Introduction and Help with 1500 Point Herd List

Army lists and Tactics
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Hello, this is my first post. I am a previous WHFB who mostly played Beastmen / Beasts of Chaos. I only played a couple of games of Kings of War in 2nd edition but I really liked the streamline system.

Unfortunately my gaming group fell apart for a long time and life happens. So I am trying to put the band back together once life gets more back to normal. So with that I wanted to draft some 1500 army options. Everyone will have only limited time so I think 1500 points is the most that people can spend for the game.

The Herd army that I put together is:

Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment: 205
Minotaur Chariots Regiment with Brew of Haste: 230
Harpies Troop: 90
Wild Gur Panthers Regiment: 130
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant, Lighting Bold: 95
Centaur Chief with short bow: 120
Great Chieftain on Chariot with short bow: 155
Total: 1500

The focus on the army is to have an anchor with the Tribal Spears that can still be effective in combat. I was considering a horde of Spirit Walkers in this roll but the greater survivability of the Tribal Spears seemed worthwhile. Not sure how it actually plays.

My idea was for the Longhorns and Minotaur Chariot units to flank the Tribal spears while the fast movers and fliers position for rear and flank charges.

The heroes have different roles. The druid is pure spell support. The Chieftain on Chariot is next to the Tribal Spears and is more for counter charge support and inspiring. The Centaur Chief would focus on soft character hunting, speed bump, combined charge ally, artillery hunting, or to disorder fliers.

In terms of army roles does this make sense? Am I missing some key elements to how the armies function or important counters?

I had always like the Minotaurs in the old WHFB game but Guardian Brutes seem to have a bad Internet reputation. Are they worth the trouble to figure how to build around them?

My other idea was to increase the Minotaur Chariots and go with Moonfang as the below list:

Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment: 205
Minotaur Chariots Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies Troop: 90
Wild Gur Panthers Regiment: 130
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant, Lighting Bold: 95
Moonfang: 210
Total: 1490

Does the loss of a hero and less units matter much?

Thanks for all of your input!

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Welcome to the forums and to KoW. As you have an experience with WHFB I believe you will do well after a few games. The general advice is play what you like, then tune the list depending on how the units suit your game plans and style of play.

Just a few brief comments on the lists you posted for a starter:

  • Keeping your units inspired is quite important in KoW, so I like more your first list as it includes 3 sources of inspiration.
  • It may be better to play two druids instead of concentrating 3 spells on one of them. Maybe put one on mount to go with the chariots and drop the chieftain to make a room for a second druid.
  • The harpies are excellent chaff unit, I would play two troops of them and drop the regiment of gur panthers.

Anyway, whatever you field, I hope you will enjoy your first games.

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Welcome. I’m only just getting into Herd myself, so i’m no expert on that army, but i’d agree with @AlQuds on inspiring units and not putting all your eggs in one basket or spells on one druid.
It might be worthwhile listening to some Army reviews for best units tactics for Herd armies to see which units are overpriced or pack a punch and hit above their weight, but having a druid/high druid and a Moonfang is a good bet.

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I would point out that neither list really has 2 inspiring as the centaur chief in the first one only inspires centaurs… himself…

I would second the things people have said about druids.
What do you really want this Druid to do, and then optimize for that. In my list I have one who does healing and one who does lightning.

I think the spear warriors horde is a great unit for several reasons. 30 attacks, speed 6, thunderous charge and phalanx. It’s like a combo hammer and anvil. Especially with bane chant support and the magic items.

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Aaaah, thanks for reminding us that the centaur chief’s inspiration is restricted only to centaurs. I have completely forgotten about it. :blush: Well, I have not fielded my Herd army (mostly trees and lycans) for over a year, so easy to forget many things … :cry:

Then, my advice would be to replace the centaur chief by a second druid or find a room for some centaurs in the list. Either way, having 3 sources of inspiration is about right for 1500 points. My rule of thumb is 1 inspiration for about 500-600 points, but of course there might be exceptions depending on actual army composition.

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Hey everyone thanks for the very helpful feedback.

My first idea was to modify to the below army:
Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment: 205
Minotaur Chariots Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies Troop: 90
Harpies Troop: 90
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant, Lighting Bolt: 95 (Inspiring)
Centaur Chief with short bow: 120 (Inspiring)
Great Chieftain on Chariot: 140 (Inspiring only himself)
Total: 1500

This spends the additional points from getting rid of the Gur Panthers to Harpies on making the Minotaur Chariot unit a Horde. This will be able to grid much better. Good catch on the Centaur Chief not helping with inspiring others.

That lead me to this list:
Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment: 205
Minotaur Chariots Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies Troop: 90
Centaur Bray Striders Regiment: 160
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant: 85 (Inspiring)
Druid with Heal, Lighting Bolt: 75 (Inspiring)
Centaur Chief with short bow and blade of slashing: 125 (Inspiring himself and Centaurs)
Total: 1500

I am losing the second Harpies unit but gaining the Centaur unit which can now be inspired. Does losing the 2nd unit of Harpies too big of a loss of their movement advantage? It also doubles up on the magic of the Druids.

