Why Play Sons of Behemat?

You love kaijus. Sons of Behemat are a playstyle no other army can reproduce. Beastclaw Raiders come close but if you just wanna run 4 of the biggest and beefiest models in Sigmar and feel the satisfaction of squishing that guy’s army of 100 infantry then Sons of Behemat are unmatched. What they lack in cunning tricks they make up for in sheer toughness.

Best 5 things About the Book

• Two brand new Mega-Gargants – The Mega-Gargant kit has been expanded with 2 more options, including a named character. These guys are great and the new non-named character, the Beast-Smasher can be used to lead his own tribe or as a Mercenary
• Improved Mercenaries – You no longer lose a command point for bringing a mercenary gargant which makes them a bit more practical for other players.
• Monstrous Rampages – As the faction of only-monsters it’s fitting to have 3 unique rampages to use each turn. 
• More Interesting Mancrushers – So not necessarily better but there are some builds which do make them more interesting if you’re really wanting to include some in an army. 
• Path to Glory – For those more narratively inclined; fully fleshed out Path to Glory rules for your own army. 

Army Rules

Battle Traits

There’s only one generic trait: Mightier Makes Rightier, and it has been changed significantly. Anyone who has looked at Kragnos’ warscroll probably knows where this is going. Mancrushers remain the same – counting as 10 models on the point instead of the usual 5 for a Monster, all Mega-Gargants now start at 20 (except Brodd, who starts at 25) and have a diminishing score as they take wounds. 

Previously this trait made it so killing Mega-Gargants swiftly was a necessity for a chance to take an objective off of them; even if you kept them with one wound left, they would still, probably, outnumber you on the point. This adds a bit of granularity to it, and forces Gargant players to play more aggressively as Gargants have pretty poor saves – just a lot of wounds. If a gargant player can’t keep opponent’s cleared out they’re going to have a difficult time keeping up.

Monstrous Rampages

As an army of all monsters, your options for stock monstrous rampages can look thin if you have all your stuff locked into combat, so this book adds some very cool new monstrous rampages for any Mega-Gargant in your army to use.

There are two meant for dealing with monsters: Colossal Slam and Beast Grapple. Colossal Slam is the far more interesting of the two, on an enemy unit with only 1 model (so no Stormdrakes or Stonehorn Beastriders unless they’re down to one model). On a 3+ you do D3 mortal wounds, pick up the enemy monster, put it back down anywhere you want within a half inch of the bearer; the gargant using the rampage then suffers -1 to hit for the phase so it is a trade off. If your opponent tried to get clever and move it to block you out you can deal with such chicanery by just suplexing it to the other side. You can also simply remove a monster off an objective, potentially taking it away from them, or moving them out of an enemy aura to remove buffs. With such a big base, it’s going to be hard to pile in back to where they want to be. Beast Grapple is less interesting but effective: On a 3+, both monsters gain Strike-Last. Which might sound bad for you, but assuming you use it on your turn it can mean if one of your giants is locked into solo combat with another monster, you can push that problem off to the side and know he won’t be attacked until the end of the combat phase – where you will have priority and still get to hit first. It’s a bit more niche, but it’s good. 

What about the little pipsqueaks running around? For anything with 1 or 2 wounds you have Earth-Shaking Roar. You make a bravery test and if you can beat their bravery a single model flees (unit’s owner chooses). Bravery tests are selective, whether or not this is good depends on the army. Functionally, Stomp would do roughly the same thing (and possibly remove more models) but you probably use that one every single turn you’re in combat, so this is more of a back up option.

Command Traits

The command traits seem a bit lean at only 3 options, but that’s because each tribe has 2 more to pick from. Of the generics, the clear winner is Rabble Rouser which adds +1 to charge rolls for all Gargants wholly within 18”. On such a large base this is a massive bubble and there isn’t a gargant who doesn’t want to be charging in at the earliest opportunity.

