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I'm working on a Beastman army, mostly as a modeling project, but I find myself winding up with lots of units of 10 or so models, since I'm using lots of odds and end figures as "counts as" beastmen. You know, those 15 cat guys you got at the going out of business sale, because they were cheap, that sort of thing. I'd rather keep them in small distinct units than try to lump them together. We're talking 2-3 chariots, 5-8 small units, some minatours, one big gor unit. I used to run MSU (multiple small unit) Brets pretty successfully back in the day, but I don't see that style working as well in the new edition (which I haven't played yet), or with Beastmen in general. I'm not a super serious fantasy player, but I do like to win the odd game, so I've been thinking about how to make it work. A couple of ideas, probably bad:

"We're everywhere!" - maximize the outflanking by having tons of units that can do it. Are rear charges worth enough in the new edition to try building a list based on this?
"Where's the Character?" - think of your small units as mostly character delivery systems. Can characters get it done without a great many ranks behind them?
"We'll slow you down till we blow you up" - use your small units to slow the foe down with redirecting and such while magic blows stuff up. Never been terribly good at magic, and not sure if this can work in the new edition either....

I'd be interested in any ideas for tactics/builds that would fit the theme...? Thanks!

I think this is somewhat viable as long as you include at least one very large unit. What I'd do to support it would be to take several low-level lore of beasts casters for wildform spam. Even a very small unit of xhw gor will do some serious hurt at s4 (with hatred) and, at t5, take a fair bit of killing.

However, you will need at least one (and I'd prefer to see two) units that can take some casualties and remain combat effective.

Let me know how it goes?

I mostly agree with malleus, if you're going to do this have at least one big unit, lots of little casters and use a lot of them in ambush, with luck on the first turn you can suddenly be all around the opponent and charging in turn 2 or 3 with a lot of rear and flank charges.

Can characters get it done without a great many ranks behind them?

Not so much in 8th as it was in 7th. Steadfast means you won't break units as easily, and if you have a horrible round of combat you will likely break instead. However if your character can lock a unit down and you hit it in the flank with your MSU ambushing, then that could be a different story.

There is a magic item that gives stubborn, which is worth looking into for an army like this. Can give you a solid block to hold while you flank / rear charge which should give you enough to break alot of units.

As others have said, you still need 1 solid unit in the fold to anchor your forces. Otherwise your small units will be getting charged and broken quite easily.

I would have to agree with the above posters. In 8th you need at least one unit able to take an assault on the nose and still be effective afterwards. Couple that with the 25% minimum core rule for your army list its little surprise larger infantry blocks are gaining favour. Even with more deadly war machines.

Thanks for the advice folks!

How many level one casters is a good amount of "spam" in 2500 points? Just asking from a modeling perspective. : )

How big a unit do you need to "take it on the nose?" I'm looking at a few possibilities - one direction the army might go would feature 3 x 20 gor blocks, but that seems small these days. Another project is to make a 50 ungor horde of cultists and such.

kestral wrote:Thanks for the advice folks!

How many level one casters is a good amount of "spam" in 2500 points? Just asking from a modeling perspective. : )

How big a unit do you need to "take it on the nose?" I'm looking at a few possibilities - one direction the army might go would feature 3 x 20 gor blocks, but that seems small these days. Another project is to make a 50 ungor horde of cultists and such.

If you don't reliably have a way to increase your dice to the average of 7-8 every turn you need to think in terms of casts instead of spam.

On average a level 4 caster will be throwing 2 dice per cast at all of his spells. Which means you would have 3-4 casts.

On average a level 2 caster will be throwing 2-3 dice per cast at all of his spells which means 2-4 casts.

As you spend more points on casters, their redundancy becomes wasteful because you're overspending on magic that you may or may not be able to use. As you reliably increase your average dice per turn through magic items or special rules shenanigans, you can add 1 spell per 2 dice on average.

So 1 level 4 or 2 level two's is just about maximum saturation for casting without adding to the pool each phase. A lot of people are willing to toss 1 level four and one level 2 in an average of 2k points.

Ragnar4 wrote:

kestral wrote:Thanks for the advice folks!

How many level one casters is a good amount of "spam" in 2500 points? Just asking from a modeling perspective. : )

How big a unit do you need to "take it on the nose?" I'm looking at a few possibilities - one direction the army might go would feature 3 x 20 gor blocks, but that seems small these days. Another project is to make a 50 ungor horde of cultists and such.

If you don't reliably have a way to increase your dice to the average of 7-8 every turn you need to think in terms of casts instead of spam.

On average a level 4 caster will be throwing 2 dice per cast at all of his spells. Which means you would have 3-4 casts.

On average a level 2 caster will be throwing 2-3 dice per cast at all of his spells which means 2-4 casts.

As you spend more points on casters, their redundancy becomes wasteful because you're overspending on magic that you may or may not be able to use. As you reliably increase your average dice per turn through magic items or special rules shenanigans, you can add 1 spell per 2 dice on average.

So 1 level 4 or 2 level two's is just about maximum saturation for casting without adding to the pool each phase. A lot of people are willing to toss 1 level four and one level 2 in an average of 2k points.

I would agree with this a lot. It gives flexibility in what you choose to cast. those 2 can do their signature spell every turn or another beasts spell if the opportunity arises. With the level 4 allowing a good chance of getting the transformation spell off that turns him into a dragon if you want a last ditch assault. Also for Gor blocks wanting to protect characters I would have 24 plus with handweapon and shield as a line holder unit. With any other gor units with 2 handweapons.

If you want to do caster spamming I suggest 3 level 2's with lore of the beasts, all with the sig spell, you can spam that to either get it past dispell attempts or spread it out around your army. then if one of them gets transformation of Kadon and you need a last ditch effort just toss all your dice at it and hope for double 6s.

I am currently planning my beastmen army, and I have found out a very cool if not peculiar tactic made by Shaka Zulu, called ''The Bull's Head''. The poor quality diagram is below, I am thinking about this tactic with all my minos (since my Lord with be a doombull)

Hope this inspires,


EDIT:
sorry, I am not well at uploading photos

The horns of the buffalo would probably work out well with MSU, though what worries me a bit is how well you could get the head to move out and form the horns; I don't know that the rules really support that level of mobility.
If you do keep the 4 elements separate, you might do pretty well, sacrificing the head for cover and pulling in charges etc. to allow the minos to crash home more effectively. The only thing that worries me is losing the points in the head units, but then if you keep them super cheap that might do nicely.

The more I think of it, the more I think it could work if handled carefully, but you will have to be certain to really practice using it within the rules to get the proper results. The Zulus would have been hell on wheels had they existed some 2-3 hundred years earlier, during the time period of more unwieldy units with less discipline, the time period WHFB "simulates". It was somewhat bad luck that they showed up when they did and had to fight the Brits.

MSU would be great with ambush. Timing is everything though. If smaller units come on the board they will run the chance of coming on alone and will quickly be over run. So the more units you have to ambush with the better chances you will have multiple units arriving at the same time.

Remember to have a good starting force as well. The one big unit everyone is talking about or possibly two big units that can move fast to quickly support the ambushing units. Otherwise you will be dividing your forces for your enemy to wipe out at his convience.