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Lords

Doombull - Dawnstone, Gnarled Hide, Heavy Armour, Ramhorn Helm, Shield, Sword of Swift Slaying, The Other Trickster's Shard - 348

Great Bray Shaman - Chalice of Dark Rain, Level 4, Lore of Shadow - 275

Heroes

Bray-Shaman - Level 1, Lore of Beasts, Dispel Scroll - 100

Wargor - BSB, Heavy Armour, Shield, The Beast Banner

Core

Gor Herd x 39, EHW, Full Command - 337

Gor Herd x 39, EHW, Full Command - 337

Special

Bestigor Herd x 30, FC, Standard of Discipline - 405

Rare

Giant - 225

Ghorgon - 275


List has a few obvious flaws. The monsters, including the Doombull, are very susceptible to cannons and stone throwers. I brought the Chalice to help with that. If I get first turn, and march, I should be able to charge second turn with rolls of around 6 if they start on their line.

If your running a doombull solo your better off making him a lyer, arabyan carpet, gnarled hide, heavy armour, shield and the ramhorn helm. It comes in at around 335, this means that your bsb needs some better protection as at the moment he is rocking a 4+/6++ (in combat). The limitation of 1 max on each gift of chaos means that your basically stuck with either a proper bsb load out OR a functional solo doombull but not both. I like monsters but giants have cost me so many games its not even funny

I have a similar build with less gors, no giant add chariots and razorgors. I usually move the chalice to a lesser hero and use point in the lord category to get my Lvl 4 wiz a ward save talisman. He is going to get targeted by DD spells especially if you are playing against death magic. This is a good monster list with the doombull ghorgon and giant, you will have fun but don't expect anything to be easy. Also you don't have your general defined it should be the GBS not the doom bull. You have only 3 disruption units in your list and all of them are very expensive. Aside from the doombull most armies have a pretty easy time killing a giant or gorghon by themselves.

I actually like the ground based doombull build, with sword of swift because most the time you will be rerolling hits. You are going to find the L1 beast has a tough time getting off most spells from beasts. An L1 needs 3 dice average for wildfrom where an L2 needs 2 dice average because of the beastmen bonus. Also beasts banner while awesome needs to be protected so it conflicts with your doombull build since the gnarled hide needs to go on the bull. I suggest a non-magic BSB with this character selection. Allowing you to get some magic protection. And possibly a second bray for double wild form.

Its not what the doombull would do in combat that worries me its if he'll actually get to combat, lfying gives him so many possibilities and erases most of the easier options for dealing with him. On foot your frenzied doombull will hit (provided they don't pop him earlier) some small chaff unit and if your opponent positions them right your need to overrun positions you out of the game for two turns whereby he can put up another redirector. Or he has three turns to hit you with a cannon. I love solo doombulls I just find on foot with frenzy its just not viable, feel free to disagree I'd be interested in any success stories people might have about it

I have run flyers and footers, I find the flyers are easier to beat with static resolution and the footers are obviously easier to redirect. Both hit hard both can be chumped out by bolt throwers, cannons, magic.

Personally I don't mind getting redirected most of the time because it pumps up his attacks with the bloodgreed.

Both have their place.

On paper that seems good that your getting these extra attacks but if I can put up two units of (keeping with the beastmen theme) warhounds positioned correctly your 335 point character has taken 60 points off me

also remember not only does the flying doombull miss 1/3 of his attacks where as the swift slay misses almost none, he is also missing the OTS and dawnstone which further reduces the number of wounds he causes, and you need to give him a junk MW to deal with ethers as well. Like I said i have run them both, the flying doombull gets to combat one turn earlier, but is far more likely to lose and run because of static res and therefore has less utility. I can crash the footer doombull into just about an core and special unit in the game and be confident that not only will he win the combat he will kill the entire unit within a couple turns and lose almost no wounds. The flying doombull not so much you have to be much choosier about your targets and he becomes more of a disruption unit than a hammer. Which build you pick is completely dependant on what your army needs. I run 3 chariots and 3 razorgors in nearly every list so disruption is covered, for the most part.

