HQ25 monster stats and abilities #2 the Beastman

[Count Mohawk]

From what I have read about them I think maybe these options are not tough enough. Gor are used as heavy shock troops. This to me says they should have sick attack, and marginal defend. I don't know the Warhammer system, so the numbers made no sense to me, but the spirit of the beast is easily enough to convey.
These guys are hard hitters. The way they work is they don't often need to defend as they kill before the enemy has a chance to respond.
Some like to use shock troops as a softener against larger enemy positions, or to weaken enemy morale; but in my opinion which is often not so humble, this type of unit is best reserved for small engagements to take a marginally defended enemy position and hold it for a short time. Or to pacify an enemy population of civilians with a show of gruesome force. When they show up it is a slaughterfest.
...
Max occurring in a HQ Dungeon setting should probably be 1-5 soldiers. The need for balance must be preserved. And beastmen like to be out in the open anyways. Not many would be cool with living in a dungeon.

Interesting thoughts. I didn't know Warhammer had some establish lore for Gors, so I'd been comparing them to their appearance in the game Battlemasters, which I believe is also set in the same world as Hero Quest. In that game, they have a middling combat strength of 3 dice and occupy two of the Chaos army's 14 baseplates with 5 units each (or 6 baseplates with the addition of the "Chaos Warband" expansion, which would make them the most common piece fielded by the Chaos player by a landslide). The advantage afforded by their superior numbers is offset somewhat by their poor speed, with only 6 of the 33 Chaos army cards depicting them. Contrast 11 Goblins, 13 Wolf Riders, etc. Even Orcs are faster with 7 cards.

Even if we assume the Beastmen are meant to be powerful, elite fighters, however, the existence of the Minotaur as a stronger monster in the same class turns me off from making them too much stronger than the otherwise-comparable Fimir. Given that they will most likely have an ability granting them extra attacks in certain situations, even a stat line as low as 4 Atk / 2 Def / 3 Body makes them effectively miniature Polar Warbears, and everybody knows how strong those are! I can't remember the storyline we decided on for HQ25 off the top of my head; is this the direction we want to take the Beastmen?

[cynthialee]

I am not adverse to monsters having similar or the same numbers in things.
With only a few things to take into consideration we are going to end with similar stats on monsters.
Not every monster needs to have unique points, it is the extras, lore, number appearing, tactics and the cosmetics that help differentiate the monsters with similar stats.

[Goblin-King]

Been giving it a little more thought...

I think the counter attack ability should actually trigger every time the beastman is attacked, regardless of whether he is wounded or not (maybe even whether he is killed or not?).
Reasons is that he is easy enough to kill. It wouldn't trigger by spells or crossbow either. For the ability to trigger it would require someone attacking in melee AND not killing him. I think that's too rare a trigger.

I propose:
At: 4, De: 2, Bp 2 - Counter attack every time he is attacked in melee.

Fierce fighters - easy to kill

[knightkrawler]

Now I never played Warhammer and I only know the Gors from reading up on them when I got my hands on some miniatures of them. They looked pretty awesome so I incorporated them into my games.
From what I have read about them I think maybe these options are not tough enough. Gor are used as heavy shock troops. This to me says they should have sick attack, and marginal defend. I don't know the Warhammer system, so the numbers made no sense to me, but the spirit of the beast is easily enough to convey. These guys are hard hitters. The way they work is they don't often need to defend as they kill before the enemy has a chance to respond.
Some like to use shock troops as a softener against larger enemy positions, or to weaken enemy morale; but in my opinion which is often not so humble, this type of unit is best reserved for small engagements to take a marginally defended enemy position and hold it for a short time. Or to pacify an enemy population of civilians with a show of gruesome force. When they show up it is a slaughterfest.

Rethinking it:
Move: 8
Attack: 4 +1 per adjacent allied Gor. (yes this is sick and properly so I posit)
Defend: 2 (Champion: 3)
Body: 4 (Shaman: 3) (Champion: 5)
Mind: 2 (Shaman: 5) (Champion: 3)
Give the Shaman the Ork Shaman Spells and where it says Ork, insert Beastman.
Max occurring in a HQ Dungeon setting should probably be 1-5 soldiers. The need for balance must be preserved. And beastmen like to be out in the open anyways. Not many would be cool with living in a dungeon.

No bonus to the Champions attack as it is sick already and a champion will probably have soldiers with him.

In regards to Gors in Warhammer, the numbers themselves don't make much sense. There's not much difference to Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs... It's in the special rules where they glean their character from. Quite a few ideas from us nail that for taking them into HQ.

[Anderas]

Was voting for i). That's basically an improved orc with 2 BP, which is good: The original orc dies too fast. This improved orc will be around long enough to attack sometimes. The low defense also reflects the fact that the Beastmen normally don't have armor.

This makes a room with Beastmen quite a strong enemy for a new group. Intermediate groups won't wave him away also, only for very experienced groups you need something else. Let's say, this Monster will stay monstrous a long time; and obsolescence will come in the late game only. That's good.

