8th Ed. Trust the Wife ¬¬

[cthulhu]

Hey,

The Wife, using her innate ability to get on my goat, has decided that she wants to collect Dwarves... not knowing that they are magically Resistant and thus conflicting horribly with my desired Lizardmen army.

Now, we try to collect armies that are relatively evenly matched so that when we play, the games are fun without any one person having an advantage, so...

Does a magic heavy list even stand a chance against dwarves or should I make another, less magically reliant, list.

so lots of Skinks, Salamanders Terradons etc.

I'd like to use magic but it's not a must have...

Thanks.

 

[T`hinker`er]

Magic heavy works just fine against Dwarves. They are magic resistant, not magic proof, and you can overload their defenses sooner or later with a nice big comet of Cassandora or similar. Just be sure to silence the organ guns early or they will mess you up but good!

 

[cthulhu]

Oh thankyou, I was just curious... good that I can use a magic heavy army, plus we can tailor our armies to be evenly matched I supposed...

Worked fine with our 40k armies anyway.

Thankyou for clearing that up for me.

 

[Lord Tsunami]

a slann with rumination will punch through the dwarf defense in a few rounds (to draw out the dispel "scrolls"). Most armies will have a horrible time against dwarfs, and have to rely on IFs to get any spells off, but a slann can simply overload their defense by chucking a whole bunch of small spells at him.

EDIT: imo dwarfs are terribly boring to play both with and against at the moment. you could suggest her trying a more fun army just cause of that

 

[cthulhu]

Well I don't mind her playing dwarves, I just want to make sure our armies are balanced so we can have some enjoyable games.

I doubt asking her to change would happen, she's 5'nothing so she shares a sort of kinship with dwarves... plus she's a stonemason so has a certain affinity with hammers

Just another question, are Skinks any good against dwarves... I imagine their blowpipes would be about as helpful as tic-tacs against their armour...

 

[Scalenex]

I usually lose to my friend’s dwarfs so I can give good advice on how to kill LM with dwarves...

Dwarves have low initiative so they attack last most of the time anyway so it's in the best interest of almost every dwarf unit to take great weapons. Great Weapon troops of various kinds are usually best deployed in horde formation. HW + shield groups are usually meant as anvils usually with ranks. I think it's up to personal preference what combination of infantry you want but great weapon warriors and hammerers is a traditional fallback. Hammerers are extra strong and skilled, miners ambush, rangers have scout, longbeards have higher WS and make nearby regular warriors harder to panick. Basically they all get the job done. I haven't seen ironbreakers in action so I can't comment. Slayers do okay, but against LM they are very vulnerable to skinks with their no AS.

Cannons are great at killing big dinos. Grudge Thowers are good at taking out chunks of block infantry (Saurus or Skroxigor). Organ Guns are great at killing chamo skinks, Terradons, or anything else that skirmishes. All three of the above are okay at killing other things than mentioned. Bolt Throwers are fairly good at killing cavalry and okay elsewhere. Flame cannons are largely considered the weakest unit on the dwarf list.

Dwarves only have one BSB option, Thanes. If your wife is going to playing you, she'll want a runesmith or runelord for general. Depending on the point size a second runesmith or runelord. A master engineer is handy once you gain a feel for how the various artillery units work. Regular dwarves are so good at killing LM in close combat that dwarf lords are a little unnecessary. Slayer characters are risky because of their lack of armor. Your wife will probably have better luck runelords than other characters.

LM don’t have artillery, so it’s generally in the best interest of the dwarves to delay combat as long as possible. Even with magic factored in, dwarves will win most contests for who can do the most long-ranged damage against dwarves.

As for LM fighting dwarves, I still lose more than half the time, but I have few generalities. For magic go big or go home. A Slann with extra power dice can get enough spells off to overcome the rune based resistance. Going no magic means all the points the dwarves spent on magic resistance will go to waste. Going light magic means you’ll get next to nothing off and your magic points will be wasted.
For war machine hunters. Go big or go home. If you take only one or two groups of skink skirmishers, chamo skinks, or terradons to go after the war machines. The organ gun will slaughter them before they can take out ANY war machines. You need to have enough war machine hunters that you can afford to lose one (or even two) to enemy fire before you actually start taking them down. If you go with no war machine hunters you can spend the points you would have spent on skirmishers to buy more additional troops to be able to absorb more artillery hits. Whatever strategy you pick, make sure your most important combat block has an Iron Curse Icon somewhere.

