8th Ed. 0-1-2 at Tournament need a little help

[Myster2]

Hello all! I'm relatively new to WHFB. I recently played a tournament and went 0-1-2. I didn't feel i did too badly as I think i know the mistakes i made but I wanted some extra advice. I'll run down the armies i played against and what I was trying to do and hopefully you can help me adjust my thinking.

My List
Old Blood - > Armor or fortune, sword that gives +3 attacks, shield.
-> My thoughts: The goal of the old blood was to sit in my saurus unit and annihilate rank and file models along with the rest of the rank and file. He could also accept a challenge and do decently well. (+1 armor, 5+ ward)

Slann - Life
Rumination, +2 ward against shooting, forbidden rod(still a great item with life imo).

Heroes:
Scar vet cowboy 1
Great weapon, shield, armor or fortune, cold one
I did this because he is hard to kill and can go face down a serious monster or lord by himself and survive a turn or two or kill whatever it is he's fighting with 4 str 7 attacks and 1 cold one attack.

Scar vet 2:
Great weapon, shield, Itzil amulet (wiffed both times i used it), dragon helm, cold one
Standard scar vet build.

Core:
36 Saurus hdw, shields, full command (this was my "deathstar" with my oldblood living in it and joined by heroes when needed).

24 skink, 3 krox, full command

12 skink, 1 krox, champion only (i wanted to try this as a flank charging unit with some extra bite),

Special,
2x 6 Chameleon skinks - I need more of these, i don't have enough models but these guys are fantastic
3x Terradons - These seem to die no matter what I do. The T3 no armor is pretty terrible and they seem to be easily shot down by just about anything.

Rare:
3x Salamander
1x Razordon -> i wanted to try him out.

Game 1 vs Beastmen:

He had 1 pack of 6 dogs/wolves,
2 huge units of troops (one could sacrifice to make a spawn every turn on a decent roll that was T5 S5)
1 smaller unit of troops
1 rock throwing minotaur

This game was interesting, it had some huge terrain pieces on my side of the table and he got first turn and charged up. I simply stood and fired my salamanders into his units. I had them on either side facing in and the terrain was going to cause him to funnel in. I also got a dwellers off killing half of a unit that turned out to be stubborn (on hindsight almost everything i fought the entire tournament was stubborn).

The sali's didn't hit as much as I would have liked and my razordon due to my bad deployment ended up stuck behind the tower.

Eventually engaged each of our deathstars in battle and I had left both cowboys and my old one in my unit. I let the cowboys fight the unit while the old one fought the champion(s). This was a mistake as well i believe. I had the skrox unit holding up the other huge unit of troops at the corner. The small skrox unit got held up by a spawn and eventually lost to it.

This went really bad for me around turn 4 when the following happened
1) His rock thrower landed (rolled a hit) a rock on my slann whom was a good distance away from the combat. He failed a 2+ ward save and was crushed with the d6 wounds from the rock.

2) A spawn blocked my skrox and left my flank of my saurus star exposed which got charged. This disrupted my ranks and caused me to no longer be steadfast which in turn caused the unit to run away, get chased down and die, over 1000pts were left in that unit.

Questions: What i didn't understand is why I couldn't do any damage to his deathstar while his shredded mine. It seemed like with 2 saurus heroes, an old one and 36 saurus that i should have been able to fight just about any deathstar out there. I'm sorry about being really vague as I know nothing about beastmen.

Game 2: vs Vampire Court

He had two terrogeists, two units of 50ish zombies, 2 units of 30ish skeletons, 1 unit of skeleton knights with two champions in it. (vampire lord was in this unit).

This game was the draw and a very odd game as it was the scenario (dawn attack?) with the random troop placement. My troops got spread out all over the place while his ended up looking like he choose to deploy them normally.

My deathstar hit his knights while i split one of the scar-vets out to protect the flank. This unit ended up locked in combat for the entire game. His vampire lord killed both the scar vet and the old one but the old one killed the other lord in the unit first.

I ended up getting multiple dwellers off and killed over 100 units. I squashed all his magic with my slann and eventually killed both terrorgeists. They killed the 100pt krox unit and both chameleon skinks units. The sali's did well this game as well. The game ended a draw as we ran out of time to finish.

Questions: I'm not sure what to do if i fight another vampire lord? What do you guys do? This one was fully kitted out, ws 9 i think, str 8ish, 7 attacks, 5t and life drain and double wounds on hits.

The terrorgiests were very nasty but i think i can do okay vs them, i technically killed each one about 5 times but he was rolling reg saves like crazy.

