as main characters for the Horus Heresy series, we as humans can relate to them and only trough them can we truly understand what an astartes is to a simple human, or what is Big E! In the End Times series, there is a Black Library collection Archaon (Everchosen and The Lord of the End Times), and I find those books extremely interesting because it tells you about Chaos through the eyes of Archaon himself, and the best part of it is that Archaon the arch-nemesis, never wanted to be Archaon, he was Diedrich Kastener, hunted by superstitious zealots, pushed aside by those who believed in, he decided since the world needed a monster he will become that monster in the best possible way he could. And as he progresses all of his followers fall to the madness of the Ruinous Powers, yet until the very end, even when facing Sigmar himself before the world falls, Archaon clad in his Armor of Morkar remains still perfectly human, he keeps seeing himself as Kastner, he does not care for the Gods nor for the glory, all he want is the final annihilation of all he even says it: We will see what remains of the Gods when all of their temples and those who worship them burn! I am no one’s future! I am the End of all futures. (There’s that Nietzche thing). For a nerdy wargame that is quite some profound human psychology there infused into an almost god like figure. GW did nothing new here, it uses the same mechanics that made Darth Vader or Heath Ledger’s Joker so popular. In order to get complex we as humans need tools to relate to. Nowadays Archaon might be “greyish” in terms of someone’s ethics but in terms of reasoning and “philosophy” behind him, he is plain straight, and his reasoning is above our way intending things: “freeing mortals from gods so he can impose himself as a sole Lord of Allpoints” is not “worse” than his Fantasy predecessor but it is certainly a lot more “simple”. Thanos himself poses a quite reasonable moral question: is it worth to kill half of the living creatures in order to save the universe? Bu in the end, he is a pop-comic book character so it is in his DNA to be a simpler than Hamlet from Shakespeare.

I personally like AoS as well as Fantasy, but never actually tried to decide which one is better, because I feel it is a lot similar to comparing a car to a computer: which one is better? Well it depends a lot, because these two have some things in common, but are quite different. I think AoS and Fantasy besides sharing some lore and characters and being both two GW's wargames actually in terms of fluff/lore/storytelling are very different. WHFB was a mittel-european-centric based setting strongly inspired by real human history and classical literature. Most of the races and characters were inspired by historical figures and cultures while the grim-dark gritty tones used for the world depiction were directly taken from the tales of the Grimm brothers. The ethics of the characters are always greyish never white, never black, very nihilistic (Archaon in Fantasy was basically a Ubermensch anti-hero from Nietzche) with very human agendas. Think of the story of Vlad von Carstain who actually was a Death Lord but wanted to rule the Empire as an immortal empreror ruling both on the living and the dead, yet his human subjects of Sylvania actually loved him because he was a good landlord. AoS on the contrary is far more a contemporary-pop-comic-marvelish-novel type of narrative with amazing over the top heroes and villains. Just like Dr. Manhattan or Thanos the leaders of AoS can do things way more complex that we simple humans can even conceive, and just like in the comic books heroes and villains follow a much more delineated path of moral behavior (the evil dude is evil, the good one is good) Nagash is your local Skeletor, and Archaon is basically a comic Pol Pot type dictator with no internal struggle anymore just mean badassery. Who is better Attila the Hun or Thanos? Well it’s kind of pointless to compare them right? They both have their space in their respective worlds and at the end it is us the hobbist who decide which world/setting suites us best, yet it is totally possible to like both. Sometimes I like to read about complex characters with an internal struggle, that start good and turn super evil, such as the old Fantasy Archaon, sometimes I just want to see things explode like in a Michael Bay’s movie with no logical explanation. So in the end I think it is a personal thing: Fantasy is not better (nor worse) than AoS in terms of lore/fluff just different. I prefer AoS as a game, I still prefer Fantasy as a lore type, but at the end I think they are both enjoyable.

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.

Something like this? Since you named the Vermin Lord...

This so much this. Only thing I am not very fond of is a demon prince thing... Beasts now are 100% physical manifestation of chaos, so demons fluff wise are not cool. But I really would love a central massive piece such as: An Avatar of Morghur (an Uber Spawn thing with hero abilities) or even more an Ancient Shaggoth. I mean those dudes should be older than Chaos itself dating back to the creation of the Old World (we know some of them survived) so a random 3A 10W dude doesn't make them justice. I would really live to see something like Kholek in Total War... Something that brutality-wise would make tremble guys like Archaon or Katakros....

