Post 6 - Race-Specific Magic Items and Chaos Mutations
CHAOS MUTATIONS
Slug-skin: Something from the 7th Edition book given a major glow-up, Slug-skin now inflicts a -1 penalty to Hit rolls on all enemy close combat attacks against both the character clad in it and his unit. An awesome Mutation to take on a melee character in a melee-focussed unit, particularly one lacking in armour (Gors and Minotaurs take note), but even useful for protecting a Shaman who can't take armour. It does eat up all your points allowance for Mutations, though, so you'd better stack up on Magic Items for your character too.
Crown of Horns: A character (not a Champion) that takes this receives the Stubborn special rule, as does any unit they join. Would have been a great thing to have in 8th Edition, but in TOW Stubborn is not what it was. True, it can certainly be worth taking on a Doombull or Gorebull in a Minobus to help the unit resist an early charge, but 45 points to take a rule that only works once per battle is not a wise investment, particularly as Bestigors can take it for significantly less than that anyway. Certainly not something high on the priority list.
Muscular Monstrosity: For 35 points, a nice round +1 Strength. Works nicely with Armoured Hide to give an all-round boost to attack and defence, and without a doubt one worth having. Even a Shaman could have it to give him a decent Strength even with his Braystaff in defensive mode. Thumbs up for this one.
Pelt of Midnight: Any enemy unit that targets the character (not a champ) with this mutation, or any unit he has joined, with a shooting attack suffers a -1 penalty to their to Hit rolls. Another lovely one that can be given to a variety of characters and a variety of units. Great for making that Minobus or Bestigor unit all the more difficult to kill alongside Slug-skin taken by another character, or giving a unit of Gors all the more missile protection.
Gouge-Tusks: Improves the AP value of the character's weapons (though not those of its mount) by 1, pretty much the same as in 7th and 8th Edition. Can't be taken with Muscular Monstrosity, sadly, but can be taken with Many-Limbed Fiend to improve the AP value of a Beastlord maximising on Attacks count, or Gnarled Hide as another simultaneous buff to both offensive and defensive capabilities. Another solid choice.
Rune of the Beast Ascendant: An unusual one. It can only be taken by a Beastlord or Wargor, and it gives all friendly units of Bestigors, Gors and Ungors a +1 bonus to their Leadership whilst in the character's command range. All well and good, and particularly another one that would have been a real hit in 7th and 8th, but in TOW where these units can already add their Rank Bonus to their Leadership and can re-roll failed Psychology tests, we're no longer in absolutely huge need of morale buffs. Still, it could be used on your General to effectively give all units in his command range Leadership 9 before rank bonus buffs and return to those heady days of previous Editions, or could be given to your Wargor BSB or another character who is supporting your forces on the other side of the board to give them the same boost your General is providing to the units immediately around him. Certainly a good, affordable thing to take at 25 points, except that it only works on Gors of all stripes, Minotaurs cannot benefit from it so it so it's useless to a Minobus-oriented force.
Many-Limbed Fiend: A classic back from the 7th book, it gives your character an extra attack (though only one that can be made with a standard hand weapon). At 20 points it's a nice cheap thing to give to a True-horn Gor champion or a Minotaur Bloodkine to give them an additional attack to play with, or to the AHW Beastlord build to maximise the number of attacks he can put out. Not so useful on characters that are using Great Weapons, though.
Gnarled Hide: Another 7th Edition one returned in pretty much the same form, this one gives Armoured Hide (1) to an infantry character (I presume this includes Monstrous Infantry Minotaurs). A staple requirement if you want to get your character down to a 2+ armour save, and at 15 points it leaves a good bit of room for a second Mutation to complement it, though a Shaggoth cannot take it.
Uncanny Senses: To round things off on the Mutation front, a nice, simple +1 to Initiative. A decent thing to take given that though our characters are not lumbering oiks they are also not Quick Draw McGraws, and in this age of chargers getting an Initiative bonus but not always going first, giving this to a fighty character could spell the difference between him being able to knock a charging enemy for six before they can even fight, and weathering that same charging unit's painful round of lance attacks.
