So, took on the ogres and the orcs with a modified list, as follows.
Slaan
Focused Rumination, Becalming Cogitation, Plaque of Tepok, BSB
Saurus Scar-Vet
Great Weapon
Light Armor
Saurus Warriors: 25
Full Command
Temple Guard: 18
Musician and Standard
Skinks: 19 - Kroxigor: 2
Standard
Skink Skirmishers: 10
Skink Skirmishers: 10
Chameleon Skins: 6
Now I know some people might be confused by me dropping the salamanders but to be honest they just aren't worth their points against ogres and though they are great against orcs and goblins I had to field the same army list against both so went a more reliable route.
This list trounced the Ogres twice, and the Orcs and Goblins once with zero losses on my end. The first time facing the ogres I took lore of life and turned that block of saurus warriors into the tarpit from hell by giving them +4 toughness. Once his iron guts were locked in my skrox struck from the flank and I nickel and dimed his unit until it broke from combat and got run down. It was a fairly good fight though.. lots of skink losses though my Chameleon skinks succeeded in taking down his ironblaster (and with a 4+ armor save that was tough to do.) He dispelled my throne of vines (during my magic phase) and hit me with hellheart which on an unfortunate roll of 7 on miscast popped about 9 of my temple guard.. which truly hurt. This was a very fun and exciting fight.. unlike our second fight.
The second fight with the ogres was a short lived one because I took lore of death. On second turn I landed the improved purple sun and ran it straight across his two big units of iron guts and regular ogres, killing 5 of his 6 iron guts with one spell. With only his tyrant and one iron gut left in the unit my positioned unit of skinks then opened first and burned down his last iron gut and leaving his tyrant standing out in the open all by his lonesome. On his turn he charged my skinks, which I fled reacted with, stayed ahead of him and put him smack infront of my Skrox unit. He gave up after that and refers to Purple Sun as basically cheating against his army.
With those two wins I took on Orcs and Goblins next and went back to Lore of Life (this player being a little more flighty than the ogres player and even he was pretty livid.) This time, but saurus block tarpitted again but this time with the 4+ regen save spell making it so even though they had two units of orc boyz chewing up their flanks and a unit of black orcs facing of head to head I only lost the first round of combat by 1 and had my slaan with BSB well within range so passed with no issues. The turn after that a unit of my skinks boldly charged against her orc boyz to the rear and my skrox hit her on the flank and I took combat resolution but the end of that tangled mess by a whopping 11 points. They broke, fled, and were basically run down. The combination of consistantly getting my 4+ regen saves out, and regrowing the Saurus block made things almost impossible for my opponent to deal with. I had a unit of skinks engage her Arachnarok and kept it tied up with a ranged battle for most of the game, when she finally did come at me with it it failed a dangerous terrain test during a charge and ate 5 wounds from skink shooting so only had 2 wounds remaining.. which my temple guard took from her without much effort. Special note.. Goblin Fanatics and their insane attacks are nothing against a unit of saurus warriors with 4+ regen and regrowths to back it up. Popped all three of them in one movement and only lost 4 saurus then got them back with one regrowth spell.
MVP of both of these fights was (or course) Slaan, and that meaty saurus warrior block. In every fight it was underestimated then proved to be their undoing. The skrox unit wasn't that great, to be honest. Though it did add in the benefit of some stronger hits it also gave them softer skinks to swing against and land some extra wounds for combat resolution. The 6 inch move gets them on the flank fast and easy which is their only true benefit. Becalming Cogitation never once prevented a spell from being cast.. but is psyched them out into throwing more dice than necessary which nerfed their magic phased.. WELL worth the points to keep them off kilter.
