What do you get when you cross Khador's staple beat stick with a Kodiak and turn it into Sorcha's main warjack? Simple answer is you get one very angry jack which eats up focus like it does any model foolish enough to be stood in it's melee range. I've a friend who says that of all Khadoran jacks Beast is pretty much top of the tree and I agree with that to a point, Beast fills a gap in the Khadoran arsenal in a way that many other jacks can't, with a hefty price tag.Stats wise, Beast is a regular Juggernaut with an extra point of MAT, meaning that it's only going to really start struggling to hit models and units such as Nyss hunters on average rolls, while it's not a great improvement over the Juggernaut the key point to remember is that while these jacks may share a chassis, what they are designed to do is completely different.
Beast's weapons stay the same as a Juggernauts, apart from the rebranding of "Ice Axe" to "Ice Breaker", however in the upgrade the Axe gains * attack Thresher (attacks all models in LOS and melee range) and Reach, making Beast one of three Khador jacks with reach (the others being the Spriggan and the Conquest), the important thing to mention here is that while this is a good thing if you plan to charge a jack, get within normal melee range as whilst your axe has reach your fist doesn't and against jacks every single attack counts.
Now we come to the main reason for the price hike, Beast's abilities and he does have a fair few. Firstly he has the Heavy Boiler rule from the Kodiak, allowing it to run for free, as well as Hyper Aggressive meaning that when ever Beast takes damage from an attack Beast makes a full advance directly towards the attacker, both nice abilities to make it easier getting Beast to where he wants to be, though don't count too heavily on Hyper Aggressive even if you have a sqaud of Mechaniks nearby it's not a good idea to let Beast take damage just for a few extra inches. Beast's Affinity with Sorcha allows him to reroll failed charge and slam attack rolls, which while nice, I feel doesn't make him an auto include in a Sorcha list given Beast's MAT and his role on the table. Finally there are is the ability that truly define what Beast is designed to do slaughter infantry, his imprint Murderous, for a focus Beast gains an additional dice to hit living enemy warrior models (so no Warbeasts), couple this with Thresher and Beast can charge into a squad tear it to pieces.
Overall, whilst Beast is an upgraded Juggernaut it's well worth remembering that Beast is geared primarly towards killing infantry squads, whilst he can go toe to toe with jacks it's better to hit that ten man infantry squad over there than the 10 point jack staring you down. A similar example of such a change is Drago, the upgraded character version of a Beserker, while the Beserker is designed to take on infantry, Drago excels at taking out jacks. If you want to field Beast, I'd sugget not using Sorcha but try using Irusk, Strakhov or pButcher. Irusk and Stakhov both have Superiority for a major buff and immunity to knockdown, Strkhov also has Overrun to extend Beast's melee range, where as Butcher has Fury, making Ice Breaker's P and S equal to that of a Conquest's fist and Full Throttle, negating the need for Murderous (and gives boost to all attacks rather than just against living enemy models) as well as Strakhov and Butcher's feats which both are of great use for Beast (Extra charge distance and Pathfinder or extra damage dice respectively). The last thing I will say about Beast is that like my friend did say Beast is good, I'd say his use is generally limited as until you hit the 25/35 point limit theres not enough threats on the table that a regular Juggernaut can't take to warrant taking Beast, also when you reach this point level Thresher starts becoming useful due to the amount of infantry that will almost certainly start appearing.
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