I am having problems with beastmen, any tips

[Swab]

I am having trouble with beastmen at the moment. Normally, they arn't a problem but my opponent is a little over the top and power games. He just stopped playing High Elves because his magic phase wiped the floor with everyone (of course he stopped right before the new dark elf book came out, would of had a great time with our RoH). Anyway, his list is essentially as follows. Please forgive me as to I do not know EXACTLY what he takes or what it is called, but here is the essentials.

Fields 4 characters, one is a lord level and marks them all with tzeentch so he has a overwhelming amount of power dice.

2 25 man blocks of skirmishers

5 chariots

Dragon Ogres

Minotaurs

2 ambushing units.

Normally, this list should not be too hard to combat but here are my issues with it.

1. He has a deathstar unit, 25 normal guys with all four characters. This is typically suicide but he pulls it off somehow in every game. He keeps them far away from combat so they can use their magic to the fullest. Recently he had a taste of the Ring of Hotek but it wasn't effective enough to stop him.

I was planning on charging him with corsairs or witches with the killing blow ability to butcher his characters. I have tried killing him with CR by killing his guys but there is just so much in that squad. 3 ranks, bsb, warbanner and then his 4 characters (who are good-awesome in combat) with the champion get to strike back at me which kill my poor elves. I have even had an assassin go in there. Although I havn't tried the killing blow idea, for some reason it never came to me until about 15 minutes ago.

2. 5 chariots. Take out two or three and it doesn't matter, he has enough with the shaggoth support to break anything. He fields those five with the shag in the very center so most armies will break underneath that kind of impact.

My remedy was to place Dark Riders, Cold One Knights, harpies and a chariot dead center to have a farther reach or just keep him from moving closer. I tried with just cold ones and in both games, they failed their test and stumbled into his charge range, quite unfortunate. Either that, or just let him have the center. I was thinking about flooding the table with terrain to limit his mobility (not forests though). Trying to fix this issue considering it is the main problem with his army

3. The ambushing units- just plain annoying. I can deal with them, except they stop Bait and Flee tactics. If I flee the chariots, most likely the fleeing unit will run into the face of ambushers and die.

the Dragon Ogres and the Minotaurs are no big issue. Easy to deal with in combat.

Any ideas on what to do? I won't post a list because I am still working on a main list. Also, I have 4 lists that I use currently because our upcoming campaign requires four different armies so I try them all.

[Rising son]

How about fielding some of our terror causing units/items i.e. Dragaon/Manti./Hydra/Deathmask/Lokhir. Beastman leadership is pretty average at best, even with a Lord. If you make him make anough tests, he is gonna fail some time.

If you aren't using special characters, how about trying out Shadow blade to try and take out his Lord.? Or Lokhir who is not only a terror causer but gets extra attacks based on the number of ranks the enemy has.

You can also shoot the **** out of him too. Even with the -1 for shooting at skirmishers you can still whittle down his big units with a great enough volume of fire. Adeptly placed Shades would be particularly useful here,

Hope some of that helps.

[Swab]

Yea, it does a little. I was thinking about taking a hard hitting fast list which would include

2 5x CoK
2 Chariots with low pt masters
6 harpies
5 dark riders
War Hydra

Mainly so I could outmatch him in speed and impact.

I wish I could take special characters but for the campaign there are no named characters. It would be quite unfluffy for shadowblade to be captured, then executed by my enemy.

[Aspiring executioner]

I'd probably take a Dragon Lord with Caledor's Bane to run over those chariots very easily while causing Terror throughout his army. I'd take Black Guard about 15-20 strong with ASF banner near a BSB to hold the Herd with Characters and then hit either with Dragon or Chariots or similar hammer units. Monsters going solo against Beast Herds are extremly good as they can't get a rank bonus against it if it's on chariot base or similar like the Varghulf or Hydra plus it causes Terror and is insane in combat. Take a Cauldron give a War Hydra killing blow to take away those characters with 13 attacks you have a decent chance of killing a couple.

Hope this helps.

[Mordante]

I agree that the lone monsters will put a stop to the herds, as will cold one chariots. Anything that doesn't allow him the ranks when you hit him. Anything that causes fear and terror. I'm new to GE, but have been playing beastmen for a while and nothing scares me worse than taking lots of fear and terror checks. A unit of shades with great weapons in the backfield to prevent ambushers from doing much. Shades should chew through a herd with no characters. Make sure to single out the foe-render, because the leadership of the unit is then a 6.

