GW released a bombshell of new FAQs today, covering errata for the core book and lengthy FAQs for each faction. And as always, we’ve got you covered with the rundown of what’s changed and what it means for your games. In this series of Hot Take articles, we’ll be covering the changes and our initial reactions to them but for more detailed analysis, check back over the next two weeks as we dive deeper into how these changes affect the game and its factions.
The only real changes Beasts of Chaos sees is the same as any faction with a terrain piece and endless spells, with each spell seeing rewrites and the terrain piece now being set up before forces within your own territory.
The Good
- Ravening Direflock: Of the endless spell changes this one sees a boost, casting only on a 5 and being set up within 12” of the caster (the three pieces set up within 3” of each other) it now projects a 12” aura of non-Beasts of Chaos not being allowed to issue the Rally or Inspiring Presence commands. Getting this down in the right spot stopping a Rally the next hero phase can be huge when stopping things like 18 Glutton Ogor mobs from getting models back.
The Either Or
- The Herdstone: It’s a bit tough to get a lot of use out of now, in matched play games, needing to go entirely within your own territory and most territories now being a smaller section of the board instead of half of it are all negative. However at the same time it no longer has the negative of having to be 12” from your opponents territory so in some scenarios it wins, in others it loses. The Warscroll is otherwise unchanged though, still giving off a 6” aura that grows 6” large each turn, causing enemy units to be -1 save and your own units immune to battleshock. The big thing isn’t really part of the FAQ but worth saying, that with Monsters ability to destroy the warscroll rules off of a faction terrain piece means you don’t want this to be front and centre…while you need it to be able to get the most effect from it.
The Ugly
- Wildfire Taurus: This thing is expensive now. As one of the only endless spells over 100 points (clocking in at 110) it’s hard to justify in a list to begin with, especially with how easy it now is for endless spells to be removed (by non-wizard characters even!) and now the strike-last rule (fights end of combat phase after everything else) applies to ALL units within 3” of it (including your own units) making it tougher to place as well. Why it effects your own units at this cost is beyond me, but at least with how endless spells work now you should be able to control its movement every turn instead of it maybe just turning back against you the next turn.
Overall, Beasts only really see changes to their Endless Spells and the Herdstone. Still not the strongest army until they get a new book, however with more command points and ways to get +1 to hit through them, along with Monsters taking a big step up in the world they might actually see some more use. The Herdston at least will be able to continue to summon units if destroyed by an enemy monster, since that ability isn’t part of its Warscroll, so that’s something. We’ll have to wait and see how they shape up.
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