[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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!

[Range that needs updating]

1 hour ago, Popisdead said:

Beasts of Chaos is a glaring issue.  The most recent models we got were 2010 sculpts (AFAIK,.. no wait the Cockatrice, and Chimera was Storm of Magic so maybe 2012? 2013?).  The warscrolls are duds and the model range is really dated.  The effort GW did was pretty garbage.  The ghorgon and Cygor is fine, a little silly (87 skulls?) but the Minotaurs are atrocious.  Just an abomination.  Having said all that we did get "a" book.  Wanderers got amalgamated and there will be a successor book in a year or so).  

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!

 

[AoS2 - Dankhold Troggoth Discussion]

11 hours ago, Dankboss said:

So I've now had a while to practice with Glogg's Megamob; so far I've had about 10 games, against either Tempest's Eye or StoD. The significant units I face regularly are Be'lakor, 40 Irondrakes, Gotrek, 40 Marauders and One-Eyed Grunnock. Iirc I've won 8/10 of those games (up from about  5-6/10), so I thought I'd revise my initial thoughts on the new allegiance abilities, based on my experience so far. It's a decent spread of playstyles and opposing units to get a grasp of how Glogg's performs. Bare in mind we play Semi-competitively to Competitively. Unfortunately, I can't play against other armies right now, but I am considering the shooting/ magic meta in my analysis.

 

Monstrous Regeneration: C
Initially I thought it was forgettable, but I actually roll a lot more successes because of it, and the healing does add up. Other than that, it's meh.

Oblivious to Sorcery: A/C depending on matchup

While I don't have many chances to use it, as my opponent is often magic light, this situational rule will be a godsend against magic armies, since we can't exactly compete with them in other ways, we might as well just ignore the magic. Best placed on your Rockgut bricks to stave off magic, or make them undesirable targets. Often a unit with a 4+ spell save is ignored in favor of easier targets. We also have the CP generation to liberally apply this ability.

Shepherd of Idiotic Destruction: B

I actually kinda prefer this over Loonskin, since I can still chase the moon to get the bonus CP and still generate more; often on turn 2 I can have 6 CP. Regardless of how you look at it, it's still part of Loonskin's effect, so not much of a tradeoff.

Aetherquartz Studded Hide: B

The best way to kill a Troggoth Hag is with Mortal Wounds. Good thing we got given a new artifact to give to the Hag to combat this. This combined with the ability to return her, makes her a valid pick again imo. It's also good as it lets you keep Glowy Howsit on your boss, so they both have a ward save.

Hidden Troggholes: A

Returning Troggoths lets me play far more aggressively, as I know statistically I will return at least one unit during the game, and if I'm not, it's more likely that I haven't lost any units yet. I've won a few games because of this rule, and it also increases the points efficiency of Troggoth units in general. I've started throwing units of 3 Fellwaters out early games on the deep flanks, or just teleporting them behind enemy lines as a distraction, as they're difficult to ignore. Returning the Hag survived the FAQ, which is good because she's a decent choice to return. I've done this twice now; once to stop a rampaging Mega Gargant, and another to stop a rampaging Gotrek; both times she succeeded in stopping them in time to win, as if she comes back chances are it'll be late game. Also, being able to return a Hero in general is just a win.

Stomping Megamob: A+

Imo, Stomping Megamob makes or breaks a Troggoth list, as it's just so good. A good portion of my wins have been because of retreat and charge, either onto an objective, or into a problem unit (like Irondrakes) that I couldn't reach before. This rule is especially deadly on the double turn, and if you get it, it really comes into its own to maximize that double potential. My army feels more fluid and maneuverable, as I can dodge tarpits and slingshot units to important fights etc. This forces your opponent to focus down individual units, as if they can't bog them down, they have to destroy them, and if they destroy them, they might come back. Overall, this is a game winning factor, and I reckon it gives Glogg's Megamob  a place in the fat middle of army tiers, up from rock bottom.

 

I've linked my standard army list. It can be played as either a 4 drop or a 5 drop, depending on how I run the grots. I do prefer 2 units of 20 myself. I was hoping to get the points to include Scrapskuttles again from the FAQ.

If piloted by a pro, I reckon Glogg's can potentially be a 3/2 army.

Glogg'sMegamob03.pdf 5.73 MB · 8 downloads

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.

[Beasts of Chaos army rules changes ideas]

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...

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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).

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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... )

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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. 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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... 

[AoS2 - Dankhold Troggoth Discussion]

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

[Missing in Action: Which Units Exist in Lore but Need Models?]

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 .

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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...

[AoS2 - Dankhold Troggoth Discussion]

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!

 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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.

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

On 9/24/2020 at 3:38 PM, Lord Krungharr said:

Yeah BoC needs some named heroes back. At least Morghur, who must have found a way to remain in the swirling mists of Chaos when ye olde world was destroyed.   Then we could have random mutations all over the place all the time! And beastly magical assistance.   

A named hero for each Herd would be good too, though I’m not sure if Doombulls ever get names. 

