Warhammer 6th ed. changes to the Beastmen army list
(with comments from the Beastlord of the Herdstone)

With the release of "Ravening Hordes" it appears that of all the army lists, Beastmen have undergone the most drastic changes to their core troops.  In this article I hope to outline these changes and I will add my own commentary (everyone's a critic don't ya know!)

A closer look at:

Characters

Beastlord: 3 less BS, 1 less wound, 100 less points
1 less wound but for half off the price a good deal

Shaman Lord: 1 less toughness, 1 less wound, 2 less initiative, 1 less attack, 1 more leadership, 45 less points
Talk about trimmed down.  This guy used to be great in hand to hand.  Not so much any more.  We'll have to see if magic is worth it for almost twice the cost of the new Beastlord...

Chieftain: 2 less BS, 1 less wound, 70 less points
Again like the Beastlord this guy is a good deal.  Losing the BS is insignificant.

Shaman: 1 less toughness, 1 less initiative, 7 more points
This is only bad news.  Your basic shaman is less adapt at combat now.

Core Units

Gors: 1 less wound, 5 less points
Probably the biggest change to any race.  Gor's now only have one wound and join the rest of the worlds armies with regular one wound troops.  This is only going to hurt my wallet as I now need to buy double the number of troops as I had before.    Personally I don't like it and see all of these changes as a money making ploy by GW.  Hopefully we'll see plastics.

Ungors: 1 more BS, 1.5 less points
The added BS is useless.  However the cost of these little tough guys is even better than before.  Worth every penny in my mind. 

Ungor Skirmishers: 1 more BS, 0.5 less points
Like above but this time they're making you pay for the skirmish ability.  Again I think these guys are a great buy for the cost.

Chaos Hounds: 1 less leadership
Giving you less for the same price.  With leadership of 5 now these dogs will be running with their tails between their legs.  And to think that you could field your entire army of them!  hahahaha

Special Units

Harpies: 1 less WS, 1 less wound, 7 more points
Oh brother!  This makes harpies very expensive now.  Is it worth fielding 10 of them for 220 just to take out a bolt-thrower?

Beastman Chariot: 18 less points
Chariot: 2 less strength, 2 less toughness
Despite no changes to the Tuskgors this contest winning chariot is now scaled down.    Hard to say right now how this will affect the chariot in battle but I think it will still be a good unit to field.

Bestigors: 1 less wound, 7 points less
Like the Gors this unit is hit in the wounds department, but this time you get a 7 point discount.  A good deal for the price.

Rare Units

Minotaurs: 1 more initiative, 1 more attack, 3 more points
A better deal than before but this time they don't appear to be subject to bloodgreed.    They look great when part of an army and always get a lot of attention from the enemy.  More atmospheric than tactical.

Dragon Ogres: 2 less BS, 1 less toughness, 1 more leadership, 12 less points
Now I must confess that I have never fielded these.  I don't really feel that they "fit in".  However, under the new rules they still have 4 wounds which is 1 more than the strongest Beastlord can have!

Chaos Trolls: 1 less attack, 3 less leadership, 15 less points
4 leadership!  OMG!  I wonder how the new leadership rules will be...    These guys could end up being the biggest waste of points.  However there appears to be nothing about stupidity under their special rules.

Other items of interest

It appears as though Gors no longer suffer from "infighting" as it's not mentioned at all.
A definite bonus.

Champions are now only 10 points more than a reg. with a bonus of +1 attack.
Much more affordable now!

Also Beastmen wizards can use the Beasts, Shadow, and Death lores of magic.
Whatever that means...

It appears that Beastmen can no longer have Chaos Spawn in their warbands.
They were great for stalling tough enemy units!

What are your thoughts?  Post them here for all to see!