Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Beastmen (section)

==Tactics==
Let's get down to brass tacks here eh? Beastmen, as an army, have some gaping holes. The biggest and most egregious: They have a terrible LD across the board: every single one of their infantry units faces the prospect of easily panicking and bolting. This means that you need, need, NEED most of your units to be either within your general's LD bubble or to contain a Lead boosting Hero (and even then, don't get excited, your LD max is just about equal to Dwarf base LD). This means you're going to be concentrated in huge blobs towards the center of the board and thus very vulnerable to flank charges.

====Preferable Units====

Here are some favorite unit designs that Beastmen players have used.  You'll notice that the first three are Special Units - welcome to Beastmen:

*'''Bestigor Herd''': Remember how we told you to commit?  Here it is. Take 30+ Bestigors (the optimal number is usually 35, but some players go large at 40+ or 50+!). This is a WS/S/T 4 warrior with a great weapon and heavy armor in a unit that can have a magic battle standard.  Got a Great Bray Shaman, Wargor or Morghur?  You can pop him in here along with a Standard of Discipline, and suddenly you have the Same Ld (9) as if you were in the General's bubble, but are now independent of that bubble and free to wreak havoc. Other options are possible, but make sure you utilize your magic banner allowance. COMMIT.

*'''The Minobus''': A favorite of players who like the awesome Minotaur models and want to field a rape train capable of boosting their murderboner into orbit.  Minotaurs can be fielded in multiple orientations such as 2x2, 3x2.... but if you really want to bring the beef, the minobus is a generally minimum of 3x3. Again, commit (just like with the Bestigors) and get at least one hero/lord -  you need it because if the Dice Gods frown on you, this very expensive unit of stone killers suddenly turns into a stampede for the rear that is fast enough to get off board before you can rally it! Quite often you will see a Doombull, a Gorebull, and a second Gorebull as BSB in the front row, and 6+ minotaurs in the back.  Don't just run the three characters, you need ranks to maintain the bus's ability to combat.  Insane players will field 9 to 16 Minotaurs along with Taurox and a Gorebull (or in bigger games, a Doombull) BSB along with a second Gorebull for a unit capable of class 5 hurricane levels of destruction. Remember - canny players KNOW how to redirect this thing, so make sure you are screening it with ungors/gors/razorgors/harpies so that they don't get led around by that ring in their collective snouts. Obviously this unit becomes a risky proposition as a potential one hit wonder, but it can be a thrill to see once the killing gets started. A unit this involved is around 1000 points, so the enemy ''must'' engage it if they want some serious VPs. This means a retarded amount of incoming will be directed at the bus: missiles, engine fire, magic, foul language. This will allow your Gore blocks, harpies and chariots to go and assault forward.  This also means that your bus needs some serious support - Gores on the wings, and at least 2 wizards trying to keep it alive! 
**Want some load outs?  Here ya go: '''Doombull''' with Heavy Armour, Shield, Sword of Striking, Ramhorn Helm, Dawnstone, The Other Tricksters Shard, Gnarled Hide; '''Gorebull''' with Heavy Armour, Shield, Battle Standard, Beast Banner; '''Gorebull''' with Heavy Armour, Shield, Sword of Swift Striking, Dragonhelm, Ironcurse Icon.  Obviously, tinker with moving the Sword around, different banners are a possibility as well (but that beast banner is nice).  

*'''Bacon cruise missiles''': We told you before, and here it is again - get two units of one Razorgor each. Use them as flankers, wizard hunters or war machine hunters.  They also excel at redirecting, chasing down and pinning units so your Minobus can finish omnomnoming them, and in general running around like a .... greased pig.  Single model units only: don't buy doubles because the second one will bolt with that Ld 6.

*'''Ungor Ambush Spam''': MSU (Multiple Small Units - usually 6+ units of 5) of ungors or gors with the sole purpose of being meatshields and redirectors. Spam These guys into your enemy's rear.  Now, with Glottkin book, you don't need an equivalent unit anymore!  Make sure to get Khornate or Slaaneshi upgrades for them for staying/killing power.  Multiple units of these little bastards means that eventually you'll wind up a few of them in the enemy's knickers. Best used in conjunction with Kazrak as your General so that you are really effective on landing these where you need them. Again, risky in that each unit is essentially 25-40 points that you are giving to the enemy, but you should think of that as you are spending it so that you can cause havoc and get the enemy looking in the wrong direction or turned for flank attacks.

*'''Big Block Gors''': Get two units of 40+ Gors and kit em out.  Remember, no shields - you want AHW, and try to keep them near the BSB for re-rolls. This becomes the anvil for the enemy unit that your hammer will flank charge.  Doesn't hurt to screen them - they can get weak in the knees if charged on the flanks.  And you are prone to that.

*'''Harpy Havoc''': Facing a ton of wizards or warmachines? It may behoove (nyuk nyuk) you to acquire some harpies - they make descent warmachine and wizard hunters.  YMMV.  Use with caution as when they are broken, they can cause a chain reaction of panic and fleeing in your flanking units.  It's an unfortunate reality that they can break, but their ability to fly allows you to pick off loners.  Also act as backup redirectors and meatshields.

