Editing Beastmen (section)

==Print History==
The Beastmen weren't always "the Beastmen" as we know them today. For the longest time, they were actually part of a unified Chaos army, but due to the fact that people seemed to like to roll with either all beast, mortal or daemon army lists, [[Games Workshop]] in their infinite wisdom decided to gradually split off the armies. Despite getting split off into an army of their own, they still always play second fiddle to every other villainous faction in the setting. [[Skaven]] used to be under them.

===Runequest===
[[File:GW Special Broo.jpg|thumb|right|px|300|Behold, the first <strike>Broo</strike> Beastmen models.]]
In the early to mid 1980's, Games Workshop still produced miniatures for other games, including some they didn't even sell (similar to [[Reaper Miniatures]] today), and among them was the line of [[Broo]] for the [[Runequest]] game of the [[Glorantha]] setting.

Broo were the proto-Beastmen. Most of the visual style of modern Beastmen, particularly Ungors, is present in the Broo minis. Broo are specifically very similar to Beastmen, [[/d/|although most notably is their lecherous nature and their hyper-fertility to the point they can literally impregnate anything they jizz into, including other males (usually not of their own race), trees, rocks, even just dirt.]]

Games Workshop lost the rights to most of the third party IPs in the early 80's, since the contracts had run out and the IP owners had discovered there was alternatives (early GW had managed to sell itself on the idea it was the primary distributor of tabletop in <strike>The Old World</strike> Europe despite it originally being three young men in an apartment and later on about twenty of them in a small office). This left them with a fair amount of unsold inventory that they couldn't actually sell anymore, so they repurposed it all (with dubious legality) as other things and gave Brian Ansell the thumbs up to make his own game that they'd all have rules in...hence, Warhammer was born. Since Broo were generic enough, Games Workshop repurposed the existing miniatures as a set of models for the game, with very little actually changed aside from all the grey morality removed.

===Hordes of Chaos===
Way back when, they were just part of the single Chaos army where they fulfilled the role of chaff; they were squishier and quicker than other Mortal units and they were good at setting up charges, which Daemons couldn't really do. There were also a couple of special and rare units that were "beastly," but nothing much.

===Beasts of Chaos===
In 6th edition the Chaos army was split, making Beastmen their own army... sort of. They were pretty bad in this edition, essentially being the bitch of Chaos. Indeed, they had almost ''no'' redeeming qualities of their own, but to get into why we'll need to split apart the book and look at it in detail.

For starters, there's nothing the Beasts can do that Mortals or Daemons can't do better. At first this might seem odd since their Special and Rare choices could both be very powerful, however the Chaos books were rather unique in that Beasts, Daemons and Mortals could all be used alongside each other, and so each could take everyone else's Special and Rare choices. The main difference was in what counted as your Core, and a Chaos Core was divided into a Mortal, Beast and Daemon Core. [[Age of Sigmar|Whichever of the three types happened to be your General was the type that counted as your Core, while the other two counted as Special choices.]]

Suffice to say, outside of a few options/builds the Beast Generals were lacking compared to Mortal Generals and Greater Daemons, and so were their Core. Sure if you found a way to get Morghur in the middle of the enemy he could stop at least half an army on his own while Khazrak was hands down one of, (if not the best) monster killers in the game. He was able to get up to S10 and each successful wounding attack, before saves, generated a new attack (yes, even the new attacks did this) and the Beast's ambush rule was pretty cool, but those are the exceptions.

The Beast Core consisted of units that mixed low Toughness and low Leadership; they had lightly armoured Ungors with spears and tough, brawny brawlers in the form of Gors, alongside skirmishers that could scout. The only alternatives (if you wanted a full unit) was to supplement with Warhounds, who can't take a hit and didn't count towards your mandatory Core slots, or take a bunch of tough, strong Bestigors, who were overpriced and much slower than everybody else. If you wanted a Beasts General and mostly wanted to make use of your Special and Rare choices, then you'd probably get a few Tuskgor Chariots to fill your mandatory Core slots. They were significantly cheaper than their Mortal counterparts, did not do that much less damage and were also the only option that could consistently make their points back.

This is because when they were split from the Hordes of Chaos, the Core was nothing more than an unruly band of meat shields. In fact, because they could move faster, it was preferable to field a few beast packs to soak up arrow fire and act as distractions while fast-moving daemons got the flanks and warriors hammered the front ranks.

