8th Ed. Power builds among friends - a discussion

[Pinktaco]

So this isn't a rant. Just to be clear. However, I do need to talk to someone about this and how your experience is with the subject.

Now, before I begin I'm not talking about regular power builds. If a friend of mine consequently would make power builds I'd just tell them that it isn't fun. Hell the one time my friend brough a WoC Trogg Troll Horde it was even clear to him that it wasn't fun.

So here's the deal:

My friends and I (we're 4 in total) have prepared ourself for this little mini-tourny we had today for roughly a month. We have all been quite excited because it was a different way to play against each other.

The rules where:

1500pts, no SC.
We should all play against each other (so 3 games each).
We used the normal tournament 20-0 points system for VPs.

Before the tourny I managed to get 3 games off so I figured my list was optimized as much as my experience would allow. The list is the following:

Slann with WD and channel combo.
2 pimped scar vets.

3 skink skirmisher units
1 big cohort unit as an anvil.

7 CORs.

2 salamanders.

Depending on what I would come up against I had the tool for a bit of everything. Right?


The first game I came up against my wood elf friend. An entire gunline army. Only a unit of 5 wild riders couldn't shoot. He got first turn and also got curse of anrahir off on my bus. I don't think I need to continue much further because the skinks where shot to sh1t and at turn 3 (my turn) I surrendered since my entire bus was death with the exception of the characters and I only had my slanns and his bunker. And I hadn't even moved far up the board!

SO wth? To be honest I got annoyed. It wasn't my idea of having fun. I didn't even bother to continue so I resigned. The heroes would've been dead in the following round leaving the slann. I've taken a look at the Asrai forum and others have called a similar list as what I met as a cheese list. TBH I'm not sure if it is - I don't have the proper experience against them yet - but at 1500pts and not starting first it's quite hard.

If only Tetto'Eko was allowed.

Fine.

Second game was against the least experience member of our group and was actually quite a fun game from my perspective. It was quite close in the end so that was fair. He played DE btw.

The last game was against my WoC friend.

He had:

Flying nurgle prince.

lvl 2 mage.

22 Warriors w/ nurgle and halbard (mage was here).
8 hounds.

1 gorebeast chariot.

4 Skullcrushers.

So not only is this army super fast, but it's also very heavily armoured and hits HARD. The warriors are so numerous that it's hard to kill them off.

I really like my friend, but this kind of army is hard to enjoy. Pretty much everything except the hounds is one big FVCK YOU. I got first turn, 6-diced searing doom on the skull crushers. Lost 2 lvls including searing doom and.. I did a wooping 2 wounds on them. FFS. Oh I also lost spirit leech..
At turn 1 both his prince and skullcrushers were in combat because I got greedy and had moved up too quick, my bad. At turn 2 he charges his demon prince against my bus and I was like "whelp, this is it".

The prince is forced to challenge and I accepted with my AoD scar vet. I wasn't optimistic at all and you know what? I only lost 1 wound. Here's the funny thing though, my SV needed to roll 5+ To Hit so obviously I rolled 2 x 5 and 2 x 6, the two additional attacks resulted in 1 x 5 and 1 x 6. WHAT? I just got SIX attacks through the To Hit phase against a demon prince who only have T5 and 2+/5+? He died. Boom.

My bus then continued to flop all their attacks on his skull crushers as if they had completely forgotten the previously heroic deed.

Anyway I had a fun mini tourny, but the lists I went up against (with the excpetion of one list) were super tough. Let's face it - I was incredible lucky with killing the prince. On average I should've done 0.7 wounds with the SV's attack.

I can accept the wood elf list. He have only played 3 game prior to our tourny so he's still in the learning process. However it was still super frustrating though and I know that he kow what he was doing. A WE gunline is probably the ultimate risk-reward list because should *anything* get into close combat it's very easily GG WP, but on the same time it can delete a lot of stuff in the process.