Furious Temper has some potential. While more niche than Rabble Rouser I wouldn’t count it out. It allows a gargant to, once per game, count as being at top bracket like the Monster Command Ability from last year. This would allow a gargant who is almost down and out to punch above its weight class and maybe finish off a unit that it otherwise couldn’t. Importantly, since the number of models a gargant counts as is now continent on wounds it could let you hold onto a vital point your opponent will otherwise steal.

Finally we got Monstrously Tough which just isn’t worth it. It gives a gargant 5 more wounds and if an opponent dealt 35 wounds to you in rapid order they can probably get that last 5, too.

Artefacts

Four artefacts, and honestly? They’re all pretty excellent. Extra Calloused Feet and Scavenger Wake are both options for dealing with hordes. The feet will give your stomping feet an extra attack, -3 Rend and make the damage a flat 3 instead of d3. Scavengers Wake lets you roll a die for each model in a unit and on a 4+ deal a mortal, but only once per game. In short the feet are better sustained damage and while it works on any unit, it works best on smaller infantry. Scavenger Wake is a one shot hit of solid damage against tankier hordes, like Mortek Guard or Vanari Wardens.

On defense, Glowy Shield of Protectiveness will reduce rend of -1 attacks to 0 and on any 6s to save, deal a mortal wound back. I think this one might be my favorite of the bunch just because giant’s saves kinda suck, but they do have a lot of wounds and that means making a lot of saves. This means the return on investment for mortal wounds dealt back is quite high and will make it more of a challenge than just punching meat.

The final one is a solid workhorse option. The Amberbone Totem allows the bearer to run and charge. Very practical for an army that really wants to get into melee combat as fast as possible.

Naturally the Arcane Tome and Amulet of Destiny still remain as tempting options. Flaming weapon is still basically tailor made for Gargants, and even just being able to access Mystic Shield can save their bacon. 6+ Ward may not feel like much but pays off the more wounds a model has, and Gargants have the most. Each tribe also has two more for you to pick from so we’re not even done yet.

Tribes (Subfactions)

Each tribe comes with battle traits, 2 command traits and 2 artefacts. Like the original book, the same 3 return with a fourth added for the new Beast Smasher Gargant – The Smasher Tribe. Your tribe is still determined based on your General meaning if you take a Kraken Eater General then your army is Taker Tribe, simple as. King Brodd doesn’t get a tribe if he’s General, but he’s a Unique Leader with Warmaster so will count as a General, just make sure you’re taking another Mega-Gargant so that you do get a sub-faction ability and take it as your chosen General. If King Brodd is your only Mega Gargant then you will not benefit from a tribe. 

Taker Tribe

Two familiar battle traits which have seen some revision. Get Rid of Em’! was the whole reason people would dip into Taker Tribe. While it previously increased the models Mancrushers counted as from 10 to 15 and Megas from 20 to 30, it now only increases both by 5. With the new degrading statline on Megas this may become more important. It may not be 30, but it can make sure the value never dips below 20. The other ability I Want That For Me Collection! was totally rewritten. It’s now a command ability that adds +1 to damage when Mancrushers attack a Leader holding an artefact or is Unique. Mancrushers are pretty bad, but sometimes you have to resort to them and +1 Damage is not nothing. 

For command traits the fan favorite Very Acquisitive returns as it was. You gain an extra artefact, and combined with the popular Bosses of the Stomp battalion you can make sure every Gargant in your army gets an artefact. Extremely Intimidating is drastically different, rather than granting -1 to be hit in combat it shuts off Rally and Inspiring Presence within 6”, making sure those pesky little hordes can’t try and regroup against you.

Finally, artefacts. Wallopin’ Tentacle is much better than before, on a 4+ it deals D3 mortal wounds and rather than rerolling 1s to hit them, they get Strike Last, so save dealing with them for the end of the round. Glowy Lantern had to be changed, of course due to Arcane Tome existing. It now lets the bearer cast an Endless Spell but at double the range. Some real possible fun to be had since Gargants are so expensive you are liable to be leftover with points but can’t fit a unit in. Instead why not drop a Purple Sun 16” away? If you can’t, I’d just stick to the Tome since the Lantern only lets you summon endless spells. 

