AoS Coach on the new Sons of Behemat

The ground is shaking, the boulders are flying, and the Sons of Behemat are lumbering towards their next big scrap. Today, Anthony Magro from AoS Coach reveals the new battletome builds that could bring the biggest smash to the battlefield. 

Anthony:  The last time I wrote about the Sons of Behemat for Warhammer Community was back in 2021, when the army’s game plan was reasonably straightforward – put an enormous Mega-Gargant on an objective and ask your opponent what they planned to do about it. 

They may still prefer to settle arguments by throwing their weight around, but the new Battletome: Sons of Behemat gives them many more options than simply marching forwards and hoping something breaks.

The Sons’ defining strengths remain: gargants are enormous, hard-hitting monsters with devastating charges and enough battlefield presence to demand an immediate response. But the new battletome gives them more tools, from Ma Maegran, Boss-stompers, and Rock-hurlers to specialised units that seize objectives, bombard the enemy, screen vulnerable areas, and create openings for a gargant to strike. They still solve problems with brute force, but now they have more say in which problem gets flattened first. That opens the door to combat-focused forces, ranged armies, specialised-unit builds, and devastating all-out assaults led by Kragnos. 

Here are three mighty gatherings of gargants that could leave an unforgettable mark on the Mortal Realms. 

The Boss-stompers might be LITTLE by Sons of Behemat standards, but there's nothing little about what happens when three of them reach combat. This army is built around getting them there, then having the bigger gargants pile into the same fight and make an already dangerous unit considerably nastier. 

The Beast-smasher is their natural partner. Rather than simply being another Mega-Gargant sent off to smash things by itself, I want it fighting alongside the Boss-stompers. I'll often build the Beast-smasher towards STRIKE-FIRST using the army's battle traits, allowing it to swing before the Boss-stompers and use Leader of the Pack to give their melee weapons Crit (2 Hits). Earthshaking Roar can also stop the unfortunate target from using commands, which is particularly useful when you don't want All-out Defence taking some of the sting out of what's coming next. 

Looting Leviathans is my preferred battle formation for this version of the army, because once the Boss-stompers make their charge I want them getting to the thing that actually matters. Argy Bargy can add 3" to their pile-in moves for the rest of the turn, giving them a 6" pile-in, while Get to the Goods lets a charging BIG or LITTLE unit pass across enemy models in non-MONSTER units while doing so. A screen that looked perfectly sensible at the start of the Charge phase can suddenly become much less reassuring. 

The rest of the army helps make that engagement happen. The Warstomper can move another BIG or LITTLE unit 2D6" in the Movement phase, while the Kraken-eater and the Beast-smasher's Unreasonable Tyrant heroic trait can each add 1 to the Boss-stompers' charge roll. King Brodd can then add 1 to the Rend of their melee weapons with Power of Behemat prayer, while remaining a serious threat in his own right. 

There's even a nasty reversal if your opponent decides to charge the Boss-stompers first. Quit Hogging Da Fun! lets them bring a nearby BIG unit into the fight immediately after they attack in the enemy combat phase. On my turn, the Beast-smasher sets up the Boss-stompers. On yours, the Boss-stompers can drag one of the big lads into the punch-up with them. 

I've deliberately taken four different Mega-Gargants here to maximise their different Once Per Turn (Army) abilities, but there is another way to build the same idea. If I swapped King Brodd for Ma Maegran, I would also replace the Warstomper with a second unit of Boss-stompers. That redundancy matters because Chooser of the Mighty can sacrifice a LITTLE model to return a destroyed non-UNIQUE BIG unit, and I don't want to weaken my only Boss-Stomper unit just to bring a Mega-Gargant back. 

Either way, the plan is wonderfully straightforward – get the gang together, pick the biggest problem on the battlefield, and introduce it to an unreasonable number of clubs. 

Sons of Behemat armies have never exactly been famous for subtle ranged warfare, but the new Rock-hurlers give you a very different way to approach the battlefield. Rather than racing everything into combat, this army wants to apply pressure from range, force the opponent to come towards you, and then let King Brodd and the Boss-stompers finish whatever survives the opening bombardment. 

The Gatebreaker is what makes that shooting package really work. Rip It Up and Chuck It lets it uproot nearby terrain and improve the Rock-hurlers' or its own shooting, giving each Rock-hurler model an extra attack with its ranged weapons. The Rock-hurlers can then adapt with Drop, Toss or Roll depending on what the turn demands with extra range when the target is keeping its distance, better accuracy when you need the damage, or Shoot in Combat when somebody inevitably decides charging the gargants will solve the problem. 

Ma Maegran fits beautifully behind that firing line. While she stays close to another Sons of Behemat Monster, The Wandering Witch makes her invisible to enemies more than 12" away, allowing her to sit behind the Gatebreaker and Rock-hurlers and concentrate on supporting the army rather than worrying about being picked off. I generally keep the Ancient Ghyrochs nearby too, using Shepherdess to increase Ma's power level and give me more magical options each turn. 

