Raising Beasts as your own.

[Jago]

This is something i love to do, i'm not sure what are all the perks to becoming a beastlord, but taming beast is my favorite thing to do. But making them stronger is next to impossible. If anyone has any tips on how to do this please let me know.

[Diamondeye]

I just go for the best beasts when I have a collar. I've never had the trait beastlord, but have had heroes with it. Then I cast it on eveything just for fun.

Spells can help keep them alive, but not much can make their attacks stronger. The more shards you have, the better the spells are.

[veryinky]

Beastlord is pretty much an "i win" button if you find a Hoarder Spider nest, huge city sized spider with splash damage. You can find them in the overmap and some quests as boss monsters (making the quest easy to finish). Even without a hoarder spider, some of the deadlier giant spiders are also pretty nasty and a good addition to your army. Being able to add a great wolf to your army near the start of the game always helps too.

I don't bother with more mundane beasts because they have little in the way of hp, just cannon fodder and meat shields for the real army.

[Jäveln]

i would love to actually be able to train monsters like spiders without having towaste mana
wouldnt it be nice with a nation consisting entirely of wildlings darklings and the like?

and the most annoying with the beastlord is wasting 60 mana and it says nope
and even the collar can sometimes ♥♥♥♥ you up

atleast ascian neve has this problem

[Mister_Badger]

I found an army of 4 cave bears and a hero with the commander specialisation particularly deadly. The combination of the commanders accuracy bonuses and the cave bears maul makes them extremely potent mid-game units.

[mltnschroeder]

Beasts "level-up" just like military units do (they gain hp and accuracy). So it is advantageous to have them survive battle. Tamable beasts that I have found worth the mana investment are: Hoarder Spiders, 5-squad Gatherer Spiders, Corpse Spiders, Umberdroths, Great Wolf, Cave Bears, Silt Skath, Hergons. So when you come accross a spawn-camp for those types of beasts, never capture the treasure found there so the re-spawning stays active, and you can capture more beasts as they appear. Unfortunately wild Dragons aren't tamable. But you can recruit Fell Dragons in the late game if you research the Dance with Dragons tech, and then manage to kill any wild Dragons found on the map (using Death spell is probably easiest). Fell Dragons are insanely OP, and when used properly can almost singlehandedly destroy anything the enemy AI can put into the field.

If you are making a custom sovereign, Deathworship trait combos nicely with Beastmaster, as you can cast Infection then Graveseal on enemy armies, which will double all damage your beasts inflict. Also the Cautious trait allows you to tame a beast, then escape with your army, then reinitiate combat and do it again. Also Sovereign Bond is an interesting skill for a Beastlord, since your summoned Familiar will be able to tame beasts as well.

Magic paths that nicely support a Beastmaster strategy are Water (for Slow, Freeze, Mantle of Oceans spells) , Death (for Curse and/or Infect spells and later Death spell for insta-killing Dragons), Air (Guardian Wind, Breath of Titans spells) and Earth (Diamondskin spell). Also using both Commander and Defender heros in the same army will tend to get the most out of your tamed beasts. Any skills or items that improve your casting Mastery are very good to take on the Beastmaster hero.

Since you will be spending quite a lot of mana on capturing beasts, it is important to choose city sites with high-essence, and have a solid core of many Oracle cities and Shards to generate mana. Any uppgrade that will improve mana income should be a priority.

[Jago]

What happens if you leave the lair alone, and it in your zone of control? Can it still spawn stuff? And what kinda buffs can you give your beasts? I think commander and defender sounds pretty good. I've been using warrior though. @mit.

[mltnschroeder]

If you leave the lair alone and in your zone of control it will still spawn. But if it is near enough to a friendly city, the monsters will quite often randomly attack the city. This can be a problem, but it seems the size of the city garrison decreases the random chance for them to attack. So make sure to tame new beasts asap once they respawn, and don't leave those cities "undefended".

For Commander I develop the lower skill tree: Road Builder, Command, Tactician 1-3, Battlecry, as well as Healer and First Aid general skills. Getting high initiative combined with Speed and Slow spells means your beasts can attack sometimes 2-3 times before the enemy can react.

For Defender, I generally try and develop the upper skill tree for Guard, Invincible, Guardian 1+2, Hold the Line and Shieldwall. But the lower tree has Stun, Withstand and Summon Sentinel which might also be worth trying. Endurance 1-4 can also be useful when combined with Touch of Darkness spell to increase your spell mastery and improve taming and debuff success. Since the Defender gets raised defense buffs when defending, use this to your advantage and move close to enemy stacks and have them attack you. Your Defender should have the best armor and defensive magic items you can find. Krax blood combos nicely with Defender.

Actually now that I think about it, Mage can also be a good path for a hero, as you can get Aeromancy AND Geomancy, which will allow you to knock surrounding enemies prone 2 times in a row while your beasts attack. Also you can get Prodigy 1-3 which will improve taming success and debuff spells.

Buffs and spells that I use for Beast armies: Guardian Wind, Evade, Speed, Slow, Freeze (strategic), Curse, Blindness, Infect+any debuff, Wither (strategic, only if you have 4 or more Death shards), Diamond Skin. Also Graveseal if you have Deathworship sovereign trait. Infect also combos well with spider's Web spell, which can lock down enemy units while you swarm their buddies. If you have Cautious sovereign trait, you can escape with your badly wounded beasts to live to fight another day.