8th Ed. 3k vs Empire

[Coatl]

Ok gentlemen. This is a tentative list I'm planning on running this weekend vs Empire. Problem is I haven't played against them under 8th, so I'm just tossing out some ideas. I'll explain the choices at the bottom. I'm calling it my Death Metal list

Lords

Death Slann: Rumination, Focus, Becalming, BSB, Dispel, Ironcurse
Metal Slann: Rumination, Plaque, Shield

Heros

Tetto'eko
Scar-Vet: Shield, LA, Biting Blade, Potion of Foolhardiness (?)

Core

50 Saurus: Command Shield
30 Skinks: Command, 3 Kroxigors
16 Skinks

Special

10 Chameleons
10 Chameleons

Rare

2 Salamanders
2 Salamanders
2 Salamanders
2 Salamanders

3k on the dot.

Ok starting from top down. Death slann (in 50 block, i don't care if hordes are "unwieldy", it NEVER DIES ) will be great for sniping some characters, pumping out some free power dice and maybe a purple sun if i happen to get into combat with my big block.

The metal slann will be perfect for smacking around that steam engine that is most likely going to be coming, great against any knights and the #6 spell is a nice substitute for dwellers (5+ vs 4+ against most men). it'll be harder to kill characters with it, but thats where death comes in.

Tetto (in the 16 skinks) will let me move around my deployment a little to mess with some of his heavy-hitter placements, plus give me complete access to yet another lore, which is great for damaging those static gun lines.

Scar Vet will hang with the death slann (but not next to, no need to tempt purple fate ) and help keep any characters off of him with a I6 when i use the potion.

Big block-o-saurus. perfect for hanging around.

medium sized skrox unit will be nice for hitting a flank (if he rushes up some units) or causing some backfield havoc.

Chameleons are self explanatory. I might split them into 4 5-man units, not sure yet

Salamanders. O salamanders. How i love you so . 4 groups of 2 goes with the philosophy of "have fun trying to kill them all, because if you don't and they shoot you, i'll be laughing as you run run run!".

so, thats the army breakdown in a nutshell. thoughts?

 

[1968yearofmetall]

well you seem to have control of a dual slann list, nice!
one think though, in the 8th ed. you can only have 2 duplicates of rare units, so you cant have 4 units of salamanders.
I think this could work good against empire. but i haven´t played against them myself lol.
I´d not split up the cham units, too small units wont work out that good.

good luck!

 

[Coatl]

for a grand army (3k+), you can have twice as many specials and rares as normal (so 6 and 4 vs 3 and 2 respectively). don't know what page of the BRB it is though

i'll probably keep the chams as-is, i'd prefer the bigger units should it come to shooting survival and being able to scout succesfully. yea im a big fan of dual slann lists. some people dont like them because a slann can handle all the power dice for a magic phase by himself, but i prefer to have the versatility of double lores or complementary lores (life/light, life/death, heavens/fire, life/shadows, death/metal)
and metal only has 6 spells worth our while (5+ scaly skin has no legit benefits other than skinks. and c'mon, whose tossing those spells on skinks, really )

 

[1968yearofmetall]

you are so right my friend, my bad. sry.
well sounds good to me. ¨
just asking now, have you ever played a dual slann list with heavens/ life??
or do you only use heavens for your skinks?

 

[Eladimir]

I was gonna type up a bunch of comments on how to turn this list more standard and then I was like, hell this might work just fine. So I hope you get back to use with a lite battle report on how it went.

If you can get those 50 saurus up to his front line before the warmachines melt it then god speed.

 

[Coatl]

that'll be my last resort, hopefully a comet or 2 plus chams will deal with the cannons . i'll type up something brief whenever i get back from playing sunday.
yea i have plenty of "standard" lists but i'm trying to mix it up. life is nice and it works great, but becoming predictable in these tourny games is a great way to get stagnant and start losing. our tournys are basically leagues. 25 points to win, a game each week, win-4 pts, tie=2 pts, lose=1 pt.
i've never used heavens and life, but i have ran a 4 comet list against magic resistant-heavy dwarves. irresitable comets with tetto is hysterical but it was definately an all or nothing type iof game. a couple bad magic phases would've had be reeling.

 

[caiphas757]

i just used a 4 comet list against dwarfs with heavy anti magic burned 225 points worth of scrolls in 3 turns and he still gave up at top of 3

other than knights and great swords pretty much everyone is a 5+ so idk if metal is worth it
death is good generally empire has alot of characters warrior priests with the dis dice
maybe dual comet and death that way tetto has a buddy and we like the buddy system

 

[Coatl]

ok so the game was a little tedious in the way it played out (poor dice rolling on both sides I'd say) but I'll try and give a summary of what I remember.

We had 8 pieces of terrain, (2 buildings, 2 marshes, 1 forest, 2 obstacles, 1 hill). We played watchtower, with the marshes ending up flanking the watchtower. He won the dice roll and deployed 10 crossbowmen in the tower.

My Deployement:
I had 1 sallie group on each far flank and 1 each left/right of center. tetto and his skinks hid behind one of the obstacles, the skrox unit lined up straight behind the tower and the saurus block(1 slann inside, 1 slann orbiting) lined up right of center. I managed to infiltrate my 2 chams onto the left side of his deployment zone)

His Deployment:
He had a horde of swordsmen right of center, halbediers in the center and greatswords left of center. Pope-mobile was centered with the steam tank behind it. cannon and mortar left of center, gatling gun cannon and mortar right flank, group of knights right flank, warrior priest in each unit, lvl 4 with life/lvl 2 with shadows/bsb all hovering around the pope-mobile.