[Rising son]

As noted the Beasts got royally screwed when the editions changed and they were stuck with the default 4 wide rank ruling. So, take advantage of it! Also if he is too scared to put his fighty characters in the front rank (he's allowed to form up how he likes once charged) then that's the end of his magic too.

[Darkterror]

As noted the Beasts got royally screwed when the editions changed and they were stuck with the default 4 wide rank ruling. So, take advantage of it! Also if he is too scared to put his fighty characters in the front rank (he's allowed to form up how he likes once charged) then that's the end of his magic too.

Characters automatically go to the front whether charging or being charged. He may not hide.

[Darkterror]

The best way to kill him is to get rid of the "Super Herd" (for those that don't know was developed with multiple tzeentch combat wizards) is the tactic of combination charging with something mobile and something with combat results/killy.

So for example if you get within charge range of his beastmen with a unit of black guard and cold one chariot, here is what you do. Below is a representation of black guard, chariot and Herd.

BBBBBB
BBBBBB CO


HHH
HHHH
HHH
HHHHHH
HHHH

First move your CO chariot into combat, but use a tactical wheel. This means hit the unit in the flank and force them to line up to you. Then charge into his actual flank with the Black Guard to look like this.

BBBBBB
BBBBBB
HHHHHH
HHHHHHCO
HHHHHHCO
HHHHHH

The result is the unit being slaughtered while the characters are limited to attacking the chariot largely.

[General ravensong]

Please take everything I've got to say with a grain of salt as I've never played against beastmen, but here's my 2 cents.

As far as the blocks of skirmishers, those are huge, and there's no need to have them that large cause skirmishers don't get rank bonuses in CR, so you should be able to CR them away if you can get a good combo charge on them.

For the Deathstar block use harpies and dark riders to harass them and pick them off a little bit, if he reforms to try to catch you keep using the fast cav and fly rules to dance around them but watch out or the positioning of other units and skirmishers, if it looks like you're about to get charged in a fight you can't win, you can always give up the march block and keep shooting.

I'm not sure what his magic phase looks like, but if you typically don't go magic heavy consider busting out a High Sorceress and blast them with maybe... conflagration of doom! or other magical nastiness. I'd suggest putting her with some spearelf sacrifices for the extra powerdice.

For the ambushing (scouting?) units, carefully deploy a couple units of harpies or shades in your own deployment zone to force him into his own deployment zone. (when I play VC, it pisses off WE players to no end when I deploy my wraiths so they can see all of my deployment zone.)

Anywho, I hope that the beastmen's special rules aren't so crazy that none of the general advice works against them, and I hope that with the pool of advice you can bring them under heel. (maybe convert a cold one chariot to be pulled by beastigors to get at him afterwords)

[Slortor]

most of the best answers have been posted already

1) Fear/Terror
2)Chariots
3)Assasains

just make sure when you next play him that he only counts +2 rank bonus - raiders states that a beast herd only gets CR for 2 ranks regardless of how many ranks he actually has.

A unit of black guard + hero on cold one/other methjod of causing pear should do it along with the SofHG you should beat up on 1 herd per turn.

Hunter noble should solve the chariot problem - caledors bane + dark steed would work, add in a null shard just in case. and if you can charge them then do 1 S5 and 3 S3 attacks dont do very well

Harpies + Shades to guard flanks will be ok.

[Rising son]

@Dark Terror: But with a 4 wide front rank, his opponent can quite legally put his champ/Std.?Muso + 1 Character in the front rank leaving the other 3 Characters "safe" in the second rank. There is nothing in the BOC rulebook to say he has to put his Lord front and centre. At least that's how I read it.

[Thomus darkblade]

but with a 4 model front, he has a static combat of 2? banner outnumber.

so if you get 3 kills, you've got that unit testing on leadership 7? leadership 6 if he's a lord level caster? A single chariot, or a master on a pegasus should be able to easily pull that off.

So Master- Pegasus, lance, heavy armor, sea dragon cloak, shield, 3 null stones

Charge the Super herd and watch it die,

The Shaggoth isn't that scary, it's got like 5 attacks, so R&F like spearmen are pretty solid against it.

Chariots can be a pain, but if you can charge them and prevent a dual charge you're in good shape, Caledor's bane, Manbane assassin, potion of strength, those all shred it, but Dark riders or shades, maybe even harpies can tie them up for enough time to break up his advance.