8th Ed. 2.5k - Lizardmen vs High Elves - rematch

[livewaaaaagh]

Hello all!

Following last week's victory over the High Elves, we're doing a re-match this upcoming Saturday. Naturally, I don't want to bring the same exact list, so I'm looking to make some changes.

On to the list:

Slann w/ Becalming Cogitation, Harmonic, Reservoir + BSB and Banner of discipline.
LORE OF LIGHT!

Scar Vet on Cold One + Stegadon Helm + Luckstone + Ironcurse icon. + GW & LA
Skink Priest - lvl 2 of Heavens + dispel scroll

37 Saurus Warriors Hw/S + FC
2x 12 Skinks with Javelins/Shields + patrol leader

5 Chameleon Skinks
5 Cold One Rider, musician, standard + Spears.
22 Temple Guard w/jaguar standard

Ancient Stegadon w/Engine of the Gods
Troglodon w/ Skink Oracle Rider.

While I'm a Wandering Deliberations fanboi, I want to try something different. Lore of Light provides for the WS/I buffs to potentially remove the re-roll for ASF, or give my units ASF. 2 ways to remove the re-roll. + all-around good buffs (assuming I get them, of course). + banishment could prove useful vs Phoenix Guard as well.
Since I know he owns a Frosheart and is likely to bring him, I'm also bringing a skink with heavens.

The Engine of the Gods is there to provide yet another way of incliting damage vs Swordmaster or Wihte Lions (assuming no BotWD). Troglodon is there mostly for flavor.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

First of all, how did your Skinks fare last time? I ask because I can only see Skinks as ever being a liability against High Elves because of their much shorter range, and if they failed to do much the previous game then I would say replace them with more Saurus units, although if they did do well then by all means prove me wrong and use them again to similar success. Same with the Saurus Horde - if it didn’t do that well, I’d say break it down into multiple smaller units so you can engage more of their units at once. You’ve got an advantage in both Strength and toughness so I would argue that hordes aren’t that essential. Have you got any Saurus with spears? Units of 18 arrayed 6 wide and 3 deep with spears provide a whopping 25 attacks without needing to have a cumbersome and unwieldy horde. High Elves like to fight with precision because of their low toughness, so having two of these units gives you the flexibility to strike back at their precision attacks much more easily than with a blunt horde ‘club’.

Also I would argue that there are more effective choices than a Troglodon (Carnosaur would be better against his monsters, Bastiladon with Solar Engine would be better against his infantry), but I’m all for more thematic armies with far more flavour over uber-competitive nonsense, so by all means use him if you like. The Skink Oracle will help with your magic phases and your Trog can boost your predatory fighter rolls for a turn (make sure as many Saurus units are in melee as possible before you unleash the ROAR).

Anyway, hope that advice helps.

 

[livewaaaaagh]

I was waiting for pictures that my opponent took before doing a battle report, but I'll summarize the battle in short:

Skinks did well - one unit was annihilated, the other survived and picked off White Lions and archers all game. They weren't very targeted mostly because he was going after other things with his archers.
My Saurus big unit was odd - there was a bottleneck on my mid-right center of the battlefield, so they went around an impassable terrain, and were mostly just marching all game, unfortunately. They took out an eagle and not much else. they served mostly to get my opponent to move into that bottleneck, or face the Saurus coming from behind.

As for the rest, I had 4 MVPs - those skinks, my Temple Guard and both the Scar Vets (on carno and cold one).

I miscasted twice throwing 3 dice and killed some of my own Tempel Guard in the process. Essentially 12~ or so arrived in combat with the Slann to fight a horde of 50 Spearmen. With Wandering Deliberations buffs, guess who won combat? Not 1, or 2, but 3 turns in a row, until help arrived in the form of the Carnosaur who had taken down the depleted White Lions.
The Scar Vet on Cold One challenged his way into holding up an entire unit of 23 Phoenix Guard and essentially taking them out of the battle.

The not-so-great performers? The Stegadon... got taken out even after getting the charge by a unit of Dragon Princes with a Prince with Ogre Blade.
The Cold One Riders also did poorly. They got taken out early by a Soul Quench.

So with that information, allow me to respond to your ideas:
Skinks did well, I think because of target saturation, he ignored them and paid the price. Maybe he changes his tactics this time though.
I like the idea of the dual 18~Saurus units. I might try this.