Game 3 vs Bretonnians, - This is the one i'm most perplexed about
Scenario: Battle for the pass, so we started close together


He had
The fey enchantress
6 Grail nights,
2x 6 other units of knights
(a lord was in this unit with the razor banner and a 1+ rerollable armor save)
4x Pegasus Knights
30x Men of war
30x Archers

Turn 1: Vangaurd move my terradons about 12 inches away from his archers expecting him to pray and I get to go first. Nope, fey enchantress means he doesn't have to pray, he gets first turn and shreds my terradons. His pegasus knights also were able to get into combat with my unit of two salamanders. I expected the salamanders being Str 5, T4 to easily wipe the floor with the pegasus knights (8 skink attacks as well). He won combat due to 5+ ward saves from the prayer, the sali's fled and he chased them down. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the entire battle.

I maneuvered to charge most of his units so he didn't get the +3str charge but combat with my deathstar pretty much went like this every turn: Saurus old one/scar vets hit 50% of thier attacks, 30% of those are saved off of armor, the other 20% are saved off of wards. He swings back with his razor banner into my ranks, i lose 5-7 saurus (2x units of 6 knights in lance formation were engaged with the saurus).

I think overall he lost 2 knights in the combat before my saurus ran and were run down which in turn let him into my slaan which ended the game.

Questions:

What do you do against brets? Granted I don't think we'll see the fey enchantress that often but she shut down the slann and he had two dispel scrolls. Between this I rarely got anything worthwhile off. Magic was a loss on both sides and 12 knights killed 36 saurus, an old one and a scar vet (the other scar vet was off killing archers and trying to catch the enchantress). The other 6 knights killed the Skrox unit, the small skrox unit lost the the pegasus knights, the last salamander tried to flame whatever he could but kept wiffing.

The razordon actually killed the most things as he was charged by knights and shot off 18 str 4 attacks, 9 of which hit which totalled out to a whole 3 unsaved wounds in the end. The other two combats I have ideas on how to win, this one i'm at a loss.

 

[Saurus2301]

ive never played against the Brets. But i can advise using a stegadon, high toughness and impact hits. it will modify the armour saves. take the lore of metal with slann because it crushes armor. kroxigors should do well because of high strength. salamander are a good choice as well for panic and -3 to saves. I feel that poison isnt very good because no armor modifiers. dont use cold one cav because they are just to expensive.

 

[david l]

Generally I think you aren't recognizing enough about enemy characters. In my experience, enemy characters likely did a chunk of what you credit their troops with doing.

Questions: What i didn't understand is why I couldn't do any damage to his deathstar while his shredded mine.

I don't understand either. The usual big Beastmen unit is Bestigors or maybe Gors, either of which is not particularly hard to kill (T4, Bestigors have 5+ armour). The characters can be tougher, but the troops should die. Bestigors, however, should kill a LOT of Saurus.
Were you using your scar-vets to target and try to kill his characters? Take out the Beastmen characters and you should win.
What magic did he have? Your Slann should have been buffing your unit enough for you to be winning consistently. You don't mention his magic, so it sounds like he was fighting without real help. Did you get bad spell rolls with just 4 from Life, and thus your Slann was little help in combat? (I would never use Life with just 4 spells).

It seemed like with 2 saurus heroes, an old one and 36 saurus that i should have been able to fight just about any deathstar out there.

Not necessarily. Lots of strength 6 attacks should take down your characters, and your Saurus don't stand up to the hitting power of other rank-and-file.

2) A spawn blocked my skrox and left my flank of my saurus star exposed which got charged. This disrupted my ranks and caused me to no longer be steadfast which in turn caused the unit to run away, get chased down and die, over 1000pts were left in that unit.

Rules error. Steadfast cannot be lost from disruption.

Game 2: vs Vampire Court

You needed to get all your big hitters into this fight and target the knights. Kill the vampire lord by killing his unit and popping him on combat resolution. This sort of unit is where your Oldblood really falls short - strength 5 is not enough.

I expected the salamanders being Str 5, T4 to easily wipe the floor with the pegasus knights (8 skink attacks as well).

Bad assumption. Salamanders can beat really weak units in combat, but pegasus knights are not a weak unit.

Saurus old one/scar vets hit 50% of thier attacks, 30% of those are saved off of armor, the other 20% are saved off of wards.

Mathematically, against regular knights, the scar-vets are worth 5.33 hits, 4.44 wounds, 2.5 unsaved per round. If he was making lots of 6+ armour saves against your strength 7 scar-vets, he was getting really lucky. You'll do a little less damage against Grail Knights. The Oldblood does less damage, because the knights armour save half his damage.
Non-charging regular knights should do very little damage, although Grail Knights will do more. Maxing the attacks, including horses, 2 lances get 18 attacks, 11 hits, 3.67 wounds, 2 unsaved. His characters should be doing most of the damage.
Again ... did you target his characters with yours? Whoever wins the character battles should win that grind.

