Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

"Chaos comes!"

– Game battle chant for Beastmen

This is the tactica for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Beastmen.

Why Play Beastmen?

• Because you love the half-human half-animal creatures from Greek Mythology, but wanted to see them as destructive, crazy, violent, rapist raiders who hate everything that so much as looks orderly.
• Because CA has to fix them eventually and you want to be ahead of the curve when it inevitably happens. I mean they are getting fixed right? RIGHT!?

Pros

• Speed: You are up with Wood Elves as one of the fastest factions in the game. Your infantry and cavalry can outpace their competition from most other factions, and even their monsters are very speedy for their size.
• Mass Vanguard: Most of your units have Vanguard Deployment, meaning you can set up troops in places most newer players wouldn't expect. This really helps exemplify them as an ambush faction who relies on catching their opponents with their pants down.
• Summons: With access to Lore of Beasts, Lore of Wilds, and Morghur's Chaos Spawn abilities, you are the most powerful summoning army in the entire game. You can summon a lot of really powerful units like Manticores, Cygors, and Spawn to really give you an edge over your opponents and snowball out of control.
• Hitting Power: Believe it or not, a goat-man that stands roughly a foot and a half taller than a normal human and is made of nothing but muscle hits really, really hard. That's not even getting into Minotaurs, which hit with the force of a freight train with a rocket tied to the back.
• Chase down Potential: Because of how fast your units are, chasing down routing units is something that few factions in the game can compete with you at. Hounds and Centigors will get rid of all that pesky infantry and make sure that terrified Lord is escorted cleanly off the map.

Cons

• Lack of Defense: You are a very fragile faction and are prone to mass missile fire and losing out in pure grindfests. You want to hit hard and get out before the enemy can retaliate.
• Poor Leadership: Most of your army has leadership that can best be described as "A 50's reality show housewife who just saw a mouse." expect your units to be running a lot.
• Missing Content. This is their big one. They lack a lot of units from the tabletop, and they feel it. Without things like the Ghorgon, they struggle with big, heavily armoured monsters and generally have a ton of holes they shouldn't have. They are in desperate need of a lord pack.
• No Heavy Cav: You don't have any cavalry options which can win in a one on one slugging match against enemy heavy cavalry. Centigors get pimpslapped even by Orc Cav.
• Terrible Campaign: The Beastmen Campaign has aged like milk; as an entirely Horde based faction, Beastmen don't really hold territory and struggle to form anything resembling an economy, which, while fluffy, means that creating a sustainable army, much less several, is borderline impossible. This is heavily compounded by the fact that every other faction in the game can generate a reasonable passive income that isn't exclusively reliant on pillaging/raiding. As those factions begin to gain more territory while tiering up their cities to gain yet more income, they can begin fielding more armies, including high-tier doomstacks, while you're still scrounging for pennies to keep your starting army running. This isn't even factoring in the economy cheats the AI factions get on top of this.

Universal Traits

• Primal Fury: As the first DLC faction since launch, the Beastmen were the first race to get some kind of passive battle ability on most of their units. As such, it's pretty outdated compared to what the newer faction received. Whenever a Beastmen unit's leadership is over 50%, they gain an extra charge bonus, melee attack, speed, and immune to psychology. It's pretty much Frenzy only instead of getting extra weapon damage they move faster. This may sound like a great way to deal with the army's Leadership problems, however since it goes away when leadership is below 50% it means that it doesn't help as well as you think. Combine this with the general low leadership the army has, and sometimes you forget they have immune to psych in the first place. The bonus to stats are nice, but hopefully, this gets updated when the Beastmen update comes.

Legendary Lords

• Khazrak The One-Eye: Your big named bastard who focuses on combat. With armor that provides a 20% damage resistance when in melee and a massive anti Infantry combat steroid, he's a beast in physical combat, especially on his chariot. Since Beastmen chariots are actually pretty good, this guy can be a menace with microed well. His biggest problem is that while he is a decent combat lord he really doesn't do much to help the army as a whole, and mostly just exists to run over the enemy. Granted, he does that pretty darn well, but since the Beastmen units generally need some form of leadership support in order to keep them in the fight this guy usually gets overlooked when it comes to multiplayer. When it comes to campaign.... well see further down on what we think about Beastmen of the campaign map. He probably won't lose you a battle, but he probably also won't be the reason you win either.

