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I have played about 7 games, with people as new to me, except for my brother who only plays warmachines. had some questions on how hordes works/units work.

if you are playing circle, and have a unit of druids, and a druid character that attaches to them, he becomes the leader. Does that mean that you can then only cast his spells, or does it mean he gets to cast, then the druids get to cast?

if a warbeast has an animus that costs 2, and you cast it from your caster instead, does it come from him, or still originate off the beast? Also someone told me if a warbeast casts his animus, it only costs him 1 even if the cost says 2, im pretty sure that's wrong.

I think I understand trample, you can trample through smaller bases (or is it only heavies can trample thru small bases, and not mediums too?) but how does slam work? And it seems if possible throw is always the best power attack.

Im sure there is more I am forgetting to ask, may ask later.

1 (Druid Question): Every model in the unit gets to cast the spells on their card. The attachment can't cast the unit's spells (unless it says so on his card) and they can't cast his spells (unless it says so on the card)

2 (Animus Question): I'm not quite sure about this, but you may be getting geomancy confused with all this, which is what the construct warbeasts can do in a circle army? Again, not quite sure on this

3 (Power Attacks): You can't trample through medium or large bases as a medium or large based model (not sure about colossals though, sorry). Slams work that if you hit the model, they get slammed a distance, and models hit take collateral damage. I'm ducking off to get my book now to give you actual distances etc.

Ok, from page 52-53 of WM prime Mk II: slamming is like charging, except you can't change facing at all. As long as you have advanced 3" as a part of the movement, you can do it. If you are slamming a larger base, you have a -2 to your attack roll, the model which was hit is moved d6" directly away from the slamming model, the distance is halved if you are smaller than the target, move through terrain as normal and stop when you hit an obstacle, obstruction or another model with equal/larger base. The damage is resolved with POW equal to the attacker's STR, rolling an additional die if the slammed model hits an obstacle, obstruction or a model with equal/larger base size. You can boost this damage roll. Models with smaller bases hit suffer 'collateral damage', with a POW equal to the slamming model's STR, no boosting, and are knocked down. Models with an equal or larger base hit by the model slammed are just knocked down, and don't take collateral damage.

Hope that helped, and I hope I didn't make any mistakes...

Regarding the animus. They each have a cost and as you have realised beasts need to be forced by that much to use their animus. So somebody uses rush and their beasts fury goes up by 2 points. Beasts can only use their animus once per turn as well.

Warlocks can cast their beasts animi as well but it all comes from them so all the beast needs to do is be in their control area. You then remove the cost in fury from the warlock (I.e. rush reduces the fury load by 2). Warlocks can cast an animus multiple times in a turn.

Generally speaking, only heavy warbeasts can trample. Light warbeasts can only trample if they have a rule permitting it, like the new griffon.

The animus thing does sound a lot like someone got confused with Geomancy. Some Circle warbeasts get the Geomancy special rule, which lets their warlock force them to cast a spell on the warlock's spell list. That causes the beast to gain one fury even if the spell has a COST greater than one.

Slam has potential advantages over Throw. A Slammed model contacts smaller based-models it passes through whereas a Thrown one doesn't. Slam also always goes in the proper direction (though not always the proper distance) and you don't have to win a strength contest to perform a Slam.

Also, to clarify something motyak said, when you perform a Slam you have to move directly towards your target (and you turn to directly face the target at the start of the Slam). It's not quite like Charging, where you just have to pick a path that takes you within melee range of the target.

 Orock wrote:
...

if you are playing circle, and have a unit of druids, and a druid character that attaches to them, he becomes the leader. Does that mean that you can then only cast his spells, or does it mean he gets to cast, then the druids get to cast?

The Druid UA, as a note, isn't a character. That's kind of important a note since that impacts things a bit in this game. Either way, when he's attached to a unit, he becomes the leader of the unit. This means he becomes the one who issues orders, the CMD of the unit is measured from him, and he otherwise activates just like another member of the unit. As noted, each model can cast the spells on their own cards. So he has access to his, while the other Druids have access to their's. This means that, for instance, he can't caste Force Bolt, but they can't cast Elemental Protection or the Devouring. The normal unit leader is still in play, and so he can also cast Countermagic if he wants. As long as they can cast spells, a model can use any spell it has available to it, regardless of the rest of the unit's choices.

