The Beasts and Model Count

[BrentS]

Two questions... how do you count the composition of the Beast of Gorgoroth in terms of model count towards determining break point?

1) According to the special rule "It only counts as one" then it says the Great Beast and its crew only count as one model towards a warband and bow count.
2) The description says the crew are "integral" models and should be marked with an appropriate marker if they die from enemy ranged shooting.

Both of those would suggest that the Great Beast and 10 orc crew would only be one model for break purposes too.

However, as each orc archer and the spear armed "driver" could in fact survive if the great beast is brought down. So if this is true, would it mean that you don't get "credit" for killing the Beast until the beast and all 10 crew are killed? I dont' think that was what was intended (an no, I can't point towards "intent" in a rule book ). So if thats the case then there is an argument that the entire beast should count as 11 models for break point purposes and the "It only counts as one" is a special rule that allows it to be easier to field the Great Beast in your army but doesn't "negatively" effect the overall model size of the army.


Quesiton #2: The Mumak
According to the revised rules for the Mumak, it states that the Haradrim Chieftan is the leader of the warband and the Mumak is his mount. The other warriors are then added to the warband and can occupy the howdah.

So based on this "revision", it looks to me that the Mumak no longer counts as a model for the purposes of army size? He's just a very powerful piece of wargear for a Haradrim commander.

[BostonNazgul]

The beasts special rule only mentions bow count and for how to include in a warband. stop. so you could have a warband with 12 of them..... I see it as counting normally for break point. Are they allowed to dismount like with the mumak?

That would make sense with the mumak revision in that it is simply a mount.

[BrentS]

Are they allowed to dismount like with the mumak?

They are not allowed to dismount from the Grat Beast.

Technically, Haradrim are not allowed to dismount from the Mumak as well, unless the option for "Ropes" is purchased.

So the dismounting option doesn't seem to impact the model count towards break point.

[JLeong]

The way I read the rule the Great Beast only counts as "one bow" when assessing the bow limit of your force. It also only occupies on of the twelve "warrior slots" provided by the use of a hero.

The description says that

A Great beast of Gorgoroth consists of the Great Beast itself (which is a monstrous mount) an Orc Warrior rider with armor and spear (who controls his mount) and 9 Orc Warrior passengers with armor and orc bows (who ride on the battle platform).

This tells us that when you spend the 125 points, you get an Orc warrior that rides a monstrous mount (the beast). This is one model. Additionally you are paying for 9 orc warriors with armor and orc bows. These are 9 separate models, which use their own profile.
The orcs here are not a single model with a combined profile. It seems that GW's intent is to make sure that people used 9 orc archers and only 9 orc archers, not trackers or uruks, etc. It seems easier to just have the crew come with the Beast. If they were all to be treated as a single model, the description would say so.

If we look at the Warg marauder profile, something similar to the beast in that it is one beast ridden by several orcs, it reads:

A Warg Marauder is represented by a single model With a combined profile here- the component parts cannot be attacked or wounded separately.

The Orcs in the battle-platform of the Great Beast model can be targeted and wounded separately. Each crewman (crew-orc?) has its own profile, not a combined shoot value like the Warg Marauder. Including the Orc warriors in the price of the Great Beast streamlined the process of selecting crew and helped (it seems) to eliminate any movement issues within the battle-platform. It seems to me that we are to presume that we can assume every archer has 360 Degree line-of-sight and can be targeted from anywhere )in addition to the in-the-way roll). There is only one tier in the platform. It's essentially a box in which the orcs can freely move.

It is my opinion that because of the description in the Great Beast profile (separate profiles for Beast and orcs), ability to target the Orcs individually, and the comparison to the other new multi-rider model (the Warg Marauder) each Orc in the battle-platform must be counted individually when determining the number of models in the force (for breaking).
The total model count should be 10 (1 for the Driver and 9 for the archers).

That is to say, however, that the Great Beast only counts as one model when determining how many bows a force can take.
For example, if you have 2 Orc captains, 23 orc warriors, and a great beast, then you have 24 warriors and can include 8 bows (1 Great beast and 7 Orcs). When determining break point, however, you have 35 models.

That's the way I read the rule...

I could be wrong though haha

[ChrisLS]

What JLeong says makes total sense. It fixes lots of potential questions.

