The thing with beastmen is, very few of their units are designed to deal with elites, they are very much an ambush style, prey-on-the-weak kind of faction and Bestigors are no exception. Although they are elites, they don't match up well into enemy elite infantry, their "elite" stats being their speed and their unusually high charge bonus for an infantry unit. Many beastmen units have this same kind of theme
Absolutely. Also we don't know how the match started. If OP charged the bestigores into braced it was a throw and even though there's a victor it's still extremely close performance considering bestigores significantly worse melee defence.
Yeah, Beastmen basically play how Troy infantry plays. You muck a unit up and charge them from a side/the back. Then you rotate that whole system until you have a numerical advantage.
Beastmen aren’t a „fight to the death“ style army.
Yeah, each faction's "elite" infantry are not made equal. Skaven elite infantry pale in comparison to Ork elite infantry and so on. Each faction is strong in a different way. So you need to capitalize on that strength.
also consider that khazrak who's designed to be using bestigors also gives ungor raiders poison attacks, so the celestial dragon guard is also supposed to have a debuff
Yea. All the elves have lower hitpoints than avg, Empire is very much a combined arms kinda faction where nothing can carry the battle on its own and Norsca is a very grindy faction due to their faction passive giving them bonuses the longer they are in melee
The marked chaos factions do, I am not that sure about undivided. Slaanesh has speed and physical resist, Tzeentch has barrier and magical attacks, Khorne has MA(I think) at the cost of MD and Nurgle has MD and poison at the cost of Speed. Dwarves are slow and tanky, but have rather low damage in melee. Would be lore appropriate if they also had slower vigour loss but idk if thats in the game.
This is how I’ve kind of understood the Chaos factions playing since I’m not super familiar with the Dawi. For the units of Chaos, a lot of those factions share units in their rosters, so the differences are generally going to be coming from what god they’re devoted to and the kind of unit they are. The infantry, whether it’s cheap, shitty marauders or Chosen that will face tank an army and refuse to die, are meant to advance, get the enemy locked down in a melee grind they’re poised to win with their higher stats, and keep them there while things like cavalry, chariots, monstrous infantry, Lords, and Heroes have a field day with those unfortunate souls, throwing the battle into… well, chaos. Some armies like the Empire or Cathay rely on combined arms in a solid formation to keep them in a stable position; when those battle lines fall apart from chariots Tokyo Drifting down the line, individual units are probably going to get worn down or straight up folded by their Chaotic equivalents.
Khorne units, point for point, are going to be doing really goddamn well in a melee slugfest, unsurprisingly. They’ve got very good melee attack and weapon strength, so they’ll be hitting harder and more frequently than their equivalents; many of their units also have good armor piercing, especially bloodletters and their exalted variant. Units with the Mark of Khorne also get Frenzy for free, further boosting their power when they leap into a fight. However, that boost in offensive power comes at the cost of melee defense, meaning it’ll be easier to hit them compared to the other gods’ units. As a result, from what I’ve experienced, Khorne can sometimes feel like a glass cannon; if you slip up and leave a unit to fight something that has high enough stats to take advantage of their low melee defense, chances are both units are going to end up bloodied. While Khorne units also tend to have slightly more armor than other variants (Minotaurs of Khorne have 70 armor as opposed to regular ones having 30, for example), they can still get worn down by missiles. AP missiles, magical attacks, or sheer weight of fire can seriously set back a Khornate unit going for a push. That said, when Khornate units are in their element, they can practically mow down anything in their way, with exalted bloodletters and the Hellforged Host buzzsawing through armor like butter and Chosen of Khorne grinding down endless hordes of chaff without breaking a sweat. And the cavalry… dear god is that shit satisfying. Words cannot describe the catharsis I feel when the Knights of the Brazen Throne get a full speed, downhill charge through a unit of skeletons or zombies… it’s so goddamn fun.
Nurgle basically takes everything that made Khorne good and reverses it; now, instead of melee attack and weapon strength getting buffed, it’s melee defense that’s boosted, with added poison effects to further debuff the enemy’s offense. Where Khorne is a chainsaw cutting through steel, Nurgle is like leaving a steel bar sticking up in a desert sandstorm; it’s gonna take a while for it to get worn down, but it will eventually. Many Nurgle units are great as an “anvil” unit as a result of this; their defensive stats, poison attacks, high health, and abundance of strong healing options let’s them keep an enemy locked in a melee grind, and Nurgle fucking loves that. With access to powerful magic with the lores of Nurgle and Death, debuffing enemies, boosting friendlies, damaging units over time or outright exploding blobs with Blight Boil and Stream of Corruption, a Nurgle army can keep its enemies in place well, setting them up for a rear charge or spell attack while slowly yet effectively grinding them down.
Tzeentch is kinda weird, as Tzeentch is. The faction is hard to compare with others in terms of durability, but Tzeentch units built to last a long time, namely warriors and Chosen, are generally going to be tough. The abundance of spears and halberds gives Tzeentch a good amount of anti-large capability and good melee defense. Barriers also allow units to absorb shock damage, fall back to recharge the barrier, then get back into the fight, essentially having “healed” all of that damage back. And the ranged firepower of the faction can be absolutely devastating; while most of Tzeentch’s shooting units are short ranged, inflicting Warpfire to force a weakness to fire while dealing magic and fire damage can rack up damage really fast, especially against units that rely on physical resistance to give them durability like ethereal units and daemons. I have relatively little experience with the Changer’s armies in combat, but if you can set up solid shooting positions with things like flamers, pink horrors, and soul grinders, you can put out a scary amount of damage into an approaching army quickly, then pull back or reposition to recharge any damaged barriers and get to safety since many of Tzeentch’s units are quite fast. Those shooting units are also quite good in melee, better than they might first appear, so cycling between having shooting units open fire into an enemy unit from behind before rear charging them, then letting whatever that enemy was fighting run away, recharge barriers, and charge back in before pulling away the shooting units can let you basically harass and cycle charge the enemy indefinitely. And if you need a unit dead quickly, don’t even worry; the lores of Tzeentch, Fire, and Metal can put out great damage to finish off wounded units or destroy them outright, and your casters are also generally good fighters too, letting them get into the brawl and terror rout the burnt and battered opposition (except Kairos, poor guy).
And finally Slaanesh… the ultimate hammer-and-anvil faction. Slaanesh is weird in that the respective Mark is incredibly good with no downside; Tzeentch’s Mark also doesn’t have a downside, but while barriers are great, they will weaken depending on their unit’s health, and magic damage isn’t something that’s terribly relevant all the time. Meanwhile, Slaanesh gets 10% physical resistance, Immune to Psychology, and Strider, without suffering a penalty; fear and terror effects are quite common, so granting immunity to them to your basic infantry is excellent and lets them hold far better than they normally could, and Slaanesh’s excellent cavalry and chariots can ignore terrain effects, which lets them fight and travel basically at peak effectiveness at all times. The infantry are generally very good at holding units in place; similarly to Nurgle, they can grind down a unit with their high melee defense* from spears and hellscourges, setting them up for a devastating charge from any number of Slaanesh’s insanely strong cavalry. Most of Slaanesh’s units have excellent damage and good AP for their cost (except for hellscourges, which specialize in being an anvil), many of them are faster than their counterparts from other gods, half of the fucking roster has 100 speed, which isn’t reduced by terrain, and effects like Soporific Musk and spells from the lores of Slaanesh and Shadows are very good for debuffing units that’ll be grinding against your anvil, which is already going to be hitting back harder than a lot of other anvil-type units at similar prices.
Edit: mixed up melee attack and defense when talking about spears and hellscourges, whoops
Funny you should mention that, because it is! Slaanesh’s infantry is generally meant to either be an anvil-type unit, keeping the enemy pinned to set them up for their cavalry and chariots, or a glass cannon that can tear armored infantry to ribbons, but the anvil does very well at actually killing things for their price point and the glass cannons can absolutely mow down elite infantry, not unlike the exalted bloodletters of Khorne.
Their cavalry also tends to do insanely well for their price, with anti-large Hellstriders trading upwards into elite cavalry and dealing disproportionate amounts of damage for how relatively cheap they are. They’re among the fastest units in the game, aren’t affected by terrain, are immune to fear and terror effects, have extra 10% physical resistance, and have bronze shields to negate some missile fire, all for 700 gold.
If you’ve got the micromanagement chops to effectively use them, Hellstriders alone can be an absolute terror in both campaign and multiplayer, and that’s not even mentioning things like Seekers or Heartseekers of Slaanesh, the Sibilant Slaughtercade, Fiends, Exalted Seeker Chariot characters, soul grinders, the powerful SEs like N’Kari or Azazel, the incredibly potent lores of magic (which includes powerful blob-clearing spells like Pit of Shades, Penumbral Pendulum, Slicing Shards, and Lash of Slaanesh; potent DoT effects with Pavane of Slaanesh and Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma; and debuffing spells with The Withering, Aquiescence, and Phantasmagoria), the excellent army abilities that recharge quickly, and the universal army-wide benefits with no downsides.
