7th Ed. Triple Engines 2250

[Gazzor]

Hi all,

I've been running a Slann and 2 Engines in 2250 and doing pretty well with it (8 wins of 8 down the club) but I am finding that the Fat Frog and Guard are too slow and easy to outmanouver (A problem with all block infantry).

I also find that my huge points investment in Fat Frog and Lvl 2 Priests is negated by the Ring of Broken taken in 99.99% of Delf armies.

Hence I am wanting to experiment with more Stegs.

TROOP 1 10 Skink Skirmishers
TROOP 2 10 Skink Skirmishers
TROOP 3 10 Skink Skirmishers
210

Useful diverters and general nuisances, as well as filling minimum core (I prefer spending the extra 20 points per unit over blocks, but could consider cohorts...)

HERO1 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll
Diadem of Power 405

My General. Only LD6, but 3 dice LD6 is pretty solid. Any units not immune to psychology are as cheap as chips anyway, whilst in combat LD6 is the stubborn value anyway.
Items used to contribute to the defence of 7 dispel dice and 3 scrolls.

HERO2 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll
Curse Charm of Tepoc 400

Not sure about the charm. Just in there to use points.


HERO3 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll 380

Bare bones priest for engine goodness.

HERO4 1 Skink War Chief
Staff of the Lost Sun
Biting Blade
BSB
Ancient Stegadon 400

BSB means that Stegs pass their break tests approx 90% of the time, which isn't bad. Given him 3 BS5 S5 magic shots per turn to deal with Wraiths and just add extra dakka. Also 14 or so blow pipe shots per turn is pretty good.
Biting Blade to use points. Could drop the blade and the curse charm to get another Terradon?
Or could go with the ubiquitous War Spear for giggles.


SPECIAL1 3 Terradons 90

SPECIAL2 3 Terradons 90

2 Diverter and support unit killers.

RARE1 1 Ancient Stegadon 275

A nice support unit that pumps out approx 17 shots per turn.

So that's 5 Stegs, of which 3 are Engines of the Gods. People seem to have trouble killing 2, so 5 should be quite good. I'm also hoping that with triple Engine if one gets eliminated, 2 Engines is still enough to cause major damage.

I prefer the big stegs over the smaller ones due to the extra S and armour save pips. I'm also not sold on the spear chuckers, as the Engines can hopefully deal with heavy armoured units. Blow pipes should be better vs enemy support troops, which may give me problems.

I hope to use the Stegadons amazing manouverability to keep out of trouble vs hard stuff and hit the enemy in a weak spot. (12" movement 360 degrees is amazingly good for lateral movement and befuddling ranked units that can beat it on CR).

I hope to be able to keep a lot of VPs safe, whilst the Fat Frog and guards was always an easy target.

Large flying beasties are obviously a problem, but they are for many armies. Hopefully I can try to use tactics and slam them with 2 Stegs or somesuch. Even a Thirster has to worry about D6+1 S6 impact hits.
Also, Thirster I can try to nail with Engines after it's engaged.

Any thoughts?


Cheers,

Gazzor

 

[Corbechev]

I was joking about taking an army very similar to this just earlier this week, though I think I had a old blood on a carn and 2 engines. I think my friends would beat me up if I brought this list!!

Let me know how you make out with it. People have a hard enough time killing the two stegadons I bring now..

 

[Aranigej]

Hi there, I think that this army has potential. I am trying to come up with something similar on a 2000 point scale.

Here are some comments:

Hi all,

I've been running a Slann and 2 Engines in 2250 and doing pretty well with it (8 wins of 8 down the club) but I am finding that the Fat Frog and Guard are too slow and easy to outmanouver (A problem with all block infantry).

I also find that my huge points investment in Fat Frog and Lvl 2 Priests is negated by the Ring of Broken taken in 99.99% of Delf armies.

Hence I am wanting to experiment with more Stegs.

TROOP 1 10 Skink Skirmishers
TROOP 2 10 Skink Skirmishers
TROOP 3 10 Skink Skirmishers
210

Useful diverters and general nuisances, as well as filling minimum core (I prefer spending the extra 20 points per unit over blocks, but could consider cohorts...)

Good choice... my philosophy is: skink skirmishers - never leave home without them!


HERO1 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll
Diadem of Power 405

My General. Only LD6, but 3 dice LD6 is pretty solid. Any units not immune to psychology are as cheap as chips anyway, whilst in combat LD6 is the stubborn value anyway.
Items used to contribute to the defence of 7 dispel dice and 3 scrolls.