The WoC list? I have no clue what to do. I should've stayed a bit further back alright, but they still hit so damn hard. The skull crushes's front rank have 18 attacks without champ + 3 attacks from warrior in the back and 3 stomps. All at +1 AS and M7. It's just so brutal x_x and that's just one aspect of the army. The chariot is a b1tch, the warriors is just one big point denial and the prince.. Well, look past my extreme luck and he would've murdered my characters one by one.

So I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say here. I'm not frustrated as of right now. I still did have some fun, but not as much as I had anticipated. I didn't excpet to outright win it all, but getting so massacred wasn't part of the plan either ._.
I don't want to be "that guy" who tell people how to make their lists when it's a "tournament" - I mean we all put a bit more effort into this than normally and that is to be expected. The thing is though that I'm vastly more experienced than my WoC friend and yet I've lost close to all games against him. I simply cannot win. It's frustrating to begin with and when I'm brutalized in the very first game before I met the WoC army it was hard to deal with. I didn't rage though :0)

Have you ever tried something similar? I realize that going to a normal tournament true power builds are to be expected and you sort of mentally prepares for that. I just didn't realize that things would go so wrong for me so fast lol.

 

[Sleboda]

As it turns out, I've played in similar round Robin tournaments among friends, so maybe I can offer some thoughts.

I'm pretty well known for my strong anticomp stance, but for this post I'm asking for readers to put aside what they might know about my opinions in that area and take my words at face value. There is plenty of time for my crusade another day.

Ok, so this is what I suggest for your games ...

Don't limit your armies. Just don't.

Not because of the usual "gosh darn it, they are my toys and you can't tell me what to do."
Not because of stuff like "you don't know the game better than the designers so all you are doing is messing it up."

Do it because of that old adage about the difficulty in getting agreement with more than one person involved.
You can also think of it in the light of the phrase "One man's cheese is another man's bread and butter." Or something like that.
The point is that when you leave things vague and just sort of assume that other people see things exactly like you do, it's almost guaranteed to lead to disappointment and frustration, like you saw.

Almost no matter how you go at it, if you ask an opponent to build "fair" or "nice" or "balanced" lists, they will do so...from their view, not yours. Here's the thing, too, and it's sadly just normal human nature - when you lose to an opponent, you (all of us) try to figure out why, and the last thing most of us want to blame is our own faults. It's just a far too easy scapegoat when your game was supposed to be at some sort of ill-defined power level. Clearly the other guy took it too far! He was a cheesy power gamer!

On the other hand, if you just play the game without imposed limits then everyone knows exactly where the line is drawn. Nobody has to be a mindreader. You all just play and let the chips fall where they may and focus on the good times with friends without any resentments.

Just a thought.

 

[Pinktaco]

Arh yes I completely agree and that's also kinda the problem. My WoC friend realizes that his list is heavy, but on the same time he looks at everything else in the book and doesn't consider them good. So in his point of view he has made a fair list since it's not the net-list, but he wouldn't dare to touch some of the other (IMO) more interesting subjects in the book.

Each to their own I guess.

Anyway I realize that is it me who needs to get better or "L2P" and that's fair. Just calling them "power gamers" doesn't change the fact that I lost and merely saying it's their fault and not my doesn't cut it. With that said it'll be an uphill struggle and frankly I've been looking more and more on the Vampire Count idea I've been thinking about for quite a while. Not because I want to make the infamous blender lord bus, but because I only have a Lizardmen army and while I do enjoy them a lot there are times I just need a break from them.

Unfortunately this is quite the expensive hobby though

 

[Putzfrau]

Take solace in knowing those armies aren't "hard" or "cheese" by any stretch of the imagination.

I mean actual warriors? 22 warriors is not what you'd find in your typical WoC "netlist".

Either way discuss it before hand how hard you wanna go.


The problem lies in your list and the tactical errors you admittedly made.

 

[Pinktaco]

Take solace in knowing those armies aren't "hard" or "cheese" by any stretch of the imagination.

I mean actual warriors? 22 warriors is not what you'd find in your typical WoC "netlist".

Either way discuss it before hand how hard you wanna go.


The problem lies in your list and the tactical errors you admittedly made.