Breaker Tribe

Similarly the Breaker Tribe’s rules are very similar to returning players. Breaking Down the Houses works about the same as before giving Mancrusher Gargants +1 damage against units that are garrisoned or wholly on a terrain feature. Their other trait Fierce Loathings gives an army wide bonus that you choose during list construction, each giving your Gatebreakers and Mancrushers +1 to hit against a certain unit type. The choices now are: Heroes/Wizards, Totems/units with any command models, or war machines/monsters. Generally speaking the middle option for Totems and any units with command models is going to be the best pick since just about every unit in the game has command models of some kind and those are the units you want more attacks hitting as well to clear them off of objectives. For a command ability they get Ramming Speed which is used at the top of your charge phase to give a Mancrusher Gargant unit a 3D6” charge and the ability to attempt a charge from 18” away. Slamming a unit of Manrushers into enemy lines more reliably is always great but will mean you can’t re-roll the charge either since it’s used in the same phase. 

Your General can be Extremely Bitter (for their command trait) allowing your force to pick a second Fierce Loathings target giving you great utility and flexibility, especially when gearing up for an event against 5-6 different players; alternatively could have the Sees Red command trait allowing them to use the top row of their damage table regardless of wounds suffered so long as they’re within 3” of defensible terrain or an enemy unit that is wholly on a terrain feature. Sees Red sounds like a great trait at first but will depend entirely on your local meta and tables that you play on if that’s something that would conceivably come up enough to be worth taking. 

Gatebreakers in this faction have access to two artefacts: The Great Wrecka and Kingslaughter Cowl. The former makes the bearer’s Fortcrusha Flail cause D3 mortal wounds on unmodified 6’s to hit, in addition to normal damage and the latter adds 1 to all wound rolls for the bearer against enemy Heroes. Both are solid, the Fortcrusha Flail starts out at 6 attacks so is reliable enough to get some extra mortal wounds through but making the flail AND stomp attacks wound enemy heroes on 2’s makes them very reliable attacks. 

Smasher Tribe

This is the new subfaction to accompany the Beast Smasher. Your Mancrusher Gargants gain Bone-Crushing Strikes while within 3” of enemy Monsters allowing them to swap their normal Massive Club attack for 1 attack that causes 4D6 Damage instead while fighting Monsters. Their club attacks start out at 4 and diminish down to 1 with Damage 2 so having the choice of making 1 swing with a much higher damage output could be useful. Their command ability can only be issued by the General and only to a unit of Mancrushers, making them fight at top bracket on their damage table and giving fight-on-death so long as they haven’t already fought that phase. That’s an incredibly powerful combination when that unit is facing up against a high damage-dealer enemy that’s going to be swinging first. 

Your Smasher General can take one of two command traits. Sees Green gives a 4+ Ward against Mortal Wounds (not normal wounds) once per game for one phase only; handy to keep it alive if you’re expecting a lot of mortal wounds for 1 phase during a game but there are just better traits to choose from. The other, Marrow Drinker, allows the General to heal some wounds after killing an enemy Monster: roll a number of dice equal to that enemy monster’s wounds characteristic and for each 5+ heal 1 wound. Having more healing on a Mega Gargant is always good and enemy Monsters are frequent enough that you should be able to use this at least once each game. 

For relics Beast-Smashers in this tribe have access to The Shatterer. When attacking an enemy Hero, Monster, or War Machine and the bearer’s Menhir Club rolls an unmodified wound roll of 6 the target’s armour is “shattered” meaning that for the rest of the game it won’t benefit from any positive modifiers to its armour save. The club has 3 attacks and hits on a 3+ so it’s far from guaranteed to roll that 6 to wound but against the right target this can be game-changing ro remove all forms of save stacking. The Mantle of Tusks and Horns instead gives a once per game ability to all of your Sons of Behemat units on the table for +1 to hit with melee attacks for one combat phase. Being able to stack that with commands is huge and gives a massive army wide buff to clear enemies off objectives. 

