Beastmasters and Beasts

sekac wrote:

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

Some people really hated the lack of customization on our HQ. They looked at the codex, discarded every good things and focussed on it. I can understand why. But without the rule of 3 that appeared a few weeks later, would we really be talking about it? I really liked the concept of splinter units from several patrols. If it was still there, we wouldn't struggle that much making detachments.

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.

So... I dont remember when this was (it was before SoB beta came out), but there was an interview with one of the GW play testers (not a tournament player mind you) and it made it VERY clear that GW likes these types of things. It was with Reeces, they were talking about the Sob beta codex. It went like it (not word for word)

GW PT: "Yeah and these units from SoB (he said apedtius sororitus) dont take up slots so you can do what you want and it feels better"
Reeces: Why would i want that?!?!! Now i cant fill my detachments for CP
GW PT: What do you mean?
Reeces: Um.. we can talk about it off mic

In other articles, on GW official podcast, and other places, GW clearly likes narrative and they dont build lists for CP purpose, some of GWs rules people has even said they play mostly narrative games.

Tl:Dr, GW doesnt care about match play power gaming and makes codex's more off of narrative play.

dumpeal wrote:

sekac wrote:

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

Some people really hated the lack of customization on our HQ. They looked at the codex, discarded every good things and focussed on it. I can understand why. But without the rule of 3 that appeared a few weeks later, would we really be talking about it? I really liked the concept of splinter units from several patrols. If it was still there, we wouldn't struggle that much making detachments.

I'm in full agreement on every point. It's just this conversation has been had to death many times. We're no longer discussing tactics, beastmasters, or beasts. This thread isn't the place for same ol', same ol'.

sekac wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

sekac wrote:

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

Some people really hated the lack of customization on our HQ. They looked at the codex, discarded every good things and focussed on it. I can understand why. But without the rule of 3 that appeared a few weeks later, would we really be talking about it? I really liked the concept of splinter units from several patrols. If it was still there, we wouldn't struggle that much making detachments.

I'm in full agreement on every point. It's just this conversation has been had to death many times.  We're no longer discussing tactics, beastmasters, or beasts. This thread isn't the place for same ol', same ol'.

True. But is there more to say about beats and beastmaster?

Certainly, such as discussing the possibility of bringing three units of clawed fiends over razorwing flocks, or if a hoard(ish) cult army that brings 3 full units of khymeara would be fun/competitive and discuss the math/points of such units ... cause I do think that would be fun to try

I've been tinkering with two small squads of khymera. Mostly to hold objectives and zone out enemy deep strike units. Seems decent, but not great for 2k armies.

Myrvn wrote:

I've been tinkering with two small squads of khymera. Mostly to hold objectives and zone out enemy deep strike units. Send decent, but not great for 2k armies.

Do you think Khymerae are better in this role than Razorwing Flocks?

Ultimately, no. A single flock does the same thing for cheaper. But I have a few Khymera, so I've used them.

Myrvn wrote:

Ultimately, no. A single flock does the same thing for cheaper. But I have a few Khymera, so I've used them.

Khymerae are pretty bad right now. More expensive than wyches and worse in almost every way (other than being faster).

I used Khymerae a lot in the index, taking pairs to do exactly as above. Move block, screen, deepstrike denial etc. They were also reasonable counter charge units against small squads etc. However since then Wyches got better, gaining an attack, obsessions and stratagems. Beasts got worse, with no buffs but gaining a compulsory tax in the beastmaster.

I dont like them anymore, once they took away the 4+ invul i'vefound them pointless.

I really like the khymera models and lore (of course I wish they weren't finecast but hey). I quite like the idea of a beast master running a large pack of them out in front of the army as it all flys in. The biggest problem for me is that they arent fast enough. If they had advance and charge then maybe, but as is they struggle to keep up. I don't want to start wish listing, but if the beastmaster was able to buff the beasts assault range, even by +1", say like certain GSC characters, we could have good potential for a webway portal assault unit. As it stands they can be a nice fluffy unit, but as yellabelly said it's hard not to compare them to the superior and cheaper wyches.

So, after discussing that the birds are somewhat useful, the Khymerae just worse wyches, I assume the fiends are worse grotesques and not even worth mentioning, right?

Sort of.

Fiends have 2 dmg on their attacks and gain an attack after being damaged.

On the other hand, grotesques are tankier, have options for ranged, mortal wound potential, and PfP.

It's sort of two different types of the same unit, for two different sub-factions. They do pretty much the same thing- other than taking damage- but just in different ways. But overall, yes, most people would prefer to take grotesques.

Huge drawback for Fiends is that they hit at 4+. Unfortunately.
At 3+ I will play them.

Cerve wrote:

Huge drawback for Fiends is that they hit at 4+. Unfortunately.
At 3+ I will play them.

I think the Clawed Fiends need dropping to ~25ppm in comparison to Grotesques. The Grots have a better WS, obsessions, buff characters, PfP and an invul save. Clawed Fiends get to re-roll 1s off a beastmaster and do 2 damage. They aren't equal to each other, and shouldn't cost the same points.

Oh yeah, no reason to take them over Grots, i have a few and i tried to use them, but no good. Yeah agree they need to be 25pts.

