8th Ed. Operation Raptor

[Lizards of Renown]

Okay.

So this is me. Again. With another list on how to take on Warriors of Chaos.

Yes. Again.

(Hopefully I am not the only person who enjoys making up army lists.)

I would like to say first off that I know they are super-powered and I'm sliiiightly obsessed with coming up with smart strategies on how they could be broken.

This is my latest idea: Operation Raptor

-

Having just read the FAQ & Errata issued by GW for the Eighth Edition, one of the main things that changed what I feel I can do is the 50% lords and 50% heroes limit increase.

This has led me to the following list:

Slann: Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, Harmonic Convergence, Channeling staff, Ironcurse Icon, BSB, Standard of Discipline.

OB, CO, GW, Talisman of Preservation, Sacred Stegadon Helm, Other Tricksters Shard (mainly for DP hunting)
OB, CO, GW, Armour of Destiny
OB, CO, GW, Armour of Fortune
OB, CO, GW, LA, Talisman of Endurance

Tetto'eko

Skink Priest, Cloak of Feathers

Skink Chief, Ripperdactyl, Glittering Scales, Charmed Shield, LA, Relic Blade

4x16 Skink Cohorts with two Kroxigor each

18 Temple Guard with Flaming Banner

Bastiladon

-

Thought Process:

Last time I fought WoC I was being a bit naive. The Saurus units didn't particularly perform well and were outmaneuvered by faster units. Stegadons (who were meant to be flanking forces for the Saurus units) also did not perform well as between the Mark of Nurgle -1 to hit and bad rolls on thunderstomp they were routinely being beaten on combat resolution by the Chaos Warrior units.

Temple Guard got mutilated by Chaos Warriors, DP and Chaos Knights. I made the mistake of thinking that as my elite unit they should get into combat. Right. Good one.

Current tactics are around the following:

Send Skink Chief on Ripper after the two inevitably fielded Hellcannons, use him to tie up at least one of them for a couple of turns with his minus to hit and 1+ armour save (which with the Hellcannon's strength will be a 3+, but better than nothing)

Use Slann High Magic to get Spirit Leech as soon as possible and execute this with the flying Skink Priest.

Use the Old Blood's to get in front of a Chaos unit and then use the Skroxigor to flank charge in second turn. Flanking the unit means only front rank will attack back. It is unlikely that the unit will be more than 3 ranks deep and so is only 6 attacks on the Skinks. It's a gamble, but hey, why not try it.

Use the Bastiladon every turn with a single dice roll. He'll need to use 1-2 dice to dispel to be sure and if I get the spell off once or twice, he may pay for his own 150 point cost just with that. And at least I've got some kind of big pew-pew to target some of his heavy troops.

Whole army (bar Slann and TG who will be as far from everything as possible) will be very mobile. The Skroxigor will only engage intentionally on flanks when OB or two are already in combat.

Ideally use the main OB to go after the DP, has a fair chance of killing him especially if I can get off the HM spell to destroy one of his magic items. Then use the other two to go after the Chas Knight unit.

It's an idea at least.

As a note, this thread and the ideas in it are mainly to keep myself amused and I know this.

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

One thing I will point out: With a Slann, Tetto'eko, Skink Priest and a Bastiladon you aren't even close to having enough PD for them to truly be worth their cost.
The Slann is always nice, but Tetto'eko isn't worth as much here I think, sure he strength 6 spells he has access to are nice, but he will take PD from the Slann so probably not worth it most of the time.
I don't think you'll get all that much out of his vanguard in this matchup; His re-roll of 1s for magic is also nice but probably not worth it.
The Skink Priest I'm assuming is primarily for Arcane Vassal, so he won't compete for PD, that's fine.
The Bastiladon will pretty much only be able to get value out of the bound spell, which you will struggle to find PD for.

I'd say drop Tetto.

