Temple Guard
DonkeyHotep
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Slann Bsb
w/ cups
w/ powa rawk
w/ scrawl
w/ war bannar
Skink Priest lv 2
Riding an Injun of the gawds
w/ plack
w/ powa rawk
Skink priest lv 2
w/ can of lightning
w/ scrawl
Scar Vet
w/ spear, armor kit
w/ itzl + cold one
20 Saurus w/ speers
Music, Banner
15 skinks
w/ jack crag
15 skinks
w/ not even shoes
16 temple guard
w/ muiak
w/ ban nerd
5 saurus calvarionators
w/ drums
w/ Big basic totem
5 chameleonic skinks
2 sourmanders
w/ no extra ammo
For those of you who don't read my other posts, I'm a bit of a contrarion lizard player, and I'm certainly not a big fan of "theory Hammer", where someone posts a strategy and then confesses to never having played a game in their life. This army just ran through a tournament like crap through a dysenteric walrus up till it hit the last rung, wherein I had the great pleasure of playing a man with a fine understanding of the game, twinking lists, and good manners.
For a summary, the best plan I ran into in the tournament relies on the relatively small number of units in the army, and I use a variant of the denied flank strategy Which I call the "drifting flank". The plan is that you start off with utter trash, usually skink blocks first, and see what your opponent will do first, the start deploying units drifting away from his, often this will let you discover whether your opponent wants to be near you or far away, which is valuable information in and of itself, but it also tends to spread their units in a line, which helps optimize the amount of concentration you can muster. Many games my last placement would be the slann in the corner 40+ inches away from any of my other units and then the engine of the gods next to him in the hero phase, this means that everything is incredibly far from the slann, who can use lore of fire or heavens and abuse infinite range to pelt the enemy, which also denies them turns, since after six you point up, and if combat hasn't been going long you can frequently gain an advantage right there, or just drag units out. This list is fairly overpowering in the magic phase, and has fairly strong magic defense, especially considering there are no particularly vulnerable targets for weak magic, such as fireballs, and most large magic can be scrolled, or is otherwise not active every turn.
In the first game I played, I drifted my flank and feinted a wood elf player into an irrelevant side and beaned him with fire, comets, and lightning the whole game, and his frail expensive wood elves crumbled. A wall of fire killed 11+ eternal guard when they ran through it, and sourmanders killed a whole lot of other stuff. His army was tabled in an awful way and he quit the tournament.
The second game I faced a nurgle knight list, with 3 casters including vilitch the cursling (whata bastard), some marauder trash to fill points, and scylla. I castled everything into one corner on a hill, march blocked with chameleons and went to work with the lore of metal. One of his casters wasn't in a unit and he was immediately Urannon'sed to death and he was down a caster, giving me an advantage the rest of the game. When he got in range, the slann moved up slightly, and used rule of burning iron to bait out dice before using spirit of the forge to deal 7 damage to a unit of knights, killing 5 and a hero. Urannons Chunder Bolt knocked out 3 more knights, and a few foot warriors. He had not yet attacked me at all and was down 8 knights, 2 heroes, a few warriors, a few marauders, and a great deal of self esteem. Unfortunately, I had not yet familiarized myself with Vilitch, nor had it been explained to me that he had taken this character, so on his turn when I failed to dispel an infernal gateway he jacked 5 of my dice and also quagmired my temple guard. Gateway hit the cavalry and 11ed them to death, taking them all out with no save, but they were screening the slann so bully for them... Eventually the steg flanked around, burning alignmented the rest of the knights, and proceeded to destroy a shrine. Skinks reeived the charge from marauders and kept holding, eventually beating them down to one model, and another group of skinks held Scylla down untill the slanns guard came to take him, my opponent also cheated me by suggesting scylla had a 5+ ward save and made the roll.....
Eventually He had nothing but a unit of warriors and some characters, and one of his characters left the unit to avoid being in combat for a charge, and got whacked when his shrine broke and freed the stegadon to move over and burning alignment another caster. It was a marginal victory (not that this tournament counted such things), but was one of the most ridiculous magic games I'd ever seen.
