Beastmasters and Beasts

I recwently tried running a large unit of Razorwing Flocks with a couple of Beastmasters, and found them to be absolute garbage. They did nothing.
THey couldn't do any damage, and folded under any kind of pressure.

So, what am I doing wrong?
Is there a way to run any Beasts with any degree of success?

Advice? Thanks.

Flocks are a screening unit. Their job is to be a 48 wound blob of meat that takes up space on the board and opponents are forced to chew through. The Beastmaster isn't meant to do much except make them hit a bit more reliably and make them more difficult to break from morale (especially if he's doped up on Splintermind).

If they're "doing nothing" and just dying, they're doing their job; the trick is that you need to make sure they're dying in the right place, and drawing fire from the rest of your army. They can also, for instance, be used to lock tough enemy units into combat. If you're wounding almost everything on 6s anyways you might as well make the most of it.

The other Beasts are a bit trickier to find uses for. Clawed Fiends are Grotesques that trade slightly better offense for substantially weaker defensive stats. Khymerae would be great if they took up detachment slots, but as it is they don't really have a clear role; they're not quick enough, killy enough or tough enough to do anything that another one of our units can't do better.

I recently ran 11 razorwings with the yncarne and had some good results. Plan was to get them lightning fast, and 5++/6+++, though the mission was the eternal war with the null zone in the center of the board so no invuln on them.

Despite that they ate an absurd amount of fire from an admech gunline, and when they got charged by a (degraded) knight I lost 1 base. They were a fantastic screen.

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I second the above idea. Tried them twice as part of a Ynnari force. They need the "buffs" this provides but still do not expect them to do much except soak up fire from the other side of the table...

I tried Flocks twice, and they were amazing....until I realyzed that they have T2.
No way, they doesn't work for me. When S4 is wounding you on 2+, there's no save that you can gain for, you're NOT soaking anything. And for distractions, you can just play everything else and it will works better.
Plus, I tried them with the Yncarne (using them at T3...my mistake) and even if they were fine (at T3...) I hated how the Yncarne wasn't free to teleport himself around the board. That demon needs to be free, or his value will never be 337 points in my opinion.
I don"t like them at all :-/

It's the cost of the beastmaster on top that really breaks them. Can't use them in a battleforged army without that waste of 30 points mooching around on his sky board.

yellabelly wrote:

It's the cost of the beastmaster on top that really breaks them. Can't use them in a battleforged army without that waste of 30 points mooching around on his sky board.

If you think that's bad, wait until you see the Archon.

yellabelly wrote:

It's the cost of the beastmaster on top that really breaks them. Can't use them in a battleforged army without that waste of 30 points mooching around on his sky board.

A big part of their problem is the detachment slot weirdness. Beastmasters being HQ would make them much more attractive; if Beasts also took up slots and Clawed Fiends moved to Heavy Support we'd suddenly have a really interesting option for a Cult Brigade.

Burnage wrote:

yellabelly wrote:

It's the cost of the beastmaster on top that really breaks them. Can't use them in a battleforged army without that waste of 30 points mooching around on his sky board.

A big part of their problem is the detachment slot weirdness. Beastmasters being HQ would make them much more attractive; if Beasts also took up slots and Clawed Fiends moved to Heavy Support we'd suddenly have a really interesting option for a Cult Brigade.

That would be nice.

Although, since we're dreaming, if we were going to get a Heavy Support beast I'd kinda like us to get something more impressive.

Maybe something similar to that weird hydra Dark Elves have?


Otherwise, I wish Beasts felt a bit more unusual. I get why they don't have Power from Pain or <CULT>, but the fact that they have nothing to replace those rules makes them feel really bland.

I mean, Khymerae are supposed to warp-creatures that are literally born of nightmares.

So how is that represented in game? A 5++ and . . . nothing else. No interesting movement, no ability to affect leadership or psychic powers. They don't even get AP on their weapons. Lame.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Burnage wrote:

yellabelly wrote:

It's the cost of the beastmaster on top that really breaks them. Can't use them in a battleforged army without that waste of 30 points mooching around on his sky board.

A big part of their problem is the detachment slot weirdness. Beastmasters being HQ would make them much more attractive; if Beasts also took up slots and Clawed Fiends moved to Heavy Support we'd suddenly have a really interesting option for a Cult Brigade.

That would be nice.

Although, since we're dreaming, if we were going to get a Heavy Support beast I'd kinda like us to get something more impressive.

Maybe something similar to that weird hydra Dark Elves have?

