8th Ed. Power builds among friends - a discussion

[JWK47]

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.

This times 1000. I hate to be the guy who breaks it to yall but 90% of the conversations about what is good and workable in the lizard army book on this forum are pointless. If you want to play competitively go cloud or go home.

This is why I'm moving away from Lizards, the internal balance is off the charts terrible.

 

[Sleboda]

At least it is miles ahead of Tomb Kings.

I know I complain about Tomb Kings pretty regularly, but one good thing about having played with them for many years is that Lizardmen feel, to me, like a whole new world of flexibility, options, and fun.

In other words, you kids don't know how spoiled you are to be playing with Lizardmen.

Now, get off my lawn.

 

[Putzfrau]

This times 1000. I hate to be the guy who breaks it to yall but 90% of the conversations about what is good and workable in the lizard army book on this forum are pointless. If you want to play competitively go cloud or go home.

This is why I'm moving away from Lizards, the internal balance is off the charts terrible.

Aw that's too bad, I really enjoyed your podcast about the book and about your adepticon games.

Regardless I can still totally understand. It's a very limited book.

 

[Mr Phat]

Agreed.

Even though the Cold One Bus seems to have things going for it, and big units of krox do good...its still a stretch.

1 krox = 10 skinks.............hmmf

 

[SilverFaith]

I personally prefer Saurus. I know it is inferior, but Meh. Skinks are boring, and make the game lose all kinds of fun, when the entire strategy is cheese-incarnate. You have a Nurgle Greater Demon, buffed up to bhave 10T? Oh look, poisons! You just lost 500 points to 120 points of skinks you did not even get into close combat with (and this is an actual scenario from the last mini tourney I was part of.)

And to be quite honest, I would much rather play a list I enjoy, with models that I enjoy, but lose every game. Luckily, I don't lose every game, though. In fact, I have, with a total of 28 games, a perfect 50 % win rate. Even the new wood elves have been munched by my saurus, and the only ones that really fuck me up, is high elves, because the HE player spams WL and that banner of unbalanced brokenness they have. They could MAYBE be handled by skinks, but I frankly don't care. Not going to fight cheese with cheese - I just refuse to play him if his entire special choice is filled with WL and his dragon banner. If he refuses to play anyone with SCs, he can go suck it if he expects to have an easy time finding opponents with a list like that.

While we are on that subject, why disallow SCs in the first place? I don't get it. To me, that's equivalent to banning an item or unit in your army book.

 

[Pinktaco]

It was our first time with this so that's what they suggested. Not like I'm super bummed by it though.

Anyway saying a skink cloud is cheese is sort of wrong. It can be highly effective, yes, but it also requires a certain amount of skills. One can't simply spam skinks and achieve victory. I still find redirecting much harder than just charging ahead. Using skinks is just a strategic way or controlling the movemwnet phase and taking out one important unit a time while distracting the rest.

It's just a different way of playing.

Also, if you have a 500pts model with no saves at all and put him near silly 12" range units you've done goofed. Just think about for a second. We have no artillery and the model can probably fly (?).

 

[Myster2]

It was our first time with this so that's what they suggested. Not like I'm super bummed by it though.

Anyway saying a skink cloud is cheese is sort of wrong. It can be highly effective, yes, but it also requires a certain amount of skills. One can't simply spam skinks and achieve victory. I still find redirecting much harder than just charging ahead. Using skinks is just a strategic way or controlling the movemwnet phase and taking out one important unit a time while distracting the rest.

It's just a different way of playing.

Also, if you have a 500pts model with no saves at all and put him near silly 12" range units you've done goofed. Just think about for a second. We have no artillery and the model can probably fly (?).

I agree with you completely, skinks are our replacement for cannons and they are much less reliable. I can also attest to not being able to spam skinks to achieve victory. One of the first tournaments I did was a 3 day event and i brought a modified skink cloud list i found on the interweb because I had no idea what i was doing (i still don't but I can fake it now). I think i went 0-4-1. I believe i had something like 3 cohorts, 4 skirmisher units, 20 chameleons. I just didn't know how to keep them alive. It seemed like every game turn 1 i would be down by at least half of my skinks.