Then if I want to increase the Inspiring to 3 sources without any unit restrictions my idea was:
Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment with Pipes of Terror: 215
Minotaur Chariots Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies Troop: 90
Lycans Regiment with Mead of Madness: 165
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant: 85 (Inspiring)
Druid with Heal, Lighting Bolt: 75 (Inspiring)
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant on Horse: 110 (Inspiring)
Total: 1500

I still lose one unit of Harpies but the Regiment of Lycans are still faster and more mobile than most units. Also does losing the Centaur Chief matter much?

There are just so many choices.

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Unfortunately, the first and third lists are illegal because Minotaur Chariots don’t unlock, so you can’t take three heroes :confused: Also I think the third is doubly illegal as you can’t take a triple of a hero until 2000+

Coincidentally, the second list is probably my favorite hero setup of the three (tho I’m a big fan of the cat over the bow, duelist is real on a fast individual). The Centaur regiment I wish was better, but it’s a pretty rough and ready medium cav unit that can hopefully get up to mischief - my own Herd (that I haven’t played yet!) has 2x troops of them, which I’m hoping put some work in as thicc chaff.

Also! From a mathematical standpoint, brew of strength on the Tribal Spears is the same result as brew of sharpness, but costs 5 points less, tho believe me I agree, hitting on 3+ feels much better than hitting on 4+ :sweat_smile: You’ve got a lot of Me 3+ in the army, so maybe you could stomach keeping the Me 4+ in exchange for like conjuring staff on the bane chant druid?

EDIT: I mean, you’re right, Me 3+ will always be useful while CS1 won’t help against a De 3+ target if you also have TC1 going off … but frankly that’s a pretty corner case for a big horde that’s likely to grind if it isn’t getting an opportunistic charge off.

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Thanks for the feedback. You are totally correct about the Minotaur Chariots having the little “*” by them.

Also I had not looked into Duelist before and that adds a good potential for character hunting so I think that is a good change out. If I really need 5 points for something else I could change out the Brew of Sharpness to the Brew of Strength. So it seems that leaves me with the list of:

Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment with Staying stone: 210
Minotaur Chariots* Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies* Troop: 90
Centaur Bray Striders Regiment: 160
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant: 85 (Inspiring)
Druid with Heal, Lighting Bolt: 75 (Inspiring)
Centaur Chief with cat friend for duelist: 120 (Inspiring himself and Centaurs)
Total: 1500

Or I looked at how to change around to have a non-Centaur option and came up with the below list:

Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment: 205
Minotaur Chariots* Horde with Brew of Haste: 285
Harpies* Troop: 90
Guardian Brutes Regiment with Mead of Madness: 145
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant: 85 (Inspiring)
Druid with Heal, Lighting Bolt: 75 (Inspiring)
Great Chieftain on Chariot: 140 (Inspiring)
Total: 1500

This definitely loses some speed and movement flexibility but it gains 3 full sources of inspiring.

My only other idea was to change out the Minotaur Chariots to a Guardian Brutes Horde or a Spirit Walker Horde to have better unlocks for future scaling of the army. The Internet seemed to have many negative things to say about the Guardian Brutes and the Spirit Walkers only had a defense 3+. I am curious if there any been any difference experience on the table instead of just math-hammer.

Thanks for your input and help.

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Sadly, regiments of large infantry don’t unlock in KOW 3E either, you have to take a horde for that. This does mean that your third option, to swap the Mino Chariots to a Guardian horde, would finally get you that third unlock! And I think could work fine. The Minos are better in various ways - De 5+ also higher Nv also Strider (also TC2) - but the 30 attaks on the Guardians is a thing, tho you will really want to give them strider boots if not the potion of the caterpillar (I’m shocked they’ve got no pathfinder!) If you go with the Guardians, you could easily get that second Harpy troop back in, and have a load of points for upgrades. Also I’d say go Great Chieftain on Chariot, for the inspire and hitting and so on, over the Centaur Chief.

As for Spirit Walkers, they were the only Herd infantry I really saw in 2E, and I’ve actually build an army with 4x regiments of them. The De is sad but fearless + Me 3+ is solid for the points. (It’s much more typical to see 1-2x hordes of these, I’ve just been experimenting with regiment spam …)

EDIT: You actually save a ton of points going with spear horde, longhorn reg, guardian horde, even when you add in the second harpies! Almost 100 points to play with!

