Giant Wolves - Johktari Beastmaster

[bigfatchef]

As Halewijn (I think it was him) said in another thread, straywood is for nearly all purposes the better beastmaster.
I am a huge fan of wychwood hound with him - so my first suggestion is try those with your mainidea. In my “houndbook“ I have 4 hounds, 2 wolfs, a redclaw, 2 falcons and slavorg.
Without lair and as straywood you can play two hounds in a row while moving, giving them instant armor 1 for 10 mana. When 4 are out redclaw supports them all again. Wolves are the biggies here . Falcons for early pressure and slavorg as cheap surprise afters some dead hounds.
All those minor-enchantments fit ptetty good here. A renewing spring is nice as well.
Redclaw and slavorg are no minor creatures, but they just fit very good here. I don't know how straight you want to build your book.

Packlers cowl makes sense. Maybe aninal kinship could help, you would want to include an asp then.

I'll post some of my books in progress as soon as I find the time to!

[Borg]

That's indeed often the bottomline : straywood does it better.

I have not played the Wychwood Hounds yet but in pairs they look to be an interesting choice.
A pet Hound ( in the same zone as the BM and another Hound ) is 10 Life, 2 Armor and 5 dice for 7 mana ( 6 with a Ring of beasts ).
That's pretty good.

My suggestion about your houndbook would be to use 6 copies of them, bring 3 of them out and make one of those your pet ( 2 alongside your pet so he doesn't lose a die and 1 armor as soon as one goes down )
Bring the remaining three out as pets as well or if needed to keep the bonus up.

The book in my opening post was designed to maximise Badger Frenzy with the Wolves.
With the Hounds that idea goes out of the window really since they have only 2 basic attack dice

[bigfatchef]

My book had 6 hounds, but I changed 2 to wolves cause they were dying too fast due to low Life. Falcon as first pet is brilliant, later a hound can replace this.
In my book I had 3 marked for death as a main card. Paired in zones and with redclaw on board those dogs can get nasty.

[Halewijn]

As Halewijn (I think it was him) said in another thread, straywood is for nearly all purposes the better beastmaster.

Yes, was me.

Quicksummoning + Pet >>> Wounded prey & Fast

Both for swarms as buddy builds his abilities outclass hers with the current spellpool. Apart from Coshade's Rushmaster, which is based on her fast ability, I don't think any spellbook is better with the Johktari than with the Straywood beastmaster. The main reason to use the Johktari BM is for thematic reasons.

[Mystery]

As Halewijn (I think it was him) said in another thread, straywood is for nearly all purposes the better beastmaster.

Yes, was me.

Quicksummoning + Pet >>> Wounded prey & Fast

Both for swarms as buddy builds his abilities outclass hers with the current spellpool. Apart from Coshade's Rushmaster, which is based on her fast ability, I don't think any spellbook is better with the Johktari than with the Straywood beastmaster. The main reason to use the Johktari BM is for thematic reasons.

dot/curse
and i think rushmaster was intengible

[Halewijn]

Oh yeah. And those.  I tend to supress the existence of those books.

Similar to the rushmaster, its quite an odd book and only uses the fast ability.

[iNano78]

This discussion regarding Straywood >> Johktari (which I generally agree with) got me to thinking... has anybody ever tried a [mwcard=MWSTX1CKQ02]Hunting Bow[/mwcard] strategy with Straywood Beastmaster? Unlike the J-BM, the S-BM can (quick)summon a creature - and even make it his Pet - and shoot with the Bow in the same round. With Hawkeye, that's 5 dice usually with Piercing +2 and 50% chance to Bleed, and enough mana saved for a [mwcard=MW1J10]Lair[/mwcard] or [mwcard=MW1C13]Fellella, Pixie Familiar[/mwcard] or something. Add Packleader's Cowl for some melee protection and/or Animal Kinship + snakes for armor.

Consider:

T1 (19): Fellella (12) + Ring of Beasts (2)
T2 (13): Double-move + quick-cast pet Falcon (7); Fellella casts Hawkeye FD on S-BM (1)
T3 (14): QC Hunting Bow (11); reveal Hawkeye (1); Shoot; Fellella casts something FD (Nullify on BM?) (1)
T4 (10): QC your choice of minor creature (Darkfenne Asps?); Fellella casts something FD (Rhino Hide? Gator Toughness? etc, etc); S-BM shoots
T5+ (??): Repeat T4 ad nauseum.

[Kelanen]

I have and it wasn't bad. What works better is to do it with Druid however - my Druid has used a Hunting Bow this last couple of years...

[Coshade]

yeah in my experience Druid is amazing with Timber wolves and Hunting Bow