7th Ed. What to do about GunLines?

[KonektFor]

I've got a player in my group who has an artillery heavy army, he enjoys using his massive range and the fact that he built the terrain so that it doesn't move and favors ranged players, I need some way to counter his ranged armada I tried using the flying skink/saurus warmachine hunter on him, but his bolt throwers just blasted right through them before they got close. So my question is, what is lizardmans defense against a gunline?

 

[Bibamus]

quite a few actually.

the most important things is to hide troops you don't want shot to bits, like the stegadon/s if he has many cannons.

to start off terradons, chameleons and the JSoD are all very effective at taking out war machines. be sure to have somwhere to scout chameleons and they will do their job, being harder to shoot at. these 2 units are also usefull post war machine killing. terradons can drop rocks and charge small units and chameleons can keep poisoning his gunline with little chance that they die. if you get close enough to his gunline with thme you can also move every turn so you force him to move his units to shoot at you, practically giving him -2 to hit them at all times. don't let your opponent place all the terrain elements so that it favors him. also the EotG bubble is quite nice when you can have a 5+ ward on anything he can shoot.

the next thing are the spells. both lore of heavens and lore of life are excellent. both uranons thunderbolt and forked lightning have infinite range and his war mahcnies are either on a hill or in plain sight, so your skinks should be able to blast them from the other table edge. 4+ ward save vs. shooting is also very nice from the lore of heavens and the comment of cassandora is the deadlyest spell against gun lines. they don't move and war machines are probably all stacked up somewhere as close as possbile. get a commet near a cluser of artilery or shooting troops and wach them fly.
the lore of life has 2 very usefull spells. the rain lore makes 1 unit get a permanent -1 pentaly to shooting wich can be used on his strongest shooters. it also makes war machines only fire after rolling a 4+ beforehand wich helps a lot. the other spell makes all units within 12" immune to shooting S4 or less. there aren't many rangead weapons with a S higher than 4 barring war machines so that should be up permanently if a slann is present. gift of life is also very nice if your stegadon/slann/characters get wounded by cannons or anything really, it just heals them up to full W. master of stone is deadly to anything on hills, where most of the shooting/artilery is.

basically, with all those spells he won't be able to dispell them all and his spells will be out 1st or 2nd turn, all tha while he has to worry about terradons and chameleons.

 

[KonektFor]

How, would I got hiding the stegadon, it's a large target, and with what we've for terrain he's always got a hill to put his cannons on in his deployment zone, I don't have and terradons yet as I couldn't afford them at the time, but how many units and how many in each unit should I go for? Would you recommend the rod of storms if I'm unable to get forked lighting or uranons lightning bolt? Sorry for all the questions, its just out of the four people I've got the ability to play against, two of them use gunlines.

 

[Bibamus]

i hide my stegadon behind buildings, forest are good too since most of them are larger than a stegadon.

as for the unit size... i work with 3 terradons, you could use 4 to be sure they hit home. regarding chameleon skinks... i haven't used them yet, i plan to do so in my next game against a gunline, but i thn 6-8 are small enough to scout efficiently but large enough to do some damage. depending on terrain you might be able to scout 2 units but that depends solely on terrain. if you can get a forest big enough in his deployment zone, or a swamp/lake it should be enough.
regarding the rod of storms... its a nice item, and bound spell power lvl 6 will probably draw 2 dispell dice if he has any left. i usually use 2 skink priests, 1 with EotG and 1 with a Horned One or cloak of feathers. i usually give the EotG priest the plaque of tepok so i get 3/6 heavens spells. worst case scenario you get a 4+ ward save on 1 unit, best case scenario you get commet + 1 or both magic missiles.
its no sure tactic, it sill relies on luck so there might be times when you get no magic missile and no spell threatning enough to get a commet through

 

[skinker]

I just used Chamo skinks for the first time this weekend and LOVED em. Worked great in unit of 6.

I played High Elves.

Turn 1, they come out from behind the building and make their way towards the repeater bolt thrower.

Turn 2, they get charged by an eagle, which they stand and shoot, taking off 2 wounds. The last wound is dealt in close combat, and one skink is lost... so 5 left

In my stage...
They walk up to the bolt thrower and shoot 10 shots at it. 2 are poisonous so the machine takes a wound and he loses 1 crew.

Turn 3,
He shoots at me in his turn but I'm very hard to hit at -2. He kills 1.

I charge him in my turn and kill his remaining crew member.

By Turn 6 they are shooting at another unit and doing some damage (can't remember who).

So, for 70 points, they killed an eagle and bolt thrower (150 points total) plus assisted elsewhere. Not a bad investment!!

 

[KonektFor]

I actually just ordered in 6 of them, so by next week sometime I should have them. I hope they can work as well when I use them, what about the sun Standard of chotec against bolt throwers, It would make my key units harder to hit as they would be at long range and at -1 to hit