Stegadons, go big or go home. If you take one Stegadon it will die to artillery fire before it gets into close combat. Life is good to use the lore attribute to heal up damage Steggies. Two or more and at least one of your Stegadons will likely get into combat. I’ve had slightly better luck with Cold One Riders. They aren’t especially vulnerable to any one war machine but they are pricey and each one you lose hurts. Salamanders are really awesome against most things but I don’t think they are good against dwarves. Their high toughness lets them shrug off a lot of S3 hits and dwarves don’t panic easily.

Lizardmen do not like fair fights against dwarves. Dwarf Core infantry easily outclasses Saurus and Skroxigor (at least with great weapons anyway) and is capable of fighting Temple Guard to a draw. Dwarven elite infantry outclasses Temple Guard and cuts obliterates LM Core. The trick is not to fight fair. LM units are faster and more maneuverable so you should try to outflank your enemies. Also you want to focus on lores that strengthen your troops or weaken the dwarves. Life, Shadow, and Light all can swing battles your way.

Naturally your wife will want to block your maneuvers and shut down the more important spells. Both sides want to try to maintain steadfast and deny steadfast to the other player. Both players want to try to kill the enemy BSB. LM are cold blooded and rarely fail unmodified leadership tests with a BSB. Dwarves have high Ld scores and rarely fail unmodified leaderships with a BSB. The result is that LM vs. Dwarves tend to have a lot of grind fests where the winning side of the melee. barely has any models left.

 

[cthulhu]

Right, thankyou.

That was really helpful and helped me correct some big mistakes in my lists.

Would something a bit like this be more appropriate.

Slann
-3 disciplines
-Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
-BSB
445


Skink Priest
-Level 2
-Plaque of Tepok
115

Skink Priest
-Level 2
-Cloak of Feathers
125

Skink Chief
-Venom of the Firefly Frog
-Javelins
-Light Armour
-Shield
-Terradon
107


10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76

10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76

10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76

10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76

10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76

10 Skink Skirmishers
-Brave
76


10 Temple Guard
-Revered Guardian
--Carnosaur Pendant
-Musician
-Standard Bearer
--Sun Standard of Chotec
attached to Slann
265

5 Chameleon Skinks
-Stalker
66

5 Chameleon Skinks
-Stalker
66

3 Terradon Riders
attached to Skink Chief
90

3 Terradon Riders
-Brave
100


Hunting Pack
Not sure what would be better Salamander or Razordon
-Additonal Handler
80

Hunting Pack
Not sure what would be better Salamander or Razordon
-Additonal Handler
80


TOTAL - 1995

Would that be good?

 

[Lord Tsunami]

no...

ditch one of the priest. its no point having a 3rd mage

i dont see any reason for the chief on terradon either. just buy another unit of normal terradons if you like em so much.

2-3 units of 10 skinks are reasonable. do NOT pay for the brave.

chameleons are great. you could buy a 3rd unit of those instead

10 TG? seriously? 20+ if you play life magic, and probably 26+ if you chose any other school. carnosaur pendant? no! it is expensive, and you risk pulling your most expensive unit in to a fight they do not want (yes it is very unlikely i know, but still). make sure either the slann or the TG has standard of discipline to give the slann Ld10 for his bubble.

single packs of salamanders will easily get shot to pieces. they are very VERY good units, and if you wanna powergame you could use two packs of 3. i always use one pack of two because i do not want to be that cheesy though. make sure to buy a couple of extra skinks though, since they act as a meat shield for the salamanders. (and yes, salamanders are better than razordons. always)


I understand that you were planning on a very fast and very agile skink focused army, and that could potentially work (though when playing dwarfs id say that all games would end in frustration on both parts at best, or divorce at worst). But if you do that, make the slann go solo and give him the 2+ ward against shooting. no TG needed, they are just free VPs.

 

[Omar]

id say that all games would end in frustration on both parts at best, or divorce at worst

That was hilarious!

