Saurus Oldblood
Equipment
Cold One
Shield
Great Weapon
Saurus Oldblood
Dispel Scroll
Light Armour
Great Weapon
Shield
Engine of the gods
Skink Chief
Light Armour
Shield
Skink Chief
Blowpipe
Light Armour
Skink Priest
Dispel Scroll
Skink Skirmishers (10)
Skink Skirmishers (10)
10 x Skinks with a Kroxigor
10 x Skinks with a Kroxigor
10 x Skinks with a Kroxigor
10 x Suarus Warriors with spears and a musician
10 x Suarus Warriors with musician
1 x Stegadon
10 x Temple Guard with musician
First, welcome! The folks here are pretty nice, so dont be afraid to post. Although, if you start a new thread for a question that was asked recently someone will tell you to search instead of giving you the answer.
Ok, now to the army. First thing, you have 5 Hero/Lord choices. For a 2250 game, you are allowed:
1 Lord
4 Characters
0-2 Rare
0-4 Special
and you MUST take 3 or more Core
This info is found on page 89 of your Lizardmen Army book.
Oldbloods are Lords. So you are allowed only 1 in your army. The Lord choices are on pages 90-91 of the army book.
You are allowed a total of 4 Characters. Characters are Heroes and Lords. You currently have 5 or maybe 6. The Engine of the Gods isnt actually something you purchase independently... you take a Skink Priest and then upgrade him with an Engine of the Gods. There is no other way to field it. So, if your Skink Priest is for the Engine of the Gods then you have 5 Characters currently. If you didnt count the Skink Priest on your Engine of the Gods, then you have 6 Characters.
Other than the Characters, your army is well within acceptable unit types. Just remember to keep an eye on that for the future (Core, Special and Rare units are all listed as such on pages 94-98).
Next is about itemization. Arcane items can ONLY be taken by Wizards (in our case this means either Skink Priests or Slann Mage-Priests). Your Oldblood is fitted with a Dispel Scroll which is an arcane item (page 99). If you are wanting 2 dispel scrolls, you'll need to put them on your Skink Priest. He can hold 50pts worth of magic items, so 2 dispel scrolls at 25 pts each will fill him up.
Ok, that covers all the technicalities. Now we get to the good stuff, input.
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First lets approach magic. From your list, you obviously understand the necessity of countering enemy magic. Your list is designed around normal combat with just enough counter magic to get by. Might I recommend you enhance that even a touch further and have your Skink Priest on the Engine of the Gods take the Diadem of Power (page 102) instead of a dispel scroll? I'd set him up with Diadem of Power (25 pts) and Dispel Scroll (25 pts). The Diadem of Power lets him save up to 2 Power Dice (generated during your magic phase) to use as Dispel Dice (during your opponents magic phase). Since your army is very magic light, I wouldnt count on getting off many or any spells. So the best use of your Wizard is going to be generating magic counter.
In addition, any time you take the Engine of the Gods, you will almost automatically want to upgrade your Skink Priest to a Level 2 Wizard. The reason is thus:
In addition, a Skink Priest that has taken the Engine of the Gods as a mount is counted as a Wizard of one level higher for the purposes of generating power dice and dispel dice, and for determining the maximum number of dice he may use to cast a spell.
- page 55
Lets look at this from all the angles:
1. A Level 1 Wizard generates 1 Power Dice and 1 Dispel Dice and may use 2 Power Dice to cast spells.
2. A Level 2 Wizard generates 2 Power Dice and 1 Dispel Dice and may use 3 Power Dice to cast spells.
3. With the EotG, a Level 1 Wizard generates 2 Power dice and 1 Dispel dice and may use 3 Power Dice to cast spells.
4. With the EotG, a Level 2 Wizard generates 3 Power Dice and 2 Dispel Dice and may use 4 Power DIce to cast spells.
The thing to remember is that lvl 1-2 Wizards generate 1 Dispel Dice, lvl 3-4 Wizards generate 2 Dispel Dice. So the EotG boost is greater on a Level 2 Skink Priest than it is on a Level 1 Skink Priest. And it's only 35 pts.
So, with a Level 2 Skink Priest on the Engine of the Gods as your only magic in the army you'd have the following:
5 Power Dice
4 Dispel Dice with the option to carry over 2 Power Dice as Dispel Dice
1 Dispel Scroll
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Next lets talk about unit choices.
You could definitely field your army as you have it written (other than the Characters mentioned above). The following suggestions are what I'd do to solidify this into a more stable army.
The Skink + Kroxigor units are unstable. What I mean by this, is you arent going to be able to win any close combats with them, unless you are fighting something really weak. These units are going to be useful basically as flankers. With that 55pt Kroxigor tucked in there, they lose their excellent expendibility. 10 ranked Skinks are only 50 pts. You can use these as fodder when and where you like without having to worry about it, as long as it nets you positive control of the board. And since they are ranked, they can negate enemy rank bonus if you can throw them into a flank. You lose this versatility (in my mind) by adding an extra 55 pts into each unit. A 50 pt unit is very easy to sacrifice to me, but a 105 pt unit I'd be more careful with. Now, the Kroxigor would be worth it if you are fighting low leadership enemies and you think the Fear is worth 55 pts. Just remember, a Skink + Kroxigor unit is going to be losing combat (and possibly fleeing) because skinks die in droves and it is very hard to make up that amount of Combat Resolution.
If you like the Kroxigor (and honestly, they are cool models) maybe consider taking them out of the Skink units and have a unit of Kroxigor. 3 Kroxigor will still have great maneuverability and the unit is more likely to survive a battle than if you put Skinks with them.
Other than that, the Skink Skirmishers are solid. 2 units of 10 are excellent. Some people even run 3 units, but I find 2 units to be enough.
Ok, now we come down to the Saurus Warriors and Temple Guard. I'd boost that unit of Saurus Warriors and drop the Temple Guard personally. Temple Guard are 5 pts more per model and you get 1 WS and 1 I. Most important (to me at least) is that you also lose the option of spears. Spears lets your 2nd rank fight as if it were in close combat as well. For Saurus Warriors this means that with a 5 wide unit, you are able to get in 20 attacks each round. That's a *lot*. So, I'd boost that Saurus Warrior unit to the following:
20 Saurus Warrior w/ Spears, Musician and Standard - 258 pts.
This is important because your army currently lacks anything to hold up in an extended battle. In a 2250 pt game, you can be pretty sure your opponent is going to bring at least something nasty. Right now, none of your units would survive more than 1 round or 2, if you are rolling well.
So, you take a solid block of Saurus Warriors (I'd really recommend 2 blocks btw) and when they get in combat, then your mass of fast moving Skinks, Kroxigor and Stegadon come into the flanks to bash it up. Or you let your Saurus Warriors deal with it (if you judge them to be standing their own) and use your fast movers to team up on support units. But you really *need* something to hold up against a powerful opponent.
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Ok, so that is a massive wall of text. I tried splitting it up into sections for easier digestion. My question is, what do you plan to use the Skink Chiefs for?
Also, how familiar are you with Combat Resolution?
