8th Ed. My first Loss - Thoughts

[brokbrok]

I've played four or five games of fantasy total, here's my list from this weekend
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/first-ish-army.7710/
There are minor changes listed at the bottom of the thread.

I've been rolling my opponents who are also new to the game, mostly due to the superiority of the lizard race, Heil Kroak!
Anyway, one of the friends I played is an old school fantasy player. I rolled his Brettonian army thanks to an explosive miscast that I sent his way and a few other things. The tables turned when he brought out his High Elf army however, so I learned a few things.

First off, in neither game did the skroxigors do much of anything. Granted, they're supposed to be more useful when they can outmaneuver their opponent and get the flank charge, but half the armies are faster than they are so they end up performing as an expensive road bump. I don't think I like them and I'd rather just get more saurus in the core.

The 2x units of skinks still worked well. The mental anxiety they cause the opponent far outperforms their actual performance, so it's great.

The magic phase was going so-so. Unlike in previous games, the Helves were capable of blocking spells and stealing my power dice, which hurt more than I thought it would. I also had the misfortune of not landing a single miscast to blow his mage up the entire game. While having three mages was awesome, it's greatly mitigated by the fact that you can only get 12 dice, and most often you only get six. (Seven minus that damn mage stealing my dice ^_^) Solo skink priest was awesome, but I think I gotta drop him for points.

Shooting phase had be getting torn up, I lost my stegadon priest to a bolt through the chest, and all sorts of other shooting had me convinced I would die before I ever hit his line. Amazingly, both stegadons survived till the end of the game despite being wounded. Lore of Life regrowth spell says it cannot be used on characters or their mounts, does that mean you can't heal a priest stegadon? What about the priest? Does he revive or does he get replaced with a normal skink?

Assault is where the tables turned. Sure, Helves strike first and re-roll, but other than his cavalry that would devour anything it touched (skrox) his other elite units would bounce off my lizards like they had no business being on the field. Saurus can weather his blade masters, and once they've lost the charge they've lost the combat.

The momentum of the game took a 180 when my temple guard finally engaged his elite units, broke them, and carried through to his line. Having Lore of Life replenishing their tiny ranks kept them a consistent threat until his cavalry outmaneuvered my dinos and eventually caught up and got to my temple guard unit. All was lost when one of my stegadons pulled an almost max range charge into their rear. They made 6 5+ saves against his impact hits!! I would have won had some of those gotten through. Despite the disappointment, the stegadon showed them what was up when he stomped on five of their smug butts.

With the slann gone however, the game was lost (It was the capture banners game,) even so, I had all but given up, playing for broke, when a single combat with my temple guard completely changed who was going to win. It was a fun game where we were both sweating balls for the last three turns.

My all stars were definitely the stegadons, salamanders and temple guard. I want more.

The skrox were a total disappointment. I can see taking a krox unit for performing counter charges as being super effective, but a skrox as a flank defender was a horrible idea.

All the priests were great too, I probably dug my own grave by putting the solo priest with some skirmishers since I didn't want him sniped, but he's being sacrificed for more points anyway.

I also need to bite the bullet and get those chameleons or terradons, having a unit in the back field is a horrible nuisance that will make them invaluable. Not to mention chasing down artillery.

Lastly, I learned that you need a rank of five in order to get "Look Out Sir!" so you actually need a minimum of 20 temple guard for the full effect of a slann bodyguard. I figured 16 would do fine, it forms a nice block, and since they're stubborn who cares if they don't have ranks. Nope! Need ranks.


Hopefully some of this can help someone, and hopefully you guys have some wisdom to help me. ^_^

 

[Syltaryn]

I'm still relatively new to the game and my main opponent plays High Elves. You're lucky your friend wasn't using Teclis. Stealing a power dice is not too much of a problem for a Rumination Slann. It's near impossible to stop Teclis from getting something important off like Dwellers or Pit of Shades as throwing 6 dice has a ~99% chance of getting a double for irresistible force and as he generates an additional d3 power/dispel dice every phase (in addition to channelling) he often has more than enough dice to do what he wants. Best you can hope for is that he's within 24" of a becalming slann and rolls lots of 6's as just about any other result will be irresistible force (assuming he meets that casting value which unless you remove his 6's he will almost certainly reach). I hate Teclis btw so I'm a little biased where he's concerned!

