Summary
Mounted troops. Cost 4AP. Move 400p on road, 300p in good going, 200p in bad going. Combat factors are +4 vs foot or Stronghold, +5 vs mounted.
If they lose a combat they flee 600p from Magicians, Dragons or Artillery, otherwise they recoil.
If they are doubled in combat they are destroyed.

Ian Thompson writes:
My Dwarves, sadly still in Australia, have two behemoths - a couple of stone Giants - that were affectionately known as Steroids and Wax ("I'm Steroids, he's Wax!").

The best tactic with them appeared to be to ship them up the middle as fast as possible whilst the Dwarven blades/shooter anchored a wing. The Dwarf hero ("Walk tall, walk free, look the world right in the shin") would then be virtually free to careen around the battlefield defeating elements at will.

So, the Dwarf blades pinned a flank, the behemoths appeared as the main strike force and focussed the attention of the opponent and the hero was the coup de main. A winning combination (most of the time).

Three behemoths really do sort out knight armies - in double quick time!

Actually hordes and some bad going are pretty effective too!

Jason Wallace writes:
I love playing behemoths. There's a big one on the front page of my website. So far, I've seen behemoths do the most damage pointed straight at the enemy general. The opposing army is forced to react, reinforce, or retreat. Because the behemoth is so difficult to destroy, the 4APs are fairly safe, even when impetuously following their opponents into enemy territory. This has the added bonus of dangerous recoils threatening the enemy line from behind.

In my view, the behemoth should get into the action as soon as possible. He's not too very fast, and could easily be distracted or flanked and thereby be taken out of effective use.

In supporting the behemoth, there are two major problems:
He chases the enemy when he wins.
He is decidedly unfriendly to supporting troops who stand too close behind him.

One strategy I have seen puts both of these disadvantages to the behemoth player's advantage: Advance the behemoth(s) into the enemy line-- or even better, the end of the enemy line-- with mobile supporting troops to the side and a bit behind the behemoth. The supporting troops should be far enough away so as not to be recoiled upon, but close enough to advance on the enemy line as it reacts to the thrashing behemoth.

As the behemoth pushes forward (preferably towards the enemy stronghold or general) or recoils (preferably into the enemy line), the enemy must waste PIPs and attention dealing with the most obvious and toughest threat. Supporting troops can then swoop down en masse to do the real, army destroying damage.

Did I mention that I love playing behemoths?

Big, ugly monsters hate facing lotsa pointy things on sticks. Imagine a bear and a porcupine...

Fight behemoths with spears. It's what they're for. Against behemoths, they have an equal strength at half the cost. Support the spear with a second rank of spear and you have a solid wall against behemoths (or anyone, for that matter).

Better yet, flank the spear with hordes, and you have a behemoth killin' machine.

Alan Saunders writes:
If their flanks are well protected, ignore the behemoths and hit the flank protection. It is well worth flanking behemoths; you can either drive them into each other, which destroys them, or recoil them through their own troops. Engage them with foot, and go for overlaps; behemoths have a lower factor vs Foot. Try and recoil them into bad going. Isolate them and their impetuousity will allow you to lead them where you want them to go (like bad going, or away from the main battle; fliers can be good for this).

Behemoths are best off towards the centre of your army, as this allows you maximum chance to cover their flanks properly. The same holds true for generals, with the added proviso, in their case, that it helps with command and control.

A specific point regarding behemoths is that if the enemy army contains one or more magicians then do not fight a defensive battle at your initial deployment position - advance your army by at least one move. The reason for this is that behemoths flee from magicians if they lose, so if you choose to fight on or near your baseline judicious bespelling by the enemy can cause your behemoths to flee off the table and out of the game.

Behemoths are tough to kill, but they are 4AP worth of troops if you can kill them. Get the right recoils and they can be as dangerous to the enemy as they are to you.

Their weakness is pursuit which can leave them in the middle of enemy troops and overlapped on both flanks.

Behemoths are just about the only 4AP element that has to be destroyed conventionally - the others are destroyed/ensorcelled/flee the field just by losing to at least one other element type. The biggest vulnerability of a behemoth is that it flees from magicians or artillery. The former can be especially nasty, as with a full arc of fire thay can get you from just about anywhere on the battlefield and makie closing with enemy troops very difficult to do.

Dale writes:
I've used the behemoth in the center of an enemy line as a anvil upon which to crush the enemy. Turn their flank, with an overlap if possible, and you'll be amazed how quickly you can roll up a line.

Basically you force recoils into the behemoth at 90 degrees from the behemoth's direction of travel, (which kills anything!)

Sebastian Rogers writes:
The correct use of behemoths is to recoil them into other things. Thus, a highly mobile element, say a hero, attacks their flanks forcing a turn to face. Now when the behemoth recoils it recoils down its own line causing much damage. Not a strategy for the faint hearted or unlucky general.

Other possibilities include using hordes to lure them away from the fight so that 4AP is tied up by a couple of AP or even ignoring them and heading for the stronghold with a flanking force.

Thus von Clausewitz's principles of war prove, again, to be correct. You cannot achieve local superiority against a behemoth so do not try rather mass against the other elements to achieve superior force against them.

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