It has been a very long time since I played a WHF game. I'm playing Orcs and Goblins. My winning track record against this friend is not very good but my winning track record against Orcs and Goblins (his OG and others) his undefeated. Since I am so rusty, I mostly optimized my list for simplicity. I'm also kind of pulling my punches since I'm 7:0 (or 6:0 or 8:0, I don't remember exactly) on LM vs. O&G. We agreed that O&G in general are an underpowered codex and we agreed to house rule that O&G may take BRB magic lores. Slann (300), BSB (25), Obsidian Amulet (30), Channeling Staff (15), Soul of Stone (25) and Harmonic Convergence (30), Lore of Light 425 points Oldblood (140), Armor of Destiny (50), Great Weapon (6) 196 points Skink Priest (65), Level 2 (35), Lore of Heavens, Dispel Scroll (25) 125 points 27 Saurus Warriors, FC 327 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 20 Skink Cohorts with FC, Poisoned Attacks 170 points 26 TG, FC, Banner of Eternal Flame 404 points 6 Kroxigor with Ancient 320 points 2 Salamanders with 1 Extra Handler 165 points 1 Salamander with Extra Handler 85 points 1 Ancient Steggy with EOTG 280 points LORD 621 HERO 125 CORE 800 SPECIAL 724 RARE 530 Total 2800 I don't want to overthink it. Hypothetically I could add more skirmishers or another Salamander or a Razordon. Hypothetically I could trim some points by making my Old Blood a Scar Veteran, drop EOTG, the Obsidian Item, or drop the Cohort poisoned attacks My basic plan is to keep my TG, Saurus Warriors, Steggy and Kroxigor near each other and use Light buffs while the Salamanders and skirmishers run interference. The Cohort Skinks are in case there is a watch tower scenario. Even if we don't roll watch tower, my friend's terrain collection is very building heavy. A pack of Cohort Skinks in a building can be very annoying to enemies as a is good place to plan a Skink priest to rain down magic missiles from.
I made some slight changes for simplicity. Slann (300), BSB (25), Channeling Staff (15), Soul of Stone (25) and Harmonic Convergence (30), Iron Curse Icon (5) Lore of Light 400 points Scar Veteran (80), Armor of Destiny (50), Shield (4) 134 poin5s Skink Priest (65), Level 2 (35), Lore of Heavens, Dispel Scroll (25) 125 points 28 Saurus Warriors, FC 338 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 101 points 20 Skink Cohorts with FC 130 points 30 TG, FC, 450 points 6 Kroxigor with Ancient 320 points 2 Salamanders 160 points 2 Salamanders 160 points 1 Ancient Steggy with EOTG 280 points LORD 400 HERO 259 CORE 771 SPECIAL 770 RARE 600 Total 2800
Core is usually a mix of goblin wolf riders, Night goblin infantry blocks (usually MSU), a big block of savage orcs (Big Uns), a couple regular orcs. Usually lots of artillery, usually lots of trolls (river and/or vanilla), usually a couple mangler squigs, often a snotling pump wagon, often squig hoppers Sometimes other chariots, sometimes boar cavalry, sometimes a general on a Wyvern, sometimes lots of cheap heroes and sometimes a few loaded heroes. Never spiders or giants. He thinks giants are a bad matchup against LM and refuses to pay GW prices for arachnaroks. At this point my army is already packed and in the car so I'm not likely to make a change. I'm just responding because I couldn't sleep. And thought I'd log on to L-O to tire out my brain and hopefully get a few hours of sleep. My original plan was to roll out of bed and get in the car to go see my friend after a quick breakfast of toaster waffles. He's about an hour away. Unless you have some very brilliant advice, I'm probably not going to change my list at this point since I am leaving in four and half hours, but I'm still interested in your advice in an academic sense. I do plan to take copious notes and post a battle report.
I'll try my best, but keep in mind I haven't really thought about Lizardmen in YEARS. I can tell my focus has shifted because as I read through your list I'm trying to analyze how I would take in on with my stock Chaos Dwarfs list. Pretty solid! Personally I like the High Magic Focus of Mystery route for the extra spells (8 is soooo much better than 4) and the ability trade into whatever lore you want on the fly. That said, if you're going the standard lore route, light is pretty damn good. I like life a bit better, but that is more down to personal preference. Light really helps address some of the Lizzies' deficiencies. As for your Disciplines, I consider both of those auto-selections. If you can find the points, I'd add Becalming Cogitation to the mix. For 25pts it is an absolute steal. It really lets you take some calculated risks while dispelling and saving you some of those very precious dispel dice. I'm guessing that this guy is sans Cold One because he will be bolstering one of your big blocks. Hard to beat the classic Cowboy with a 1+4++ and a GW, but I can see where you're going with him. I'd drop the Patrol Leader upgrades on all three units. That saves you 30 points. The extra BS isn't worth 10 points in my opinion. It's best to keep this type of unit as disposable as possible. With the saved points you can pick up the aforementioned Becalming Cogitation discipline. What role will these guys fulfill? Who are they meant to engage? Also, I'd probably drop the FC and go with just a musician. These guys might find it hard to be useful against an O&G army. They don't have many great matchups, especially as you said your friend will not be fielding any Arachnarok spiders. Keep them away from the Savage Orcs unless you can combo charge their flank. (I have to admit though, I do sort of have a soft spot for our Kroxigors!) SOLID. Whittle down his big Savage Orc Big'un block. A horde of those guys will be the powerhouse of his army. I haven't run the numbers, but I think from a mathematical average standpoint, they take down anything in your army. Salamanders can bring them down to a manageable size. Pricey... especially if he has a crap ton of Spear Chukkas. This will be a challenge to take down without dedicated war machine hunters, clever positioning/movement with your skink skirmishers will be critical. He's right!
