‘Warhammer: The Old World’- The Beastmen Arcane Journal Is A Homerun

Beastmen have a new Arcane Journal for Warhammer: The Old World, and it’s really, really good!

Just the other week we were taking a look at the new Wood Elf Arcane Journal, which I thought was pretty good. Now we’ve already got our hands on another brand new book, the Beastmen Arcane Journal, with more books on the way! What a time to be an Old World player. And what a time to be a Beastmen player. If the Wood Elf journal was good, after several let down books, the Beastmen one is in the running for best AJ so far. This is a really solid book that adds a lot to the army and, like the newer books, seems a bit more aimed at the current game. So lets get down into the Beastmen Arcane Journal and what it does.

The Beastmen Armies of Infamy

Minotaur Blood Herd

Like the other books Beastmen get two Armies of Infamy. The first is the Minotaur Blood Herd. This army, as the name implies, focuses on minotaurs and punching things. You lose access to lvl 3-4s, chariots and most of the really big monsters for a major focus on the midsized bruisers.  For all those drawbacks this army can pack a real punch. And you get some really strong Doom/gorebulls- as not only can you general, if they are one, become a wizard, but all of the bull characters get access to Gifts of Chaos (from the WoC list) opening up some killer combos.

Wild Herd

The second Army of Infamy  is the Wild Herd. This focuses more on the other ends of the army, gors, chariots and some big things, with a lot less of the medium units. This list also has some interesting options, with access to the new Primal Magic lore, more ambush (meh) and it’s characters being able to spend more on magic items and mutations. It’s also got the Dark Coven rule – which allows a a wizard to add +1 to a cast or dispel roll for each friendly wizard in their command range. This has no max cap, so could lead to some crazy buffs. However any roll of a double is a miscast and ALL the wizards that are casting/buffing the spell suffer the effects. This seems like a hilarious rule, and I can’t wait to see like 8 wizards all explode at once.

An Improvement in The Armies

I think both of these Armies of Infamy are pretty decent. Unlike a lot of other books there isn’t one that is clearly good and one that is clearly bad. Both lead to some interesting builds and get some cool rules and combos. I think that since Beastmen don’t really have traditional cav, they didn’t fall into the trap of getting an army that lost all cav and just sucked.

There are also a few nice details in here that seem to show the design team is paying attention. For instance in both armies the number of Dragon Ogres you can take is very limited. This is likely a reaction to the trend of spamming single man/champion units of them.

The New Beastmen Characters

The book also comes two new characters.  The first is Kralmaw. he is a lvl 4 on foot, but not too pricy. He gets either Dark Magic or the new Primal magic. Other than that he’s not all that special. He’s got a 4+ ward, which is nice, gives enemies within 6 inches -1 LD and has a familiar that can cast Devolve as a bound spell, effetely giving him 5 spells. Kralmaw isn’t horrible and is a little cheaper than a fully tricked out normal lvl 4. He’s also got a few tricks to play with, such as the -1 LD. However, overall I do think he is just worse than a normal lvl 4 with Viletide/Hagtree fetish with is a really killer combo. As such I don’t think he will see a ton of play, but could work as a 2nd lvl 4.

Ghorros Warhoof is the second character. He’s a Centigor character and buffs those dudes in a couple of ways, but nothing super major. However at 155 pts he’s very affordable and does come with 4 S6 AP -1 D3 wound attacks, making him also a 2nd Ogre Blade. I think he’s cheap enough, fast enough, and high damage enough that you just might see him find a place in some lists.

New Beastmen Units – The Bad

It’s not just new characters, it’s also new units! First up is the Warped Gors. This unit is unique to the Wild Herd AoI (see above). They are basically a cross between Forsaken and Gors – with the normal Gor stat line but d3 attacks and getting random combat buffs. They also get either a shield (that adds to their armored hide (1) or an extra hand weapon for free, likely giving them d3+1 attacks.

However at S3 with with base ap 0 and at a whopping 16 pts a model this just isn’t that good. Sure one of their random buffs gives them AP -2, but its still going to be at S3 (and they don’t have bestial charge to buff this). Getting that is only a 1/3 chance anyway, with the others options being poison or +1 T. None of these are bad, but for that cost they are just too random and don’t hit hard enough. This unit just feels like a real miss to me.

Another miss seems like the new Preyton. They can be added to the Grand Army, but I’m not sure why you would want to. The Preyton is a 160 pts, so not cheap, and while it does have FLY (10) it doesn’t have swiftstride  so its not a super fast unit. It’s got 4 attacks of its own and only d3 impact hits, so pretty mediocre damage. These are all at S5 with ap 2 for its attacks a 1 for impact. It can cause some extra panic tests, but its pretty complicated, and random for this to happen, for little effect. Its also a large target with T5 and only 4 wounds and just a 5+ save. This thing dies to a stiff breeze. Sad for such a nice model.