I think you'll be better off using scar vets rather than Oldbloods, as they are just more efficient and with the magic items will have the same saves anyway. A case can be made for the oldbloods, but you are paying roughly 60 points more for each one. Taking the three as scar vets instead then nets you 180 points, more than enough for an additional Scar vet on cold one, if you so please, and if you skip Tetto you can easily fit a fifth.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

One thing I will point out: With a Slann, Tetto'eko, Skink Priest and a Bastiladon you aren't even close to having enough PD for them to truly be worth their cost.
The Slann is always nice, but Tetto'eko isn't worth as much here I think, sure he strength 6 spells he has access to are nice, but he will take PD from the Slann so probably not worth it most of the time.
I don't think you'll get all that much out of his vanguard in this matchup; His re-roll of 1s for magic is also nice but probably not worth it.
The Skink Priest I'm assuming is primarily for Arcane Vassal, so he won't compete for PD, that's fine.
The Bastiladon will pretty much only be able to get value out of the bound spell, which you will struggle to find PD for.

I'd say drop Tetto.

I think you'll be better off using scar vets rather than Oldbloods, as they are just more efficient and with the magic items will have the same saves anyway. A case can be made for the oldbloods, but you are paying roughly 60 points more for each one. Taking the three as scar vets instead then nets you 180 points, more than enough for an additional Scar vet on cold one, if you so please, and if you skip Tetto you can easily fit a fifth.

Fair enough on the PD point. I think I'll keep the Bastiladon as with a bound power spell of 3, I'll only need to do one dice per turn to have a crack at it.

It seems better to do OB rather than SV if you can so you have three wounds instead of two. This gives more of an opportunity to be healed between (or even mid fights) no? I'm also thinking that the OB has WS6 which means that it will be 3+ to hit the WoC and then back to 4+ with their mark of Nurgle which gives them a better chance of actually doing some decent damage.

I'll take a look at what I can do with the Tetto points instead.

What do you reckon about my decision on the Stegs?

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

Fair enough on the PD point. I think I'll keep the Bastiladon as with a bound power spell of 3, I'll only need to do one dice per turn to have a crack at it.

It can do some good damage I'll give it that, so I won't fault you for taking it, but it is very hit and miss.

It seems better to do OB rather than SV if you can so you have three wounds instead of two. This gives more of an opportunity to be healed between (or even mid fights) no? I'm also thinking that the OB has WS6 which means that it will be 3+ to hit the WoC and then back to 4+ with their mark of Nurgle which gives them a better chance of actually doing some decent damage.

Don't know so much about the healing; On one hand yes, the extra wound might help, but where are you getting the healing from? The one spell High Magic has or swapping for lore of life? It just doesn't seem ideal to me, but hey maybe it'll work, it's just that you can get more attacks overall with the scar vets.
I will give you that the WS 6 do help, still you will have fewer bodies so there will be less targets for the Hellcannons and each is more valuable than if they were Scar Vets.
I Wouldn't say I'm certain which is better, but it's worth considering the pros and cons.

What do you reckon about my decision on the Stegs?

You seem to have been a bit unlucky as they can do some damage to chaos warriors and can circumvent their Mark of Nurgle with their main damage. I wouldn't ever expect their normal attacks to do much in combat, the impact hits and thunderstomps are where their power comes from, so if you are unlucky with the rolls it won't do much; Still on average it should kill about 5 warriors between impact hits and stomps; Now that's still not amazing, but we are talking about Chaos Warriors and it's better than a lot of our other options.
(Actually I just tried to see how much 5 scar vets boosted with savage beast of horrors would do on average against Mark of Nurgle Chaos Warriors and it 'only' about 11 wounds; This costs at least 465 points for scar vets and a skink priest to cast the spell (if he gets it). In comparison two ancient stegs will do almost the same damage with impact hits and stomps for the same price, but without relying on magic; Now granted the scar vets do have a vastly greater potential but still.
Doing it with Oldbloods could be interesting and actually about doubles the output of scar vets, but you do also pay close to double the points).
Two Hellcannons does make the stegs hard to run though.

Just some thoughts.