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I've played Trolls (Which I sadly had to sell - still kept the extreme Mauler though), but I'm looking for an army which can go Beast Heavy with nearly any Warlock.

Would Legion be the one?

Legion and Skorne have some really great beast support units and solos, allowing them to extend their warlock's bubble of forcing (doesn't extend their control zone, but does allow forcing in an additional area), fury management, buffs and healing. Because of this warlocks in these armies can run more beasts than you'd assume when you first look at their stats.

Hmmm... I wasn't aware of Skorne being good with Beasts. I always thought they weren't that good as they haven't got a dedicated Beast Warlock.

I am pretty sure they are, but I've only just started digging into them as a faction, so I could well be overestimating their abilities.

And seriously, Molik Karn. Can't go wrong with a beast like that. Or Tibbers.

Just had a look at the Skorne Beasts.

All of the Titans are insanely strong at what they do.

The Gladiator is very powerful, as is the Bronzeback.

Looking into a good Warlock for them though... there isn't one that stands out as being great or a dedicated Beast Lock like eKaya or Absylonia.

Edit: Looking more at Skorne now than Legion... What makes Skorne good at taking lots of Beasts?

So far, they have no 'lock that I can see as good with Beasts, but they have Paingiver Beast Handlers... are these guys anything like the Menoth Choir in their effectiveness?

Edit 2: Just remembered about eDoomshaper for Trolls.

True they don't have a dedicated beast warlock but there is some great synergy between the locks and their beasts. For example a Gladiator with Xerxis and Paingivers can easily be hitting at POW21, combine that with his Rush animus allows the Gladiator to wreck face and help deliver other warbeasts.

I've come up with these three lists, but I don't know which one to go for as they all appeal to me...

Faction: Skorne
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Tyrant Xerxis
* Cyclops Savage
* Cyclops Savage
* Bronzeback Titan
* Titan Gladiator
* Titan Gladiator
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts)


Faction: Trollblood
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia
* Troll Axer
* Dire Troll Mauler
* Earthborn Dire Troll
* Mulg the Ancient
* Trollkin Runebearer
Troll Whelps


Faction: Legion of Everblight
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Absylonia, Terror of Everblight
* Shredder
* Shredder
* Carnivean
* Scythean
* Typhon
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken

I'd say it's probably between Skorne and Trolls for power, but that Legion list pretty much goes with most Locks.

I vote for Xerxis. And not because I'm currently painting him and really liking the model. Well, not ONLY because of that. The thing is, you are squandering some of his most awesome abilities by bringing so many beasts with him, having Incendiari and Arcuii firing through Certratii (spelling mistakes everywhere probably) is just so good, and it'll be what I'm building to. Him, a Krea, Tibbers, and a whole lot of medium bases. I know that isn't what you were looking for though, I would have thought pMakeda or pMorghul would be who you'd look at. Throw a Titan 13/14" (I can't remember which) across the table, or Molik even further (especially after sidestep) with pMakeda, or manage fury and provide boosts with both paingivers and your caster by using pMorghul, while denying the enemy a decent chunk of their ability to fight back with his feat.

pMorghoul is Skornes beast warlock. Especially when combined with their excellent support, like PGBH and Willbreakers.

Morghoul has Abuse which takes skorne beasts up to new levels in terms of speed and damage output, especially when combined with other things like Rush and Enrage.

Beast Handlers are the biggest reason Skorne does beasts so well, the other is the fact they have very solid beasts. Handlers are basically like Choir for Menoth, except a little better actually. They can give a beast +2 strength and let it charge or slam for free, they can take all the Fury off a beast, or they can heal a beast for a small amount. And unlike choir they don't all have to do the same thing. Also unlike choir they can actually do something in melee thanks to Anatomical Precision.

The Gladiator has Rush as its Animus, which is good on anything. Stacked with Abuse and the Beast Handlers Enrage ability, you can send a Titan on an 11.5" charge with Pathfinder and +4 strength with no cost in Fury for the beast. This is how a Bronzeback can reach out and kill anything you want dead in a 11.5" radius.

You can do this with any beast, not just a Bronzeback or Gladiator. It works well on Cyclops beasts too.

And control area isn't a factor because you can take Willbreakers, who can force beasts in their cmd range.


Skorne does beast heavy better than Legion. They have solos which can buff a single beast, we have a cheap as chips unit that can buff multiple beasts.

People always seem to forget about pmorghoul, and I can only assume it's because they haven't played enough with him. He's definitely may favourite beast caster for Skorne.

On a faction level, I feel like legion's beasts that do better without support, but skorne has more support overall for it's beasts. It really comes down to how good you are at protecting your support pieces, and finding the right synergies. If you want less of that and more straightforward punching, I'd go with legion.

Legion has the issue of overcosted Beasts because their beasts have a ton of built in expensive rules and ranged weapons

This is what allows Skorne to be better at being Beast Heavy and its also why the most popular Beast for Legion is Ravagore (who is really just a walking artillery)

Legion beasts are probably a little better on their own than Skorne, but with the insane support on Skorne. Skorne pulls ahead

Puscifer wrote:Looking into a good Warlock for them though... there isn't one that stands out as being great or a dedicated Beast Lock like eKaya or Absylonia.