I don't know man.. I mean, sure the WoC list isn't a "netlist" which is fair enough, but a demon prince, gorebeast chariot and 4 skullcrushers at 1500pts isn't considered hard?

I don't know, but I'd love to see some more bat reps of how people deal with WoC because I find them to be incredible hard to deal with.

I just have no clue. My list isn't good enough you say, but what is? Not including any luck. Magic is, still with the mage I used, unreliable. Even then though I actually did get searing doom off with IF. 2 wounds were caused by the boosted version. Actually it was a bigger blow to me because I lost both Searing Doom and Spirit Leech.

So let's also look past the warriors.

I assume a more appropriate list wouldn't have had a big cohort unit of skinks, but instead more skirmisher units. That would leave me with 1 unit/model who I don't want to be too reliant on (the slann) and a single unit (my bus) who can actually hurt.

Comparable The skullcrushers, demon prince and gorebeasts are all very tough targets to take down. I would have to dedicate phases of combat with my bus just to take down the chariot. I would have to spend more combat phases to take down 12 wounds of WS5/AS1+ skullcrushers.

So fair enough - the list isn't the hardest possible to make, but it's still incredible hard (IMO) to take down and actually win over. It requires a better tactical and strategic overview and overall perfomance to beat. If you can't win by magic you'll have to redirect everything and take each unit down one by one.

Now just to be clear I'm not actually whining OR for that matter frustrated. Hell if I could I'd love to play some more vs WoC just to learn how to properly deal with them, but as it stands they're tough as nails for me to deal with.

With that said I didn't actually call any of them cheese lists, although I've seen people complain about the WE gunline which has been questioned as cheese - is it tough? I don't know, but it definately hits hard and needs to be dealt with as quickyl as possible. I found it to be a hard list and the WE player also won our little tourny, followed by the chaos player.

So not calling them cheese lists, but with all the great stuff in the WoC book I find it hard not to call what I was up against as "hard to deal with", comparable to what else he could've fielded.

One last thing: I don't want to be that sour loser who's doesn't want others to play the list they want. I can't get myself to say "yo dude? Would you please consider not talking the skullcrushers OR demon prince this time?". It's fair, but it's still a hard list IMO.

Overall tough this isn't a thread where I'm actually complaining, just a discussion on the subject. Others can feel free to contribute with how they deal with such "issues" and in worst case I'm always open for learning something new in terms of lists, strategy etc.

 

[Putzfrau]

So what would you prefer a 1500 point WoC army to look like? Warriors are about the fluffiest choice in the book.

Being in combat by turn 2 is a problem. A huge block of cohort is another problem. That should have been 3 smaller blocks of cohorts.

WD gives you more than 1 good magic missile. Were you drawing out his dispell dice efficiently with your superior number of channel attempts + low dice spells? Were you using miasma effectively? A few fireballs would have demolished the WE player.

Miscasts on six dice happen occasionally, but not every time.

At the end of the day WoC is an army that, in the most general terms, pushes their units forward. They have good stat lines are will chop you up on combat. Lizardmen are almost the exact opposite. Effective lizardmen lists avoid combat for as long as possible, and rely on a tactical finesse that no other army can mimic. It makes them a demanding and unforgiving army, but one that has no bad match ups if played correctly.

I will suggest that if you wanted to use a CoC bus, to use a bus. 7 CoC aren't very good, especially at 1500 points against the armies you were facing. They aren't hardy enough to just march across the field, tank the wounds they will inevitably recieve and devastate things (like skullcrushers) and in your list they needed to be the hadmmer to your cohort block anvil. This is a fine strategy assuming this is what any of your opponents would go for, but a WE and DE list are never going to get bogged down in a bad charge from a big cohort block, and WoC really dont care if they do.

Honestly a well played skink cloud list could have beaten all 3 of those lists. They avoid and shoot/magic better then WE or DE and if played well enough, the 4 total units in the WoC army will never take enough points off you to win in a 20-0 system.