For the special ability, i was voting for the short Bow. If you have ranged combat involved, you always force the Heroes to move fast, without any other trick needed. That is good for the game.


I don't like second attacks at all, especially out-of-order second attacks: They can easily double the "slaying cost"; and a 2BP Orc is already something that is quite costly! Thus, i think that second attacks should be reserved for very very special Monsters. Strengthwise, with a second attack, be it out of order or not, the Beastman is very close to a US Mummy. With the out of order attack, it gets Stronger than a US Mummy for green groups and less strong than a US Mummy for experienced groups with lots of attack dice. Good Monster stats behave the other way round, they scale up when the Heroes get stronger. Or at least they stay the same.
So if you want to have another Monster that is stronger (the Minotaur); then this one should be moved a little bit more down to the Kobold-bottom-line, for example by not giving him two attacks. (Or another Monster is being invented to fill the Gap)

[Daedalus]

I added some choices to reflect recent suggestions, plus a none ability:

j) Mv:7 At:4 De:2 BP:2 MP:2 (AD bumped up one)
k) Mv:8 At:4 De:2 BP:4 MP:2
D) Ability: none (already unique enough as statted)
J) Ability: may counter attack every time it is attacked in melee
K) Ability: +1 AD for every adjacent Beastman

Unfortunately, I reset a poll again. Here's the original poll results as they stood on 10/09:

a) Mv:8 At:2 De:2(2) BP:1 MP:1 . . . . . 0 / No votes
b) Mv:6 At:3 De:3 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . . . 1 / 5%
c) Mv:5 At:4 De:5 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . . . 0 / No votes
d) Mv:8 At:4 De:2 BP:3 MP:2 . . . . . . . 1 / 5%
e) Mv:7 At:2+2 De:2 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . 1 / 5%
f) Mv:7 At:2+2 De:3 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . 0 / No votes
g) Mv:6 At:3 De:2 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . . . 1 / 5%
h) Mv:7 At:3 De:3 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . . . 0 / No votes
i) Mv:7 At:3 De:2 BP:2 MP:2 . . . . . . . 6 / 30%
A) Ability: short bow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 / 5%
E) Ability: may attack twice or once with 4 AD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 / No votes
F) Ability: 2 attacks with both defendable or one 4 AD attack . . . . 0 / No votes
G) Ability: +1 AD if no move (heavy attack) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 / No votes
H) Ability: immediate counter-attack when BP are reduced to 1 . . . 7 / 35%
I) Ability: attack same target twice if don't move . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 / 10%

We could just use choice i and choice H, or we could all vote anew with the ammended poll and choose from there. I'm for voting with the new poll, as it addresses the concerns of several members that the above results don't reflect.

[cornixt]

in my opinion there are too many options that are all only slightly different from each other. There are too few voters to get a particularly meaningful result. Plus, the stats and abilities are being considered independent of each other, but they really heavily dependent. There is a huge difference between high base stats and weak ability, versus low base stats and strong ability. Choosing c or d makes E and F almost pointless.

[Anderas]

I voted for a Beastman with AT3 DE2 BP2 no extras this time. With 4 Attack dice i would still think he'd be ok, however, not preferred by me.



I don't think there are too many choices... if again after some days we rethink our votes among the most popular, the result will be quite clear.

[knightkrawler]

I voted the 4 AD without special ability combo. It's the easiest and simplest solution hitting Beastmanity's nail on the head.

[Daedalus]

in my opinion there are too many options that are all only slightly different from each other. There are too few voters to get a particularly meaningful result. Plus, the stats and abilities are being considered independent of each other, but they really heavily dependent. There is a huge difference between high base stats and weak ability, versus low base stats and strong ability. Choosing c or d makes E and F almost pointless.

Have you checked out the discussion links of the original post? It's an index of all statted Beastman and Beastman abilities made by Inn members since the HQ 25 project started. The poll's lower-case and upper-case letters are matched and linked to their original discussions found in the original threads. The poll is best interpreted through this letter pairing. For instance, a) Mv:8 At:2 De:2(2) BP:1 MP:1 is paired with A) Ability: short bow to reflect knightkrawler's original Beastman suggestion quoted below:

1. Choose your monsters for the 25th Quest Pack

• Beastman (Warrior)
  Ungor
  a) Mv:8 At:2 De:2(2) BP:1 MP:1, short bow

Of course, members are free to break apart these pairings in favor of perceived improvements. I split apart stats from abilities so this would be possible, but stats and abilities had originally been presented together. The first results posted by me on 10/9 reflect the original poll design pretty closely, with only DD changing from 3 to 2 as a result of splitting off abilities.

I agree with you that an undesirable stat and ability combination is possible. Should a meaningful result elude us due to split opinions or lack of votes, it may be necessary to offer a best-of selection of stats and abilities matched together again in various combinations. Another solution is for the project directors to make a call taking into account the latest discussion and votes.