I have recently tried a few varieties of the Thunder quake battalion, but I have been struggling with grapping objectives early on, especially when I’m going second and not getting a double turn in turn 2 or 3. So to compensate for the slowness of the Thunder quake battalion, I thought of combining it with the more fast paced Shadow Strike, which seems to be favored in tournaments. Slann Starmaster Skink Starpriest Engine of the Gods Skinks * 10 Skinks * 10 Skinks * 10 Razordon (only 1) Skink handlers Bastiladon Bastiladon Ripperdactyl Riders (unit of 3) Shadowstrike Starhost Thunderquake Starhost Balewind Vortex Chronomantic Cogs The idea is to grab the objectives with the skinks from the Shadow Strike battalion, while I take out an important hero/unit with the Ripperdactyles and delaying them be forcing them to dedicate resources to kill the Ripperdactyles. To support this, there is the Bastiladons either moving or getting LoSaT forward to the objectives to help the skinks holdings them, the EotG (hopefully) summoning more skinks and the Slann gathering points for summing an Astrolith Bearer turn 2, ideally placed so that the Bastiladons get re-rolls to hit and wound from turn 2 and forward. I think this list will have a hard time dealing with alpha strikes and double turns, but hopefully by grabbing the objectives earlier combined with the resilience of the Thunderquake Battalion, can ensure that I will gain enough victory points early on, to grind out my opponent. My local gaming club/meta doesn’t really have any players with horde armies, so I might be underunderestimating the threat from such lists. Any suggestions, thoughts or ideas?
Welcome to Lustria! From my experience, in order for Shadowstike to be worth its points you want to have 6 or more Ripperdactyls in the unit. Thunderquake also suffers when Bastiladons don't have an Astrolith for their hit rerolls.
Thank you for welcoming me Good point about the Ripperdactyls, unfortunately its not possible to fit 6 in the list without sacrificing the Bastiladons, and 3 is a risky amount when it comes to taking down bigger threats. I thought the summoning of the Astrolith Bearer in turn 2, might compensate for not being able to fit him in the list, thou this of course makes Bastiladon even more random and less lethal turn 1. Besides the “classical” approach with ScV on Co with Betrayer's Crown, what are the best options for dealing with hordes while “in-game” / with summoning? A Stegadont with Sunfire-Throwers seems a bit expensive to summon, when it only got 8” range and therefore first will be useful the turn after summoning it.
Welcome! I have played a similar "Shadowquake" list in the past, but my impression was that both the Thunderquake and the Shadowstrike lose too much of their potential if you have to cram them both into a single 2k list. That being said: it was fun, and I did win both times I played it.