EDIT2: Maybe one of the reasons that people are down on Guardian Brutes is that Longhorns are super good? Here’s a shot from me that gets that extra unlock plus keeps a token Big Guy unit in for thicc chaffing + fun modeling:

Tribal Spears (Horde) 225
– Brew of Sharpness 45
Longhorns (Regiment) 205
Longhorns (Regiment) 205
Guardian Brutes (Regiment) 135
Harpies* (Troop) 90
Harpies* (Troop) 90
Beast of Nature 150
– Upgrade with Wings, increasing Speed to 10 and gaining Fly and Nimble 40
– Increase Attacks to 7 15
Great Chieftain on Minotaur Chariot 140
Druid 65
– Bane Chant (2) 20
Druid 65
– Lightning Bolt (2) 10

Total Unit Strength: 16
Total Units: 10
Target Points: 1500

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My own Herd army is dectated by the models i bought and their unique theme, but would be very similar to that suggested by @Boss_Salvage.
I’ve only played one battle so far with my Herd, but they did well.
i do have a horde of Spirit Walkers in there, which are definately a hammer unit and not an anvil, similar to Half Elf berserkers in Northern Alliance, but as a horde can take some punishment by sheeer weight of numbers. If used in formation with chaff protecting them, they should get into combat and chew up your opponent. i gave mine Blessing of the Gods, to make them elite too.
My horde of chariots, which i proxied to test their effectiveness, also did really well, weathering a lot of artillery and troll thumping and still winning out. The fury helped.
I also have Moonfang. which is highly rated, and worth considering

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Hey thanks everyone. Yes the army from @Boss_Salvage makes a lot of sense.

If I was going to change to the Guardian Brutes Horde then I came up with:

Tribal Spears Horde with Brew of Sharpness: 270
Longhorns Regiment with Chant of Hate: 225
Guardian Brutes Horde with Brew of Caterpillar: 245
Harpies* Troop: 90
Harpies* Troop: 90
Beast of Nature with flying and added attacks: 205
Druid with Heal, Bane Chant: 85 (Inspiring) +30 points Shroud of the Saint
Druid with Heal, Lighting Bolt: 75 (Inspiring) +30 points Boomstick
Great Chieftain on Chariot with bow: 155 (Inspiring)
Total: 1500

With the extra 100 points I went with additional support for the Druids and Vicious to the Longhorns. This has at least some shooting to try to plink someone/something as needed. I am not sure if this would be considered a mixed army list or at least an effective mixed army list.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Those are great items on the Druids, make them better at what they’re there to do :+1:

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At 1,500 points you have

Effective chaff in the harpies
Plink damage in the lightning bolt Druid and chariot chief
2 powerful hammers in the guardian brutes and Longhorns
1 dangerous hybrid hammer/anvil horde of spears
1 annoying dangerous flier
1 beefy character that can tip a combat ( chariot chief again)
1 source of bane chant
2 heals, one mediocre one decent
3 sources of inspiring
All the ingredients for a fine army!

For a small army it has some very powerful heavy hitters, which can dominate small games if they get the chance. However a skillful opponent will chaff them or have a tool to stop them. Victory will depend on your chaff and spoiling units clearing the way so your 3 big units can beat face.
The problems will come when you start to lose units. Lose too many of the big Killy units too quickly and it will be hard to come back from that.
I think it could really crush some enemies but have problems with MSU armies played well.

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I am not saying that the items are bad but my preferred setup is to equip one druid with bane chant, heal and conjurer’s staff. The staff is cheaper than the shroud and improves both spells. It is also much more important to cast BC more reliably than heal one more wound (in average).

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This is in fact exactly how I run my druid as well (heal, bane chant, staff), as I’d rather the BC went off when I need it to. I always flirt with adding a lil LB2 to her too but I always run out of points.

My feel was that Herdheart wanted that druid to heal more than bane chant (because of the upgrade), so Heal (5) (+ 2 from the other one) seemed legit.

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i’d agree on the staff and Heal on your Gladewalker Druid, for 10 points upgrade is pretty good, and 30 points + for the shroud and Heal 7 is pretty good too, although i’m not having good die rolls with my healig druids to date, i also feel that such spells suits the Herd themeL better than LB or BC.
However, the Thunderous Charge losses through disordered can really hurt when fighting the likes of Northern Alliance, and Pathfinder doesn’t help when charging over obstacles. Depending on your structure, Surge is also a key spell, but i don’t have any shambling units in my Herd army, so its not applicable to me
I tried Blizzard once, only once! i might as well have been throwing wet teabags at them. Fireball can be useful at 8 , but is short range, so maybe as an offensive spell if i have points spare, although i am loathe to commit too many spells/points to a character that’ll get chewed up in combat. points might be better spent on a Diadem of Dragonkind on a Cheiftain instead of a bow.
A bog standard run of the mill Druid for me gets heal +BC if he’s lucky.

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Thanks for the advice on the Conjurer’s staff. Since it helps both Heal and Bane Chant I think it makes more sense.

For the 20 points of savings I was thinking to give something to the Chieftain on the Chariot. Does the Sacred Horn increase his inspiring range? Or I was thinking to increase his speed by +1.

Let me know if there is something amazing that I am missing.

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The Sacred Horn increases his aura by 3" radius which might be useful. Brew of Haste gives +1 speed, but given that most of the units he would inspire are also 6" speed, not much use really. i’d consider giving him the Mournful blade so he gets Dualist as he can’t take a sabre tooth hunting cat, doubling his attacks against individuals or mead of madness for Wild Charge +1 which would make him wild charge d3+1…(charging on 14/16") fun times

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Could the Chieftain on Chariot take the Mournful Blade since he does not have the individual rule?

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Ahhh good point,no he can’t