*'''Ham n' Hoof Drag Racing''': New Beastmen players are usually so worried about how underpowered their army allegedly is that they forget that there is some awesomeness here: Chariots, baby!  Piggy powered wheeled death means that you get some fast and powerful core choices capable of fulfilling multiple roles: flankers, anvil, hammer, warmachine/wiz hunter. Take in 2+ units in smaller games, but try to go large here as this is a powerful core choice for you.   Remember that CHARIOTS CAN'T MARCH (pg 86 BRB), so use their ability to wheel while moving to get them into prime charging position.  Get aggressive with these, they can be the start of something beautiful if you can get stuck right in early before the enemy brings his magic and missiles to bear.

*'''Free magic dice''': Take a great shaman who is correctly kitted out. On average, you can get around 7 "free" power dice as long as you are in combat. Try running a 35 man gor unit with a wargor with the beast banner. Your wizard is then level 4 using beasts, he is equipped the jagged dagger and the steel claws. If you cast Wyssan's Wildform and The Savage Beast of Horros he then can potentially get up to 9 strength 9 attacks re rolling to hit. and each kill counts as a power dice. Even with the power dice cap, this is a nice regenerator for an army that desperately needs buffs.

====Strategy and Tactics====

The best strategy is to concentrate your Minotaur and Gor blocks towards the center and play big monster/screening units on the flanks.  There should be no giant blocks of ungors - this is not their forte, they're not Skavenslaves: they function better in MSUs and as flankers for cheap hits or to force a unit to turn it's own flanks.  Minotaurs do flank duty alright, but are unreliable and easy to strand; inherently, put them in the middle (army general helps their low LD) and put the Gor blocks nearby. Cores and Special blocks need flank support: screening units (these are your Ungor/Ungor raiders both on board and ambushing, also your razorgors and harpies, and even MSU gors) are all key to that.

Your Bestigors will likely fall into the above paragraph unless you set them up as stated earlier - with the Standard of Discipline and a Character, at which point they become independent of the General's Ld bubble (this is good).  Even then, they cannot be run as a solo problem solver, or the inevitable paddling they get will be well deserved.

Cygors are decent flank units, but need the screening unit to keep dedicated combat units away. Ghorgons fair a little better but have the same problem that Minotaurs have in that they are easy to pull off in a bad direction. Jabbers are great mobile trouble-shooters, but automatically become winged shit magnets. Remember, keep all of these monsters away from dedicated combat units with lots of attacks, great weapons or poisoned attacks. They should be slamming into the flanks, not going nose to nose.

Avoiding your opponent's heaviest units is also important to your success, which naturally is easier said than done. Beastmen are at a disadvantage against pretty much everyone, so you need to strike the weak points hard with magical buffs from Lore of Beasts and huge blocks of Gors/Bestigors, while using lone Razorgors and Ungor Raiders to redirect the enemy's elites, get in the way and basically make a nuisance of themselves while your heavy-hitters crush the enemy's weaker units for the points. Don't fight defensively: you're not Warriors or [[Dwarfs_(Warhammer_Fantasy)|Dorfs]], you can't sit back and let them come to you. Strike hard, strike fast, and melt away before any real opposition comes to get you. Learn from the Beastmen in the lore, they know how it goes.

A nice big meaty unit of Bestigors (35+) or Gors (50 at the least) is very effective as a hammer for this purpose. Kit out the gors with additional hand weapons, a few heroes and Wyssan's Wildform, and run like hell towards the enemy. You should be buffing your Gors with either the Beast Banner for killing, or with the Totem of Rust when facing armies with plenty of disposable income. You need to get as many kills as possible to force Insane Courage from your opponent on the charge. Don't pull your punches, go all out on the offense. March everything forward, move to within inches of the enemy to guarantee charges, because you can't do jack sh*t when you're not in combat. 

Now that you're stressed for points, let's not forget to add the fact that you should have 2-3 wizards if possible.  Remember - be prepared to pay 600-700 points for a decent magic phase. You need buffs more than other armies and the way to get that is via magic.  All of your magic characters will find their points allotments for magical items to be a bit tight - beastmen are poor from living in the woods after all. Buy those casters and try your best to buff buff and buff your units.  And ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS try to pop Wildform.

Don't be afraid to stack the odds, no one came along and gave you a 175 point Hydra or decent cavalry. For instance, Gors will almost ALWAYS lose to their equivalent points in (fill in here)Elf Warriors. But, you toss in a Cygor or even a Chariot on the flanks, and suddenly you're doing okay. Gang up on enemy units, don't play nice.

Much of Beastmen playing will involve heavy maneuvering, unit redundancy, draw and counter-charge and avoiding getting shot to pieces. Welcome to Warhammer on Hard Mode.

VS Vampires - Kill the LoV wizards asap, kill them all. Do not challenge or accept a challenge from a Vampire with anything you will miss, there is a good chance that unless it is a Minotaur that it's going to get butchered. If you can do these things you drastically increase your chance of winning.

VS Tomb Kings - Due to your own low LD you will want to make killing skull catapults and boxes of doom (casket of souls) a priority, also Tomb Kings usually have a weak core, unless its buffed by a hero/lord or magic. Stopping the enemy's spell casters is a must.

VS Elves - If you can live through the first round of combat, your generally higher S and T will start to show, so you should use your numerical advantage to it's fullest. Get into combat fast: Elves tend to have a fair amount of shooting, the less they get to shoot at you the better.

VS Dwarves - Don't waist points on monsters, there will be far too many cannons for anything that does not fly or have good regeneration/ward save to be worth the points, unless it's there as a distraction. Due to Dwarves' generally high armor saves, any thing that reduces armor is valuable (''Totem of Rust'' comes to mind).

 
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