Yeah, that'd be nice. The Kharibdyss model is right there and would fit in well with the rest of the Beasts.

Well the best thing for us to do then is try to seriously talk with a rules person at gw and see if we can effect the next codex that'll be coming out in 2021 ... give or take a year ... and try to convince them that awesome rules would sell those models

Archon_91 wrote:

Well the best thing for us to do then is try to seriously talk with a rules person at gw and see if we can effect the next codex that'll be coming out in 2021

Sure. And for an encore we could all hop onto a flying carpet and pay a visit to the King of the Potato People.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Archon_91 wrote:

Well the best thing for us to do then is try to seriously talk with a rules person at gw and see if we can effect the next codex that'll be coming out in 2021

Sure. And for an encore we could all hop onto a flying carpet and pay a visit to the King of the Potato People.

For the 8th edition, they did look into our wishlisting. Several stratagems were too similar in effect and wording to just be a coincidence.

dumpeal wrote:

For the 8th edition, they did look into our wishlisting. Several stratagems were too similar in effect and wording to just be a coincidence.

If the designers genuinely listened to and implemented TheDarkCity's wishlisting for this codex, then all I can say is that the other denizens of TheDarkCity must have had a drastically different wishlist to mine.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

For the 8th edition, they did look into our wishlisting. Several stratagems were too similar in effect and wording to just be a coincidence.

If the designers genuinely listened to and implemented TheDarkCity's wishlisting for this codex, then all I can say is that the other denizens of TheDarkCity must have had a drastically different wishlist to mine.  

You'd be surprised - I think they listened

Count Adhemar wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

For the 8th edition, they did look into our wishlisting. Several stratagems were too similar in effect and wording to just be a coincidence.

If the designers genuinely listened to and implemented TheDarkCity's wishlisting for this codex, then all I can say is that the other denizens of TheDarkCity must have had a drastically different wishlist to mine.  

You'd be surprised - I think they listened

Are you sure?

Looking at your list, it seems the vast majority of TheDarkCity's suggestions were completely ignored, and even most of the positives seem to amount to little more than "Games Workshop still ignored all our suggestions but at least they made the unit/weapon cheaper".

I'd like to believe that your suggestions had an impact (because it gives me hope that future suggestions might also be acknowledged) but I fear your list actually gives me the opposite impression.

Then again, maybe I'm just bitter because the one thing that's been at the top of every one of my DE wishlists is 'HQs that don't look like the rules fell out of a waste-disposal unit', to which GW's response is "What's that? You say you'd like us to never release more HQs and that you want us to make the dew existing HQs even worse while also removing what little wargear they had left? Sure. We'll get right on it."

I think you're forgetting how bad our HQs were in the Index if you think that they weren't buffed at all by the Codex. The Archon getting a re-roll 1s to hit aura instead of a Ld aura was a good change, as was the Succubus dropping a third of her points cost. Sure, it's frustrating that the best usage of an Archon is as a mobile buff for Ravagers but back in the Index they didn't even have that.

Virtually everything that we asked to be buffed in the letter to GW received one in some way in the Codex. It was a pretty big win for us.

Cerve wrote:

I tried Flocks twice, and they were amazing....until I realyzed that they have T2.
No way, they doesn't work for me. When S4 is wounding you on 2+, there's no save that you can gain for, you're NOT soaking anything. And for distractions, you can just play everything else and it will works better.
Plus, I tried them with the Yncarne (using them at T3...my mistake) and even if they were fine (at T3...) I hated how the Yncarne wasn't free to teleport himself around the board. That demon needs to be free, or his value will never be 337 points in my opinion.
I don"t like them at all :-/

It sounds to me like you're doing it wrong.

I have 2 squads of 2 razorwings in my Ynnari army. I specifically use them to die to create opportunities to teleport. Don't use his aura to keep throw away units alive. Use throw away units to keep the Yncarne alive.

Burnage wrote:

I think you're forgetting how bad our HQs were in the Index if you think that they weren't buffed at all by the Codex.

I've looked. They really weren't.

Burnage wrote:

The Archon getting a re-roll 1s to hit aura instead of a Ld aura was a good change

Well, it might have been if it hadn't also resulted in him getting a 16pt price hike.

Burnage wrote:

as was the Succubus dropping a third of her points cost.

That was indeed nice. However, you seem to be forgetting that vast numbers of non-DE units also had their prices slashed from the Index.

Burnage wrote:

Sure, it's frustrating that the best usage of an Archon is as a mobile buff for Ravagers but back in the Index they didn't even have that.