I haven't used a skrox unit before so I can't comment on their usefulness or lack thereof. I'm building a 24 skink/3 krox unit at the moment so I'll see how they go for myself soon enough. I haven't had a chance to field my steg against them either.

The units I've had the most success with are my skirmisher skinks, chameleon skinks and salamanders.

The skirmishers are awesome redirectors and left alone can get up so some nasty flanking shenanigans with close up poisoned shots and as they are quite cheap at 70 points for 10 skinks you can use them for suicidal manoeuvres. You have to be careful when doing that though as depending on the opposing unit 10 wounds on toughness 2 guys with no save is pretty easy for most elven units so make sure you don't position them where an overrun would be beneficial to the other player (I discovered that one the hard way).

Same thing with the chamo skinks. They are pretty awesome. Although my opponent is wising up and making it very difficult for me to deploy them behind his lines. If he ever leaves a gap in his deployment he'll put an eagle or two facing towards where ever I can put my chamo skinks making it more difficult for them to get to his bolt throwers which he hides deep inside his deployment.

Salamanders are the best things ever against High Elves. HE are mostly toughness 3 with a semi decent armour save so you'll mostly be needing 4's to wound and denying them their armour resulting in a lot of dead elves with a good shot. The panic test caused is usually pretty useless against HE as they have decent leadership and are often within range of a battle standard. I can generally only get them to run from break tests.

I find those three units are very often the target of most high elf shooting, while magic is generally directed at my blocks.

Generally HE will run with Life or Shadow on their level 4 against lizards. Shadow is horrible to play against with Teclis as he often gets whatever nastiness he wants off. Pit of Shades with a big template can be really bad depending on the artillery dice result but generally you can limit his ability to cast it with Becalming Cogitation (a must have versus HE) as he'll need a lot of 4's and 5's to reach the casting value. If he does reach the casting value without 6's you're often screwed as our initiative sucks. To be honest I often prefer he use Pit of Shades as he'll need to throw 6 dice at to get it off limiting the other options from Shadow which destroy us namely the reduced toughness and strength debuffs. Those debuffs cast on a temple guard unit receiving a charge pretty much equals a dead Slann as your damage output versus incoming damage becomes massively skewed towards the high elves favour. Life is nasty for different reasons. A lucky Dwellers Below can off your Slann on the first turn (that happened to me and I was not happy about it - those spells need to be balanced by allowing ward saves and look out sir in my opinion). Apart from that the only other spell to worry about is the toughness buff which counters the main HE weakness making his toughness 3 troops into toughness 5 (or 7 often as he'll almost certainly have throne of vines cast with irresistible force). My inability to dispel anything is the main reason I dislike Teclis so much.

Assuming you don't lose in the magic phase our troops generally fair better than the elves. We have higher toughness and more models generally meaning elves cannot survive an attrition battle without buffs/debuffs. The main thing I've learned is to never let the elves get off a multi charge as their damage output is annoyingly high (as they have great weapons that can still strike first with rerolls).

Also if you ever get the choice never allow a building on the HE's side of the table. The Teclis/Lvl 4 bunker will simply hole up in it making it near impossible to get to them with rolling through the entire remaining elven battle line. Although if you do kill Teclis, much like a Slann it's pretty much an auto loss for HE. The tricky part is actually getting near enough to get into combat with his unit as elves move faster and Teclis is a coward!

 

[n810]

you forgot to mention Ocams Mind Razor on a big block of spear Elves....

 

[Syltaryn]

Mindrazor adds insult to injury. Once your temple guard are sitting at toughness 1 or 2 it really doesn't matter what strength the enemy is. High Elves are already mostly at strength 5 or 6 with their great weapons anyhow. My HE friend usually uses a spear elf bunker for Teclis so I rarely see combat with them. The last time I made it into combat with his spears (after Teclis bailed to another unit - man I hate that guy!) he had Life at the time so I hit a toughness 7 wall of spears. Very irritating needing 6's to wound elves with my saurus. That was the same game he took out my slann turn 1 with Dwellers. It wasn't a pretty sight...