[prion2001]

The only issue I see with the analysis is how do you account for this rule in the Mordor book (pg. 37):

ONLY COUNTS AS ONE. The Great Beast of Gorgoroth and it's crew count as a single model in a warband, and a single model for the purposes of working out the number of bows in your force.

This sounds like what it says, it is a SINGLE model in a warband and a single model in terms of determing bow limit. It is not clear but why would total model count be any different? If if only counts as 1 model when you calculate number of warriors to get your 1/3 bow limit, why would it count as 9 when you do a break test? They should have just said "it counts as a single model for all purposes inclduing warband numbers, bow limit, total number of models in the force, etc." I'm sure they meant to but every once in awhile I guess mistakes happen at GW.

[BostonNazgul]

Ruling for the singles event is going to stand as follows.

direct rules stating that the beast counts as 1 model for warband total models, and 1 model for 1/3 bow limit.

since it does not address overall model count for break point and the fact that similar models like the marauder DO have a clause stating the except, the great beast and all the orcs must be individually totaled for purposes of break point.

It could get out of hand if the beast goes down, then marking which orcs are beast orcs and which are regular etc.

[Smeagol]

That's probably the best solution barring a GW FAQ since you determine break point by counting the number of models still on the table and not by the number that have died.

[BrentS]

I had typed a long reply to this thread but it seems to have been deleted before I pressed submit... oh well.

The main point I was going to make is... if the Beast only counts as one for purposed of Break point, then in my mind, the only way to get credit for the "kill" is to kill the Beast, its driver, and all 9 orc bowman. The rules say that the models will be thrown if the beast is slain and while they suffer a strenght somehting hit, they aren't automatically killed. Therefore, you could have as many as 10 orcs running around that need to be accounted for.

[Smeagol]

Yup, just like war riders.

[jlong05]

Yup, just like war riders.

The difference was Warg riders is if the mount is killed, and the rider isn't, the model count didn't change. Additionally, Warg riders are not counted twice while mounted. It really only becomes and issue when something knocks the rider from the mount without killing one or the other.

The Beast you can't ever separate the riders without kiling the beast.

[Smeagol]

Exactly. Druzhag and my warg riders. I can dismount the wargs and increase my model count as the wargs will pass their courage rolls via his fury spell. It's really not that much different.

[jlong05]

Exactly. Druzhag and my warg riders. I can dismount the wargs and increase my model count as the wargs will pass their courage rolls via his fury spell. It's really not that much different.

Not that much different but still an exploit of the intended design of the rules. I highly doubt that anyone would agree that taking warg riders and then using the loose mounts rule is anything but an exploit.

[Smeagol]

Exploit? Yeah, we'll have to disagree here. There are lots of things that could be exploits before, which is why the new rules for Druzhag does not allow for ridden wargs to be affected. Troll drums now allow dragons and fell beasts to fly thirteen inches. Is this an exploit too? Allowing Shelob to ally with Druzhag is a rules exploit? No, it is a legal alliance.

Do you know why we don't use rocks when going to war anymore? Because someone exploited the rules of physics and thermal dynamics unfairly.

[jlong05]

Exploit? Yeah, we'll have to disagree here. There are lots of things that could be exploits before, which is why the new rules for Druzhag does not allow for ridden wargs to be affected. Troll drums now allow dragons and fell beasts to fly thirteen inches. Is this an exploit too? Allowing Shelob to ally with Druzhag is a rules exploit? No, it is a legal alliance.

Do you know why we don't use rocks when going to war anymore? Because someone exploited the rules of physics and thermal dynamics unfairly.

I don't know what you are going on about. I never said that the troll drum use, shelob as an ally, or the use of Druzhag was an exploit. There 'may' be theme related issues with those items, but I simply was referring to the idea of taking Warg Riders to then purposfully dismount them to abitrarily increase an armies numbers. It was an explain in the previousl ruleset(LoME), and would likely still be seen as an exploit now.

Your argument was that the warg riders were similar to the Great Beast in that if the model were dismounted the total model count may change. I was only referring to the fact that unless someone is purposefully exploiting the rules, it is rare that a warg rider would become dismounted without the warg or rider being killed in combat.