Also the great unclean one has 6 wounds and a 5+ ward save. It's going to take a few turns of shooting on average to poison him down. Thats no different then taking a cannon ball and the opponent rolling a 6, and that can happen on turn 1 with absolutely nothing that can be done about it. At least with skinks you get a chance.

 

[SilverFaith]

It was our first time with this so that's what they suggested. Not like I'm super bummed by it though.

Anyway saying a skink cloud is cheese is sort of wrong. It can be highly effective, yes, but it also requires a certain amount of skills. One can't simply spam skinks and achieve victory. I still find redirecting much harder than just charging ahead. Using skinks is just a strategic way or controlling the movemwnet phase and taking out one important unit a time while distracting the rest.

It's just a different way of playing.

Also, if you have a 500pts model with no saves at all and put him near silly 12" range units you've done goofed. Just think about for a second. We have no artillery and the model can probably fly (?).

I agree with you completely, skinks are our replacement for cannons and they are much less reliable. I can also attest to not being able to spam skinks to achieve victory. One of the first tournaments I did was a 3 day event and i brought a modified skink cloud list i found on the interweb because I had no idea what i was doing (i still don't but I can fake it now). I think i went 0-4-1. I believe i had something like 3 cohorts, 4 skirmisher units, 20 chameleons. I just didn't know how to keep them alive. It seemed like every game turn 1 i would be down by at least half of my skinks.

Also the great unclean one has 6 wounds and a 5+ ward save. It's going to take a few turns of shooting on average to poison him down. Thats no different then taking a cannon ball and the opponent rolling a 6, and that can happen on turn 1 with absolutely nothing that can be done about it. At least with skinks you get a chance.

Don't have enough skinks for a skink cloud, unfortunately, but the one game where I made a pseudo skink cloud list (fielding about 50 skirmishers), I demolished the local VC player. He had no way of catching me, and his expensive lord on foot, fully kitted out, got shot down before he reached combat. The VC player was annoyed, and I was bored out of my mind.

SCs bring flavour, though, and disallowing them, while allowing the so-called "cheese" builds, kind of makes you a hypocrite. If you can tell me I am not allowed to use Tetto, our only viable non-lord caster, then I should be equally allowed to say you aren't allowed Banner of the World Dragon.

At least to me, there is no difference - Both things are "uniques" present in each army book.

 

[Kblock]

I personally prefer Saurus. I know it is inferior, but Meh. Skinks are boring, and make the game lose all kinds of fun, when the entire strategy is cheese-incarnate. You have a Nurgle Greater Demon, buffed up to bhave 10T? Oh look, poisons! You just lost 500 points to 120 points of skinks you did not even get into close combat with (and this is an actual scenario from the last mini tourney I was part of.)

And to be quite honest, I would much rather play a list I enjoy, with models that I enjoy, but lose every game. Luckily, I don't lose every game, though. In fact, I have, with a total of 28 games, a perfect 50 % win rate. Even the new wood elves have been munched by my saurus, and the only ones that really I swear too much me up, is high elves, because the HE player spams WL and that banner of unbalanced brokenness they have. They could MAYBE be handled by skinks, but I frankly don't care. Not going to fight cheese with cheese - I just refuse to play him if his entire special choice is filled with WL and his dragon banner. If he refuses to play anyone with SCs, he can go suck it if he expects to have an easy time finding opponents with a list like that.

While we are on that subject, why disallow SCs in the first place? I don't get it. To me, that's equivalent to banning an item or unit in your army book.

I agree with this. One reason I chose to play Lizardmen is because of the fluff and the models. I like playing a balanced army, and the mighty Slann leading his army of Saurus and Temple Guard with Skink, Cold Ones, and Dinos as support units appeals to me because of the fluff. I do not play tournaments, and while I like to win, I also like to play an army I like. I will not win all my games, but I always have fun.

 

[Pinktaco]

It was our first time with this so that's what they suggested. Not like I'm super bummed by it though.

