A newb and his Beastmen

Went through 4 games.

Won 3 and lost 1. I have yet to loose a model. So far My band rating is 194 and I have gotten an extra gor and my Minotaur too. =D Games have been going well, except that the prevalence of Super ranged armies worries me a bunch since I am all melee. Any tips?

The stealth approach if you have plenty of terrain, try and hide your warriors ... other wise closing the gap quickly with Warhounds and Centigors to take out archers.

pray for a scenario that ivolves your opponent having to move out to get something, or simply move towars you. otherwise make like sneaky goat ninjaz and hug cover till you get to grips with your foe.

i've actually started playing a beastmen warband myself, and i'm 1 for 1, i started my warband with a mino and it's a beast. my shaman got eye of the gods (or i think thats what's the spell's called) and on my second game i cast it on my mino and i rolled a 6 for the result, he then ran in combat and OOA his foe and bloodgreeded into a frenzy, anyone he looked at funny exploded, good times.

side note new beastmen codex annouced for feb who's excited!

Yeah my Shaman got the Nuke spell. I Black Blood or whatever its called. Still have yet to cast it successfully. -.-

I am pumped for the new Codex. It might sway me away from my Warriors of Chaos army thats for sure.

yeah spells can be rough starting out, paticularly for warbands like beastmen who don't have acess to academic spells like sorcery to make casting easier. just gotta get him into combat so he can get the OOA exp, since he's WS4 T4 he can handle pretty well against most standard henchmen. also, i've never been a fan of dark blood; the fact that it can stun you always bothered me. i really lucked out with eye imo.
first skill roll for my shammy LD7 >.>

Hello Gents!

I know I'm late to the post but I'm also a Beastmen player and wanted to join in the slaughter...er topic!! In regards to our lack of shooting I agree with everyone by taking a Centigor and hounds as a fast moving archer deterrent. Also I almost ALWAYS take a Minotaur. This is basically because my two main aopponents either play Skaven with a Rat Ogre, Lizardmen with a Krox, or Orcs with a Troll! It's always good to have a big beasty who can go toe to toe with the other big guys and I especially like the Minotaur because of his access to weapons and armour! giving him a 2h with Heavy armour WATCH OUT.

That being said yes you can take a ton more more Gors and hounds without him right away, but if your opponents don't have "big guy" available to them right away he acts as a good bullet magnet, leaving your other heroes and heavy hitters free to get into the thick of it while hopefully your opponent focuses on your minotaur. The general rule I go by is bring the big guy because when they seem him they need to deal with himor he'll be wading into combat ripping heads off really soon!

My .02
-Hank

After dominating a campaign with my beastmen warband, Ive learned a few key things here.

1 - Minotaur is good early game, beats the crap out of everything. However late game, his usefullness changes. No longer is he your main go-to guy, as that Toughness 4 isnt a big deal anymore. He drops fast. BUT, hes a large target and thus people still fear him. Many games Ive used him as a speed bump, to draw out the enemy warband. Used him to draw out 5 charges, ya, he drops... but now my real heavy hitters, The Centigor and the other heros, get their pick of the litter. Sack 1 henchman monster to kill 5 enemy heros.. sure! late game (game 20+) I honestly didnt care if the big guy died. he was just a sacrificial lamb.

2 - Shaman is useless. Without the ability to take Academic skills, his ability as a spellcaster is quite limited. The strength of beastmen is their toughness & armor, and without the latter, the shaman is a waste of space. Instead, I replaced him with a 2nd lads-got-talent Gor.. holy crap what a trade off. Paid off very fast, and with great success.

3 - Ungors and Hounds are useless. Unless you plan to replace these models on an every-game basis... dont waste any money on them. Again, low toughness and no armor options make them a sore spot. Whats worse, is that the opponent will focus on them BECAUSE theyre a lowwer toughness. Lose 3 or 4 of these models and youre almost making a rout check. Meaning you gotta hide these weak troops behind the strong troops. Which is kinda backwards if you think about it. so really ,theyre just wasting your income, and inflating your warband rating. Make your strong troops soak the arrows and Xbow bolts. trust me.. they can handle it

4 - Defence before Offence. This is how I was able to dominate the campaign. All my skills and money went into defensive abilities first. High Toughness, high armor, and step aside. Sure, my Bestigor may only have 3 attacks with two weapons... But he also has (effective) toughness 7 3 wounds, 2+ armor save, 5+ step aside, and healing herbs. Good luck taking that one down 1v1. In the end, the only offensive skills I needed to take were Strike to Injure and/or Strongman.

5 - Nets. LOL as silly as this sounds... nets are actually useful for beastmen. Why? cuz youre not shooting anyways... might as well take advantage of that down time when youre 8" away and nothing better to do. might actually score a net hit! or better yet... soak up a lucky charm..