I like at your list and I think "whats killing stuff?" You are relying almost entirely on your character choices to do any of the heavy lifting. In most lizardmen lists this is true, but they split that job with a reliable core of skink shooting. You've bogged down almost your entire core in an unnecessary block that removes almost everything skinks do well and replaces it with a useless anvil in an army with no hammer. The other point sink is a CoC "bus" that doesnt have the models to tank wounds and doesnt have the front line of characters to chop through the amount of things you'd need them to.

If you wanted an anvil you should have gone with saurus, between toughness 4 (potentially higher with Wyssans) and the higher armor save they will tank wounds far better from the WE or DE shooting. Against WoC, they'd never be able to go toe to toe with a skullcrusher or warrior unit of that size, but they could reliably hold up one that had already been shot/magic'd for 3 turns. Or if you wanted to go for a bus approach I would have gone full on bus. Minimum skink core in minimum unit size, with maybe one 20 man cohort squad for a skink priest to bunker in. 10ish CoC characters with 3-4 decked out saurus characters, with 1 or 2 as old bloods.

Realistically the most reliable and battle tested competitive lizardmen army is the full on skink cloud.

Also terradons. That sweet sweet disposable flying chaff.

Also, if you want to play comp then play comp. You dont have to ask them to not bring skull crushers, just pick an established system thats already well loved (like swedish comp) that encourages diversity.

Granted I'm no power gamer myself. I find using lizardmen to be quite an exercise, one that often doesn't turn out as ecpected. Either way I trust in the things that better players say and assume it to be correct and the problem lies in what I'm doing. It helps me be persistent when I lose repeatedly.

 

[Pinktaco]

So what would you prefer a 1500 point WoC army to look like? Warriors are about the fluffiest choice in the book.

Being in combat by turn 2 is a problem. A huge block of cohort is another problem. That should have been 3 smaller blocks of cohorts.

WD gives you more than 1 good magic missile. Were you drawing out his dispell dice efficiently with your superior number of channel attempts + low dice spells? Were you using miasma effectively? A few fireballs would have demolished the WE player.

Miscasts on six dice happen occasionally, but not every time.

At the end of the day WoC is an army that, in the most general terms, pushes their units forward. They have good stat lines are will chop you up on combat. Lizardmen are almost the exact opposite. Effective lizardmen lists avoid combat for as long as possible, and rely on a tactical finesse that no other army can mimic. It makes them a demanding and unforgiving army, but one that has no bad match ups if played correctly.

I will suggest that if you wanted to use a CoC bus, to use a bus. 7 CoC aren't very good, especially at 1500 points against the armies you were facing. They aren't hardy enough to just march across the field, tank the wounds they will inevitably recieve and devastate things (like skullcrushers) and in your list they needed to be the hadmmer to your cohort block anvil. This is a fine strategy assuming this is what any of your opponents would go for, but a WE and DE list are never going to get bogged down in a bad charge from a big cohort block, and WoC really dont care if they do.

Honestly a well played skink cloud list could have beaten all 3 of those lists. They avoid and shoot/magic better then WE or DE and if played well enough, the 4 total units in the WoC army will never take enough points off you to win in a 20-0 system.

I like at your list and I think "whats killing stuff?" You are relying almost entirely on your character choices to do any of the heavy lifting. In most lizardmen lists this is true, but they split that job with a reliable core of skink shooting. You've bogged down almost your entire core in an unnecessary block that removes almost everything skinks do well and replaces it with a useless anvil in an army with no hammer. The other point sink is a CoC "bus" that doesnt have the models to tank wounds and doesnt have the front line of characters to chop through the amount of things you'd need them to.

If you wanted an anvil you should have gone with saurus, between toughness 4 (potentially higher with Wyssans) and the higher armor save they will tank wounds far better from the WE or DE shooting. Against WoC, they'd never be able to go toe to toe with a skullcrusher or warrior unit of that size, but they could reliably hold up one that had already been shot/magic'd for 3 turns. Or if you wanted to go for a bus approach I would have gone full on bus. Minimum skink core in minimum unit size, with maybe one 20 man cohort squad for a skink priest to bunker in. 10ish CoC characters with 3-4 decked out saurus characters, with 1 or 2 as old bloods.

