Beasts in 8th?

Hey everyone,

I was wondering about everyone's experience with beasts in the new edition. Specifically clawed fiends and razorwing flocks. The flocks still seem like excellent meatshields and chaff units to keep things away from your balanced targets, even after the point boost. They are also the cheapest points/wounds when it comes to absorbing smites. The clawed fiends seems interesting, although a bit slow honestly (2nd turn charge at the earliest if you are lucky)

I was something like
2 beastmasters w/ agonisers
2 groups of 3 clawed fiends
2 or 3 groups of 6 ravenwing flocks.
~500 points.

To move up and press the midfield and back up some deepstriking mandrakes and scourges, ynnari shining spears and a yncarne. But more generally how are people finding them now? Does anybody run non-mech de these days at all?

From my experience, Clawed Fiends are insane in Ynnari lists. While they don't benefit from SfD (or PfP fro that matter) directly, they provide a tough nut to crack for the opponent, as well as good Soulbursts by either dying as fire magnets or killing something. They are speedy and hit like a glove full of bricks.

You know this is a Dark Eldar forum when people start calling a 10" unit slow .

Clawed Fiends are the viable equivalent of Grotesques. They have a great damage output, and a healthy resilience. I'm curious to see what will happen to them in the codex, if they decide to boost grotesques.

RWF used to be our best unit, now it's mostly a tool for DS prevention, and smite eating.

Khymeras are an excellent unit with a great damage output. It's our best answer to T3 hordes.

I've used it several times and they always did great on the table (both RWF & CF)

But take care with muktiple groups though, you'll need the Beastmasters close for Ld, so It's hard to split them, or you'll be usig command points to auto pass morale :/

The only real downside (for me) is the outreagous price of the minis :/

I did this a few times

3x1 Clawed Fiends
2x3 RWF
2x5 Khymeras
2 Beastmasters

It did well and was very fun, tho its no GT list for sure, but as for friendly games its great.

How do you guys feel that khymera and genestealers are the same price?

Also has anyone considered void shield generators to protect beasts turn 1?

RedRegicide wrote:

How do you guys feel that khymera and genestealers are the same price?

Also has anyone considered void shield generators to protect beasts turn 1?

Genestealers and Kymerae's are very close tho in stats, what makes Gemestealers better is the Swarmlord/Tyrgon turn 1 charges, they are protected for a turn or 2 where Khymerae's are not and Rending claws.

Those 2 things together for sure out does Khymerae's. Honestly they should be 8pts a model and genestealers 12pts

They could stay the same and get the old 4++ back... not counting on it but, it would make them better all around.

I tried the beast master with five RWF and three clawed fiends. It played well. I'll be running it in more games. Kinda sucks we can't spam the +2 leadership drug in Beast masters without taking more Wych cult squads.

Might get stratagems for them tho >

amishprn86 wrote:

Might get stratagems for them tho >

I would love the Beastmaster to gain a special rule "when the beastmaster is affected by a stratagem, every beast unit in his aura is affected as well".

If Wych Cults gain a "Advance and charge" stratagem, this would allow some glorious blitz

Has anyone actually used Khymerae in good numbers against T3 horde lists?

I was putting together a list for a local tournament in a month. It's the pretty standard 2x Archons w/ Blater in Venom, 4x5 Kabs w/ Blaster in Venoms, 3x Ravagers, and Flyer wing. That leaves a little over 200 points, and on paper Khymerae look like the best thing to fill that gap. Gives me a ton of screening and Khymerae are our best answer to T3.

Not in 8th as of yet, since i bought 30 birds for 24$, and i made my Clawed fiends (that all these are also painted) AND i'm making 10 Hellsipders to replace my dogs, i havent tried yet lol.

Tho i do have 30+ of them, i'm curious how they will do tho..

Mathematically and on paper they'll do well - 5++, lots of area denial as they're cheap, and they're mathematically the best against T3 across DE as a whole IIRC.

The list I came up with was

2x Archon, Blaster, Venom w/ dual SC
4x5 Kabalites w/ Blsater, in Venoms w/ dual SC
3x Ravagers
3x Voidravens, Dark Scythes, no missiles.

that's 1793, leaving points for 10 pair of Khymerae, or 20 models.


Mail me 20 of your 30 and I'll let you know how they do

I just have the chaos warhounds, screw those insanely costly finecast ones, our local gets a discount, so buying 3 boxes was easy choice compare to many other things lol.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Chaos-Warhounds

Would the different bases give you any trouble in a tournament? I guess I could buy 40mm round bases elsewhere.

When i bought then they only had square bases, i completely forget, i had to buy bases for them, but since bases are like 75c each, i also didnt care.

I spent a grand total of like 28$ per 10, vs 16$ for 2........

@amishprn86 duely noted for alternate models, thanks a lot

Also I only own 2 khymeraes (birthday gift) but would love to play a squad as I love the lore and the models (and the beasts in general.
I'd appreciate any feedback on 10 or 2x10 squads IG ^^

I would do 10-30 Khymerae's but we are in a league and i'm lacked into my thing atm.

I've used a unit of 10 Khymerae + Beastmaster and they've been pretty effective as long as you pick the right targets for them. Charging them into Death Guard Plague Marines is not a good option though!

Duely noted haha. I'll might proxy them for testing purpose ^^

I'm using dire wolves as an alternative to the finecast. I've been thinking about giving them another shot since the birds got really expensive and at least khymerae have a save and t4

~ One pack of 10 for the price of 2 in finecast x')

Thanks for the tip, added to my alternative models list