8th Ed. thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation camp

[lambobolt]

Evening to all my fellow lizzie players!

Wasn’t sure if this fits better in the army lists or tactics forums, and I chose tactics since I have a couple specific questions.

This is turn 2 of our escalation campaign. We roll random scenario at start of game, so I need to account for scenarios like blood and glory.
I play against Dark Elves, and we are at 1250points. Here is my tentative list at this point. I’m not able to change everything in the lists. We limit the changes from one turn to the next as “can change 1 lord, and change 1 hero, and change 2 core, and change 1 special, and change 1 rare”. The idea is to prevent people from completely tailoring their list against the next turn opponent, but still allow us to make modifications.

Slann mage, becalming cogitation (figure he will have a DE sorc lord, and usually plays with shadow), dispel scroll. My thoughts are that he tends to go very high magic, so expecting to see a general level 4 sorc. So scroll and cogitation, assuming I can get within 24” of his caster.

Question 1: is it overkill taking a slann at 1250 points?

Question 2: which lore is best for me to use? Initially I had light, but now im leaning towards life. Shadow is another decent choice since ill be using lots of shooting and shadow can lower his toughness to let more shots cause wounds.

Question 3: do I run the slann on its own, or drop it in the saurus warriors below?

Skink priest, level 1, ruby ring: just in case he has hydras, this can cause fire damage to get through regeneration

30 saurus warriors, standard and musician. HW/shield. The only true combat unit I’ve got, and need a banner in case of blood and glory scenario.

11 skink skirmishers blow pipes
11 skink skirmishers jav and shield. Got one of each unit just since I’m learning to play lizzies, and see which works best.

2 blocks of 5 chameleon skinks. These worked great last game vs ogres.
Question 4: Against DE, do I need both blocks? He does play with a cauldron of blood at higher points, not sure he can fit it in at 1250pts.

3 salamander packs. This is basically what I added from last week (we add 250 points each turn). I also dropped a saurus scar vet and skrox block to fit in the slann.
Question 5: will sallie pack do well against dark elves in low points? I figure he would have at least 1 block of 20 repeater crossbows, and either a block of spearmen or corsairs. He always has at least 1 hydra and cant fit a second one at 1250 points, thank goodness.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and feedback!

 

[erians]

Re: thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation

Slann mage, becalming cogitation (figure he will have a DE sorc lord, and usually plays with shadow), dispel scroll. My thoughts are that he tends to go very high magic, so expecting to see a general level 4 sorc. So scroll and cogitation, assuming I can get within 24” of his caster.

I'd rather take rumination or possibly mystery if I could only chose 1 discipline. With rumination you can just out muscle his magic phase easily, while if you stick with cogitation and he doesn't field a magic heavy list then you just waste a lot of points. Since a lot of level 4 sorcs are flying he can easily avoid the 24" cogitation bubble, its a much less reliable defence than rumination is a reliable offence.

Question 1: is it overkill taking a slann at 1250 points?

Not any more overkill than taking a level 4 sorceress. Dark Elves are very powerful so if he goes for a competitive army then you pretty much need a slann just to stay in the game. Give him DPoP as well to protect against magic and shooting.

Question 2: which lore is best for me to use? Initially I had light, but now im leaning towards life. Shadow is another decent choice since ill be using lots of shooting and shadow can lower his toughness to let more shots cause wounds.

Life. Life is very all around, while lights strength lies completely with its buffs. With only 1 CC unit I'd rather take Life. Shadow is pretty crappy, and most of your shooting is from skinks who mainly deals damage through poison (so T doesn't matter). Death has better spells overall and a 24" AOE T & S reducing hex if you really want to lower your opponents T. When it comes to killing single models, like enemy chars or hydras, Death is king. Spirit Leech does an well against a LD6 hydra, purple sun is sweet against In 2 hydra but rather crappy against everything else.

Question 3: do I run the slann on its own, or drop it in the saurus warriors below?

Do whats needed to keep a balance between being safe and having good positioning for spell casting. You can stick him in skinks, saurus or even cammos as long as above criteria is met.

