8th Ed. 1800 vs VC

What are good choices against the VC? I have almost no experience against the new book. I know this player has fielded a large unit of Vargheists? (the flying frenzied ones), and a Terrorgheist is effectively certain.

This is for a league, so I'm capped out at 25% skinks, I can buy extra armour for the stegadon, and I can field the Great Fire Dragon as a rare choice. Below is my first thought....

Slann, all Lore of Light, discard 6s, extra dice, BSB, Cupped Hands
(5 pts short of 25% on lords, so no room for more toys)

scar-vet, light armour, cold one, Charmed Shield, Burning Blade, Dawnstone

25 Saurus, musician, banner
10 blowpipes
10 blowpipes
(just over min core)

Stegadon with heavy armour (282 pts)
Great Fire Dragon (450 pts)

The Fire Dragon isn't Stubborn like a Stegadon, but he hits harder in general, should shrug at a Terrorgheist scream, and his breath weapon will crush something.

 

from my VC experience is, he fears the Engine of the gods =)
killing his little chaf, his annoying spirit host, etc
its the number one feared unit for VC

 

Just a fluffy idea, dragons don't like Lizardmen, so, I guess consider that. You could drop the dragon, find 20 points, and run 3 stegs. Hammer a zombie bus with them and see what happens

 

Engine of the Gods means dropping the scar-vet, and a scar-vet with magic weapon plus a steg seems better than one steg to me, bubble explosion or not.

Multiple stegs is what I often like, but that seems suicidal against a Terrogheist (or 2 Terrorgheists!). Stegadons kill infantry great, but I'm much more worried about the VC monsterous infantry and monsters.

I put in Saurus not Skrox so the Slann has a place to hide from the VC fliers (using scar-vet to force Slann to 2nd rank).

 

Not sure if that's possible givin page 43 'Guardians' its says "if the slann joins any other unit other than temple guard, it is placed in the front rank"

I'm not saying your wrong, but it does leave it open to debate as to wether it can be forced anywhere else in the unit IMO

 

I took Sword of Might instead of Burning Blade, but otherwise the posted list is what I fielded.

My opponent surprised me by not bringing a Terrorgheist (much less 2) and instead bringing a Mortis Engine. VC list had a combat lord (but just strength 5) in skeletons, necromancer, 30 ghouls, 8 vargheists, mortis engine, some bats.
I won the game, but I cannot claim to have earned the victory by playing well. The combat oriented vampire lord was not effective with just strength 5 against monsters, and despite having my full army list, my opponent did not realize the power of my scar-vet. If my impact hits (1 ghoul), breath weapon (4 skeletons), and thunderstomps and had not rolled poorly for a couple rounds, I think I would have won easily.


Dawn Attack made the Lizardmen army deploy first on the left. VC matched up basically opposite, with only the Vargheists out to the other side, but flying movement made that largely insignificant. VC stole the first turn, but Becalming Cogitation ended the magic phase on the first spell. Slann took revenge for the VC initiative by blowing away half the Vargheists on turn 1. The Vargheists underestimated the tank scar-vet, charged him and he eventually finished them off.
Baby Stegadon had early troubles with impact hits and stomps, but he rolled at least five 2s for armour saves fighting ghouls, which the heavy armour upgrade meant were successful! He did lose all his skinks, but promptly gained Frenzy!
On the top of turn 3, the Mortis Engine killed the Slann and the Fire Dragon killed the Vampire Lord. The following round the Lizardmen monsters finally rolled hot, winning combat by 13 and popping the skeleton unit and reducing the ghouls to just 4 models. That was likely enough for a Lizardmen victory, so the Necromancer went for max dice Invocation, miscast, and sucked himself into the warp. With permanent crumble in play and the Mortis Engine on 1 wound, we called it there.