Day 1 - Beastmen special rules

So we'll start off with an easy one.  I think in all the time that I've been back playing Warhammer Fantasy, I've only played the Beastmen once. So suffice to say I don't have their special rules committed to memory yet.   I knew they had some form of Hatred but that's about it.  Which brings us to the first special rule

Primal Fury
I'm not going to quote the exact rules here but it basically boils down to this.  If a unit is in combat and has the Primal Fury special rule, they have to take a leadership test.  If they pass it, they gain Hatred.  If they pass it with double ones, they gain Hatred and Frenzy.  What's different about Primal Fury and other units that have Hatred is that the Primal Fury test is taken at the beginning of each close combat phase.  So assuming they pass their leadership test, they could have Hatred in every round of combat.  That's nifty!

Beastmen Ambush
At first glance, this rule looks pretty spiffy.  Basically if the unit has the Ambush rule, you can hold a unit off the board at the beginning of the game provided that you have a unit of equal or greater size of the same unit that you deploy on the table at the beginning.   So if you have a unit of 20 Gor deployed on the table at the start of the game, you can hold a unit of 20 or fewer in "Ambush".  They have the potential of coming on in every turn of the game starting Turn 1.  However there's a bit of randomness involved.  During the Beastmans Remaining Moves phase they roll on a chart to find out if and where the unit can be deployed.  On a 1 the opponent gets to choose the table edge, on a 2 or 3 they don't come in, on a 4 they arrive on the left and on a 5 they come in on the right.  If it's a 6 the Beastmen player gets to choose any table edge.

Obviously the Primal Fury is the most significant of the two rules in my opinion.  The Ambush rule seems like it might be a little risky to try on large units.   You could take a few units Ungor Raiders and perhaps have a decent chance at hunting warmachines or at the very least getting into the mind of your opponents.  

Hopefully in future articles we'll discuss some ways that Beastmen can get the most out of these rules.