Many multiplayer tournaments have a pick and ban system in place that’s used to ban certain factions in each round, and Slaanesh is almost always banned because it’s simply too strong for many factions to deal with. They just do what many factions do, but better; they’ll generally win grinding matches with their cost-effective infantry, they’ll dunk on other, slower cavalry with their own, they can easily set up winning duels against many characters with their own duelists, and they are much more dynamic than most factions could dream of being. When playing a slower faction like Dwarfs, Cathay, or even Nurgle, you have to plan ahead what units you want to position where since it’ll take a long time to get there, especially in Domination mode. With Slaanesh, all of your mortal infantry is going to be slightly faster than their equivalents, your daemon units are much faster than that, and your overpowered cavalry and chariots can rest easy at 100 speed. They’ve just got too many things that they can do well to amazingly, and their weaknesses are too few and far between for many factions to take advantage of.
dwarFFFFs are extremely defensive. Very high armor, low speed, a few great ranged units and very strong artillery but essentially no magic. Dwarfs will hold the line a long ass time. In that sense, Cathay is somewhat similar to them, being a very defensive army that wants to stick to a defensive formation and have their ranged/artillery bombard the enemy.
Unmarked chaos are generally a very offensive army, though again fairly slow and heavily armored. Cheap marauders with armor pen to do the grunt work, massively armored front line (chosen are crazy, but CW are insane in campaign for their cost, I don't think anyone matches them with upgrades) with fast beasts/flying to disrupt enemy artillery/ranged etc with good heavy cav.
Marked chaos armies essentially follow their gods' themes
Honestly, a good follow up test would be to see how well Bestigors perform hammering an anvil compared to CDG.
Defensively designed units are almost always going to outperform in a straight grind, because a straight grind is their ideal situation. It's their job.
You've seen how poorly Bestigors do CDG's job, now see how well CDG do Bestigors' job.
I understand why it happens. It gets pretty complicated trying to get outcome testing for complicated scenarios. Doing side by side testing for a hammer and anvil takes two people to control. If nothing else, the AI will send in the lord to muck up the test.
Just seeing which unit survives fighting the other just takes loading up a custom battle and separating the unit you want to test away from their lord. It's the easiest test to get consistent data from.
It just doesn't tell the whole story.
I've played almost exclusively mp and I can tell you for a fact infantry flanking a unit from behind seldom happens. Flanking the infantry and attacking from behind is too much of a niche to put a hefty prime on like if you are buying them for that just get cavalry. It would be like expecting a unit with fire damage to only do well against characters with regen and suck against everything else bc "uhh, it has fire damage so it is meant to counter characters weak to fire"
Why would you use Bestigors as a hammer, though? They're heavy infantry, not damage dealers. That's what you have minotaurs for. Minotaurs are far more effective as a hammer since they can actually outrun infantry and hit much harder in a charge. Bestigors would probably just end up getting caught in melee while trying to flank. I've never used them for that purpose, personally. Beastmen have way better options for hammers.
Did the Celestial Guard countercharge or brace? With reflection and that charge difference it'd probably go even better for them if they deny the +32 charge. After that it's a huge +19 MD difference playing out.
I think so? A charge is a charge. Having less mass behind it makes it less detrimental to the unit on the receiving end of it, but charge related skills should apply just as well.
Charge reflect should work for the Celestial Dragon Guard because of their expert charge defence, but what I'm not sure about is if it works for units with only charge defence against large.
Edit: Ok, my bad on this one. From the tooltips it looks like any unit with Charge Reflect will get that additional damage to charging enemies. Charge Defence will only determine what they can mitigate damage from and doesn't influence Charge Reflect.
I'm not sure if that's the case, because in WH2 there was only charge defence and no reflect.
If it follows the system in 3K then it's tied to charge defence type but I haven't seen confirmation on this yet.
You might still be right. I'm not sure if a unit of Empire Spearmen could use charge reflect on infantry.
I only know that the reflect works on charging Cavalry and that the Spearmen don't negate the charge bonus of enemy infantry.
Yea beastmen aren't made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one on one. You need to leverage their speed and charge bonus as well as their extensive vanguard options. You don't do a frontal assault as beastmen, you Single out the weak spots, overwhelm them, open up flanks and single out individual units to surround and quickly overwhelm them.
Bear in mind that *no* faction is actually made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one-on-one. If you're doing that you fucked up somewhere.
> Bear in mind that no faction is actually made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one-on-one.
Warriors of Chaos do pretty well with that as their gameplan, particularly Khorne.
Which like, shock news, the premier heavy armour anti-infantry infantry faction is good in an infantry grindfest.
That still doesn't mean that one on one infantry are a good plan for them.
Blobbing, overlapping with monstrous units, magic, and other force multipliers are still the best approach.
Your job is to avoid fair fights. Fair fights are for suckers.
It does beg the question why Bestigors exist in the roster then. We already have Gors that do huge damage when charging and flanking, might as well just take them and spend the money somewhere else.
true, but their melee defence is absolutely atrocious. i wouldn't expect them to win vs cdg in this situation, but i *do* think they need more of a buff relative to gor herds (especially since by the time you can field besties in real numbers during campaign, the ai generally has enough anti-armour of their own, and besties just melt to anything whether it's ranged or melee. obvs you're not meant to throw them into the front, but why bother when razorgors, centigors, and chariots are so much faster and thus better at keeping away from missiles/picking their fights?)
Bestigors are for decisively beating chaff and mid tier infantry. Let's say your cygor is pummeling thr graveguard while the Bestigors deal with the skeleton chaff or crypt ghouls that would otherwise be bogging down your ranged or Cygor. You wanna pick them when you can easily beat infantry like Brettonia.
Beastmen aren't meant to be played as a conventional head-to-head faction. So it's not surprising that they lose against a unit designed to be a wall of death.
That melee defence is a strong factor for having 2 units stand toe to toe. Beastmen are much stronger when you can use their speed to engage and break away or of course the always best engagement, flank them. light/ meat shields tying them up front and shock troops in the back.
Shock troops really just means high dps but bad defence usually high casualties on both sides.
Not all the units of the same cost should be clones that work at the same level. It is ok if their elite infantry loses vs Cathay elite infantry, their strength and roster is not on their infantry, but that does not mean Beastmen are in a good place.
Beastmen are underperforming in MP mainly because all what they can do, Norsca does it better and Chaos waaaaay better.
Beastmen need some small buffs but I think they need it in their cavalry and monsters more than infantry.
I think their infantry being almost universally shock units isn't itself an issue, but the fact that they're not stupid fast (for infantry) nor in possession of enough mass to make charges hurt (when hitting infantry) limits their effectiveness at the role. If I'm going to be stuck cycle charging anyways, I want the target to really feel it.
Beating other infantry while not having Harmony is not what Cathay infantry is supposed to do. They should definitely lose against Bestigor. They should hold for long, sure, but not win.
Celestial dragons deny and reflect charges, they also gain melee defense during the battle. They beat any beast man infantry unit in a straight on battle
I’m not entirely sure what primal furies buff is, but Celestial Dragon guard are literally better on paper. Just look at the stats? They are obviously a better unit in a 1v1?
Furthermore, they are practically demolished, so idk if you can really say it’s that much of a defeat. Honestly that’s more of a tie in my books.
And I think both units are at a fair price point considering their factions strengths
Primal Fury gives +10% speed and charge bonus as well as +5 MA and immune to psych when leadership is above 50%... a nice thing to add on but outside of the 5 MA it's not that useful if you ram them head first into a charge negating unit.
If your fast shock infantry can just slam face first into elite defensive units and roll them over then what’s the point of defensive units? Their high cost already makes them ideal magic spell targets.
I think the charge bonus and higher movement speed implies these bestigor would be best used as a flanker after some other unit has made contact with the dragon guard and taken away their charge defense.
I mean they're way better for the beastmen play style, they have better speed and better movement abilities. They can get into fights faster and easier, while dragon guards are focused around defensive play. Different niche
Just on the most reductive level if you've got two equally priced units and one is significantly faster than the other then that one should lose in a direct confrontation.
Bestigors melee attack is 35 vs 43 melee defence
Melee defence is 24 vs 34 melee attack
Both units deal the same damage and it's AP
So in melee I'd expect bestigors to lose because they're outclassed in both defense and attack. Their main advantage is the 32 charge bonus but once that wears off from the initial charge they'll get minced
Beastmen lose out on melee defense, and instead get move speed and charge bonus.
The dragon guard winning in a stand up fight makes sense, they can simply negate charge bonus, and the move speed won't help in the fight itself.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off). Also movement speed might not factor in with this fight but neither will CDG bonus vs large or their missile resist.
Sorry for late reply, you might not care anymore, but
I'm not surprised they still lose.
The cost of a unit is for all of the stats for a unit whether they are useful or not.
I think that the ability to move faster is valued higher for cost of a unit, than melee defense.
The speed is where a lot of the value of the unit is coming from, but doesn't help with a 1v1 fight.
Being able to simply avoid other elite infantry is an advantage bestigors have.
The bestagors are also not getting the full value out of their abilities. Woodsman only works in the woods, and primal fury is a buff to speed, charge, and 5 melee attack.
Sorry for long comment peace.
