8th Ed. 1800 vs Skaven

[david l]

This is a league game with some rules that improve monsters. I didn't post much about the 1500 point battles, I beat this Skaven player because the brokenly powerful Moutain Chimera wrecked his army. The previous 1800 point battle can be found here.
The league rules that matter are war machines dealing D3 wounds max, naked monsters getting 5+ armour, the option to buy light/heavy armour for monsters at 10/20% of their base cost, and a serious cap on shooting that really limits my ability to field skink skirmishers. In this game I'm also making a deal with my opponent to not field opposing Great Fire Dragons (and the Chimera has been repriced to be too expensive for 1800).

The overt question here is how valuable are Stegadon armour upgrades against Skaven? If I skip the armour upgrades, I can fit in a third Stegadon.

Slann, BSB, Life, extra dice, discard 6s, Plaque of Tepok
Scar-vet, cold one, light armour, Burning Blade, Charmed Shield, Dawnstone (flaming attacks for Abomination)

35 Saurus, full command (exactly meets in core)
baby stegadon
baby stegadon
Ancient Stegadon
Salamander with snack

Alternatively I can replace the second baby stegadon with 10 core blowpipe, 5 chameleons, and heavy armour for both remaining stegs (baby steg with 2+ save, ancient with 1+). Normally the blowpipes would be a no-brainer in order to hurt the Abom, but the Abomination will have a 3+ armour save.

I could also see maybe dropping the scar-vet, but he seems useful. Thoughts?

 

[Eladimir]

Versus skaven I think you don't need the extra armour. Most of their troops are S3 so not a huge issues. I think you want the extra model since with his cannons your gonna lose one before they see combat.

As I finished typing this I realized his warmachines can fire into combat with slaves so your gonna lose everything unless you can take out the warmachines. Chamo skinks and terradons are going to be a must if he traditionally brings warmachines

 

[david l]

I took the three stegadon list.

He brought Grey Seer, BSB, level 1 engineer, doomrocket caddy, brass orb caddy, ~40 clanrats with mortar, ~40 slaves, ~40 slaves, horde of plague monks with magic banner, warp lightning cannon, Abomination (3+ armour)

I went first, but messed up on turn 1, leaving the Slann in the second rank of the Saurus. That meant the Grey Seer could back up out of Becalming Range but still be in Dreaded 13th range. And kill 19 Saurus. I should have moved the scar-vet out of the unit so the Slann would in the front rank, and the Grey Seer would then have to be in range of Becalming in order to use Dreaded 13th.
I tried using my stegadon shooting to hurt the Abomination, but 3 bolt thrower shots got only 1 wound. Not really surprising, the stegadon bolt throwers are horribly inaccurate, but still disappointing.

My Salamander took 2 long range shots that fell short. The second shot he was really sacrificing himself to redirect the Abomination a bit. The Abom crushed the Salamander and a massive overrun put him into the flank of the Saurus, touching the Scar-Vet (Slann on the other side). And then two Stegadons charged the Abomination in his flank. First round saw me take 3 wounds on each Stegadon and lose several Saurus, but I did 4 wounds to the Abomination. It did another wound to each Stegadon before I finished it off.

In that time I had Dwellered a clanrat unit and the plague monk horde while losing some more Saurus to the Warp Lightning Cannon. With the Abom dead, I sent the the Saurus (with both characters still) and both injured stegadons into the plague monks, while the other baby stegadon charged the BSB's clanrats. We easily broke the remaining plague monks, but they got the last wound off the baby stegadon. The Ancient was then finished off by the Warp Lightning Cannon while the remaining Saurus engaged a slave unit (which also had been Dwellered once). However, the surviving baby stegadon was steadily grinding down the clanrats (with BSB and Grey Seer), while Slann magic kept healing his wounds.

4 Saurus were still alive after we finished off the slaves, but the Slann miscast on 3 dice and killed them all. The last slave unit flanked the baby stegadon, buying the Skaven a round of no break test. The scar-vet and Slann then flanked the Skaven BSB, as the stegadon killed the last clanrat from the unit. The Skaven BSB kept making his 4+ ward saves against my scar-vet, while baby stegadon was killing slaves for combat resolution. Yet the Skaven still held! The Grey Seer and BSB, testing together, made two break tests needing a 3 and 4! Yet they couldn't do it a third time - on the bottom of turn 6 they broke, giving me a clear victory!

 

[Eladimir]

Grats man, glad to hear it worked out.
How many slaves total did he bring?

 

[david l]

Silly me! I have now added a quick version of the enemy list to the report above.