AoS Saurus Guards' effectiveness?

[Full Metal Maggot]

Did the lists you face have very limited mortal wounds or where they somehow not focussing the guard? Cuz some of the stuff you're listing there should be more than capable of decimating them fairly reliably (though the princip[le behind the list is good)

No there was plenty of mortal wounds out there. I just prioritized how to kill them / stay away from them until the time was right to strike. Can use skinks to absorb charges, counter with guard, kroak can snipe wizards who do mortals, razordons can delete entire units. It just depends on how you play it. Your opponent is going to want to throw their mortals at your guard so you use them as bait to control their moves while crippling their force with kroak. Bastiladon and razors provide counter punch at the opportune moment. I faced a khorne list and instagibbed the bloodthirster with the basti which was his only source of mortals aside from 3 blood priests. Kept the priests out of range of my stuff and sniped them out with kroak. I let his skullcannon thingies shoot kroak all day. -2 rend still nets him a 4+ save with mystic shield and he's rerolling because of the priests. I can also use the insight to make him reroll high damage rolls if any get through. So that was easy. Second round I faced a Aetherstrike list with 12 vanguard raptors. Positioned myself between some good line of sight blocking terrain and buffed up kroak knowing he'd try to snipe him. Summoned a starpriest instead of the balewind for -1 to hit on the big blob of 9 raptors. Prioritized wounding big units over killing crippled ones so they don't get their free shots on you when you destroy a unit. Next round I faced skyfires, obliterated one unit of 6 down to 1 model. He tried to fold reality and I made him reroll the 6 he rolled. turned it into a 1 and deleted the guy. The other unit of skyfires were dropped to 2 models from my razordons. Easy game after those guys are down. Guard sat there laughing and killing em in melee while smacking around his skin wolves and other stuff charging in. Ended up finishing off the skyfires when they desperation charged in. 4th round I positioned my guard in a bottleneck between mystical terrain pieces so his units trying to come in and shoot at me would risk being stuck there and he didn't want to so he couldn't hurt anything turn 1. My turn came around and I deleted his bird and several heroes / units with kroak and the basti. Razors and skinks took the other side of the board and started chippin away his horrors. 5th round was against a nurgle list that had like 140 pestilens rats, some nurgle heroes, some marauders and plagueclaw catapults. This list should have been charging into me and I had my skinks as a shield with razordons to overwatch but he decided he'd just play for the tie. I'm not sure why. It would've been a much harder game had he bothered coming at me. Was kind of boring spending all turn sitting in our own deployment zones staring at one another. Last game was against an archaon / slaanesh list that had some interesting units in it. He was basically using some command abilities to stack buffs on units making them fight twice. Archaon can't handle saurus guard since he only has rend -1. Lol. He killed a couple with his 6s to save mortal wounds thing but the rest wrecked him with their D3 damage.

 

[Aginor]

No there was plenty of mortal wounds out there. I just prioritized how to kill them / stay away from them until the time was right to strike. Can use skinks to absorb charges, counter with guard, kroak can snipe wizards who do mortals, razordons can delete entire units. It just depends on how you play it. Your opponent is going to want to throw their mortals at your guard so you use them as bait to control their moves while crippling their force with kroak. Bastiladon and razors provide counter punch at the opportune moment. I faced a khorne list and instagibbed the bloodthirster with the basti which was his only source of mortals aside from 3 blood priests. Kept the priests out of range of my stuff and sniped them out with kroak. I let his skullcannon thingies shoot kroak all day. -2 rend still nets him a 4+ save with mystic shield and he's rerolling because of the priests. I can also use the insight to make him reroll high damage rolls if any get through. So that was easy. Second round I faced a Aetherstrike list with 12 vanguard raptors. Positioned myself between some good line of sight blocking terrain and buffed up kroak knowing he'd try to snipe him. Summoned a starpriest instead of the balewind for -1 to hit on the big blob of 9 raptors. Prioritized wounding big units over killing crippled ones so they don't get their free shots on you when you destroy a unit. Next round I faced skyfires, obliterated one unit of 6 down to 1 model. He tried to fold reality and I made him reroll the 6 he rolled. turned it into a 1 and deleted the guy. The other unit of skyfires were dropped to 2 models from my razordons. Easy game after those guys are down. Guard sat there laughing and killing em in melee while smacking around his skin wolves and other stuff charging in. Ended up finishing off the skyfires when they desperation charged in. 4th round I positioned my guard in a bottleneck between mystical terrain pieces so his units trying to come in and shoot at me would risk being stuck there and he didn't want to so he couldn't hurt anything turn 1. My turn came around and I deleted his bird and several heroes / units with kroak and the basti. Razors and skinks took the other side of the board and started chippin away his horrors. 5th round was against a nurgle list that had like 140 pestilens rats, some nurgle heroes, some marauders and plagueclaw catapults. This list should have been charging into me and I had my skinks as a shield with razordons to overwatch but he decided he'd just play for the tie. I'm not sure why. It would've been a much harder game had he bothered coming at me. Was kind of boring spending all turn sitting in our own deployment zones staring at one another. Last game was against an archaon / slaanesh list that had some interesting units in it. He was basically using some command abilities to stack buffs on units making them fight twice. Archaon can't handle saurus guard since he only has rend -1. Lol. He killed a couple with his 6s to save mortal wounds thing but the rest wrecked him with their D3 damage.

