Beast theme Dropped in War Room: Imperial Warhost

Allowed:

All Warlocks

Non Character Beasts

Willbreakers

Lesser Warlocks

Beast Handlers

Battle Engines

Benefits:

Every 30 points of Beasts grants free Agonizer or Krea

Warbeasts gain Hyper Aggressive

2" extra deployment zone

My personal opinion is that the total lack of units besides beast handlers guarentees this theme has zero scenario pressure. That seems catastrophically risky with scenario being frequently very live and frequently very winnable through infantry. Right now I would never play this competitively. After a large number of casual games I might change my mind, but beast bricks don't even contest all that well. Wish we had access to Karax at least.

Also, After getting 1 of each free beast, I don't think extra copies will be very effective. Shamans are always better than extra Krea's. Although they're not free, Krea's do force aura and paralyze a living thing maybe. Shamans do so much more with Rush muling and far strike ghost shots.

Hyper Aggressive army-wide seems very impactful against gunlines. Although, with such a strong benefit that Gargantuans can't use, it's a kind of a shame that the beast theme directs you away from the biggest beasts. This kind of thing wouldn't bother me because, you know, sure, have to make choices, but this is the beast theme. Shouldn't it's 1 beast benefit affect our Gargantuans?

Extra deployment zone isn't much to talk about. It's very impactful. I value it. Our beasts can have significant positioning struggles.

I would say that Xerxis2 is potentially going to get over his low-fury huge-base shortcomings with this theme.

Anyway, I would start all lists with:

Gladiator

Agonizer (free)

Krea (free)

Shaman

Zaadesh1

Raider/Cannnoneer

2 x min unit beast handlers

Zaadesh1 seems very important to this theme. He helps manage fury a lot by handing out rushes or force auras. I can only imagine leaving him out if my battlegroup is mostly shooting, since the beast handlers can whip that fury off. Even with important battlegroup buffs, I'd still run Zaadesh. He's even a very good melee solo in a pinch.

Don't leave out a shooting beast module, I'd say. Going with all melee beasts isn't going to be best. Including a shooting module eases fury management a lot, it's hard to keep an all melee beast force in Skorne's typically small control areas.

I wonder if there is ever a reason to take the battle engine. It doesn't gain hyper aggressive, and doesn't count towards free points. Also, a lot of the reason to take the battle engine is so you don't need a Gladiator, but this theme will pretty much always have a couple of melee heavy beasts so that's not happening. It is a good battle engine though.

*Edit: I guess the battle engine does count for free points, so nevermind

I'd always run extra beast handlers for scenario if nothing else.