Stomper Tribe

Big Shouts sees an overhaul here and allows your General to issue the same command to any number of Mancrusher units (in range, of course) while only spending 1 Command Point. A great buff so long as you’re taking multiple units of Mancrushers; when issuing the Tribe-specific command Grab Those Rocks and Chuck ‘Em it lets you have multiple units gain +1 attack with Throwin Rocks. Stomper Tribe Mancrushers also add 1 damage to enemy units with 10-19 models and add 2 damage to enemies with 20+ enemy models in the unit, letting them clear through chaff with ease. 

You general can take a Stomper command trait: Inescapable Grip allowing it to reroll both dice on its Hurled Body ability or Eager for a Fight giving it 3D6” charges (yes, all of the time) and allowing it to charge from 18” instead of the normal 12”. 

For relics you can give a Warstomper in your Stomper Tribe army the Club of First Oak which heals 1 wound to it in your own hero phase while also giving a 5+ ward so long as it has 25 or more wounds allocated to it; it will be down to 10 wounds at that point to start benefiting but could save it from dying. Or you can take the Mantle of the Destroyer which gives a 12” aura of Bravery 10 for Sons of Behemat units. Bravery isn’t usually much an issue in this army so it’d be rare you take this over any other of the relics available. 

Battalions

The Battalions from the Tome Celestial return – necessary, since their structure makes “normal” battalions impossible. Bosses of the Stomp is a mandatory take, for 2-4 Mega Gargants you can either do One Drop or an extra Enhancement. Honestly, both are good choices, an extra Enhancement means another artefact and that’s a very good thing, especially if it means an Amulet of Destiny or Arcane Tome. On the other hand, choosing to go first is also an excellent deal, because Sons of Behemat have to foot slog and making your opponent come to you can make or break your opening strategy.

Footsloggas is 2-3 Mancrushers and 0-1 Megas, granting a one drop or Swift. Always take the one drop. It’s fine, if your list has Mancrushers because there’s just not much else you’ll be able to do with them  right now. This could change in a future General’s Handbook season where Monsters become a focus again but for now you take it because you have to.

Grand Strategies

Sons of Behemat armies have 4 Grand Strategies to choose from for Matched Play games, the one from White Dwarf Make the Land Tremble is identical to before: simply run or charge with a unit every turn. 

Then there’s Brodd’s Revenge which can only be taken if King Brodd is in your army and you complete it by keeping King Brodd alive and he has used all 3 of his prayer effects during the game; keeping a Mega Gargant alive is not always as easy it sounds. Due to your few number of units, you need each of them in combat dishing out damage, in turn meaning they’ll be taking damage and using this grand strategy means planting a massive bullseye on your most expensive unit and your opponent will fight like hell to try and put him down – probably don’t take it. 

On the Warpath requires you to have all of your surviving units in enemy territory at the end of the game. They don’t need to be wholly within at least so just a sliver of base is necessary but if you’re needing to spread out for objective control this could be incredibly difficult to achieve. 

Another tricky one to score Show ‘Em Who’s Boss! requires you to kill the enemy model with the highest wounds characteristic (not too bad) AND to keep your General alive (this is what makes it tough). 

Of these four you’re most likely to choose Make the Land Tremble if any, but even then you may just be better off with a General’s Handbook one.

Battle Tactics

You get a set of 6 Battle Tactics to be able to choose each turn when playing matched play games to use alongside the ones in whichever battle pack you’re using. The three from White Dwarf: That’s Mine, Wrecking Crew, and Man-skittles have all stayed the exact same while adding three more:

Fury of Titans – Carry out each of the three unique Sons of Behemat monstrous rampages this turn. That means you need to line things up really well and also roll a 3+ for your Beast Grapple making it difficult to set up and can easily fall apart on a single dice roll. 