What's kind of interesting to ponder is, if they made only 2 changes to beasts, what the result would be.

I'm not trying to get into wishlisting, but if they changed nothing about stats or points, just:

1) Make beastmaster an HQ.
2) Remove the "doesn't count as FA" nonsense.

The issue, obviously, would be that razorwing flocks are so cheap, that you could field an outrider detachment for 72 points (76 if not using index). So I think they'd have to package it with a minimum squad size of 3 probably.

But just those 2 changes, I'd wager, would make beasts way more prevalent. As it is, they compare poorly to other units AND they are difficult to work into lists. If they instead made them very easy to work into lists, they'd be worth considering more.

sekac wrote:

The issue, obviously, would be that razorwing flocks are so cheap, that you could field an outrider detachment for 72 points (76 if not using index). So I think they'd have to package it with a minimum squad size of 3 probably.

I mean, if you are willing to waste a detachment for 1 CP go ahead, i dont think that its gamebreaking. The problem with CP farm detachments that the imperium uses is that they bring versatile and impactful obsec troops for cheap, so the points aren't lost.

I personally think that beasts requiring a beastmaster in matched play only is the rule that needs to go. Even flavor-wise it makes no sense that in fluffy narrative/open play the lists dont require a beastmaster while in the more "minmax" setting of matched play, they do.

VladimirHerzog wrote:

sekac wrote:

The issue, obviously, would be that razorwing flocks are so cheap, that you could field an outrider detachment for 72 points (76 if not using index). So I think they'd have to package it with a minimum squad size of 3 probably.

I mean, if you are willing to waste a detachment for 1 CP go ahead, i dont think that its gamebreaking. The problem with CP farm detachments that the imperium uses is that they bring versatile and impactful obsec troops for cheap, so the points aren't lost.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It reads like you're making the case that any detachment that only offers 1 CP is a waste of a detachment, which I don't think many would agree with. There's certainly no way to interpret what i wrote as suggesting it would compete with known CP farms, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that statement is.

For what it's worth, I agree that a battalion of imperial guard would offer more CPs than an outrider detachment of beasts. There's no debating that. Luckily that isn't the conversation we're having.

What I'm saying is, I'd build a list that has tools and CP (double battalion most likely). I'd also probably run an outrider if I could free up 72-100 points. An extra CP is good, screening/DS denial units are good, and it would cost considerably less than any of our other 1 CP detachments.

I'm making the case that people would probably take cheap beast detachments if they were available, despite the beasts being suboptimal in combat efficiency because it would offer something we don't have.

I'm not making the case that cheap beast detachments would be better than cheap detachments other armies have access to.

sekac wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It reads like you're making the case that any detachment that only offers 1 CP is a waste of a detachment, which I don't think many would agree with. There's certainly no way to interpret what i wrote as suggesting it would compete with known CP farms, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that statement is.

I assume that he means that you're using up the slot that would otherwise be used for the Black Heart spearhead or air wing, as all remaining slots would be filled by battalion(s). ;P

krayd wrote:

sekac wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It reads like you're making the case that any detachment that only offers 1 CP is a waste of a detachment, which I don't think many would agree with. There's certainly no way to interpret what i wrote as suggesting it would compete with known CP farms, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that statement is.

I assume that he means that you're using up the slot that would otherwise be used for the Black Heart spearhead or air wing, as all remaining slots would be filled by battalion(s). ;P

Depends, really. It'd give you a good option if you want to slot Cults into a list - knocking 150 odd points off the minimum points value for an Outrider isn't anything to sniff at.

Burnage wrote:

krayd wrote:

sekac wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It reads like you're making the case that any detachment that only offers 1 CP is a waste of a detachment, which I don't think many would agree with. There's certainly no way to interpret what i wrote as suggesting it would compete with known CP farms, so I'm not sure what the relevance of that statement is.

I assume that he means that you're using up the slot that would otherwise be used for the Black Heart spearhead or air wing, as all remaining slots would be filled by battalion(s). ;P

Depends, really. It'd give you a good option if you want to slot Cults into a list - knocking 150 odd points off the minimum points value for an Outrider isn't anything to sniff at.

Thank you!

A dirt cheap outrider would be where list writing ends, a black heart detachment is probably where the list begins. Say a black heart battalion with 3 ravagers and 2 flyers, a PoF battalion with as talos and grotesques to taste, and beast pack outrider for some cheap chaff.

Kuanor wrote:

So, after discussing that the birds are somewhat useful, the Khymerae just worse wyches, I assume the fiends are worse grotesques and not even worth mentioning, right?

Sort of.  Fiends have 3 more movement and cause 2 damage on attacks.  This helps to mitigate the lack of Eager to Flay, just in case you don't want to use CPs on Release the Beasts!

The 4+ to hit isn't too bad if you keep the Beastmaster close.  Rerolled 1s is like having WS 3.5+

The Beastmaster is also an able sink for Splintermind, which is a waste on most Cult unit.

EDIT: forgot the most important parts. Grots are Coven and Beasts require a Cult Beastmaster. Important when balancing force composition vs Obsession requirements.