Running 2 or 3 beast packs. Does it work?

I like to run a beastpack with 10 khymerae and 4 flocks and I think it is one of our best units, especially with Baron and Farseer.
But what about to run the maximal possible amount of the beasts? One squad is goos, 2 better and 3 is awesome.
Yes it could be pretty expensive in points and pounds, but the number of their CC attack will exceed the number of poisoned shoots from Venoms.
Did anyone tried such a roster? What disadvantages has this tactic?
Maybe it could be a fitting reply to power lists of Tau or Necrons

The reason that the Beast pack is generally only seen with the Baron and a Shardseer is that it really requires those guys in order to overcome its weaknesses (lack of grenades, low Ld). I suspect that having multiples of the unit will be subject to diminishing returns. It would also be very hard to use due to the huge footprint of these units. The board would be extremely cluttered.

There is only one Baron. Grenades and Hit & Run is very important to beasts.

I suspect there's another reason: the models themselves:

I know a lot of people do use other sources for their beats, however I still see the vast majority of people buying the real models. As for the khymera a lot of people use the old ones, but the current models are still extremely beautiful models. The big obvious downside is the cost of the beast models. The Clawed fiend is actually also pretty nice and the razorwings are pretty nice as well.

Now the 2 obvious obstacles are the size and cost of the unit. The size reflects the fact that this squad is usually composed of Khymera and razorwing flocks, + beasmasters. Several models, a lot of cash, even if you do use hellions and chaos hounds for khymera you're still forced to find the razorwings somewhere else.

The grenades aren't such a big problem, the Baron isn't a must either, I still haven't used the baron deathstar unit, my beast squad does fine on it's own, anyone saying the opposite is talking crap, this is a retarded deathstar unit, it's just so powerful and it's not fragile at all.

As far as I'm concerned, price is what stopped me. Having to buy so many models to compose one full squad, it's pricy and troublesome. You take warriors, one fairly cheap box and you got a whole squad, a second box and you got your transport.

Painting the squad shouldn't be underestimated either, it takes a lot more effort to paint so many variable models. This takes way more time than painting simple wyches or warriors.

It's true that I haven't seen anybody with more than 1 beast squad. There are 0 doubts that I'll make several squads in the future and usually when I have access to some weird armylist simply because I got the models, I usually try stuff out. It's pretty clear that I'll need a 2,500 pts armylist.

I got 6 FW raven models (for apoc and simply because it's a dark eldar model), back in the previous edition I tried out out 3 of them in a couple of games simply because I could.

Another obvious reason why you don't see 2 or 3 beast units: not everyone has even 1 beast squad :p.

At 2000pts+ 2 beastmaster units is doable I know from experience. they are a strong pressure/distraction force.

One unit moves up centrally with jetseer. The other up a flank. As Khain mentioned you don't HAVE to take the baron.

If your charging average cc units, which you should be, you don't need grenades. They are tough and numerous enough to win combat even striking last especially vs tau.

Hit and run is cool but situational and leadership can easily be improved with grisly trophies on 2 or 3of the following skimmers.

I say give it a try!

I also think the the Baron isn't a must-have unit. The are some games, where I can't spend points on Baron and the beasts do their job nevertheless well. It's the great offensive unit and nice fire magnet (like the Talos, but much more mobile and with LOTS of wounds). Toghether with Baron and Farseer under Fortune they are unstoppable.

As for the model cost, I prefer conversions (beastmasters from helions, plenty of options for the beasts and even flocks have their own alternatives if you check the correspondent topics on Dark City). Also I know people, who cast models with their own forces and I got some Khymerae from them. So the cash isn't a problem if you choose an alternative way.

SERAFF wrote:

I also think the the Baron isn't a must-have unit. The are some games, where I can't spend points on Baron and the beasts do their job nevertheless well. It's the great offensive unit and nice fire magnet (like the Talos, but much more mobile and with LOTS of wounds). Toghether with Baron and Farseer under Fortune they are unstoppable.

As for the model cost, I prefer conversions (beastmasters from helions, plenty of options for the beasts and even flocks have their own alternatives if you check the correspondent topics on Dark City). Also I know people, who cast models with their own forces and I got some Khymerae from them. So the cash isn't a problem if you choose an alternative way.

A friend of mine who plays Tyranids was kind enough to donate me some Rippers with Wings from Forgeworld. If you put three per base (similar to GW's flock), they are still cheaper than GW's models and, in my opinion, better looking.