POST 7 - SPECIAL CHOICES
Bestigor Herd (12pts per model) These are your elite choice. They are solidly priced and come with WS, Str and Toughness of 4. They are one of your few troop choices with an armour save (5+) and have great weapons so automatically get str 6, combined with primal fury means they can take down most things. They are also your only unit that can take a magic standard (normally discipline or flaming). These guys are a competitive mainstay and for good reason. They just need a steady Leadership in order to be devastatingly effective.
Unless you have the stubborn crown in the unit, I’d give serious consideration to always running them in a bus formation (6-7 wide or reforming them to bus in a protracted grind), as with ASL from the great weapons, you will often be pulling handfuls of models off before getting to strike. For a unit that often has your crucial general bubble, you don’t want them running from combat.
Pros
• Strength 6 means you are eating infantry and heavy cavalry alike
• Good Weapons Skill
• High Strength & Toughness
• Heavy Armour
• They become more powerful as the game goes on
• PRIMAL FURY!
• Well costed
• Can take magic banners
Cons
• Only 1 attack per model
• They need a character to grant Stubborn to the unit
• Even with Heavy Armour, they are not exactly hard to kill
• You are going to need 30-40 of them to be effective
• Always strikes last
Special Rules
DespoilersBrilliant special rule that can really start to snowball. Everytime you wipe a unit out, you get an additional +1 combat res for the rest of the game. The more you kill, the easier it is to kill things...which makes it easier to kill even more things etc. etc. Whilst it doesn't always come into play, it is a very nice rule to have rolling in the background.
Centigors (25pts per model)
Centigor are your cavalry option with M8, WS, Str & Toughness of 4, BS 3, Initiative of 2 and 2 attacks. They come with Light Armour and shield and as they count as cavalry, this bumps their save to a respectable 4+. They also have spears as standard, giving them S5 on the charge. When combined with Primal Fury, this gives them a very solid offensive output.
They do have a couple of upgrade options: Throwing weapons for 2pts per model (not worth it in this edition) or Great Weapons for 2pts per model (again not really worth it as it really removes 1/3 of the drunken effects and arguably the best one).
Like many things in the book, they suffer from: costing too much for what they offer and how easily they can die to missile fire. However they are still a very hard hitting unit, cheaper than minotaurs and if your opponent is shooting at these, he is not killing something else of equal importance in your list. It can be worth fielding a small, flanking unit of these, in a similar way to a chariot but at the end of the day, they are competing against other, far more useful units in your special section (unless you take the expensive special character option that allows you to field them as a core unit).
Pros
• Decent stat line for the most part
• 4+ Armour save is the best you can get for a beastman unit
• They hit very hard
• They are pretty nimble
• Ranged options in the form of throwing axes
• Can be taken as Core
• Powerful Special Character upgrade
• Loads of attacks
• They go to battle completed off their heads on ale
Cons
• Despite T4 and Armour 4, they are hardly difficult to kill
• INITIATIVE 2!
• Unless you are going MSU, you are going to need a lot of these guys
• They are not the easiest unit to use
Special Rules
Drunken
This rule is very fluffy, but not actually that useful 2/3 of the time. At the start of the game you roll a D6 and consult the Drunken table. This could give your unit +2 initiative (VERY handy), Stubborn or Rerolls to Primal Fury at the cost of a movement point. A fun little rule, but only the initiative bonus is worth it in my opinion.
Upgrade - Ghorros Warhoof - See Core Section as if taken, Centigor move from Special to Core.
Harpies (11pts per model) - I will hold my hands up to loving these and rarely leave home without 2 units of 5. They have very average stats with three exceptions. 2 attacks and initiative 5 mean that they will attack most things first and so can shred other chaff and fly means you can get them to where they need to go pretty damn quickly. They excel at Warmachine hunting and also as standard redirecting chaff and are pretty cheap. You can upgrade them to scout and it's something to be considered on a unit, as you can then get them on a flank or behind an enemy lines to march block or threaten very quickly.
Their downside is they are really fragile and have poor leadership so will panic easily As such you'll find some games where they are a thorn in your opponents side and others where they do nothing but run off the board!
Pros
• Really...REALLY cheap
• Really...REALLY fast
• The masters of redirection
• Nothing takes out warmachines quite like them
• brilliant statline for the price you pay
• Good enough to handle other fast units like great eagles and fast cav
• Loads of attacks
Cons
• No armour
• Low strength
• Low Toughness
• Low leadership
Special Rules
Scout
A great ability that is reasonably priced but not always useful. Harpies are super fast anyway, so they are striking the enemy turn 2 at the latest, making scout somewhat redundant. It has its uses if you want to get behind the enemy faster and begin march blocking asap. Scout can also force your opponent to have to change their plans to take it into account and that can lead to them making mistakes.
Minotaurs (55pts per model) These guys are possibly the most iconic monstrous infantry in the game. They have a decent WS and Toughness of 4, Strength 5, 3 for wounds, attacks and initiative and also cause fear. Fairly standard stats for this kind of unit. On top of this they gain impact hits (nice as it is at S5), light armour (a pretty pointless save) and the rule Bloodgreed. If they win a combat they gain frenzy. If they are already frenzied, they gain +1 attack that is cumulative. This can quickly rack up and turns them into destructive nightmares.