Skink priest, level 1, ruby ring: just in case he has hydras, this can cause fire damage to get through regeneration

Bound spells can't be boosted, so 1D6 S4 against a T5, 4+ save target? You will deal an avarage of ~0.7 wounds, not terribly effective and very costly. Scar vet with burning blade is a much better hydra killer.

30 saurus warriors, standard and musician. HW/shield. The only true combat unit I’ve got, and need a banner in case of blood and glory scenario.

11 skink skirmishers blow pipes
11 skink skirmishers jav and shield. Got one of each unit just since I’m learning to play lizzies, and see which works best.

Great attitude. Too many players don't bother testing the stuff that isn't immediately striking them as effective.

2 blocks of 5 chameleon skinks. These worked great last game vs ogres.
Question 4: Against DE, do I need both blocks? He does play with a cauldron of blood at higher points, not sure he can fit it in at 1250pts.

Cammos are great at many things, but they get CRUSHED by shades, so watch out. They are still good against DE so I'd keep them.

3 salamander packs. This is basically what I added from last week (we add 250 points each turn). I also dropped a saurus scar vet and skrox block to fit in the slann.
Question 5: will sallie pack do well against dark elves in low points? I figure he would have at least 1 block of 20 repeater crossbows, and either a block of spearmen or corsairs. He always has at least 1 hydra and cant fit a second one at 1250 points, thank goodness.

If he takes any infantry at all they will easily earn their points back. Overall the list looks good, good luck and have fun !

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and feedback!

 

[lambobolt]

Re: thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation

Hey Erians,
Thanks for the quick response, and great advice.

Good ideas. Actually I had started with Focus of Mystery, and talked myself out of it, but that is because I was thinking of using Light magic. Now that I am going to use Life, Loremaster is a little more significant, so thanks. Rumination is also good, to help ensure I dominate during my magic phase. But my initial thoughts on Cogitation was for the defensive aspect to keep him from throwing 6+ dice to get that one big spell off with irresistible. So I guess I really need to decide which way to go” offensive (rumination), versatility (mystery), or defensive (cogitation).

#1. Yep, im quite confident he will spend the points on DE sorc lord, so I do need to take the Slann just to keep up during magic phase. And I forgot all about DPoP, so I traded that for the dispel scroll.

#2, pretty sure ill go with Life now. So thanks.

#3. Yep, I guess I need to see what his comp is and how he deploys to know where to put the Slann

#4. Hadn’t thought about a scar vet with burning blade. My thought was the skink priest so I could get Ice Shard Blizzard expecting him to have repeater crossbow unit, and the ring was just there to throw a flaming spell on hydra to follow up with other spells. But your right, not much chance of wounding, so why spend dice on that when I have other better uses for power dice.

So ill play with the points and make some of these changes, and see how the list comes out now. Thanks again! Looking forward to my game against him on Monday evening.

 

[Alvincacti]

Re: thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation

But my initial thoughts on Cogitation was for the defensive aspect to keep him from throwing 6+ dice to get that one big spell off with irresistible.

Be careful with cogitation against DE L4's as if you remove their 6's to cast they can throw all of their dice at a single spell without risking a miscast. So although they can't get it off irresistibly they can use so many dice that you can't possible stop it without as scroll or cube, which you say you might take out of your list as well. All with no risk to them.

Also remember they have power of darkness to generate extra dice to do this with.

 

[Tman27]

Re: thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation

1. Problem: unless you have altered the rules for your game, you have too few points to play a slann. Less than 2000 points no lords allowed.
So I would take a beefed up skink priest, your enemies sorceress can't get higher than level two at those points anyways

 

[Scalenex]

Re: thoughts for campaign game vs Dark Elves for escalation

1. Problem: unless you have altered the rules for your game, you have too few points to play a slann. Less than 2000 points no lords allowed.
So I would take a beefed up skink priest, your enemies sorceress can't get higher than level two at those points anyways

That's a 7th ed rule. In 8th you can take lords as long as they don't go over 25%.

I think a Slann is a good idea for an escalation game. As you get more points you can gradually buy magical items and additional disciplines to make the Slann stronger.