8th Ed. 1500 Friendly tournament list evolution

[Theophaniel]

Greetings fellow lizardmen,

A few months ago, I started whfb wiith some friends, we started doing some escalation games from 750 to 1500 actually. We got a lot better over time, so that current games are getting a lot harder for me. (I’ll probably start to do battle reports for the games I play from now on as 1500 seems to be some kind of breaking point)

Anyway, I have 3 regulars I play against ( 9 games now). High Elfes, Dark Elves and skaven.
We report w/l with +3 for a win +1 for a draw +0 defeat. And though up until now I kept second in the ranking. I’m having quite a loosing streak right now.

The things is, my oponent started to min max their lists quite a lot. for example the dark elf bringing morathi, doomfire warlocks, and the High elf taking the loremaster on Hoeth book (the one who rerolls almost anything).

The list I’ve been running has been: 1500

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Kuraq, AoDestiny, Cold one, GW

Skink Priest l2 + Dispell Sc

2 * 22 saurus Shield+HW (FCommand)

2* 10 Skink Skirmisher (jav)

1 bastiladon(Solar)

5 Cold one riders + Banner

7 chameleon

1 salamander

(probably forgot one thing or two but you got the idea)

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And the fact is, this list isn’t really living up to my expectations.

I’ve been lurking on tournament forums, trying to find competitives lists (if someone could direct me to that kind of website i’b be soooo happy)

And, the playstyle of a player caught my attention: Rafael Harbinson, in the uk masters 2013.

Which inspired my this:

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LORD
Slann Loremaster HM + Dispell Sc

HEROES
Kuraq, AoDestiny, Cold one, GW

Kuraq, LA GW Dragon Helm, Dawnstone, luckstone, Cold One

CORE
4 *10 Skirmisher (jav)

25 Skink cohort + Brave + Musician

SPE
5 ripperDactyls

RARE
Ancient Steg

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The slann would run alone, expecting the scroll and it’s natural beefiness to stay alive.
High magic to be kind of a tool kit in assisting the hammers like the cow boys, the steg or the reaper to get a good charge in conjunction with the skink redirectors.

I’m considering getting rid of one of the skirmisher unit and a few of the cohort to get a salamander.

Dropping the reapers for some COC is an option too.

Another change would be getting rid of the reapers, and getting 1 more skink tarpit and a Skink priest to take the scroll and provide LOS for the slann magic.


What are you thoughs ?

I’ll make the adjustments given the feedback and keep you updated on the list results.
Thanks !!

 

[Putzfrau]

the second list is much better than the first, but you should go into these games knowing a few things

skinks are hard to use effectively. skink cloud armies are fragile and require a mastery of the movement phase that few other units demand.

thats not to say you should be discouraged, just dont be surprised if you still end with a loss the first couple times

you have little to no combat punch in your army. your battle plan will revolve around using your skinks to dictate the movement of the game, soften up units with their mass poison shots, and flee flee flee pulling the enemy blocks into better positions for you.

using skinks effectively means winning deployment and winning the movement phase. if you can't do those things you'll find your low toughness terrible armor save skinks will die in the dozens to just about everything.

the scar vets will be there for flank charges and for holding up units with their high toughness and armor save.

understand that your stegadon will do disgusting amounts of damage on the charge between impact hits and thunderstomp, but at initiative 1 it'll always be a risk to charge high initiative models with killing power. also the stegadon will do NO damage with its 3 attacks so dont count on them. it relies heavily on impact hits and thunderstomp to cause its wounds.

honestly i would think a unit of temple guard would be more effective than the rippers. a block of temple guard will hold its points against just about everything.

with all that said, really the only true way to figure things out is to practice. just spam games as often as possible, dont be so concerned with winning, just be concerned with getting better. if you're playing with your mates talk to them afterwards about their choices and how they felt the battle could have gone better for you.

skaven, high elves, and dark elves are a pretty nasty threesome. good luck!

oh another thing. skink cloud armies tend to be absolutely AWFUL to play against. they are a high shooting high avoidance list that is overall just a pretty frustrating playstyle to go up against. if your mates wanna bring the filth tho, this is the perfect strategy i think ^^

 

[Theophaniel]

Wow thank you I didn’t expect such an in depth response !!

the thing I is, I feel that when I pack some punch like TG or big blocks of saurus, they never get to see the fight.
- They are slow, getting them to charge is quite hard (like almost never against elves/skaven)
- They get redirected each turn. All my oponents master the art of putting, a great eagle, technomage, or fast cav just one inch of my blocks and forcing me to angle out of the combat or even exposing my flanks. (I try to clear the redirectors with skink… but by the time I do it, the saurus/TG are on the other side of the map or getting flank charged)
- As a result when they enter combat (If they do) they lost 2 to 3 ranks and don’t do much. Which means 250 pts that are pretty useless I feel.

This gets really frustrating, and this is why I wanted to try rippers/COC. I read the whole ripper forum here which is very informative, but I fail to see how they could survive even when on the flank against asf swordmaster/executors of the like that my opponent always pack

As for the stegadon, yeah, My opponent already dread it, I had an infamous game against the DE player where I completly turn the tides, when a 1wound steg impaled an executor unit, rolling 6 at impact, 6 at thunderstomp, and 6 on the next phase thunderstomp thus breaking and destroying the unit, earning the nickname HELL steg or 666 steg. Never counted on the 3 attacks. WS3 does’nt do much.


Given the points budget, 1500, the unit size I can bring for my TG would only by 14/16 with full command. I doubt that this can compare to 5 ripper, though I can be wrong, never played ripper before. that many TG will have few rank, and even less model to hit back after the enemy swinged.

Though I think i’ll definitly drop a unit of skirmisher for a salamander as from previous experience, elves and skaven alike die in droves to our deadly flaming lizard.

My last question would be… how do you compare Loremaster High magic to wandering deliberation in small point lists. Having only one caster and the ability to change my spell to all the ones that wandering deliberation seems much more powerfull than 8 signatures spell. Am I missing something ?

-Theo

 

[Putzfrau]

both of those disciplines have their place. in a large block of TG the signature discipline might be better because the risk of miscast is smaller due to the smaller cast values.

however, i think loremaster of high has enough tricks in his bag to handle just about any situation.

they are both good, so it would come down to what you prefer better, or what is more useful against the specific armies you are fighting.

also, you dont have to fight combats to win games in warhammer. having your block of TG just hold points and keep your slann safe is fine if there aren't any attractive movement or charge options. it'll be difficult for your opponent to win if so many victory points aren't even available to him.

obviously TG are pretty good in combat tho, so if you can manage to do so without them getting chopped up its always preferred

give the list a try as is and see how you feel about it. once you got a list your happy with you can tweek it as you play your games.