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8th Ed. How do i kill Dwarves!?!!?!?!?!?!?

The thing you are missing is that in this campaign each banner has to be led by a named general and contain a signature unit. In my case my general has to be a Scar Vet, and my signature unit is 18 Saurus. If I squeeze in 2 lvl 2 Priests, I can't afford to give the Plaque of Tepok without stripping my Scar Vet of some of his protections, and I need to reduce the melee capability of my army significantly and drop a salamander. Not sure if this is really worth doing... Are you all saying that I am a fool to try softening them up with Sallies and going into melee and trying to win in face to face (snout to beard) combat?
 
T`hinker`er said:
Are you all saying that I am a fool to try softening them up with Sallies and going into melee and trying to win in face to face (snout to beard) combat?
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No. I have played a couple of games against dwarves where I didn't bring any magic and it worked (particularly if he brings lots of anit-magic). However, his units are tough, and his warmachines can deal some serious damage in the first round or two. If you outmaneuver him you can win, if you just go face to face, you better be doing some serious softening up first.
 
No not saying you are a fool for using Salamanders, they are awesome, just brainstorming another options for softening up his stunties.

If it were me this would be my basic list:

Heroes:
Skink Priest - lvl 2
Plaque of Topek

Skink Priest - lvl 2

Scar Vet + 50 points of Magic Items
BSB

10 Skink Skimishers

25 Saurus w/command
25 Saurus w/command

5 Chameleon Skinks
5 Chameleon Skinks

Salmanders x2
Salmanders x2
 
You've got too many characters there...the limit at 1450 is 362 points. Have to drop the BSB. I see where you are going...I have to wonder if a block of 25 saurus can do the job against a typical unit of hammers, roughly also 25 models in size. In my plan I end up with 3 melee units, 1 saurus x20 and 2 Skrox (24+3). Definitely want to play test these options...
 
T`hinker`er said:
...the limit at 1450 is 362 points. Have to drop the BSB. I see where you are going...
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Hmm, you don’t want to give up the BSB, cold blooded is awesome and all but the LD reroll is always nice to have. I suppose you could go with making one of the Skink Priest lvl 1, but then you are lowering your chances of getting Comet, which is what this whole exercise was about. hehe.
 
Yup, exactly...which leads me back to thinking that Skrox may be better than Saurus in this instance, because they will be steadfast when they arrive (hopefully...assuming the Chameleons, Sallies and Comet do their work before my units charge in). Definitely fun to think about! :)

What I need to determine are my odds of winning with Saurus vs. Skrox, against Dwarf warriors, hammerer and longbeards. He also has a habit of bringing rangers to the table...
 
take Slan, lore shadow roll 6 dice on lowering their T, then place as many sally templates on them as you can.
 
KillerK said:
take Slan, lore shadow roll 6 dice on lowering their T, then place as many sally templates on them as you can.
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Whole point was he does not have a Slann.
 
His army seems very limited, is it really just a single massive block with three war machines?

He is spending a lot to kill magic, let him waste those points, don't take any magic! You don't have to worry about his offensive magic and yours can't get through.

See attached list, this can be tuned considerably but it will soon get him off the anti-magic big block. Run the three cham units up to the three warmachines and try to shoot them to death, only charging if you get him down to one model or he is grapeshotting you to death.

Shoot his big block with sallies and skirmishers, keep your saurus block out of the way behind terrain (make some wall terrain!) and consider putting a big hill in the middle of the battlefield. If chams haven't killed cannon consider moving a skirmisher unit to help, then once main block reduced to managable size consider bringing out saurus unit to challenge it but keep shooting it up in the meantime.

Sallies should stay out of charge arc, skirmishers should stay out of charge arc or flee, skinks can normal move as far as he can march. Saurus should also consider deploying 1 rank deep if sufficient cover not available so cannon do max 1 wound per cannon per turn, reform to 12 wide when big unit gets close to maximise attacks. Str 4 AP will eliminate his 5+ AS but you will want to have reduced him to under 3 ranks to reduce value of his horde status.

Following army is designed solely v my impression of his army, you can lose a unit of skinks and distribute points amongst chams and saurus. LM armies are best over 2500 so get more troops!

1500 Pts - Lizardmen Roster - LM8 1500 no magic

Saurus Oldblood (General) Obsidian Blade, Armour of Destiny

Saurus Scar-Veteran, (Battle Standard Bearer); Great Weapon; Light Armour; Shield; Razor Standard

3 Salamander Hunting Pack, 9 Skink Handlers

2 Salamander Hunting Pack, 6 Skink Handlers

5 Chameleon Skinks,

5 Chameleon Skinks,

5 Chameleon Skinks,

10 Skink Skirmishers, Blowpipe

10 Skink Skirmishers, Blowpipe

11 Skink Skirmishers, Javelin & Shield

10 Skink Skirmishers, Javelin & Shield

18 Saurus Warriors, Musician Standard Bearer; Hand Weapon; Shield;

Composition Report:
Points of Lords: 251 (0 - 375)
Points of Heroes: 169 (0 - 375)
Points of Core: 524 (375 - Unlimited)
Points of Special: 180 (0 - 750)
Points of Rare: 375 (0 - 375)

Total Roster Cost: 1499
 
Don't bother using Terradons to march block Dwarves.

1) March blocking only works if the Dwarves fail a Ld test. Dwaves are Ld 9 BASE.

