Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ello,

after the release of the new Beastman rare choices, we are all once again reminded of how awful they are in-game. Now the models themselves aren't actually that bad and so it strikes me as a shame that they will be used so rarely. With that in mind, I've given some thought to updating their rules to make them more appealing to the average Beasty gamer.


Ghorgon- 250pts

M7, WS4, BS0, S6, T6, W6, I3, A6, Ld10

Frenzy, Immune to Psychology, Large Target, Stubborn, Terror, Bloodgreed, Regenerate (6+)*.

Swallow Whole- - All of a Ghorgons close combat attacks gain the Killing Blow Property, as the foe is devoured in a spectacularly messy frenzy!
Strength from Flesh- Each time the Ghorgon scores a Killing Blow, roll a dice. On a 4+ it immediately regains a wound. This may not take it above its starting value.
Bloodlust*- While Frenzied, a Ghorgon has a 6+ Regenerate save. If this evolves into Bloodgreed, the save increases to a 5+. When benefitting from 2 or more 'levels' of Bloodgreed, this is a 4+ save. All saves are lost should the Ghorgon ever lose his Frenzy.


Cygor- 235pts

M7, WS2, BS1, S6, T5, W6, I3, A5, Ld8

Immune to Psychology, Large Target, Magic Resistance (2), Stubborn, Terror, Magical Attacks.

Ghostsight- When fighting enemy Wizards, Undead, or any model with some sort of magical weapon, magical attacks or a ward save, the Cygor may reroll missed attacks.
Hurl Attack- A Cygor may shoot as if it were a Stone Thrower, with no minimum range and Magical attacks. It may move and shoot, but not march in the same turn. If a Misfire is rolled, the Cygor suffers a single wound. If the template is aimed at a magical enemy (See Ghostsight), you may reroll the scatter dice.
Soul-Eater- Any wizard within 24" of a Cygor will suffer a Miscast if they roll 2 or more '1's when casting a spell. The spell automatically fails and will not benefit from Irresistable Force.
Magical Invigoration- The Cygor has a Ward save depending on how heavily the winds of magic are blowing. After rolling for the Winds of Magic, the Cygor gains a Ward Save. This will last until the beginning of the next Magic phase. 2-4 dice give no save at all, 5-8 dice give a 6+ save. 9-11 give a 5+ save, and 12 gives a mighty 4+ save!


Jabberslythe- 220pts

M8, WS4, BS4, S5, T5, W5, I3, A5, Ld9

Fly, Immune to Psychology, Large Target, Poisoned Attacks, Terror.

Aura of Madness- Each unit within 12" of a Jabberslythe at the start of the Beastman magic phase is faced with a wave of insanity. Roll 2D6 and subtract the units Ld, ignoring any bonuses from Inspiring Presence. The unit will suffer this many wounds, ignoring armour saves.
Slythey Tongue- The Jabberslythe has a shooting attack with Range 12", S5 and the 'Sniper' property.
Spurting Bile Blood- For every wound a Jabberslythe suffers in close combat, the unit who inflicted it will suffer an immediate S5 hit. This is randomised as shooting. If it should suffer more wounds than it has remaining, they will still generate hits.
Hard to look at- All attacks against the Jabberslythe, in both shooting and close combat, suffer -1 to hit.
Rank hide- The Jabberslythe has a 5+ armour save.



These are the *second* draft of the rules. As well as a slight points decrease, they have been slightly tweaked and generally more suited to their roles. The Ghorgon is a blender, rolling lots of attacks and inflicting carnage. If he survives into combat, he also becomes fairly self-sustaining, with the possibility of regenerating any damage in an orgy of bloodshed. The Cygor turns into a genuine threat to enemy mages, and punishes the trend of throwing 6 dice at every spell. The Jabber becomes a useful disruption tool, negating Inspiring Presence and having its Aura unaffected by enemy characters.
They have also become more durable in general, with each boasting some type of Armour, Ward or Regen as necessary.



Any thoughts from you?

I think it's a good start.

Ghorgon--6 KB attacks is too much. Keep it the same rules as exists in the book (forgo attack, KB on 4+) and it heals 1 and regen gets better 1. As written above, if stuck-in against infantry mobs, it would essentially be unkillable. With 4+ regen, 6 wounds, 6 T and likely healing 2-3 W every round. That's way too much. It should have to decide whether to try and heal and bump regen and not do much dmg, or smash stuff.

