8th Ed. Dealing With Flying Nasties

[ElectricPaladin]

I just lost - badly - game against my usual Wood Elf opponent. There were some flubbed dice rolls and some choices that I could have made better, but the moment that I knew all was lost was when his nasty flying lord-on-an-eagle swooped in, challenged my skink priest to a duel - right there on top of the stegadon he was riding! - and then proceded to kill him, causing the stegadon to break and run, running it down. This put him up a lot of points, robbed me of my bubble of 6++, killed one of my casters, and generally ruined my day.

The question I'm troubled by is what could I have done about it? What do the Lizardmen have that can stand up to an incredibly mobile, super-durable, hyper-aggressive Lord-level character flying around on a giant freaking eagle?

Looking forward to some discussion on this... because I'm stumped.

 

[hilburn]

Well as always there are a few options, Eagles only have 3 wounds and T4, no save so..

1. Lore of heavens attribute makes everything pretty painful for flyers, for that matter beasts has -1 casting difficulty as he counts as a monster
2. Chameleon skinks/skirmishers can poison the bugger (no AS for eagles)
3. Pretty sure a unit of Ripperdactyls could scare him away from your line if you placed the toad on him
4. Don't put your priest on a stegadon.. you want to charge with the steggie and keep the priest well out of combat if possible (to avoid being challenged, slaughtered and losing the steg to fleeing)
5. Egg of Quango can be amusing if you know people are going to challenge a character in combat, either fails spectacularly or leaves a smear on the ground
6. 2/3 Razordons could screen a unit if they leave less than 3" space (charger needs 2" for his base and 1" clearance on the Razors) and no way is a lord on an overgrown chicken running into 3 artillery dice worth of stand and shoot

 

[Man0waR]

First.

Dont put a bullseye on your priest. You should field them cowardly, hiding in your units until they are about to get charged and leaving them and joining another more protected.

They are meant to support your army and protecting from enemy magic.

The only case you are going to risk your priest in close combat is when you have transformation of Kadon are you are going to 6 dice it in front of the enemy face.

This is what I call the suicide bomb sorceror. Lots of fun when you misscast a template that leaves your fire mountain dragon alive engaged and also brings a round S10 template to the enemy.

Second.

You cannot outmaneuver flying unit with infantry. But you can protect your key points by not letting room for the flyer base to be engaged in combat. So it would be a fail charge.

Third.

What you are saying isn't the nastiest of the nasty. DP, Tzeencht Lord on Disc, and any kind of uber of the same terms are the worst you can face.

All what you need is an unstompable Oldblood on coldone, with fencersbalde, glittering scales, torch against flyers (could be carried by other character in unit) and whatever points let you take to further protect your guy.

This means they are hitting on 5's. Rerrolling succesfull hits. You will be saving on 1+AS.
Try an Iceshard blizzard to make them hitting on 6's rerolling...
Nurgling that Nurgle DP is always funny.

 

[ElectricPaladin]

Here's what I'm getting from the feedback so far:

1) Be more careful with screening units, forcing him to get bogged down in chaff. This wouldn't have worked in this game, since some disastrous dice rolls had left a chunk of my line fleeing and getting cut down, but it was something I did successfully elsewhere and could continue to try. I can see how it's going to take a little more finesse to get right... but it's doable.

2) Bring a nasty character of my own. If he's busy staying away from a properly kitted out scar-vet on a cold blood he will have less room to maneuver into my units. If he chooses to ignore my blender-character... well, then, that won't last too long.

3) Bring the right magic to take him out.

4) It sounds like priest on a stegadon is kind of a bad idea, after all; I see now that it paints a target on him, but thanks to the ridden monster rules, he really isn't sufficiently protected. I guess in the new army book, I can bring an Engine of the Gods without putting a priest on it and just hide the priest in a friendly unit. I'll try that next time.