I really enjoy fielding an engine of the gods, I find that it usually pays for its points and actually provides some key coverage against war machines or other heavy hitting units. A 1/6 chance isn't great but it will generally take a cannon 2 shots to kill a monster and that brings you up to 1/3 chance, so I feel it is a great unit to support the lizardmen army overall. Specifically with saurus I do not think it helps very much, shooting doesn't hurt them effectively and in combat I like using the parry save, when you combine this with spear saurus you do get the best of both worlds but there is usually an additional consideration that limits me from taking spears. That being the amount of buffer I need to effectively use spears over a game, I need at the very least an additional rank to my normal planning, but realistically 2 more ranks so that I can still use the spear bonus in the late game turns, otherwise I'm still not really getting the full benefit. And with hand weapon saurus I don't have to keep them close to a steg in turns 3-6 when stuff starts getting crazy, I personally like to build units to operate as independently as possible while still supporting the rest of the whole army. So my thoughts are that spear saurus cost too much to build a proper unit with due to size, I wouldn't field less than 50 in a horde or 30 in a non horde formation, and that takes away from EotG usefullness with them for me. If you experience differs and you find that spears are really helping your end game then please share, I can always use more knowledge and good gaming examples.
See for me, Protector, taking hand weapons just does not work as well. I take my Saurus in a horde, so spears give me a whole new rank to attack with and boy oh boy does it make an impact. Sure I hit last and take damage, but when I hit back I do much more damage. A good example was one time when I got attacked by another horde, they hit me about 25 times or so, I took some damage, lost about 5-9 men. Then I attacked back with 67 attacks at S4. My enemy was utterly crushed by that one round.
I think if you take spear saurus you rely more on magic OR should at least consider it more. The spear saurus unit is more vulnerable in more than one sense. Not only do they not parry, but they suffer from losing effeciency once your opponent dig into that third rank. By utlizing magic you can mitigate that somewhat and your extra attacks have a greater impact. That's the way I see it.
That's rather accurate, my army is extremely heavy on magic, I run three wizards who all use supporting magic, one even gives me buffs to my spell casting.
The difference between our experience is also probably who we play against, If my opponent has a horde that I need to get my saurus into contact with then his unit is going to kill significantly more than 5-9 men up front. I usually plan on losing about 14 before I get to hit against an enemy horde unit, sometimes as high as 18, but that means I would need to bring at least 48 saurus to ensure not losing any attacks with spears, and by the next round there would be no extra rank for spears to hit with. I do own 80 spear saurus and I play with them at times, but it needs to be higher point games so I can build a serious crumple zone so that I continue to have that spear rank hitting at least until turn 5. I have found that a unit of 60 spear saurus with a frenzy BSB is almost a deathstar by itself, add in birona's timewarp or wyssans and it runs over almost everything in the game lol.
How so? The average horde army uses numbers over power, meaning that they'd have average combat stats with WS 3 and S3. That means only about half will hit, and of those only about a third will wound, and of those half will be stopped by armour and an extra sixth by the ward of an Engine. That's a lot of mitigated damage. Meanwhile the Saurus hit at S4 against an average T3, meaning two thirds of hits will wound and there will be a -1 modifier to armour.
I don't play average armies, it is actually quite rare to get a "good old friendly game" and because of this my experience is all very competitive with no wiggle room for house rules and as little RAI as possible. Below are the types of troops I face in horde formation on a regular basis: Ironguts White Lions Swordmasters Nurgle Warriors Trolls Hammerrers Longbeards w/GWs Witch Elves Executioners Savage Orc Big Uns Inner Circle Knights Grave Guard Stormvermin Rat Ogres Very rarely do I see things that have WS3 and S3, maybe a 200 unit of skaven slaves or zombies, otherwise I'm always up against a lot tougher horde units. So now if I see anything like you were saying I will immediately send in a small saurus unit to slowly chew them up because there is certainly going to be a much scarier unit that needs my main saurus block's attention.
Even against them, the sheer volume of attacks makes the saurus deadly. However, what really makes the saurus deadly in my mind is just how brilliantly they mesh with Light buffs. Their two weaknesses, initiative and weapon skill, both become 10. Or give them ASF and an extra attack, really it depends on your enemy. If you're lucky enough to get both then you're spoiled for choice. Plus Pha's Protection is pretty good, it's won me a game before. And if you're fighting Undead or Daemons, big monsters beware Shem's Burn... sorry, I digressed into magic when this is about Saurus. But yeah, Light+Saurus horde tends to win me games a lot. On a side note, it really sucks that everyone where you are is super competitive. I'm lucky enough where I can avoid the overly competitive folks and focus on more friendly and social games with skilled players.
Actually I fit in perfectly in my area, I've always been a nerd for numbers so crunching statistics and maximizing builds suits me. And I I love to win knowing my opponent tried everything in his power to make me lose, we have a ton of fun but it isn't the type of game you would play with someone you don't know really well so you don't hurt feelings. but even against the above horde units unbuffed saurus can and do win most of the time, I am a huge proponent of saurus being way more useful than most people give them credit for and are game winning consistently.
To be honest, whether it's my spear horde or your hand weapon blocks, it doesn't much matter. It's rather the joys of this game, using the same units for notably different tactical uses in order to develop our own personal tactical styles, the personalisation of the game can go right down to even that simple thing. It's good.
Yes I do, I don't get to play tournaments often lately but I have always brought a lot of saurus and always place very high if I don't win 1st. I'm hoping to get to play a tournament in the Tacoma WA area in August , if that happens I will do battle reports for the whole thing.
Hm... I might try that for my next game. I don't think it'll work as well overall because it's 70 points, but I do like to experiment and it could wind up working for the better.
I've never taken the book of Ashur dor the same reason, but I've seen a couple of battle reports where it's been put to good use. A dominant magic phase can really help out our Saurus boys who are highly buffable!
Agreed. However my only concern is that I already have a rather dominant magic phase, and the Book of Ashur would mean that I would need to remove my current Channeling Staff + Harmonic Convergence method which is just downright cheaper because only one Arcane Item per caster.
Still, I'll give it a shot anyway. I avoid tournaments because the games are always so tiny for my tastes, so I have nothing to lose. I shall bring back word of my success or failure!