8th Ed. Lizardmen vs Skaven 2k

[twistedmagpie]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to be fighting a 2k point battle vs Skaven in a few weeks and wanted to run my list by your expert eyes and hear your thoughts....

I know the composition of the army I'm facing...

-Grey Seer with plague spells and a 4++
-Cheiftain BSB with Obsidian Lodestone
-Warlock Lvl 1 + dispel scroll
-Warlock with Brass Orb

-40 x Clanrats bunker with FC & shields
+ Plague wind mortar
-50 slaves + shields
-49 slaves + shields

-40 Plague Monks + Their banner
-5 Censer Bearers
-4 RO

-Abom
-Warp Lightening Cannon

It seems a pretty solid list to me. I've come up with this below...

-Slann with Harmonic Convergence, Soul of Stone & Chanelling staff (Going to use Lore of Fire to hit his big blocks)
-Skink Priest Lvl1 + dispel scroll
-Skink Priest Lvl1 + Cube of Darkness
(Both to be used as channels while keeping Slann out of Dreaded Thirteenth range)
-Scar Vet BSB on Cold One with Banner of Flame, LA & GW

- 26 Sauruas Warriors, FC (Shields)
- 26 Sauruas Warriors, FC (Shields)
- 13 Skirmishers with Javlins

-5 Cold Ones with spears (no command due to points restriction)
-15 Temple Guard with FC

-2 separate salamander packs, each with an extra snack

This is a change from my usual tactics, I tend to go large on monsters but his cannons tend to make light work of them (you have no idea how lucky he is not to misfire much). I also struggle with the Abom a lot, as soom as it hits a block I've pretty much lost the game.

Does anyone have any particular tactics or advise that you think I should keep in mind or use?

Thanks in advance

 

[airjamy]

Hi, i went over your list point by points, think you have a lot of small things you can improve in your list. Against skaven, you want to kill the BSB and the General to make them run, if you can do that, and if you can eliminate the big beasties and the arty, you have already won.

-Slann with Harmonic Convergence, Soul of Stone & Chanelling staff (Going to use Lore of Fire to hit his big blocks). The lore of fire, interesting choice, and not often used. Seems like it could work if you know especially that you are hitting Skaven, so let us know how you did. The rest of the build is good, channeling combo works every time. Its weird that you do not have him as the BSB, you know that he is the only model in WHFB that can be the General and BSB, right?
-Skink Priest Lvl1 + dispel scroll. Take it that you have the lore of Beasts for Wyssans on both these lads? You have massive ammounts of anti magic in this list, i think channeling combo with one scroll should do fine, you are sortoff over investing in this i think.
-Skink Priest Lvl1 + Cube of Darkness
(Both to be used as channels while keeping Slann out of Dreaded Thirteenth range)
-Scar Vet BSB on Cold One with Banner of Flame, LA & GW. Consider the Dawnstone on this guy and dropping the banner of flame. With the Dragonhelm you can easily have a 1+ rerollable save wth 4 S7 attacks. Its good.

- 26 Sauruas Warriors, FC (Shields). I dislike champions, they only give one additional attack, while for 1 point more you can have another body with 2 attacks. They have some use in diverting challenges, but our character either cant be challenges, or are ok in them, so i really think all champs are bad in LM 90% of the time.
- 26 Sauruas Warriors, FC (Shields)
- 13 Skirmishers with Javlins. Weird number, people either run them at 14 for them to only panic with 4 dead Skinks on the first volley, or with 10 to keep the unit as small and maneuverable as possible. Why did you choose for 13?

-5 Cold Ones with spears (no command due to points restriction). Put a banner and musician in here from the points you got from the champions. Do not put a champion in this unit, if you do you lose your Look Out Sir for your Scarvet as you do not have 5 rank and file models anymore.
-15 Temple Guard with FC. Really small, to small if you ask me. Only field them as a unit of 20 at the bare minimum when you have a Slann in them, as everything and their mother will be shooting at them to kill the Slann if you let them. I often run them at 25 with a Slann in them, and even at 30 and up, it's nice that they never run.

-2 separate salamander packs, each with an extra snack. Solid

 

[twistedmagpie]

Thank you for the reply....

I do usually use my Slann as BSB, however I really really struggle to kill off his Abom before it's done a lot of damage (usually down to incredibly unlucky ranged rolls and his very lucky regen saves). This answers another of your questions because I've gone with the SV BSB solely to get the banner of flame into my cold one unit; their job is to aim straight for Mr Bomb and take him down.

Yes my Priests are set with Wissans, I love that spell!!! I had another look at the list and did take out the second and made the adjustments to the Temple Guard below.

Thanks for the advice on champions, I'm used to taking them so hadn't really thought about how pointless they were

13 Skirmishers? Because I started with 10 and added what I had left into this unit. I'm running my Slann in them at the back of the field so I thought a few more bodies may save the unit from a bad miscast or 2.