• Malagor The Dark Omen: The only caster lord you currently have, and for what he does he honestly isn't terrible. Lore of Wilds is actually pretty decent lore of magic with some good damage spells and the ability to summon cygors out of the ground to bash your enemies to pieces. He's about as useful as you'd expect a mage lord to be with one major issue, he has no mount options. This means he is a damn easy target for any decent melee character who can outmaneuver him. Yes, I know he has wings, but no he can't fly because CA hates fun. He's OK in melee as far as mages go but don't expect this to save him if someone like Tyrion decides he wants him dead. Fun fact, he is the only Legendary Lord who starts their campaign by taking attrition. Yeah... Did we mention Beastmen campaigns kind of suck?

• Morghur The Shadowgave: Now this beautiful mutated bastard is the diamond in the sad, sad ruff that is the selection of Beastmen lords. For one, while he is a foot lord he has crazy high regeneration, meaning killing him is actually pretty damn hard. On top of that, his abilities are just flat out amazing. For one, he gets a free Chaos Spawn summon to use whenever the hell he feels like it, so you can surprise the enemy with surprise butt sex. On top of that, he has a really cool passive that makes it so that once per battle, when an enemy unit reaches below a certain health point, they die and spawn a friendly unit of spawn. That means this guy can get you two extra units on the battlefield FOR FREE. Needless to say, that is amazing and as such he is the go-to lord pick for 90% of Multiplayer Beastmen lists. As for how to use him in campaign.... trust me we'll get to that.

Units

Lords

• Beastlord: Your only generic choice and as far as generic lords go he's... Meh? He's pretty much just Khazrak only he trades some melee prowess in exchange for an extra buffing ability for him and his army. Ironically this means in multiplayer he's considered better than Khazrak since he can actually help out all the poor goatmen who are stuck in melee. Other than that, you pretty much use him like you use Khazrak. Put him on that chariot and blast Ludacris on your speakers as you run your enemies the fuck over.

Heroes

• Bray Shaman: Your generic caster hero and he does what you expect most mages in this game to do to be honest, so he's always handy to have around. He has access to the Lore of Beasts, Shadows, Death, and Wilds, so he focuses more only blowing shit up with magic prowess more than healing or straight-up buffs, not that he's incapable of doing that. Since you pretty much got to bring this guy in most armies unless you have Malagor, you may as well put him on the chariot, as when you do that he becomes pretty decent at cycle charging infantry to death as well. He's got some good magic lores and a mount that allows him to actually be useful in melee, what else do you want from a mage?

• Gorebull: The first monstrous character (aside from Kholek and Sarthoreal) to be put into the game. This guy is a beast who specializes in AP anti large, so see if you can throw him against any monsters to chip down. He also acts as a pretty good bodyguard for your squishier lords or casters since who the hell wants to be fighting a nine-foot-tall minotaur with a big fuck off axe. The Gorebull does have one infamous weakness that makes him a meme in the community though, his mass. For whatever reason, it is really easy to knock this guy around like a pinball and send him flying to Saturn. Now a Dragon or Giant would understandably be able to do this, but something like a troll should NOT be able to throw this guy around so easily. Seriously, look up Gorebull Mass and you will probably find some damn good memes. This means he has issues sticking to his targets since anything big can just throw him halfway across the map. Still, a pretty good hero is you're able to keep him within orbit.
  • The twisted and twilight patch Has fixed some knockdown problems that have been plaguing all foot lords, not just Gorebull, so rocketing will be a rarer occasion than in the past.

Melee Units

• Ungor Spearmen: Your chaff spear unit, designed to absorb damage and make sure enemy cav doesn't stick around too long. Stat wise they're pathetic and lose to anything not a meat shield but they do have a high entity count and can use vanguard deployment for ambush tactics. They also gain advantages when fighting in the forest, so get tree engagements if you can. By far the best part about them is that they have the expendable trait, meaning you don't have to worry about them scaring the troops you actually care about when they rout.