Scalenex couldn't have said it any better. If you guys just want to have more relaxed games rather than competitive ones (both are fun) you could just pick eachother's armies. I've done this a few times and had tons of fun. You could each pick what you think would be the absolute worst list to play eachother's armies and fight it out! It makes for some plucky situations... You could also just come up with scenarios or special rules that could change up the feel of the game. I played a tower defense game with a friend of mine using our armies, we had to do a bit of twiking and agree on the rules to make it work but it was fun. The take away really is that you don't have to stick by the standard matches that are in the book, you guys can choose to play more relaxed or unconventional games.

 

[BEEGfrog]

Slann, -3 disciplines, -Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, -BSB 445 Which 3 disciplines? V dwarves I would probably go with 2, extra magic die and lore master. Would only go to 3 if running solo with ethereal. Consider armour piercing banner if with a lot of TG.


Skink Priest -Level 2 -Plaque of Tepok 115 What is he to be used for? Same with 2nd Priest, most power dice will be allocated to slann so even if you do get good spells for priest will you ever use the priest.

Skink Priest -Level 2 -Cloak of Feathers 125 Would consider using hero points on scar vets, possibly on cold ones. Need at least one scar vet in TG unit as slann is now vulnerable to challenge so a champion will only protect reliably for one round. Champion and SV should reliably protect for 3 rounds of combat.

Skink Chief -Venom of the Firefly Frog -Javelins -Light Armour -Shield -Terradon 107 Would prefer a second unit of Terradons


10 Skink Skirmishers -Brave 76 As previous poster has mentioned braves aren't worth their cost. Without Braves you might afford another unit, at minimum a small non-skirmisher skink unit.

10 Skink Skirmishers -Brave 76

10 Skink Skirmishers Brave 76

10 Skink Skirmishers Brave 76

10 Skink Skirmishers -Brave 76

10 Skink Skirmishers -Brave 76


10 Temple Guard Just not big enough in 8th edition where unit size does matter, as previous poster has said, min 20 with Life more with other lores.
-Revered Guardian --Carnosaur Pendant Far better with a magic weapon to help in challenges e.g. ASF or Ini 10 swords to have chance to hit before dieing or burning blade or +1 Str sword to help chance of damaging.
-Musician -Standard Bearer --Sun Standard of Chotec Consider also +1 movement, +1 CR or +1 Ld Banners. Remember both unit and slann can carry magic banners.
attached to Slann 265

5 Chameleon Skinks -Stalker 66 Forget stalker, better to haveextra cham

5 Chameleon Skinks -Stalker 66

3 Terradon Riders attached to Skink Chief 90

3 Terradon Riders -Brave 100 Forget brave, extra model or combine champion points for extra unit


Hunting Pack Salamander -Additonal Handler 80 Salamanders are far superior, more are better

Hunting Pack Salamander -Additonal Handler 80

The comments apply generally but are slightly focussed toward Dwarves. With only one close combat unit it has to be bigger or run the slann solo and ethereal. Also consider running a Scar Vet with GW on CO to pin one of his combat units with a flank or rear charge or to attract missiles away from other units.

 

[Omar]

@ cthulhu - How are SMPs vulnerable to challenges now? This is the first I hear of this.

 

[BEEGfrog]

This is possibly still under debate as RAI may have been that slanns should stiill be able to avoid challenge in the second rank as this was one of the results of the 7th edition rules. In 8th edition any character in a unit is subject to challenge, being in a fighting rank is no longer a requirement.

However, the effects of refusing the challenge are less than previous editions and very minor for the slann, the only effects are that the slann loses his atack (assuming he is in 2nd rank and stays there as the challenge rule allow) and no-one can use his leadership that turn. He gets those abilities back next turn.

Although the challenge rules imply that further challenges can be made in later turns, RAW states twice that only one challenge can be made in any combat and the wording that implies further challenges are allowed make it clear that the combat referred to in the rules are the entire multi-turn combat not the combat phase of a turn.

I was surprised when I realised how different this wording is from previous editions. I am not sure this is intended, and I may have missed something elsewhere, but in the challenge rules on pg 102 of the giant brick-like object say only one challenge per combat and that a combat is a multi-turn thing. I would have expected this to have been resolved by now but I haven't seen it discussed.