8th Ed. Adepticon Best General

[Putzfrau]

So at Adepticon the best general award happened to go to a lizardmen player by the name of Jeff Kent.

Here is his list:

Slann – death, BSB, harmonic convergence,be calming cogitation, soul of stone, reservoir of eldritch energy,channeling staff, standard of discipline.

Skink priest – level 1 heavens, dispel scroll
Tettoeko
Scar vet – cold one, great weapon, dawn stone, dragon helm, light armour
Scar vet – cold one, great weapon, talisman of preservation, charmed shield,light armour?

4×10 skink skirmishers- javelins and shields
2×10 cohorts – muso and standard
18? Skink cohorts – muso and standard
20? Skink cohorts – muso and standard

3×6 camos
2×3 terradons – fire leech Bolas
1×3 terradons

2×1 sallies

Adeption is NOT COMPED (my mistake, thanks sleboda for the info) and there are ways to earn extra points through different type of scenario objectives. I did not attend, so i'm not 100% on the specifics.

I believe his overall record ended up being 4 wins and a draw.

So what is everyones opinions? it's your pretty standard magic heavy skink cloud thats been effective forever it seems.


This list could have been plucked right from 7th edition with almost no alteration. The only change is basically the second slann for tetto. while its disappointing there has been so little variation, its nice to see the lizards can still be powerful when played well, which is ultimately what this list comes down to.

Its squishy and relies HEAVILY on maneuverability and intelligent strategy. It's a list that when played decently will get rolled by most armies, but when played well can go toe to toe with just about any list.

Either way, i think it makes a pretty definitive statement on the effectiveness of some of the newer units, on the new slann, on tetto, and on terradons. 9 is a lot, even for a tournament list.

I also think it should make a pretty decisive statement on what qualifies as a "competitive" list. Its become abundantly clear that skink cloud + magic + terradons is THE competitive build and the new book hasn't changed that. There really isn't a ton of room for variation, so choosing to deviate from this type of list is always going to have a risk. Granted, skink cloud isn't always a very fun list to play or play against, and being "the best" isn't always important to everyone. Regardless, there is still a lot of conversation on these forums about the effectiveness of any given unit or list, which is always a good thing, but from a strictly min max stand point theres literally one lizardmen list and its the same list we've had for years.

long live the skink cloud... i guess.

 

[Putzfrau]

lizards also managed to snag 3 of the top 7 spots (including 3rd, congrats Raf Harbinson) at the South Coast GT over in the uk.

pretty sweet. Adam Daly managed to snag 5th and i know in the past he's used a slann-less cold one bus army so it'll be exciting to see the lists.

 

[rantapanda]

Id love to see a replay how do people use this kind of army.
How would you guys play it?

 

[Pofl]

I also don´t get how to play with such an army. Is there a battle report where someone is playing a similar list?
How do you manage the different armys?
For examplet, what can you do vs Bretonias or Chaos?
How do your handle a Deamon Princ or a mass of skaven?

 

[Pinktaco]

I feel the same lol. It's certainly not something for me.

 

[rantapanda]

Looks like the 2014 ETC comp second draft aims to comp this build

Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One/Each 3 (or fraction) Salamander models, max 3
Becalming Cogitation/Dispel Scroll/Channeling Staff and Harmonic Convergence on the same model/Slann with Lore of Death (not including Wandering Deliberations), max 2
Skink Skirmisher units, max 4

saurus restriction i kind of understand, then again dont, more than 3 sauruses starts lacking good equipment .. and why restrict salamanders in the same area

wtf lore of death+channeling staff+harmonic not allowed.. uhhh wtf

skink skirmishers max 4!?

Are these things really that overpowered?

 

[GCPD]

Let me just preface by saying congratulations to Jeff Kent. He's clearly achieved something worthy of recognition and should br respected for it. My understanding is that Adepticon is a huge event and the top tables can get very competitive.

That being sad I'm not a fan of the list. Skink cloud points denial supported by Death Party Slann and Tetto'eko with Scar Vets to do all tbe heavy lifting. I'm sure that its effective but it doesn't look fun to play with or against. The OP summed it up fairly accurately by saying that it could be lifted straight from 7th. It's a fairly damning indicment of the current book that an irritating use of the old one is still so effective.

 

[Putzfrau]

Id love to see a replay how do people use this kind of army.
How would you guys play it?

The basic strategy revolves around controlling deployment with up to 6 separate vanguard moves, and lots of movement 6, lots of drops, and tons of chaff.

Slann and tetto are protected in the larger cohort blocks which makes miscasts almost a non issue in terms of collateral damage.

Basically you move up with the skink cloud, shoot shoot shoot, flee flee flee, and do it all over again. The strategy is simply enough, but using it effectively is HARD, especially against WoC and some of the more aggressive armies. This ends up being why deployment is so important. With this kind of army you can more easily set up a position where most of your army is attacking a portion of theres. By the time they can get their units into a position to support themselves (hopefully) you've already done your damage.

Ben Curry actually does a short daily episode on this list and talks about the strategy briefly. He makes the great point of saying this type of list will win on turn 5 or 6 after whittling away and getting into position for the previous turns.

You end up double fleeing a lot in the attempt to pull enemy units into a more isolated position where you can surround them and then pump in dozens of poisoned shots.