• Ungor Spearmen (Shield): They will make your frontline in most multiplayer battles, though in campaign you'll want better troops as soon as you can get them. Always get the shields variant.
  • Destroyer’s of the Drakwald: Not only does this unit have much better melee defense, meaning it might actually stick around for a while, it also has poison attacks. This can be a good support unit and help enemy cav get stuck if they get their hands on them.

• Ungor Herd: The same as above only this is a much more offensive infantry. These axe wielders sacrifice some defensive stats in exchange for better offensive ones, meaning they can pump out a bit more damage than the spear version. They will still lose to most halfway decent infantry of the same tier, but they're meant to be expendable anyway so don't worry too much about it.

• Gor Herd: Your mid-tier infantry and man are these guys lawnmowers against low armored units. They come with two versions, a shielded version with more defense and a dual axe version with more attack. These guys are some of the best chaff clearing infantry in the game and will get rid of all the low-level fodder some factions love to bring to the table. Their armor is garbage so even the shielded version will die to missiles, but can still be great if they get on the right troops. Plus vanguard can help with sneaky shenanigans. Get the shielded version against factions with tons of missiles and the unshielded one against factions who don't.
  • Black-Horn’s Ravagers: They have better armor and stats than a normal Gor Herd, stalk, and an ability that gives them perfect vigor. This makes them great early game damage dealers, but their usefulness will drop off as the battle rages on and they sustain damage.

• Harpies: They're like fell bats, only they might actually kill whatever they're fighting. They are usually used to tie up enemy skirmishers and get them off the field so that your troops can fight unmolested. They will die if anything so much as sneezes on them too hard, so be careful when sending them in, as they may not be able to pull out again.

• Bestigor Herd: One of the few units that can best be described as "Shock Infantry." They have a monstrous charge bonus for an infantry unit and combine that with a decently high model count and they can cause havoc. If they can get a clean charge off on an opponent, these guys will be doing roughly the amount of a monstrous infantry unit PER ENTITY. They will clear through most mid-tier infantry if they can get the drop on them. The bad news for you is they're very reliant on the charge as their defensive stats aside from armor suck, so if they're the ones getting charged, don't expect them to last long. Great for punching through heavy armor.
  • Khorrok’s Manrippers: These guys trade a great axe for a halberd, meaning instead of armored infantry you want them fighting cavalry. They are your only halberd unit and you can only bring one, so they're almost a requirement against heavy cav factions.

Missile Infantry

• Ungor Raiders: Your only foot skirmisher unit, and by Khorne's Bloody Taint are these guys not exactly the model most ranged units strive to be. With pitiful range, accuracy, and AP you'd think there's be absolutely no point in bringing them, right? Well, they do have some uses. They can be used to force away skirmisher cav and can do some ok damage against units that don't have a ton of armor. They also have vanguard and stalk, meaning you can use them to get some sneaky ambushes on an unsuspecting opponent. That said, they aren't waywatchers, so don't expect them to carry the day for the Beastmen.

Cavalry

• Centigors: These horse goatman things are lighter cavalry designed to go after enemy skirmishers. Their special trait Rowdy gives them perfect vigor while their leadership is above 50% which is great for cavalry as they will be at peak fighting capacity for a large chunk of the battle. Vanguard can also help them with cheeky ambushes Beastmen love to do and a shield will help them against any missile fire coming in. Don't charge these guys into heavy cav, however. That job belongs to...

• Centigors (Great Weapons): These guys are very similar to the above, but they trade their shield for AP. This makes them a good can opener unit that can get through some heavy armor. They shouldn't be thrown in alone, however, and are best used in support with other units, preferably with debuffs like poison. If you can get the drop on your opponent and give them support, they can get some real value for your army.
  • Sons of Ghorros: Not only do they get way more armor, but they also get magic attacks which can help deal with any physical resistance. Guardian is also fun to help protect your characters if they ever get caught out. Though sadly they are much faster than all the Beastmen lords so you won't get to see it much.

• Centigors (Throwing Axes): Skirmisher cav with a whole lot of AP, these boys are your best answer to heavily armored monsters until the Ghorgon hopefully shows up. They're decent in melee but you want them for the throwing axes and all the AP they bring to the table. Granted with only 14 shots you need to be able to use them wisely and you best hope your enemy's light cav don't catch them or they won't last very long. And of course with goodies like vanguard they can be great for ambushes, though it's usually better to keep them with units that can protect them.

