TOW 1500 vs Wood Elves

[discomute]

Spoiler: Army lists

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Aeontezin's Guard [1498 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, Lizardmen
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++ Characters [697 pts] ++

Saurus Oldblood [379 pts]
- Great weapon
- Heavy armour (Scaly skin)
- General
- Carnosaur
- Armour of Meteoric Iron
- Glyph Necklace

Skink Chief [318 pts]
- Additional hand weapon
- Light armour (Calloused hide)
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Stegadon [Giant bow]
- Talisman of Protection

++ Core Units [441 pts] ++

21 Saurus Warriors [336 pts]
- Thrusting spears
- Shields
- Heavy armour (Scaly skin)
- Spawn Leader (champion)
- Standard bearer
- Musician

10 Skink Skirmishers [50 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Javelins
- Shields
- Light armour (Calloused hides)

10 Skink Skirmishers [55 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Javelins
- Shields
- Light armour (Calloused hides)
- Vanguard

++ Special Units [160 pts] ++

4 Ripperdactyl Riders [160 pts]
- Cavalry spears
- Shields
- Light armour (Calloused hides)

++ Rare Units [200 pts] ++

Troglodon [200 pts]
- Venomous talons
- Venom spray
- Heavy armour (Scaly skin)
- Skink Oracle with hand weapon (required)

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Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

He had
- big death star archer unit with a level 4 mage general and elementalism
- dryads protecting it
- heavy cav
- 2 eagles
- level 2 treeman
- infantry that were made for killing big monsters (way stalkers?) they got extra attacks and did multiple wounds on anything that causes fear or terror

Battle was normal
Deploymen I thought was even until he laid down a free forest right in front of my Saurus. A great trick as going through would cause me to be disrupted!


Turn 1 - me


Moved up a bit and did 2 wounds to an eagle with my.vanguard unit

Turn 1 - him


His treeman teleports into a forest ready to flank charge my Saurus

His cav fail a tough charge to get to my carnosaur

His archers do 4 wounds to my ripperducks, they pass panic

Turn 2 - me

His elementalism template scatters onto rippers and does 3 wounds. I have one left on one wound. They are so fragile!

Trog fails charge to way stalkers

Skinks kill both eagles

Ripperduck charge dryads. I know I'll lose but forcing him to form up will make a carnosaur charge viable

Carnosaur charges the heavy cav and they countercharge

Carnosaur kills 3 and doesn't take a wound. They break and he catches them.

My single ripper rolls unbelievably well. It's ridiculous he does 3 wounds to dryads from the 4 attacks, they can't attack back and they FBIGO so it gets to charge next turn

Turn 2 - him

His treeman flank charges the Saurus. We win combat (tie/music) and he GG into the woods so now I'm permanently disrupted, and we are rolling 6's to wound.

His archers rotate and shoot my carnosaur. They all get to shoot and they do 5 wounds to him... Stand and shoot next turn might kill him. Am I within 7???

His way stalkers charge kill my trog easily.

I'm getting nervous at this point.

Lastly my lucky ripperduck manages to stay lucky and do 2 wounds! The remaining dyad does a wound back... Then nuffle my god of luck enters to help me out. It's chaos:
- the armour roll is saved, which is massive as I've won combat and he can't FBIGO
- the one dryad breaks as I'm more than double unit strength and flees through the massive archer unit with his general
- he rolls for panic on his deathstar and rolls 11!
- he rolls a 5 to flee and the ripperduck rolls a 9. The sole ripperdactyl has just chased down and single handedly taken out the biggest unit.

Turn 3 - me


The ripperduck fails impetuous again and charges the way stalkers, which do about 8 wounds to him. Vengeance!!!

The skinks move in front of the way stalkers to absorb a charge and get the Steg to charge

The Saurus wound (regen) and he GG and it's slow going there.

Turn 3 - him


He charges and deleted the skinks. Actually we muck this up and he has 2 turns in a row. For the rest of the gsme:

The combat is going back and forth with the Saurus and the treeman. But the Saurus are winning by ties but not doing damage, I think they did 1 wound. When the carnosaur charges he does enough wounds to put treeman on 1, the treeman is unable to do the 2 wounds he really needed.

The stegadon charges the way stalkers and they do 2 wounds. The stegadon does a few back but the stomp attacks do 5 wounds and the waystalkers properly break and are caught.

That's game.

What did I learn?
Slann are not worth their points, that's a fact. His magic did little without one there to dispel. His archers has magic attacks and would have deleted the Slann it one turn if it was there. BUT it is thematic and I will rarely, rarely run this list. (I also don't want to encourage an arms race in the meta for multiple dragons etc). I will have to think how I can deal with those archers if they can take our my general in turn 1.

BSBs are awesome

But mostly it was the single ripperduck on a wound who went crazy. An entire dryad unit and topping it off with taking out the general mage and archers? Wow. Even if they didn't break, the duck landing in combat would have been useful because I could have charged with the carnosaur and no stand and shoot. But the rolling to kill those dryads was out of this world. 4 attacks, 4's to hit and 4's to wound (with armour and regen), doing 3 wounds the first time and 2 the second? Wow.

 

[BeardedLizard]

Interesting game! Thanks for posting.

I haven't had many good games with Ripperdactyls, even if they get into a good target they have been very underwhelming for me. Great to see that even one of them can turn the tide of battle.

