8th Ed. Buckeye Battles Lizards 2400

Although I primarily play Dark Elves, I have decided to break out my Lizards for the upcoming Buckeye Battles Tournament in July. It's a 2-Day, 2400 point event, and I really want to force myself to finish painting my Lizards. I already have a lot of painted stuff, but not enough to field a full army except in small games.

The tournament has an interesting approach to composition scoring--there isn't any. However, armies are divided into 3 "bands" based on the perceived strength of each list. On the first day (3 games), you only fight armies from within your own band. With the way the "banding" works at the tournament, I am specifically trying to stay out of the top-tier band by making unusual and sub-optimal choices. I also want a chance to show off some of my nicer models. This isn't saying I don't want to win, but I want to challenge myself and am not going with a Win-at-All-Costs approach.

Anyway, here's the list I am looking at right now:

LORDS -- 441 pts

Saurus Oldblood: General; Armor of Destiny; Sword of Might; Dragonbane Gem; Ironcurse Icon; Carnosaur; shield. 441

Varying from the norm right off the bat by not using a Slann. Expensive model, vulnerable to war machines, and only Ld 8, but can kick some butt if it gets into combat. High strength from rider and mount and multiple wounds from the Carnosaur give me a chance to do damage against monstrous cavalry. The Oldblood is hard to kill (1+ AS and 4+ Ward) even if the mount gets killed out from under him, so it may be difficult for an opponent to collect his points. For 5 points, the Ironcurse Icon is definitely worthwhile even if it only stops one war machine from wounding the Carnosaur all tournament. Will normally run the Carnosaur near the block of Saurus Warriors both so that the Old Blood has a place to go if the mount gets killed, and to try to take advantage of the ranks of the Warriors. I go back and forth on whether the Sword of Might or Burning Blade of Chotec is a better choice of weapon

HEROES -- 424 pts

Saurus Scar-Veteran: Battle Standard; Gambler's Armor; Dawnstone; Cold One; great weapon. 181

Maybe the most important model in the army. Goes with the Cold One Cavalry, adding punch to the unit (4 Str 7 attacks), and BSB re-roll to mitigate stupidity. Hard to kill at T5 with a 1+ re-rollable AS and 6+ ward.

Saurus Scar-Veteran: Venom of the Firefly Frog; Dragon Helm; Luckstone; light armour; shield. 118

Hero for the Saurus Warrior unit. Magical poisoned attacks, 2+ AS (with 1 re-roll) and 6+ parry save. Since he has the same Leadership value as the Oldblood, there might be some benefit to making him my general.

Skink Priest: Diadem of Power; Level 2 Wizard. 125

Purely defensive magic will hopefully push me down into a lower comp band. I don't expect to cast anything, but should get 2 extra dispel dice per turn by storing them in the Diadem.

CORE -- 670 pts

25 Saurus Warriors: Saurus Champion; Musician; Standard Bearer; Spears. 330

Saurus are always solid infantry, but these are slightly sub-optimal since they would be better and cheaper with hand weapon and shield. I would prefer to run them that way, but they are modeled with spears. Even though the organizer said that WYSIWYG is not super strict, I think I will run them as modeled.

16 Skinks: Skink Brave; Musician; Standard Bearer. 212
• 2 Kroxigors

People tend to underestimate this unit. 6 strength 6 attacks from the Krox give the unit a bit of a punch, and it is immune to stomp/Thunderstomp because of the Monstrous Infantry in the unit. Won't necessarily win, but a fairly cheap unit that can hold up and damage more expensive monsters and monstrous cav.

10 Skink Skirmishers 70

Chaff.

10 Skinks: Skink Brave. 58

Hiding place for my Skink Priest. Will try to stay out of trouble and hang back to hold/contest zones on my side of table in scenarios when that is an objective.

SPECIAL -- 785 pts

7 Cold One Cavalry: Champion; Musician; Standard Bearer; Standard of Discipline. 310

At 35 points per model, these regular heavy cavalry are way overpriced in comparison to today's monstrous cavalry. Definitely not an optimal unit, but I am trying to make them work with the addition of the BSB character and +1 Leadership banner to give strong protection from Stupidity.

Stegadon 235
3 Terradon Riders 90
3 Terradon Riders 90
5 Chameleon Skinks 60

Self-explanatory choices. Terradons and Chamelons are critical for war machine hunting and taking out enemy chaff units.

RARE -- 80 pts

1 Salamander Hunting Pack: additional Skink Handler. 80

Just 1 salamander.