Chariots

• Razorgor Chariot: Not much to say about these guys to be honest. They're a very solid chariot unit that causes fear. If you're fighting against a faction that loves armored infantry like Dwarfs or Warriors of Chaos these guys will be able to run over them and supply good flank support.

Monsters

• Chaos Warhounds: Fairly cheap, expendable skirmisher hunters that can be vanguarded. Plus with missile resistance, you don't have to worry too much about them getting torn up by arrows or bullets on the way in. They come in a normal and a poison variant, and nine times out of ten you will take the poison version because it's literally the exact same thing but with poison, with the only downside being that it's ever so slightly more expensive.

• Razorgor Herd: Don't let the crummy statline fool you, Pumba's warped cousins are one of the MVPs of the entire roster. Heavy AP combined with fear is already pretty good, but combine that with high mass and they can fill a variety of rolls if they get support. You can team them up with your frontline to tear through armor or help out Centigors with pinning cav or monsters and laying the hurt. Plus they're only 600 gold meaning you can spam the field with bacon. They do have rampage which really sucks, but honestly, at only 600 gold you won't miss them that much if they suicide charges into halberds. Their attack and defense may suck, but the mass, AP, and combo potential more than makeup for it, and they can really punch above their weight.

• Chaos Spawn: Pretty much identical to what the Warriors of Chaos have, only these guys trade a lot of Weapon Strength for poison. Believe me, it is a worthwhile trade-off. With poison not only can they go a ton of damage to light armor but they can provide support for your frontline, meaning your ungors may actually be able to do something! And of course, having a unit that will never run is welcome in a faction that's prone to mass routs. Serves as a great inexpensive monstrous infantry in your armies, but if you're worried about armor, see below.

• Minotaurs: Let's be honest I think everyone who has wanted to play Beastmen plays them for a chance to use these guys. With high AP, charge, and attack they can tear apart anything that they get their hands on, but their low armor and melee defense mean they can't take much of a beating in return. Bloodgreed also makes them immune to psych while their leadership is up, so they'll stick around longer than your average goat person (good thing too cause their leadership ain't great). This unshielded version has an anti-infantry bonus, so if you can get your hands on armored infantry they won't last long but archers will tear them to pieces.

• Minotaurs (Shields): These cowmen give up the extra axe and anti-infantry bonus for a shield so they don't have to worry about missiles as much. Generally, the preferred choice over dual weapons since they can still tear up infantry just fine and might actually survive an arrow volley or two.
  • Butchers of Kalkengard: These guys evidently had some troll meat with Grom because they come with regeneration. This more or less negates their one weakness in being squishy, so they can absolutely run train on whatever you need them to. Keep them away from fire or your enemy will be having a nice steak dinner.

• Minotaurs (Great Weapons): With a two-handed weapon comes anti large for these guys. If the enemy has a big monster they'll chop it up if they get their hands on it, though the lack of a shield once again makes them very vulnerable to missile fire.

• Giant: God this thing sucks and doesn't synergize at all with the roster. It hits like a truck but it's slow, has no armor, can't ambush or hide, and kind of craps on what Beastmen like to do in general. Sadly it's still one of your more decent checks to heavily armored monsters, which says more about how Beastmen struggle against them rather than how good they are. Missiles will destroy them easily and it will end up just being a gigantic waste of money.

Artillery

• Cygor: Now this is the big scary monster you want to bring into battle. It's not as good as the giant in melee but it serves as a hybrid monster/artillery platform to rain down giant death rocks upon the enemy. It's also a great counter to mages due to magic resistance and a passive that increases miscast chances map-wide. The rocks are great at taking out infantry formations and if light cav does get on it, well, it's still a giant cow monster that can defend itself with fairly little issue. Won't last long if a big scary monster dedicated to melee gets it though, so watch out for that.
  • The Eye of Morrslieb: Same as above only with a single target net ability. Now it can lock down incoming enemies to either make its escape or throw more rocks at it. Just supplies that extra usefulness for an army that likes to get the charge but not be charged.

