8th Ed. Carnosaur

[Dagon]

I'm playing a tournament soon, where the rules are very unfriendly towwards The fat toad. To whit, a Slann can only have one dicipline, and no Cupped hands allowed. I could run like this, but it does restrict me somewhat harshly (have to take life, no guarantee of spells I want, and no no becalming) I am thus thinking of using a Carnosaur Lord. The following combo springs to mind, bad idea?

Oldblood
Carnosaur
Light Armour
Maiming Shield
Sword of Bloodshed
Luckstone
Potion of Speed

Thinking is thus, with Light armour and The Maiming Shield I get a 2+ Armour save, where I can reroll the first faliure with the stone with T5. This isn't as survivey as it could be, but I think it should work just about well enough, and somethign other generals would envy.

I've traded defensiveness for damage output (obviously) with +3 attacks from the Sword, and +1 from the Shield, that should give me 9 s5 attacks and 4 strength 7 multiwounders (going to 10 and 5 when/if the Carno Wounds) with the Potion of speed to get the drop on Chaos/ Elves etc.

The other option would be rolling with a pair of engines, or an engine and a Warspear.

Thoughts?

 

[Gor-rok]

(going to 10 and 5 when/if the Carno Wounds)

In 8th edition, effects like Frenzy no longer transfer from mount to rider and vice versa (page 105, big rule book). With that in mind, I might switch the maiming shield for a carnosaur pendant. Cheaper, lets you take something else for armor, and if the carnosaur dies you'll keep your frenzy/ITP if you've caused a wound.

The big problem I've had with a multi-attack setup like this is that, while it's great for annihilating infantry, if you don't combo charge with another character, you'll just end up in a challenge. Either your attacks will be wasted against a unit champion or something, or it'll be a truly nasty character that cuts down your Oldblood before he has a chance to strike, owing to his lack of defense.

If you've got a plan for how to work it, by all means go for it. If there's already a challenge going on, all those attacks, plus the carnosaurs' thunderstomp, are going to go through most any troops like a buzz saw.

Here's what I run on my carnosaur rider; take from it what you will:

either: Halberd / Great Weapon
Dawnstone
Armor of Destiny
either: Carnosaur Pendant / Other Trickster's Shard / Firefly Venom

Still tromps on the rank and file guys, but has enough punch to bust armor, and plenty of protection with the +1 rerollable armor, 4+ ward.

 

[Dagon]

Good points. Hmm. I was thinking that if I did run into a combat monster, the potion of speed would at worst leave me fighting concurrently, if not getting the drop. If it was a Champ, then I assume Overkill and a Thunderstomp into the unit would do the trick? I am running bare minimum for defence, but bare minimum for an Oldblood is still superb!

I'm not sure about the rest of my army yet to be honest! I play LM, Emp and used to play skaven and I always always run with an L4, or in smaller games/ previous editions Multiple L2's if this was not possible. I used to have the ubiquetous JSOD and once used a Lord/Blade of Realities combo to suprise the hell out of a Great Unclean One (worked a treat), asde from this I have never ever used a combat character of any kind (eats into my power dice!) so this is completely new terratory for me!

I was kinda thinking one Skink Stegadon (warspear or EOTG), one Ancient, One Skink/2Krox and at least one Saurus Brick (along with onmipresent 2x Salamander and little units of cohort skinks). I'm not sure about Saurus Cav, I have never really had success with them in this edition, but I was thinking that in a very monodimensional army like this, it might mitigate some of their shortcomings.

 

[Gor-rok]

Packing a carnosaur and lots of stegadons into a list is a blast, and as long as you're not facing heavy war machine fire, it can work pretty well.

Our cavalry are... Well, very expensive for what they actually do. They have their place, but their low initiative really cuts into their survivability, once they tie up with anything nasty.

I think best use of them would be in an army like the one you've described, with big, scary, fast moving things. Let the monsters attract the attention up front, and come crashing into the flank with the cold ones. By the time your infantry makes it into combat, anything left already has the stuffing beat out of it...

It sounds good on paper; I think I'll try a list like this in a friendly game and see how it does.