Splat! – Pick an enemy Hero and kill it with Throwin’ Rocks, Hurled Debris, or a Hurled Boulder. If you have a few units near a small hero or one that’s already been whittled down then it’s easily achievable. 

Colossal Violence – Pick one of your own Mega-Gargants, use the Titanic Duel Monstrous rampage, and kill the enemy monster you dueled. Again, pretty easy to line up if there are enemy monsters in the army so pretty easy to achieve. 

Units

Due to the shortness of the unit list I’m not going to break them down by type. As before, everything in the book is Battleline (yes even King Brodd!) and Behemoth. Also everything is also a Leader except for the Mancrushers. Kragnos is here but he remains unchanged so we’ll skip past him.

In order to spare redundancy, I’ll cover a few abilities here that show up on every Mega-Gargant warscroll:

They each have 35 wounds (Brodd has 40), 4+ save, and start at a 10” move that diminishes with wounds allocated.

Longshanks is back but I think it may actually be more unwieldy than before. It now is limited only to crossing models or terrain that are 4” or less and aren’t Monsters. This ability basically didn’t work as it was intended because you can’t stop within 3” of a unit, and their fat bases make this basically impossible. So while this is definitely worse it doesn’t change all that much. Sons are still very vulnerable to screening.

With Sons of Behemat, all Mega Gargants are immune to insta-death abilities. Which tracks, with such a low model count army, being able to bypass those 35 wounds would be quite unfair to you. Instead any would-be instant death deals D6 mortals instead.

Crushing Charge are your impact hits, after charging on a 2+, deal D3 mortals, or a D6 to a monster. Nice opener, nothing fancy but nice to have a little extra damage and with faster movement and ways of getting to 3D6 charges gargants get to choose their targets. 

The mega gargants all share 2 attack profiles: Almighty Stomp and Death Grip. The former is 2 attacks with -2 rend and D3 damage and gains +1 to hits against enemies with 3 or less wounds. Death Grip, which is now only Rend -2, on the other hand is better at killing Monsters a 1 attack D6 damage weapon is swingy but against Monsters you roll 2D6 and take the highest.

Vastly improved from the last book is Terror. Enemy units within 3” cannot be issued Inspiring Presence which is brutal for just about any multi-model unit squaring off against a mega gargant. 

Finally, if you do die, Timberrrrr! returns intact. Your and your opponent roll off, and the winner gets to choose which direction it falls, by choosing a point within 5”. Then everything with 3” of that takes D3 Mortals (but not mega gargants). This ability is cute but not as interesting as it seems, because if you win, you’ll just move it in the direction of your enemy, and if they win, they’ll try and hit nothing since it probably won’t affect your own army. In general, you don’t want to proc this anyway, since it involves, you know, dying. 

King Brodd

The first named Sons of Behemat model! As stated before you do not want this guy as your General because then you won’t be able to have a subfaction. He is, however, a Warmaster so will count as your General in game, giving improved command ranges. This Unique mega-gargant is a Priest with his very own unique prayer but being Unique he won’t be able to choose one of the generic prayers like Curse or Heal but will still know Smite and Bless; being able to give himself a 6+ ward to shrug off a few more wounds will help keep him fighting even longer. The Priest keyword does mean he can attempt to get rid of Endless Spells as well, something the army hasn’t been able to do before without the use of artefacts. His unique melee weapon starts off at 4 attacks and diminishes down to 2 with wounds suffered but hits and wounds on 3+ with Rend -2 and a flat 5 damage. His only extra ability are his Creepers which let you pick an enemy Monster within 3” of Brodd that has chosen to perform a Monstrous Rampage; you roll a dice and compare it to the Creepers dice roll on his wounds chart (starts at 2+ and diminishes to 5+) and if you beat that roll the enemy monster doesn’t get to carry out a Monstrous Rampage. 