CYGOR--Doesn't attack Wizards with ranged. It attacks areas. It's a stone thrower. It's hurl attack is fine. If it can't cast at all this is very powerful, even if most mages will pass. It should be reduced to 12". No way in hell is it getting those ward saves. Sorry. You can give it a 6+ for being a neato magey guy. If you want it variable make it 0/6+/5+ with avg of 6. And say it is always in hard cover because it's carrying around giant mage boulders. But it's a buff ass stone thrower that stops spells.

Jaberslythe--I think Aura of madness is fine already. It's not an AE master. It's a nice-to-have. It should remain BS4, which is plenty good. Not before armor saves. Sorry bud, you don't get it both ways. You don't get hurt, your blood don't spurt... Not sure what your'e overkill rule is. The other stuff is okay. He's too cheap, however. He's Giant-ish cost and stats but does a bunch more stuff.

I agree with DukeRustfield. The Ghorgon in particular is incredibly strong for 250pts. I would do what Duke suggested as well as getting rid of stubborn; or at least reduce his leadership to 8. I like the jabberslythe rules but I would fix the spurting bile blood to every wound after saves, bump up its points to 250 and add a breath weapon (Str 1 poison, no armour saves). Oh and allow Inspiring presence for the Aura effect (unless general is within 12").

-Kredic

Hello OP, I think your ideas are nigh perfect, and that neither of the above has played beastmen . The ghorgon is spot on, as the current rules for gaining wounds are terrible (25% on one attack and giving up all combat res :(!) this makes him good but not great with ws 4, you are talking 3 hits a turn and averaging a kb every other combat... Hardly overpowered. I like the regen as well, since he won't win many combats on his own I dont think he can front charge blocks with impunity as suggested. Keep stubborn, although I could entertain ld 9 instead, it's crucial to a combat monster.

I would add the stubborn of the cygor to the ghostsight rule, it makes sence to me that it would only apply vs the beasts preferred foe.
Also the wording on the feedback rule needs to be looked at, Looks like editing errors.
Last I would give the jabber the sniper rule on his tongue attack .

Past that I think they are finally worth taking, even if they are just gonna take a cannon to the face first turn.

I like some of the ideas, the Cygor ward save in particular, but I fear you have gone too far and made the creatures over powered instead of competative.

And while I take on board the criticism of the current point costs and rules, it may well be that now people have the models - which are as you say nice kits - that they will start experiemtning with them and finding ways to make them work.

Kiwidru wrote:with ws 4, you are talking 3 hits a turn and averaging a kb every other combat... Hardly overpowered.

It has frenzy and bloodgreed and regen. And all its combat attacks are KB that heal. So IF it ever reaches an infantry block it will never die. It will keep gaining a new attack with the potential to heal with it's regen increasing. That's insanely overpowered.

A Keeper of Secrets with Spirit Swallower is about on par with that. The KOS has better stats and heals on every unsaved wound, but it also doesn't have increasing attacks and regen. Oh, and it costs 300 more points...

I just finished scrolling through this thread on Herdstone.

I'm personally fine with the Ghorgon, save for if -all- it's attacks are killing blow it's point tag should still be 275.

The Jabber, imo should cost as much as a Giant.

I'm iffy about the Cygor but can offer no real advice or thoughtput- I'll edit this post when it comes to me.

Other then that.

A simpler change would be to give them Beastman Ambush rule.

Many thanks for the comments so far. Following the reviews here, and on various other sites, I have touched up the rules a bit.

The Ghorgon will now regain wounds on a 4+, rather than automatically.
The Cygor has had his Ward save nerfed, and the Soul-Eater mechanic changed to something much fairer. Also removed Mage-Hunter, and added a 6th Wound.
The Jabberslythe has his BS restored to 4, and the Sniper property added to his Tongue. Also removed the reference to Inspiring Presence.


Point costs have been slightly changed. While I liked the touch that all 3 were similarly costed, I think they need to be under 250pts for gameplay reasons (IE- 1000pt games!). Also they are not quite level in terms of ability, so they should be similar but not identical.

Many thanks, and al comments are welcome.



Also, Marielle: While simple, the Ambush rule is generally ignored due to its reliability and general rubbish-ness. I would prefer a more involved effort than simply adding a(nother) mediocre rule and editing the price.

Mozzamanx wrote:Also, Marielle: While simple, the Ambush rule is generally ignored due to its reliability and general rubbish-ness. I would prefer a more involved effort than simply adding a(nother) mediocre rule and editing the price.

No doubt, but there is a world of difference between a few Ungor raiders wandering on, and a terror causing monster with a bunch of special attacks - not least because generally any units it attacked would be outside the leadership bubble.