One prob here - this guy can't be the general since you have a skink chief with ld 7 (pg 82 of the rules - character with highest ld to be general)

HERO2 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll
Curse Charm of Tepoc 400

Not sure about the charm. Just in there to use points.

Not a bad item but very situational. would prefer to upgrade some priests to level 2 or add a terradon imo

HERO3 1 Skink Priest
Engine of the Gods
Dispel Scroll 380

Bare bones priest for engine goodness.

HERO4 1 Skink War Chief
Staff of the Lost Sun
Biting Blade
BSB
Ancient Stegadon 400

I would tend to go for the war spear - very nice impact hits! Also, I think that with an army of this sort you're primary objective would be to smash into the enemy therefore you sould be marching for a good part of the game and thus not using the staff.

Another option would be to take yet another priest instead of the chief. You will not have the bsb but another engine and more power dice is nothing to laugh about!

BSB means that Stegs pass their break tests approx 90% of the time, which isn't bad. Given him 3 BS5 S5 magic shots per turn to deal with Wraiths and just add extra dakka. Also 14 or so blow pipe shots per turn is pretty good.
Biting Blade to use points. Could drop the blade and the curse charm to get another Terradon?
Or could go with the ubiquitous War Spear for giggles.


SPECIAL1 3 Terradons 90

SPECIAL2 3 Terradons 90

2 Diverter and support unit killers.

RARE1 1 Ancient Stegadon 275

A nice support unit that pumps out approx 17 shots per turn.

This I am not sure about. Being a small army I think that playing a refused flank would be ideal. In that case I would go for a unit of Razordons to protect the open flank and since they also have a move of 6 they will easily keep up with the rest of the force. Another option would be to take another 2 units of terradons and keep units trying to flank occupied with them. Terradons are very, very good in my opinion!

So that's 5 Stegs, of which 3 are Engines of the Gods. People seem to have trouble killing 2, so 5 should be quite good. I'm also hoping that with triple Engine if one gets eliminated, 2 Engines is still enough to cause major damage.

I prefer the big stegs over the smaller ones due to the extra S and armour save pips. I'm also not sold on the spear chuckers, as the Engines can hopefully deal with heavy armoured units. Blow pipes should be better vs enemy support troops, which may give me problems.

I hope to use the Stegadons amazing manouverability to keep out of trouble vs hard stuff and hit the enemy in a weak spot. (12" movement 360 degrees is amazingly good for lateral movement and befuddling ranked units that can beat it on CR).

I hope to be able to keep a lot of VPs safe, whilst the Fat Frog and guards was always an easy target.

Large flying beasties are obviously a problem, but they are for many armies. Hopefully I can try to use tactics and slam them with 2 Stegs or somesuch. Even a Thirster has to worry about D6+1 S6 impact hits.
Also, Thirster I can try to nail with Engines after it's engaged.

Any thoughts?


Cheers,

Gazzor

On the whole I like the idea. Personally, if you are treading the magic path I would go all out and have all characters as priests (giving you a total of 14 power dice per turn... no joke!) This is a very hard hitting army so you need to go in, kill and move to the next unit. Charging with 2 or 3 stegs will break most medium armoured units since winning a combat with a combined unit strength of 20/30 will automatically break your opponent in most cases. Lore of heavens will come in useful and tou should be casting a couple of portents of far when charging.

Having passed a previous comment on the skink chief, if you do however take him, then I think that giving him the war spear is a good option. Being a lance gives the chief +2 strength on the charge and the steg will have an extra D6 impact hits. This will probably cause a lot of damage and, as explained above, if used with other stegs will break most enemy units.

I think 5 stegs in an army is cool, but will not do much more damage than 4 stegs would.

Tactics:
1. march towards enemy,
2. use engines to protect yourself and make spellcasting easier,
3. cast spells to weaken enemy units,
4. charge 2 stegs against 1 unit,
5. kill unit,
6. repeat steps 1-5 until all enemy units are destroyed and/or time runs up

P.S.

the most important rule when playing a fast army is: DO NOT LET YOUR OPPONENT OUTMANOEVRE YOU!

hope this gives you some ideas! If you have any comments on my comments let me know since I am working on a similar list

cheers!

Aranigej

 

[Sart]

Uhhhhhh...... "Shakes head and walks away" Before Mods spank me with the be nice stick......

 

[Revered_Guardian]

In my opinion you may lack in killing enemy characters.... damn that great weapon wielding tomb prince!

but anyways seems pretty solid but if it is for tournaments you will take a comp hit!

O and another option is to give the skink chief a piranha blade and bane head to deal with enemy characters on the charge... by the way aranigej, the chief cannot be the general because he is a BSB.