Sounds good.
What I wondering about is how to fight units like a Lord Celestant on Dracoth or a Celestant Prime (or another Seraphon player using Kroak) with such a Guard heavy list.
With a tiny bit of luck they can completely obliterate Saurus Guard in 1-2 turns using mortal wounds.
They don't require sight, have good or at least medium range and cannot be unbound. There is literally no defense against them except a mortal wound save.

 

[Seraphage]

@Full Metal Maggot we have lots of Sylvaneth in my meta - 6kurnoth x bows + 2 x3 kurnoth bows. How would you react against them ?

I haven't list build on Eternal yet but 35 threat + woods for tp + mortal from woods * he ll definitely have the chance to place one wood on an objective I'd like to go* seems troubling. Any advice ? * I 'm doing pretty good atm with my Skink Lists just curious for when I ll go back to my sauri

2+ is really good, but that 1 means D3 and the 4+ of the priest is not something to be relied on on everyturn * unless you have some awesome dice right there !

 

[Full Metal Maggot]

@Full Metal Maggot we have lots of Sylvaneth in my meta - 6kurnoth x bows + 2 x3 kurnoth bows. How would you react against them ?

I haven't list build on Eternal yet but 35 threat + woods for tp + mortal from woods * he ll definitely have the chance to place one wood on an objective I'd like to go* seems troubling. Any advice ? * I 'm doing pretty good atm with my Skink Lists just curious for when I ll go back to my sauri

2+ is really good, but that 1 means D3 and the 4+ of the priest is not something to be relied on on everyturn * unless you have some awesome dice right there !

You get up to 4 chances to roll that 4+ with the priests + kroak rerolls. I think I only had 2 turns in all of my games where it failed to go off. Sylvaneth don't scare me. I've never had a problem beating them. The only unit they have that I have to worry about is drycha and maybe alarielle. But if they are bringing alarielle they are probably going to lose on objective points. Lol.

Dracoth/Prime dies to kroak. Guard don't need to bother with them. If the prime is gonna come down on you you need to position spread out so the mortals don't hit all your heroes. It slows the game way down measuring out all your guys at max range
but it is sadly necessary.

 

[Canas]