Realistically the most reliable and battle tested competitive lizardmen army is the full on skink cloud.

Also terradons. That sweet sweet disposable flying chaff.

Also, if you want to play comp then play comp. You dont have to ask them to not bring skull crushers, just pick an established system thats already well loved (like swedish comp) that encourages diversity.

Granted I'm no power gamer myself. I find using lizardmen to be quite an exercise, one that often doesn't turn out as ecpected. Either way I trust in the things that better players say and assume it to be correct and the problem lies in what I'm doing. It helps me be persistent when I lose repeatedly.

If I were to play a WoC army I'd definately try out something else than the usual Prince/Chariot/skullcrusher/nurgle on everything possible list. If he could he would've put in a chimera. Which is fine, I just would've tried out some of the difference aspects of the book. Especially considering the skill level we're playering at anyway. But this isn't the thread about what I want to field as an WoC player

But here's the thing though:

I don't feel that 3 smaller cohort units can do anything. Maybe it's just me though - I suppose I should try it out some more. I'd just rather have skirmish units instead tbh, but oh well.
I do, however, feel "safe" knowing that I have one big cohort unit that can take a beating without breaking for a couple of roundt. Not to mention that it's still somewhat cheap, but I'll have to try out a more cloudy list and learn.

What probably fvcks me over time and time again is that I went into the LM army with the excpetation of my saurus actually being awesome. Not that they aren't decent, but.. Yeah you know what I mean. The LM army looks like an tough army with good melee units. Instead I've come to learn the opposite and I need to get many more games under the belt so that I can properly learn to play. Unfortunately there aren't that many nearby WFB gamers and even less LM players. Learning by doing is obviously the best way to learn, but it also takes a lot of time when there is noone to correct you.

About WD - I don't think fireball could've done much. Roughly 3 wounds on the warriors if boosted to 3D6 isn't amazing. However, I did completely forget about the D6 + D6 S6 hits from shems burning gaze on the Demon Prince - it could've on average do 1-2 wounds pr cast so that's not terrible considering it only have 4 wounds.

With that said I rolled like a beaten dog in most of my WoM rolls. Stuff like 2 x 2 dice and no channel is hard and once my slann was reduced to lvl 2 I didn't quite have the lvl advantage I started out with.

Later in the game, after the prince had died untimely I focused getting hexes on the skullcrushers, so it's not as if I didn't get spells off, but once CC hit his units bumped from one combat to another. Now here's the odd thing. 3 skullcrushers were hold up by my slann for 2 turns. 4 CC phases. I got wyssans wildform off, but he should've still been dead after 2 rounds of combat.

against the WE player I did get off some spells, but for whatever reason I rolled horrible. I also only had two turns of doing anything before I resigned. At my T3 I had nothing left. It had all been shot and my friend was lucky enough to get blade wind off on IF (not suffering from it) on my cohort unit.

From my point of view at 1500pts I figured my army looked alright - I had an "anvil", hammer, some redirecters and hopefully the superior mage along with salamanders to burn any potential big blocks (the WoC friend also have Skaven for instance).

From what you're saying it sounds as if I should'ved left the sallies at home, taken some terradons, not have a large cohort unit, but instead smaller unit. Cut down on disciplines so I could've added another 2 COR, (I think I had 405pts core) so cut down on core to meet minimum and added a third COR. That would've bumped them from 7 -> 10.

Two of my friends went with lvl 4 mages and I knew they would so going with a single single just didn't appeal to me. Maybe it was a mistake.

It's hard for me to get used to the skink cloud with added redirectors. I think I'll have to play more defensively against some armies, especially WoC. It definately feels as an army you'll have to pick apart one by one.

One day though.. One day it'll happen.

Luckily I have 3 friends to play against and I've just learned some more people to play against so I'm hoping that I can get some more experience.

The thing about comp might just work, but.. yeah I don't know. I'll definately ask my WoC friend to continue bring his prince/skullcrusher etc so I can eventually learn to deal with it. Asking them to play with comp only means that I avoid the problem and not deal with it.