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)

[So how does everyone feel about Age of Sigmar?]

14 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

This part I disagree with. AoS is crawling with grey when you read the desires and actions behind all the gods and mighty heroes.

Like Nagash may be a tyrant but he hits grey areas because not only were the old pantheon oaths broken  where he was promised to have reign over all souls as the underworlds new god after helping Sigmar defeat it's God-beast to bring order to Death(even had the undead build many of Order's cities in the Age of Myth as further cooperation) but Sigmar and the Aelven gods kept taking their shares for reincarnation in spite of the agreement and later in the Age of Chaos Sigmar would outright bolt up heroes, princes and champions of Shyish for his Relictors and Stormcast Anvils for their knowledge of souls & necromancy which Nagash has a point in arguing taking such figures when they were needed left those parts of the realms even more vulnerable with their best minds and heroes gone.

And then we see the many different aspects Nagash has which are benign death keepers to help those in his charge.

"He has a number of aspects for like Sigmar he contains multitudes - All are one in Nagash and Nagash is all.

• Black Priest: He who gives succour to those whose deaths are too painful to be borne. 
• Nagash-Mor: Calm and silent, he weighs the hearts of dead souls against a feather.
• The Forlorn Child: He leads those who die before their allotted time to gentle slumber. "

That he views life as "false-life" and undeath as "true life" where in his realm the vampires, zombies and skeletons have council alongside the living and it's common practice for the old to be put down or seasonal suicides so they can be raised to rejoin society as either now tireless workers or move up the necromantic hierachy can easily be viewed as Blue and Orange morality since death isn't an end but a new beginning.

Grand Marshal Archaon is very straightforward grey area too. He wants to conquer the realms so he can lock out the Chaos gods, kill the remaining Order gods and make it so mortals are no longer pawns but have their own destiny to choose and follow. This is why the Varanguard, his trusted knights and bodyguards, worship only Archaon and not the dark gods and why he has personal control of the All-Gates/Eight-points so he can eventually turn it's access to the chaos realm off like a spigot and lock the dark gods out of the Mortal Realms.

To do this though he needs their power to defeat the other gods which is where so much grey area comes from in his ends justifying the bloody means.

AoS can have good & evil outlooks but it's anything but just black and white. Just look to Order and it's many soul eating allies like the Deepkin of Aqshy that depopulate coastlines of villages with their soul hunger & predatory flying blood fish that consume the rest, gods of shadow, slavery and deception or nature goddess of life who turned her realm into a death trap and spawns war aspects which stalk the innocent as invaders and defilers. Even the Lumineth as new shining beacons of order have much darkness to their light between aetherquarz dependence making them merciless and having rocky relations with all but the aforementioned Deepkin as their brethren who their creator tried to genocide.

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.

[So how does everyone feel about Age of Sigmar?]

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.

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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. 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

Something like this? 

Since you named the Vermin Lord... 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

3 hours ago, Myrdin said:

This.

I mean, ours is a faction that should consist of all sorts of anything that has been mutated by chaos. Be it human (elf, dwarf), animal or plant in origin. 

And yet there is tons of stuff that fit narratively, thematically, but do not have the keyword required for us to take them. And seeing as GW doesn't really care about this army in the slightest, even a simple thing as giving us Monsters of Chaos keyword, so that we can legally make use of these is clearly to much to ask for. 

But.... you know this is how Beastmen players felt back in the day, when they released Dragon Ogors, and gave them to Warriors of Chaos (the current StD), and didnt include them for Beastmen. All if would took is just add them via FAQ. 5 minutes of writing it and uploading the file.

I mean, ok so you dont want to give us our very own new flashy toys. Thats fine, slightly salty but still fine. But at least make those that already exist and are neutrally chaotic (raptorix for example > even the description says its a wild beast mutated by chaos...) available to us. There is no detriment, heck BoC players will bolster the sales of those kits if we can legally use them without restrictions. 

I am not asking for things that are army specific like Bloodthirsters, Keepers, or Flaming chariots of Tzeentch but, for the more neutral things ? Why not ? Heck I believe Beastmen should have their own version of Demon Prince, just like Skaven have the Verminlord. Thats one is an amazing sculpt that must`ve sold in thousands, I am sure there is plenty of BoC players who would love to add similarly impressive model to not just their collection but to their fielded army as well. (I mean I am converting my own,  just because I want to have a BoC Demon Prince).

This army could have so much more due to how wide spread the thematic nature of it is. And equally GW could make so much more money if they released nice looking new models with decent enough rules, and also opened some of the existing ones to us via a simple keyword addition. 

I mean, I dont understand it. The money is out there, easy for taking, and yet they seems not just to ignore it, they seem outright oblivious to such an easy to do cash grab. It truly boggles the mind this one.

