The plan is to be behind his army as well as being in the front, The saurus will secure the centre with the steg and the COC on a flank each to grind everything they see and mabye even get a flank charge in. The skinks will screen, shoot, annoy and just be awesome, while the terradons and the cham's infiltrate behind enemylines and marchblock/kill soft targets like mages and warmachines. That's the plan... Now the list: Skink Chief -Ancient Steg, Warspear Skink Chief -LA, Sh, Spear, Terradon, SotLS, Venom Skink Priest -2 scrolls 3x10 Skink Skirmishers 16 Saurus warriors -Mus, std, spears 6 Chameleon skinks 5 Cold one cavalry 4 Terradon riders 1 Salamander -1 extra handler 1500 points exactly I'll be fighting my friends Dark elves list this week. It usually is a fast darkrider/shade/hydra/cold ones list. We used to play at 1000 points so now he'll field some sorceresses and a unit of black guard for sure. Is this list any good versus such a list? What improvements could be made?
I would say that you have a pretty decent list in this match up. I would leave that priest lvl 1 because he's just a scroll caddy and 1's give the same amount of dispell dice as 2's. The stegadon with warspear is probably one of the best ways to deal with the black guard other than just massive amounts of blowpipes. Impact hits go before ASF so 2d6+1 str 5 hits later (go for the regular stegadon in this matchup... str 5 wounds on a 2+ just as a str 6 would). Also, regular stegadons get 4 attacks and 2 initiative over the ancient's 3 attacks and 1 initiative. The only benefit against elves of any kind that the ancient gets 3+ save instead of the regular stegadon's 4+ save. It would be great for those pesky armor piercing shots. So, you decide the value because cutting back to a regular steg would save you 40 points. Blackguard have a 5+ right? Strength 5 take that away too. So, if you change to a regular steg, take out 1 saurus and perhaps 1 chameleon skink you could get 60 points or so to spend on something. I think you need a better answer to the hydra right now. If you would replace the skink chief on terradon with a saurus scar vet on cold one with burning blade of chotec and the enchanted shield you could take it out I think. That's what probably going to hurt you right now. Depending on the set up of the battlefield, this is what I see happening. Question/Answer Sorceress/skink scroll caddy hyrda/skink horde blowpipes(scarvet would be better) blackguard/saurus & warspear cold one cav/cold one cav dark riders/terradons Shades/terradons & skinks Your salamander can kind of go where it's needed. The blackguard would be good targets and so would any other rank and file troopers. The cold one cav get toasted nicely too. Anyway, hope this helps.
actually, charging a unit of ASF black guard with an ancient steg alone is not the best ideea, it is true that impact hits go before ASF but they are distruibuited as shooting hits so they don't take out the fightning rank, thus he will get his full attacks back at your chief, who will probably won't get his S6 attacks and if you hit the front and he has a master with the S6 thingy and the tower master with the great weapon magic item he will hit at S6 at your steggie and maybe he won't get to do his 3 attacks (or 4) either, be very carefull with that unit. i'd rather kill it with skinks since you can manouver arround that unit and blow the hell out of it with the lousy 5+ armor save adn the occasional to hit roll on 5+ when you wound him on 4+ salamanders and magic help against black guard aswell, same low T and armor save reason
They are only distrubuted as shooting in case you hit something where hits are randomized, they still take out the fighting rank and count towards combat resolution, as long as the impacts kill enought guys noone gets to strike back. Hitting a steg into a black guard unit still might be a bad idea since they will most likley hold as they are stubborn and ITP, and just kill the chief in the second round, but with a war spear you should kill at least 7 Black guards on impacts alone. This is a qoute from the BRB, page 63: "Like other casualties of close combat, models killed by impact hits do not get to fight."
That's accually a pretty strong point about the stegadon. I'll probably change it. About the scar-vet. I have used just the same guy and together with a unit of saurus he took out the hydra. he is only 7 points more then the terradon chief so that shouldn't be a big deal. I would have liked to try the black hawk skink out, but i guess it'll have to wait until I'm fighting some other guy then Dark elves, perhaps he'll come in handy agains VC or High Elves. thanks for all the comments people, keep the good ideas flowing!
Yeah, the skink sounds really cool. He really does. The part that stinks about it is that there are so much more effective hero choices... I am by no means a power player and I always root for the underdog who has come up with his own set up for his heros/units... but I just don't see you taking out that hydra right now. Maybe if he wasn't taking a hydra then you could go for the black hawk skink. He really does sound cool.
Some day i'll rain Str5 hit on my enemy from behind I'll go for the scar-vet then, gives me a decent general and the option to include a BSB. So the list would be: Skink Chief -Ancient Steg, Warspear, BSB Scar-veteran -LA, CO, BBoC, ES Skink Priest -2 scrolls 3x10 Skink Skirmishers 16 Saurus warriors -Mus, std, spears 6 Chameleon skinks 5 Cold one cavalry 3 Terradon riders 1 Salamander 1497 points Is there anything else that would be good to think about? Or change?
yea that's an odd number. It's because i had some points left... it's 5x3+1, if you can find anything better to spend 15 points on it would be nice
haha forgot about the guy...was still thinking in black hawk mode It's accually what i field normally well, next time i'll think before i post something
I too love that set up, which is why I was asking. Nothing like being in base contact with your opponent and getting in those extra 2 to 4 attacks if he is running the standard 5 wide or less.