As a long term beastmen player I just gotta offer some comments and counter points to your statements! xD

Zekk wrote:

1 - Minotaur is good early game, beats the crap out of everything. However late game, his usefullness changes. No longer is he your main go-to guy, as that Toughness 4 isnt a big deal anymore. He drops fast. BUT, hes a large target and thus people still fear him. Many games Ive used him as a speed bump, to draw out the enemy warband. Used him to draw out 5 charges, ya, he drops... but now my real heavy hitters, The Centigor and the other heros, get their pick of the litter. Sack 1 henchman monster to kill 5 enemy heros.. sure! late game (game 20+) I honestly didnt care if the big guy died. he was just a sacrificial lamb.

Minotaur can be useful early in a campaign, but it is a huge gamble to purchase him at this time, once equipped he can cost you almost half your warband's gold and if taken OOA (Still VERY possible against shooty warbands with crossbows etc) he has a 30% chance of dying and taking all that gold with him, this can easily cripple a warband from the onset of a campaign. I would only ever recommend using it with caution and thinking about what types of warbands you will be competing against before buying.

Zekk wrote:

2 - Shaman is useless. Without the ability to take Academic skills, his ability as a spellcaster is quite limited. The strength of beastmen is their toughness & armor, and without the latter, the shaman is a waste of space. Instead, I replaced him with a 2nd lads-got-talent Gor.. holy crap what a trade off. Paid off very fast, and with great success.

I gotta say I was stunned when I read this, the shaman is fantastic! Get him a "familiar" and you don't even need access to academic skills to boost his spell casting. The chaos spells are rather powerful and good fun (Mind controlling a vampire to murder his own followers is great fun and happens more often than you would think!) and if you get the buff spell (eye of the gods) you can use him to make other heroes unstoppable (+1T FTW!) Sure he isn't as powerful a spellcaster as some others, but unlike most other spellcasters he is also a very tough melee fighter to boot. Give him "Sprint" and charge him around the battle to where he can best interfere (note that you can "run" and cast spells) or pile on to any of the big fights for free xp and he will pay for himself. I love my shammy xD

Zekk wrote:

3 - Ungors and Hounds are useless. Unless you plan to replace these models on an every-game basis... dont waste any money on them. Again, low toughness and no armor options make them a sore spot. Whats worse, is that the opponent will focus on them BECAUSE theyre a lowwer toughness. Lose 3 or 4 of these models and youre almost making a rout check. Meaning you gotta hide these weak troops behind the strong troops. Which is kinda backwards if you think about it. so really ,theyre just wasting your income, and inflating your warband rating. Make your strong troops soak the arrows and Xbow bolts. trust me.. they can handle it

I agree on the uselessness of ungors, but hounds are amazing imo. For all of 15gold you get a M7 flanker that can chase down just about anything in the game, slow folk down, contest objectives and provide close support for your centigor. Sure they may die fast under concentrated fire and you don't want to buy too many of them (normally 2-3 is the max I ever have), but the first skill you should always buy for your leader should be "Bellowing roar" (lets you re-roll rout checks). This is an amazing skill that is there for a reason. Buy this and you can afford to sacrifice hounds (or even ungors if that's your bag of tea) etc no problem. This makes the warband play like a real Beastmen raiding party, send forward the hounds through cover to tie up the archers, gang up on lone warriors going for objectives or force them to re-position...then use the mighty fist of your main force to smash the oppositions strongholds.

Zekk wrote:

4 - Defence before Offence. This is how I was able to dominate the campaign. All my skills and money went into defensive abilities first. High Toughness, high armor, and step aside. Sure, my Bestigor may only have 3 attacks with two weapons... But he also has (effective) toughness 7 3 wounds, 2+ armor save, 5+ step aside, and healing herbs. Good luck taking that one down 1v1. In the end, the only offensive skills I needed to take were Strike to Injure and/or Strongman.

I totally agree, good defence stats + skills is your only counter to the beastmen's main weakness, ranged attacks...although I am curious about how you managed to get a T7 Bestigor...or a 2+ armour save while using two weapons for that matter? o.O (the highest I can manage is effective 6 due to racial max and "resilient" and an armour save of 3+ with two weapons, gromril armour and "shaggy hide") But then again your mileage may vary depending on any house rules for armour etc.

Zekk wrote:

5 - Nets. LOL as silly as this sounds... nets are actually useful for beastmen. Why? cuz youre not shooting anyways... might as well take advantage of that down time when youre 8" away and nothing better to do. might actually score a net hit! or better yet... soak up a lucky charm..

This is a good surprise tactic, but I wouldn't normally factor it into a strategy, while the nets are only 5gc a pop, they are one use items (you have to re-buy them every time you use them) which means you could easily be spending hard earned gold on very little reward. Considering that you cannot run and use them I would normally always prefer to close the distance and stop the enemy from running/gaining a better position next turn, rather than throwing a net. But again for novelty's sake they could be good for a laugh.

tldr: Some good points, but I think you missed some of the finer ideas in running the beastmen, but I'm glad you had so much fun with them! ^^

I never found the chaos magic to be that useful. the Difficulty is too high to be relied upon. The eye of god is great, but ive seen it remove warriors from the game far too many times for the gamble to be worth it.
The extra C.C. hero was far more useful when it came down to winning games.