I used to run something similar to that although more recently I've been running dual L4's or list with lots of flyers, 3 units of 10 harpies that scout, 2 jabbers and flying doombull

that sounds like a neat list i am trying to work up to a playable monster list with lots of big guys and bare min core.

Didn't expect to get so many replies! To the Doombull debate! I agree the Doombull is susceptible to cannons. However, with the current build I've had him eat an entire 30 man block of bloodletters with a herald by himself while taking no wounds. With the arabyan carpet build he'll get no rerolls for saves and no rerolls to hit. If he charges a block he is going to he losing by 3 automatically. If he whiffs or takes wounds he's losing, isnt stubborn or steadfast, and is probably going to run at leadership 8. It just doesnt seem worth it. I actually like the Giant more than the Ghorgon. They're both overpriced for what they do. I did have a Giant win a game for me last Sunday by picking up a Chaos Dwarf Lord on turn 6 and stuffing him down his pants lol. I can give the great bray a ward save of 5+ but the talisman of preservation would put me over the lord point cap. He is the general and goes in the bestigors to give a ld 9 bubble. As for the bsb, I put him on the very end of a horde and try to keep him out of the combat on the charge. The beast banner just makes the horde so much more dangerous. 40+ attacks at str 4 rerolling to hit. The level 1 needs two dice to cast wyssans on a 7 which is average. Pushing him to level 2 might not be the worst idea though. My other option for the doombull is to put 5 minos with ehw with him but that's another 300ish points invest ment but hell get a look out sir and can just charge out of them.

The issue with the doombull is that the BSB is a far more important character. The way around this is to take a gorebull with a GW and The armour of Destiny as your BSB. That would mean that you need a lot more chaff to keep your big block of minotaurs, who aren't there to actually do that much damage, but be ablative wounds, safe. As for the beastmen beasties, I am looking to the Cygor more and more when I think about doing them. Yes he is an overpriced stonethrower, but when I have Doom and Darkness running around. And combine that with forcing two LD checks per turn against armies with no cannons to make them cast spells, something will work for me.

Then those 40 gors are str 3 and a lot less dangerous. You seem to be favoring a more defensive scheme for an army that, for the most part, is completely naked lol. I'm going to be honest, the cygor might be the worst thing in our book. 275 points for a ws 2 monster, who has a stonethrower that's 3 times as much than a freaking str 5 trebuchet, and has a special rule that is basically useless.

I have two basic caster configs

Non-doombull
L4 Beasts (Tailisman (4+), Jagged Dagger, Brass Cleaver) with 3 L1 Shadows around a heardstone.

or

Doombull
L4 Shadow (Tailisman (5+)) with 2 L2 Beast

The doombull always pushes my lords allowance to the max but just like your experience I have had him grind a horde of 55 big'uns and a blackork warboss into the ground finishing with 13 attacks and 4 wounds left. On the other hand I have had him bolt throwered to death when he over ran 3 inches from out behind a building after charging a chaff chariot.

On the minotaur front I have found them to be more effective without the doombull or gorebull hanging with them, it give the characters superior mobility and your enemy more targets to deal with. Mino's are expensive and a bit hard to use. I like not having them frenzied to start to make them more controllable.

I haven't seen him used in 8th, but I think Slugtongue could use some love.
You get poison attacks, regeneration, and his 36" area of pre-game hits for 80 points more than a normal shaman.
He's a pretty good deal.

As another odd ball idea, I like lore of wild.
With a level 4 and level 2 (slug tongue), I'd roll the level 4 first, and swap out Savage Dominion. That leaves the Dominion for the level 2; who can hide in the back and be safe with his regen. Or, go lore of beast, and ensure that the level 4 gets transformation. +1 Strength from the beast banner, and re-rolls to hit from primal fury is pretty damn good.

Between the two, I like Dominion more, since it isn't RiP, you get more use out of the monster. Also, having him walk on from the enemies table edge is awesome sauce.


-Matt

Idk.. savage dominion is pretty amazing. And traitor kin is pretty good against monstrous cav, but the rest of the lore sucks. Investing a level 4 seems like two much, and a level 2 is too big a risk that you wont get it. :/

hoilismad wrote:
Then those 40 gors are str 3 and a lot less dangerous. You seem to be favoring a more defensive scheme for an army that, for the most part, is completely naked lol. I'm going to be honest, the cygor might be the worst thing in our book. 275 points for a ws 2 monster, who has a stonethrower that's 3 times as much than a freaking str 5 trebuchet, and has a special rule that is basically useless.

