Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

Ok, smack has made a very convincing argument for the use of special characters. So, once again apologies for the naive questions (I'm new to Beasts), do you guys tend to use the Special Characters in games where you're permitted to or do you go with a custom built lord ?

If you customise your own Lords, why ?

If you use the special characters, what makes you choose one character over another. That is, to say, what kind of army would you choose to accompany each character ?

Thanks guys,
Sigmar

Personally I'm not a fan of special characters, but they can be fun in the right games. I have played special characters, but only in games of 5000pts or more.

Beasts themselves do have a problem, lets take over 3000pts army, you have 2 lord choices to make. do I go with a beastlord (tooled up for close combat) and take a great bray-shaman for extra magic, or do I take two beastlords for even more close combat carnage (but then you have to look at magic item combos for 2 close combaters and the magic item list isn't that great) or grab a doombull and go with a mino core army??

the special characters themselves are some pretty cool ones out of most of the army books I have read, Khazrak One-Eye is my fave he's not over the top but his special rule makes ambush super effective.

I read somewhere once (I think it may have been in Herdstone website) this guy was having issues against his friends high elves, he would always in every game take teclis, and playing beasts he didn't have any real effective means to nutralise him. He wanted to prove to his friend that taking a special character all the time is boring

the guys on the board said simple, take Khazrak, make the rest of the army up of beast herds and warhounds only, then start the game, place the terrain and then because of Khazraks rule where EVERY unit with ambush can start the game in ambush (including Khazrak himself) place no models on the board and say that you have finished deployment. let him take first turn, let him move his units, cast all spells, do whatever he wants to do, you on the other hand DO NOTHING THE ENTIRE GAME until turn 6, call on your ambush units to claim table quarters and end the game in a draw.

he'll soon learn that's boring.

ANYWHO to get back on subject.

i'd take Khazrak to creat an ambush style army, lots of beast herds, warhounds to get to the sides to break ranks (cause beast herds don't) and leave it with those units mostly. perhaps some centigors to get his units facing a certain way for the rear charging beast herds after ambush

Gorthor with his chariot leads itself to a chariot and centigors themed army fast moving and heavy hitting (although fragile)

morghur is a nasty one. take him and then field nothing but warhounds for the rest of the points, with morghur you can have the warhounds mutate into chaos spawn and just send wave after wave of spawns towards your enemy (some are bound to get into combat and cause some damage

I was thinking more mass Beast Herds with Morghur rather than Warhounds, with some other units also filling up the points on the other side of the board. Say Minotaurs or Dragon Ogres on the left flank with Warhounds, and the right flank with Morghur and as many Beast Herds, or Warhounds, as possible.

Guys, you're conjuring up such great visions of Beasts of Chaos games. I'm beginning to get quite excited about this army now and the prospect of new minatures in spring 2010. I'm beginning to realise that the tactical options are many.

I'll set up new threads for specific tactics discussions for the special characters, it's beginning to get very interesting. Thanks for all your contributions.

I'll be reviewing the army book a lot more over the next week so I apologise in advance for any "newbie" questions I have.

ask as many questions as you want to

i myself haven't played many games with beasts, but I do heaps of thinking about tactics and unit combos and the such. and i've found beasts seem to be one of the armies that relies on thier manouvering and combos