 

[Putzfrau]

Rolling horribly is always going to really muck things up, but /shrug. I guess you just gotta hope you get good dice as often as you get bad dice so it evens out at the end.

Yeah, the issue with having a block of skinks that wont break from combat after one round is that you dont necessarily want to be in very many combats.

Going with a full bus and only a level 1 or 2 might seem questionable, but i'd suggest trying it out if you want to go a more combat oriented approach. The lack of a level 4 might not be as bad as you think.

"What probably fvcks me over time and time again is that I went into the LM army with the excpetation of my saurus actually being awesome. Not that they aren't decent, but.. Yeah you know what I mean. The LM army looks like an tough army with good melee units. Instead I've come to learn the opposite"

Exactly this. Lizardmen are an army that avoid combat as long as possible through redirecting and fleeing, and whittle units down over 3 or 4 turns of consistent shooting + magic.

Either way i'm in largely the same boat as you. Just need some more practice. I'm honestly jealous you have 3 friends to play with, I largely just play with my brother and my local Fantasy scene is practically nonexistent.

 

[Pinktaco]

Tbh it's mostly just one friend. Fortunately he changes army quite often. I've played Empire, Dwarfs, High Elfs, Wood Elfs and O&G with him alone. We live 300m from each other.

I then have a friend living in another city who I play once a month or so and another friend close by who doesn't play that much.

They all have more than one army so I'm lucky to play against qutie a lot of different armies.

Anyway You've given me some ideas of how to do things. It's going to get messy and rough. I often time look at the armies I've played and how much more easy they appear to be. Empire have a lot of high armour save units and cannons. One can even drive around. Access to all lores. WoC are just brutal. Britonnia appear to be just straight forward at the right time, ogres are sort of similar to WoC and dwarfs are.. dwarfs.

Wait, "easy" isn't the right word, but more straight forward in the approach to gameplay. This is just something I have to adapt to and learn to deal with. I think I've played them "wrong" for quite a lot of games, but then again it's quite easy with how our units are ._.

Oh and usually I'm allowed to play with SC, so tetto'eko would be optimal for the COR bus.

Since we're talking about it anyway how about something like this (I suspect it'll be close to Daly's list lol):

@2500pts:

OB w/ piranha blade, Potion of Strenght, Charmed Shield, dawnstone.
OB w/ +4 taliman, dragonhelm (or glittering scales?), great weapon.
SV w/ Armour of Destiny, GW. BSB.
SV w/ steg helmet, Light armour, Luckstone, Ironcurse Icon.
Tetto
LvL 1 Beast Priest w/ scroll.

625 pts of skink cloud core, some small-ish cohort for bunker.


2 units of 3 terradons.

13 CORs w/ musician and champion (for challenges).

2 x sallies w/ snack.

checks in around 2500pts.

By going 6 wide with the CORs I can get maximum damage (w/ predatory fighter it should be around 45-46 attacks with various strenghts).

Going 5 wide would reduce the amount of attacks that can be distributed to the regular COs, but I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to care? The total amount of attacks should be 39 (6-7 less S4 attacks).

What I like about that list is that it's looks brutal as hell. The piranha OB will brutalize anyone with multipe wounds for one round. Get harmonic convergence off with tetto'eko and it's basically GG WP unless the characters die first.

This unit will also, with the help from Tetto'eko, be in CC by turn two at latest. hmm..

This is why I like 2500pts much more than 1500 or 2000pts <.<

**EDIT**

While I do sometimes roll horrible with WoM I have a tendency to roll amazing with other things. I've killed plenty of AS1+ knights with my skinks, parrying like a boss - killed the demon prince in a single phase of close combat with a 154pts expensive scar vet. So it evens out, just in other phases of the game lol.

 

[NexS1]

"One man's cheese is another man's bread and butter." Or something like that.

This quote, in itself, is interesting and true to my experience with WoC mostly.
My issue is with army books that generally have no weaknesses or faults and are "jack of all trades, master of all".

