Beast Pack Classes – Late Registration

Hide you kids, hide your wives, cause the Beast Pack is hitting tourney scenes around the world big time – and you need to know how to deal with it!

Oliver here, once again on the school bench, this time learning lessons about the Big Boy on the tourney scene – the Deldar Beast Pack.

Since moving to England, I have become more and more familiar with the till now almost completely British phenomenon known has the “Beast Pack list”. England’s own Josh Roberts is winning tournaments left and right with this list, and in the recent LVO over in the US, 2 out of the top 8 finalists were running the BP. Ergo anyone on the tournament scene will need to know how to deal with it..

So first things first, let’s have a look at what I’m actually talking about. Just like any Death Star list, there are quite a few versions of the Beast Pack list. The Beast Pack itself though, usually looks the same:

Eldrad

Farseer, Jetbike, Shard of Anaris, Runes of Witnessing

Baron Sathonyx

5 Beastmasters, 25 Khymera

The idea here is that Eldrad and the Farseer primarily go for Fortune, and thereafter Invisibility, getting lots of other juicy powers in the process. In order to maximize durability and size, most players are now going for the 25 Khymera, rather than a few Razorwing flocks. The unit has a HUGE footprint (32 models, all on terminator bases), and with fortune (and maybe invisibilty) it can be a real PITA to kill.

The Death Star itself clocks in at 840 points. Let’s put this into perspective by comparing it to some of the other Death Stars on the scene:

·         QuadHerald Screamerstar: 790 points  + 300 point Fatey “tax” = 1090

·         O’vesa Star = 850 – 900 points

·         Farsight Bomb w. Loth = 1150 points

·         Jetseer Council = 850-900 points

As you can see, it is right in there pointswise with the other big Death Stars. However, compared to the other units described above, the Beast Pack’s gigantic size allows it to basically hit any part of the board it wants to, moving 12" a turn and charging with Fleet. But more on that later....

This leaves the BP list with about 1k points to spend on the rest of the army. There are a few options to go for here, but usually it looks something like this:

4 x 3 Jetbikes

2 units of Swooping Hawks / Warp Spiders

2 Wraithknights

5 DE Warriors

The things to note about this setup is: 1. The Wraithknights are another PITA which have to be dealt with at some point, as they are not nice to have in your backfield – most BP players will use them aggressively to draw fire from the BP.  2. The definition of CLUTCH, the Jetbikes. These guys ensure that even though you as an opponent manage to deal with the killy parts of the list, the BP player will have last turn scoring units that move 48”.

Let’s move on to my own experiences with the list, playing against it with the O’vesa Star. Since Cally, I’ve been running the following list:

Primary: Farsight Enclaves

Farsight

O’vesa

Commander, M3S, C&C node, PENchip, VRT

Riptide, Ion, SMS, EWO, TL

Riptide, Ion, SMS, EWO, TL

Riptide, HBC, SMS, EWO, TL, Talisman of 4D6 deny, 2 Shielded Missile Drones

3 Crisis, 3 Flamers

Solo Crisis 4 times

10 Kroot

Sky Ray, BSF

Sky Ray, BSF

Sky Ray, BSF

Vs. Josh Robert's Beast Pack

So in the the games I’ve had against the Beast Pack, I’ve managed to deduce that the list has issues vs. it. Throughout Cally, I found that my army generally had problems against lists with “killable” CC units running at me (i.e. Wraiths, Spawn, Plague Drones) as I lack some statistical, high volume shooting. This problem is reflected in the BP matchup as I have very little options in case I want to go for the Beasts.

Now against a “normal” Death Star the strategy would be simple – ignore it and kill everything, making sure

that the Death Star can only kill one unit a turn… And this is what I have tried to do, both in my games vs. Josh Roberts and VenBro on the blog. Focus on the Wraithknights from the start, and then the Troops when they enter. But this hasn’t worked out very well, as I’ve had to give up both games come T4. Now the sample size of games is not very big, but I think I am able to draw some overarching conclusions:

vs. VenBros Beast Pack 

The strategy mentioned above, which usually is the go-to option, doesn’t work due to the size of the BP. In the game vs. Ven, he basically managed to spread out so far that it enabled him to charge units that were 24” or even more apart. Even though I managed to use the O’vesaStar quite effectively to block him off, it still wasn’t enough to prevent him from charging a Sky Ray a turn along with the star. And once the star did crumble under the weight of attacks + various psychic powers, the rest of my army was very exposed…

So it’s time to hit the drawing board again. In order to get the volume of firepower I need, I’m adding in a maxed-out pack of Broadsides. This should help me to deal with not only the BP, but pretty much any unit in the game that will go down to weight of fire. Now, if I want to keep the 3 Sky Rays in the list, I would need to drop 2 Riptides. I am very reluctant to do this, as the option of putting a BurstTide OR IonTide in the O’vesaStar is too good to let go off in my opinion.