 Orock wrote:
if a warbeast has an animus that costs 2, and you cast it from your caster instead, does it come from him, or still originate off the beast? Also someone told me if a warbeast casts his animus, it only costs him 1 even if the cost says 2, im pretty sure that's wrong.

When a warlock casts the animus, it is as if the animus were a spell on their spell list. So a warlock who wants to cast say, Primal, will take the animus descriptor on the back of the Gorax's card and cast it as if it were a spell on their card. Thus, its point of origin is the warlock, it's RNG is 6" from the warlock and it would cost 2 fury from the warlock. All the warbeast has to do is be in the warlock's battlegroup and in their control area. Animi cast by warlocks are in effect extra spells.

 Orock wrote:
I think I understand trample, you can trample through smaller bases (or is it only heavies can trample thru small bases, and not mediums too?) but how does slam work? And it seems if possible throw is always the best power attack.

Normally, large and huge based warjacks and warbeasts can trample over small-based models. Medium and larger cannot be trampled over at all. This is barring specific rules excepts on specific models.

Slams are similar to charges, save you have to move directly towards a model (center to center), and if you hit, the slammed model is moved 1d6" directly away from the slamming model. It suffers STR damage and any collateral but no checks are needed save to hit.

As for the value of Throws, it depends. Slams are a bit more reliable on the direction o fthings, since they don't deviate and you don't need to make checks. Some models slam really hard (Satyrs, Titans and Bashers namely). And slams allow you to line things up for "bowling", which can win games or cause some havoc that's harder to pull off with a throw due to often having to hit a secondary target. Tramples are great for positoning and are one of the ways to get around no-charging or LOS issues and not lose out on additional attacks.

So there's a bit of a variety of reasons, it just takes some seeing how things play to see what is appropriate when.

And stuff.

wait so EVERY model in the druid unit can cast the spell on the card and not just the leader? Seems a bit powerful for a group of casters.

Correct. Note that unlike a warlock or warcaster, Druid spells are all sorts of *Actions. This means that they have to advance where they want to be before using them and they can't use them if they charge, run or make a melee attack.

I'm not sure why you think it's so powerful though. If only one model in the unit could cast spells they'd be kind of terrible at their cost. They are also not unique in this, as there's about half a dozne other "spellcaster" units in the game. They're often exotic utility pieces with magic guns.

And stuff.

Slams are actually the most common power attack generally speaking. Throws are less common because of the uncertainty of having to test against your opponent's strength, plus there are several models that have the ability to slam for free and some spells give it too. With a slam I only have to hit with an attack roll(that I can boost like any other attack) to at least knock them down and back.

Slams have basically the same threat range as a charge while Throws can only be done if you walk into melee. Slams are also deadly against infantry if you can slam a large based model over them. Or can slam your target into a wall or equal or larger based model for the damage boost.


On your animi question.

Weather your Warlock casts it or the beast, its always the cost listed. Only difference is a beast can only cast it's animus once and if it is cast by the Warlock it is both a spell and an animus. This matters for things that interact with spells and/or animi.

If a beast casts it's animus, you put the amount of Fury stated as the cost on the beast. This does count as Forcing the beast, so any effects that interact with Forcing will trigger. If a Warlock casts it, he pays it out of the current fury on him. He can cast the same animi multiple times as long as he has Fury to pay the cost, unless the Animi forbids multiple castings(I don't think any exist)

You can also *Throw friendly models provided size differences allow

You can slam friendlies too.

I've seen people slam one of their own low def models in order to knock down an enemy model with high def.

A head butt could also be more valuable than a throw if you want to KD the target but not move them out of melee with you. The only time I ever utilize throwing is when my Kodiak lands both its initial attacks =/

And you could choose to head butt instead

I wouldn't get too worked up with power attacks. While they are useful to remember that you have them, I generally find regular charges and attacks are used much much more often.