A lot dipends on what is your take on this army. Are we talking about fluff/looks/competitive etc... My personal feeling is that is a really cool army both in terms of looks and fluff.... Rulewise and on the competitive side, I think you will struggle a lot with the newer armies, even in a friendly matches, which might ruin your gaming experience.

It looks really good. The overall list seems complete and all in all very well balanced. Yet in the actual meta, I still think you over-balanced it, by that I mean that you did a great job of keeeping it down withour loosing track of fluff/game feeling yetyou made somthing that is not a plain murder-train, unlike some of the last GW's armies. The only negative thing that I can find is some "redundancy" in some units such as gnolls and gnoll veterans, that kind of fill the same roll (the points cost would probably solve that) but in terms of warscroll you have basically two very similar units, but that's it. Great job. Now please use this skill of yours and write a new good and balanced warscroll for Doombulls and Bullgors... I'd love to see that. Please do it! I myself with some friends came up with something like this: Instead of the actual Bloodgreed replace with:When this unit charges successfully, roll a dice for each enemy model in base contact with any bullgor. On a 6 that model sufferes a mortal wound. Once the wounds have been inflicted the bullgor unit can use the remaining movement range ignoring the enemy models on the path. Note this can bring the bullgors to cross through the enemy unit, as if it was a flying unit and/or it can end the charge movement out of engagement. However all models must end their charge movement in an area free of enemy models. If this is not possible the unit is blocked in place and considered engaged as normal. So what do you think? The idea was to give the bulls a role and a fluffy rule (a bull charge) that was both strategic and interesting.

Maybe we are not "loud" enough as a community. Beastmen have never been a "competitive coice" yet all these years even with horrible rules, the community survived, because we love hoof&horn, but we do not whine enough! On the other hand i totally agree with you sometime loving this army gets really frustrating: as well as you me too suffered a lot when I saw the ogor Mawtribes, and when I realized their big dudes were so much better then our big dudes (and by looking at the past, minos have always been the beefiest monstuos infantry, while in AoS they are just ******). I can't accept the fact the a Bullgor that is twice the size of an irongut is less agile, dangerous and has the same amount of wounds.... I do think however this is a fun army: I love the squishiness of the units, I love throwing worthless lives at the enemy by picking my fights stealing objectives with our mobility and ambush/summoning, but just as you pointed out the power creep has gone way too high cause some units have got too many tools in their kit (huge damage output, super resistence, easy combos, no compromises to make and so on... Yes I am looking at you mortek guard, daughter of Khaine etc...). I mean look at our Greatfrays (that I love) compared to the Ossiarch bonuses. And I wan't even talk about battalions. One thing I really hate is that a book BEASTS OF CHAOS has a very limited amount of "beasts", and cannot field a full beast army... (but that again is a problem due to the early update of our book, before GW decided full monster armies are ok).

It's better than nothing but in terms of being competitive nothing has changed. Most battalions are still worthless (warherd, thunderscorn etc...)because of a huge point cost. Warherd has some major point drops, but still, a bad warscroll does not become a good one by just dropping the points. All warherd units are still super squishy things that miss a role in the army. Bullgors have to fight for space with bestigors for punching and dragon ogors for tankiness and they lose in both cases. bastigors are much better to fit the roll of glass canons as well as objective grabbers (they hit stronger, synergies better and are a lot faster)... Now don't get me wrong, it's still better than nothing but, is not even a half-success, cause warherds remain bad units (except maybe a Ghorgon which is ok).

I feel an urgent need to share with you braying people my immense scorn and hatred for the Game Designers over at Nottignham.... How on earth an Ogor bite is more accurate/dangerous than a Bullgor's horns???? I know that all of you hated those Ironguts as soon as you saw their profile and compared them to our Murder Cows. To make things even worse they have the same price (160 for 3 the bullgors and 220 for ironguts for 4). Ok thanks, now that I shared my immense pain I feel much better. I just miss my murder cows (...)and nothing more from the past

Actually I was at the Warhammer Fest this year when they spoke for the first time about Warcry (they announced it earlier that year but the very first chat about Warcry was at the fest), GW designers said, I'm quoting here: - "Warcry is after all, all about Chaos" - "Warcry is a game like no other, but it will be supported as Kill Team" I even had a chance to speak with Batistotti, the designer who sculpted the new wonderful Furies and he also said that Warcry was entirely Chaos based as far as he knew (at that time no one knew the mechanics of the game).