7th Ed. 7k High/Wood Elves vs 3.5k Lizards....

[ZeeWulf]

The Situation
I'm in a campaign right now, and I've been hit with an elven Blitzkreig. I've got a 3500 point force in my capitol right now, being assaulted by an 2500 in High Elves, and then another 4500 in Wood Elves, which will begin arrival at the beginning of turn 2. I've been told by the Wood Elf player that he's not going to push in right away, as he's being paid only to come along, but I know he'll jump into the fray towards the end. The High Elf player, however, is by far the most powerful on the map at the moment, despite her relatively poor battlefield coordination. (She had the luck of starting on an island, whereas we're all on the mainland, and therefore, no one is a direct threat to her.) I suspect also the WE player is going to let her dangle a bit first, and see if I can whittle her down, or we both can ding up one another enough that he can sweep in and make a crushing hit on me.

For this scenario, I'm permitted four buildings, two pieces of battlefield terrain (Swamp-ish) and 15" of walls, some towers, and a gate house. We're playing the long ways on the table, and I have a huge starting area because of it. I'll be able to fight defensively, however, turn 2 onwards, I'm going to possibly be dealing with flanking forces in my city forcing me back.

The Objective
I must either win a victory to repel the invaders from my capitol, or survive the battle with enough forces to mount a serious defense on battles two and three.

The Lustrian Expeditionary Force
The LEF is comprised of the following:

1 Fully upgraded Slann (higher state, healing, focused rumination, focus of mystery), carrying War Drums, dispel scroll and cupped hands, and accompanied by a block of 11 Temple Guard and Chakax. Temple Guard are carrying Plaque of Domination. Slann will know all of the Lore of Life.

1 Engine, the upgraded priest carrying a Blood statuette of spite and the Plaque of Tepokl.

1 Warchief with a standard steg (big bow) and a Warspear.

1 Standard Stegadon

1 Scar-Vet w/Blade of Chotec, 5+ ward save, mounted on a Cold one, accompanied by a fully upgraded block of 9 Cold one riders, to include the Sun Standard of Chotec.

2x teams of 12 Skink Skirmishers

16 fully upgraded skinks accompanied by 2 Krox.

10 Skinks

2x blocks of 15 Saurus with Spears

The Elves

The High Elf army is the best stuff she could buy for 2500 points. I've gotten a look at her list due to scouting, but I don't remember it very well...all I know is that it is lead by her top-end character. Beyond that, I'm not sure what the elves are fielding, other than offhand comments from the Wood Elf player that he's got alot of trees and such.

The Plan
Right now, I'm looking at a plan of choking her off as much as possible; using the walls and buildings and the outside terrain to create a straight line path that she has to follow, and eat as much of the heavy bow fire as possible. The skirmishers will be mounted atop the walls, ready to pop up and deliver a darty payload, while the engine will sit as close to the center of it all to extend the shield as long as possible and maintain line of sight for the slann to open fire. The other forces will sit in guard positions, waiting for the flank attacks or the High Elves to breach the walls and gate. I'm planning on placing a swamp and a ruin as my two exterior terrain features, and then two of the interior buildings will be ruins as well, if they let me. That way, hopefully my magic will have more ways to hammer them on the way in.

The Request
What do you all think? What should I change about my basic plan? What can I expect out of these two's compositions and tactics?

 

[n810]

Yea that sounds like what I would do with the terrain...

perhaps set up the walls and ruins something like this....

_______________
|              |
|  f           |
|              |
|           s  |
|              |
|----------o   |
|   o----------|
|              |
|______________|

- = Walls
o = Ruins
S = Swamp
F = Forest

 

[Stegadeth]

I like that setup, N8. Force them into a queue, more or less and from top of the wall pick as many as you can off.

 

[ZeeWulf]

I was re-reading the layout for the scenario, and I decided I'd post that, too.

Scenario one Terrain rules: Defending player chooses all terrain for this battle. Two choices are chosen and placed anywhere not in the attackers deployment zone. These two terrain pieces are bound by all the normal terrain rules for the hex the capital is on. Any further terrain placed must be within the defenders deployment zone.
Then the player may place up to three wall segments that must be connected. A tower (limit 4) and or gatehouse (limit 1) may be placed in between wall segments, and count as walls for all other terrain rules. Walls may not exceed 5" deep. Walls may not be within 12" of the defenders table edge.
A city comes with four no-name buildings, and a city center. The city center may be a building or may just be a remarkable spot on the table clearly defined. If a city has upgrades that add buildings these first replace the no-name buildings before adding more buildings. Buildings may not be placed closer then 4" to each other. Also, the city center must have a 6" wide path from its center to the edge of the defending players deployment zone. The only object that may be in this path is a gate house. A city center must be placed more than 6" away from the table edge.

So, my walls can't be more than 5" DEEP, not long. So I can have as long as I want. Not sure if I can get away with the gatehouse being that way, but I might...have both walls join at the gate-house, and then continue on with segment three, to create overlap, and force them into the corridor and to have to turn once in the gatehouse area....
Of course, that limits what my stegs can see, unless I make a steg firing port in the walls.

Also, upon re-reading of the rules for the campaign, they cannot outflank into my city, as that's entirely my deployment zone. So in other words, if I can build those walls just like that, I can force them to come through a single choke point. Of course, do HE/WE have anything capable of taking down buildings/walls?

 

[Lizardman]

Ok, just a suggestion here, since ive only been playing lizzies for a little bit. If your going to use N8's setup, why don't you take out the skrox unit and put in more TG? the temple guard will hold longer, and will prolly kill more too.

 

[Thunder Lizard]

This sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe more TG if you can. Outnumbered 2-1 and facing a ASF army and the fastest army in the game. Nice! You have a good game plan, you just need the help of the dice gods and hope both are not taking dragons/ hawks so you can keep them at bay and bottle neck them. Its going to be a dog fight and i do hope you post a battle report I would look forward to reading it. Not sure about the building/walls destruction. Good luck!

Your Friendly Thunder Lizard

 

[ZeeWulf]

I'd happily add more TG, unfortunately, my army list was set in stone prior to this. I can't make ANY changes to the lists, due to campaign structure. On top of all that, I'd just finished losing about 700is points from my lists due to raids. As it is, I'm going to be fielding every Lizzie model I own, some of which are being held together with blue tac.

I will be taking detailed notes about what happens, we'll see if I can survive the onslaught.

 

[Lizardman]

ok, keep us posted. hopefully u wont get slaughtered