8th Ed. A note on roles

[wolfmage]

Most pitched battle games seem to follow a predetermined path now based on what army lists you and your opponent have.
If you have more long range artillery you will find yourself more likely to hold back and defend your line moving at the last moment to take the charge
If your opponent has more artillery you generally charge forwards hoping for a fast charge to get your army in place in mostly one piece making you the attacker.
There are exceptions such as armies with large numbers of war machine hunters or a couple of high level wizards and deathstar units.
Wizards will tilt the balance depending on their lore as the artillery can be left in tatters from some high power spells and with the new magic rules this becomes much more likely.
Deathstar units tilt the balance as you may send some more expendable units to hold up the units (as a gunline) or distact the unit (as an attacker) while your gunline/attack force concentrate on less powerfull units.

This is mostly because of a lesser force cannot win at a disadvantage without ridiculous amounts of luck and as such are reluctant to engage a foe in a way that they are at a disadvantage for example skinks charging a hellpit in CC.

As lizardmen players we have a balance of medium range firepower and devastating assault units. We can take on many foes that are more specialized as altough it is likely somone will take on their prefered role we have the ability to compete with them and win as we can use a mix of gunline and attack.

Please comment on what you think of this article and any things you think i missed that would affect this for example stubborness of a player that has read this and wants to prove me wrong.

 

[Larinus]

From my limited knowledge of the Warhammer Gaming Experiance (Collected - 4 Years, Played - About 10 Games ), I would say that although as a Lizardmen General, we have a nice range of units to choose from, and yet, I wouldn't want to play with an army that has a bit of everything. Sure we can avoid the situation that you're talking about, but it's like being good at everything, but master at none (or whatever that phrase is).

Your enemy is probabaly going to be centered around one particular aspect of the game, but with a "does everything" army, he's going to beat you with his strong point. I would much prefer - for an enjoyable game, and just to play with - an army that is good at one thing. Sure, it doesn't have to fall into that "gun line/attack force" scenario. It can be centred around a specific general, you could have loads of skinks.

Lizardmen are almost 5 different armies all in one, and yet, you can't reall effectively play them all at the same time. You could have a skink horde, saurus elite, magically orientated, cover and deception, shooting etc., but not all at the same time. If you're going to do something, then do it well and whole-heartedly, rather than just saying, "oh, I have a bit of everything - one skink unit, a few saurus blocks, chameleon skinks."

Sure, you can have an army like that, but don't think that you can do everything at once. Investigate your opponent, and center your army around his weakness, and build from there. You need to know what your army is doing and how it can best do that job.

 

[walach]

Sure we can avoid the situation that you're talking about, but it's like being good at everything, but master at none (or whatever that phrase is).

Jack of all trades, master of none. I think...

I always liked taking a bit of everything. So a decent magic/LD with the slann, some good fighters with saurus/CoC/krox and some good harrasers with the various skinky units


Regarding the OP, i'm not really sure what you're getting at...? Tis nothing new, if you face a shooty army you tend to rush forward to engage them in squishy hand-to-hand, if they're pure combat, you try and whittle them down and outmanouver them?