Granted I don't think we'll see the fey enchantress that often but she shut down the slann and he had two dispel scrolls.

Other than an extra dispel dice, the Fey isn't anything special for magic defense. The two scrolls required two other wizards beyond the Fey. They shouldn't be shutting down Slann magic, although again were you hampered by lack of useful spells? Or was she just able to buff the Bret units enough you couldn't hurt them?

 

[Myster2]

First of all thanks for the huge amount of help! Let me say this, I told all my opponents i was relatively new to the game and I might need some help with some of the rules. This was a tournament with people I had never played before so as part of my post I'm reviewing what the opponents told me as well to make sure it was umm... accurate?

Generally I think you aren't recognizing enough about enemy characters. In my experience, enemy characters likely did a chunk of what you credit their troops with doing.

Questions: What i didn't understand is why I couldn't do any damage to his deathstar while his shredded mine.

I don't understand either. The usual big Beastmen unit is Bestigors or maybe Gors, either of which is not particularly hard to kill (T4, Bestigors have 5+ armour). The characters can be tougher, but the troops should die. Bestigors, however, should kill a LOT of Saurus.
Were you using your scar-vets to target and try to kill his characters? Take out the Beastmen characters and you should win.
What magic did he have? Your Slann should have been buffing your unit enough for you to be winning consistently. You don't mention his magic, so it sounds like he was fighting without real help. Did you get bad spell rolls with just 4 from Life, and thus your Slann was little help in combat? (I would never use Life with just 4 spells).

He was using beasts but he only had lvl 2's so I was stepping on his magic pretty good. Although i let flock of birds go and it killed the terradons. I had okay spells this time, dwellers, regrowth, awaking, ToV. I agree though, i'll loremaster my slann next time or go shadow.

I was targeting the rank and file with the scar vets and the hero with the old one, this i feel was a big mistake. Could i have made way with each of my characters to have all 3 of my characters targeting his one?

Not necessarily. Lots of strength 6 attacks should take down your characters, and your Saurus don't stand up to the hitting power of other rank-and-file.

This is what i'm finding out about Saurus, they are not this monster core unit that everyone says they are.

2) A spawn blocked my skrox and left my flank of my saurus star exposed which got charged. This disrupted my ranks and caused me to no longer be steadfast which in turn caused the unit to run away, get chased down and die, over 1000pts were left in that unit.

Rules error. Steadfast cannot be lost from disruption.

.... I guess live and learn. My opponent was by no means new, he had said he had played for 27 years. I felt I would have eventually won if it wasn't for this even though my Slann had died. I was way ahead due to dwellers taking out half of his unit.

Game 2: vs Vampire Court

You needed to get all your big hitters into this fight and target the knights. Kill the vampire lord by killing his unit and popping him on combat resolution. This sort of unit is where your Oldblood really falls short - strength 5 is not enough.

I'm finding that out. What would you suggest on the old blood magic wise to make him more able to fight those super lords out there?

I expected the salamanders being Str 5, T4 to easily wipe the floor with the pegasus knights (8 skink attacks as well).

Bad assumption. Salamanders can beat really weak units in combat, but pegasus knights are not a weak unit.

Yep, this is one i won't make again. I was judging them off of the vanguard move believing that most vanguard units are not that strong.

Saurus old one/scar vets hit 50% of thier attacks, 30% of those are saved off of armor, the other 20% are saved off of wards.

Mathematically, against regular knights, the scar-vets are worth 5.33 hits, 4.44 wounds, 2.5 unsaved per round. If he was making lots of 6+ armour saves against your strength 7 scar-vets, he was getting really lucky. You'll do a little less damage against Grail Knights. The Oldblood does less damage, because the knights armour save half his damage.
Non-charging regular knights should do very little damage, although Grail Knights will do more. Maxing the attacks, including horses, 2 lances get 18 attacks, 11 hits, 3.67 wounds, 2 unsaved. His characters should be doing most of the damage.
Again ... did you target his characters with yours? Whoever wins the character battles should win that grind.

Did your math count the 5+ ward save against armor 5 and above and 6+ ward save for anything under that. This is what really killed me. I targeted his characters once, he had a 1+ rerollable armor save with the 5+ ward save from the prayer. I gave up hurting it and went back targeting the rank and file.

Granted I don't think we'll see the fey enchantress that often but she shut down the slann and he had two dispel scrolls.