MAGIC WEAPONSPrimeval Club: Not a bad item to take at all now, for 5 points cheaper than an Ogre Blade you get a superior Strength bonus (+3 for a Leadership 9 Shaggoth, Leadership 8 Beastlord or a Leadership 7 Wargor) and a superior AP bonus, plus Poisoned Attacks in return for losing Multiple Wounds (which of course is luck-dependent) and Armour Bane(1) (not hugely much use when you've already got AP -3 which will be enough to ignore the armour of most foes anyway). However this weapon is best given to one of the Chieftain characters mentioned above, as Minotaur characters will only get a +2 Strength bonus for a Leadership 8 Doombull or Leadership 7 Gorebull. Also you get Hatred (Empire), for what that's worth.
Axe of Men: This one's a reasonable trade for the Headsman's Axe which costs roughly the same, trading the Strength bonus for the ability to take a Shield, so it has a use in defensive builds. Killing Blow makes you a significant threat to infantry and cavalry models all round, and killing any enemy character in a challenge gives you Terror, which is significantly better now. Certainly useful if you're up against armies with lots of expendable foot characters (Night Goblin armies beware!), and Killing Blow will give you a chance even of getting past a Chaos Lord build if your opponent is unlucky with his Ward Saves. Certainly one worth considering with the right build and strategy.
Mangelder: 10 points cheaper than the Axe of Men, gives you back the Strength bonus from the Headsman's Axe and automatically makes you cause Terror (with the added bonus of taking away a point of Leadership from anything that suffers at least one wound from your character's attacks), at the cost of losing Killing Blow. A great item to bring against armies with poor overall morale (alongside the Manbane Standard on the character's unit for a -2 total Leadership penalty), so human armies and Greenskins are particularly fair game, while Dwarfs, Elves and Undead are less so.
Hunter's Spear: Turns your character into a half-range Bolt Thrower that can move and shoot. Certainly worth it on a Beastlord or Doombull for 35 points as a way of softening up massive blocks of infantry or lances of Bretonnian Knights, and particularly if you have a couple of Cygors in your Rare allowance to prove to your opponents that Beastmen can play the artillery game as well as anyone else can.
MAGIC ARMOURPelt of the Dark Young: With the sad disappearance of the Ramhorn Helm (though it may return in our Arcane Journal, fingers crossed), this item from the 6th Edition book is now part of our ticket to maximising the armour save of one lucky character. Adds a +1 bonus to the wearer's armour save that can work alongside other armour, and as an added bonus gives the wearer and their unit Magic Resistance +2. Noice.
The Blackened Plate: A set of full-plate armour? Yes please! This will form the basis of many super Beastlord and Doombull builds - combining this with the Pelt of the Dark Young and Gnarled Hide above gives our character a lovely-jubbly 2+ armour save, the maximum in this game where everyone generally has less armour-piercing capability. He also gets a 3+ Ward against Flaming Attacks, so can laugh at any character stupid enough to bring them.
TALISMANSRune of the True Beast: Worsens the Weapon Skill of Monsters within 6" of the bearer by 1. Not bad for 30 points and something worth taking if you know your opponent loves their monsters, though you'd better hope your opponent doesn't turn up playing Dwarfs.
Dark Heart: Probably one of the best items a Beastman general can get anywhere, every character should have one if you can afford it. A one-use only item that your character can consume in the Strategy Phase to regain a lost Wound, and an Extremely Common item to boot. True, the Healing Potion heals up to D3 Wounds instead for only 10 points more, but a result of 2 or 3 will very often be wasted on a character with only 2 or 3 Wounds to start with. Save the Healing Potions for your chunkier Minotaur characters, while your Beastlords, Wargors and Shamans take a cheaper Dark Heart (or two).
MAGIC STANDARDSTotem of Rust: Pretty much the same as it was before, the Totem reduces the armour save of all models (friend or foe) within 6" by 1. An annoying remnant of the self-sabotaging items and mechanics from the 7th Edition book, especially for a full 50 points cost, but one unit can make particular use of it - it is a great boon for some units of Gors to be able to take Magic Standards now, as, with their extreme lack of armour, they don't have an armour save to lose, and thus get the full benefit of the Totem without its main drawback. They are also in particular need of its benefit, as they don't have access to any AP value otherwise. Just make sure to keep the unit that carries it more than 6" away from any of your other units, and it'll be fine.
Manbane Standard: All enemy units within 6" of the banner suffer a -1 penalty to their Leadership. Nice and simple and pretty solid. A good one to give to your Wargor BSB, as there are others out there that are better to give to specific units.