Tactics

So you may have noticed a theme in your army. Almost everything has high charge, vanguard, great attack, and shit defensive stats. This is an army that wants to get the drop on your opponent, get a charge off, rout their units and chase them away before they can hit back. It's a hard to use army that rewards good micro and timing, and due to missing units, they're considered weak right now. Not to say you can't have success in multiplayer though, and here's how:

Multiplayer Strategies

• Beastmen: When you're fighting your fellow goat people, Chaos Spawn are your friends. Due to the low armor of the roster they can pump in a ton of damage and apply poison to the whole roster. Morghur is a fantastic choice for getting more of them on the field. (In fact, Morghur is your best lord option in general, always pick him if you're tryharding.) Aside from that this often comes down to who can come out on top in the mobility game, as the Brayherd who has the edge in mobility often times can come out on top in the end. Go mainly for an spear frontline to help with cav and spawn and to get as much funds as possible into your mobile and monster elements. Raiders can also poke down the low armor of enemy spawn, but watch out for Centigors. You can also grab Lore of Wilds for a free Cygor, and take advantage of their weakness to monsters.

• Bretonnia: This is an interesting match up as both factions are heavily reliant on getting the charge in order to win. You will have absolutely no issues in the infantry grind, the big issue is dealing with Knights. Obviously you want an Ungor spear frontline in order to get as much anti large as possible, and they should be able to deal with the unwashed peasants that come their way. Razorgors are great, not only because they're cheap mobile AP but they can pin knights in place and allow your Great Weapon Minotaurs on top of them to cut them to pieces. Of course with most Bretonnian knights having anti large, be careful with the big cows when you send them in. Bretonnia also loves spamming archers, especially of the poison variety, so grabbing some Poison Warhounds or Centigors to deal with them can help you. Remember, while Centigors stand no chance at beating knights one on one, they are are a lot faster than them and should be able to avoid them rather easily. If you can deal with the Cav you shouldn't have much trouble dealing with the rest of their army.

• Dark Elves: Dark Elves are known for bringing a ton of Mobile AP with Dark Rider Crossbows, Scourgerunners and Darkshards. This is means your lack of Armor actually comes in handy as you don't really care about the AP. They don't really bring elite infantry so Gor Herds will be able to get you control of the frontline fairly quickly. Don't bring Minotaurs, as Scourgerunners will kite them into another dimension. Cygors are also great here as Elves don't really have much that can deal with them, allowing you to send rocks into their Cav and crossbows with relative safety. Bonuses with the Eye of Morsslieb, as it can lock down Crossbow Cav for your Centigors to rip to pieces. Ungor Raiders are also good for poking skirmish cav if they come close. Aside from that get some cheap spears for bodies and just try your best to beat the Druchii in the mobile game.

• Dwarfs: Yeah you are more than well equipped enough to deal with the Dwarfs. Bestigors are of course amazing here as they can take on the vast majority of the Dwarf frontline and win, though they can be vulnerable to missile fire. If you want to go cheap and expend elsewhere, go for more expendable axe ungors and invest more in Chariots and Minotaurs. Razorgors and Razorgor chariots are great for their AP to get through the Dwarf line and get to the juicy ranged units that are behind them. Minotaurs are a risky pick as they can be taken out by skirmishers and Slayers but if you can micro them well they can do a lot for you. Harpies can also do a ton for you as they can fly over the Dwarf lines and get on the guns and artillery before they get the chance to cause too much damage. And if the Dwarfs waste ammo on your expendable fliers, all the better. Raiders can also be useful, as while their arrows with boink off the armor of the standard Dwarf line, they can cause some cost effective damage to Slayers and help out your large targets. With your mobility and plentiful AP options you'll be able to handle most Dwarf armies, though don't be surprised if one catches you off guard now and then.