My last game was a strong play on each side, and I was up against Grimgore and hi 24 black orcs with great weapons, I drifted flanked, and had the game fairly solid, but I foolishly charged the engine into some boys and fluffed the impact hits and lost, then failed leadership, eventually the game ended in a draw, and with my opponent and I having 2 wins and a draw (the most in the tourney) I won out by one point by having a higher painting score. (I was the only army fully painted and based) To make of for the miseing, I gave him some clay scratch built squig hoppers.
Thoughts
15 skinks ==MVP
No joke, 15 skinks in ranks is an amazing unit, for 75 points it's hard to find better value. They tied combat an awful lot simply by outnumber+ranks and I'd seriously consider giving them musicians. I used these to tarpit a tree man, take fanatics, chase away wounded weight watchers, and hold table quarters. They shot fanatics with javelins, screened things, and flank charged night goblins. They beat up scylla and beat up marauders. Any one who says these guys are terrible is clearly a moron and you should use your superior cunning and judgement to take their mate for your own, and thus improve the quality of the stock in the human race.
Salamanders ==hit or miss.
Many times, these guys just shot their crap at people, scared my opponent shitless with sacks of hits, then didn't really kill anyone. Not even night goblins were panicked by these guys, but the threat was severe, these were always a first priority for opponent shooting and I may seriously consider giving them more skinks, not for misfires, but for panic checks, I made two in the game and barely passed. the less bad you roll the better. I messed up by not charging with them more often, and forget they are surprisingly strong in melee.
Banner of pursuing +1d6 == I shoulda had it. Too many times did my temple guard beat someone away and then not catch them, I still won, but winning isn't good enough, to ensure that you win even on bad days you need redundancy, and this item will do it, I might take it over a war banner even.
Saurus Cavalry > Kroxigors
you know why? Because If someone charges my Kroxigors I'm screwed. A group of boys charged these guys and didn't manage to do a darn thing, allowing me to pursue them and catch them, and guess what! Speed 7 let's me CATCH THEM, gaining vital VP and to hold a banner. They eventually got whooped by grimgores lads, but you know what, the amulet of itzl and 1+ let my hero escape to avoid losing points. Kroxigors don't tend to die as easily PER MODEL, but I like these guys for the same reason I like KROOT armor in 40k, because it lets you win combat. The way I ran these guys they cost as much as 41 skinks. These are surprisingly good screens for the TG, since anything that gets close can just be charged, and if they flee, they flee through the TG and regroup (without panicking the TG) when they regroup they can begin moving to the flank, and then eventually help the TG later. It should be noted however, that for the unit and the hero, you could get more or less 6 kroxigors.
Champions < Rod of the storms
Drop a champion for the cavalry and you get a power stone, drop a Temple guard champ and a saurus champ and you get a Rod of the storms. Champs are dumb and inefficient and if you drop all of them you suddenly have a big wad of points to get all the things you always wanted, never, ever take them unless you really need them to die for their emperor, real, real bad.
Chameleon skinks > all
These may well be the best unit we have. Moving, long range, rapid fire, they hit on sixes and shoot twice, skinks can do this and shoot once. These guys aren't as much as 2 skinks and shoot just as well, and in many cases, their chameleon ability makes them just as resistant to arrows (not magic). The most important thing is that they march block even if you don't go first (unlike terradons, which are 50% more), and essentially give slann and Co. another turn. I even flung them at a shrine to die so that my opponent would hit them instead of a stegadon, to avoid letting it get below half.
saurus spearmen >= Player judgement
I don't know what people's deal is, but when things are screening the slann people just instinctively bean these guys with whatever they have that's ranged. This is phenomenally poor judgement on their part, and a game where these guys soak up 3 turns of fire balls or 20 glade guard arrows and don't go bellow half is a good game, correct me if I'm wrong, but how many points do you get for killing 9 saurus? Jack... Crap. I've had games where these guys do absolutely nothing and it's totally fine, they just sit there and look menacing and people go around them, I have no idea why.
If I had to do it again, I'd take more scrolls. It can't be stressed how nice it is to scroll something, even something that's power 9, when it's something you really, really don't like. If he wasn't to retardedly expensive, and a hero, I'd consider taking the chameleon hero just to assassinate wizards, many people have jack to stop one guy that isn't punching anyone, and knocking off a scroll caddy can help enormously.