Anyway saying a skink cloud is cheese is sort of wrong. It can be highly effective, yes, but it also requires a certain amount of skills. One can't simply spam skinks and achieve victory. I still find redirecting much harder than just charging ahead. Using skinks is just a strategic way or controlling the movemwnet phase and taking out one important unit a time while distracting the rest.

It's just a different way of playing.

Also, if you have a 500pts model with no saves at all and put him near silly 12" range units you've done goofed. Just think about for a second. We have no artillery and the model can probably fly (?).

I agree with you completely, skinks are our replacement for cannons and they are much less reliable. I can also attest to not being able to spam skinks to achieve victory. One of the first tournaments I did was a 3 day event and i brought a modified skink cloud list i found on the interweb because I had no idea what i was doing (i still don't but I can fake it now). I think i went 0-4-1. I believe i had something like 3 cohorts, 4 skirmisher units, 20 chameleons. I just didn't know how to keep them alive. It seemed like every game turn 1 i would be down by at least half of my skinks.

Also the great unclean one has 6 wounds and a 5+ ward save. It's going to take a few turns of shooting on average to poison him down. Thats no different then taking a cannon ball and the opponent rolling a 6, and that can happen on turn 1 with absolutely nothing that can be done about it. At least with skinks you get a chance.

Don't have enough skinks for a skink cloud, unfortunately, but the one game where I made a pseudo skink cloud list (fielding about 50 skirmishers), I demolished the local VC player. He had no way of catching me, and his expensive lord on foot, fully kitted out, got shot down before he reached combat. The VC player was annoyed, and I was bored out of my mind.

SCs bring flavour, though, and disallowing them, while allowing the so-called "cheese" builds, kind of makes you a hypocrite. If you can tell me I am not allowed to use Tetto, our only viable non-lord caster, then I should be equally allowed to say you aren't allowed Banner of the World Dragon.

At least to me, there is no difference - Both things are "uniques" present in each army book.

I think the difference here is that not all tournies accept SCs and some people might consider them "too good without actually knowing what they're up against. Yes I know it might be ridiculous, but as I said it didn't matter much to me.

Anyway, so you're saying that an undead player had nothing to say? Isn't that EXACTLY what I was saying in the OP though? - That I had/have no idea how to beat X army. We then concluded that the fault is mine and I should try something else and get better.

So put in another way. You found it boring to play the skink cloud because your opponent got smashed.
My friend might find it boring to play his WoC the way he does because he usually smashes me.

If both I and the VC player got better at dealing with that particular setup the game wouldn't be "boring", it would be interesting because suddenly he's opposing you with a challenge and you have to carefully use your skinks.

Obviously you're allowed to play other type of combinations of our units, but I'd hardly say our skinks are cheesy just because they can poison something.


Just think about this for a moment - 200 javelin shots will produce 32 poison attacks of which only 5 will result in a wound against black knights. At 2500pts we can have 9 units of 10 skink skirmishers (javelins) doing the obvious 90 shots a round (if within range of course). So realistic speaking if we assume he isn't within shooting range before turn two you'd have to dedicate every single one of those skirmish units to fire for 2 whole shooting phases/2 rounds. By that we're in turn 3 and have used all our shots to only kill off few knights (who can be resurrected).

A VC army might not have anything in the ways of shooting or many magic missiles, but they have a ton of chaff:

- Dire Wolves (M9).
- Fell Bats (M10).
- Spirit Host (M6, can't be shot).
- Hexwraiths (M8, can't be shot).
- Cairn Wraiths (M6, can't be shot).

All are at least as fast as our skinks (assuming general is near) and over half can't be shot by them.

Not to mention he can have a lot of big blocks in core and the black knights and the fact that he can "always" ressurect fallen models.

We can always double flee from our one unit, but eventually he's gonna catch up, especially since he can have small fast units in core, special and rare.

AND HOW ON EARTH CAN A LORD ON FOOD BE SHOT?!?!? Was he standing alone minding his own business? If you're bunkering the lord you better make sure he's well protected.

 

[SilverFaith]

His lord was in a zombie block, which got shot to death by turn 3, leaving him on his own.

I didn't have a full cloud, and my CoR took care of his heavy cavalry. Likewise, knowing my enemy, I had plenty of skink chiefs to take care of his ethereals, that i also made sure to shoot down with magic whenever I had the chance.