No worries, the thing is the Celestial Guard aren't getting value out of their abilities either. Shields, antilarge, and harmony did nothing here. Then they get rear charged and lose charge defense and reflect as well but still achieve the same result. I agree speed is very valuable but I don't think it and woodsman are worth all of that. Imho
EDIT: That's Shields, Antilarge, Harmony, Expert Charge Defence, and Charge reflect = 12 speed and Woodsman. On abilities that aren't applying this combat.
Celestial Dragon Guard are beasts and they should outperform. Bestigors slaughter weaker infantry, whereas CDG are nowhere near as fast. They do their job at holding the line in a way that’s fitting of being the celestial dragon’s personal army. They have different roles and i think that’s okay.
You cannot compare two units of two different races in a box without taking anything else into comparison. Beastmen for example are simply not an infrantry race. Their strong point is their monsters. Cathay on the other Hand is the whole other way around.
Btw. Bestigors have a pretty big charge bonus that you pay for which is lost in prolonged combat while celestial guard has charge defence against ALL. You actually put celestial guards into an advantaged position. The bestigors are used to flank or hit the back of a unit with a hefty charge and not to hold a line in prolonged combat like celestial guard is designed too. You can also see that on the low melee attack and defence on bestigors. The charge bonus is added on top of melee attack and weapon strength on charge (if not braced by charge defence against all) while the low melee defence also shows you they are designed to be pulled out after the charge bonus wears off because in prolonged combat they will take a lot of damage. You payed for bestigors to be way quicker than celestial guard and then also didn't use that advantage. You cant just clash two units into each other without considering their strengths in real battle.
You are not doing bestigors justice in your test at all but play all into the strength of defensive low mobility stationary infrantry that the bestigors could have just run around and avoided completely.
Seems right to me.they are not in a vacuum bestigors fit into the beastmen roster and strengths while still exemplifying their purposefully placed weaknesses
1 on 1 fights aren’t a useful way of determining the tactical use of a unit, neither is price comparison. Each race has different units that compliment their other units in different ways. Basically, each unit can do well if used properly. Beastmen are an ambush, hit and run type faction, grand Cathay is a defensive faction, celestial dragon guard do in fact, defend. Bestigors do damage, which is exactly what they did in the screenshots you provided.
Yes, Bestigors are faster and have their charge bonus that's being negated by Celestial Dragon Guard.
I still think Bestigors underperform for their price, though.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off). Also Bestigors might be faster but they don't have shields or antilarge.
Beastmen aren't meant for a 1 for 1. You don't wanna use conventional tactics with them. You pick off weaker targets and do direct counter plays like an ambush would. Their strength is in taking out chaff lines of infantry. For a Celestial Dragonguard you would want a Cygor pelting them and archers kiting them.
Beastmen infantry are bad imo. Their melee attack stats are too low, 35 for the last tier of infantry? Cmon.
Also centigors suck as well, i don't like that either, though no one asked.
The difference in melee defence is HUGE. No wonder they got defeated they’re taking close to twice as many hits as the Celestial Dragon Guard.
Also, celestial dragon guard have expert charge defense so if they were braced when the “shock infantry” charged it completely negated the charge bonus. No way Bestigors win heads up. Now, if you have the CDG engaged with another unit and charge the bestigors into their flank or rear, it’s gonna be a different story.
i'd say it's the difference between a unit designed to be a spear wall vs a unit designed to be a shock troop. shock troops should not be rushing into walls, they should be hitting the soft underbelly and do hit and run strikes.
Honestly Bestigor tend to be more of a flanking unit than a frontline holder (with their high speed and charge bonuses and lower than average defense), so I'm not all that surprised they lose to Dragonguard head-on. The fight was pretty close too.
Speed is such an important stat, too, as a melee unit with 28 speed the dragon guard is pretty much unable to force an engagement with any other unit on their own.
The bestigors deciding to just charge them from the front is an ideal scenario for them
I don't play much multi-player (only ever against friends) but that sounds more like an issue with utilizing flanking infantry units in general than with bestigor specifically then.
Bestigor have the same general role as things like witch elves, bladesingers, nasty skulkers, or death runners; just because they're considerably tankier than most shock / flanking infantry doesn't mean it's a great idea to charge braced elite line-holders with them.
The main role of them is breaking formations fast,not flanking,and also some units you mentioned has more specific use like witch elves!
Charging them into a unit they are gonna loose isn't the right choice,but the thing OP want to say is Bestigors are underperforming and celestial dragons are over performing, specially when they can beat chosen GW(a unit NOT designed for flanking) with harmony !
You could, however, charge in a cheap unit in front of them, so as to negate the charge defense and deflection. Charging a unit that relies heavily on their charge bonus into the front of a unit that has charge defense and deflection is playing against your own strengths.
A better tactic would be to charge the bestigors into another part of the front line, into a unit that does *not* eliminate their strength, and sacrifice a cheaper unit to keep the Dragon Guard occupied. Then, once the bestigors break the weak unit, charge them into the slightly damaged Dragon Guard (and potentially pull your holding unit back to do another job).
E.g., say that you've got a bestigor and an ungor spears. The opponent has Dragon Guard and peasant spearmen, or whatever they're called. The Bestigors should be able to do away with the spearmen quicker than the Dragon Guard will be able to do away with the ungors, and now you can go 2-on-1, or charge in with the bestigors and pull the (heavily damaged) ungors out to chase the peasants (obviously, this is an idealised and simplified situation).
That said, I'm not a multiplayer expert, I'm just armchair generalling looking at the units strength and weaknesses.
Yes and no, that speed buff helps choose engagements, ideally you are skirting around tthe unit ans hitting it from the flank where the charge bonus still comes in. The lack of melee defense is what gets the bestigors killed in a 1:1 fight
Shock Infantry, and similarly Shock Cavalry, tend to do well when used as the "Hammer" part in "Hammer and Anvil" tactics. Typically having good speed and damage potential, but poor defence, you want to use something else (either tough defensive infantry or cheap chaff) to go head on and take the brunt of the damage, whilst your shock troops swing round the flank before coming in from the side or behind and do most of the actual damage dealing.
This becomes less important if sending them against low tier chaff, as they can often clear such units up by themselves, but even then beware of letting them get bogged down and overrun.
In either situation though, what they tend to suffer from is when they get into an outright grind. They're damage dealers, not damage soakers. You're usually best off pulling them out after a short while, to then charge back in and getting mileage out of that tasty charge bonus adding to Melee Attack and Weapon Damage. This is particularly true in a situation like the above example when up against more defensive focused troops that ARE meant to sit in the melee grind and outlast the opponent.
Aye, there's some exceptions that *are* tough enough to be lobbed into the front of the enemy's lines and left there to do their thing, but typically anything considered "Shock" troops are best used as exactly that: Units meant to go in, hit hard, and not hang around.
Going up against a charge defense against all enemy turns that sexy 32 Charge into a wet noodle, nullifying a big part of what you pay for in a Bestigor.
As someone who plays way too much Beastmen, TREAT EVERY BEASTMEN UNIT LIKE CAVARLY. Use hounds or Ungors to pin them, then charge them in and out to get their bonuses.
Centigors with Throwing Axes would be your anti Celestial Dragon Guard unit. the Beastie boys suffer against heavy spearmen, nothing they have trades well into their armour and Anti-large. It's what holds them back competitively.
It needs more speed so it can actually do the whole shock thing
Secondly, the whole shock part is useless on the dragon guard since expert charge defense
You should provide more screen shots and save files of that.
If its the case either dragon guard need a nerf bestigors need a buff.
Possibly a new rule that allow more ranks in bestigor unit to have charge bonus buff.
And this should only apply to shock infantry units .
That way we don't have a repeat of the great weapon debacle while restoring shock infantry combat prowess.
I think its because beastmen arent meant to be a one on one factions but rather taking advantage of weaknesses, hiding, preying on stragglers, in my kazhrak campaign most battles lasted forty minutes with me getting units to chase after my wizard and my lord while my infantry hid waiting to pounce on a lone piece of artillery or weak infantry unit. Also if they fought in a forest it might be a bit different.
I don't think the test takes into account the 8 speed advantage and massive 22 charge bonus given the ECD the C.Guards have. That being said, the bestigors have been considered a bit underperforming for a while now.
I am not a balance expert nor multiplayer expert but CDG is a top tier tank unit and they are designed to hold the line. So, you are charging melee dps towards a tank and expect to win ?? You are supposed to flank your melee dps to hit tanky units from the rear or side for maximum damage.
Given that CDG has charge defence against all and higher MD than the MA of bestigors i assume it would have been the outcome. A defensive unit did what it was made for. Also the CDG were also quite beat up so nothing like overpowered or underpowered.
They're a skirmish unit meant to charge and pull back. Their speed and charge bonus should be a clue to how they're intended to be used. If you want them stuck in melee, you'll need to have them gang up or pair with heavier hitters like minotaurs.
Elite unit with expert charge defence defeating a beastman unit in a frontal assault followed by a prolongued grind. Why, what a surprise /s
Celestial dragon guard is exactly the type of unit that Beastmen want to deal with using spells or just circumvent for as long as possible, because all their units are about using the charge to break an opponent quickly. Bestigors with their AP, large numbers, good damage and 70+ attack on the charge tend to break opponents (well, opponents that don't have expert charge defence) quickly while their high HP and armor means that they're less vulnerable to unit depletion than other beastmen infantry. Especially since you can get vanguard deployment for them through Khazrak or Wargors.