 

[brokbrok]

I have something for you sir, it's a skink priest with Bane Head and Feedback Scroll. Enjoy!

 

[msinosic]

"Despite the disappointment, the stegadon showed them what was up when he stomped on five of their smug butts."

Stomping on cavalry? Stomp/Thunderstuck can only occur on infantry I believe, I have made that mistake with marauder horsemen.

 

[brokbrok]

Why would you say something so horrible?

 

[Syltaryn]

I have something for you sir, it's a skink priest with Bane Head and Feedback Scroll. Enjoy!

The problem with Teclis is if he's throwing enough dice to cause problems from a feedback scroll then chances are he's cast the spell with irresistible force so you can't use any kind of dispel based item.

 

[brokbrok]

It's not a dispel item, it's a damage item. When he drops a lot of dice, you get a lot of chances to wound him. Combine that with the bane head and all you need to do is get two 5+ rolls and he's dead. So you let him get a few spells off until he feels comfortable enough to roll a whole wad of dice then let him have it. I guarantee he'll play more carefully around you from then on.

 

[Syltaryn]

Unfortunately the Feedback Scroll is used in place of a dispel attempt exactly as per a dispel scroll. As you aren't allowed a dispel attempt from irresistible force you can't use the item, hence the problem.

 

[Syltaryn]

From the main rulebook FAQ:

Q: Can there ever be more than one attempt at dispelling a spell per
magic phase? Can a Wizard use a scroll if it isn’t allowed to make a
dispel attempt, for example the spell was cast with irresistible force or
the wizard has previously failed to dispel a spell that turn? (p35)
A: No to both questions.

 

[theodoris]

yup, that pretty much blows it for the feedback scroll,
Allthough i do use it when i can against HE when i can.

I also had an problem against a arch mage lvl 4, but i got into CC with his spear bunker, so i tought i would get the mage with my scar. vet. that was in base contact with the mage.
Wrong...., he had 2 magic items 1 that made magic weapons useless and the other that mundane weapons couldn`t hurt him.
He cast akkams razor in his unit, you just can`t beat them in the magic phase.
And bye bye, expencive saurus unit with my super duper scar vet.
man I don`t like HE

 

[n810]

yup, that pretty much blows it for the feedback scroll,
Allthough i do use it when i can against HE when i can.

I also had an problem against a arch mage lvl 4, but i got into CC with his spear bunker, so i tought i would get the mage with my scar. vet. that was in base contact with the mage.
Wrong...., he had 2 magic items 1 that made magic weapons useless and the other that mundane weapons couldn`t hurt him.
man I don`t like HE

I think that vennom of the firefly frog and a greatweapon might get around that restriction,
technicaly it's a mundane weapon that has magical (and poison) attacks.

 

[T`hinker`er]

Just one comment to make about Skrox - go big or go home. I field a unit of 24 with 3 Krox. This unit can keep it's steadfast against even Pheonix Guard or Swordmasters. HE cavalry bounces off them. They make a great anvil - the hammer can be your Steg, your temple guard or your Scar Vet. Even your Saurus can be a hammer if all else fails.

There's a big difference between 6 Krox attacks and 9. I think your unit is just too small.

I have thought about using one krox with 10 skinks as a speed bump on the flank, but have yet to try it. Seems like it would work well against wolf riders and other similar units, but would be very situational and easy to take out with shooting, so might be too expensive compared to other fast moving flank interdictors, such as terradons, for the points.

 

[theodoris]

yup, that pretty much blows it for the feedback scroll,
Allthough i do use it when i can against HE when i can.

I also had an problem against a arch mage lvl 4, but i got into CC with his spear bunker, so i tought i would get the mage with my scar. vet. that was in base contact with the mage.
Wrong...., he had 2 magic items 1 that made magic weapons useless and the other that mundane weapons couldn`t hurt him.
man I don`t like HE

I think that vennom of the firefly frog and a greatweapon might get around that restriction,
technicaly it's a mundane weapon that has magical (and poison) attacks.