Dropping one of the Iontides and a Sky Ray while adding in the Broads gives me about 50 points to spare. Having removed the Sky Ray, I am lacking some Marker Lights – so I’ll upgrade the 3man Crisis squad to: 3 Crisis, Drone Controller, 6 Marker Drones. The Buffcommander will also get a Drone Controller, giving me the option to join him to the unit to buff the Drones.

Now in order to do this, I’ve had to remove one Solo Suit. However, my next tourney, Death or Glory, is running a straight Win/Loss/Draw format with book missions. This means that troops will not be as necessary as in Cally, where there were 5 objectives in every game. The 0-20 system also meant that you hqd to capture a lot of objectives if you wanted big wins - which isn't the case at DoG.Furthermore, I have had to remove the EWO on the BurstTide, a necessary evil...

So the new list is:

PRIMARY DETACHMENT: Farsight Enclaves – a Codex: Tau Empire Supplement

HQ1 (Warlord): Commander Farsight (165) = [165]

HQ 1.1: Farsight Command Team: O’vesa (305) = [305]

Elite1 : XV104 Riptide (180), Ion Accelerator (5), Twin-linked Smart Missile System (0), Early Warning Override (5), Target Lock (5) = [195]

Elite 3 : XV104 Riptide (180), Twin-linked Smart Missile System (0), Target Lock (5), Talisman of Arthas Moloch (25), 2 Shielded Missile Drones = [265]

Troop 1 : XV8 Crisis Team : 3 Crisis Shas’ui (66) , Drone Controller (8), Bonding Knives (3x1), 6 Marker Drones = [149]

Troop 3 : XV8 Crisis Team : 1 Crisis Shas’ui (22), Bonding Knife (1) = [23]

Troop 3 : XV8 Crisis Team : 1 Crisis Shas’ui (22), Bonding Knife (1) = [23]

Troop 4 : XV8 Crisis Team : 1 Crisis Shas’ui (22), Bonding Knife (1) = [23]

HS1: Sky Ray (115), Twin-linked Smart Missile system (0), Blacksun filter (1) = [116]

HS2: Sky Ray (115), Twin-linked Smart Missile system (0), Blacksun filter (1) = [116]]

ALLIED DETACHMENT: Codex: Tau Empire

HQ1 : Commander (85), Command and Control Node (15), Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite (20), Puretide Engram Neurochip (15), Vectored Retro-Thrusters (5), Drone Controller = [148]

Troop 1 : 10 Kroot (60) = [60]

HS1: Broadside Team: 3 Broadsides (195), 6 Missile Drones (72) = [267]

ARMY TOTAL [1850]

So to close off, I’ve ran some numbers on what the list can do vs. the Beast Pack. Now my strategy is to join Batman to the Marker Drones, allowing me to hit the BP one 2’s with the O’vesaStar and the Broadside Pack. I am assuming that the BP player is using his 4++ with fortune agains my shooting, i.e. that he either hasn’t gotten invisibilty, or that I with the Markers on the Sky Rays am able to ignore cover as well.

Broadsides + Missile Drones = 7.7 dead Khymera

O’vesa Star with BurstTide joined:

With Nova on BurstTide = 7 dead Khymera

Without Nova on BurstTide = 6 dead Khymera

• Total O’vesa + Broads = 14-15 dead Khymera

If I decide to fire off Skyrays as well (assuming hitting on 2’s against 4++ with fortune)

2 Sky Rays = 5 dead Khymera

• Total O’vesa + Broads + Skyrays = 18 dead Khymera.

Now THAT will seriously cripple the Beast Pack. With some bubble-wrapping with the O’vesaStar (which is joined by Batman T2 onwards to provide Stubborn) I should be able to prevent the BP from charging the Broadsides, allowing me to finish them off after HitnRunning out. This does mean that the WKs will be in amongst me come mid-game  - but they can only kill one unit a turn, and the O’vesa Star will hopefully make it into late game to finish at least one of them off…. 

Seems promising on paper, now it's all about making it happen on the table ;)

Alright, that’s me for this time! Hope you enjoyed the article, and do please comment on your experiences with or against the Beast Pack!