1st turn:
I moved both sallie units on the flank up. my other 2 sallie units marched and fired (ate some skinks, not enough range). skrox unit marched up. everyone else stayed put. magic was poor, i threw 5 PD at final transfix on his swordsmen unit, no Irresistable, he scrolled it but failed to destroy the spell (don't know the name of that scroll). Chameleons took out some greatswords and a wound off of the cannon.

He turned his steam tank to try and take down some chams. he moved his knights up the flank. everything marched up. he managed to get off a re-rollable to hit and wound on the gatling gun in magic and not much else. he double misfired on the gatling gun for shooting but didn't blow it up. 1 mortar took out 9 chams but the last 1 held firm. the steam tank filled 1 cham.

2nd turn:
Skrox charged the tower. Sallies on the right flank moved into position to flame the knights. Sallies on the left did the same to the greatswords. Solo cham went engineer hunting. Group of 9 chams went after the wounded cannon. sallies right middle went after the swordsmen and sallies left middle went after the greatswords as well. Magic was again uneventful with the exception of Tetto. I used his ability to irresistable a beefed up comet. He dispeled everything else. Solo chameleon took out the engineer ( ) and group of chameleons took out the cannon. Sallies made the knights run and reduced the greatswords to just over 1 rank (immune to psychology though). Skrox unit killed 4 of the crossbowmen but they held so I had to bump back.

His steam tank ran off the group of chameleons. His greatswords charged the sallies in front. The popemobile failed to charge the sallies in front of him. his knights rallied. He moves his characters and swordsmen away from the comet. Magic phase: comet didn't go off, even with tetto (this is an on going theme for this game). he did some minor casting but failed to cast pit of shades because of becalming on his level 2. his gatling gun eats into the sallies the popemobile failed to charge. mortars damage the other two groups of sallies. his crossbowmen shoot a couple of skinks. cannon fails to hit my orbiting slann (falls short). greatswords destroy my sallies and overan into tetto.

Turn 3:
I charge again with the skrox unit. My solo cham goes wizard hunting. Remaining sallies reposition for some flame fun. Big block-o-saurus stays put. Magic: again, no comet. got off an augment on the skrox from metal, giving them +1 to hit and armour piercing. nothing much else doing though. sallies fail to kill any knights or do any significant to halberdiers, but do manage to eat most of the rest of their handlers (group of 2 becomes unbreakable, single becomes frenzied and hatred, group of 2 unaffected). solo cham doesnt kill the wizard (damn ward saves). skrox finish off the crossbowmen and take the watchtower. greatswords beat tetto's skinks in combet, i fail my steadfast LD and he runs off the board.

His halberdiers charge the tower. Skrox stand and shoot (played it as a 3 level building) and killed a couple. The popemobile and swordsmen charge the group of sallies in front. knights charge the sallies on the right flank. he moves his mortar and cannon away from the comet. he forgets to reposition his greatswords. he positions his steamtank to charge the unbreakable sallies. he gets off I10 WS10 from lore of light on his halberdiers. comet...does not go off . most of my stuff is tied up in H2H. his cannon fails to hit my orbiting slann again, shoots long into my saurus unit and takes out 3. he's had enough of my solo cham and fires 30 shots at him with the gatling gun. however, hes long range so he needs 7's. he hits twice after all that and 1 of them wound . so close to being funny. His popemobile and swordsmen kill all but 1 wound on a sallie, it runs but his swordsmen dont catch it and he restrains with his popemobile to hit my orbiting slann/big block-o-saurus. Halberdiers and priest kill a krox and wound twice to another. they hang around (12" of my BSB/general) so the halberdiers bump back.

Turn 4:
No charges but my solo sallie rallies on triple 1's!!! absolutely worthless but i thought it was neat to have happen. the orbiting slann teams up with the big block-o-saurus and my general slann. magic phase. the comet.....DOES...NOT...GO...OFF . I get off a lot this phase though, killing his level 4 with my metal slann so he cant buff up his halberdiers with life, reducing their S and T by -1 from my death slann, rebuffing my skrox to +1 to hit and armour piercing and doing a wound to his BSB. The sallies burn his halberdiers down to the front rank and the skinks in the tower thin that a little more too, leaving him with 6 halberdiers and the priest.

He charges again with his halberdiers. His steam tank hits the rear of my 2 sallies. The swordsmen charge the rallied sallie (who i promptly pick up to save some time) and the pope mobile hits my big block, taking a wound for moving through the marshland. he repositions his remaining greatswords and knights.i scroll his second attempt at I10 WS10 and he fails to cast pit. i then dispel his unbreakable on his halberdiers, hoping that i can win the combat and cause them to run. his popemobile switches characteristics with my scar vet in a challenge (silly for me accepting it with him) and slaughters him but we tie combat so no harm, no foul. his chariot wipes the 2 sallies. i manage to kill off 4 halberdiers to 1 skink going down. he doesn't run but i still hold the tower. he tells me to roll to see if the game ends and i promptly roll a 6, the best dice roll all day for me .

to sum it up, i focused way too much on the steam tank pregame and my chameleons dealt with it by pulling it out of line to chase them down. dice rolling was poor for both sides all day but my turn 4 sallie rolling combined with the magic phase let me hold that tower to give me the win. my positioning of my BSB also kept me in the fight when i lost the first round of combat to the halberdiers. i also decided that if it did go another turn I'd have to start making my way towards the tower with my big block to tie it up. all and all, a scrappy game that ended in my favor. lessons learned all around though.