No there was plenty of mortal wounds out there. I just prioritized how to kill them / stay away from them until the time was right to strike. Can use skinks to absorb charges, counter with guard, kroak can snipe wizards who do mortals, razordons can delete entire units. It just depends on how you play it. Your opponent is going to want to throw their mortals at your guard so you use them as bait to control their moves while crippling their force with kroak. Bastiladon and razors provide counter punch at the opportune moment. I faced a khorne list and instagibbed the bloodthirster with the basti which was his only source of mortals aside from 3 blood priests. Kept the priests out of range of my stuff and sniped them out with kroak. I let his skullcannon thingies shoot kroak all day. -2 rend still nets him a 4+ save with mystic shield and he's rerolling because of the priests. I can also use the insight to make him reroll high damage rolls if any get through. So that was easy. Second round I faced a Aetherstrike list with 12 vanguard raptors. Positioned myself between some good line of sight blocking terrain and buffed up kroak knowing he'd try to snipe him. Summoned a starpriest instead of the balewind for -1 to hit on the big blob of 9 raptors. Prioritized wounding big units over killing crippled ones so they don't get their free shots on you when you destroy a unit. Next round I faced skyfires, obliterated one unit of 6 down to 1 model. He tried to fold reality and I made him reroll the 6 he rolled. turned it into a 1 and deleted the guy. The other unit of skyfires were dropped to 2 models from my razordons. Easy game after those guys are down. Guard sat there laughing and killing em in melee while smacking around his skin wolves and other stuff charging in. Ended up finishing off the skyfires when they desperation charged in. 4th round I positioned my guard in a bottleneck between mystical terrain pieces so his units trying to come in and shoot at me would risk being stuck there and he didn't want to so he couldn't hurt anything turn 1. My turn came around and I deleted his bird and several heroes / units with kroak and the basti. Razors and skinks took the other side of the board and started chippin away his horrors. 5th round was against a nurgle list that had like 140 pestilens rats, some nurgle heroes, some marauders and plagueclaw catapults. This list should have been charging into me and I had my skinks as a shield with razordons to overwatch but he decided he'd just play for the tie. I'm not sure why. It would've been a much harder game had he bothered coming at me. Was kind of boring spending all turn sitting in our own deployment zones staring at one another. Last game was against an archaon / slaanesh list that had some interesting units in it. He was basically using some command abilities to stack buffs on units making them fight twice. Archaon can't handle saurus guard since he only has rend -1. Lol. He killed a couple with his 6s to save mortal wounds thing but the rest wrecked him with their D3 damage.

mm, how much of the succes would you attribute to you fielding an "unusual" army and the enemy not really knowing what to do with it? E.g. that guy with the skullcannons might've had more succes had he shot the guards, a 2+ re-roll with -2 rend becomes a 4+ re-roll which should hit 1 in 4 times. With D6 damage that should chew through your guards at a reasonale rate, especially if he has a bunch of em. Hell, why not shoot the freaking priests first so the re-rolls dissapear, with D6 damage you're liable to oneshot those.

Also, how much of it is just pure luck? Like your bastiladon oneshooting some stuff or the re-roll from a 6 to a 1 you mentioned?


Also, the nurgle guy, didn't he have the banner that causes those rats to bleed mortal wounds or is that other one considered better? With 140 of em that should actually be a threat to your guards.

 

[Full Metal Maggot]

I stood my guard in cover so they still had 3+ against the cannons. Priests are small enough you can hide from LOS easy enough and the cannons are only 7 wounds so die by turn 2.

It's not about luck. A big part of list building is based around minimizing how much your army relies on luck. (Which is why tzeentch is just stupid)

Not sure what nurgle guy was doing. Seemed simultaneously experienced and noob. Prolly a veteran but learning maggotkin still.

Most people I've played said they know what all my stuff does. Not sure how unusual it is or if it's throwing people off. It's effective though.

 

[Canas]

I stood my guard in cover so they still had 3+ against the cannons. Priests are small enough you can hide from LOS easy enough and the cannons are only 7 wounds so die by turn 2.

It's not about luck. A big part of list building is based around minimizing how much your army relies on luck. (Which is why tzeentch is just stupid)

Not sure what nurgle guy was doing. Seemed simultaneously experienced and noob. Prolly a veteran but learning maggotkin still.

Most people I've played said they know what all my stuff does. Not sure how unusual it is or if it's throwing people off. It's effective though.

Those cannons are surprisingly easy to kill then. With its range advantage I would've expected those to last quite long and be able to just hammer away at you. How many did he field?

Of course, luck alone won't get you 5 matches (or well, it shouldn't..) And the list itself is definitly viable and stable. But luck can definitly change a slight advantage into a decisive victory. Hence why I asked.

There's a difference between "knowing" roughly what a unit does and what it's role is and being used to fighting a particular setup.Ah well, try a couple more tournaments and see how effective it remains.