Most importantly, I've learned that victory comes through having a fully painted and based army, and being a total miser when it comes to points. If you don't need a banner, don't take one, their a liability some times.
w/ cups
w/ powa rawk
w/ scrawl
w/ war bannar
Skink Priest lv 2
Riding an Injun of the gawds
w/ plack
w/ powa rawk
Skink priest lv 2
w/ can of lightning
w/ scrawl
Scar Vet
w/ spear, armor kit
w/ itzl + cold one
20 Saurus w/ speers
Music, Banner
15 skinks
w/ jack crag
15 skinks
w/ not even shoes
16 temple guard
w/ muiak
w/ ban nerd
5 saurus calvarionators
w/ drums
w/ Big basic totem
5 chameleonic skinks
2 sourmanders
w/ no extra ammo
For those of you who don't read my other posts, I'm a bit of a contrarion lizard player, and I'm certainly not a big fan of "theory Hammer", where someone posts a strategy and then confesses to never having played a game in their life. This army just ran through a tournament like crap through a dysenteric walrus up till it hit the last rung, wherein I had the great pleasure of playing a man with a fine understanding of the game, twinking lists, and good manners.
For a summary, the best plan I ran into in the tournament relies on the relatively small number of units in the army, and I use a variant of the denied flank strategy Which I call the "drifting flank". The plan is that you start off with utter trash, usually skink blocks first, and see what your opponent will do first, the start deploying units drifting away from his, often this will let you discover whether your opponent wants to be near you or far away, which is valuable information in and of itself, but it also tends to spread their units in a line, which helps optimize the amount of concentration you can muster. Many games my last placement would be the slann in the corner 40+ inches away from any of my other units and then the engine of the gods next to him in the hero phase, this means that everything is incredibly far from the slann, who can use lore of fire or heavens and abuse infinite range to pelt the enemy, which also denies them turns, since after six you point up, and if combat hasn't been going long you can frequently gain an advantage right there, or just drag units out. This list is fairly overpowering in the magic phase, and has fairly strong magic defense, especially considering there are no particularly vulnerable targets for weak magic, such as fireballs, and most large magic can be scrolled, or is otherwise not active every turn.
In the first game I played, I drifted my flank and feinted a wood elf player into an irrelevant side and beaned him with fire, comets, and lightning the whole game, and his frail expensive wood elves crumbled. A wall of fire killed 11+ eternal guard when they ran through it, and sourmanders killed a whole lot of other stuff. His army was tabled in an awful way and he quit the tournament.
The second game I faced a nurgle knight list, with 3 casters including vilitch the cursling (whata bastard), some marauder trash to fill points, and scylla. I castled everything into one corner on a hill, march blocked with chameleons and went to work with the lore of metal. One of his casters wasn't in a unit and he was immediately Urannon'sed to death and he was down a caster, giving me an advantage the rest of the game. When he got in range, the slann moved up slightly, and used rule of burning iron to bait out dice before using spirit of the forge to deal 7 damage to a unit of knights, killing 5 and a hero. Urannons Chunder Bolt knocked out 3 more knights, and a few foot warriors. He had not yet attacked me at all and was down 8 knights, 2 heroes, a few warriors, a few marauders, and a great deal of self esteem. Unfortunately, I had not yet familiarized myself with Vilitch, nor had it been explained to me that he had taken this character, so on his turn when I failed to dispel an infernal gateway he jacked 5 of my dice and also quagmired my temple guard. Gateway hit the cavalry and 11ed them to death, taking them all out with no save, but they were screening the slann so bully for them... Eventually the steg flanked around, burning alignmented the rest of the knights, and proceeded to destroy a shrine. Skinks reeived the charge from marauders and kept holding, eventually beating them down to one model, and another group of skinks held Scylla down untill the slanns guard came to take him, my opponent also cheated me by suggesting scylla had a 5+ ward save and made the roll.....
Eventually He had nothing but a unit of warriors and some characters, and one of his characters left the unit to avoid being in combat for a charge, and got whacked when his shrine broke and freed the stegadon to move over and burning alignment another caster. It was a marginal victory (not that this tournament counted such things), but was one of the most ridiculous magic games I'd ever seen.My last game was a strong play on each side, and I was up against Grimgore and hi 24 black orcs with great weapons, I drifted flanked, and had the game fairly solid, but I foolishly charged the engine into some boys and fluffed the impact hits and lost, then failed leadership, eventually the game ended in a draw, and with my opponent and I having 2 wins and a draw (the most in the tourney) I won out by one point by having a higher painting score. (I was the only army fully painted and based) To make of for the miseing, I gave him some clay scratch built squig hoppers.
