8th Ed. Can't deal with Dwarves.

[sammysynister]

Hey there guys. This is my first post on Lustria online but am a long time lizardmen fan. I have been playing with my army for a while now. I have beaten every army I have played at least once. Most successfully against Skaven and tombkings. However, I cannot beat dwarves to save my life. Alot of it might be that the guy in our group that plays Dwarves is kinda a power gamer but every time I play them I dont just lose I get obliterated. It usually does not last more than 3 rounds before 2/3 of my army is gone.

So what I need is info on taking on dwarves. List, tactics, ext. Any thing you have from experience or such.


Thanks alot guys.

Long live Lustria.

 

[Natural 20]

I play both Lizardmen and Dwarfs so here's my advice.



I haven't played against Dwarfs since I'm the only dwarf player in my gaming group so I can't say I have applied these ideas lol.

Dwarfs are slow this is true so anyone would tell you to use your maneuverability like Skinks, sallies and the like and while this is true Dwarf ranged units are amazing at killing chaff and will clear your skirmishers fast so you have to really think when placing drops against them. Chameleon skinks are invaluable against Dwarfs, the thing is Dwarfs are expensive to field and won't have much so you should see holes in his battle line where Chammy skinks can be placed kill his canons/organ guns asap. Get skinks up the flanks, terranadons riders and ripperdactyles will be wonderful to rush Dwarfs and the negatives they get when shooting at them do to them being skirmishers should help them survive.

Sally's are good concentrate them on his ranged units to clear them faster. Don't bother taking big beasties cannons will clear them off the board far more reliably than other cannons due to runes. When it comes to Dwarfs infantry and skirmishers can win the day.

Slanns are always nice but to be honest of your friend is being particularly cheesy you may not get many spells off so if I were you take skink priests. Heavens is nice, iceshard Blizzard is invaluable, when it comes to combat you best choose your battles wisely poison shot Hammerers down and dwindle the unit they have a weak armor save and are very vulnerable to shooting barring he didn't take the rune of grungi on his banner. If he uses Ironbreakers and is smart he give them the stubborn rune, IBs are TOUGH you will need to fight them with multiple units or kill them with sallies.

It would help most if you post what your Dwarf player usually uses so that way I know what your up against

 

[Putzfrau]

Are you using several large blocks?

If so, thats why you are losing to dwarves. He has cannons, you dont, and saurus and temple guard blocks are slow.

An msu style skink cloud list is very effective against dwarf armies.

 

[sammysynister]

I dont usually use skinks beyond chaff for taking charges against other armies. I have tried chameleon skinks but every time I do they get slaughtered by the time round one is other. I have never used skink cohorts so they are new to me.

I am not real sure what his army consist of cause he changes it every single time.

 

[Lord Kroxti]

unless he is hugging his warmachine with his units, our flyers can either take them out or slow them down, rippers will eat through them, and still be a threat to his big blocks which will have the toads marking them, fly those in and take care of business. and with the vanguard move they will get up there and either be able to charge turn 1 or 2.

skink masses works, but no march blocking so our troops can move and shoot as fast as they can march, also their core range troops are move or fire, so if they get out of position they cant shoot while repositioning. just watch out of charging iron drakes, especially if they have a banner, as the banner of slowness is mean against chargers. don't be afraid to charge skinks into their shooting troops to take that stand and shoot reaction, that's what the skinks were there for.

 

[NexS1]

Saurus are built to kill things. get the saurus in combat and they will kill things. if you opponent is taking an abundance of dispell runes then use basty and EotG to IF your bound spells and skirmishers to hold the hammerers off until you're ready to deal with them.
It's also worth noting that if he's taking a heap of smithies then there's less room for dwarven goodies like war machines and hammerers!

 

[JWK47]

Saurus are built to kill things. get the saurus in combat and they will kill things. if you opponent is taking an abundance of dispell runes then use basty and EotG to IF your bound spells and skirmishers to hold the hammerers off until you're ready to deal with them.
It's also worth noting that if he's taking a heap of smithies then there's less room for dwarven goodies like war machines and hammerers!

Saurus are spawned in the hope that 2-3 will survive long enough that they become Scar Vets/Old Bloods who are worthy enough to accompany the actual warriors of Lustria (the skinks) into battle.

 

[NexS1]

Saurus are spawned in the hope that 2-3 will survive long enough that they become Scar Vets/Old Bloods who are worthy enough to accompany the actual warriors of Lustria (the skinks) into battle.

I'm curious now... from what i've read, the skinks are the scribes, organisers, administrators, moster handler, and servant-type subspecies, whereas the saurus was said to be the brute force - the fighters. And the kroxigors are the big dumb cousins to the skinks who come in with big things to crush enemies.

I'll have to give the new book a good read-through, but skinks are far from good warriors..


In any case, I need to buy more skinks!

 

[Putzfrau]

Saurus are spawned in the hope that 2-3 will survive long enough that they become Scar Vets/Old Bloods who are worthy enough to accompany the actual warriors of Lustria (the skinks) into battle.

I'm curious now... from what i've read, the skinks are the scribes, organisers, administrators, moster handler, and servant-type subspecies, whereas the saurus was said to be the brute force - the fighters. And the kroxigors are the big dumb cousins to the skinks who come in with big things to crush enemies.

I'll have to give the new book a good read-through, but skinks are far from good warriors..


In any case, I need to buy more skinks!

It was a sarcastic comment on how shitty saurus are and how skinks are the only good unit in the book.