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.... 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

On 12/21/2019 at 6:11 PM, Fazhak said:

Hello all. With the warherd discounts released recently, I updated my Thunderscorn Stormherd list. Two units of ten Bestigors replaced the Tuskgor Chariots. These two additions now provide me greater flexibility during deployment, as I can either ambush them (as I did the chariots) or deploy them as screening units.

I am admittedly considering dropping the Greatfray, in favor of no greatfray at all. Allherd is nice for this list due to its Bravery buff (with that buff, units can afford to lose a model and still pass battleshock). However, I wonder sometimes if simply having more command points isn't a better way to go, along with perhaps a healing artefact for even more healing options. 

I'm rather surprised by the usefulness of such changes. The army retains good durability, as it can hopefully reach objectives quicker than my opponent's forces can, and Dragon Ogors once in place have staying power.

What do you think?

Allegiance: Beasts of Chaos
- Greatfray: Allherd
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (180)
- General
- Trait: Dominator
- Artefact: Horn of the Tempest
- Lore of Dark Storms: Sundering Blades
Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (180)
- Artefact: Blade of the Desecrator
- Lore of Dark Storms: Thunderwave
Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (180)
- Lore of Dark Storms: Hailstorm

Battleline
6 x Dragon Ogors (280)
- 6x Draconic War glaives
6 x Dragon Ogors (280)
- 6x Draconic War glaives
3 x Dragon Ogors (140)
- 3x Draconic War glaives

Units
6 x Bullgors (280)
- Great Axes
10 x Bestigors (120)
10 x Bestigors (120)

Battalions
Thunderscorn Stormherd (190)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Extra Command Point (50)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 149

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.

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

1 hour ago, Myrdin said:

So just out of curiosity on what people think, here are some of the Gnoll warscroll designes.

They were strongly inspired with the at that time fairly new and well balanced BoC battletome, so most of the stats and special rules are quite tame in comparison to what we have seen after, with the other releases. 

They were never fully finished as a real army as they werent supposed to be a proper full fledged army, mostly a narrative campaign adversary,  and I eventually dropped the project so there are no Heroes other than a single spellcaster and a Leader combat lord. Though I think I might pick it back up and finish them.

If you want to kill some time please take a look and let me know what you think. There are no assigned point costs for them atm, due to explanation above, so it might be hard to say if this or that unit is strong or weak, but feel free to comment in general terms.  

Tier 1 (basic battleline)

  Hide contents

 

 

Tier 2 (basic elite)

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Tier 2/3 (elite)

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Tier 3 (Monsters)

  Hide contents

 

 

Heroes

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Other

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

The concept was built around what I was hoping for BoC = synergy. Most of the units can work in vacuum, but are not exactly amazing, however they start to excel when there is multiple of them engaged in a single combat, while heroes add additional layer of benefits as long as they are alive and around where the action is.

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.

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

1 hour ago, Myrdin said:

Yeah and this has plagued Beastmen since what... 6th edition ? It was always one of the early new edition releases, that introduced a horrible mesh of ideas and design mechanics that already didnt properly work from the get go, and got worse as more and more armies got released through out the editions life span. Was hoping that with AoS release BoC will finally break free from this vicous cycle and actually be a really strong army, fun army. While they are fun, the strength aspect has been once more left in the dust by the crazy power creep.

I`ve made several rewrite-update of our book. Both in just plain Word.doc, but also in Warscroll editor. Many times when I find my mind wandering I think about how to improve of the BoC ruleset, how to tie things more together, add some synergies and make some of the units which had a clear design idea but horrible translation to rules actually work that way. Also new units with rich flavor. This army is ripe with opportunity for new crazy Beasts and humanoid monstrosities just waiting to be brought into the light, yet not a single new critter is ever added. Hell even those that are (FW Preyton and Skin Wolves, and Warcry Raptoryx ) are never given the BoC keyword thus making them available to us.

Warscroll editor helped me kill some time when I had a creative spark and was stuck in the office and such with nothing else to do. Also did a fanfic Gnoll/Werewolf themed faction as well as an Rhun-Harad iteration of the LotR ruleset with bunch of thematically fitting made up units (Serpent riders for Harad, and Cave dragon with two Rhun soldiers on its back for example.)

In the end I always scrape and delete these after all of them are done simply because in the end it amounts to nothing else then creative release and some fun time killing. Nobody will use them, or even bother taking a look at them anyway (well we did think about using the Gnoll ones for a custom scenario) so... you know... kinda no point in it beyond that.

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).

 

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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).

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

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

[Monsters and Mercenaries!!!]

17 hours ago, Overread said:

Despite the Chaos focus, GW has always said that Waracry is to AoS what Killteam is to 40K. So yes I fully expect to see packs for ALL the main races in the game to appear for Warcry. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if this slot was supposed to have Bonereapers released this month and then have a second cardpack wave appear including Bonereapers. However with the knockon effects of Sylvaneth it might be that Warcry still has its slot but Bonereapers got pushed a month on. So instead of a new wave of cards we get an expansion of the rules with the card wave appearing next. That would explain why mercenaries includes races that don't yet appear in the card packs like skaven .

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).