Brodd has his own prayer, and this is where he does really start to get interesting. His Warscroll prayer Power of Behemat is answered on a 3+ but you get +1 to that roll if Brodd has killed a Monster in this game. There is no range on this either, each effect is table-wide. If successful you choose one of three effects, each can only be used once per game: 

• Shatter the Mountain: Adds 2” to all friendly Sons of Behemat units for the turn. A great first turn effect to get your units up the table even quicker and into combat. You could order a unit of Mancrusher Gargants to auto-run 6” and so long as they’re within range of a mega gargant still charge that turn boosting them to 16” move plus charge. 
• Might of the Earth: All of your Sons of Behemat units heal D3 wounds. Very simple and effective, healing a few wounds is always welcome and can make the difference for your wounds chart too.  
• Pummel all to Dust: Improves the Rend on all your mega-gargant melee weapons that are not stomps, death grips, kicks or ‘eadbutts. So basically the weapon that each gargant is actually carrying. A solid turn 2 use after you’ve gotten into combat to cleave through enemies faster. 

He’s a great choice in any Sons of Behemat army but coming in at 580 points makes him tougher to fit into lists than simply taking 4 Mega Gargants. 

Beast-Smasher

The other new-to-this-book Mega Gargant is the Beast-Smasher. We looked at the new Smasher Tribe above but this guy is a monster hunter through and through (as the name might suggest). It gets a Menhir Club as a melee weapon which always has 3 attacks hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ with rend that degrades with wounds (starting at -3) and flat damage 5. However it can use Beast-breaking Strike to reduce its attack to 1 but improves the damage up to 5D6. When engaged with an enemy Monster it gets to carry out 2 Monstrous Rampages with Behemoth Brawler instead of just 1, the most obvious being able to Roar at it to shut off commands and Titanic Duel to kill it easier. 

If killing monsters is your thing then you’ll want to go for one of these.

Warstomper

This one is basically unchanged. It still makes a number of attacks with its club depending on the number of models/monsters within 3” of it in combat, and can still throw an enemy model in combat at another enemy unit to kill it and potentially cause some mortal wounds. The important change though to Hurled Body now means that it happens immediately after a Warstomper makes its pile-in move. That might seem minor but it means that it’s harder to use to break a unit’s coherency and kill half of an enemy unit because it happens before the gargant’s other attacks, so the opposing player will simply pull casualties to minimize the effect. 

If you want to clear out hordes and throw around enemy models then this is the mega gargant you want.

Kraken-Eater

Again only minor changes here. The Shipwrecka Club has halved its number of attacks down to starting at 4 but doubled its damage up to 4 so you’re rolling less dice and the damage output will swing a bit more. It still kicks an objective 2D6” in the direction of your choice each turn if you controlled it and still uses Stuff ‘Em in Me Net to choose D3 enemy models after it piles in to slay if you can roll at least double their wounds characteristic. 

This one is always a solid pick and can deal with every target equally, if you need to pick just one mega-gargant you can’t go wrong here. 

Gatebreaker

This one sees a few more changes than the others, now starts at 10” move like the rest and has a new ability Pulverising Strike that lets you swap all of your melee attacks for a phase to pick an enemy within 3” and on a single roll of 4+ deal 4D6 mortal wounds to it. That’s not something you’re really going to want to do often though, maybe when it’s down to its last few wounds with very few attacks already fighting something with a stacked up save and also causing negatives to hit on your gargant but otherwise having a 525 point model do nothing for a whole phase because you failed to roll a 4+ is going to feel pretty bad. Similar to the Kraken-Eater its main melee weapon has lost a few attacks but has increased in damage to make up for it, making it less reliable to get some wounds through but better against enemy units which reduce damage from each attack. 