 

[NexS1]

I personally prefer Saurus. I know it is inferior, but Meh. Skinks are boring, and make the game lose all kinds of fun, when the entire strategy is cheese-incarnate. You have a Nurgle Greater Demon, buffed up to bhave 10T? Oh look, poisons! You just lost 500 points to 120 points of skinks you did not even get into close combat with (and this is an actual scenario from the last mini tourney I was part of.)

And to be quite honest, I would much rather play a list I enjoy, with models that I enjoy, but lose every game. Luckily, I don't lose every game, though. In fact, I have, with a total of 28 games, a perfect 50 % win rate. Even the new wood elves have been munched by my saurus, and the only ones that really I swear too much me up, is high elves, because the HE player spams WL and that banner of unbalanced brokenness they have. They could MAYBE be handled by skinks, but I frankly don't care. Not going to fight cheese with cheese - I just refuse to play him if his entire special choice is filled with WL and his dragon banner. If he refuses to play anyone with SCs, he can go suck it if he expects to have an easy time finding opponents with a list like that.

While we are on that subject, why disallow SCs in the first place? I don't get it. To me, that's equivalent to banning an item or unit in your army book.

When I play my HE, I always take the banner of the world dragon on my main special choice unit (usually either white lions or swordmasters) because it's the only way to keep an overly expensive unit alive. Elves are damn expensive, very weak and relatively unarmoured, though i'm still afraid of units. Or a light breeze...
The other main reason i take the banner is to protect the unit from miscast damage because elves rely so heavily on magic, so the miscast come flowing in. My theory is, Elves get one cheesy item, whereas the likes of vampire counts, daemons, warriors, and dwarfs have a book full of cheesy stuff.
Without it, I'd lose nearly every single game I play (i normally play against power gamer with warriors or empire).

(edit: for reference i'd usually go something like:
3x 15 archers
2x 5 reavers
1x 20-25 white lions/swordmasters with BotWD or phoenix guard w. razor banner
frost phoenix
2x bolt throwers
eagles
and characters where points allow)

 

[RipperDerek]

This thread touches something of a sore spot of mine...

I think the fun part of this hobby is trying come up with the most efficient, effective builds I can, and then back them up with the most effective, clever tactics I can.

To that end, I prefer if my opponents play the "hardest" lists they can. I think the game is the most fun when everyone is doing their utmost to win, and forcing you to rethink the way you do things to see if you can find a way to do it better.

Similarly, I'm always sad when I see people upset that other people are playing to win, or encouraging other people to deliberately play less than their best. People who complain about "cheesy" lists are one of my pet peeves; as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing.

 

[Sleboda]

Sing it, Brother Derek.

No offense to others, but if I could have Ten Warhammer Wishes, one would be to get people to stop using the word "cheesy" and describing things as WAAC, powergamer, or other things of the sort.

Try to be your best. Be kind. Be generous. Be all those things a good sport should be, but for eff's sake, don't be ashamed to try to succeed within the rules to best of your ability, and when people get upset with you for doing so, realize that the problem is theirs (they failed to know what a "game" is) and not yours.

Amen.

 

[Pinktaco]

His lord was in a zombie block, which got shot to death by turn 3, leaving him on his own.

I didn't have a full cloud, and my CoR took care of his heavy cavalry. Likewise, knowing my enemy, I had plenty of skink chiefs to take care of his ethereals, that i also made sure to shoot down with magic whenever I had the chance.

So you had tailored your list? That makes a world of difference. I still don't see this happening often though. If you put a lord in a zombie unit you better make sure he stays alive. Zombies are 3pts a piece - 80 of the suckers are only 240pts. With 50 Skinks focus firing on them it would take 6 rounds of shooting to remove 72 models (assuming long range). A lord can be equipped with shield, heavy armour, dragonhelm and talisman 4+ward. He would have to take 100 shots alone to die, unless he have the +1 wound vamp power. That's not assuming he actually raised roughly 7 zombies a turn and gain a wound on the Lord for every successful spell that gets off.