Note, I suffered my first loss against O&G. I didn't make any big mistakes, I was well on my way towards winning until Curse of the Bad Moon swung things. We had a fun battle with lots of unexpected twists. It certainly whet our appetite for more games but it's difficult to schedule game times with jobs and family obligations and whatnot. But anything is possible if you want it bad enough. I would normally agree, but because I am so rusty on 8th edition, I wanted to go with four spells to simplify things. I agree, I actually goofed up and gave my Slann Becalming Cognition without paying for it, but apparently the dice hit me with karma because all my rerolls resulting from this were really bad. It does, I built my list and strategy around it. I kept most of my heavy hitters in close proximity and benefited from the EOTG Ward save and the Slann casting bubbled Light spells. This how I was winning until Curse of the Bad Moon flipped things. I'll do a proper battle report soon. There were a lot of unexpected surprises. I guess I usually give my Temple Guard the Banner of Eternal Flame. This was a rare instance where I did not. I didn't realize that my opponent was so used to me giving the Temple Guard flaming attacks that he had his trolls give the TG a wide birth and he gave his fighting heroes the anti-flaming attack items. Likewise, my friend threw me for a loop by not taking wolf riders. I thought that was his favorite O&G unit. Usually I sink a lot of points into characters and my opponents goes character light, but this time we switched roles. Plan A for my Kroxigors was to have Skink skirmishers redirect monsters and chariots to let Kroxigor charge them and kill them. Plan B was to provide supporting charges for my Temple Guard block. But I ended up improvising a Plan C. The Kroxigor actually absorbed a lot of shooting attacks then ended up taking out the doom dive and rock lobber before flanking a big block of goblins. Not what I had in mind, but it worked. My Salamanders roasted a bunch of goblins but while positioning them to roast goblins, I noticed both packs ended up with an open path to charge a bolt thrower. Fun times. He ended up taking fewer war machines than I anticipated. Three spear chukkas, a doom diver, and a rock lobber. I didn't take any camo skinks because my models a bit brittle and in my experience O&G tend to fill the table so well there aren't a lot of places to put them. Regular skink skirmishers do okay at taking out war machines with their 12 inch march moves. The EOTG Steggy turned out to be a very valuable unit. Much more than I expected. But it might have helped that the Kroxigor drew most of the artillery fire and he rolled a fair few misfires. It might be a fluke, but I intend to take EOTG Steggies more often when I'm playing an army that does not have cannons. At least my next two or three games. I'm proud of my paint job on the standard. I have a unit champion so he can eat a challenge to protect the Skink priest if necessary. I like to have a 20 man unit, just in case of the watch tower scenario. Even if a watch tower scenario does not come up, they still earn their points. Because they are cheap points-wise, they don't have to create a miracle to earn their keep. The BRB terrain generator and my friend's collection of terrain pieces is skewed heavily towards buildings. As the BRB specifies, we take turns placing terrain. I usually like to make sure there is at least one building somewhat near the center of the table. In my experience, Cohort Skinks are very good at occupying buildings (they are certainly cheaper skirmishers). Since javelins are quick to fire, every unit that assaults a building is going to face a poisoned stand and shoot. There are nearly always a few enemies units within 12 inches of these buildings for me to take a pot shot. In often 300 points of enemies to dislodge 130 points of cohort skinks from a building if they bother at all. Also, I usually put a skink priest with the cohort. They got a good vantage point to cast Lore of Heavens spells or act as an arcane vassal to the Slann's magic missiles and since I don't have to put a Skink priest in the ten models designated to fighting a building fight, the skink priest is also hard to kill. I often use my entrenched Skink shooters to "seal the deal" and finished off fleeing or badly depleted units. I take a 20 model skink cohort in nearly every LM army list of 2400+ points and I rarely regret doing so.
I'm always happy to see Kroxigors do well on the field. Good improvised strategy! If it works... it works. If you know you're not going to have to deal with cannons, then our monsters (not Troglodons) become interesting options. I usually construct my lists with an all-comers mentality, so I'm a bit down on monsters that don't have a ward or regeneration save protecting them. That's one of the reasons why I'm a bit disenchanted with my Lizardmen. 280 points is awfully expensive though, getting eerily close to that 325 point K'daai Destroyer mark. That said, I look forward to seeing how it fares as you put it through its paces!