8th Ed. Help a Beginner

[Mr. Ghoti]

Hey LO, I'm extremely fresh to Fantasy, but I'm a long-time 40k player.

SO I've taken up lizardmen and have just under a dozen games under my belt. I prefer to use large blocks of saurus with cowboys backing them up, but this time I'm trying something different.

Me and a friend are going to OH-con to compete. I'm a little nervous because it's my first formal game for either 40k or Fantasy. The tourney is 1000 points total, but 500 points allied between two people on a team. Each 500 has their own general, and count as the BSB for the other half.

My friend is bringing empire, I'm not very good with the names of units yet, but he has a unit of 3 knights on some kind of thunderwolves with lances, a unit of 8 heavy knights with lances, and some kind of mounted preist wih them. Now here are my options: the original plan was to stick with the theme and have a unit of skinks to be fast moving redirectors and a hard hitting block of cold one riders with spears led by a scar vet to fit into the cavalry theme. Pretty good and fits the theme. Problem with that is that my friend would like me to bring one of my skink priests for access to wyssan's wildform.

Alright, so the plan changes now to a lvl 1 beasts skink priest with dispel scroll, a block of 20 skink skirmishers, and I think 5 or 7 cold one riders with spears. I can't remember how the points worked out.

Still works and gives him what he wants, and I came up with a third option: a level 2 beasts skink priest with a dispel scroll, a blob of 20 skink skirmishers, and a stegadon with a giant bow and sharpened horns. More susceptible to cannons, amber spear, multiple wound generators and such, but he hinking is that at 500 points most lists wont bring monstersor plan for monsters, so less cannons. A stegadon with sharpened horns is going to plow through most things it charges, especially if I can run it up a flank.

The third one is the one we are sticking with, but I just wanted to know what your opinions are one these ideas, and what this community would choose, whether alike or completely different.

 

[angelosfernando]

IMO pick the cold one riders instead,your list lacks high ld units.one advice is don't put the skirmishing blocks within 6 inch of each other. Lv 2 is adviced because it makes the chance of casting wyssan higher.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

We were going to run the skinks up with the priest block on knights to cast wyssan's on them, or another buff to the priest himself. With cold-blooded and a re-roll to our Ld from the BSB, even ld6 is alright in this case.

What we were looking at is a reliable source of damage for the samme costs. For 5 cold one riders with spears I can get a maximum of 11 S5 hits on the charge (not counting PF), and 5 S4 hits. All with stupidity. Or I could have D6+1 S5 impact hits with D3 wounds each, 5 S5 attacks with D3 wounds each every combat, and D6 S5 thunderstomps, and 5 s3 skink attacks (its something). With the addition of shooting, I get higher toughness but less armor, potentially more damage at the same WS, and a great big huge model charging up the field, albeit with one less inch of movement.
the low armor is probably what is going to kill it, but hey it'sit's a gamble. Lots of shooting/ great weapons are going to be a problem but we are just using the stegadon for an all-in charge anyways.

 

[airjamy]

500 points is really little to play around with, especially in 1K points. If you are going for the win, i think investing everything in an Empire cavalry buss with a lot of Skink support is optimal. Make your list something like 40 skirmisher skinks, a salamander or 2 and a lvl 2 Skink Priest. I feel that your friend in right in his assumption that you should take Wyssans Wildform, Skinks are good in big games but they truly shine in small games. Take them with javelins and shields, kill monsters with them. Fry hordes with your Salamanders and crash pick your fights with the Empire Cavalry bus, they won't be able to kill absolutely everything but you should be able to steer clear of Chaos Warriors deathstars and the like due to their high movement. It would be something like:

Skink priest. Lvl 2. Beasts. (No scroll, not worth the points)

1 unit of 11 skink skirmishers.

3 units of 12 skink skirmishers.

Salamander. Extra skink.

-

Captain. 1+rerolable armour save. Horse. General.

10 Knights (inner circle)

I am not very aware of the point values of the current empire list, but that Lizardmen list comes in at around 500. Just have a good CC general with high LD in the Knight unit and just fill the rest of the points with knights. Just have one ultra fast ultra hard hitting unit and support it with the rest.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

so you would remove the dispel scroll? I could put stampede on the steg instead and some other arcane item.

 

[airjamy]

At first, never field a unit of 20 skirmishers, split them in 2. 2x10 is always better. Dont see it as a unit, but as fast redirectors and scrimmage. If you ad in a lvl 2 wizard, which should be strong, i would not put in scroll. Your +2 should be more then enough for defense, and you will often not be able to use your scroll as you will be going against no wizard armies. Never ever ever expect a solitary lvl 1 to cast a single spell in a game, your opponent just rolls everything against one spell, and then you have nothing. Either a lvl 2, or nothing i would say.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

alright the games are this friday, luckily i had time today to sit down with my partner and run though a few scenarios, then play a trial game.

he has 8 knights of the inner circle with lances, a priest with a lot of bound spells, and 3 demygriff riders.