• Empire: Once again, dealing with Knights is going to be your big hurdle, though fortunately they aren't quite as big of a pain in the ass as the Bretonnian version. Of course, grabbing spear Ungors is a must to spread the field in Anti Large, so a few of those will certainly help you. Grab Centigor Great Weapons and Razogors to pin them down and you can get some charges off for some good damage. Poison Warhounds are also good for dealing with Outiders and Pistoliers since they can slow them down for Centigors to get on top of. If you can keep them safe, throwing axe Centigors can also help out a ton in dealing with Knights. Once the heavy cav is gone their skirmishers and artillery are free food for your Centigors and Hounds. Gor Herds with shields should be enough to deal with most Empire frontlines as Greatswords tend to be pretty rare in this match up. The Butchers are of debatable usefulness since while they can survive arrow volleys and help with Knights the Empire has plenty of ways to deal with monsters, especially of the regenerating kind. It's fairly similar to the Bretonnia match up only you the Knights are slightly weaker.

• Greenskins: Black Orcs aside Greenskins don't have much in terms of armor in their frontline so Chaos Spawn can help out a lot. Of course, with their plentiful skirmishing options they have ways of shooting Spawn to pieces. Centigors can thus be a good asset in chasing down Spider and Wolf cav and getting them away from your squishier units. You likely won't see Black Orcs due to your lack of armor and if you do, Razorgor support can help your Ungor and Gor frontline deal with them. Of course the biggest thing you will have to worry about here is all the big armoured monsters Orcs love to bring like Rogue Idols and Arachnarok Spiders. In this situation, throwing axe Centigors are your friends, as they can deal with the heavy armor without getting into melee with them. If you struggle with micro or ammo preservation you can also go with one or two Gorebulls with Minotaur support. They will have issues with ranged attacks and aren't as safe as throwing axe Centigors but if you can get them on and Idol or support an attack on a Spider they can rip a very sizable chunk out of it.

• High Elves: Fairly similar to the Dark Elves in that in this match up they tend to rely on mobile skirmishing to get the job done. In that case, a Cygor can work wonders. It will be able to chuck rocks at the Reaver Archers and get some of that annoying archer cav off the field. In the same vein Raiders can unleash some volleys into Ellyrion Reaver Archers if they get too close. Centigors aren't that great here because High Elves have one thing that Dark Elves don't, reliable mid to high tier cav. As such some spears can be helpful to scare off any attempt at a cav charge while Gors can carve through most of the frontline that Elves tend to bring. Rangers can do some decent damage to your infantry and Silverin Guard can hold for a while, but that's about as elite as you can expect to see from High Elf infantry. Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard are too expensive and easy to counter. In case of a Dragon, get a ton of Razorgors and pin that bitch in place for Minotaurs to get on top of and tear to pieces. Centigors with Throwing Axes can also do some reliable damage if he's a bit more apprehensive about landing. Most smart High Elf players won't bring standard archers or bolt throwers but if they do they are free value for your mobile units.

• Lizardmen: This match up sucks, since it seems like they have everything that you hate fighting. Solid frontline infantry that pack heavy damage to light armour? Yup, they got that. Mobile skirmishers with poison to slow pursuers and heavy damage to light armour? Got that too. Heavily armoured single entity monsters with fear and terror? Dude, they have more kinds of that than Ben and Jerry's has flavours of ice cream. If you want to represent the furries against the scalies, Bestigors can fight Saurus and do well, and you will need to bring one or two giants to fight big monsters as sadly that is the best you got right now. Hold them down with Razorgors and spam spears for anti large and try to get your giants on them to slap them around. Hopefully the Ghorgon will come with anti large and will give you some much needed monster fighting potential.

• Norsca: You have two thing that can reliably fight Mammoths, jack and shit. The low armor of the roster in general means that Chaos Spawn can once again do some good work, however javelins and the general monster killing skill of the roster will be a BIG pain in your ass. Normal Centigors can take some missile fire and get on top of them so they will stop harassing your poor spawn. Grab some spears to help pin down Skin Wolves and Fimir and if you see the Mammoth, well unfortunately once again you have to rely on the giant. Try to get the mammoth bogged down with spears and get the Giant there for some good swings. Yeah this is another hard match up, and another "pray we get the Ghorgon some time soon" situation.

