Primal Fury
Beastmen-proper (i.e. gors, ungors, bestigors, beastlords, etc.) have a new rule called Primal Fury. This allows them to re-roll missed attacks in melee much of the time. Each round of combat they have to test to see whether they gain this benefit (a Ld test).
Bray-Shamans, Gors, and Ungors all have S3 attacks. Since the likelihood of damanging someone with a S3 attack is virtually zero Primal Fury isn’t really an issue. Likewise, chariots have only a single Bestigor with a Great Weapon (S6) to meaningfully benefit from the bonus so it really isn’t that significant.
In contrast, Bestigors & Centigors with great weapons (S6) and Beastlord and Wargor characters all gain a very nice benefit from re-rolling missed attacks in melee.
Beastlords (and troops within 12”) get the re-roll 85% of the time. Wargors and units they lead get it 75% of the time. Bestigors and Centigors gain it 60% of the time. When they do get the bonus it generally means that they will hit 1 and a half times as often as normal. So if your Beastlord would normally hit 2 times, with primal fury this will increase to 3.
There are 3 related magic items. Axes of Khorgor are largely redundant on Beastlords and Wargors since both they and primal fury do the same thing. Save them for your Doombulls & Gorebulls. The Horn of the First Beast improves your likelihood of gaining hatred as follows: Beastlords 97% (+12%), Wargors 93% (+18%), Bestigors/Centigors 84% (+24%). Personally I don’t think it is worth paying 50 points of your magic item allotment for this minor of an increase. The Banner of Outrage improves the Bestigor herd’s chance of gaining hatred to 100% (+40%) during every round of combat. The downside is that it also grants hatred to your opponent during the first round of combat. Personally, I don’t think the benefit is very impressive. I would just stick with the good old War Banner if I chose to run Bestigors.
Ambush
How soon do your troops show up?
66% of the time they show up on turn 1. 22% of the time on turn 2. 8% of the time on turn 3. 3% of the time on turn 4. Less than 1% of the time on turn 5… So you never have to worry about them “not showing up”.
Where do they show up?
50% of the time they show up on a random flank (although you choose the spot on the flank)
25% of the time your opponent picks the table edge (although you choose the spot on the edge)
25% of the time you pick the table edge and the spot on the table edge.
What can they do when they show up?
Move but not march or charge.
Man-Bane: Your Beastlord and his unit gain hatred 97% of the time (rather than 85%) when fighting Empire or Brettonia. A positive but minor benefit.
Impact Hits: Your minotaurs do extra damage on the charge. Doombulls do ~2 S6 auto-hits, Gorebulls do ~2 S5 autohits, and regular Minotaurs do 1 S5 autohit. A moderate positive benefit.
Bloodgreed: Doombulls, Gorebulls, and Ghorgons start the game frenzied. Minotaurs do not. If any of these troops win a round of combat their number of attacks increases by 1 (with this being frenzy for Mintoaurs). For each additional round of combat they win it goes up by 1 again. But if they ever lose a round of combat they lost frenzy (at least temporarily) and their number of bonus attacks “resets” to 0. This is a great benefit. It and impact hits significantly jack up the hitting power of Minotaurs in general. The downside is that you pursue/overrun only d6” inches so you won’t catch many fleeing enemies.
Slaughterer’s Call: Units led by a Doombull or Gorebull become frenzied. Cool.
Fear/Terror: The four big guys (Cygors, Ghorgons, Giants, & Jabberslythes) cause Terror (and are immune to psychology). Minotaurs and Razorgors cause fear (including characters and chariots pulled by Razorgors). More importantly, everything else in the army does not cause fear or terror and has low leadership to boot. So if you field anything else be prepared to have all sorts of problems fighting against fear-causing enemies.
Despoilers: Bestigors that capture standards gain a +1 CR benefit per standard. Cool.
Thunderous Charge: Tuskgor’s no longer get a Strength bonus on the charge. It now only applies to Razorgors. Boo.
Chariots: Razorgor and Tuskgor chariots (like all chariots) are auto-destroyed by a single S7 hit that successfully wounds. That sucks.
Drunken: At the start of the game each of your Centigor units falls randomly into one of three categories.
33% = no effect (i.e. +2 init).
33% = slow (-1M which means you flee/pursue only 2d6”) but slightly more hateful (hatred 80% of the time rather than 60%).
33% = stubborn on Ld 7. (This means they will pass any non-fear causing break test 60% of the time OR 84% of the time if within 12” of the BSB).
Cygor’s Ghostsight: Although they don’t get primal fury, Cygor’s can re-roll missed “to hit” rolls vs. undead/demon/tree spirits/characters with magic items and anything with a magical attack.
Cygor’s Hurl Attack: Your Cygor is a stonethrower (with no minimum range) that can move and shoot. However, 1/6 of its shots will cause 1 wound to itself due to misfiring.
Cygor’s Soul-Eater: Wizards within 24” must pass Leadership test or else their failures to cast spells (i.e. rolling too low) become miscasts. This is especially good vs. enemies that roll small numbers of dice (1-2) per spell—i.e. Undead & Ogre Kingdoms.
Jabberslythe’s Aura of Madness: This is either awesome or worthless depending on whether your opponent has an Immune to Psychology army (i.e. Undead or Demons). If they don’t you can just fly your Jabberslythe around dishing out AOE damage. The likelihood of taking damage is as follows: Ld 5 72%, Ld 6 58%, Ld 7 42%, Ld 8 28%, Ld 9 17%, Ld 10 8%. Remember that the damage does not allow armor saves and go park yourself near those knights… Very nice.
Jabberslythe’s Slythery Tongue: With BS 4 and the fact that you are probably going to be moving and shooting I would expect that you will need 5’s on average to hit. So you should do a couple S5 hits per game (although one of them should auto-wound due to poison). A minor benefit.
Jabberslythe’s Spurting Bile Blood: This is a nice way to hurt enemies who hurt you in melee. The problem is that the Jabberslythe is a whopping 275 points so doing a bit of damage back isn’t going to soften the blow of losing that many VP’s. A minor benefit.
Ghorgon’s Swallow Whole & Strength From Flesh: Instead of doing 7+ S6 attacks you can have a 50% chance of killing blow a man-sized enemy and regaining d3 wounds as a result. I think this is best used in two scenarios. 1) You want to eat an unkillable Dark Elf general who has the Pendant of Khaleth. You have a 50/50 chance of doing it. 2) You want to heal your Ghorgon up above half health so that it doesn’t cost you half VP’s. You have a 50/50 chance of healing each round. A minor benefit.
Stubborn: The Beastmen army has a wide selection of stubborn troops. This ability is HUGELY benefitted by being within 12” of a BSB.
Normal Break Chance w/BSB re-roll
Ghorgons & Giants (Ld 10) 8.3% less than 1%
Beastlord w/Crown of Horns (Ld 9) 16.7% 2.5%
Cygors (Ld 8) 27.8% 7%
Centigors (Ld 7) 41.7% 16%
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