No, but they were at least cheap. Now they don't even have that.

Also, are we ignoring stuff like Haemonculi losing Crucible of Malediction? It was bad enough when it was free wargear, and now it costs CPs to just to use it.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Burnage wrote:

I think you're forgetting how bad our HQs were in the Index if you think that they weren't buffed at all by the Codex.

I've looked. They really weren't.

Burnage wrote:

The Archon getting a re-roll 1s to hit aura instead of a Ld aura was a good change

Well, it might have been if it hadn't also resulted in him getting a 16pt price hike.

Burnage wrote:

as was the Succubus dropping a third of her points cost.

That was indeed nice. However, you seem to be forgetting that vast numbers of non-DE units also had their prices slashed from the Index.

Burnage wrote:

Sure, it's frustrating that the best usage of an Archon is as a mobile buff for Ravagers but back in the Index they didn't even have that.

No, but they were at least cheap. Now they don't even have that.

Also, are we ignoring stuff like Haemonculi losing Crucible of Malediction? It was bad enough when it was free wargear, and now it costs CPs to just to use it.

What it looks like is the team who designed the dark eldar were given tight directive about the general gameplay of the whole game and couldn't do all the change they would have liked.

They couldn't go around the "no wargear non-available on the spue", the "no aura inside a vehicle" and the "no new dark eldar model".

It's not because they didn't give us all the things we wanted it means they didn't care.

dumpeal wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

...

What it looks like is the team who designed the dark eldar were given tight directive about the general gameplay of the whole game and couldn't do all the change they would have liked.

They couldn't go around the "no wargear non-available on the spue", the "no aura inside a vehicle" and the "no new dark eldar model".

It's not because they didn't give us all the things we wanted it means they didn't care.

You can work around all of these limitations and still have much fluffier and fun HQs than what we got.
The idea of a simple buff aura to begin with is rather strange. I think a "Mark for Death" ability would be the perfect solution in terms of fluff and gameplay, but that has been discussed before. On many occassions.

I think I summed up my thoughts nicely in here: http://www.thedarkcity.net/t18488p50-the-big-community-survey-2019-wishlisting-thread

dumpeal wrote:

What it looks like is the team who designed the dark eldar were given tight directive about the general gameplay of the whole game and couldn't do all the change they would have liked.

Highly doubtful.

Even with these supposed limitations, there were many things they could have done but they simply chose not to.

dumpeal wrote:

They couldn't go around the "no wargear non-available on the spue"

No Archon model has a Blast Pistol or a Blaster, yet only the latter was removed from their options.

One Archon model actually has a Soul Trap (it's the model they use on the cover of the damn book), yet that was made into a Stratagem.

No Archon model has a Venom Blade, yet they're allowed it as an option.

There is 0 consistency here.

dumpeal wrote:

the "no aura inside a vehicle"

Why did Archons have to have auras in the first place?

If only there was some sort of "design team" that could come up with an alternative buff that can work from a transport.

I mean, given the existence of Orders, MWBD etc., there are already plenty of units that have non-aura buffs. Hence, I don't see why DE needed to have an aura in the first place.

Hell, in the case of the Succubus, they could have dropped the aura altogether and just made her good at combat instead (I know, what a concept).

But let's say that GW mandated that DE have auras. Okay. Why did the Archon's aura need to be arbitrarily limited to Kabal units? He's supposed to be the commander of the entire army. They could have let it affect all Drukhari units. It still wouldn't be great but at least it would give him more options.

dumpeal wrote:

and the "no new dark eldar model"

Grey Knights didn't get a new model either but they still got a new HQ that was made by kitbashing 2 existing models.

Given that almost the entire DE range was designed to have interchangeable parts, you'll forgive me if the possibility of kitbashed HQs doesn't seem unreasonable.

But even if that was out of the question, it still doesn't justify stuff like the 16pt price hike on Archons. Or the fact that Drazhar's buff is worthless from turn 3 onwards. Or the fact that our HQs are all so bloody insipid.

@Soulless Samurai: Archons are amazing for their cost, while beastmasters kinda sucks.
Seriously, more people should learn how to use Archons better because they're incredibly good for 72/76 points.

Cerve wrote:

@Soulless Samurai: Archons are amazing for their cost

By what possible measure?

Cerve wrote:

Seriously, more people should learn how to use Archons better because they're incredibly good for 72/76 points.

Ah, where would TheDarkCity be without the classic "LOL, L2P, scrub." argument.

Is this really just going to be the millionth thread on how bad our HQs are?