• Skaven: Honestly Skaven are one of your favorite match ups, as you have a ton that can counter what they bring to the table. Gor Herds will dominate any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, and honestly most try hard Skaven builds never bring Stormvermin anyway. And of couse, Chaos Spawn are a blessing against low armor, so anything aside from Stormvermin will die quickly. Plus you have plenty of tools to get rid of the gunline, from Hounds to Centigors to get into the backline and get rid of those Jezails, Poisoned Wind Mortars and other Skryre tech before they can cause serious damage. With you mobility and plentiful access to fear and terror you can chase any fleeing ratmen with little issue. Now I know what you're thinking, didn't you say Beastmen have a hard time fighting heavily armoured, single entity monsters? What if they go for a Moulder Rush? Ahh, the answer is in the word *HEAVILY ARMOURED.* While strong, Clan Moulder monsters have piss poor armour meaning Raiders and other units can burn them down with no issue. Combine that with their low leadership and they're actually somewhat easy for the Beastmen to get rid of. What do you know, a match up you actually have a solid advantage in!

• Tomb Kings: This match up would be great for you... if you had a reliable way of dealing with constructs. Gor Herd will have absolutely no problem dealing with Tomb Guard, let alone the basic chaff skellies, but the fact that they're undead makes them a bigger problem than their stats would say. In general, Beastmen hate fighting undead because not only are they all unbreakable, which screws over your "route quick and chase them off" strategy, but they also all have fear, which will hurt the Beastmen's already poor leadership. So while your goats will win in a grind, sadly they may run before that happens. Centigors with throwing axes are a must in this match up as they're your most reliable AP unit, and their mobility will make it hard for the Tomb Kings to catch. Razorgors can also pin them in place so Minotaurs with Great Weapons can get on top of them and carve them to pieces. Finally, Chaos Spawn are just reliable in general because you don't have to worry about them shitting their pants and running away. Honest to god recommendation, don't play Beastmen into undead. Hopefully they can get some new heros or units that will make this particular weakness less of an issue for them.

• Vampire Coast: Out of all the Undead factions, you hate these guys the least as they at least slightly play into what you like to fight against. An immobile, gunline reliant faction that you can abuse your mobility against. Get a shit ton of harpies and yeet them on top of the gunline so that your Gors with Shields can get to the deckhands unmolested. Of course, that bad leadership is still a thing, so watch out for terror routes. Archer spam is a well known counter to the Coast in general so a crap ton of raiders will be able to get their value back fairly quickly. Lore of Wilds wizard with a Cygor summon can also do some reliable damage from long range so see if you can grab one of those. Big Crabs can be a pain in your ass, though really shooting them with the plentiful amount of Archers you should bring will usually be enough to being them down.

• Vampire Counts: Remember before when I said you hate fighting undead? Yeah... These guys are the worst case scenario for you. No archers to target, everything is unbreakable and will kill your already poor leadership. Unlike the Lizardmen you know exactly what they will bring, an expendable frontline with 3 Blood Knights and a Mortis Engine to kill blobs. The problem? Your current roster can't do anything about it. No reliable way to kill Blood Knights or Mortis Engines means this is a very one sided match up. So what do you do? Uh... Chaos Spawn are nice since they can't rout and can take on most Vampire Infantry with no issue. Centigors with throwing axes are your best bet against Blood Knights, so save your ammo for then. Aside from that, grab chaff to throw into the grind and Razorgors to pin down cav and Mortis Engines. Aside from that, pray that in your rework you get an AP Anti Large Ghorgon and a Hero with heavy leadership buffs because otherwise this will continue to be a nightmare.

• Warriors of Chaos: In order to prove to the pretenders that you are the true servants of the gods, you will need to find a way through all that armor. Fortunately all that armor is usually in their infantry not their monsters, so a Bestigor or two can cut through Chaos Warriors without much issue. If you want more numbers in your AP options, cycle charging Razorgors combined with Ungors can provided a hard hitting AP mess that Chaos Warriors can have a hard time getting through. If they go for Marauders for a frontline and invest elsewhere, then infantry shouldn't be a problem. Minotaurs can also help, especially the Butchers as they can regen through most of what Chaos can through at them. Marauder Horseman can be a pain in your ass since their mobility can allow them to get their javelins into your unarmoured troops. Centigors can beat them in melee and have the speed to catch them, though they won't last long if something scary gets a hold of them. Raiders are also useful as Chaos Spawn tend to be popular so arrow volleys can come in handy. Since you don't have too many scary SEM or heavy cav Dragon Ogres are fairly uncommon, but if they show up drown them in spears and cycle charge Minotaurs to carve them up.