Grand total: 2400 points on the dot


I am blogging my painting of this army over on Druchii.net, and was going to do so here, but found that I am limited to pictures of pixel size 1x1. I am assuming this is because I am a brand new user and the restriction will be listed after a certain number of posts ... I hope. Like I said, much of it is done, but I need to finish up the Saurus Cavalry, the Saurus Warriors and do a display board.

 

First off, I went over to druchii.net, and I love the painting, the orange is great. I definitely prefer the dark elf cold ones to ours, and I think a lot of people on this board share that sentiment. Additionally, its hard to help you with your list because you are intentionally taking suboptimal choices. So instead of trying to steer you into powergaming, i'll point out what i see.

So the only reason I ever take an olblood is so that I can pack him with 100 points of magic items. At the very least, give the guy a Charmed Shield instead of a regular one, its a point cheaper and it saves his life. I would also consider the fencers blades or piranah blade for him.

I build my scar vets a bit differently, there are more optimized choices linked to in FAQ's if you are interested, but they arent bad.

Give the 10 skink unit a banner, they dont count for fortitude otherwise and cant take objectives.

The standard of discipline is a Standard and not a banner so it must be carried by your BSB.

Part of me wants to encourage you to optimize more, the list is decent but if you run into a hard warriors of chaos list after you leave your band you will feel some pain. Regardless, I hope you have fun and this should get you into a softer band.

 

Thanks. For anyone else interested, here's the url. http://druchii.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=72215 You'll have to paste it into your browser since my low post count here won't let me use the url tag to create a direct link.

If I take the Charmed Shield, then I end up with the following build for 1 point less:

Oldblood, Light Armor, Carnosaur, Sword of Might, Ironcurse Icon, Charmed Shield, Talisman of Preservation.
Pro: Ability to reliably shrug off 1 cannonball (on the Oldblood but not the mount)
Con: Armor Save goes from 1+ to 2+ if on foot, no boosted ward save to Flaming Attacks

Seems pretty even. I will try out the Charmed Shield in playtesting. It is an open-list tournament, and so a smart opponent may direct some low-strength missile fire against the Oldblood to strip away the effect of the shield, but that also means that one of my other units is not being shot at.

About the sword, both Fencer's Blades and Piranha Blade are more expensive, and I don't know where I would come up with the extra 15 points. Plus, I am concerned about dealing with 1+ armor, and so I do want a boost to Strength or Armor Save modifier. I go back and forth between the Sword of Might and Burning Blade of Chotec because I can't decide if Flaming Attacks are a bonus or a liability (good against Hydras and A-Bombs, but lots of Dragonhelms and Dragonbane Gems out there and Dragon Armor in the new HE book).

The BSB build is straight out of one of the tactics articles on this site. The build for the guy on foot is one I came up with on my own. I like it because it's cheap, he's on foot so can't be picked out of the unit by cannonballs, still has a 2+ AS, and maintains a Parry save since Venom of the Firefly Frog keeps the rules for the underlying weapon

None of the tournament's possible scenarios use Fortitude and under the tournament rules, a unit can hold an objective if it has any command model or character, so the small skink unit can go without a banner.

I never heard of anyone putting this importance on the individual names of the items. Also, the army book says that the unit "may have a magic standard worth up to ....... 50pts", and the Standard of Discipline is in a category of items is called "magic standards" in the rulebook.

 

Yup, if you read the paragraph in the Magic Standards section of the core rulebook, it makes the distinction between Standards and Banners/totems/other.

We all optimize differently since we all have different area meta's, but here is what i generally use:
Old blood
-Talisman of preservation, charmed shield, Pirana blade, the other tricksters shard or banehead, light armor
-Talisman of preservation, Dragonhelm, Fencers blades, the other tricksters shard or banehead, light armor
Scar vet
-cold one, Armor of destiny, greatweapon, bsb
-cold one, burning blade of chotec, dawnstone, charmed shield, light armor
-cold one, greatweapon, light armor, votff, amulet of itzi

 

I don't see it that way at all, and this interpretation is not one I have ever heard about. Page 503 (big rulebook) appears to use the terms "standard" and "banner" interchangeably. The only restriction I see on what a unit standard bearer can carry is the points limit in the army book entry. Title of the item doesn't matter--they are all in the same category. If there were really a distinction other than points value as to what a BSB can carry versus what a unit standard bearer can carry, I would expect some more specific language to that effect.

You are right that the Other Trickster's Shard would be really good to have ... I think I am going to rework to include that, but will have to forget the Charmed Shield (although it is a point cheaper than the regular shield, it makes me buy Light Armor and Talisman of Preservation instead of Armor of Destiny, so the net cost is higher). Will also have to drop the Ironcurse Icon, but that's no big deal.

 

Looks like some of the list I make.
should do OK, thought i would be tempted to drop a unit of
terradons for another sallamander,
also why are there so many skink braves...?