I have a lvl 2 skink priest on beasts with a scroll, a steg with sharpened horns, and 2 units of 10 skink skirmishers.

the two empire units were the heavy hitters but those skinks were the star of the game. we played a full mock-game versus 2 500 point ogre kingdoms teams, and not once did they get a charge off onto the knights or riders with the skinks blocking the way.

We are really excited for this friday, more posts about how we did to come.

 

[airjamy]

Seems like the list works as it should! Do not feel let down because your units are not doing that much of the actual killing, but do note that your units are extremely important to let the knights do their thing. You have a triple threat comp with a lot of buffs and shooting, you just lack long range shooting. You should be more then fine in tournaments, just be wary against large blocks of infantry, avoid them, and quickly kill warmachines before they make a mockery of your knights and monster!

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

Well I am back from toledo! Had a ton of fun, played against a saurus lizardmen player, and ended up taking home he best general award!

Our team tied for second in painting & display, and was 2nd for overall award. But hey top spot in battlepoints was pretty good!

Game 1 was against 2 units of empire handgunners, a unit of crossbowmen, a witch hunter, and a unit of halberdiers. Teamed with them were high elves, namely some unit of fast cavalry, a unit of heavy cavalry, and a block of bowmen. Scenario was battle line? I think. One unit on each team may choose to scout. Ended up tieing the game in battle points, but the skinks did what skinks do. His heavy cavalry scouted to the flank of the knights, and skinks counter scouted in a line in front of them. Securing 1st turn allowed the skinks to block the cavalry an inch a way. We spent the majority of the time being good sports and talking, and forgot about the time limit. Didn't get to go through our turn 4... a lucky soul quench put 15 wounds on the inner circle knights, reducing them to a squad of 3 and a Priest. By the top of turn 4, everything they had was fleeing, but not off the table so we couldn't score the points. Had we gone another turn the board would have been cleared easily. Tied score, 10 to 10 points out of 15.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

Game 2 was Warriors of Chaos and lizardmen. Vanguard deployment, but no random entry of units. They won the roll to deploy the army first; A slaanesh chariot, a block of warriors with hand weapons and shields, marks of slaanesh? some warlord wih a halberd, an a slaanshi chaos spawn. Lizardmen had a block of 10 saurus full command, a line of 5 cold one riders no champion in command, hand weapons, a tooled up scarvet cowboy in the bus, and a slamander unit.

We deployed our armies to counter his, skinks blocking cold ones and the chariot, knights lined up to charge the warriors, saurus, and/or the chaos spawn. Stegadon lined himself straight up to the warriors. We stole the initiative on a 6, and went to town. Demigryff riders failed the charge on the warriors, knights charged the saurus block and decimated them, and the stegadon slammed into the warriors of chaos. Skinks lined up to divert cold one riders and fling their sticks at the salamander. Skink priest sends wyssan'swyssan's off onto the stegadon, and the priest prays some killy stuff onto the knights. Rolled a 6 on impact hits on the warriors, 6 die. 2 wounds from the halberd, and he rest of the warriors die to another 5 thunderstomps. Steg keeps running and ends up behind the spawn and salamander. Rest of the game goes the same way, our team charges, their unit poofs. Full victory, 15 points.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

Some reason the site didnt post my long-butt post about the first game... dangit that is frustrsting.... empire gunline and high elf cavalry. Tie game, 10 to 10 out of 15 points.

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

Game 3 was against wood elves and dark elves. 2 units of dark riders, a big unit of crossbowmen, wildriders, archers, an eagle, a master with a potion of strength and some other shenanigan, and some sniper crossbow character for wood elves. Wonky random deployment mode, one character gets a "ring of wonder": lvl 3 bound signature spell of your choice. Obviously they choose searing doom. We chose shems burning gaze. Probably should have gone with iceshard in hindsight.

Before the game, sniper character gets some BS shot on my skink character which puts a wound on him. We couldn't have deployed worse. Both skink units were locked in the left corner, demigryffs were in the center, and knights and stegadon were on the right. Entire force for elves were on the left flank and in the center.

Skinks march up and javelin a unit of dark riders to pieces, everything else runs towards the far corner of the board to get to the action. Turn 1 both skinks were shot to pieces, but not before the sniper character pops the skink priest before he can do a thing. Great. Over the next 3 turns, it was clear that we would lose. Suddenly they choose to charge their block of crossbowmen into a very injured inner circle knights to clear it out. They lost. We wiped the massive unit asit fled, alongside both generals, and that won us the game. 13points to us.

End score 38 out of 45 points, and we win!

 

[airjamy]

Seems like you had a god time, congratulations! Quite a lot to say about the games, as anything, but i feel you played your comp well most of the time and got the better of your opponent. You could go for at least a moral victory in all games, and that is the most you often can get at tournaments. Some army lists of your opponents sound weird, why would anybody ever field 10 saurus warriors? Was it a tournament for starters or was it simply a very friendly enviroment?

 

[Mr. Ghoti]

kind of. he said he just started playing lizardmen, just like me. i think it's just what he had for it. 500 points doesnt leave room for a lot of spare points. a salamander and a CoR bus grabbed a ton of points and the tooled-up scarvet was the rest. had to fill in core somehow. scarvet had 1+ armor and sword of striking.