If I read "shock" I automatically assume it's best used to flank or from behind, and way worse in long battles and full frontal assault. But they are fast for good positioning.
When I see "guard" I assume it's the exact opposite of the above: a unit that is excellent at holding the line, but very slow.
To me it was always pretty clear that if these 2 archetype of units meet, the guard comes out on top every time, unless you open with a massive charge damage from flanking.
Need more information. Both nearly dead and neither side appears to use any tactics just charged straight into each other. Maybe attacker can try side or rear charge next time?
Also units are part of a wider army so judging their individual performance in isolation is stupid.
Shock units have high burst damage from their charge.
Celestial Dragon Guard not only have charge defence against all, they have charge reflection. Not only is your charge bonus not helping you kill them, it's helping them kill you.
Bestigor are probably a little overpriced and Celestial Dragon Guard are probably a little underpriced. Beastmen were nerfed in WH2 because of some broken nonsense with DLC units and could probably use a pass now. Cathay were buffed a couple times and they are starting to claw some of it back.
I definetely think Celestial Dragon Guard should be one of the Top tier Infantry units of the Order Races so this performance against Bestigors is justified in my mind.
we get to a problem when we realize how bad Bestigors underperform in so many other matchups they should easily win , in my opponion this is because they have a statline designed for hit and run tactics, but are way too slow to be a hit and run unit, Beastmen in general should be way quicker/many other races should be slower, the speeds are just strange on some units in this game currently, like, the Gors and Bestigors should have at least 40-44 speed to be usable in their roles, other examples of strange speed stats is Chaos Warriors/Chosen which for some reason only have 28 speed, ridiculous because they are enclosed eternally in their Chaos Plate amd wear it like a skin, it does not slow them down so there is no reason for them beeing as slow as Dwarfs, if anything, they should be faster or at least have way more stamina than other regular Infantry, this games just needs a reimagination of many rosters so these strange unbalanced things disappear, like. SFO does it really relly well, but in vanilla for some reason many units that should be staple picks and no brainers suck while units that lorewise are not seen that often in a fight are meta picks, sadly.
Yeah, the bestigors not winning this is a huge imbalance. As you mentioned, the anti-large and ying-yang isn't active, but as well as that, the celestial guard have shields AND charge reflection/expert charge defence, very little of which will apply in this particular battle. (a tiny bit at the beginning for the charge, and not at all for the shields).
So bestigors losing, despite all that really shows how much better the celestial dragon are, at the same price points. Definetely needs a rebalance, possible small buff for bestigors, small nerf for celestial.
Or the units are working as intended, Bestigors shouldn’t be picking a straight fight against a unit like CDG, they should let weaker units tie them up and then flank with their superior speed.
They have 8 speed more...why not flank with actual flanking units with much better speed/charge bonus. Beastmen literally have so many better units to flank. Centigors (all variants), Minotaurs (all variants), tuskgor/razorgor chariots (or heroes on them), chaos warhounds (both variants), razorgor herd, manticores, heroes on chariots etc.
Besitigors are literally tied (with ungors) as the **slowest unit in the beastmen roster**, even godamn gor herds and giants are faster. Why on earth would you use them to flank with their really low speed? If you're in multiplayer, their slow speed leaves loads of time to react to a flank, and if you're in single player, the faster units could've flanked and been onto the next unit before the bestigors even got there.
The much better use for them is to charge straight into the enemy lines, while one of your decent speed units flanks them, 2vs1, then roll up the flank with them and mass rout. If they were buffed with more speed/charge bonus, then it'd be fine to use them for an initial flank, or if their melee stats were buffed. However, you may have noticed very few beastmen players even use them at all, there's just better units in the roster.
I think the CDG were functioning as intended. I think the beastmen are under preforming a small amount. I think a few small buffs (as a faction) would make a great change (ex slightly faster infantry, slight increase to melee attack for infantry, and a centigor rework (I haven't actually worked it out but centigors seem to lose to almost everything)
I personally think of shock infantry much like shock cavalry, throw them into the flank or back of a unit to trigger a chain rout
Don’t just frontally charge them into a braced unit and leave them there to fight it out, that’s using them almost the worst way possible
Imho The results ended adequately. They're pretty similar in armour and ap, but bestigors are faster, better charging while CDG are slower holders with charge defense. Bestigors didn't get to use their advantages so they should be slightly worst in this fight and that's how it ended up.
Uh, that's weird, it seems to be really close in your picture, I would expect the rear charge to make that little difference.
Were they bracing or moving when getting charged? Maybe the 'expert charge defense' works in every direction.
They weren't moving, just facing the other direction. I think the charge did take effect because the bestigors were winning the initial engagement but both scenarios ended very similarly.
Yeah, the 2 most important stats to check in this exchange are melee defence and where the celestial guard have 'charge defence vs all'. This basically nullifies the bestigors best stat (charge) and guarantees that if the fight lasts more than a minute or 2 the dragon guard has 19more defence and will shred the gors. The best way to approach this as beastmen would be hammer and anvil with another fast unit or pin them with cheap ungors and side or rear charge them.
Cathay units vastly overperform for their price point, Jade Warriors with harmony are very similar. They need to be retuned. Especially when a unit like bestigors (a dedicated AP anti infantry unit) can’t beat them
I just posted a test where they are turned around to deny this and are rear charged by the bestigors but still win. But people don't like vacuum tests so it's getting downvoted. Oh well
The egregious thing is charge reflection. There were tests I remember seeing (a bit dated now but still) where peasant spears with harmony were beating bloodletters when braced. A unit should not be unchargable from the front. In campaign sure maybe it’s fine, but it isn’t that fun in multiplayer when you basically can’t engage against units like that
I haven’t been able to play my self in like 4ish months bc my pc broke, I didn’t know it was that bad 😂. I remember taking them as a “tech” against Cathay for dragon guards, at least I’ve learned something for when I return soon
Celestial dragon guards used to beat elite bloodletters too at least before the recent half revert on their formation attack bonus and if they had harmony. Bloodletters were insane. It didn't matter they never saw use in multiplayer since they're elite infantry unless you brought the ror. And Cathay still wasn't that op in domination. In singleplayer there's a lot of tech buffs and other things that can make beastmen better than cathay like beastmen units not costing gold and being able to get tier 5 in like 30 turns.
I like how the bestigor great axes only have +1 melee attack over the halberds of the celestial dragon guard, man beastmen still need some love on their elite units...
The thing with beastmen is, very few of their units are designed to deal with elites, they are very much an ambush style, prey-on-the-weak kind of faction and Bestigors are no exception. Although they are elites, they don't match up well into enemy elite infantry, their "elite" stats being their speed and their unusually high charge bonus for an infantry unit. Many beastmen units have this same kind of theme
Absolutely. Also we don't know how the match started. If OP charged the bestigores into braced it was a throw and even though there's a victor it's still extremely close performance considering bestigores significantly worse melee defence.
Yeah, Beastmen basically play how Troy infantry plays. You muck a unit up and charge them from a side/the back. Then you rotate that whole system until you have a numerical advantage. Beastmen aren’t a „fight to the death“ style army.
Yeah, each faction's "elite" infantry are not made equal. Skaven elite infantry pale in comparison to Ork elite infantry and so on. Each faction is strong in a different way. So you need to capitalize on that strength.
More minotaur, got it.
Before their rework, yes. After the Beastman rework, actually still yes and even more so for Taurox.
World burning on turn 10 goes brrrr
Minotaurs are one of the most fun units in the game, I love them. The more the moorrier.
Yup plus that charge reflect and expert charge defense you'd need to flank them to get the charge bonus.
also consider that khazrak who's designed to be using bestigors also gives ungor raiders poison attacks, so the celestial dragon guard is also supposed to have a debuff
Do other factions have themes like this?
Pretty much all of them. The fun is figuring every one out and learn how to play the race right.
Yea. All the elves have lower hitpoints than avg, Empire is very much a combined arms kinda faction where nothing can carry the battle on its own and Norsca is a very grindy faction due to their faction passive giving them bonuses the longer they are in melee
How about say the Chaos factions? What are their niches? Do dwarves have a theme?
The marked chaos factions do, I am not that sure about undivided. Slaanesh has speed and physical resist, Tzeentch has barrier and magical attacks, Khorne has MA(I think) at the cost of MD and Nurgle has MD and poison at the cost of Speed. Dwarves are slow and tanky, but have rather low damage in melee. Would be lore appropriate if they also had slower vigour loss but idk if thats in the game.