The scar vets are there for the heavy lifting (along with the magic obviously, but magic is fairly straightforward especially death... pew pew pew)

Honestly, in my humble opinion its one of the most tactically difficult armies to play, and that makes it exciting. You are constantly playing on a razors edge, because one wrong move means your army is going to get flattened and it'll happy in the blink of an eye.

I believe the idea against Demon princes is to get the prince to fly into an undesirable position where you can swiftly bring it down with dozens of poison shots and death magic. In an army like this death magic can start to become overwhelming very quickly with the amount of extra dice you can get. low winds of magic rolls can end up working in your favor, between saving a powerdice from your dispell phase, channeling, rerolling 1's on casts, and death magic, you can start getting a lot of dice seemingly from no where.

I dont know if it needs to be stated, but i am absolutely NOT a super serious competitive gamer, so this is mostly just my understanding mixed with a little bit of regurgitation from more competitive sources. I have never played a skink cloud army in a competitive environment, so might wanna take my statements with a grain of salt

Looks like the 2014 ETC comp second draft aims to comp this build

Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One/Each 3 (or fraction) Salamander models, max 3
Becalming Cogitation/Dispel Scroll/Channeling Staff and Harmonic Convergence on the same model/Slann with Lore of Death (not including Wandering Deliberations), max 2
Skink Skirmisher units, max 4

saurus restriction i kind of understand, then again dont, more than 3 sauruses starts lacking good equipment .. and why restrict salamanders in the same area

wtf lore of death+channeling staff+harmonic not allowed.. uhhh wtf

skink skirmishers max 4!?

Are these things really that overpowered?

It is very clearly the strongest lizardmen build. ETC generally goes out to comp the strongest builds, and does so fairly well.

However, its pretty easy to get around the comp. 4 skirmishing units is enough, you can still have more cohort units, and the slann build will just obviously be HC, channel sta, ff, and wandering deliberations. throw SS on it for some miscast protection and its *almost* as effective.

3 scar vets ends up being all you need, although the mixture of sallies + scar vets is a hard choice. Ancient stegs or razordons aren't an absolutely horrible rare selection tho.

That comp is actually pretty workable.

 

[Putzfrau]

actually appears as if Adam Daly did indeed run his slannless cold one bus. can't say for sure since i haven't since the list, but made a couple comments about 6 cold ones getting dwellered off, and that usually doesnt happen outside of a bus list haha.

he has a great youtube channel that i'll provide a link for if anyone is interested. seems like a stand up guy and has a very cool list.

 

[n810]

You guys should have seen the origional Skink cloud list from back on 6th edition...
it was like I place my Slann+temple guard unit.... and i'm done... untill the scouting.
Because all skink skirishers could scout, and still be core.

 

[Putzfrau]

You guys should have seen the origional Skink cloud list from back on 6th edition...
it was like I place my Slann+temple guard unit.... and i'm done... untill the scouting.
Because all skink skirishers could scout, and still be core.

I WANT.

 

[Pinktaco]

I would love to see some replays of top tier players. Players from miniwargaming and bluetabletop can be entertaining, but usually rules wrong and are more casual. I'm casual myself alright, but I still would like to see how the best plays.

 

[Sleboda]

Just an FYI on Adept icon - it is not comped. They switched over to playing Warhammer some years back.

 

[Putzfrau]

Just an FYI on Adept icon - it is not comped. They switched over to playing Warhammer some years back.

oh nice, good to know. There are special missions though, correct?

 

[Sleboda]

There are. All games are very close to standard rulebook scenarios, with the addition of 'battle points' that you can go after or ignore at your discretion. They do not impact your ability to win or lose the actual game. They are used in determining things like Overall Champion and tie-breakers.

In other words, you can go to Adepticon and field a completely legal army from any current official GW rules source, play actual games of full-on Warhammer with it, and evaluate your performance (and that of your list) accordingly.

 

[rantapanda]

This Daly fellow has some awesome replays
https://www.youtube.com/user/JustMeDaly/videos

 

[Pinktaco]

Nice, I'll have a look at that. Not many LM youtubers so it's alright great when I finally find one

 

[Putzfrau]

unless he's added some in the past few days most of his videos are a couple months old. regardless, they are all excellent and he plays a very unique army list to GREAT effect. he also uses terradons quite well.

 

[Pinktaco]

Yeah they're all old, but that's fine as long as they're from the current army book. One thing though - I've head this whole "COR bus can be super effective" before. What I don't necessarily like about it is that all he have, in terms of hitting power, is that one bus. The rest is Tette'Eko, a bunch of skinks and some Terradons. I'm not sure if he's using Salamanders though (I can't quite remember).

On the other hand I think I just might try it out some time. Not now since I've just got myself a proper Carnosaur, but it has given me inspiration for future army lists.

 

[Putzfrau]

Yeah they're all old, but that's fine as long as they're from the current army book. One thing though - I've head this whole "COR bus can be super effective" before. What I don't necessarily like about it is that all he have, in terms of hitting power, is that one bus. The rest is Tette'Eko, a bunch of skinks and some Terradons. I'm not sure if he's using Salamanders though (I can't quite remember).

On the other hand I think I just might try it out some time. Not now since I've just got myself a proper Carnosaur, but it has given me inspiration for future army lists.

considering most lizardmen armies have no hitting power outside of a slann, i think by comparison having just a cobuss is a lot.