This is also where I really like bringing the Scourge of Aqshy season rules into the army. King Brodd is already a Priest, and the Glowy Lantern lets me make the Gatebreaker another one. That gives me two sources of the Rock Bottom prayer,* which grants a 6+ Ward and lets a unit ignore the effects of Battle Damaged. For an army built around several expensive gargants, keeping a wounded Mega-Gargant operating at full effectiveness while the opponent tries to weather the shooting can be enormously valuable. 

Heirs of the Old Ways is my preferred battle formation here. This list wants its firing lanes and support pieces operating cleanly, so being able to interfere with enemy Wizards or Priests and potentially clear away the manifestations they have summoned helps stop the army from being pinned down before it can dictate the engagement. 

Once the enemy does close the distance, that is where Brodd and the Boss-stompers take over. The shooting does not necessarily have to destroy the target outright – it just has to make the fight that follows unfair in your favour. 

You could double down and replace the Boss-stompers with another unit of Rock-hurlers, or trade them for three individual Mancrushers to gain more scoring pieces and cleaner sacrifices for Chooser of the Mighty. If you do take three Mancrushers, it is also worth considering the Hammer Throw Realm-shaking Rampage, which lets you throw a Mancrusher 3D6" and potentially launch it straight into combat. I prefer the mixed version, though. Your opponent can stay back and get rocks thrown at them, or come closer and discover that the ammunition was never the biggest threat. 

Sometimes the best way to control the battlefield is to make sure your opponent never gets comfortable on it. This list is built around Kragnos doing exactly that, using his 3D6” charge support to turn the opening turns into an immediate threat while the rest of the army piles in behind him. 

King Brodd is a big part of making that happen. Through World Titan’s Stride, he can add 3" to Kragnos’ Move and let him pass across enemy models and terrain as though he had FLY. Kragnos already threatens an enormous distance thanks to those 3D6” charges, so giving him even more freedom to move around screens or awkward terrain helps make sure he reaches the fight you actually care about rather than the one your opponent wants to offer you. 

Once he gets there, the Beast-smasher and Ma Maegran start layering on the support. Leader of the Pack can give Kragnos Crit (2 Hits), while Creepy Cantrips can add 1 to hit rolls for his combat attacks. Brodd can then contribute Power of Behemat for extra Rend. I don’t need every one of those effects every turn, but having access to them means Kragnos can go from being a fast hammer to an absolutely brutal one when the right target presents itself.

The Beast-smasher carries the Glowy Lantern and Earthshaking Roar, giving me another Priest and a way to switch off commands on whatever I’m trying to overwhelm. Brute of Brutes helps keep its own attacks reliable, which matters because I don’t want it to be standing around as a passive support piece – it should be arriving in the same combat and helping Kragnos finish the job. 

Ma Maegran fills a different role here to the previous list. I’m less interested in hiding her behind a shooting castle and more interested in having her follow the main assault as a mobile magical support piece. The Ancient Ghyrochs help increase her power level, giving her the casting bandwidth to keep feeding useful buffs into the front line. 

The Scourge of Aqshy Mancrusher is the cheap utility piece that makes the list tick. It can contribute to mission play, dabble in prayers through That Boy’s Not Right, and since it has the LITTLE keyword it becomes an ideal sacrifice for Chooser of the Mighty if the Beast-smasher goes down. That means I can afford to throw the Beast-smasher into dangerous combats knowing Ma may be able to bring it back later. 

This isn’t the subtle Sons list. It’s the one that wants to seize the initiative, hit first, and make the opponent start solving problems immediately. 

If Kragnos is known as the End of Empires, this army is really just trying to make sure he gets started early. 

More Than A One-Hit Wonder 

These three lists only scratch the surface of what the new Sons of Behemat battletome can do. 

You can double down on Rock-hurlers and turn the army into a much heavier ranged threat, build around multiple Boss-stomper units for redundancy, lean harder into Mancrushers for mission play, or explore very different combinations of Mega-Gargants depending on which support abilities you value most. Ma Maegran alone opens up a whole range of list-building decisions around magic, LITTLE units and bringing destroyed Mega-Gargants back into the fight. 

That is probably what I like most about this battletome. There is no longer one obvious question of which Mega-Gargants hit hardest. Instead, I find myself asking which gargants I want working together, what role each one is filling, and how those pieces help the army control the battlefield. 

The Sons of Behemat are still enormous, still destructive, and still perfectly capable of solving problems by hitting them with something the size of a building. They just have a few more ways to decide which building to use. 

Thanks, Anthony! Grab the new Sons of Behemat battletome, along with Ma Maegran, and the Boss-stompers/Rock-hurlers kit, when it goes on sale tomorrow.

* Which can be found in the Scourge of Aqshy downloads.