[[Derp|This does not make a competent, full army.]] Now if you were paying attention you might be wondering how they'd perform if had a Mortal or Daemon General and so could avoid a shitty Core, and that's where things get good. A Chaos army often had to skip out on important upgrades to certain units (specifically Warriors) because they wouldn't have enough to get a good General, a good frontline, and a good few heavy hitters that you'd normally need to collapse the enemy's formation. They were pricy, and so Beasts gave you the option of having a cheap Core and suddenly you had far more points to spend on units of Warriors and Knights.

Now to get into the cool Special and Rare choices, the Beasts gave Chaos the [[Troll#Fantasy_trolls|Chaos Trolls]] and [[Ogre_Kingdoms|Ogres]], [[Dragon Ogres|Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths]], etc. Combined with the Warriors (and saving points using Chariots or Ungor screens for Core) it made for a fairly strong United force, one that could hit like a truck and take solid hits in return.

Almost makes you wonder why they were ever split in the first place, since the only time the Chaos armies of 6th Ed were scary was when they had a united front (just like in the lore).

===Beastmen===
[[File:Beastmen-Warhammer-Fantasy.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Warrior goats with [[Ogre]]-style gutplates]]
Sometimes referred to as "the WEAK chaos army," or the "Powerful [[Chaos]] [[Skaven]]" it more or less resembles a normal horde style army in Warhammer Fantasy Battle with cheap, [[Imperial Guard|expendable]] troops, average leaderships and little immunity to psychology. The things they otherwise don't have are anything resembling armor or any kind relevant shooting, but they try to make up for it with Primal Fury which gives them hatred on a passed leadership test each round of combat on many of their units. The Herdstone magic item allows Beastmen wizards to score extra power dice for their spells, allowing Beastmen to pull off a little extra spell support to augment the cheap core units. They also excel in cheap chaff and redirectors in the form of Ungor Raiders, Razorgors, and Harpies, and fielding fairly costed chariots in core.

Unfortunately they also got fucked in pretty much every other area. Marks were taken away for no good reason, prices went up on models that already cost too much, models were introduced that made your own army worse, the Beastmen were given a piss-poor magic lore (compared to every other lore) in exchange for the other lores that could be occasionally useful, they swapped out mostly decent magic items for mostly shitty ones, or ones that made no sense (like a magic banner that could only be given to a unit who had heavy armour, and it took away their heavy armour without refunding the cost), the list goes on. All in all it made them one of if not the worst army in the game. It was still possible to win, but it would always be an uphill battle as their biggest advantages, like their heaviest hitters and ability to be combined with the other Chaos armies as one big force, were completely removed (with the one exception being Minotaurs who are overcosted compared to other models anyway).

===Real world Inspiration===
The standard way of creating a fantasy race or culture is to take one real world culture and base everything off of that. The Empire is early Renaissance Germany, Bretonnia is Medieval French fused with English Arthurian myth giving them a strong British feel as well. Dwarfs and Elves have their own sort of base line culture based on Tolkien and with a large part of Warhammer fantasy in it nowadays as well.

The Beastmen, however, are based on the popular conception of the barbarians who tore Rome down. First they have no interests other than smashing civilization apart for the sake of smashing it apart. They have in their background that they pay homage to large 'herd stones' which are similar to the Celtic shrines (think Stonehenge, although it is not actually a Celtic shrine). Lastly, they are Beastmen and satyrs are associated with paganism. Ever wonder why the Devil has cloven legs? Early Christians used the old Greek god Pan (the original [[satyr]]), as the devil because he was, among other things, a god of sex [[Fail|(and shepherds)]] and Christians are against recreational sex outside marriage due to the Bible's stipulation that God intends it for married couples, meaning Pan was a good framework for the devil and all that has really changed since then was turning him red and giving him a trident. Plus, Pan is also a god of the wild; very fitting reference for Beastmen.

Tactically the Beastmen also fit the Barbarian origin: many light troops that rely on ambush and surprise (more than one Roman legion was lost by this kind of ambush<!--Quinctilius Varus, give me back my Legions!-->), chariots which the Britons used against the Romans and lastly they are like the Barbarians in that they are focused on skirmishing and raiding. Once upon a time all Beastmen were skirmishers, which while effective against isolated villages is less effective against armies, which is why it was changed.

So the Beastmen have some pretty interesting roots once you 'pop the hood' on their design.