Cold Ones; I used the points from champs as suggested for the banner & musician

Temple Guard; I've actually thought about using 2 units, one of 10, the other 11. My plan is to keep them a bit back from the front line and use them as flankers when his units hit mine. Then they wont have many attacks back and can do maximum damage. This is a new tactic that I've never used before so I am hoping it will catch him off guard. (Either that or he will D13 them and I'll cry in front of a good friend!!!)

What are your thoughts on this? I know it's a little unorthodox

 

[airjamy]

Thank you for the reply....

I do usually use my Slann as BSB, however I really really struggle to kill off his Abom before it's done a lot of damage (usually down to incredibly unlucky ranged rolls and his very lucky regen saves). This answers another of your questions because I've gone with the SV BSB solely to get the banner of flame into my cold one unit; their job is to aim straight for Mr Bomb and take him down.

Yes my Priests are set with Wissans, I love that spell!!! I had another look at the list and did take out the second and made the adjustments to the Temple Guard below.

Thanks for the advice on champions, I'm used to taking them so hadn't really thought about how pointless they were

13 Skirmishers? Because I started with 10 and added what I had left into this unit. I'm running my Slann in them at the back of the field so I thought a few more bodies may save the unit from a bad miscast or 2.

Cold Ones; I used the points from champs as suggested for the banner & musician

Temple Guard; I've actually thought about using 2 units, one of 10, the other 11. My plan is to keep them a bit back from the front line and use them as flankers when his units hit mine. Then they wont have many attacks back and can do maximum damage. This is a new tactic that I've never used before so I am hoping it will catch him off guard. (Either that or he will D13 them and I'll cry in front of a good friend!!!)

What are your thoughts on this? I know it's a little unorthodox

Ok, glad that you are aware how the Slann BSB thing works, it is really a great boon. And if the regen is a problem, why not just take the Banner of Eternal Flame on your Slann, make the unit bigger, and chop it to bits that way? I often take the banner of Discipline on my Slann for the sweet LD 10 coldblood stuboorn rerolls, and the banner of Eternal Flame on my banner of the TG, so you can use both of them. It very rarely is a double edged sword, HE dragonprinces have a 2++ against flaming attacks, but if you know you want to take down a Hellpit with a banner of Eternal Flame, you do not need to take a Scarvet BSB for that.

Wyssans is great, and well, champions are not. Glad to see that we agree on that point. If you just had points left, 13 guys is ok, it is just standard to put them in 10 or 14, thats all. I think that 2 small units of TG will not work. Lets say that your opponent gets two casts of Warp Lightning of on one 10 man unit, it might then already be dead, and it would leave your Slann alone and sad, ready to be hit by the Warp Lightning Cannon. You also lack the rank bonusses in combat, and if your opponent manages to charge a single unit of TG, it will most likely die to a killy unit before it gets to strike back with their low I. It is often good to take Sauri in very big units, think 25+ all the time, because they are so slow. The guys in the back will die, and if it is your turn to strike, you will still have your guys in the front to do some damage. To make your plan work you will also need a lot of space to manouver with slow models, TG are only M4. It will be very obvious for your opponent what you are trying to do, and if he stands in a chokepoint and dares you to come to him, his Warp Lightning cannon shooting in the back, you will have no choice but to send in your units one by one, getting them chopped to bits, instead of just having one big hammer of Sauri to do the dirty work. 8th edition Warhammer is all about big units of infantry, especially with slow units that we have.

I ofcourse, might always be wrong, so feel free to try it out if you want to, but i would not like your odds of succes. Look forward to hearing how you dealth with those rats this time!

 

[Gary_M]

Its been a while since I’ve played WHFB but a couple of the last games I played were against a very good player using skaven.

If you’re looking to nuke the blocks of ratmen why not Fiery Convocation from High Magic? You do have the sallies to flame them too. And High Magic has some other great spells, including the movement one (can’t remember the name) which can really wrong foot an opponent – Just when he thinks he can charge your sallies next turn they move onto his flank!

Having experienced the Abom I’d say at least 2 units of skirmishers and reduce the saurus warriors to one block of about 30 – 35 (This would also save points for additional skirimishers). That said I did beat my oppos hellpit with saurus warriors – I got the charge in, and beat him via ranks. I don’t know the leadership of the hellpit but it ran. Maybe I got lucky but by charging you do take away its impact hits.

It’s a bit cheesey, but you can railroad the hellpit with skirmishers if you have enough – One unit of 14 is not enough IMO.

What about some flyers for warmachine hunting? Although I appreciate your issue with points costs. I guess the cold ones could do this job?

One thought, and I’d like @airjamy opinion here, what about going skirmishers on core, and boosting the TG numbers?

Good luck in the game!