He's losing cause he's bringing saurus (and they suck) and not using enough skinks (who are the lizardmen answer to literally every issue they have).

In fact, almost every issue people have on these boards can be boiled down to that.

 

[NexS1]

oh... let me go and find my "DUH!" hat.. I'll have to wear it for a while... haha


Speaking of fatastic units of skinks, I had a unit of 10 skirmishers hold up a Giant in a forest for 4 rounds of combat!!

They won 'unit of the match' for sure!

 

[rantapanda]

we should just rename the armybook to Skinkmen.

 

[Lord Kroxti]

Kroxti's beastcatchers are a fairly well known unit of 10 skink skirmishers in my local area. They have several greater daemons, a few old dragons, daemons for days, chaos knights in combat(that one was hilarious). They actually started as the skink handlers to the old salamander, but the salamander would always wiff in combat and eventually die, before the 9 skinks would charge across the board, reaping and slaughtering.

but back on topic, have you played against dwarves since posting, and if so, how did it go?

 

[Paradox]

Saurus are built to kill things. get the saurus in combat and they will kill things. if you opponent is taking an abundance of dispell runes then use basty and EotG to IF your bound spells and skirmishers to hold the hammerers off until you're ready to deal with them.
It's also worth noting that if he's taking a heap of smithies then there's less room for dwarven goodies like war machines and hammerers!

Saurus are spawned in the hope that 2-3 will survive long enough that they become Scar Vets/Old Bloods who are worthy enough to accompany the actual warriors of Lustria (the skinks) into battle.

Sad but true. Saurus warriors are sadly not as effective at killing as the fluff would have us believe.

 

[NexS1]

Sad but true. Saurus warriors are sadly not as effective at killing as the fluff would have us believe.

While that's true. I find they have no trouble fighting man sized things other than the obvious chaos warriors..
My last tournament showed that they just move around the board stupidly if you're fighting an army who doesn't want to be in combat (which is where i should have had more skirmishers), but they did very well in combat.
They did well against daemons and orcs/gobbos, empire and dwarfs. even gave hammerers a run for their money after taking out iron breakers!

 

[Pinktaco]

So I'm playing a 1500pts game vs my neighbours friend.

Last time we played I owned him because he hasn't played in a long game so he figured 2 organ cannons and 3 units of crossbow dwarfs was good vs my bus.

So next week is our second game and I want to do somethin different than yet another bus army.

Any suggestions ?

 

[Pofadder]

Hey maybe then try an infantry list with light slann and coople of priests...heaven and beasts synergizes well with light.

 

[Pinktaco]

It worked well. I didn't do exactly as you suggested though.

I had:

Lore of Light Slann - combo monster w/ eldritch reservoir.

Gor-Rok

5 units of skink skirmishers.

2 units of cameleon skinks.

1 units of 29 Templeguards w/ banner of swiftness.

My opponent had something like a Thane BSB, Hero Runesmith, 2 units of GW crossbow dwarfs, 1 gyrocopter, 1 organ cannon w/ engineer, 1 unit of 10 irondrakes and 1 unit of 10 slayers.

My spells were Phas Protection, Shem's Burning Gaze, Birona's Timewarp and Banishment.

He started.

He had placed his organ cannon on a hill, copter on one flank and the drakes on the other. My Cameleon skinks had a rough time doing anything, su I figured that I might as well try and kill a drake or two and so I did.

Generally speaking though I moved forwards since I knew he wouldn't. First turn I got off Phas Protection with IR. Got detonation and killed a few skinks. Nothing more happened.

In the following phase he shot some skinks, killed 3 templeguards with the organ cannon.

I got off Bironha's Timewarp with IF (again), I rolled 7 so the little template - a few more skinks died and I lost a wound. I followed up by also getting off Phas Protection with 3 dice. Rolled high and my opponent got 1,1,1,2 or something like that. Both on the templeguards.

In his turn 3 he charged 2 different skink units. I fled and he charged my templeguards. In the front he connected with his GW crossbow dwarfs with the runesmith and Thane and in the flank he charged with some other crossbows.

As first I was a bit worried, but then all hell broke lose. So with 1 extra attacks + ASF I was allowed to reroll (I2 vs I2).

I messed up though because I'm a dork. First I rolled Gorok to hit against the regular dwarfs. He got 5 or 6 attacks off. I then figured - he's S5 and so are my guards so I put those dice to the side. I then rolled for my templeguards. The result was that I killed all 15 dwarfs, but.. I had completely forgotten about Gor-Rok and there were no regular dwarfs left so his attacks could've just as well been used on the characters. Oh well.

In total I lost 6 templeguards and killed 15 dwarfs. His thane and runesmith stayed, but the other unit in my flank ran. At this point it was pretty much over.

In my turn he challenged me and I accepted with Gor-Rok. Gor-Rok did 1 wound and didn't receive any.

The Runesmith died to the regular templeguards who did exactly 2 wounds.

So I wont combat by 6 and his BSB fled and died. We called the game.

Generally speaking I think 1500pts is at times a bit simple. I mean against dwarfs it'll always be simple (run forward), but at 1500pts I relied on my guards to do the heavy lifting and since they was buffed like they were they became beasts. I might've been a bit lucky though and personally I think his irondrakes should've had a chance to shoot at my templeguards. It might've killed like 4 guards before combat.

So these are my first wins against dwarfs and they're against a friend of a friend. I hope he'll still play me <.<

I told him that I generally make new lists for every time so he shouldn't be worried that I'll turn up with the same list(s) again against him.