I also believe zombies are used for tarpits and skeletons as bunkers.

Anyway as I said I don't believe this is that common under normal circumstances.

If you don't want to use skinks this way it's quite fine, we all have our preferences and if you're bored with skinks then that's just that

 

[Pinktaco]

This thread touches something of a sore spot of mine...

I think the fun part of this hobby is trying come up with the most efficient, effective builds I can, and then back them up with the most effective, clever tactics I can.

To that end, I prefer if my opponents play the "hardest" lists they can. I think the game is the most fun when everyone is doing their utmost to win, and forcing you to rethink the way you do things to see if you can find a way to do it better.

Similarly, I'm always sad when I see people upset that other people are playing to win, or encouraging other people to deliberately play less than their best. People who complain about "cheesy" lists are one of my pet peeves; as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing.

I agree to a certain extent. In a game between friends you're looking forward to have fun. Getting purple sun off down your flank turn one isn't fun. It isn't even particular good play, it just shows that you know how to throw 6 dice.

I've never asked someone to take weaker units, although I must admit looking at the Woc book I'd probably try something different than what my friend does and maybe that's what is sort of annoying me. He have been having so much success with his skullcrushers and chimera that he can't leave home without and there are tons of options in that book he haven't bothered to try out yet. Personally I've tried every unit in the LM book with the exception of swarms and the trog)(I will soon though). Obviously we're all different so I should probably just try to chill.

With that said I've asked him to bring his Woc next time. I want to be able to beat them <.<

 

[Dancing with Saurus2]

I think power builds among friends is absolutely fine. People are different and play the game in a different ways and this variety enriches Warhammer. What I'd say though is that fairness should be a consideration as well. Some things are broken in the game and some things can be played in such a way (which probably wasn't the original intention) to give people what is verging on an unsportsman-like advantage. If this results in an almost pre-meditated victory then this cheapens the win in my mind. This is particularly pertinent among friends because presumably you want them to continue gaming with you and to remain your friend ... although there have been times .

When I game with a mate he'll often agree not to take Purple Sun if I don't take Dwellers. It changes the game but for our purposes it improves our enjoyment.

Now tourneys are a different situation all together

 

[SilverFaith]

His lord was in a zombie block, which got shot to death by turn 3, leaving him on his own.

I didn't have a full cloud, and my CoR took care of his heavy cavalry. Likewise, knowing my enemy, I had plenty of skink chiefs to take care of his ethereals, that i also made sure to shoot down with magic whenever I had the chance.

So you had tailored your list? That makes a world of difference. I still don't see this happening often though. If you put a lord in a zombie unit you better make sure he stays alive. Zombies are 3pts a piece - 80 of the suckers are only 240pts. With 50 Skinks focus firing on them it would take 6 rounds of shooting to remove 72 models (assuming long range). A lord can be equipped with shield, heavy armour, dragonhelm and talisman 4+ward. He would have to take 100 shots alone to die, unless he have the +1 wound vamp power. That's not assuming he actually raised roughly 7 zombies a turn and gain a wound on the Lord for every successful spell that gets off.

I also believe zombies are used for tarpits and skeletons as bunkers.

Anyway as I said I don't believe this is that common under normal circumstances.

If you don't want to use skinks this way it's quite fine, we all have our preferences and if you're bored with skinks then that's just that

Only because I have to against VC. Lizardmen have barely any magical damage around, all focused on your heroes or lords, with the exception from the lone revered guardian. When he always runs at least 6 units of ethereals, it is either "Tailor your list to have a fighting chance", or just hand him the victory before deployment.

So basically, considering I had 4 loses with not even a slim chance of victory against him the first 4 times, we agreed that either I get to tailor my list to include magic weapons, or I wont play against him. Might just be me that have no idea how to handle ethereals, but I just do not see anything in our book that makes it possible to fight so many units of "your skinks will stand there until the game ends, they die, or get overrun."