Thoughts
15 skinks ==MVP
No joke, 15 skinks in ranks is an amazing unit, for 75 points it's hard to find better value. They tied combat an awful lot simply by outnumber+ranks and I'd seriously consider giving them musicians. I used these to tarpit a tree man, take fanatics, chase away wounded weight watchers, and hold table quarters. They shot fanatics with javelins, screened things, and flank charged night goblins. They beat up scylla and beat up marauders. Any one who says these guys are terrible is clearly a moron and you should use your superior cunning and judgement to take their mate for your own, and thus improve the quality of the stock in the human race.
Salamanders ==hit or miss.
Many times, these guys just shot their crap at people, scared my opponent shitless with sacks of hits, then didn't really kill anyone. Not even night goblins were panicked by these guys, but the threat was severe, these were always a first priority for opponent shooting and I may seriously consider giving them more skinks, not for misfires, but for panic checks, I made two in the game and barely passed. the less bad you roll the better. I messed up by not charging with them more often, and forget they are surprisingly strong in melee.
Banner of pursuing +1d6 == I shoulda had it. Too many times did my temple guard beat someone away and then not catch them, I still won, but winning isn't good enough, to ensure that you win even on bad days you need redundancy, and this item will do it, I might take it over a war banner even.
Saurus Cavalry > Kroxigors
you know why? Because If someone charges my Kroxigors I'm screwed. A group of boys charged these guys and didn't manage to do a darn thing, allowing me to pursue them and catch them, and guess what! Speed 7 let's me CATCH THEM, gaining vital VP and to hold a banner. They eventually got whooped by grimgores lads, but you know what, the amulet of itzl and 1+ let my hero escape to avoid losing points. Kroxigors don't tend to die as easily PER MODEL, but I like these guys for the same reason I like KROOT armor in 40k, because it lets you win combat. The way I ran these guys they cost as much as 41 skinks. These are surprisingly good screens for the TG, since anything that gets close can just be charged, and if they flee, they flee through the TG and regroup (without panicking the TG) when they regroup they can begin moving to the flank, and then eventually help the TG later. It should be noted however, that for the unit and the hero, you could get more or less 6 kroxigors.
Champions < Rod of the storms
Drop a champion for the cavalry and you get a power stone, drop a Temple guard champ and a saurus champ and you get a Rod of the storms. Champs are dumb and inefficient and if you drop all of them you suddenly have a big wad of points to get all the things you always wanted, never, ever take them unless you really need them to die for their emperor, real, real bad.
Chameleon skinks > all
These may well be the best unit we have. Moving, long range, rapid fire, they hit on sixes and shoot twice, skinks can do this and shoot once. These guys aren't as much as 2 skinks and shoot just as well, and in many cases, their chameleon ability makes them just as resistant to arrows (not magic). The most important thing is that they march block even if you don't go first (unlike terradons, which are 50% more), and essentially give slann and Co. another turn. I even flung them at a shrine to die so that my opponent would hit them instead of a stegadon, to avoid letting it get below half.
saurus spearmen >= Player judgement
I don't know what people's deal is, but when things are screening the slann people just instinctively bean these guys with whatever they have that's ranged. This is phenomenally poor judgement on their part, and a game where these guys soak up 3 turns of fire balls or 20 glade guard arrows and don't go bellow half is a good game, correct me if I'm wrong, but how many points do you get for killing 9 saurus? Jack... Crap. I've had games where these guys do absolutely nothing and it's totally fine, they just sit there and look menacing and people go around them, I have no idea why.
If I had to do it again, I'd take more scrolls. It can't be stressed how nice it is to scroll something, even something that's power 9, when it's something you really, really don't like. If he wasn't to retardedly expensive, and a hero, I'd consider taking the chameleon hero just to assassinate wizards, many people have jack to stop one guy that isn't punching anyone, and knocking off a scroll caddy can help enormously.
Most importantly, I've learned that victory comes through having a fully painted and based army, and being a total miser when it comes to points. If you don't need a banner, don't take one, their a liability some times.
or a Chaos player for having no shooting phase 
) they are not trash (i'm not quite sure whether or not you said that i was distracted by Sarts experience)
who the hell would take normal skinks?