2) Dwarves have a special rule that says they ignore mach blockers, period. (p28 of the Dwarf army book: Relentless)
 
You can use large blocks of saurus armed with spears(since dwarves don´t have spears and you will make more attacks) and camo skinks to take out war machines :clown:
 
Hey BEEGfrog, I was out of the country for a while, so I'm just getting to this now - thanks for the long and insightful post! My first plan was to avoid the magic phase all together, since I have no Slann, and let him waste some points on Runesmiths and spell breaking runes (in such a low point game, this is a lot of points to waste, percentage-wise). I basically need a draw in this game, so maybe that's the way to go?

Couple points - can't take an Oldblood - no one is up to taking Lord level characters in this campaign yet. So no 50 point magic items for me. Have to make due with a Scar Vet.

Also, only have 10 chameleons currently, and not allowed to take Terradons in this game, so hunting his warmachines is going to be scary...it's also distinctly likely that if I do take Chameleons I will be stuck in a meeting engagement and not get to deploy them as scouts. That's up to the dice. I could get really blasted by templates early on...jitters!

I guess the deciding factor is whether or not lots of skinks can really put a dent in him and result in points denial so that the worst case scenario will be a draw. Or I stick with my magic-heavy list and try to overwhelm his magic defenses, weakening him to the point that Saurus can actually defeat hordes of warriors in a fight. Hmmmm....

Parrot - good point on the spears. A unit of Saurus 6 x 3 can make 24 attacks this way, vs. 18 attacks if they had handweapons, and it only costs 18 more points for the extra 6 attacks. I tend to blow my 6+ ward saves anyway...
 
Just reporting in....couple of test battles against the Dwarves this weekend...I am becoming convinced that the Old Ones screwed up somewhere along the way :jawdrop: I simply can't beat the Dwarfs in HtH unless I kick the crap out of them in shooting and magic before they get to me. And that's hard to do, since they have better shooting and really good anti-magic (I'm usually as bloodied as they are when melee starts).

Am I doing something wrong? I tried running around them and not letting them get points off me, but this only works for a few turns before I have no where else to run to. Help :oops:
 
The main issue with dwarves is that their shooting is far longer ranged than ours so they can stand back while we have to close the range.

The easiest answer to this is terrain. There is no longer the requirement to keep the middle of the battlefield clear of terrain.

Plan 1) Get as much LOS blocking terrain as possible and get it in the middle of the table clogging up the sightlines as much as possible. Try and get it positioned on a slight diagonal so that one side of the table has sight blocking terrain on his side of the centre line and the other side on your side of the centre line, this means that if you have to swap sides you still have a side where you will be covered during your march across the table. If your current tree terrain is "see through" for TLOS consider glueing pictures of trees to a piece of card of a suitable size an propping it up in the middle of the wood te ensure sight is really blocked, you cannot see through real woods so why should you be able to see through game woods?

Plan 2) make up a lot of aquatic terrain and a lot of walls or other things that will block cannon shot. A particularly sneaky bit of terrain is the sectioned spawning pool, this is a big aquatic terrain piece consisting of a big pool split into a lot of little pools by low walls: skink, sallie and skrox units can move across it without penalty but it is impassible to dwarfs (and unfortunately saurus) and all the walls block cannon bounce and count as hard cover rather than the normal soft cover of water.
Walls are placed to provide cover and block cannon bounce at convenient 8" or 12" gaps to allow march moves up to the walls. Water features are placed for cover and to provide places for chams to deploy.
Another good terrain piece is a graveyard with stone monuments, claim it acts as a wood but with hard cover and cannon blocking too! (scale human grave is about 1" long, very hard for a cannon to bounce through, but if built correctly easy to position 25mm bases between the rows of gravestones.

Plan 3) Go for a Storm of Magic battle!

Remember sallies in a water feature are at -2 to hit for cover and skirmishers, chams are -3. Another point of cover save if you are behind a wall or at the edge of a stone walled water feature.

Dwarfs don't like sallies and you can have 5 sallies at 1500 pts if comp rules don't interfere. Although you will only be wounding on a 5+, the -3 to AS will mean that most/all of those wounds will not be saved.
 
I will do what I can with terrain, but it is randomly placed (usually 7 pieces) so I can't count on that. I have 2 sallies...thinking of getting a 3rd but won't have it in time for this game. Last few test games they died quickly to bolt throwers and cannon. I will try to keep them more on the flanks next time and take my time with them. Wondering whether I should try warmachine hunting with CoC, and maybe the cavalry will give my Saurus and Skrox units the boost I need to actually win some of these combats...

Expensive to take cav at 14 points though...
 
T`hinker`er said:
I will do what I can with terrain, but it is randomly placed (usually 7 pieces) so I can't count on that. I have 2 sallies...thinking of getting a 3rd but won't have it in time for this game. Last few test games they died quickly to bolt throwers and cannon. I will try to keep them more on the flanks next time and take my time with them. Wondering whether I should try warmachine hunting with CoC, and maybe the cavalry will give my Saurus and Skrox units the boost I need to actually win some of these combats...

Expensive to take cav at 14 points though...
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Don't just get 1 more get at least 2 more so you can run 2 units of 2. This generally means cannon need 3 hits to kill off the unit, one allocated to a skink and the other two to kill the sallies. 2 sallies also are more reliable in shooting as one generally fires and you have a bigger pool of snacks for misfires.
 
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