Vitriolic Totem: The triumphant return of this glorious banner from the 6th Edition book allows one of your units to have Poisoned Attacks. Would be a good one to give to any unit, but again a unit of Gors with additional hand weapons will make best use of it.
Banner of Outrage: Probably one of the biggest jokes from the 7th Edition book has been drastically reworked, now simply allowing you to re-roll Primal Fury tests, for a cheap 25 points. Note that it allows you even to re-roll successful ones, so can be useful for trying to get those all-important doubles to try and get Frenzy, but this standard is particularly crying out to be given to a unit of Minotaurs, who are particularly reliant upon making their Primal Fury tests to be able to get AP -2 as well as re-rolls of 1 to hit and potentially their boosted Frenzy.
ENCHANTED ITEMS
Stone of Spite: Probably the worst item in our selection this time, though not entirely without use. A one-use-only item that reduces the casting rolls of all Wizards, both friendly and enemy, by 2 - great if you're for whatever reason going without magic and are confident you're going up against a magic-heavy opponent (particularly if you're gunning for a Minotaur army), otherwise a hard pass.
Horn of the First Beast: All friendly units within 15" of the model carrying the Horn of the First Beast may use its Leadership when testing for Primal Fury. Would have been a great item to have in 7th and 8th Edition when our characters had higher Leadership and Primal Fury was what we relied upon to deal our damage, but since units that use Primal Fury can now add their rank bonus to their Leadership through the Warband rule, Primal Fury on its own is poor and our characters have had their overall Leadership reduced, this item is pretty low down on our priority list.
Skin of Man: That silly and fun yet grimdark item from the 7th Edition book is back, and gives a character the pick of Scouts and Vanguard. As before, it can only apply to a character on foot so can't be used to get a Chariot closer to the enemy, and there's generally little reason as to why you would want a non-Minotaur character running around on their own where the enemy can shoot them without issue. However if you combine it with the Flying Carpet from the rulebook it can lead to some fun nuisance shenanigans, particularly if a Bray-Shaman with some offensive magic spells is involved.
ARCANE ITEMS
The Plague Chalice: Potentially a strong item to use, the Plague Chalice allows any roll of a double when casting to produce a perfect invocation, at the cost of a Strength 4 hit with no armour saves allowed on the recipient Shaman each time this happens. Perfect Invocations themselves don't cause a miscast anymore (correctly) so that's the only downside, and a T5 Great Bray-Shaman with an adequate Ward Save should be able to shrug most of these hits off, though it'd be worth taking a Dark Heart or two to heal back any wounds you do suffer from this item. However standard Bray-Shamans, which can be wounded more easily by these hits and will be much less likely to afford a Ward Save alongside this item, should avoid it.
Hagtree Fetish: One of the better items from the 7th book to survive the transition to TOW, and very similar to what it was before - Whenever the Shaman successfully casts a Magic Missile, he may re-roll all failed To Wound rolls for it. Excellent for making
Viletide something to be genuinely worried about, but otherwise it won't see that much use given that we only have two other Magic Missile accessible to us,
Wind Blast from probably the Lore that is least useful to us, and
The Summoning, which is from an all-round better lore and has an already solid Strength that is made even more formidable with this item, but can be resisted by armoured units. Take it if you plan to play with any mixture of
The Summoning,
Wind Blast or
Viletide, otherwise don't.
Jagged Dagger: Very much as it was in 7th/8th again, you get to sacrifice unwilling Beastmen to improve your casting results (though this time it adds the Wounds characteristic of the deceased model to the casting roll instead of a Power Dice). Obviously a reason as to why you'd want some Ungors in your force, though of course your Bray-Shaman would have to join them to be able to do this (not a good idea if there are enemies close by waiting to charge you). On the other hand you can choose to sacrifice more valuable models - even Minotaurs to give a mighty +3 bonus - but obviously losing these models would be a lot more painful for your army as a whole. Even sacrificing a standard Gor could influence the loss of a combat later in the game, so this is very much a gambler's item. But the upside is that is only 15 points to spend, so if you're a punk that's feeling lucky you can have a go with it and see where it takes you.
Pretty much a solid Magic Item list all round except for the Enchanted Items. Everything else has its uses, and we have both much less overpricing of items and many more actually good items than we used to.