Why are the beatsmen counted to be a strong warband?

Hi all,

I don´t now the propper forum for my question, therefore I ask it here.
On many forums I read that beastmen count to be a strong warband if not one of the strongest around.

But honestly I can´t see why:
- They have an expensive and unreliable champion entry, the Centigor. And as I understand the rules, this Centigor gives a +1 to shooting to your opponent and is unable to climb, which means he is more likely than not target of enemy shooting.
- Sure, they have T4, but they lack any kind of defensive buff like the Dwarfs. Only 2 of their champion entries have the opportunity to gain agility skills, meaning they hardly gain the benefits of dodging (5+ wardsave against shooting) or that 3 times movement.
- They have a pretty low leadership which can cause some prolems with rout tests.

So, tell me about their overhelming strenghts!

Hannibal

In a Campaign:
The centigor is too expensive and unreliable. If you instead spend the gold on more Gors, each in his own group, then your chances for hero advancement increase. Once a Gor is a hero you can choose his skill set. This approach will give you more effective heores. You will miss the extra exploration die in the beginning, but it will pay off.

In a One-Off game:
The centigor is still unreliable, but can make a good hero objective grabber. However, I'd still go for more Gors.

Strengths--
-literally St 4 for 4 out of 5 starting heroes. If you take the useless Centigor...
--Speed. Only move 5 which I'm sure seems slow for some one, but not me. The unreliable, overpriced Centigor is move 8. Great for securing ground level wyrdstone shards, running down treasure hunters and getting early charges on over eager warriors.
-the shaman has access to Chaos rituals. A shaman with the fly spell combined with the useless Centigor means your enemies are not safe anywhere.
-T4 never a bad thing.
-Chaos hounds. When combined with the unreliable Centigor they provide a mobile high strength strike force for the same cost as a warhound, i.e. cheep.
-Gors. Your only possible Lads got Talent guys are pretty good to start out as well.
-Special Skills. Extra attacks, mutations. increased armor save.
-Access to hvy armor means you can use the nice armor upgrades if you find them.
-The Minotaur. Expensive but very killy early on. Again if you put faith in the overpriced, unreliable Centigor and start him next to a minotaur your enemies are facing overwhelming charges very early in the game.

While there are some scenarios and locations that the Centigor will be less useful, it should be your best hero choice early in the campaign, High movement, St and T lots of attacks means it will gain experience faster than the rest of the band. The Centigor does not have the Large special rule, which is the key to being +1 to hit with missile fire.

The minotaur is insanely much better than the rest of the big guys - he gets exp AND you can give him equipment.. that makes him damn tough. Mino with heavy armor and shield and helmet - maybe sword/axe... that's gotta hurt! (i know it's expensive but you can upgrade as the money flows in)

Yeah the minotaur is probably the major draw of the beastman warband for me.

As well as generally mean guys - many of them s4, t4 and ws4 and move 5 does really give a difference, it's 2" most turns..

Movement is not to be disregarded! I lost as many games to being out maneuvered by Beastmen (and skaven) than a straight pounding!

I just started up a Beastmen Raiders warband for a campaign we're doing and they're winning pretty consistantly so far. High movement and toughness are definitely key. I haven't had the Centigor's drunkenness go bad for me yet, plus he got an increase to toughness 5 so he's pretty badass now. Didn't help him much last game when a Witch Hunter critically shot him in the face with a pistol though He now has an old battle wound.

I haven't gotten a Minotaur yet since they're so bloody expensive, but I just maxed out my Gors so I'll probably start saving for one as my next big purchase.

Was there an errata clarifying that the centigor cannot climb? Because I can't find that rule?
I know that in the spirit of the rules a centigor probably shouldn't climb, but I can't find a rule against it, ogres climb, possessed climb, wulfen climb, why can't a centigor?

The beastmen is an all-right warband, they have access to heavy armour T5, and a +1 armour save special skill, meaning they can go to 4+ armour save, and be immune to most criticals, for 25-50 gold and 2-3 advances (with the resillient even S4 enemies will have to wound on 6s). That, and they all have nice stats from the start.
They also have the quite powerful mutant skill (mainly later on), which can give your heroes blackblood, or a third attack.

In addition to all this, they have a quite nice screening unit, practically the best animal unit in the game, the chaos warhound is a wardog with +1m for the same price, and you have a better max size.
5 heroes with axes, a couple of gors and 8 wardogs comes in at about 500 points, meaning you have a pretty powerful starting warband, that can get quite nasty with some advancements, and 9 models which charge 14" or more. And as the dogs go, you can fill in more gors and a minotaur, which is also quite nice, as it is a big guy that can get heavy armour and shield (lowering it's movement to 5" so it goes along with the rest of the warband).
True they aren't superbly overpowered, but definately a highly powered close combat warband.

Just my five cents.