Also, with regards to Banner of the World Dragon, and your "expensive" units, I feel I have to ask: Are you actually a lizardmen player? Because White Lions are 13 points per model, where TGs are 14 points. WL have better WS, same strength but GW (so better anyway), better initiative, and doesn't get ASL from GWs, can attack in an extra rank, so they get almost as many attacks as well, better movement speed, and somehow manages to have better armour against ranged attacks as well. TGs have better toughness, and in close combat, have 1 better armour save. And of course, they have "better" leadership because of Cold Blooded, and have a 1/6 chance of getting an additional attack from the first rank only.

I'm sorry if this sounds too "mad", but I just have a sore spot for this kind of horrible balance WHF have sometimes. It is just too obvious that the creator of the HE book favours them quite a bit.

 

[Pinktaco]

His lord was in a zombie block, which got shot to death by turn 3, leaving him on his own.

I didn't have a full cloud, and my CoR took care of his heavy cavalry. Likewise, knowing my enemy, I had plenty of skink chiefs to take care of his ethereals, that i also made sure to shoot down with magic whenever I had the chance.

So you had tailored your list? That makes a world of difference. I still don't see this happening often though. If you put a lord in a zombie unit you better make sure he stays alive. Zombies are 3pts a piece - 80 of the suckers are only 240pts. With 50 Skinks focus firing on them it would take 6 rounds of shooting to remove 72 models (assuming long range). A lord can be equipped with shield, heavy armour, dragonhelm and talisman 4+ward. He would have to take 100 shots alone to die, unless he have the +1 wound vamp power. That's not assuming he actually raised roughly 7 zombies a turn and gain a wound on the Lord for every successful spell that gets off.

I also believe zombies are used for tarpits and skeletons as bunkers.

Anyway as I said I don't believe this is that common under normal circumstances.

If you don't want to use skinks this way it's quite fine, we all have our preferences and if you're bored with skinks then that's just that

Only because I have to against VC. Lizardmen have barely any magical damage around, all focused on your heroes or lords, with the exception from the lone revered guardian. When he always runs at least 6 units of ethereals, it is either "Tailor your list to have a fighting chance", or just hand him the victory before deployment.

So basically, considering I had 4 loses with not even a slim chance of victory against him the first 4 times, we agreed that either I get to tailor my list to include magic weapons, or I wont play against him. Might just be me that have no idea how to handle ethereals, but I just do not see anything in our book that makes it possible to fight so many units of "your skinks will stand there until the game ends, they die, or get overrun."

That's highly dependable on how you build your armies. I'm also no certain how etheral units a regular VC army consists of, but it sounds as if he went a little overboard and have forced your hand.

Also as have been discussed here - we're supposed to be avoiding the opponent, I know it can be hard with highly mobile etheral units, but on the other hand VC have zero ranged weapons, with the exception of a few screams here and there. Their lore is mostly augments with a single missile and vortex AFAIK.

In other words you can sacrifice skinks to hold up some etheral units and magic missile the fast ones. Most etheral units have 1-2 wounds and none of them have any armour save (except the mounted ones who have a 6+).
With wandering deliberation you can probably get 2 magic missiles off each magic phase (since they're of so low casting value). On average 2 magic missiles should get you 6 hits and 4 wounds.

Once you've removed enough wounds on a unit you can auto-delete it with ranks + banners due to the crumble rule.

ALL of them have T3, no armour and WS3. The spirit hosts have 4A, 4W/base and will probably be the hardest to deal with if he goes full retard with them.
Cairn wraiths only have a couple of wounds so assuming he only have 3 models in one unit you can probably remove 4 wounds from a single magic phase and use saurus with ranks to kill it. It might do 1-2 wounds on a saurus unit in which case it'll be dead once CR have been resolved.

Getting an oldblood with piranha blade, potion of strenght and dawnstone will generally be good vs most armies and kill any etherals he'll pass by. On average he'll do 6 wounds pr combat phase and always hit first against the GW wielding etherals.

At 2500pts you can easily field Slann w/ WD and an OB w/ Piranha, PoS, Charmed Shield, Dawnstone.

but tbh it appears as if have specifically "exploited" your weakness and pumped out a lot of etheral units. 6 of those will be most of his point left over from core and characters ?

