Fairness of Beastmen

Hello Gents!

I've been looking for a few days now for a question that has come up in a recently, and have found nothing, so I hope this is not a repost and if it is, I am very sorry!

My gaming group is wrapping up our first campaign in the coming week and it seems to be a popular thought that the Beastmen are an unbalanced/unfair. They were very successful, winning, all but a couple of scenarios. The consensus seems to be that they are too fast and too tough...

So I'd like to get the communities opinion on this. If this has come up before, again, I am very sorry, but I need some help getting this resolved.

Thanks!!!

I've defended the Beasts from assertions that they are weak and grossly underpowered so I think I can safely assert that they are not over the top unbalanced either. They are a strong band and in the right situation I can see how they might dominate, but so might any band in the hands of the right player. In our most recent campaign they were routinely slapped down by Witch Hunters and Dwarfs. They gave my Orcs fits for the last couple of weeks of the campaign but that was because all those underdog bonuses made them strong (and they ganged up on me with the Pit Fighters!)

As is the case with most questions of this nature, it all depends on the house rules that you are using (if any) and the other warbands involved.

I don't find Beastmen to be much more powerful than many other warbands. They are fast and tough, and Chaos Hounds can be a massive pain in the opening stages of a campaign, but their utility wanes. While they are fast and harder to kill than most other warriors, they have no shooting to speak of and have lower-than-average leadership. Once they start taking route tests (preferably from being shot at), they're not likely to stick around as long as others.
I've found most beastman warbands have a very difficult time coming out on top when their opponents are Reiklanders or other shooty warbands - especially when those warbands climb up things to avoid the centigor and hounds.

I'd say they're about on par with Skaven, they're tougher but fewer in number, not quite as fast, and don't even have access to slings. They can be tricky for a lot of the "core" warbands, but certainly are not unbeatable.

I played a campaign with Beastmen and found them to be average in their stats, skills, weapons, etc.... Having greater movement and toughness than other warbands is their strength, while no access to ranged is a weakness. It was difficult at times to force opponents into CC, or to avoid getting picked off in the first couple of turns. Poor leadership was the biggest problem for my specific warband. Once you OOA'd 4 of my members, it was pretty much over. I had the biggest trouble with Possessed warbands as they were ofter superior in CC. I think Beastmen are just as viable, playable, and 'fair' as any other warband out there.

They are tough in hand to hand, but outside of hand to hand they are not the best.

I agree 4 toughness + higher movement is a significate advantage over most human warbands, but the lack of shooting, and the low leadership means that a good shooting warband can usually take them out before you get into a serious hand to hand battle.

I don't know how many games I won with my orcs because they had bows. It allowed me to get at Dwarves, and Elves that were sniping from buildings, or were in hard to get to situations.

I agree they are good, but I don't think they are over powered. I think a good Orc or Lizardman warband can go toe to toe with them in hand to hand. I also believe that there isn't really a senario where they don't have a chance of winning because speed is such an advantage in a lot of senarios.

Wow,

Thanks very much for all the responses! I am in agreement with you all, now to convince my group...

In my eyes they are human max at +1T (max) and fast. I think one problem in our group is a lot of people didn't do a lot of shooting, so the Beasts just kind of ran wild...

Thanks again to everyone who responded!!!