Other than an extra dispel dice, the Fey isn't anything special for magic defense. The two scrolls required two other wizards beyond the Fey. They shouldn't be shutting down Slann magic, although again were you hampered by lack of useful spells? Or was she just able to buff the Bret units enough you couldn't hurt them?

This time i had dwellers, throne of vines, flesh to stone and awaking. Your right though, this gives me almost nothing to do until the slann is in range to do damage. I don't know how he had two dispel scrolls, I didn't think about that. The lady is a special character and can not take magical items. He used a actual dispel scroll the first time and then he used some item he said was another dispel scroll and it acted like a feedback scroll as well.

Thanks again for the help and reading the wall of text!

 

[Lawot]

Saurus are awesome...Core units. They can fight off the Core of most other armies, and you can count on them to stick around when the odds are against them.

But they don't make much of a deathstar, and when you throw them in against other armies elites, they'll die.

The biggest thing that I see missing in that list is Skink Skirmishers. These guys rock at taking out monsters (and some characters), and more importantly, getting in the other guy's way. A couple units of Skinks lets you control the pace and flow of the battle. Chameleons can do the same thing, but you can put a lot more Skinks Skirmishers on the field for the price.

Well done against VC, though! Always good to hear about Vampire magic getting crushed under the mystical might of the Slann. I'd love to see all those Dwellers casts, as the earth opens up and sucks hordes of zombies and skeletons back down where they belong!

 

[jg0124]

I play a lot of ogres chaos and brets. One thing I learned is not to try to go toe to toe. Flanks and rears. Use skinks to turn heavy hitting units. Flank them and limit attacks back. Kill them with combat res. I play an all skink army with skrox and win that way

 

[newscales]

brets fold if they dont get the charge. ogres definitely a flank if you can get it army. chaos are easy enough if you just wear down the unit before getting into combat with it.

 

[Irish_Lizard]

I'm going to go through your games first and then your list and try to points out what you did wrong and how that can be fixed.

Game 1
the dogs are chaos warhounds and probably there as a 30 point distraction unit

The 2 combat blocks are gors and probably bestigor. They have little to no protection are t4 and have hatred almost every round. The gor unit will have a bsb with a banner to give the unit +1S so kill him quick.The bestigor will probably have the leadership banner and the general will be in here most of the time.

The small unit of troops is probably ungor and used for a mage bunker possibly near a herdstone to get more power dice.

The rock throwing minotaur is a ghorgon and has a handful of wounds and no save of any kind so chameleons should lift him in a round or 2. He is part of the rare section that most serious beastmen players tore out of their army book because it is so bad.

Death-star combat
Your oldblood is designed to kill rank and file with lots of low strength attacks (yes st5 is low for a character) and you scarvets are designed to tank so let them eat the challenges and the oldblood eat the unit. This idea of a deathstar off is very heroic and makes for great stories but is poor tactical play in a tournament. one poor round of combat and as you saw its game over. In a multi game tournament you will most likely lose at least one game based off one bad roll in a deathstar face off. If you like high risk game play with less effort then ignore this but otherwise try to avoid pinning everything on one combat without having a massive advantage and a backup plan.

Lizardmen can do deathstars but other races like vampires, brets and warriors of chaos do it far better. There is always a better deathstar because all of them have an exhaust port.

Turn 4
A slann should be in a bunker of skinks most of the time for the look out sir as it gives you another chance to stop this sort of thing happening however this is just a bit of bad luck, it happens. The disruption not cancelling steadfast thing should be clear but if you want to run a death star at least fit the crown of command in there somewhere to make it stubborn.

Game 2
You seem to have done ok here, just be warned the zombie and skeleton units are worth very little points and as such dont deserve to be focused. The vamp is best dealt with by either death magic if he doesnt have a good ward with MR in the unit or by ignoring him and his unit and killing the rest of the army. He will kill any character we can field baring some extreme luck or magic and will happily butcher 9 or 10 saurus a round.

Terroghiest are a pain but only LD 4 and I2 so Death magic again can come to the rescue ( see a theme here?) otherwise try to chip wounds off them and keep stuff in the general range. Your best bet is to take them down in one round of shooting so the vampire cannot heal them back up with magic.

Game 3
Never played against the fay enchantress but always remember that the bret player never has to pray even without her in the army. Lots of people get caught off guard by this and it seems you were one. In future ask to read the rules of any special character and ask them to explain anything you dont understand.

Grail knights hurt a lot on the charge and afterwards as well due to strength 4 base but other knights should be easy to kill. Problem is bret players like to stick 3 characters in the front rank of the lance so only they can get hit and the unit is untouchable.