Out of all the monsters, I'm leaning to the cygor the most. Out of the gorghon, and the cygor, the cygor can at least do something. And if have to use the Weapon Skill, then you're using it wrong. It is meant to be lobbing rocks and stopping mages from casting. Sure the BSB reroll kinda prevents this, but in combination with doom and darkness, you could get it to work.

As for the gor, I am toying with a list without any. Lots of chaff and a bunch of ungor to escort the doombull and gorebull to battle. Combine that with the death magic and cygors, and you could negate the enemy magic. All you need is the means to deal with cannons.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

hoilismad wrote:
Then those 40 gors are str 3 and a lot less dangerous. You seem to be favoring a more defensive scheme for an army that, for the most part, is completely naked lol. I'm going to be honest, the cygor might be the worst thing in our book. 275 points for a ws 2 monster, who has a stonethrower that's 3 times as much than a freaking str 5 trebuchet, and has a special rule that is basically useless.

Out of all the monsters, I'm leaning to the cygor the most. Out of the gorghon, and the cygor, the cygor can at least do something. And if have to use the Weapon Skill, then you're using it wrong. It is meant to be lobbing rocks and stopping mages from casting. Sure the BSB reroll kinda prevents this, but in combination with doom and darkness, you could get it to work.

As for the gor, I am toying with a list without any. Lots of chaff and a bunch of ungor to escort the doombull and gorebull to battle. Combine that with the death magic and cygors, and you could negate the enemy magic. All you need is the means to deal with cannons.

This isn't what happens in a game though. Cygor moves to trhrow his rock and misfires - takes a wound
Then he gets charged by light cav and dies when he is run down.

If he gets close enough to make a wizard take a leadership test - they use their bsb to reroll the general's leadership and pass without a problem, Cygor gets charged next turn and dies

Cygors die and eat up points - ghorgons die too, but they take a lot of stuff with them, or they get shot by a cannonball, just like a cygor. I can't think of a rare choice in the book that is worth taking in a competative enviroment. The ghorgon is the only model to take in a fun enviroment the spawn and cygor and jabborwocky are worthless. Giants are good at eating other monsters, then they die.

buckero0 wrote:
This isn't what happens in a game though. Cygor moves to trhrow his rock and misfires - takes a wound
Then he gets charged by light cav and dies when he is run down.

If he gets close enough to make a wizard take a leadership test - they use their bsb to reroll the general's leadership and pass without a problem, Cygor gets charged next turn and dies

Cygors die and eat up points - ghorgons die too, but they take a lot of stuff with them, or they get shot by a cannonball, just like a cygor. I can't think of a rare choice in the book that is worth taking in a competative enviroment. The ghorgon is the only model to take in a fun enviroment the spawn and cygor and jabborwocky are worthless. Giants are good at eating other monsters, then they die.

I never said Cygors were any good. I just said they were the least terrible of the rares.

As for ghorgons, Every time I've fought one, I've taken at max 3 wounds from it.

The reason I take a ghorgon is because he is my coolest, biggest, best painted model. He usually sh*ts himself misses all his attacks and then gets hacked down since he has no armor, but damn he looks good doing it.


furthermore if minotaurs have d3 impact hits, wtf doesn't a ghorgon have d6?

Cygors are by far the most terrible rares. The Ghorgon starts with 7 attacks at str 6 and can gain more, at WS 4, with Thunderstomp. Both he and the Giant are initiative 3, and the Giant is excellent at killing other big monsters. The Cygor, with low attacks and low weapon skill, is bad in melee. His special abilities are pretty much useless. Most armies will have a wizard on leadership 9 or 10 with a reroll from the BSB, and even if they do fail, they still have to fail to cast a spell. Even the Jabberslyth works better as a cruise missile. You send him at a deathstar unit and laugh as they do 20 wounds and take 20 str 5 hits. The Cygor is a 275 point stone thrower.