It could work, i`ll give it an try the next time.

@T`hinker`er
Is such a big unit of skoxx not 2 expencive?
I have tried this but you can hardly manoeuver/wheel, is it woth it as an anvil i think a saurus unit would be better as an anvil, and use an small skroxx with 2 krox as an hammer in the flank.
An other question, could just use an musican in a skroxx unit be enough, since it would be used as flanker?

 

[brokbrok]

I fail to see anywhere that a feedback scroll works as a dispel scroll. Is it in the brb or something? Army builder just says it's damage.

I think the krox could have some merit as a counter charge unit without any skinks. People will think twice about charging anything on my flank when they know the krox will hit their own flank in return.

 

[cyanhawk]

You can get a units of skrox with 3 krox in it for about the same as a saurus block. They are situationally awesome. Very good against low toughness units. Not so great against high attack output units. They are a good anvil but I find them to be a better hammer. The unit is move 6 so its nice and easy to get a flank off when the saurus block is holding the unit.

I often run a small unit of like 12 skinks 1 krox. Its cost effective and very good at counter charging.

I might be remembering my high elf rule book wrong, but im pretty sure that the thing that lets you ignore magic weapons actually ignores magic items within a range. It actually nullifies the one that lets him ignore mundane items. Ill have to double check.

I dont have the book in front of me but I thought the wording on the feedback and hex scroll were both in lieu of dispelling. So after the spell is cast you use them. Ill have to check the specific wording when I get home.

 

[T`hinker`er]

@T`hinker`er
Is such a big unit of skoxx not 2 expencive?
I have tried this but you can hardly manoeuver/wheel, is it woth it as an anvil i think a saurus unit would be better as an anvil, and use an small skroxx with 2 krox as an hammer in the flank.
An other question, could just use an musican in a skroxx unit be enough, since it would be used as flanker?

I set up (24+3) cohorts 6 x 6. It costs as much as 25 Saurus with full command (w/o spears). You get 6 ranks with the Skrox vs. 5 ranks with the Saurus. You get 9 Str 6 attacks (plus some javelins if you stand and shoot, plus 7 skink attacks in melee) vs. 16 Str 4 attacks from the Saurus. You tend to lose a rank of Skinks, maybe two, when fighting elite HE melee troops, leaving you 4 ranks, generally enough to be steadfast at Ld 7. You hit back and kill about 5 or 6 Elves usually.

Compare the Saurus unit, you also lose about 6 or 7 troops typically, as you have lower WS, they re=roll misses and hit with Str 5. Losing 6 means you are -2 to your ranks, leaving you with only 3 ranks, generally not enough to be steadfast. The Ld 8 could prove rather useless if you weren't lucky hitting back. Speaking of hitting back, when the Saurus hit back, due to low WS they seem to cause the same or fewer wounds than the SKrox. At least this seems to be my experience. If my math-hammer is off and I've just been having weird luck, tell me so.

Presently I have 2 of these 3 Krox , and tend to run the Saurus in 18 man, 6x3 blocks, as hammer units.

 

[Syltaryn]

I fail to see anywhere that a feedback scroll works as a dispel scroll. Is it in the brb or something? Army builder just says it's damage.

Army builder often doesn't include the full description of items. The exact wording is this:

One use only. When an enemy spell has been cast, a Wizard who has a Feedback Scroll can read it instead of attempting to dispel the spell.

The spell is cast as normal but, after the spell has been resolved, roll a dice for every dice used to cast the spell. The casting Wizard takes a wound for every result of 5+ rolled, with no armour saves allowed.

As per the FAQ:

Q: Can there ever be more than one attempt at dispelling a spell per
magic phase? Can a Wizard use a scroll if it isn’t allowed to make a
dispel attempt, for example the spell was cast with irresistible force or
the wizard has previously failed to dispel a spell that turn? (p35)
A: No to both questions.

So not only can you not use the scroll on irresistible force it only applies to dice used to cast the spell meaning any 6's discarded by Becalming Cogitation don't count and ward saves still apply.

 

[brokbrok]

You win good sir. ^_^