Mancrushers

Poor Mancrushers. At launch of the faction, players would begrudgingly include them due to being the mandatory battleline choice. They weren’t really all that impressive, and the models show their age next to their Mega Gargant counterparts. Once 3.0 changed it so Mega Gargants were battleline basically everyone dropped them like a bad habit unless they had leftover space or hadn’t been able to get 4 Mega Gargants yet.

The new warscroll really doesn’t change them all that much. Their club got fewer swings (starting off at 4) but does extra damage, which is in line with changes made to their bigger brothers. Gargants can run and charge if they stay within 15” of a Mega-Gargant which is handy for their slower movement, do D3 mortal wounds on the charge and Stuff Em’ In Me Bag to pick up an enemy model when they roll double the wound’s characteristic of that model. So fantastic on 1 wound enemies and OK with 2 wounds but very difficult to impossible after that.

The Mancrusher Mob does return as well, but doesn’t give a discount on points like it used to do. Now the Stomp monstrous action will do extra damage equal to the models in the unit (not counting the leader), and the leader gets an extra attack with his club. With the addition of command abilities that benefit Mancrushers, there is some argument to do this if you want to run 3 Mancrushers anyway, so they all benefit from the command ability; Stomper Tribe might want to run them individually since they can all be ordered with the same command point to give your opponent some target saturation and yourself some flexibility. 

Are they better? Eh…probably not, I don’t think it will change anything just because of how they are perceived. The different tribe benefits can make them more interesting at least if you really play them to their strengths, but often another Mega gargant will simply perform better. 

Mega-Gargant Mercenaries

You’re not limited to taking Mega-Gargants in their own army, it’s also possible to take them as allies for other armies. Each of the 4 non-named Mega-Gargants can be allied in as “Mercenaries” for one of the Grand Alliances. Destruction gets the unique claim to being able to take any of the four. Mercenaries are basically allies who get to break the usual “20% of your army can be allies” rule and surpass that limit.

Each Gargant brings their warscroll along with them but also one extra ability, unique to each one. Like other allies, they cannot bring their own faction abilities along, particularly important as it means Mightier Makes Rightier does not work and they only count as 5 models, the same as any other Monster.

• Odo Godswallow – Beast-Smasher: Available only to Destruction armies, Odo is a Beast-smasher mega gargant and gains +1 to all hit rolls against enemy Monsters. Gloomspite Gitz and various Orruk armies could benefit from a real monster killer. 

• Bundo Whalebter – Kraken-Eater: Any Order or Destruction army can take Bundo, a Kraken-eater with the ability to give itself Strike-Last and gain +1 to hit and wound rolls for all attacks for that combat phase. One for Order armies lacking in a melee element like Kharadron Overlords or some versions of Cities of Sigmar. 

• One-Eyed Grunock – Warstomper: For Chaos or Destruction armies; a Warstomper that causes -1 to hit rolls for enemy units within 6” if it’s attacked with Jump Up and Down earlier in the same phase. That means you’ll want to attack with Grunnock as early as possible to worsen nearby attacks. Blades of Khorne would benefit greatly from this, charging in and taking less casualties in return. 
• Big Drogg Fort-Kicka – Gatebreaker: Death and Destruction armies can take Big Drogg, a  Gatekeeper that can choose an enemy within 3” each combat phase, rolls 1 dice per model in that unit with each 6 causes a mortal wound (because of his bad breath, of all things). 

This is still an improvement, because previously they would eat up a first turn Command Point. Games Workshop seemed to overestimated how powerful Gargants might mess up the game and put that tax on top, but in a post-Krondspine and God model world it felt a bit silly, so it’s been nixed. This actually could make Gargants more viable for factions who lack a really strong Monster to bring along but so badly want one.

Bringing it together…

All in all this is a solid book. The army feels like it’s over-all been toned down a bit in very positive ways the biggest being how they count for multiple models on objectives. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad by any means and if wielded well can still do considerable damage and win games. The army will need to play a bit more aggressively in the early game probably but that’s not a bad thing with multiple ways of crossing the table just a little faster now.