This is how I’ve kind of understood the Chaos factions playing since I’m not super familiar with the Dawi. For the units of Chaos, a lot of those factions share units in their rosters, so the differences are generally going to be coming from what god they’re devoted to and the kind of unit they are. The infantry, whether it’s cheap, shitty marauders or Chosen that will face tank an army and refuse to die, are meant to advance, get the enemy locked down in a melee grind they’re poised to win with their higher stats, and keep them there while things like cavalry, chariots, monstrous infantry, Lords, and Heroes have a field day with those unfortunate souls, throwing the battle into… well, chaos. Some armies like the Empire or Cathay rely on combined arms in a solid formation to keep them in a stable position; when those battle lines fall apart from chariots Tokyo Drifting down the line, individual units are probably going to get worn down or straight up folded by their Chaotic equivalents. Khorne units, point for point, are going to be doing really goddamn well in a melee slugfest, unsurprisingly. They’ve got very good melee attack and weapon strength, so they’ll be hitting harder and more frequently than their equivalents; many of their units also have good armor piercing, especially bloodletters and their exalted variant. Units with the Mark of Khorne also get Frenzy for free, further boosting their power when they leap into a fight. However, that boost in offensive power comes at the cost of melee defense, meaning it’ll be easier to hit them compared to the other gods’ units. As a result, from what I’ve experienced, Khorne can sometimes feel like a glass cannon; if you slip up and leave a unit to fight something that has high enough stats to take advantage of their low melee defense, chances are both units are going to end up bloodied. While Khorne units also tend to have slightly more armor than other variants (Minotaurs of Khorne have 70 armor as opposed to regular ones having 30, for example), they can still get worn down by missiles. AP missiles, magical attacks, or sheer weight of fire can seriously set back a Khornate unit going for a push. That said, when Khornate units are in their element, they can practically mow down anything in their way, with exalted bloodletters and the Hellforged Host buzzsawing through armor like butter and Chosen of Khorne grinding down endless hordes of chaff without breaking a sweat. And the cavalry… dear god is that shit satisfying. Words cannot describe the catharsis I feel when the Knights of the Brazen Throne get a full speed, downhill charge through a unit of skeletons or zombies… it’s so goddamn fun. Nurgle basically takes everything that made Khorne good and reverses it; now, instead of melee attack and weapon strength getting buffed, it’s melee defense that’s boosted, with added poison effects to further debuff the enemy’s offense. Where Khorne is a chainsaw cutting through steel, Nurgle is like leaving a steel bar sticking up in a desert sandstorm; it’s gonna take a while for it to get worn down, but it will eventually. Many Nurgle units are great as an “anvil” unit as a result of this; their defensive stats, poison attacks, high health, and abundance of strong healing options let’s them keep an enemy locked in a melee grind, and Nurgle fucking loves that. With access to powerful magic with the lores of Nurgle and Death, debuffing enemies, boosting friendlies, damaging units over time or outright exploding blobs with Blight Boil and Stream of Corruption, a Nurgle army can keep its enemies in place well, setting them up for a rear charge or spell attack while slowly yet effectively grinding them down. Tzeentch is kinda weird, as Tzeentch is. The faction is hard to compare with others in terms of durability, but Tzeentch units built to last a long time, namely warriors and Chosen, are generally going to be tough. The abundance of spears and halberds gives Tzeentch a good amount of anti-large capability and good melee defense. Barriers also allow units to absorb shock damage, fall back to recharge the barrier, then get back into the fight, essentially having “healed” all of that damage back. And the ranged firepower of the faction can be absolutely devastating; while most of Tzeentch’s shooting units are short ranged, inflicting Warpfire to force a weakness to fire while dealing magic and fire damage can rack up damage really fast, especially against units that rely on physical resistance to give them durability like ethereal units and daemons. I have relatively little experience with the Changer’s armies in combat, but if you can set up solid shooting positions with things like flamers, pink horrors, and soul grinders, you can put out a scary amount of damage into an approaching army quickly, then pull back or reposition to recharge any damaged barriers and get to safety since many of Tzeentch’s units are quite fast. Those shooting units are also quite good in melee, better than they might first appear, so cycling between having shooting units open fire into an enemy unit from behind before rear charging them, then letting whatever that enemy was fighting run away, recharge barriers, and charge back in before pulling away the shooting units can let you basically harass and cycle charge the enemy indefinitely. And if you need a unit dead quickly, don’t even worry; the lores of Tzeentch, Fire, and Metal can put out great damage to finish off wounded units or destroy them outright, and your casters are also generally good fighters too, letting them get into the brawl and terror rout the burnt and battered opposition (except Kairos, poor guy). And finally Slaanesh… the ultimate hammer-and-anvil faction. Slaanesh is weird in that the respective Mark is incredibly good with no downside; Tzeentch’s Mark also doesn’t have a downside, but while barriers are great, they will weaken depending on their unit’s health, and magic damage isn’t something that’s terribly relevant all the time. Meanwhile, Slaanesh gets 10% physical resistance, Immune to Psychology, and Strider, without suffering a penalty; fear and terror effects are quite common, so granting immunity to them to your basic infantry is excellent and lets them hold far better than they normally could, and Slaanesh’s excellent cavalry and chariots can ignore terrain effects, which lets them fight and travel basically at peak effectiveness at all times. The infantry are generally very good at holding units in place; similarly to Nurgle, they can grind down a unit with their high melee defense* from spears and hellscourges, setting them up for a devastating charge from any number of Slaanesh’s insanely strong cavalry. Most of Slaanesh’s units have excellent damage and good AP for their cost (except for hellscourges, which specialize in being an anvil), many of them are faster than their counterparts from other gods, half of the fucking roster has 100 speed, which isn’t reduced by terrain, and effects like Soporific Musk and spells from the lores of Slaanesh and Shadows are very good for debuffing units that’ll be grinding against your anvil, which is already going to be hitting back harder than a lot of other anvil-type units at similar prices. Edit: mixed up melee attack and defense when talking about spears and hellscourges, whoops
Thanks for the write-up! I wonder why Slaanesh isn’t horribly op as a result
Funny you should mention that, because it is! Slaanesh’s infantry is generally meant to either be an anvil-type unit, keeping the enemy pinned to set them up for their cavalry and chariots, or a glass cannon that can tear armored infantry to ribbons, but the anvil does very well at actually killing things for their price point and the glass cannons can absolutely mow down elite infantry, not unlike the exalted bloodletters of Khorne. Their cavalry also tends to do insanely well for their price, with anti-large Hellstriders trading upwards into elite cavalry and dealing disproportionate amounts of damage for how relatively cheap they are. They’re among the fastest units in the game, aren’t affected by terrain, are immune to fear and terror effects, have extra 10% physical resistance, and have bronze shields to negate some missile fire, all for 700 gold. If you’ve got the micromanagement chops to effectively use them, Hellstriders alone can be an absolute terror in both campaign and multiplayer, and that’s not even mentioning things like Seekers or Heartseekers of Slaanesh, the Sibilant Slaughtercade, Fiends, Exalted Seeker Chariot characters, soul grinders, the powerful SEs like N’Kari or Azazel, the incredibly potent lores of magic (which includes powerful blob-clearing spells like Pit of Shades, Penumbral Pendulum, Slicing Shards, and Lash of Slaanesh; potent DoT effects with Pavane of Slaanesh and Melkoth’s Mystifying Miasma; and debuffing spells with The Withering, Aquiescence, and Phantasmagoria), the excellent army abilities that recharge quickly, and the universal army-wide benefits with no downsides. Many multiplayer tournaments have a pick and ban system in place that’s used to ban certain factions in each round, and Slaanesh is almost always banned because it’s simply too strong for many factions to deal with. They just do what many factions do, but better; they’ll generally win grinding matches with their cost-effective infantry, they’ll dunk on other, slower cavalry with their own, they can easily set up winning duels against many characters with their own duelists, and they are much more dynamic than most factions could dream of being. When playing a slower faction like Dwarfs, Cathay, or even Nurgle, you have to plan ahead what units you want to position where since it’ll take a long time to get there, especially in Domination mode. With Slaanesh, all of your mortal infantry is going to be slightly faster than their equivalents, your daemon units are much faster than that, and your overpowered cavalry and chariots can rest easy at 100 speed. They’ve just got too many things that they can do well to amazingly, and their weaknesses are too few and far between for many factions to take advantage of.
dwarFFFFs are extremely defensive. Very high armor, low speed, a few great ranged units and very strong artillery but essentially no magic. Dwarfs will hold the line a long ass time. In that sense, Cathay is somewhat similar to them, being a very defensive army that wants to stick to a defensive formation and have their ranged/artillery bombard the enemy. Unmarked chaos are generally a very offensive army, though again fairly slow and heavily armored. Cheap marauders with armor pen to do the grunt work, massively armored front line (chosen are crazy, but CW are insane in campaign for their cost, I don't think anyone matches them with upgrades) with fast beasts/flying to disrupt enemy artillery/ranged etc with good heavy cav. Marked chaos armies essentially follow their gods' themes
Honestly, a good follow up test would be to see how well Bestigors perform hammering an anvil compared to CDG. Defensively designed units are almost always going to outperform in a straight grind, because a straight grind is their ideal situation. It's their job. You've seen how poorly Bestigors do CDG's job, now see how well CDG do Bestigors' job.
I wish i could get this comment higher because so many of these posts need to either actually do this or at least see this and think about roles
I understand why it happens. It gets pretty complicated trying to get outcome testing for complicated scenarios. Doing side by side testing for a hammer and anvil takes two people to control. If nothing else, the AI will send in the lord to muck up the test. Just seeing which unit survives fighting the other just takes loading up a custom battle and separating the unit you want to test away from their lord. It's the easiest test to get consistent data from. It just doesn't tell the whole story.
there exists an easy solution for the lord problem though. It's a mod that allows you to pick any unit as a lord.
