Whats a beaststar?

I have some idea. I large blob of beast masters and beast used to slow or panic your opponent but what of the specifics? 5 Beast master and 20 khymera or should I throw flock or stuff in aswell?

There are a number of varied builds.

The most common and basic is;

Baron
3 Beastmasters
4 Flocks
5 Dogs

The core point of the unit is to give a powerful assault unit (the Beasts) the tools that help them be better (assault grenades and Baron's stealth boost) to make them able to assault at initiative through cover, and also to be difficult to hurt, while being quite devastating in assault.

As people have decided Eldar/Tau ignoring cover is an issue they have started to use less Flocks and more Dogs. I, personally, don't agree with this build, but a lot of people seem to find reasonable success with it, so it's not a terrible build either.

People also often expand out with more Beastmasters, more Beasts, and even other additions like adding an Eldar Farseer on Jetbike to the mix. But the above is the basic core concept.

the jetseer with shard of anaris is what makes this unit great. Making them fearless and the buffs from the seer along with the tanking he can do is very solid

Thanks guys that really helps, I already have a jetseer and like the idea of more flocks then dogs although i dont mind either models or rules perhaps Il try with more flocks and see how it goes. Gives me a good place to put baron as well

The issue with Flocks is they are superlative versus Str 5 shooting and less (and also are quite good in assault) but suffer versus Str 6+ shooting due to instant death. The dogs help in this by just being additional bodies that can take the hits, also, if you are denied cover, their 4++ save is also quite useful.

I'll also add that the Farseer is a nice addition, but I don't think the fearless situation is that big of an issue nine times out of ten. The buffs and the ability to absorb damage are quite good though.

Ld9 is the killer of this unit. 1 bad combat phase and you are dead. Fearless lets you control this issue and hit and run as needed

I can agree with that - my counter is, unless you are foolish, or your opponent has a unit fast enough to catch you while also being hard to hurt - there are actually not that many things the Beasts shouldn't just eat outright, and the things they can't eat outright they probably shouldn't be assaulting anyway.

I don't consider the fearless bad - I just don't consider it mandatory.

T5 2+ is bad for beast without Razorwings.

I think fearless is mandatory. More so if you are taking flocks with you. Not so for smaller beast like Thors Example but for bigger ones with 4-5 Beastmasters. S6 or greater is bad if they got precicion shots in cc for razorwings.

I tend to go with the Baron, 5 Beastmasters, 10 dogs, 6 flocks and a Shardseer. It's a reasonably cheap death star that is extremely effective and has few weaknesses. I am considering losing a couple of flocks and adding in more dogs though.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I tend to go with the Baron, 5 Beastmasters, 10 dogs, 6 flocks and a Shardseer. It's a reasonably cheap death star that is extremely effective and has few weaknesses. I am considering losing a couple of flocks and adding in more dogs though.

This is my build as well - umming about 15 dogs and 4 flocks or even the full 25 dogs!

i started with the 5th ed model of 5 dogs, 4 birds. Then changed to 10 dogs 2-4 birds and now I'm running 20 khymerae. The best variation so far.

I havent played with the unit yet so maybe I dont understand but I see dogs as a lot weaker then flocks? What a I missing?

Khymerae are indeed weaker in terms of offensive ability but they lack the vulnerability of the flocks (S6+ weapons insta-kill Flocks) and have a 4++ save (rerollable if you're lucky enough to get Fortune on your Shardseer). Personally I like a mixture.

What exactly is a ++ save?

Invulnerable.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Khymerae are indeed weaker in terms of offensive ability but they lack the vulnerability of the flocks (S6+ weapons insta-kill Flocks) and have a 4++ save (rerollable if you're lucky enough to get Fortune on your Shardseer). Personally I like a mixture.

This, a thousand times.

Especially considering the relative cost of a Flock vs. a Dog, I don't actually get people's fear of instant death for them (yeah, you're giving up more wounds...but...) Flocks are also very important to make the unit more survivable to 2+ Armor and also small arms fire, both of which they are far superior to dogs on.

I usually run Beastmasters in front and look out sir to the appropriate targets, or try to have equidistant birds and dogs in the front to allow me to control where the wounds go.

My current build is baron, 1 jetseer + 4 bm, 15 khy, 2 rwf. The flocks are great especially in combat where you can easily assign 8+ wounds without losing a single model. They also really make the unit tick vs things like riptides which I want as many ways of threatening as possible. Often multi charges can do the same thing but you cant always pull these off to tip the combat especially vs fast units like riptides. Also canny opponents will force hard decisions that can overextend the pack making it rather impotent in combat. That said I could never see going above 2 flocks in my current meta. Reason is the presence of S6 barrage and mass precision shots and strikes. Just 2 days ago I had my flocks sniped turn 1 which was annoying.  

I also feel fearless is mandatory. I didnt until I lost my pack a couple times to moral checks. Both were unusual but obviously not impossible as I found out so now I just bite the bullet and run the shard. Much happier with the security blanket of anaris.

I will be building a unit of 4 BM Baron and 20 dogs. Will be buying a helion pack, converting heavily into BM and 1 baron (easy enough). As for the dogs i will be buying the chaos war hounds, they are so similar its disturbing with the tentacles and body style the only difference is the fur which i do not mind one bit at 10 for 25. $75 dollar beast pack versus 200+

Will probably get a farseer on a bike in there also, however that will happen later on since i prefer to not run allies in casual play.

Really good info guys nice to be able to discuss things like this

Just a few more tidbits..

Learn to use the star properly (I still learn new tactics with it). Multi assault and dont let it get strung out very much or it can lose and even lose your ICs in the process, although there are exceptions..

Such as you rolled tenacity on personal traits (FNP in 3" of an objective). This is worth stringing out for.

Practice and plan your psych powers ahead of time over and over. Beast psykers differ from those that accompany seer councils. For example: if only using a single jetseer I always roll first on runes of fate. If I get 2 (sometimes also 3 or 6 matchup dependent) then ill roll again. If I get 1, 4 or 5 (and sometimes 3 and 6) I'll roll on divination for the second power. Then depending on the result ill usually (not always) go back to RoF. This is affected by my warlord trait, especially if I get say the afor mentioned FNP trait and its also the scouring just for example. Then fortune is nowhere near as necessary although still amazing.

On this same note consider your packs composition. If you have multiple RW flocks plus obligatory BMs then Forewarning becomes sooo much better making each BM into a khymera and each flock into 5 more khymerae for most purposes.

Another consideration that I just regretted yesterday is to keep at least one beastmaster alive in the back/near to your HQs.. the ability to be a challenge monkey is sometimes game changing.

I run Baron with 2 flocks and 2 clawed fiend. Not cheap, but doin their work great