 

[C-row Rogi]

Hi everybody!
I'm a long time reader, and this is my first time posting a comment.
This thread about power builds caught my attention, and somehow seems to be a viable channel for letting of some steam (no, I'm not going to burst into a frenzy and only complain about how unfair the balancing in WFB is - no offence intended). ;-)

I got back into the hobby about a year ago, and my main opponent has been a HE player. When we play we usually agree to bring all-comers ETC lists; lists that you'd bring to a tournament and such. So we're not tailoring our lists specifically for the army the other one plays. In that context, a power build is quite okay. But everytime, every single time, I struggle with the HE (truth be told I haven't beaten my opponent yet - I am fairly new to the hobby). It just seems to me that High Elves is quite a bad match-up for Lizardmen. They got great mobility, great magic, great shooting, ASF, monsters, martial prowess, great weapon skill etc. og that is all just fine - a challenge, yes, but I tend to think in the lines of what phat-motha said - what they doesn't do good and exploit there weaknesses. However the only severe weakness I can think of is that most of them are rather squishy. It seems to me, that their book have tried to compensate quite a bit for the fact, that they're only T3, and I just can't find the same kind of compensation in the lizardmen book. But that's actually not what I want to address. What I want to address is that, it's all fine when there is at least one way of handling your opponents units. It should somehow be possible to find a way to deal with everything and not have to tailor your list to deal with a single very specific unit. It doesn't have to be easy or anything like that, it just has to be somewhat doable. What I'm thinking of is actually in the lines of the ethereal discussion - if you can't do anything, then it simply isn't fun. For instance, in our last game, my opponent fielded a nice silver helm bus, with lots of fighty characters, some death-mages, and (of course) BotWD. In another words that bus killed everything it just looked at in CC, the 2+ AS completely negated my skink's heroic efforts and the banner made the use of magic futile. I simply couldn't think of any way to deal with it with my list. Actually, the only ways I could of was by using Final Transformation, Dwellers Below or a non-magical cannon. The cannon is by obvious reasons not a solution, and the spell-options will force me to abandon Wandering Deliberations or Focus of Mystery (yes yes, I know it... Contemplations could be the answer, but that's just really unreliable... really...), and in an all-comers list i do believe those to options are the best choices for magic. My point is, that to deal with that (very) hard bus-build I would have to use some spells that seems to be complained about quite a bit. "Dwellers is an all too easy solution and you don't have to be good at the game to cause a miscast"-sort of argument. But to deal with hard builds you'll have to use hard choices which, in my book, is synonymous with minimizing risk and minimizing your opponents opportunities to interfere. Take the canon - there is a chance of misfiring, which is a risk you'll have to take; it can actually blow itself up. Take Dwellers - You need to quite a bit of power dice to force it through, and your opponent has a chance to interfere with your casting attempt. The High Elves bus: Movement 9 = my opponent chooses the CC matchups, 2+ AS = Skinks not an option, 2++ vs. magic = Slann can't do nothin'! In other words: My opponent takes NO risk at all by bringing and, more importantly, 'using' that Silver Helm unit and I have NO way of interfering with the success of that unit on the battlefield. Anyone able to offer any solutions to this problem?

So, to sum up: I think the definition of power build needs to be centered in the discussion of risk and possible interference. So if you could discuss the power build with your opponent and you could agree upon, that there have to be more than one very specific way of dealing with a unit. Like the only option I could think of to deal with the Silver Helms is to roll the sixth spell in a single lore, that I have to choose specifically to deal with that one unit, thus limiting everything else magic-wise in my army, then perhaps it is too narrow a range of options to deal with that unit. Thus, my opponents choice carriers with it little risk for him (there really isn't a lot of bad match-ups for that unit), and carries a minimal opportunity for me to interfere = power build. If you could somehow agree upon being aware of the notions of risk and interference when building your lists, then perhaps it would make for more interesting/fun battles?

Hmm... This ended up being a quite a lengthy comment, with quite a bit of ranting along the way. Anyway, it was my thoughts on the power build. I do apologize for any misspellings, weird placing of words, bad grammar, horrible punctuations, a general level of incomprehensibility etc, as I haven't written in english for quite a lot of years.

Cheers!