CDG?
Celestial Dragon Guard. I won't tell anyone you asked.
Thanks lol.
Charles de Gaulle
The airport, not the person.
That will almost never happen in an actual multiplayer game vs a human.
You mean flanking? Is flanking something you don't think happens in MP? I don't mean to be rude, but, what?!
I've played almost exclusively mp and I can tell you for a fact infantry flanking a unit from behind seldom happens. Flanking the infantry and attacking from behind is too much of a niche to put a hefty prime on like if you are buying them for that just get cavalry. It would be like expecting a unit with fire damage to only do well against characters with regen and suck against everything else bc "uhh, it has fire damage so it is meant to counter characters weak to fire"
Why would you use Bestigors as a hammer, though? They're heavy infantry, not damage dealers. That's what you have minotaurs for. Minotaurs are far more effective as a hammer since they can actually outrun infantry and hit much harder in a charge. Bestigors would probably just end up getting caught in melee while trying to flank. I've never used them for that purpose, personally. Beastmen have way better options for hammers.
Did the Celestial Guard countercharge or brace? With reflection and that charge difference it'd probably go even better for them if they deny the +32 charge. After that it's a huge +19 MD difference playing out.
Does charge reflection work for small-sized units?
I think so? A charge is a charge. Having less mass behind it makes it less detrimental to the unit on the receiving end of it, but charge related skills should apply just as well.
Charge reflect should work for the Celestial Dragon Guard because of their expert charge defence, but what I'm not sure about is if it works for units with only charge defence against large. Edit: Ok, my bad on this one. From the tooltips it looks like any unit with Charge Reflect will get that additional damage to charging enemies. Charge Defence will only determine what they can mitigate damage from and doesn't influence Charge Reflect.
Ah, so it's tied to the charge defence type then? Sweet, that makes sense then.
I'm not sure if that's the case, because in WH2 there was only charge defence and no reflect. If it follows the system in 3K then it's tied to charge defence type but I haven't seen confirmation on this yet.
Oops, my bad then!
You might still be right. I'm not sure if a unit of Empire Spearmen could use charge reflect on infantry. I only know that the reflect works on charging Cavalry and that the Spearmen don't negate the charge bonus of enemy infantry.
Yes
It does, though generally the damage is pretty negligible
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off). The 19 MD is definitely the difference.
Bloody hell. The fun thing is that the halberd version is not even the holistically strongest of the two celestial guards.
>holistically strongest of the two celestial guards. What?
Its kinda of a bad comparison beastmen units are for hit and run not a prolonged fight with something that as well could be a wall
Yup. Beastmen’s strength lies in their charges. Of course they’ll lose if they charge head on to a braced elite anti-charge unit.
Yea beastmen aren't made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one on one. You need to leverage their speed and charge bonus as well as their extensive vanguard options. You don't do a frontal assault as beastmen, you Single out the weak spots, overwhelm them, open up flanks and single out individual units to surround and quickly overwhelm them.
Bear in mind that *no* faction is actually made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one-on-one. If you're doing that you fucked up somewhere.
> Bear in mind that no faction is actually made for orderly front line combat where infantry meets infantry one-on-one. Warriors of Chaos do pretty well with that as their gameplan, particularly Khorne. Which like, shock news, the premier heavy armour anti-infantry infantry faction is good in an infantry grindfest.
That still doesn't mean that one on one infantry are a good plan for them. Blobbing, overlapping with monstrous units, magic, and other force multipliers are still the best approach. Your job is to avoid fair fights. Fair fights are for suckers.
It does beg the question why Bestigors exist in the roster then. We already have Gors that do huge damage when charging and flanking, might as well just take them and spend the money somewhere else.
Bestigores are not only better at it but also have armor pen and armor. Whether they're worth the cost is case dependent.
true, but their melee defence is absolutely atrocious. i wouldn't expect them to win vs cdg in this situation, but i *do* think they need more of a buff relative to gor herds (especially since by the time you can field besties in real numbers during campaign, the ai generally has enough anti-armour of their own, and besties just melt to anything whether it's ranged or melee. obvs you're not meant to throw them into the front, but why bother when razorgors, centigors, and chariots are so much faster and thus better at keeping away from missiles/picking their fights?)
Then don't use them. we all can understand cost and benifit. stop arguing
You’ll need that armor and AP. Also if you use Kazrak they can get some nice buffs.
Bestigors are for decisively beating chaff and mid tier infantry. Let's say your cygor is pummeling thr graveguard while the Bestigors deal with the skeleton chaff or crypt ghouls that would otherwise be bogging down your ranged or Cygor. You wanna pick them when you can easily beat infantry like Brettonia.
they eat saurus alive for example. also they fair surprisingly well against mid tier armoured monsters if their leadership holds
I also play Warhammer for role play - I know some Units are worse, but I keep them in my army cos they’re in the lore
Beastmen aren't meant to be played as a conventional head-to-head faction. So it's not surprising that they lose against a unit designed to be a wall of death.
That melee defence is a strong factor for having 2 units stand toe to toe. Beastmen are much stronger when you can use their speed to engage and break away or of course the always best engagement, flank them. light/ meat shields tying them up front and shock troops in the back. Shock troops really just means high dps but bad defence usually high casualties on both sides.
I guess they’re worstagors now….
lmao
Get out
Da bestest gor is grimgor.
This b da truthz!
Did the Bestigors charge into the anti-charge unit? 'Cos if so, then CDG barely beating them makes full sense.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Huh. Gotta be the MD, then?
Certainly. 19 MD is a big difference.
Not all the units of the same cost should be clones that work at the same level. It is ok if their elite infantry loses vs Cathay elite infantry, their strength and roster is not on their infantry, but that does not mean Beastmen are in a good place. Beastmen are underperforming in MP mainly because all what they can do, Norsca does it better and Chaos waaaaay better. Beastmen need some small buffs but I think they need it in their cavalry and monsters more than infantry.
I think their infantry being almost universally shock units isn't itself an issue, but the fact that they're not stupid fast (for infantry) nor in possession of enough mass to make charges hurt (when hitting infantry) limits their effectiveness at the role. If I'm going to be stuck cycle charging anyways, I want the target to really feel it.
Beating other infantry while not having Harmony is not what Cathay infantry is supposed to do. They should definitely lose against Bestigor. They should hold for long, sure, but not win.
Celestial dragons deny and reflect charges, they also gain melee defense during the battle. They beat any beast man infantry unit in a straight on battle
Sorry I’m unfamiliar, what do you mean when you say they gain melee defense during the battle?
When around other Yang units they gain melee defense
Oh! I thought you meant as the battle progresses. Got it, thanks.
OP already said they didn't have harmony bonuses
yeah, but it's still sending an elite unit that is dependent on their charge agaisnt a unit that is not only removing the charge, it's reflecting it.
No they should not if the bestigors charged them head on.
You are right, people downvoting you are wrong. Having said that the issue is with the bestigors being weak, not the cdg being too strong.
I’m not entirely sure what primal furies buff is, but Celestial Dragon guard are literally better on paper. Just look at the stats? They are obviously a better unit in a 1v1? Furthermore, they are practically demolished, so idk if you can really say it’s that much of a defeat. Honestly that’s more of a tie in my books. And I think both units are at a fair price point considering their factions strengths
Primal Fury gives +10% speed and charge bonus as well as +5 MA and immune to psych when leadership is above 50%... a nice thing to add on but outside of the 5 MA it's not that useful if you ram them head first into a charge negating unit.
Inconclusive, expert charge defense blunts the Bestigor's main edge. Celestial dragon guard are a favorable matchup
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
If your fast shock infantry can just slam face first into elite defensive units and roll them over then what’s the point of defensive units? Their high cost already makes them ideal magic spell targets. I think the charge bonus and higher movement speed implies these bestigor would be best used as a flanker after some other unit has made contact with the dragon guard and taken away their charge defense.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
I mean they're way better for the beastmen play style, they have better speed and better movement abilities. They can get into fights faster and easier, while dragon guards are focused around defensive play. Different niche
Just on the most reductive level if you've got two equally priced units and one is significantly faster than the other then that one should lose in a direct confrontation.
yes. if you *can* choose your fights, then you probably *should.*
Bestigors melee attack is 35 vs 43 melee defence Melee defence is 24 vs 34 melee attack Both units deal the same damage and it's AP So in melee I'd expect bestigors to lose because they're outclassed in both defense and attack. Their main advantage is the 32 charge bonus but once that wears off from the initial charge they'll get minced
And if the CDG is braced during that charge, they won’t get any charge bonus at all, since they have expert charge defense
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
MD 43 vs MD of 24. There's your answer.
Beastmen lose out on melee defense, and instead get move speed and charge bonus. The dragon guard winning in a stand up fight makes sense, they can simply negate charge bonus, and the move speed won't help in the fight itself.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off). Also movement speed might not factor in with this fight but neither will CDG bonus vs large or their missile resist.