Ghorgon models are definitely awesome. And regular minos only get an impact hit a piece. Doombulls and Gorebulls get D3.

hoilismad wrote:
Idk.. savage dominion is pretty amazing. And traitor kin is pretty good against monstrous cav, but the rest of the lore sucks. Investing a level 4 seems like two much, and a level 2 is too big a risk that you wont get it. :/

Their Signature Spell is pretty awful, but the MM spell is actually decent against War Machines. Since war machines are T7 at range, S1 anything under S6 needs 6s to wound. With 4d6 hits you're putting a couple wounds on a war machine on average. With the Hagtree Fetish, mathematically you should be killing a war machine per turn. Bray Scream would also be a lot better if it was able to be used in combat. :-\

S1 can't wound anything above a T4

Why can't bray scream be used in combat like a normal breath weapon? You can always wound anything on 6's, regardless of strength and toughness.

ha, i was thinking 40k, man that would be a nice change to 40k. give it the fantasy to wound table.

tgf wrote:S1 can't wound anything above a T4

tgf wrote:ha, i was thinking 40k, man that would be a nice change to 40k. give it the fantasy to wound table.

Heh, yeah, playing both games I mix stuff up all the time.

hoilismad wrote:Why can't bray scream be used in combat like a normal breath weapon? You can always wound anything on 6's, regardless of strength and toughness.

Being an older army book, the spells in the Beastmen army book lack a spell type, and do not specifically allow the spell to be cast into close combat as some older army books do (such as Skaven). Because of that, the rules on page 31 say a spell can't target a model in close combat, even the caster themself. Now, some do take the last sentence of the first paragraph under the bullet points to mean that older books have any and all casting requirements in their text, whereas others take that to mean that the bullet points apply unless the spell text itself says otherwise (such as with Skaven allowing casting in close combat). If your group plays the second way, then as a breath weapon that ignores armor saves, BrayScream suddenly becomes an AMAZING spell.

Yeah. That is rough. Silly older book! If it could be cast into combat it would be excellent.

That would be extremely silly at the moment. Elves can't hurt a great unclean one. The T8 Sphinxes become just silly.

hoilismad wrote:
Yeah. That is rough. Silly older book! If it could be cast into combat it would be excellent.

That would be extremely silly at the moment. Elves can't hurt a great unclean one. The T8 Sphinxes become just silly.

Welcome to Fantasy. A 6 always wounds. S1 wounds T10 on a 6. Nothing is completely safe.

-Matt


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 streamdragon wrote:

hoilismad wrote:
Idk.. savage dominion is pretty amazing. And traitor kin is pretty good against monstrous cav, but the rest of the lore sucks. Investing a level 4 seems like two much, and a level 2 is too big a risk that you wont get it. :/

Their Signature Spell is pretty awful, but the MM spell is actually decent against War Machines. Since war machines are T7 at range, S1 anything under S6 needs 6s to wound. With 4d6 hits you're putting a couple wounds on a war machine on average. With the Hagtree Fetish, mathematically you should be killing a war machine per turn. Bray Scream would also be a lot better if it was able to be used in combat. :-\

Mathematically, you still killing less than a warmachine per turn.
Since excess wounds don't carry over, you lose the high end of the bell curve, and keep the low end.
Bu, it is still good.

-Matt

Yep. Anyone can get lucky! I've seen 50 zombies slowly grind a Warsphinx to death.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Mathematically, you still killing less than a warmachine per turn.
Since excess wounds don't carry over, you lose the high end of the bell curve, and keep the low end.
Bu, it is still good.

-Matt

My mistake, Viletide is 5d6 hits, not 4d6 hits.

Hm... I vaguely remember doing the math on this:

Most war machines have T7 W3 and no armor save
5d6 hits means an average of 17.5 hits, we'll round down to 17
17hits, needing 6s to wound means 2, almost 3 hits. Again round down to 2, so we have 15 hits that failed to wound.
Hagtree Fetish lets us reroll to wound a single unit during the magic phase (and conveniently enough shares a range with Viletide)
Rerolling 15 failed wounds should net us 2 more, on average, for 4 wounds done to a war machine, which should kill your 'average' war machine.