8th Ed. 2500 pts - "Spartan Phalanx" Tournament List

[Furgil]

I have a bunch of Spartan warriors from Crocodile Games and have ordered a bunch more of their Spartan Peltasts. The list is essentially minimum core all in Skirmishing Skinks and a nearly indestructable horde of Temple Guard. The List is rounded out with a few uber-hero "Cowboys" able to crush knights and medium strength characters with relative ease.

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Lizardmen 2500 Spartan Phalanx GT

1x "King Leonidas" Strategos (Scar-Veteran)

• Great Weapon
  Armour of Destiny
  Bodyguard (Cold One Mount)

1x "Arimedes" Captain (Scar-Veteran)

• Great Weapon
  Armour of Fortune
  The Other Tricksters Shard
  Bodyguard (Cold One Mount)

1x "Dienekes" Lieutenant (Scar-Veteran)

• Light Armour
  Dawn Stone [25.0]
  Charmed Shield [5.0]
  Sword of Might [20.0]
  Bodyguard (Cold One Mount)

56x Spartan Hoplite Phalanx (Temple Guard)

• Halberd; Light Armour; Shield; Standard; Musician
  Razor Standard
  "Stelios" Lieutenant (Champion)

1x "The Pythia" Oracle of Delphi (Slann Mage-Priest)

• General; 2 Discipline; Magic Level 4; Lore of High Magic; Battle Standard
  Dispel Scroll
  Ruby Ring of Ruin
  Dis#1 Focus of Mystery
  Dis#2 Soul of Stone
  Banner of Swiftness

1x Ephor Priest (Skink Priest)

• Magic Level 1; Lore of Heaven
  Cube of Darkness
  0: Iceshard Blizzard

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

10x Perioikoi Peltasts (Skink Skirmishers)

• Lustrian Javelin & Shield

Models in Army: 151

Total Army Cost: 2498

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So as you can see the Slann will cast a bunch of fun spells, swap them out for better defensive/offensive spells as the game progreesses (Beasts, Life defaults will be early swaps). The Skinks will play it kinda safe and try to outflank the enemy, then toss Javs into them to annoy and redirect their attack a bit.

Temple Guard are gonna move fast towards the most expensive enemy units they can reach, using Walk Between Worlds to get there faster. Their one goal is to engage fast and crush powerful enemy blocks worth lots of points.

Saurus Heroes will charge out of the main Phalanx (300 style) and go on murderous rampages to help avoid the enemy being able to divert the horde; thus i will negate their ability to preserve points. Cannons and Stone Throwers might hit them, but they all have decent saves capable of deflecting artillery; hopefully it will be enough to keep at least 1 or 2 of the Cowboys alive (though most armies with cannons will have trouble avoiding losses at the hands of this army).

I have added the Razor banner to make sure I kill easier and Swiftness to get their quicker. Since LD 9 with Cold-Blooded is better than a LD 10 already, I'm not sure the +1 LD Banner is worth it compared to having faster troops. However I have considered using the skaven Pelt Banner to gain Frenzy and make the Temple Guard truely OTT in combay... but this choice makes it much easier to bait my unit. For now i think the AP & +1 MV is best for the build.

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Anyone use a cloud of Skinks list similar and have any suggestions? Is there anything that would still fit into the theme (ie: not adding monsters), but is needed? I can add a couple more Skink units with I make some Cohorts, but I really like the all skirmishers idea better as a default until it is proven to be not enough.

 

[Qupakoco]

"On these shields, boys!!" Haha.

This army... will be... a NIGHTMARE!!! (for you, lol) I have some good points that I'll get to, but read through my bad ones first, ok? This is all in wisdom

BAD:

I dunno how much experience you have with stuff like this, but a big ol' block like that is going to get blasted to H-E-double-hockey-sticks and back. Almost every single spell, cannon ball, flanking unit, etc, they're all gonna whoop up on it as much as they can. Skinks will probably be ignored since they aren't really worth much VP.

On top of that, moving a 10x6 unit around the battlefield is super duper cumbersome. This thing is like... a foot wide? Haha. Turn it sideways and it'll take up 1/4 of the table by itself.

Not just that it's one unit being hard to move, but now you have 9 units of Skinks on top of that. I have trouble with 3 units of skirmishers sometimes. These guys are quick, yes. But they are also a hindrance to each other. Moving them all past each other or all within range is going to be a bit tricky. Plus you might forget to move a unit or two once in awhile.

LASTLY!! This army will be super annoying to play against! No one likes big fat hordes or MSU type lists. This one has both, haha. It's also pretty easy to stay away from a big block that you don't want to fight, but with High Magic and all the March-blocking Skinks it might be challenging.

So there are the bad points. Don't let them get you down though, cause there are some good ones too!

GOOD:

You only have one unit to buff! No pesky picking who and what. Let the Skinks die, who cares. That's all they're there for really. To distract from the real threat.

Those Skinks, if you're tricky enough, can use swarm tactics to take out bigger units and counter-flank enemy flankers. Swarming means honing in on one unit with many of yours. If you can get 3 units in range of one enemy (might be tricky) you can potentially dish out 30 poisoned shots with an effective range of 24". Pretty mean. Plus more if they try to charge you.

The TG will out-grind anything they hit, spare a couple WoC and Daemon units. Might be beneficial to put a magic weapon on the TG Champ. Might also be wise to leave at least one Cowboy in the unit for challenges and whatnot.

I'm also thinking Light/Life would be better than Beasts/Life. Yeah, the characters are buff and stuff, but Light makes these guys into meat grinders. Plus Light of Battle is very nice for stopping all your Skinks from running away in a panic, lol.

So yeah. Main thing I want you to take away from this is that it will probably be annoying to play against and with. But try it out! Don't let these words stop you. Experience is best learned from experience

 

[Furgil]

Just so ya know. Using cumbersome hordes is not new to me. I just finished 7th/65 using a 50 White Lion horde and all shooting support. I've finished 1st-3rd overall several times using hordes of dwarfs, Marauders, Swordsmen, and even used a 70 man horde of Wood Elf Eternal Guard back in 7th edition.

What I'm really curious about is the support selection and how important are camo's and terri's? Or can I get away with just jav skirmish skinks as support?

 

[Asamu]

Just so ya know. Using cumbersome hordes is not new to me. I just finished 7th/65 using a 50 White Lion horde and all shooting support. I use hordes to of dwarfs and even used a 70 man horde of Wood Elf Eternal Guard back on 7th edition.

What I'm really curious about is the support selection and how important are champ's and Terri's? Or can I get away with just jav skirmish skinks as support?

Chamos might be useful for this army to take out warmachines that might do significant damage to the temple guard, Terradons are generally not necessary. The list should be fine in most situations, and dealing with that many temple guard will be difficult for any army.

As for the skinks, they are probably going to be most useful blocking flanks, killing monsters, and otherwise just controlling the battlefield. Shouldn't be too difficult with that many. Just make sure they don't block your temple guard from getting charges off.

 

[Lizardmatt]

I like the spartan theme better with the triple stubborn units.
Temple Guard with Slaan, then stubborn crown on a hero with saurus and Gor Rok in another block of saurus.

Having 3 units of stubborn lizards is a blast.

-Matt