I've been leaning more and more into Slannless lists after the nerfs. I feel like around 2k points you can justify taking him without gimping yourself.

 

[discomute]

Interesting game! Thanks for posting.

I haven't had many good games with Ripperdactyls, even if they get into a good target they have been very underwhelming for me. Great to see that even one of them can turn the tide of battle.

I've been leaning more and more into Slannless lists after the nerfs. I feel like around 2k points you can justify taking him without gimping yourself.

Rippers seem to be alright in my meta which seems to still be enjoying use of infantry. Skirmishers are very good in general. Getting the charge means 4 attacks per model, usually 4's to hit at st 4. Cleaving blow is nice too. Add the toads and it's a 5 attacks per model. I just wish they had either +1T, +1W or +1AC as I think they'd be suddenly more relevant. Or no impetuous, although I do admit to enjoying the rule.

I think I'm actually going to run a lot more as if my meta aren't bringing big monsters I really can't be bringing 3 to games, they are too good in TOW and I think our games will be more fun without the power creep. Even if big dinosaurs is largely what we do.

 

[airjamy]

Looks like a cool game! I kinda like your Oldblood build, i just default to ToP but if you have 15 points left the Glyph Necklace is actually a pretty nice upgrade. The Trog dying to a mild breeze is pretty,, typical, but that is clear of course. A no Wild Riders WE list is also kinda interesting and probably soft. The Slann being weak into WE i do not kinda get with Lore Familiar Elementalism. I take it you would go Rust, Wind Blast, Elemental Spirit and the Teleport? With the Teleport you can make your Steg move like 15 inches ethearally through terrain and still shoot, that sounds just great to me, and they really hate the 1 2 punch of putting Elemental Spirit behind the unit and using Wind Blast to push them into it right.

 

[discomute]

Looks like a cool game! I kinda like your Oldblood build, i just default to ToP but if you have 15 points left the Glyph Necklace is actually a pretty nice upgrade. The Trog dying to a mild breeze is pretty,, typical, but that is clear of course. A no Wild Riders WE list is also kinda interesting and probably soft. The Slann being weak into WE i do not kinda get with Lore Familiar Elementalism. I take it you would go Rust, Wind Blast, Elemental Spirit and the Teleport? With the Teleport you can make your Steg move like 15 inches ethearally through terrain and still shoot, that sounds just great to me, and they really hate the 1 2 punch of putting Elemental Spirit behind the unit and using Wind Blast to push them into it right.

Mostly has a glyph necklace because the ToP was on the stegadon .

I guess the question is - would you prefer a Slann or an old blood on a carnosaur? No matter the magic they bring,for me it's an easy question.

 

[Kalisto]

Thank you for the interesting report! Well I may agree with you that Slann is not worth the points but neither Troglodon is. Of course they are not hero points but anyway.
Ripperdactyl ARE very strong especially with the dot, but to be sure to be effective i guess you need an hero inside it (with or without glyph necklace to give MR 2)

 

[discomute]

Thank you for the interesting report! Well I may agree with you that Slann is not worth the points but neither Troglodon is. Of course they are not hero points but anyway.
Ripperdactyl ARE very strong especially with the dot, but to be sure to be effective i guess you need an hero inside it (with or without glyph necklace to give MR 2)

The sun standard of chotec is quite good because rippers are good enough to clear out missile blocks and no s&s helps. As for the -1, it's usually possible to have some cover on one of them and still have a decent charge range. So you end up with -3.

That said....see last battle report when repeater crossbow moved and fired multiple shots for -5 and still did like 4 wounds... Gross

 

[Kalisto]

I have played against lot of HE and Sisters of Isha have no penalities against cover. They are a BIG problem and they are overpowered. Maybe ripperdactyl are not the only way to manage that but this is a way. Of course enemy could have luck but in this way you have only 1 round to shoot at them. BSB and ld6 of the hero helps for an eventual panic test.

 

[discomute]

I have played against lot of HE and Sisters of Isha have no penalities against cover. They are a BIG problem and they are overpowered. Maybe ripperdactyl are not the only way to manage that but this is a way. Of course enemy could have luck but in this way you have only 1 round to shoot at them. BSB and ld6 of the hero helps for an eventual panic test.

t3, 4+ save and 2 wounds makes them very vulnrable to shootng. Or anything really. They don't hit hard enough to be so fragile, but what are you going to do? Run only carnosaurs? Rippers are so much fun when they hit properly.

 

[Kalisto]

They don't hit hard enough to be so fragile

I don't really agree with this, they can rout both knights as chosen champions infantry of chaos if they charge and you had put the token against them. Usually with a heroes inside is a LOT of attacks. I am talking about 5 attacks per model. But yes they are really fragile =)

 

[discomute]

They don't hit hard enough to be so fragile

I don't really agree with this, they can rout both knights as chosen champions infantry of chaos if they charge and you had put the token against them. Usually with a heroes inside is a LOT of attacks. I am talking about 5 attacks per model. But yes they are really fragile =)

I think also I've been under the impression they got a -1 to hit from shooting for skirmishing, they do not.

I've run them a few times, yeah it's all about getting the toad charge. I have been playing a lot of wood elves, good shooting and lack of armour (cleaving blow) will be interesting to see how they go against more armoured foes. The models also annoy me as wings make it so that they can't be 1" apart haha