However, your opponents will hate you, and anything with cannons will tear you to shreds... plus if you use this against skaven players they WILL go SAD on ur *** because that is the only way they will ever win frequently.

 

[Aranigej]

Yep revered_guardian you're absolutely right regarding the bsb/general thing... slipped my mind

Also, I too believe that this sort of army may get a good beating especially in a tournament environment. Nevertheless, a steg army is definitely a fun army and it is a challenging task to come up with a relatively good army game-wise. So the challenge here, as I see it, is precisely that... not seeing whether this army will win you tournaments, but trying to find the best combination for this type of army and see how it plays out.

 

[ACe]

Did I get it right...you are taking 5 rare choices in a 2250 army?

 

[lupercal]

i would take one less steg and add unit of CoR or krox they can keep up but will make you a little more flexable in games plus with all the stegs they will be largely ignored which is a huge advantage for such a powerful unit i would send them up the other side of the table with the terries just to spread out his forces so that you can mass against your enemies a little easier i think your right that this army would be fun to play but it has some serious draw backs also the whole nothing but EotG thing would just be obscene but funny i would like to try a lone slann with 3 EotG's just for fun sometime but i don't think i will ever buy that many stegs so if you try that let us know how it goes as well

 

[Gazzor]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Aranigej: Razordons are a nice idea. Pricier than a plastic Steg, but well worth considering.

War Spear could be nice as well. I'll try to tweak the points a bit.

Sart: Fair enough. Bear in mind that I play against double Hydra dark elves with Dragon Lord and similar cheese.

Revered Guardian: I've found that 3 S6 attacks is pretty good at enemy character killing, as several vampires have found. And as to TK, I've not played one at a tourney for years, cos VC are plain better.
Comp Hit? Don't have comp much, apart from stuff like no double rares. But I've only got 1 rare in the list. The other 4 stegs are character mounts.
Cannons are obviously a threat, and most Empire have 2, plus another 2 mini ones on their 2 steam tanks.
A lot of firepower, but I'd be wading forward, shields up asap and relying on rolling lots of 5+. But Empire are quite rare around here anyay.
Skaven would play SAD? Last 2 of 3 Skaven I've played have all had 3 warlocks and 2 WLCs. Well before multi Stegs hit the scene.

Aranigej: Why would it get a good beating? I'm not wasting points on slow ranked infantry, nor on a fat magic uer who is nullified by one broken 25 points magic item. I think it can take on all comers. Blood Thirster and Dragons are tricky, but that's where I try to use some tactics.

ACe: No, 1 rare and 4 mounts.

lupercal: Krox are a bit sucky since losing S7. Also, a 12" move monster is a lot more manouverable than a unit that has to rank up wide and wheel and stuff.

Was considering 3 EotG and Slann, but the fat Frog is too easy to neutralise with the Ring of always taken. At least 2 more Stegs is a solid choice.

Not sold on maxing the Skink's magic up as the Heavens Lore sucks ass in general. Might be worth trimming 105 points off though, as more chance to get comets as well as 3 more dispel dice.


Cheers,

Gazzor

 

[Foolie]

I was under the impression that the broken DE ring only has a 12" range, or am I getting my army book versions confused.

 

[Gazzor]

I was under the impression that the broken DE ring only has a 12" range, or am I getting my army book versions confused.

12" is plenty. Easily enough to cover the whole DE army. You can even do a nice trick by having wizards on the ends of units, such as they are more tham 12" away but the unit is within 12"of the ring. This means that the wizards are protected from most spells (Except for stuff such as Rule of Burning Iron and Comet of Cassandora at the end of the unit) whilst she can still blast out up to 3 spells per turn, assuming that Power of Darkness works okay.

Nice thing about the Engines is that they always wotk regardless of lame ass rings being used by the Dark Elves.


Cheers,

Gazzor

 

[anton]

I dont see any reason not to give the Chief a Warspear, to me its the spear hands down. I dont know why your skinks are not lvl 2, why buy an engine if your only going to use a lvl 1 skink priest on them.

 

[Gazzor]

Hi Anton,

Good point on the spear. I'll be putting that in (But see below).. I can see a comedy skink model with a 7" long wire lance model already.

I'll need to experiment with the lvl 2 wizards. Trouble is that the Heaven lore is very sucky, but does have some good spells on a 4+. I can drop the War Spear, 1 scroll, diadem and curse charm to get the priests up to level 2s. Probably well worth it.

I'll give it a go. I've got 2 games next week with the list, and i'll let you know how it goes.


Cheers,

Gazzor