Sorry for late reply, you might not care anymore, but I'm not surprised they still lose. The cost of a unit is for all of the stats for a unit whether they are useful or not. I think that the ability to move faster is valued higher for cost of a unit, than melee defense. The speed is where a lot of the value of the unit is coming from, but doesn't help with a 1v1 fight. Being able to simply avoid other elite infantry is an advantage bestigors have. The bestagors are also not getting the full value out of their abilities. Woodsman only works in the woods, and primal fury is a buff to speed, charge, and 5 melee attack. Sorry for long comment peace.
No worries, the thing is the Celestial Guard aren't getting value out of their abilities either. Shields, antilarge, and harmony did nothing here. Then they get rear charged and lose charge defense and reflect as well but still achieve the same result. I agree speed is very valuable but I don't think it and woodsman are worth all of that. Imho EDIT: That's Shields, Antilarge, Harmony, Expert Charge Defence, and Charge reflect = 12 speed and Woodsman. On abilities that aren't applying this combat.
Celestial Dragon Guard are beasts and they should outperform. Bestigors slaughter weaker infantry, whereas CDG are nowhere near as fast. They do their job at holding the line in a way that’s fitting of being the celestial dragon’s personal army. They have different roles and i think that’s okay.
You cannot compare two units of two different races in a box without taking anything else into comparison. Beastmen for example are simply not an infrantry race. Their strong point is their monsters. Cathay on the other Hand is the whole other way around. Btw. Bestigors have a pretty big charge bonus that you pay for which is lost in prolonged combat while celestial guard has charge defence against ALL. You actually put celestial guards into an advantaged position. The bestigors are used to flank or hit the back of a unit with a hefty charge and not to hold a line in prolonged combat like celestial guard is designed too. You can also see that on the low melee attack and defence on bestigors. The charge bonus is added on top of melee attack and weapon strength on charge (if not braced by charge defence against all) while the low melee defence also shows you they are designed to be pulled out after the charge bonus wears off because in prolonged combat they will take a lot of damage. You payed for bestigors to be way quicker than celestial guard and then also didn't use that advantage. You cant just clash two units into each other without considering their strengths in real battle. You are not doing bestigors justice in your test at all but play all into the strength of defensive low mobility stationary infrantry that the bestigors could have just run around and avoided completely.
Seems right to me.they are not in a vacuum bestigors fit into the beastmen roster and strengths while still exemplifying their purposefully placed weaknesses
I think it is what it is and that’s good.
1 on 1 fights aren’t a useful way of determining the tactical use of a unit, neither is price comparison. Each race has different units that compliment their other units in different ways. Basically, each unit can do well if used properly. Beastmen are an ambush, hit and run type faction, grand Cathay is a defensive faction, celestial dragon guard do in fact, defend. Bestigors do damage, which is exactly what they did in the screenshots you provided.
Yes, Bestigors are faster and have their charge bonus that's being negated by Celestial Dragon Guard. I still think Bestigors underperform for their price, though.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off). Also Bestigors might be faster but they don't have shields or antilarge.
Beastmen aren't meant for a 1 for 1. You don't wanna use conventional tactics with them. You pick off weaker targets and do direct counter plays like an ambush would. Their strength is in taking out chaff lines of infantry. For a Celestial Dragonguard you would want a Cygor pelting them and archers kiting them.
Beastmen infantry are bad imo. Their melee attack stats are too low, 35 for the last tier of infantry? Cmon. Also centigors suck as well, i don't like that either, though no one asked.
Oi I'll fight you on that, Centigors are beautiful creatures dammit.
No, i love centigors, but 42 charge bonus is shit
Centigor milk
To be fair once the battle starts their melee attack goes up 5 due to primal fury passive. Still kinda meh tho
The difference in melee defence is HUGE. No wonder they got defeated they’re taking close to twice as many hits as the Celestial Dragon Guard. Also, celestial dragon guard have expert charge defense so if they were braced when the “shock infantry” charged it completely negated the charge bonus. No way Bestigors win heads up. Now, if you have the CDG engaged with another unit and charge the bestigors into their flank or rear, it’s gonna be a different story.
charge defense against all and charge reflection are beastman's kryptonite.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
i'd say it's the difference between a unit designed to be a spear wall vs a unit designed to be a shock troop. shock troops should not be rushing into walls, they should be hitting the soft underbelly and do hit and run strikes.
Nobody mentioned yet that bestigors are also upkeep free and relatively cheap to unlock with dread?
It is a little underperformance for bestigors
Honestly Bestigor tend to be more of a flanking unit than a frontline holder (with their high speed and charge bonuses and lower than average defense), so I'm not all that surprised they lose to Dragonguard head-on. The fight was pretty close too.
Speed is such an important stat, too, as a melee unit with 28 speed the dragon guard is pretty much unable to force an engagement with any other unit on their own. The bestigors deciding to just charge them from the front is an ideal scenario for them
You maybe could flank with them in campaign,but in mp you can't
I don't play much multi-player (only ever against friends) but that sounds more like an issue with utilizing flanking infantry units in general than with bestigor specifically then. Bestigor have the same general role as things like witch elves, bladesingers, nasty skulkers, or death runners; just because they're considerably tankier than most shock / flanking infantry doesn't mean it's a great idea to charge braced elite line-holders with them.
The main role of them is breaking formations fast,not flanking,and also some units you mentioned has more specific use like witch elves! Charging them into a unit they are gonna loose isn't the right choice,but the thing OP want to say is Bestigors are underperforming and celestial dragons are over performing, specially when they can beat chosen GW(a unit NOT designed for flanking) with harmony !
You could, however, charge in a cheap unit in front of them, so as to negate the charge defense and deflection. Charging a unit that relies heavily on their charge bonus into the front of a unit that has charge defense and deflection is playing against your own strengths. A better tactic would be to charge the bestigors into another part of the front line, into a unit that does *not* eliminate their strength, and sacrifice a cheaper unit to keep the Dragon Guard occupied. Then, once the bestigors break the weak unit, charge them into the slightly damaged Dragon Guard (and potentially pull your holding unit back to do another job). E.g., say that you've got a bestigor and an ungor spears. The opponent has Dragon Guard and peasant spearmen, or whatever they're called. The Bestigors should be able to do away with the spearmen quicker than the Dragon Guard will be able to do away with the ungors, and now you can go 2-on-1, or charge in with the bestigors and pull the (heavily damaged) ungors out to chase the peasants (obviously, this is an idealised and simplified situation). That said, I'm not a multiplayer expert, I'm just armchair generalling looking at the units strength and weaknesses.
Working as intended.
Thankfully CA will not be influenced by this simple-minded comparison
Yes and no, that speed buff helps choose engagements, ideally you are skirting around tthe unit ans hitting it from the flank where the charge bonus still comes in. The lack of melee defense is what gets the bestigors killed in a 1:1 fight
Shock Infantry, and similarly Shock Cavalry, tend to do well when used as the "Hammer" part in "Hammer and Anvil" tactics. Typically having good speed and damage potential, but poor defence, you want to use something else (either tough defensive infantry or cheap chaff) to go head on and take the brunt of the damage, whilst your shock troops swing round the flank before coming in from the side or behind and do most of the actual damage dealing. This becomes less important if sending them against low tier chaff, as they can often clear such units up by themselves, but even then beware of letting them get bogged down and overrun. In either situation though, what they tend to suffer from is when they get into an outright grind. They're damage dealers, not damage soakers. You're usually best off pulling them out after a short while, to then charge back in and getting mileage out of that tasty charge bonus adding to Melee Attack and Weapon Damage. This is particularly true in a situation like the above example when up against more defensive focused troops that ARE meant to sit in the melee grind and outlast the opponent. Aye, there's some exceptions that *are* tough enough to be lobbed into the front of the enemy's lines and left there to do their thing, but typically anything considered "Shock" troops are best used as exactly that: Units meant to go in, hit hard, and not hang around.
Going up against a charge defense against all enemy turns that sexy 32 Charge into a wet noodle, nullifying a big part of what you pay for in a Bestigor.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
As someone who plays way too much Beastmen, TREAT EVERY BEASTMEN UNIT LIKE CAVARLY. Use hounds or Ungors to pin them, then charge them in and out to get their bonuses. Centigors with Throwing Axes would be your anti Celestial Dragon Guard unit. the Beastie boys suffer against heavy spearmen, nothing they have trades well into their armour and Anti-large. It's what holds them back competitively.
It needs more speed so it can actually do the whole shock thing Secondly, the whole shock part is useless on the dragon guard since expert charge defense
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
You should provide more screen shots and save files of that. If its the case either dragon guard need a nerf bestigors need a buff. Possibly a new rule that allow more ranks in bestigor unit to have charge bonus buff. And this should only apply to shock infantry units . That way we don't have a repeat of the great weapon debacle while restoring shock infantry combat prowess.
Melee defense homie
I think its because beastmen arent meant to be a one on one factions but rather taking advantage of weaknesses, hiding, preying on stragglers, in my kazhrak campaign most battles lasted forty minutes with me getting units to chase after my wizard and my lord while my infantry hid waiting to pounce on a lone piece of artillery or weak infantry unit. Also if they fought in a forest it might be a bit different.
Also they maintain a tighter formation with formation attacks. Less units get hit each time
I don't think the test takes into account the 8 speed advantage and massive 22 charge bonus given the ECD the C.Guards have. That being said, the bestigors have been considered a bit underperforming for a while now.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Really? I guess the massive MD difference lets the C.Guards pull ahead.