• Wood Elves: Two things you want to bring against the Asrai, shields and mobility. You will need hounds and Centigors to hunt down all of the annoying archers that Wood Elves love to bring against you. They should be able to deal with Asrai Spear cav if you bring enough of them, then you can swarm them into the archer position. Dryads tend to be the most popular frontline for the Wood Elves, so Gors with shield should be your infantry option against them. You may question the use of Razorgors due to the lack of armor, but they are useful for pinning Dragons or other monsters in place for your raiders or cav to get a hold of. It's a battle of mobility, and if you win out in the mobile game you should be able to take the field fairly quickly.

Campaign Strategies

Don't play the Beastmen campaign. It is very much not worth your time until the update.

Ok fine, I'll talk about it. Beastmen are in the weakest spot out of all the races when it comes to Campaign as not only are they vastly out of date, but their launch wasn't even that spectacular to begin with. This is why you'll be lucky to see a Beastmen faction make it past turn twenty in campaign. I mean seriously, at least Warriors of Chaos have Shaggoth spam they can rely on. Beastmen are in such a pitiful spot that they have become a meme, and hopefully they are next in line for their rework. Beating the campaign is possible, but it's a massive pain in the ass and isn't really worth it. I'll go over why:

First major issue, they're a horde faction. Hordes are just a broken system right now that don't offer nearly as much as the normal faction do. You're stuck with your starting armies for the vast majority of the game as you desperately try to fix your economy without any infrastructure. Yes, eventually you'll reach the point where you make all your money from sacking and razing anyway, but it will be a slog in the early game. Not only that but your horde buildings are ungodly expensive, and it can take numerous sacks to just afford one. So your economy sucks, and without a base of operations you have no real safety. Yes you have the hiding camp but enemies can still walk into it and for some stupid reason you can't enter it if you use all your movement. You know, like Norsca and Coast can? Meaning after you raze a settlement you are stuck wide open. Combine this with the fact that Auto Resolve hates you and the campaign is lost if you lose one battle in the early game, and it's just a frustrating experience.

Now let's get on to their mechanics. Beastmen where the first faction to have an automatic ambush chance whenever you attack an enemy army. This is fitting, and they even get their own unique maps whenever they do so. The problem is these maps stink. You can only attack from one direction and the cluttered maps mean it's somewhat hard to maneuver your troops. You'd honestly be better off with a normal ambush map. Still, overall nice when you can get it off on someone. What's not nice is the Bestial Rage mechanic, which is just a copy and paste of the old Greenskin WAAAAGH mechanic. Each army has a bar that drops when you don't engage in battle. If it goes all the way down, your units take attrition. If you fill it up by fighting and razing, you get a Brayherd army that follows you around. Two big issues with this mechanic. One, the extra army is useless, as it's AI controlled and will often suicide itself on the nearest enemy settlement or army before it can do anything useful. Plus, if they die to early, you will get a diplomatic penalty for not protecting your new ally. I know what you're thinking, "But you're the Beastmen, what do you care about diplomacy?" Well, it means factions are more likely to declare war on you and send armies across the world just to fuck with you. You can be swarmed with armies from various faction fairly quickly. Also, the Bestial Rage punishing you for not fighting is dumb as you sometimes NEED to not fight due to how bad your replenishment is. That's right, the third most numerous race in the Warhammer World has a worse time than Elves at replenishing numbers. So in other words, you have on trait (Bad Replenishment) that punishes you for being aggressive, and a mechanic "Bestial Rage" that punishes you for NOT being aggressive. There's no winning.

Your last mechanic is the Dark Moon, which is a cool mechanic on paper. When the Dark Moon of Morrslieb is full you get a dilemma where you can decide between numerous options. They each give you a big buff and also a big debuff across all armies. The problem? The Debuffs heavily outweigh the buffs in most cases. There are a few where you get 100% replenishment but you lose all your horde growth. You could also get massive buffs to movement speed but your troops start battle tired. Or massive battle buffs but no less movement so you can't take advantage of it. These need to be reworked so you can take advantage of the buffs without them crippling you. Honestly, avoid the Beastmen for now. They're likely next for their rework so just don't play them until then.