2500 VC VS Beasts, Why did I ever forsake my horned child

So as a last hurrah for my beastmen my buddy took the wheel and we bashed out a game. Lets just say right now the Herdstone list is stupidly good and anyone who thinks beastmen are a low tier army needs their head examined.

After the last game and the mission shafting me we decided just to play battle line.

Beastmen List
Beastlord with Crown, AOD and the lack of weapon training
Great Bray Shaman with Ruby Ring, Hagtree Fetish and a 4+ ward
Lvl 2 Shadow Herdstone
Lvl 1 shadow scroll
Lvl 1 Shadow with traumatic phobias of dogs
Beastbanner Wargor
50 Gor with AHW and Full Command
15 Shield Gor who enjoy exploring
6 Ungor Raider with a crack shot
29 Bestigor
Razorgor Chariot with baby on board
Ghorgon with fear of bats

My list can be found in the list section

Deployment


Beastmen far right flank


Beastmen middle


Beastmen Left


Vampires Right


Vampires middle




And like the master tactician I am nothing goes on my left flank....

Beastmen win the roll off to go first and we are off!

Beastmen 1.
Like any good Beastmen player he does not move up too much.




A small unit of Gor come in from ambush and get set up to guard the herdstone


Magic phase sees him roll a 4,4 and thanks to herdstone and channeles is sitting on 12 dice to my 4.... Ugh
Though this turn I am in luck and he only manages to miasma the movement of the ghouls down to 2


Shooting his short bows are out of range

Vampires 1.
I shuffle my left flank around a bit not really thinking about how far chariots can charge/over run


My center kind of pushes forward wary of the Gor horde and needing the charge. Ghouls just try and keep pace with the line


My right flank pushes up (this is really the only thing I did right this entire game)


In my magic phase I get a good roll and raise some zombies and vanhels my spirit host more infront of the chariot (but also in charge arc of the bestigor which I forgot to check....)


Shooting sees the remaining Ambush Gor heading for the hills (though since this is my luck that wont last)


Beastmen 2.
His Chariot charges my batswarms and the bestigor charge the spirit host


The Ghorgon backs away from the other spirit host and the Gor push a bit more forward so that his mage can be in soulblight range.


Guess who rallys? (Hint look in the top right)


Another 12 PD to 5DD magic phase and he gets off a miasma that pulls 3 movement off the varghulf and I scroll bubbled soulblight.

He ruby ring + hagtree fetish's off the spirit host threatening the ghorgon (sorry for the blurry pic)


So after this battle report you will know what the best ranged unit is. "Flamers?" you say? "Leadbelchers?" Nope wrong... Ungor raiders... He needs 6's to hit and 6's to wound with 6 shots.... and


In combat the batswarms squeek a wound on the chariot and the spirit host goes into boss mode and kills 3 bestigor... Which is a problem because now it will die in my combat phase instead...




Vampires 2
I declare a charge against one of the herdstone mages with the varghulf and he passes his terror. I also charge him with the direwolves. Direwolves make it and the varg does not and fails to redirect.

Rest of my movement is just shuffling forward trying to block charges and such




I get a poor roll for magic and he shuts me down

In shooting my terrorghiest wiffs on the chariot (though it was in LD10 general range)


Combat sees my wolves break one guy who flees through the next mage and I over run into him
My spirithost bossmodes 2 more bestigor before going down.

Beastmen 3
He declares a charge with his Bestigor into my skellies, his chariot into my t-ghiest and the remaining Ambush gor into the rear of the varg

He moves the ghorgon to counter the other terrorghiest and the gor horde pushes a bit farther forward. (He forgot to move the bestigor after their charge but we fixxed that)

The fleeing mage does not rally but does not go off the table




Magic sees 11pd to 5dd (see a trend?)
He hammers through bubble soulblight and that is it.

In combat he trade some wounds and my skellies get cut in about half and the ghiest kicks the bucket. My direwolves break and run down the mage along with the other fleeing one and go off the board

Vampires 3.
I charge the zombies into the chariot and the coven throne into the gor. I also dance the Ghiest around to be in shooting range of the Ghorgon and my wolves come in. I still seem to be doing nothing with my ghouls or vampirelord






In the magic phase I get 11PD to his 5dd and finally I have a good phase. Getting a Lvl 4 invo off and the Coven Thrones boundspell.
(those dice are zombies I have yet to add)


In the shooting phase the ghiest deals 1 wound to the Ghorgon...

In the Combat phase the Gor get frenzy and the Coven Throne goes mental and kills 12 gor. Then in return they teach my BSB the meaning of pain and I make 0 armor or wardsaves... I still win by 1 but he sticks on stubborn 10 rerollable




Bestigor demolish the skellies and the zombie/chariot fight is a wash


Beastmen Turn 4
He slams the nails in my coffin here with charges from
The Ghorgon into the terrorghiest
Bestigor into the Zombies flank
(Meanwhile I am still being a moron with my Ghoul)






Magic sees him send a small P-Sun through my Ghoul and kills a good handful.

In combat he blows through the zombies and the Coven Throne kicks it


Vampires 4.
Cornered Animal fights the hardest right? Wrong cornered Animal wiffs his dice like a champ.

I make a poor charge into the gor and that is about all I can do

Magic phase I get 4 dice and I decide to throw 3 at curse of years on the Gor. Then I realized I had offended the dice gods...


Miscast kills a ton more Ghoul and like 2 gor...

Combat
Well in Combat we see that soulblighted Ghoul can not stand up to the Gor Horde and the Ghorgon uses his 8 attacks to dismantle the Terrorghiest


And this was the picture before unstable combat res wounds


Major Victory Beastmen!

MVP was my Dire Wolves who killed two casters and stayed alive until the general died.
The Beastmen MVP was the Herdstone as always
The Dud of the game was me. I just played a poor game and there is no excuse for it.

I hate to say "I told you so...", so I'll say that you should never have left instead.

"Lvl 1 Shadow with traumatic phobias of dogs" made me laugh. Thanks for this pleasent battle report!

Beastmen are still bottom tier regardless, herdstone spam helps a little though.

Those double terrorgheists should be wrecking him and any kind of combat vampire will ruin Beastlord, especially if he takes tricksters shard.

I really don't agree. In 7th edition Beastmen were maybe bottom of the barrel, but in 8th edition its all about huge blocks of infantry and powerfull magic phase. Aside from stuff like 50 spearmen with Teclis we have, point-for-point, one of the best infantry blocks in the game and a VERY powerfull magic phase.

I agree with Polaria - I can put up a list of armies that I think are overall worse than Beastmen at a moment's notice, and a few of them I know are bad from personal experience. Ever play O&G, Tomb Kings, Wood Elves, or Brets? Heck, I'd even consider the inflexibility of Dwarfs to be at a disadvantage vs. a lot of armies, though they at least have those awesome artillery pieces.

Bretts, TK, and Orc and Goblin are better than us. WE maybe not.

May have something to do with the fact I don't use Herdstone, I try to avoid the net lists as much as I can.

Beastmen vs Skaven or Ogres half decent players is an absolute waste of time playing, although yeah they are the top 2 books in the game I guess.

Yep, no Herdstone explains most of that. It's one of our best tools you're leaving by the wayside there. As an O&G player and Bret opponent, I can tell you that nothing they have makes up for the rock. Herdstone Beasts are also widely acknowledged by Ogre players as a weakness.

This post has been edited by rothgar13 on Jun 19 2012, 07:46 PM

Even with the Herdstone we can't be great though, apart from this no Beastmen has done well in an English major since Mark Wildman back in 1964.

Beastfather Borland has some good results too but not in Majors I don't think?