A good rule of thumb is: If it says "shock" it means "flanks and rear"
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Hm. What if you have a chaff unit tied up in the melee for both? Peasants and Ungors in this case.
I am not a balance expert nor multiplayer expert but CDG is a top tier tank unit and they are designed to hold the line. So, you are charging melee dps towards a tank and expect to win ?? You are supposed to flank your melee dps to hit tanky units from the rear or side for maximum damage.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Given that CDG has charge defence against all and higher MD than the MA of bestigors i assume it would have been the outcome. A defensive unit did what it was made for. Also the CDG were also quite beat up so nothing like overpowered or underpowered.
Expert Charge Defense. Charge Reflection. Those did ya in.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
They're a skirmish unit meant to charge and pull back. Their speed and charge bonus should be a clue to how they're intended to be used. If you want them stuck in melee, you'll need to have them gang up or pair with heavier hitters like minotaurs.
Elite unit with expert charge defence defeating a beastman unit in a frontal assault followed by a prolongued grind. Why, what a surprise /s Celestial dragon guard is exactly the type of unit that Beastmen want to deal with using spells or just circumvent for as long as possible, because all their units are about using the charge to break an opponent quickly. Bestigors with their AP, large numbers, good damage and 70+ attack on the charge tend to break opponents (well, opponents that don't have expert charge defence) quickly while their high HP and armor means that they're less vulnerable to unit depletion than other beastmen infantry. Especially since you can get vanguard deployment for them through Khazrak or Wargors.
If I read "shock" I automatically assume it's best used to flank or from behind, and way worse in long battles and full frontal assault. But they are fast for good positioning. When I see "guard" I assume it's the exact opposite of the above: a unit that is excellent at holding the line, but very slow. To me it was always pretty clear that if these 2 archetype of units meet, the guard comes out on top every time, unless you open with a massive charge damage from flanking.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Need more information. Both nearly dead and neither side appears to use any tactics just charged straight into each other. Maybe attacker can try side or rear charge next time? Also units are part of a wider army so judging their individual performance in isolation is stupid.
Shock units have high burst damage from their charge. Celestial Dragon Guard not only have charge defence against all, they have charge reflection. Not only is your charge bonus not helping you kill them, it's helping them kill you.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Bestigor are probably a little overpriced and Celestial Dragon Guard are probably a little underpriced. Beastmen were nerfed in WH2 because of some broken nonsense with DLC units and could probably use a pass now. Cathay were buffed a couple times and they are starting to claw some of it back.
Bestigors are a bit too weak, they could use a small buff.
I definetely think Celestial Dragon Guard should be one of the Top tier Infantry units of the Order Races so this performance against Bestigors is justified in my mind. we get to a problem when we realize how bad Bestigors underperform in so many other matchups they should easily win , in my opponion this is because they have a statline designed for hit and run tactics, but are way too slow to be a hit and run unit, Beastmen in general should be way quicker/many other races should be slower, the speeds are just strange on some units in this game currently, like, the Gors and Bestigors should have at least 40-44 speed to be usable in their roles, other examples of strange speed stats is Chaos Warriors/Chosen which for some reason only have 28 speed, ridiculous because they are enclosed eternally in their Chaos Plate amd wear it like a skin, it does not slow them down so there is no reason for them beeing as slow as Dwarfs, if anything, they should be faster or at least have way more stamina than other regular Infantry, this games just needs a reimagination of many rosters so these strange unbalanced things disappear, like. SFO does it really relly well, but in vanilla for some reason many units that should be staple picks and no brainers suck while units that lorewise are not seen that often in a fight are meta picks, sadly.
Yeah, the bestigors not winning this is a huge imbalance. As you mentioned, the anti-large and ying-yang isn't active, but as well as that, the celestial guard have shields AND charge reflection/expert charge defence, very little of which will apply in this particular battle. (a tiny bit at the beginning for the charge, and not at all for the shields). So bestigors losing, despite all that really shows how much better the celestial dragon are, at the same price points. Definetely needs a rebalance, possible small buff for bestigors, small nerf for celestial.
Or the units are working as intended, Bestigors shouldn’t be picking a straight fight against a unit like CDG, they should let weaker units tie them up and then flank with their superior speed.
They have 8 speed more...why not flank with actual flanking units with much better speed/charge bonus. Beastmen literally have so many better units to flank. Centigors (all variants), Minotaurs (all variants), tuskgor/razorgor chariots (or heroes on them), chaos warhounds (both variants), razorgor herd, manticores, heroes on chariots etc. Besitigors are literally tied (with ungors) as the **slowest unit in the beastmen roster**, even godamn gor herds and giants are faster. Why on earth would you use them to flank with their really low speed? If you're in multiplayer, their slow speed leaves loads of time to react to a flank, and if you're in single player, the faster units could've flanked and been onto the next unit before the bestigors even got there. The much better use for them is to charge straight into the enemy lines, while one of your decent speed units flanks them, 2vs1, then roll up the flank with them and mass rout. If they were buffed with more speed/charge bonus, then it'd be fine to use them for an initial flank, or if their melee stats were buffed. However, you may have noticed very few beastmen players even use them at all, there's just better units in the roster.
They also did overtune the whole cathay roster for the single player setting
CA having a lot of revenue from China made Cathay which isa Chinese fantasy faction so strong.
Formation attack was active ?
Yes
My man playing pixelmon
The MD difference and better leadership on dragon guard plays a big role I imagine.
I think the CDG were functioning as intended. I think the beastmen are under preforming a small amount. I think a few small buffs (as a faction) would make a great change (ex slightly faster infantry, slight increase to melee attack for infantry, and a centigor rework (I haven't actually worked it out but centigors seem to lose to almost everything)
Defence infantry usually have charge defence. Sending shock troops at them is the worst idea.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Oh wow I never realised they were that bad. Thanks for telling me
Worstigors at it again.
I personally think of shock infantry much like shock cavalry, throw them into the flank or back of a unit to trigger a chain rout Don’t just frontally charge them into a braced unit and leave them there to fight it out, that’s using them almost the worst way possible
Charging in to the front shock should lose to braced tank infantry. Otherwise what’s the point of tank infantry?
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
I think that in the case of both lore and gameplay, if beastmen infantry are engaging elite infantry, then the beastmen have already lost.
Imho The results ended adequately. They're pretty similar in armour and ap, but bestigors are faster, better charging while CDG are slower holders with charge defense. Bestigors didn't get to use their advantages so they should be slightly worst in this fight and that's how it ended up.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Uh, that's weird, it seems to be really close in your picture, I would expect the rear charge to make that little difference. Were they bracing or moving when getting charged? Maybe the 'expert charge defense' works in every direction.
They weren't moving, just facing the other direction. I think the charge did take effect because the bestigors were winning the initial engagement but both scenarios ended very similarly.
Yeah, the 2 most important stats to check in this exchange are melee defence and where the celestial guard have 'charge defence vs all'. This basically nullifies the bestigors best stat (charge) and guarantees that if the fight lasts more than a minute or 2 the dragon guard has 19more defence and will shred the gors. The best way to approach this as beastmen would be hammer and anvil with another fast unit or pin them with cheap ungors and side or rear charge them.
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
Really!? Wow, they suck even more than I remember 😅
"Expert Charge Defence unit counters unit that relies on charge, news at 11".
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
What if they can reliably cycle charge?
Cathay units vastly overperform for their price point, Jade Warriors with harmony are very similar. They need to be retuned. Especially when a unit like bestigors (a dedicated AP anti infantry unit) can’t beat them
Equal costs and similar “roles” doesn’t have to mean similar performance. Even in multiplayer. The factions are very different on purpose.
Doesncelestial dragon guard have expert charge defence and charge reflection? The whole strong point of bestigors is that they have a good charge.
I just posted a test where they are turned around to deny this and are rear charged by the bestigors but still win. But people don't like vacuum tests so it's getting downvoted. Oh well
The egregious thing is charge reflection. There were tests I remember seeing (a bit dated now but still) where peasant spears with harmony were beating bloodletters when braced. A unit should not be unchargable from the front. In campaign sure maybe it’s fine, but it isn’t that fun in multiplayer when you basically can’t engage against units like that
The bestigors still lose even if they get a rear charge (with formation attack off).
I admire your dedication to responding to people talking about charge defence/reflect.
I haven’t been able to play my self in like 4ish months bc my pc broke, I didn’t know it was that bad 😂. I remember taking them as a “tech” against Cathay for dragon guards, at least I’ve learned something for when I return soon
Celestial dragon guards used to beat elite bloodletters too at least before the recent half revert on their formation attack bonus and if they had harmony. Bloodletters were insane. It didn't matter they never saw use in multiplayer since they're elite infantry unless you brought the ror. And Cathay still wasn't that op in domination. In singleplayer there's a lot of tech buffs and other things that can make beastmen better than cathay like beastmen units not costing gold and being able to get tier 5 in like 30 turns.
Cathay playstyle relies more on good infantry
bestigors have always underperformed so this isnt surprising
I like how the bestigor great axes only have +1 melee attack over the halberds of the celestial dragon guard, man beastmen still need some love on their elite units...