But, as you say, your desire is to make the monsters over-powered, and good luck to you...

Well this tread was a good read, I have played more than my share of battels with Beastmen. And I dare say I am not that botherd by the Monsters really, althou I would love to see them made usebal. For the moment Ghorgons are the only one who are worth taking.
I cant say I see myself using Cygor or Jabberslythe anyways since they dont fir my playstyle, ambush could do with a rewrithe, but it works alrigth for Ungor raiders or a medium sized block of Gors.

All in all a decent suggestion from you good sir.

The Beastmen monsters do definitely need to be reworked and, fluffwise at least, you could make the argument that they deserve truly scary monsters more than anyone else. These are the creatures that live in the blank stops on the map of Warhammer world after all.

The ambush rule, while definitely fun, probably isn't suited for monsters. There is a substantial difference between a dozen Ungore and a healthy Gorgon slamming into the back of a death star unit.

The main problem is in pricing monsters since the codexes are all over the place. Compare the pricing and combat effectiveness of a War Hydra, a Giant, and a Treeman.

Overall these changes look interesting. I'd certainly like to see a battle report using these new rules.

Yeah, there's a big difference between a small skirmish unit coming in on the back of the enemy and a hulking great big monster doing the same. Plausibility is the first problem - I mean did they really not notice the ten foot tall monster sneaking up behind them? Then there's the problem of their use in play, as effective use of key units should come down to the skill of the player using them, and the skill of the opposition in negating them. Instead skirmish generally just comes to the luck of the dice roll, which is okay for a minor, nuisance unit like a mob of ungors, but not for a big monster.

Oh, and just on the design of the Cygor, I'd revise the Ghostright rule a little, as it means right now it can use it's ghostsight to gain rerolls against any model with a ward save, and that includes guys with swords and shields, which seems a little silly.

marielle wrote:A simpler change would be to give them Beastman Ambush rule.

The rule would have to be revised so you do not have to have TWO Ghorgons to make one ambush...

Ambush on big things is generally expensive. Ambushing small stuff is more a nuisance and harassment. Look at the cost of an Ogre Gorger, who is basically a Maneater with Ambush at nearly double the cost and a unit size of 1. Because you simply can't ignore a Gorger coming out behind you, but you could ignore some plinky little elves.

You've got some solid concepts here. My only suggestions would be a little toning down, and a little simplification:

- I'd give all of the Ghorgon and Cygor 5+ Scaly Skin saves. The Ghorgon can have a 6+ Regeneration save. The 'Slythe...a 5+ Ward, 'cause he's hard to look at/half-way beyond the fabric of logic?
The increasing/conditional saves are cool ideas, but I'd just as soon make them flat bonuses and be done.

- Bloodgreed on the Ghorgon...makes sense. But is it fair? Maybe...A5 to start, then? And the healing wounds thing and Regeneration are the same concept within the game, so I don't think you need both. Maybe he could retain his special attack to be a potential threat to characters?
Also: Stubborn Ld10 seems like overkill.

- the Cygor seems okay, except he gets to re-roll against guys with Parry saves.

- the 'Slythe seems good. He's not much of a combat monster, and his other ability is weird. So I think he's just fine.

That's what I got.

I approve the modifications and like this last guys ideas. Having played with a two hand shaggoth last game it was actually much more useful than I anticipated...

jabberslythe should cost 150 - otherwise, there's no point to him. Cygor is alos overcosted. He's not near as useful as an Ironblaster, but serves a similar purpose. He should be under 200 points as well. And if you say that Giants are 200pts, I would counter that I have never seen anyone take a giant in any army list in over 5 years. They have no purpose and really don't hold up in combat, or provide much of anything except for a huge point-sink. The Beastmen book is still the worst written book ever in my opinion. Very lackluster.

I appreciate what you're doing, unfortunately, no one I know would allow these kind of changes, GW needs to clean up their mess.

I like your suggestions, because they would definately make the monsters viable to field. I just feel that with changes this big, and with the power level being raised so signifigantly, we kinda have to wait for a new Army Book to be released, so the rules are offically sanctioned by GW.

I like the ideas that have come about both on this thread and at the Herdstone. It does make them more likely to be fielded. However, given that these would be considered house rules with respects to tournaments. I seriously doubt they will be allowed at any national tournaments. Maybe local ones, but thats it.

Seeing as GW just released the models for these beasties, they may in the near future rework them to be viable. But I would not hold my breath.

Ghorgon would be way OP with his rules at 250 point, everyone would run two (like me )