I got leveled by the new wood elves book a few weeks ago in a tourney. It was a mixture of my own weak list, his "cheese" or "hard" list. But as always, the game was decided by his very lucky rolling and my very, very, very, very unlucky rolling, to the point where i was going to forfeit the game because everything went wrong at literally every turn.

I regularly play against WoC with both my high elves and lizardmen armies and get beaten every time. It's not to do with player skill, it's the fact that WoC core is hardy, highly skilled, fast and strong. Beats LM and HE at what they're good at:
High Elves are fast and can put heaps of hits in - Warriors are hardy and highly armoured so very few wounds get through. Mages are on par, but Warriors mages are generally better fighters than most elven soldiers.
Lizardmen are high strength and toughness, but so are Warriors, and they strike first with better armour.

At the end of the day, from my perspective it seems that chaos are very overpowered. ANd while that may be true to an extent, it's also to do with the match up. Warriors of Chaos are a bad match up for both my armies, while Vamps/Tomb kings or dwarfs or empire might have better chances simply because of what they have in their list of choices.


For me, i just roll with the punches and try to find the cheesiest combos to take against them. When I find it, i'll let you know! Haha.


p.s. on the cheese note, I'm thinking lore of life can make T8 sauruses, which is a big old cheese sandwich that tastes delicious

 

[Putzfrau]

WoC are not overpowered. If they were they'd be winning or doing very well in all tournaments. Generally there will be one in the top 10 somewhere but they are far from being over represented.

If anything lizardmen (lately at least) have tended to perform better in tournaments, comped and uncomped.

 

[NexS1]

WoC are not overpowered. If they were they'd be winning or doing very well in all tournaments. Generally there will be one in the top 10 somewhere but they are far from being over represented.

If anything lizardmen (lately at least) have tended to perform better in tournaments, comped and uncomped.

I beg to differ. The slann is a very good wizard - that is for certain. Arguably one of the best non-named wizards in WHFB, but WoC outperform Lizardmen in every other aspect of the game.
A standard chaos warrior is superior in every characteristic and a better armour save. Ignoring lords and heroes (which, without question, WoC have far superior killy characters/mounts/builds/etc), WoC have more point-for-point value.
Let's face it, the life of a combat unit is by its survivability and (usually) the first round of combat is the decider. It's uncommon that a unit vs unit combat will grind out till death. If you don't out number, then you'll often break and get run down.

 

[Mr Phat]

Guys you really need to look at what Chaos DOSNT do good.

Accept this: Chaos Warriors ARE the strongest fighters in the game, and we are FAR from it. The end. Deal with it. if you cant, swap army.

What chaos dont do well is:

- Ranged combat
- Magic lore selection

plus most of the hard lists run relatively few drops.

Doesnt this ring a bell on what to do?

Guerilla warfare.

A Lizzie guy from the danish ETC (i think) met a guy in the league who was considered one of the better WoC players in the world.
They both met with the hardest lists, since this was a championship.
I dont remember the exact list but it was skink heavy, with terradons, sallies and the obligated coldboys.

It is a steep uphill battle to beat chaos in the Close Combat phase, so he didnt try.
Instead he obliterated him in the movement phase.
Do to sheer number advantage and skill he managed to Redirect and decide EVERYTHING do to movement.
The game ended with 1 fleeing chaos warrior surrounded by tons of skinks...everything else wiped from shooting and scar attacks.


The point is: Pick your fights, and only fight where you fight well.


If Chariots dont get to impact hits
if skullcrushers is pulled around and hence rammed in the side by a Scar vet.
If a prince never gets his support
if the main block with the "this wardsave is more like a deathstar forcefield" hero build never gets to swing at anything above 100pts..
If the precious mark of nurgle never sees combat

THEN YOU WIN

Think of it as Regular Boxing Vs Wing Chun.
You will not win in force, you will win in strategy by never getting hit where it hurts.