They do have a number of severe downsides though. Bloodgreed means they will only pursue and overrun D6". It means you will struggle to fully destroy larger units (and thus get their points). Their fragility combined with their middling Leadership means they also require careful planning or character support in order to be truly effective.
The main bugbear of them, however, is their cost and this can be further split into two categories, Base cost and upgrades.
If you compare them against a standard Ogre, Ogres are 30pts each but get -1 WS, Str and initiative. They get fear and impact hits (with a potential boosted impact). Additional weapons are +1pt and command is 30pts for all 3.
Even looking at Ironguts, they are 43 points, get the same -1 WS, Str and initiative but +1 LD. They also come with fear, impact hits, heavy armour and a Great Weapon for that cost.
Minotaurs pay a huge 50pts for full command. If you want additional hand weapons or shields, it's 4 points per model or for great weapons, 8pts! This just makes taking a unit of them phenomenally expensive.
That said, you can make them work but doing so effectively is more likely to send you down the deathstar approach with a unit of 6 minotaurs and 3 minotaur characters.
Pros
• Pretty darn strong
• Insane amount of attacks
• Once they get on a roll, it is impossible to stop them
• Pretty good statline
• Multiple wounds
• High movement speed
• Impact hits
• Stomp
Cons
• No armour
• Really....REALLY expensive
• Really low leadership
• Pretty low initiative
• You are going to need to invest A LOT of points to make them worth it
• Until they get a few frenzy markers, they are pretty easy to knock down
• Surprisingly fragile due to T4
• Each dead minotaur has a major impact on the units effectiveness
Special Rules
Blood Greed
Every round of combat you win, you gain an additional attack...whats not to like here. This is what makes minotaurs so vicious. Be warned, it also forces you to overrun at only D6" making it very hard to catch fleeing enemies. The plus side of course is that most enemies will be dead long before they run
Razorgor Chariot (145pts)
This is the big-boy version of the Tuskgor Chariot, and it's worth considering the points to upgrade. It will usually produce a higher Wound differential than 2 Tuskgor Chariots as although the crew are the same, it is pulled by a Razorgor and this monster really, really benefits from gaining primal fury. It's also fairly tough to kill in combat with the 4+ save and sporting both 5 wounds and toughness. Against S3 units they can really hold their own, as that unit will only be wounding on 6’s. You don't, however, want to run these into Hordes on their own, but in tandem they can probably do some real damage.
Pros
• On the charge they get: 5 S6 attacks, 1 S4 attack, 1 S5 stomp and D6 S5 Impact Hits...ouch
• T5 means you can take the hits
• W5 means you can take the hits...repeatedly
• They can really lay down the hurt
• Super versatile in both offense and defense
• Primal fury on the Razorgor (seriously I can't express enough how much of a force multiplier this is).
Cons
• Pricey, coming in at just under 150 points
• Can almost take 2 Tuskgor chariots for the price of 1
• Not really a throw away unit
• Not so good in prolonged combats
Special Rules - Thuderous Charge (Razorgor only) The Razorgor gets +1 Str on the turn it charges
Razorgor Herd (55pts) Don't be fooled by the unit name - these guys are generally meant to be fielded solo. These are our toughest chaff. Whereas Ungor Raiders are super cheap and pretty useless and Harpies are our fastest unit these guys have the punch to actually threaten small units. They are another 1+ unit for your army. Seriously, if you aren't taking at least 1, you should probably go back and re-write your list.
With all that said, their three biggest weaknesses are their mediocre WS (3), Initiative (2) and poor leadership (6). The first means they rarely hit on better than a 4+, often after an opponent and with the leadership, means they (like most of your units) benefit from starting in your generals bubble (though they at least cause fear so don’t have to worry about terror checks). So often their best use isn’t to charge anything but to just sit in front of a unit in the traditional chaff role (though if you have the opportunity to get a charge off at say, a Empire wizard in his archer bunker, then do so!)
Although best fielded as a single model, there is something to be said about fielding a block of 6 for a cheap (330pt), hard hitting unit. This unit definitely benefits from being backed up with a shadow shaman (to melkoth’s an opponents WS, improving your chance to hit). For additional fun (and this idea was stolen from the triple crown guys), you could attach a Doom or Gorebull to the side of the unit (different bases prevents putting him in the main unit footprint). This has a number of advantages: it will give the unit Frenzy, so grant each pig in the front rank an extra attack, as well as giving them immune to psychology while they have it. Not having to take fear or panic tests with their low Leadership is a bonus. On top of that, the Doom/GoreBull also boosts their leadership (ok only to a 7 or 8 but it’s still better) and can be tooled up to complement the unit.
Pros
• 4 s6 attacks AND a stomp! What is not to like!
• T5 means you can take the hits
• W3 means you can take the hits...repeatedly
• minimum unit size of 1 !!!!
• Super cheap for what they can do
• You can call them pork rockets...
• Super versatile in both offense and defense
Cons
• No armour save
• NO PRIMAL FURY!
• Low initiative
• Low WS
Special RulesThunderous ChargeThe model gets +1 Str on the turn it charges