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Yes, this is a new AR inspired band name.

Also a thread topic I pondered. I remember Zreef posting many pictures before of him playing 3v3 games of AR using his Anum cohort. It was basically made up of the only way that you could build a Bestiae cohort with 3 models and 3 cards that I could think of, at the time - Anum, Leo, Sereqet. The other beasts were all 2 stages and so wouldn't fit, but those two were single stage.

Since then, we have gotten two new beasts, both horses, and both single stage. So a new Bestiae cohort option which could be quite cool-looking would be Anum and the Horses. Anum, Caho-Ta, Dextarius. Hoof to face.

Zreef's early configuration is probably more environmentally appropriate, since Anum is a Morituri and thus desert-based, and I can imagine both lions and scorpions in the desert quite easily. The horses seem more northern. But I like that you can have two of the same animal this way.

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Come on now, someone write me something about your Anum thoughts and preferences.

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So far I have only played him with Leo and the scorpion. In general Anum is a blunt instrument and my best success is to be aggressive, move your animals into position activate them through anum, exhaust anum, then finish things off by using the beasts.

Use your favor liberally as you will be generating favor in your clear turn and Leo is a favor generating machine. I use the scorpion to anchor and for board control as it is a titan and cannot be shifted. Its base is also big, so use that to your advantage.

Cool. So you get lots of Favor by Goading the beasts on your clear turn?

Have you considered any other bigger beasts? Or horses?

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I am going to run with Proximo and get some experience with him. I am not sold on the horses as solo beasts, they both seem much better with their respective riders and don't hit as hard as the other beats.

I think more likely having one horse for the mobility would be nice, but then again the other beats are pretty fast too. I find myself wanting to play a big spread early on, and consolidate in the middle game as Anum as last man standing is not great. So my battle plan is to keep one beast mostly fresh if I can.

Makes sense. But Sereqet seems to be a pretty weak hitter too. Only attack 5 and only four tree results. And the Envenom seems situational.

And it's actually only Caho-Ta that is fast. Dextarius, the other horse, is average speed as I recall.

Leo seems like the most powerful fighter of your traditional group - except that he doesn't make Wild attacks when with Anum, right? So he loses his Roar ability?

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I saw Anum run a Bestiae group of Titans against Gorgons.
Nero and Acerbus were pretty powerful because of all their pushes and displacement on a board with lethal hazards.
I will probably run them myself as a 5-card team (Anum, Nero, and Acerbus). But I'm thinking I might just run them as Morituri. With only 3 characters to fatigue, I might just run them as Morituri.
I can exhaust my two Titans with power attacks or double attacks... fatigue Anum on a reaction and have Will of Antony reset everyone on the third turn (second turn if I do reactions every chance).
I lose the Goad and Alpha Ability... but Offering is almost better than Goad (earn two favor instead of one) and I can use Cleopatra's Gift to trigger Frenzy on a clear turn.
Going Morituri also allows me to have my Beasts make wild attacks during clear turns... which is great since chances are they will target an enemy (Anum is immune so there is only really one potential friendly target).
It's all theorycrafting until I try it out... but I think it's better to go Morituri than Bestiae.

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Morituri te salutamus.

My buddy ran Anum and the beasts as Morituri (Anum, Leo, Acerbus, and Thoth), and the benefits were much better than bestiae, overall.

I think that is a pretty interesting discussion. And I totally see the point. Cleopatra's Gift is similar to Alpha, Offering is similar to Goad, Obedience is mostly a downside, and Will of Antony is just an amazing power that works on the beasts. I would say that Alpha is better than Gift, but Offering is better than Goad.

So in terms of pros and cons, Bestiae seem to have one pro (Alpha) and three cons (Obedience, no Offering, no Will), and the inverse three pros and one con for Morituri.

I guess the main argument for Bestiae would be if you have lots of beasts and you want them to not go Wild on each other, because then Obedience becomes a pro rather than a con.

In a world of hypothetical adjustments, what if Will of Antony only affected Morituri gladiators, and Obedience allowed you to choose whether or not your beasts go wild or not? That would probably make Bestiae a more attractive choice...

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P.S. I guess you can't say that Offering is better than Goad in itself. They're about the same. It's just that the fact that Will of Antony removes all fatigue which makes the fatigue-removing part of Goad unimportant, since you don't need that when you have Will.

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