New Beastmen Units – The Decent

On the other side of the new units you’ve got the Primal Warhounds/Ungor Ravagers. These are very very similar to the normal Chaos Warhounds and go in the Wild Herd army. They lose out on vanguard, but are better in combat with the Ungors adding some support and having some better rules and LD. It’s a decent enough unit.

Meanwhile the Primal Warherd, also for Wild Herds, is basically just a unit that combines Gors and Ungors into a Motley Crew unit. This unit is also… fine. You can maybe pull a few trick with it and it’s thematic. It’s not a powerhouse, but its not really actively worse then anything they have… so OK?

Look At the Stones On This Book

Switching back to a really good new… unit? We have the Herdstones. You can take o-1 as a special choice in any Beastmen Army (the Minotaurs also get one as core!) and they will run you 100 pts. The Herdstone is a special feature, as described in the rule book and so, it is terrain not a real unit. It can be placed anywhere outside of the enemy deployment zone and not within 6″ of the center of the table. If the Beastmen control it they get a number of nice rules.

First off, any unit, Beastmen or not, that controls it gets MR (1)- nice. Secondly if you control your own Herdstone all your friendly Beastmen within 12″ of the stone re-roll 1st to wound in combat. A nice buff. Thirdly if you control it your friendly Beastmen wizards within 12″ get +1 to cast and enemy wizards get -1 to cast, which is pretty sweet. Forth if you control your own Herdstone the enemy units within 12″ gets a -1  to LD for fear, panic or terror tests. On top of all that the controller of the Herd stone gets 200 vp at the end of the game.

That’s a really nice set of buffs. Just taking it denies the enemy 100 VPs, and safe placement can very likely net you another 200 and buff your wizards even if you don’t want to make use of anything else. A more aggressive placement can really mess with the enemy and force them to come to you, or give up a lot of points and buffs. All of the this makes the Herdstone not just good, but different and opens up new options for the game. I love this.

Beastmen Primal Magic

Primal Magic is the new lore that Beastmen get. Default all the wizards in the Wild Herd can take it. There is also a 15 super common item to allow other wizards access. This is a decent lore, but not as good as the Wood Elf Lore. The two stand outs to me are the Vortices.

Primordial Gloom is the signature spell and puts down the 3″ blast template. Enemies within 6″ take a -1 to LD and treat open ground as difficult. This is a decent spell that can mess with the enemy and LD debuffs can be good.

‘Neath The Shaden Wodespan drops the 5 inch template out and blocks LOS as well as counting as dangerous terrain. Enemy units within 6 inches of it take a -2 to their BS and if they end movement within 3 inches they have to take a panic test. That’s a lot! and a lot of different ranges. This can really mess with enemy shooting, but it’s 15 inch range, which does mean you’ll have to move up a bit to really use it.

Outside of these two you’ve got some generical damage, buff and debuff spells, but nothing super crazy. I think it’s a useful lore but not an auto take and not one that is game breaking.

The Best Magic Items In The Game

Lastly we’ve got the Beastmen’s new Magic items and I’m not kidding when I say this is likely the best set of magic items we’ve ever seen. There is an insane amount of really good items here, and a number of must takes. It’s pretty crazy. This section really deserves it’s own dedicate deep dive so I’ll just mention a few of my favorites.

The Items

• Chaos Armour – yep- Beastmen now get access to Choas Armour as a super common item. 40 pts for full plate and 30 pts for heavy. Comes with the 5+ ward and allows you to still cast. This is a pretty nice buff for the generally low armor Beastmen.
• Chalice of Dark Rain – At 50 pts and one use only, it’s not cheap. But when you use it for a turn enemy war machines can’t fire and all other enemy shooting halves it range. Used early you can basically deny the enemy a shooting phase, which is huge.*cries in gunline*
• Banner of the Warped Moon – for 45 pts you’ve got a banner that copies the famous Falcon Horn. Take an LD test and shut down all enemy flying. So good. I’m a huge fan of this and you’ll likely see it all the time.
• Cacophonous Dirge – 15 pts to basically turn off enemy musicians within 18 inches. Maybe not the hugest impact but pretty nifty and cheap. The Beastmen really are the anti-army, shutting down shooting and magic and fly and even musicians and making the enemy come and punch them.
• Daemon Heart – lastly we’ve got this Arcane Item. It’s 30 pts and lets a wizard, when attempting to dispel, always count as being 1 lvl higher than the enemy wizard. So a lvl 1 wizard attempting to dispell vs a lvl 4, counts as a lvl 5 for that attempt. This is a great item to let you run wizard light and still have decent magic defense. It really helps buff out the Mino Blood Herd army. I suspect you’ll see this a lot.

Overall this is just the surface of their awesome magic item list, and it helps rounds out a very very good book.

Let us know what you think about this new book, down in the comments! 

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.

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