 

The BRB phrased it like this: "The only character permitted to carry a Magic Standard is the army's Battle Standard Bearer.". The way I interpret this is that among chracters only the Battle Standard Bearer is allowed to take a Magic Standard to battle, not as only the Battle Standard Bearer is allowed to carry one among all models, and that there's no difference between the wording of "banner" and "standard" in the item names themselves.

The cold ones look amazing, I'm a fan! Will be a long time before I can create anything as good as that!

 

Those stripes on the scales look great! Love the white/grey ones running down the side, they really seem to bring it all together somehow.

I don't know how comp'd the tournament is, but I would feel very itchy not having a dispel scroll or cube of darkness on my defensive skink. My personal preference would be to drop the diadem, and squeeze one or the other in somehow.

Pretty good, standard list, though.

Also, as someone else said, you just need to use the [pic] tag instead of

 

.... HUH ?

never noticed that there was still an [/color] button still in the interface....
the [color=#FFFFFF][pic][/color] button is on the bottom left next to the [color=#FFFFFF][URL][/color] button.

 

I see the "pic" button now. I am used to the "Img" tag and there is a button for it on the upper right, so when I saw it I tried to use it.

 

Yea the site swaped to alternate tags when
we had a huge problem with spamers.

... Now if we can just be rid of all the Kitchen related spam.

 

We are drifting seriously off topic here, but I saw that kitchen spam! It's nuts!

I'm an Admin on druchii.net and I've only seen one kitchen spam message get through over there in the past few months. We banned the IP address right away and haven't a return. I've seen a couple on the Warhammer Forum too, but the amount you guys get is out of control.

What is it that makes these spammers think Warhammer players are all in England and want new kitchens?

 

I've done some play testing, and my opponents have been fairly surprised by how well I can do with a non-Slann list. I did lose my last game due to magic. Against O&G, boosted Curse of the Bad Moon not only nuked my Saurus Block, but the template stopped in the charge path of my Cold One Cavalry, preventing a devastating flank charge. But the spell was cast with IF, so I only a Becalming Slann could have possibly prevented it. In the context of this type of list, I've found the Diadem to be preferable to the Cube. An extra 2 dispel dice allows me to stop the important stuff pretty much every magic phase. I have yet to get through a spell of my own, but that's to be expected.

The big change I am contemplating is dropping the Scar Vet on foot to boost my Skrox unit to 24 and 3, and to get some command models for other units. I've found the Skrox to be really valuable since M6 allows them to work well with other fast units like the Carny, Steg and Cav. My list needs to get in combat fast, and having a bigger unit that can quickly join the fray is a good thing. The command models (like a Stalker for the Chameleons) makes a unit a "scoring unit" under the tourney rules, which is important for holding and contesting board areas and objectives. Anyway, here's the revised list:

Saurus Oldblood: General; The Other Trickster's Shard; Armor of Destiny; Sword of Might; Carnosaur; shield. 446

Saurus Scar-Veteran: Battle Standard; Dawnstone; Gambler's Armor; Cold One; great weapon. 181
Skink Priest: Diadem of Power; Level 2 Wizard. 125

25 Saurus Warriors: Saurus Champion; Musician; Standard Bearer; spear. 330
24 Skinks: Skink Brave; Musician; Standard Bearer. 307
• 3 Kroxigors
10 Skink Skirmishers: Skink Skirmisher Brave. 78
10 Skinks 50

7 Cold One Cavalry: Champion; Musician; Standard Bearer; Huanchi's Blessed Totem. 320
Stegadon 235
3 Terradon Riders 90
3 Terradon Riders 90
5 Chameleon Skinks: Stalker. 66

1 Salamander Hunting Pack: additional Skink Handler. 80

2,398 points

 

You may want to rethink dropping the Skink Braves. Without them they no longer quality as a "scoring unit" per Buckeye Battle Scenario rules.

 

I actually added braves to this incarnation for that very reason

 

When is Buckeye battles?

Hinge

PS I love playing the Carno. Good luck and let us know how he does.

 

July 13-14

Army lists are due by June 20

 

You seem to know your play style really well, so there's not much I can say.

One thing I noticed, with your Old blood, was that you've got a 0+ armor save, which falls back to a 1+ as you can never have a 0+. So you don't actually need the heavy armor. To get the same result, you could use light armor, and the talisman of preservation. It would actually cost a couple of points extra this way, but the point is it frees up your Magic Armour slot, allowing you to take the charmed shield or glittering scales (light armor, itself) or whatever, if you wanted.

Just a thought. As I said, you seem to be know how you play, so field your favourite models and have fun.