Hello; This is probably my first substantive post on this forum. I decided that I’d write up a battle report for the game I played last week. Next time I decide that I’m going to do one of these, I’m going to make sure that I take some pictures as well, because I know how much that helps out in terms of visualizing the battle. So as this was the first game my opponent had played of 8th, we decided ahead of time to limit the point value of our game to 1000 pts. I had just bought the first chunk of my lizards, and wanted to give them a try. So here is our lists: My Lizardmen: Scarvet w/ Light Armor, Piranha Blade, Enchanted Shield Skink Priest w/ Level 2 and Plaque of Tepok 20 Saurus w/ Full Command 2 x 10 Skinks w/ BP 6 Saurus Cav 2 x 1 Salamander I’ve been playing a number of horde armies lately (Dark Elves and Skaven) so this army felt really, really small to me, especially after I saw what he brought: Goblins: Goblin BB w/ GW NG Big Boss w/ GW NG Shaman w/ lvl 2 40 NG w/ Spears and Nets; FC 1 Fanatic 2 x 25 NG w/ Spears and Nets, FC; 1 Fanatic Each 2 x 20 NG w/ Shortbows 5 Squigherds 3 Spear Chuckas So I was outnumbered three to one and he had lots of shooting! Yikes! I was pretty worried about my chances. So we set up, each of us with basically mirrored deployment zones; forest, hill, forest; the center was pretty clear. The table was 6x4. I set up my army with Salamanders on the extreme flanks, with my saurus block and cav centrally; with one skink skirmisher unit to the side of the saurus block and the other in front of the cav to grant them cover. He deployed one spear chucka on the flank right in front of the woods, then two blocks of archers one in front of the other; then his other two spear chuckas on a hill, then the squig herds unit, then the two blocks of Night Goblins, and then the big horde spearmen with the other woods on the flank. For spells, I rolled 2, 2, 1; so I took Chain Lightning as well as Portent and Wind Blast. He got spells one and two from the Little Waaagh (So Gaze of Mork and…I totally don’t remember). I won the roll off for first turn. Turn 1: One the first turn, nothing particularly eventful happened, I moved my stuff forward, spreading out the skinks to make sure that my saurus cav had flank shot protection from the bolt thrower on the far right. The magic phase went down, I got off chain lightning and killed two guys from his horde unit but it didn’t bounce to any other units. The Salamanders fail to reach any of their targets after marching. His turn was also uneventful, beginning a terrible string of ones trying to bolt-thrower the salamanders. He moves forward, threatening charges against my saurus and cav with his blocks. His shooting, magic and fanatics whittle down my saurus a bit. Turn 2: Salamanders duck into the flanking woods ready to unleash a gout of flames at on the poor goblin’s flanks. I shoot the skinks in front of the saurus cav directly forward out of LOS to the squig herd and in put one of the bolt throwers into short range. The saurus cav shuffle back out of potential charge range. I tried to charge one of the blocks of goblins with his general, but he fled the charge. Magic was fairly uneventful. The salamander attempted to breathe on the horde unit, but decided he wanted a nosh and ate all the skinks instead. He got rather angry about that (I think one of the handler spears got stuck in his gullet). He rolled a RAAGH! Result on the Monster Reaction table. The other salamander (on my left flank, next to the archers) roasted 8 from the front unit, caused them to panic, and made the other unit panic as well. Off the table they go :-D The Skinks fire at the bolt thrower, rolling 5 poisoned hits and destroying the bolt thrower. On the goblins turn, they shuffle around a bit, the horde moves closer and the fleeing goblins rally. He basically shuffles his stuff around, kills a few saurus with magic/bolt throwers and gives me the turn. Turn 3: I declare lots of charges. The salamander charges the horde, who hold, the saurus charge the night goblin unit that fled last turn, which flees again, and then pass their leadership test to charge the horde unit instead. The saurus Cav charge the squigs and roll boxcars on two of their three dice. Magic was pretty productive, I think I rolled a ten, giving him 6 dispel dice. I cast the big version of portent of far, giving all of my units in CC the benefit. Then I killed the other bolt thrower with chain lightning, and pushed the fleeing goblins closer to the edge of the board with wind storm or whatever. The salamander who had some skinks left breathed on the warmachine (totally ineffective. Don’t do this at home kids). In close combat, the scar vet challenged and the champion accepted. I did two wounds (multiplied to 4), and lost a couple saurus to the NG before coming back and killing lots. I was down to one rank of saurus left, and he held due to steadfast. The squigs killed 2 cav, due to me rolling a lot of ones and getting some really good re-rolls. Those dice definitely aren’t loaded! They killed a ton of squigs back, who failed their break test and broke, killing a couple other model (I think mostly from the horde). Goblin turn, his general’s unit rallied. Mage in other block of spearmen killed some skrimishers, and the saurus/salamander broke the horde. His poor general’s unit was starring down cav in the flank plus saurus in the front. He conceded. Overview: The game was fun, and even though it was my opponent’s first game we played pretty fast, finishing the game in less than an hour. Things I learned about lizardmen: -Salamanders = amazing. I liked them before. Now they’re an auto-include. Marching + no partials + all benefits of skirmishers + monster and handlers vs. shooting = broken. That’s tournament math right there :-D -Saurus warriors are pretty neat now. I like the 6+ ward, it’s pretty great having it just to get re-rolls from the priest to potentially get two chances for it to happen. They still die fast though, I feel like I should be taking units of 30 in bigger games. At 1k I think 20 is about right. -Skinks are awesome, they’re really slippery, and can really get into the places that you need them to be. I want to see how well they do against a horde army like skaven or a bigger goblin army; something that doesn’t have flanks. I might be able to blast a way around though with salamanders. -SCoC are awful. I’ll definitely be taking a unit of Temple Guard, who for roughly the same points have a full command and better attacks in general. Plus they’ll live longer. And look cooler. I’d like to start posting some more battle reports as I get my army ready for Vegas GT Finals later next year, and get some kind of battle-report blog thing where I can detail my games and really think about how things work in the new edition. Feel free to post some comments or critiques! Thanks, Danny McDevitt
Well written battle report. Seems like you had a fun game. Congrats on the win and let us know how your next games go!