Since I brought the Carno last time (it did great!), I want to make a change. I have no concerns bringing the Bastilodon instead of the Troglodon, though that means it can't target Dragon Princes, and the Ward save of PG and a phoenix for example might be too good for our Bastilodon. Plus, do their bolt throwers allow for now armour saves? If so, he'd be toast.

Or I could bring the Carno, but drop the Steg and bring both the Bastilodon and Troglodon. That's also an option.

Thoughts on lore of light?

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

I was waiting for pictures that my opponent took before doing a battle report, but I'll summarize the battle in short:

Skinks did well - one unit was annihilated, the other survived and picked off White Lions and archers all game. They weren't very targeted mostly because he was going after other things with his archers.
My Saurus big unit was odd - there was a bottleneck on my mid-right center of the battlefield, so they went around an impassable terrain, and were mostly just marching all game, unfortunately. They took out an eagle and not much else. they served mostly to get my opponent to move into that bottleneck, or face the Saurus coming from behind.

As for the rest, I had 4 MVPs - those skinks, my Temple Guard and both the Scar Vets (on carno and cold one).

I miscasted twice throwing 3 dice and killed some of my own Tempel Guard in the process. Essentially 12~ or so arrived in combat with the Slann to fight a horde of 50 Spearmen. With Wandering Deliberations buffs, guess who won combat? Not 1, or 2, but 3 turns in a row, until help arrived in the form of the Carnosaur who had taken down the depleted White Lions.
The Scar Vet on Cold One challenged his way into holding up an entire unit of 23 Phoenix Guard and essentially taking them out of the battle.

The not-so-great performers? The Stegadon... got taken out even after getting the charge by a unit of Dragon Princes with a Prince with Ogre Blade.
The Cold One Riders also did poorly. They got taken out early by a Soul Quench.

So with that information, allow me to respond to your ideas:
Skinks did well, I think because of target saturation, he ignored them and paid the price. Maybe he changes his tactics this time though.
I like the idea of the dual 18~Saurus units. I might try this.

Since I brought the Carno last time (it did great!), I want to make a change. I have no concerns bringing the Bastilodon instead of the Troglodon, though that means it can't target Dragon Princes, and the Ward save of PG and a phoenix for example might be too good for our Bastilodon. Plus, do their bolt throwers allow for now armour saves? If so, he'd be toast.

Or I could bring the Carno, but drop the Steg and bring both the Bastilodon and Troglodon. That's also an option.

Thoughts on lore of light?

Apparently Bolt Throwers don’t allow armour saves, which sucks - just had a check in the Rulebook because I didn’t know this before. They’re only Multiple Wounds D3 so the Bastiladon would survive a single shot but of course they have Repeater Bolt Throwers. Maybe not then.

I think with those Skinks, you just have to rely on him thinking that maybe there are higher-priority targets around as he did partially in the first battle - if he does, they might well be quite useful, but if he doesn’t, they will almost certainly be destroyed as one of their units was in the previous game. I’ll leave it for you to decide. I just prefer Saurus for almost everything myself, but they can be handy chaff if you’ve only got a few points left. If you don’t object to having them in cohorts it could be worth putting a Kroxigor in each unit, as they’d put out some S6 attacks that wound them on 2s and might make the player think twice about engaging them.

I don’t really think that much of Lore of Light normally, because it just isn’t killy enough to deal with any army other than Daemons, Vampire Counts or Tomb Kings, but against Elves’ initiative it might be useful. As long as you get either Birona’s Timewarp or Speed of Light it’s worth taking (the former gives you Always Strikes First and the latter gives you Initiative 10 - not as helpful as the former but it means they don’t get their re-rolls to hit and you also get WS 10 so they’ll be hitting on 5s without rerolls), and with a level 4 Slann the odds are in your favour of getting at least one of those.

 

[livewaaaaagh]

Thank you again for the feedback!

I don't currently have Kroxigors, but I've ordered additional skinks

I'm hoping the ASF and I/WS buffs, in addition to Pha's Protection are enough to help out and then with the EotG and Banishment, hopefully get some damage out there.

Of coruse, I rpefer Wandering Deliberations or even High MAgic - but he's likely to bring that (he did last time) so I wanted to try something different. Same goes for bringing out BFF Troglodon!