That's generally the wrong way to look at it: the strong beast/warjack factions tend to be defined by their support pieces (Choir/Vassals, Shepherds/Forsaken, Beast Handlers) rather than their warbeast-centric warlocks, in as far as those distinctions exist (most Legion warlocks are beast-centered warlocks to some extent). Most factions can field at least one beast/jack heavy list, but the ones with the better support can do more consistently in more lists.

Puscifer wrote:I've come up with these three lists, but I don't know which one to go for as they all appeal to me...
Faction: Legion of Everblight
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Absylonia, Terror of Everblight
* Shredder
* Shredder
* Carnivean
* Scythean
* Typhon
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
Blighted Nyss Shepherd
The Forsaken

General rule of thumb in Legion is to pick the fury support solos based on what warbeast(s) you expect them to be babysitting. I would swap the two Shepherds for another Forsaken: Shepherds are usually better hanging out in the backfield with ranged warbeasts like Ravagores, where their relative fragility (only one box) and shorter range on their fury removal ability is less of an issue. Forsaken have a longer range for pulling fury, and are durable enough to survive incidental damage on the midline.

Grey Templar wrote:Skorne does beast heavy better than Legion. They have solos which can buff a single beast, we have a cheap as chips unit that can buff multiple beasts.

Maybe I'm biased as a Legion player, but I wouldn't go that far. Skorne generally beats Legion in raw power and movement shenanigans (Side Step, Beat Back), but Legion tends to win in raw speed and ranged capability. It's mostly a question of which particular style appeals to you more.

Legion has the issue of overcosted Beasts because their beasts have a ton of built in expensive rules and ranged weapons

Eh, the only really overcosted warbeast in Legion is the Carnivean (which is a 10-point heavy with an 11-point pricetag). It's kind of hard to argue that something like the Scythean (Speed 6, Reach, potential 7 attacks against one target with the Chain Attack and a situational but useful animus) is overcosted at 9 points, and it's very hard to argue that the Ravagore is not one of the best gun platforms in the game at 10. You could make a better argument for the Gladiator/Bronzeback being undercosted (especially given that the Bronzeback outright annihilates just about anything in melee with its raw damage output), but a lot of that comes down to how you feel about the Gladiator tax.

The more and more I look at Skorne, the more I'm moving away from Legion.

The thing that is drawing me to Skorne...

Gladiator... 8pts... that thing is undercosted for what it does. Loads of attacks, special rules and insane stats... for 8pts.

With Trolls, I like the models. I kept my Extreme Dire Troll despite a great offer from someone who wanted to buy it from me. I was gutted that I had to sell the army.

So now I got to decide... herd of mad elephants or big blue trolls.

Two things with skorne though.

1. While the will breakers can force your beasts for your warlock they don't help keep them under control at all. Master Tormentor Morghoul can only leach so much and if your are depending on the beasthandlers to keep the beasts that your willbreakers are forcing in line then you really have to watch your spacing and your order of activation. Smart players will shoot off your support models when they can.

Morghoul IMO is more of a tooth and claw/battlebox caster. He doesn't offer any real help to infantry at all, his feat doesn't effect enemy infantry and you can't just keep adding beasts to his battlegroup when you go to to 50pts, even with beasthandlers and willbreakers I don't see you running only beasts that effectively.

2. The Titans have really good damage output in melee I will admit, but they have weaknesses and smart opponents will exploit them and during those games my bronzeback seems like a 10 pt paper weight. Also hyper aggressive is generally a bad move most times, as that can make you walk right into your opponents threat ranges for a charge.

That said if you really want beast heavy I would look at Lord Arbiter Hexeris (his epic version). Tyrant Hexeris is not a beast caster, sorry but he isn't. Death march is honestly his best spell and it only works on units. His feat works a lot better with infantry since there is realistically only so much infantry a bronzeback can kill in a single turn unless your opponent was kind and bunched up for you.

Fortunately there are plenty of Skorne infantry that don't need support. Like Nhilators or Incindiarii. They work well with Morghoul.

And while Beastheandlers are easy to kill, they are very cheap. In a larger beast heavy game I'd take up to 3 units, or more.

And I wouldn't mind sending a beast running off on a suicide mission to really just gum up the works. Savages are great at tying down infantry. I can shoot them out up to 13" with another 2" of reach.


If you want to kill bunched up infantry you use Molik Karn not a Bronzeback, but you do use the BB's animus on MK. He can easily kill 4 infantry before relocating with Fate Walker.

And Morghoul himself can take care of infantry with Fate Walker on himself. Go forward, kill 3-4 infantry, sprint 7", then at the end of the turn Fatewalker another 7". Its a very safe way of killing a bunch of infantry. This also means you don't need infantry to counter other infantry as much as other lists.

I managed to get some games in by trying my hand at Legion, Skorne and Circle and none of them suited my playstyle.

I tried Trolls, and I didn't like the way Doomshaper, DT Mauler, EBDT and Mulg worked, Tough, but slow and clunky.

I think I'm going to stick to WM and go with Menoth.

I got a game in at 35 pts and I loved the synergy and the huge amount of DMG that every model can dish out. I really enjoyed the way they played overall. The models aren't bad either.