Hounds are great models for their cost, the stats are great. but, toughness 3. they get targetted first, rarely make it to combat. and in the end, theyre only 1 attack. Lucky Charm, parry, Miss... bunch of ways to negate their usefulness. It doesnt take much concentrated fire to take them down. One or two crossbowmen will drop a hound each turn. Since shooting at the beastmen is useless, (generally) the hounds take all the shots.


Bellowing Roar is a skill that should be there for Incase-Shit-Happens situations. Not relied on. Unholy Relics are my first line of defence against rout checks, regardless of the warband. The only time i ever needed to use Bellowing Roar was the games where I used Hounds and Ungors. once I removed them from the roster, I never had to take another rout check again.

Toughness 7 = all what you listed + mandrake root.
2+ armor save - Gromril (4+) Shield (3+) Shaggy Hide (2+)
we have the house rule where the shield can make an attack (that cant cause crits)
however, you could also buy the Mutation extra arm , to carry that shield and do it without house rules!


Also, Nets are 1 use per game. not 1 use end of story. The entry says "once per game, you can throw a net "
its just something to spend money on when you have a bit of extra coin laying around.

Zekk wrote:

I never found the chaos magic to be that useful. the Difficulty is too high to be relied upon. The eye of god is great, but ive seen it remove warriors from the game far too many times for the gamble to be worth it.
The extra C.C. hero was far more useful when it came down to winning games.

I must just be lucky with my rolls then xD

Zekk wrote:

Hounds are great models for their cost, the stats are great. but, toughness 3. they get targetted first, rarely make it to combat. and in the end, theyre only 1 attack. Lucky Charm, parry, Miss... bunch of ways to negate their usefulness. It doesnt take much concentrated fire to take them down. One or two crossbowmen will drop a hound each turn. Since shooting at the beastmen is useless, (generally) the hounds take all the shots.

Well this could come down to the amount of scenery etc you are playing with, with the volume of terrain on our tables I can normally get hounds into a comfortable flanking/charging position without getting them shot at (and my primary opponent is crossbow spamming dwarves! xD) But then even if they are shooting at the hounds, it means they ain't shooting at my heroes ^^

Zekk wrote:

Bellowing Roar is a skill that should be there for Incase-Shit-Happens situations. Not relied on. Unholy Relics are my first line of defence against rout checks, regardless of the warband. The only time i ever needed to use Bellowing Roar was the games where I used Hounds and Ungors. once I removed them from the roster, I never had to take another rout check again.

I don't really see it as a -shit happens- sorta ability. I have always seen it as an excuse to play much more aggressively than other warbands, since you can afford to take much higher losses than the average band but keep attacking while under that dreaded rout check value. This plays into my "shock troop" style of play, get in there fast, hit them hard, all guts and glory! Allot of mord players will not expect such an aggressive playstyle (inside of a campaign setting at least). But I guess it's playstyle choice ^^

Zekk wrote:

Toughness 7 = all what you listed + mandrake root.
2+ armor save - Gromril (4+) Shield (3+) Shaggy Hide (2+)
we have the house rule where the shield can make an attack (that cant cause crits)
however, you could also buy the Mutation extra arm , to carry that shield and do it without house rules!

Ah ok, I don't usually count drugs in calculations (due to rarity and cost) and we play vanilla rules for shields/armour so extra attacks with shields don't come into play ^^...never thought about giving the mutated extra arm a shield before though...BEHOLD! THE MIGHTY TURTLE-GOR! xD

Zekk wrote:

Also, Nets are 1 use per game. not 1 use end of story. The entry says "once per game, you can throw a net "
its just something to spend money on when you have a bit of extra coin laying around.

Net (RB 37); 5 gc; Availability: Common
Steel nets, such as those used by Pit Fighters, can be used in battles. Once per game, the net may be thrown in the shooting phase instead of the model shooting a missile weapon. Treat the net as a missile weapon in all respects with a range of 8". Use the model’s BS to determine whether the net hits or not – there are no movement or range penalties. If it hits, the target must immediately roll a D6. If the result is equal to, or lower than his Strength, he rips the net apart. If the result is higher, he may not move, shoot or cast spells in his next turn, although he is not otherwise affected. In either case the net is lost.

They are only one use unfortunately. But again for novelty if you have spare coin and nothing else to buy?...why not, I just like my gold, don't think I could bring myself to spend so much money on one use items and drugs/poisons etc xD

wow, i never saw that part about nets before! lol
yep, now theyre officially 100% useless in the game of Mordheim! awesome. *sigh*

Zekk wrote:

wow, i never saw that part about nets before! lol
yep, now theyre officially 100% useless in the game of Mordheim! awesome. *sigh*

Haha, and now that I have ruined your fun...my work here is done! -put on cape and flies away-