Peg knights are warhammer's first MC and they are the only ones that fly other than terradons. with their mutli attacks and stomps they will mince salamanders.

Men at arms and archers are the peasants of the army and will easily panic if not near the general or a knight unit. They are on a similar level to skinks stat wise and point wise.

T1
Not sure what you were trying to do with 3 terradons versus 30 archers if you got first turn, they lose in combat and the drop rocks is better used on peg knights. Killing all 3 in a round was lucky but not terribly unlikely. The blessing improves from 6++ to 5++ against strength 5 attacks.

Saurus just dont do well against armor so you need to use magic and shooting to soften the lances or engage one at a time.

I'll go through the list in detail tomorrow as this took a bit longer than expected

 

[Irish_Lizard]

List comments in blue and new list at the end.

Some quick general points, the life slann with a deathstar was cool in 2010 but most people now can beat it or at the very least draw against it, so the best lizard players have generally dropped the list and moved on.

Old Blood - > Armor or fortune, sword that gives +3 attacks, shield.
Oldbloods are overpriced compared to scarvets and slann for what they can do. The only reason to have one in a list is to do a very specific job that other parts of the list cannot do such as kill MC or tank an extremely killy enemy character. Killing rank and file is easy for lizards, against ws 3 t3 models 4 temple guard do as much damage as the oldblood for a quarter of the cost. either give him a 1+ rerollable with 4+ ward and asf sword(tank) or a gw and a coldone(MC hunter) or drop him.

Slann - Life
Rumination, +2 ward against shooting, forbidden rod(still a great item with life imo).
Life is a meh lore at best, death, metal, shadow and light are the current top tournament lores for lizardmen. Rumination is good as is forbidden rod, even without life. The 2++ is not necessary if you give him a skink bunker. Mystery is a must for a single slann as is becalming. Make your slann the bsb always.

The current theory is that the best uncomped slann is a death slann with banehead, cupped hands, rumination, mystery, becalming, and higher state, bsb with the +1 leadership banner maybe add mr2 is you want.

The other option is double slann with 2 of the recommended lores(any combo works) one with rumination and the other with mystery or higher state. This does mean less toys though.

Heroes:
Scar vet cowboy 1
Great weapon, shield, armor or fortune, cold one
I did this because he is hard to kill and can go face down a serious monster or lord by himself and survive a turn or two or kill whatever it is he's fighting with 4 str 7 attacks and 1 cold one attack.

Scar vet 2:
Great weapon, shield, Itzil amulet (wiffed both times i used it), dragon helm, cold one
There are 2 standard builds for 'vets put them into every list you write
Saurus Scar-Veteran, GW, LA, CO, Venom of the Firefly Frog, Amulet of Itzl, Dragonhelm - 166 Pts.
Saurus Scar-Veteran, LA, CO, Burning Blade of Chotek, Dawnstone, Charmed Shield - 160 Pts.

The only trick is to learn what they can and cant solo which comes down to experience. The burning blade can be swapped out for sword of might if you want or are running light magic.


Core:
36 Saurus hdw, shields, full command (this was my "deathstar" with my oldblood living in it and joined by heroes when needed).

24 skink, 3 krox, full command

12 skink, 1 krox, champion only (i wanted to try this as a flank charging unit with some extra bite),
You need more chaff here as you cant delay or redirect anything that you cant fight. I recommend going either all skrox or all saurus. It's hard when you're starting as you need to learn which units can fight what.Size wise the combat blocks are probably fine bar the small unit. End result get some 10 skinks with muso or 10 skrimshers as chaff to redirect deathstars.

Special,
2x 6 Chameleon skinks - I need more of these, i don't have enough models but these guys are fantastic
30 of these guys usually appear in my list to delete units but the other way is to use them as disposable 5 man units
3x Terradons - These seem to die no matter what I do. The T3 no armor is pretty terrible and they seem to be easily shot down by just about anything.
Terradons are there to drop rocks on opposing chaff, double flee enemy units and eventually die for the old ones greater plan. Best used in 2 units of 3.

Rare:
3x Salamander
2 and 1 is better than 3 but these guys are very solid. dont be afraid to throw them away if you have to as 2 is dirt cheap.
1x Razordon -> i wanted to try him out.
Keep experimenting with 'sub-par' units just be aware that sometimes units are considered sub-par for a reason.

I'll probably pm you a few tournament lists and you can see if you like them or not.

 

[Myster2]

Thank you very much for the fantastic advice!

I agree with the razordon being a sub par unit. It's too bad because it is so far the only finecast model i have got that didn't look like i boiled it in water right after i got it.