 

[Mr Phat]

....oh....unless your gonna go batshit crazywith a Coldone bus

as far as I know that one can match everything. (havnt seen a matchup where it was directly outmatched)

 

[NexS1]

Very hood point phat mofo! I'll be taking the positive outlook in my next fight

 

[Pinktaco]

Now I can't wait to play some more vs WoC. Damn exam

I'll force myself to play some more with the skink cloud and eventually have everyone I know hate me for it :3

 

[Myster2]

Your list was very bad for the type of armies you were facing. I wasn't sure what your original post meant were you not trying to build a "hard" list? The issue right now with LM is we need to a decently "hard" list to be on par with the top armies, otherwise just realize that it will be difficult to beat them.

Also at 1500 pts I wouldn't take the slann, go light on the magic (maybe two priests) and do the Oldblood with the 1+ rerollable 4+ ward. If you want a "hard list" only take a single priest and pack the rest of your heroes section with cowboys.

No COR, too expensive and not worth it. Take chameleons.

I didn't read through all of your combats but with the above list this is how i would play against your opponents

1) Against the WE - hide the priest, be okay with losing all your normal skinks right away. Get your cowboys and your lord straight up the field. If he has any vanguarded units, hit them with your cowboys and go for the overun. If you get into combat with a block, challenge. Once the vets are close to hitting the block (turn two) pull everything out of hiding. Make him decide what to shoot. Use the chameleons to kill whatever is most damaging to you.

2) Against the Warriors - Shadow the demon prince with your Oldblood. He can beat him in open combat and costs much less. Redirect the warriors unit with whatever chaff you have and wipe up everything else with the poisoned shooting and cowboys. Come back and combined charge the warriors unit and break it. Be aware that most likely the demon prince and the oldblood will just be sitting in combat all game.

 

[Putzfrau]

WoC are not overpowered. If they were they'd be winning or doing very well in all tournaments. Generally there will be one in the top 10 somewhere but they are far from being over represented.

If anything lizardmen (lately at least) have tended to perform better in tournaments, comped and uncomped.

I beg to differ. The slann is a very good wizard - that is for certain. Arguably one of the best non-named wizards in WHFB, but WoC outperform Lizardmen in every other aspect of the game.
A standard chaos warrior is superior in every characteristic and a better armour save. Ignoring lords and heroes (which, without question, WoC have far superior killy characters/mounts/builds/etc), WoC have more point-for-point value.
Let's face it, the life of a combat unit is by its survivability and (usually) the first round of combat is the decider. It's uncommon that a unit vs unit combat will grind out till death. If you don't out number, then you'll often break and get run down.

Just take a peek at the top 5 of any of the recent major tournaments. WoC haven't been up there since the elf books have come out. WoC are certainly a strong army, but they are by no means significantly stronger then any of the other top tier armies. Lizardmen have been well represented in the two largest warhammer single events (adepticon and SCGT).

I think this all comes back to perception. Competitive Lizardmen are a combat avoidance heavy shooting msu style list. Also, theres a pretty big gap between your top tier competitive lizardmen army and your "average" lizardmen army. Armies like HE, DE, and to a lesser extent WoC have quite a bit of wiggly room in what they can do well with. Lizardmen, unfortunately, dont have that luxury.

 

[NexS1]

Do you tend to hold all your saurus back while you try and wittle down the warriors with javelins?
I tend to go up against lists like:
2 units of warriors with either Tzeentch or nurgle
1+/1+/3++ flying ASF daemon prince
couple of disc riders
couple of chariots
at least one war shrine
probably a unit of knights in there somewhere too

I tend to run saurus heavy, but the skink "cloud" seems to be people's answer to heavier hitters than us.

 

[Putzfrau]

Do you tend to hold all your saurus back while you try and wittle down the warriors with javelins?
I tend to go up against lists like:
2 units of warriors with either Tzeentch or nurgle
1+/1+/3++ flying ASF daemon prince
couple of disc riders
couple of chariots
at least one war shrine
probably a unit of knights in there somewhere too

I tend to run saurus heavy, but the skink "cloud" seems to be people's answer to heavier hitters than us.

Skink cloud is the answer to every list Lizardmen struggle with. Point denial/combat avoidance with a death/WD slann for easy character sniping. Lizardmen have a limited book that has pretty much one answer to everything. Skinks.