Same day, different post. Essentially everything that The Old World has to offer has now leaked, if you have the desire to look, and I've spent far too much time reading over it (gleefully, I might add). Before the leaks I had to choose which Armies I wanted to play, and invest in. I already own a decent Beastmen collection from playing Warhammer 6th Edition recently but I wanted at least a second Faction. For one, having multiple armies is just fun because you can really change things up when you want to. For two, as a competitive player, not all armies are created equal and it pays to cover your bases in terms of power. I chose Brettonians because they just seem interesting and lean into my play-style.
Across all wargames I prefer one of two types of armies: Hordes, or Speed. Hordes provide redundancy and options: you will almost always outnumber the opponent and can use that to set matchups, control the table, and apply pressure via Scenarios/Missions. This time around I haven't opted for a Horde Army, my beloved Skaven are not a full release and I don't know what that means yet while Orcs and Goblins just aren't my bag. On the other hand, there are multiple Speed armies in the game as primary releases: Beastmen, Brettonians, and Wood Elves.
When I say a Speed army, I'm not only talking about the rate of movement. The ability to maneuver is just as important, being fast allows you to do many of the same things as a Horde but in different ways. Beastmen are above average movement but their real strength is being able to use Skirmish, essentially playing a different game from the rest of the factions. Brettonians ride fast and hit hard but then risk turning into a slower, less able army. Wood Elves are similar to Beastmen, having many small and nimble units to keep the opponent off-balance.
I'm not going to do full breakdowns of either Beastmen or Brettonians today, although I will in the near future. Instead, I want to touch on some things that caught my eye about them and how that relates to this version of Warhammer, differing from the older Editions. Let's start with Beastmen, since I know them better.
In The Old World, Beastmen can be utilize a few styles. There's the "raiders" style, which is largely Skirmishing Infantry and Chariots, which hits hard but lacks staying power. You can go for Monstrous Infantry such as Minotaurs which provide more hitting and staying power at the cost of flexibility and numbers. Finally, you can go full on Monster Mash with big stompy beasts, daring your opponent to have the tools to deal with all that power but while having almost nothing to fall back on. Of course, there are endless blends of all that, one of the beauties of wargames.
I've read the Beastmen entries many times by now and I believe I'm going to opt for a mixture of Infantry and Monstrous Infantry. While Chariots have long been a primary Beastmen unit, I don't love their hitting power this time around, which was toned down in exchange for survivability and speed. While speed is great, you can outpace the rest of your army and I prefer to hit with everything at once rather than waves. I also do not find the Monsters to be particularly amazing, especially with the rules for Combat in The Old World. So, I'm going with tried and true.
Gors are a fantastic unit and much changed since 6th Edition, they've opted for the 8th Edition flavor instead. While I will miss my lovely ablative wounds (RIP Ungors), Gors bring more than enough to the table. They're quite cheap at 7ppm (Points per Model) which an excellent fighting profile for that cost. Furthermore, Beastmen have a wide-spread rule to grant re-roll 1's to Hit in Combat and I love reliability when it comes to dice. For me, Gors are tied with Orc Boyz for premier infantry, pound for pound at least.
Something that grabbed my attention was how high you can pump the Leadership of Gors, which is not what I'm used to. With a Lord level Character nearby and the Open Order applied, Gors are often at Leadership 10 (8 + 2 for Ranks via Warband/Horde), which is not what I expected. This encourages big blocks as you want to keep those Ranks and Leadership. I'm eager to see how these fearless dregs perform.
Another shining beacon is that Monstrous Infantry are MUCH improved. Minotaurs were good in 6th but Dragon Ogres were nearly worthless (way too expensive), all that has been changed now. Minotaurs are excellent Light/Medium Infantry clearers and can be taken in pairs instead of trios, perfect for sneaking into Combat next to a block of Gors. Dragon Ogres are even better and an early contender for "Absolutely OP at this Point Value". 64pts gets you a fast moving, reliably Charging, hard hitting, super durable body and that's just too good. But I'll exploit it! Both these units, Minotaurs and Dragon Ogres, will form the power base of my early armies, smashing aside what the Gors would struggle with.
Finally, I'm impressed with just how well the Beastmen Army is written. All the rules make sense and are thematic, yet useful. Almost every unit has a role and while I consider the Monsters weak in a competitive sense, they will see successful table time in many games I'm sure. Many roles have 2-3 options for filling them: instead of Dragon Ogres you can take Razorgors as singular shock troops, there are two Chariot varieties, multiple "basic block" troops, etc.
Moving to Brettonians, I was less sure of what to expect. Those who are familiar with Warhammer Fantasy will know that Brettonians languished for a long time, not getting a new Army Book for two whole Editions and through the game's death! What I noticed first is that Peasants are not just newly improved from their once uselessness but they're actually integral to the armies function. As I'll delve into in the future, you absolutely must have blocks of Infantry in The Old World, even the kingdom of horses is no exception to this.
Men At Arms in particular are superb "tarpits", being horribly cheap at 4ppm but with a respectable profile. With enough Ranks and a Champion (of which they can have two), these conscripts ramp up to Leadership 9. They also have a fancy new Character to help them with Panic and bump up to Leadership 10, although he's a tad flimsy on paper for my taste. While there's a drawback of peasants not being able to use the General's Leadership or be inspired by the BSB, it's hard to argue with a 120 unit that is hard to shift.
From a high to a low, I don't like how most of the various Knights simply lack hitting power, along with their reduced survivability. Going from a 2+ to a 3+ Armor Save is massive against Bows and other light Shooting, it's likely many knights will die before even seeing Combat despite their speed. Having 1 Attack per model simply doesn't get the job done, especially as knights are most one and done in terms of their power. Fall Back in Good Order helps with that but it doesn't solve the problem. Grail Knights, Pegasus Knights, and Questing Knights are the only ones that catch my eye for offensive return on investment.
Back to a high, the new Foot Knights are intriguing. With access to Great Weapons they can deal some decent damage and they pack Furious Charge, getting them crucial extra Attacks on the Charge. Despite being slow, peasants are happy to eat enemy Charges and this allows Foot Knights to get a Charge off of their own, ideally in a flank. This is also a good home for Wizards since they won't be thrown into Combat amongst a bunch of lunatics on horses who aren't all that durable.
In a competitive setting I don't expect too many knights from the kingdom, well unless there's no cap on units in which case you'll see 1000 Points of Pegasus Knights + Other. Instead I expect a lot of Peasants, maybe 1-2 Foot Knight units, and then Pegasus Knights as well as Characters on Pegasus to actually hit hard and win the fights. Lance Formation after Lance Formation isn't imposing, but I like this new mixed arms style from a traditionally one-dimensional army. I'm happy to play with them this way instead of hurling Cavalry around and just seeing what happens, although if that's your heart's desire it's easily done.,
I'm happy that both my chosen factions allow me to do what I want to do on the tabletop, as well as providing the same opportunities to others. Playing a pincer force of peasants and flyers sounds awesome to me, as does a sneaky screen of expendable herds backed up by mounds of meat holding large swords. I'm eager to see the PDF armies on the 20th of January and get a feel for them, I'm also glad to see that the community at large has already rejected Games Workshop's foolish labelling of them as "Legacy". No one cares about official GW events anyways, they don't know how to run tournaments.
So that's the lightest of touches on Beastmen and Brettonians done. Next up I will work on faction breakdowns by type: Character, Core, Special, and Rare, hope you enjoyed reading.
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