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I've been playing Warhammer 40K for a while but I have been considering starting an army for WHFB. My top two contenders right now are High Elves and Beastmen. I wanted to try an army that not only has a high coolness factor, but also an army that will challenge my tactical skills. I've heard from many sources that Beastmen are a hard army to use, but I haven't heard why. So my question is this:

What makes the Beastmen army a hard army to play with?

The ranking rules for beast herds.

A canny opponent will send in single monsters, characters, chariots so that the herd has to rank up 4 wide, therefore no rank bonuses.

Average leadership.

I ran them at 3000 point tourney and had great fun, won 5 of 8 games (including 2 practice games) but you have to really watch what you are doing.

I'd recommend them as a second or even third army...

I think leadership is the biggest factor - so many armies cause fear these days, and terror is very common as well. Then there is the huge issue of panic.

No "Really" heavy hitters. If the opponent is like "I'm sending my Lord on Dragon through your entire army", there's nothing you can really do.

I think GW wielding minos, dragon ogres, and shaggoth might disagree that there are no heavy hitters...

Anyhow, Waaagh_Gonads has it right. The ranking rule not being updated for 7th really hurt non-monster beast viability. It was always an odd thing to me, because they were far from unstoppable before. They lack shooting and LD is fairly low, which makes them vulnerable to psychology armies (undead, missile casualty panic, etc.).

i never heard they were a hard army to play before. my brother started playing beastmen just a little bit ago as his first army and he has been going pretty well actually. maybe he just has a gift!

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:The ranking rules for beast herds.

A canny opponent will send in single monsters, characters, chariots so that the herd has to rank up 4 wide, therefore no rank bonuses.

Average leadership.

I ran them at 3000 point tourney and had great fun, won 5 of 8 games (including 2 practice games) but you have to really watch what you are doing.

I'd recommend them as a second or even third army...

How exactly does the 'rank up to 4 wide' rule read again?

(Plus, the fact that it was designed to be a BENEFIT to them last edition and is a HANDICAP to them in this edition AND GW refused to ERRATA it to '5 wide' is bizarre...)

they rank up like skirmishers but with a minimum of 4 wide.
as a result they can only successfully charge if 25% are within charge range. otherwise treat them just like skirmishers.

I wouldn't say they are a hard army to play, just one thats hard to play well. With such a low leadership you have to consider things like paths of retreat for you bait units (nothing like 5 chaos hounds panicking a 20 man bestigor herd ) and can any of the units your multi-charging a fear causing enemy hold out by themselves if/when the other unit(s) fail their fear test.

At the same time with some hard chariots as core and proper use of the ambushing rule, the army has the potential to decimate almost any army if built and used properly.

And no hard hitting units? How much harder hitting can you get then 4 dragon ogres with great weapons? blah blah lords on dragons, i know but still....

not for getting the rune of the true beast, this has saved me more then once ... i mean whats more fun then rocking up to elf on a dragon then explaining that no ridden monsters, lone monsters, steeds pulling chariots, cavalry mounts and swarms may never direct their attack at the model bearing it and then hacking the elf to bits while the dragon shakes in fear

Leith wrote:they rank up like skirmishers but with a minimum of 4 wide.
as a result they can only successfully charge if 25% are within charge range. otherwise treat them just like skirmishers.

Which is why getting hit by anything with a frontage of 60mm or less is the suk (75mm or more and you can have 5 model ranks).
You rank up 4 wide and miss out of the rank bonuses.