8th Ed. 2000pts vs High Elves

[Spiney Norman]

Lizardmen List
Ku'Qulcan the Destroyer, Saurus Oldblood
Halberd, Armourof Destiny, Carnosaur with Loping Stride

Tenichi, L2 Skink Priest w/ dispel scroll & lore of heavens (Iceshard & Uranons)
Xocibiki, L2 Skink Priest w/ cube of darkness & lore of heavens (iceshard & convergence)

24 Saurus w/ full command, hwp & shield
24 Saurus w/ full command, spears
10 skink Skirmishers
10 Skinks Cohort

Stegadon w/ sharpened horns
6 Chameleon skinks
3 Ripperdactyl riders

Salamander pack w/ extra handler
Salamander Pack w/ extra handler

Elves
Teclis (flame cage, final transmutation, pit of shades, fate of bjuna, flesh to stone, amber spear, Uranons thunderbolt, net of Amyntok)
Sea helm BSB w/reaver bow

20 Seaguard w/ full command
12 archers w/ full command
5 Silver helms w/ full command

20 White Lions w/ full command & banner of the world dragon
Lion chariot of Chrace
2 RBTs

Frost heart Pheonix

Not the two most competitive lists possibly, but off we went

Deployment was fairly predictable, on the Lizardmen side the Saurus took the centre with the steg and 1 salamander on the right flank and the ripperdactyls and the second sallie on the other. The skink skirmishers deployed to screen the saurus from the elven shooting and chameleons scouted into the woods near one of the bolt throwers while the carno lord deployed behind a chapel to screen himself from the elven bolt thrower.

The elves deployment put the archers containing Teclis in the middle of the field, flanked by the Seaguard and white lions, the chariot and silver helms took up position on their left flank (opposite the Stegadon) and the frost heart deployed over on the right. The two bolt throwers deployed either side of the army's central core.

The archers and Teclis got the toad marker and the ripperdactyls vanguarded down the left flank, Lizards won the roll for first turn.

Lizardmen Turn 1
The skink screen advanced with the Saurus behind them, the chameleons left the woods and marched towards the bolt thrower on the left hand side, taking care to stay out of the frost heart Phoenixes charge arc. The ripperdactyls swooped towards the high elves back line, facing the HE board edge and the Stegadon moved up with the Saurus battle line. Both salamanders were going to be out of range this turn so they were marched into potentially useful situations.

The magic phase summoned a pathetic 4 power dice and 3 dispel dice, a two dice thunderbolt was easily dispelled and the other two dice successfully cast iceshard blizzard against the bolt thrower on the right.

In the shoot phase the chameleons caused an impressive 4 wounds on the left hand bolt thrower, removing it from the game, the Stegadon fired its giant bow at the flank of the white lions, managing to kill 4 of them.

Elves T1
The silverhelms and chariot shuffled forward to get charging position on the Saurus, the frost heart Phoenix turned to face the ripperdactyls and chameleon skinks sneaking along the elves back line.

The winds of magic gifted 9 power dice and 6 dispel dice. Teclis began by casting high level pit of shades on the hwp Saurus. Out came the dispel scroll. For his next trick he attempted net of Amyntok on the chameleons on two dice and snake eyes effectively ended the phase.

In the shoot phase the remaining bolt thrower targeted the Stegadon but failed to even hit it, the archers shot at the skink Skirmishers and killed 4 of them, while the Seaguard shot at the skink cohort containing one of the priests, but only caused two wounds.

Lizardmen T2
The Saurus and stegadon continued to advance, both salamanders closed in on the white lions. The ripperdactyl riders flew past the phoenix, down the HE backfield, taking up position to charge the archers next turn. The chameleons skipped around the Phoenix and back out of its charge arc.

Magic was again disappointing, yielding 7 pd/5 dd. iceshard blizzard was cast on the Seaguard and successfully dispelled and Uranons thunderbolt was scrolled by Teclis, but not erased.

In the shoot phase the first salamander rolled only 2 on the artillery dice, the template failing to reach the White lions, while the second preferred to snack on two of his handlers.

The Stegadon fired the great bow again, this time at the lion chariot, but failed to hit while elsewhere the chameleons managed to put a wound on the Phoenix. The skink Skirmishers, now in range of the Seaguard unleashed a volley of blow darts but could only account for two elves.

High elf turn 2
The Lion chariot and silverhelms charged the spear Saurus on the right, the white lions charged the other unit in the centre, the frost heart Phoenix chased after the ripperdactyls.

The winds of magic gave 9PD and 5DD. Flesh to stone went off on the white lions thanks to a failed dispel attempt, making them considerably tougher for the Saurus to deal with, flame cage was cast on the ripperdactyls but dispelled with the cube of darkness and the last of the high elf casting dice went into a high level amber spear which put three wounds on the carnosaur.

The sea-guard shot at the skink Skirmishers in front of them while the panicky archers fired ineffectually at the carnosaur (the only target in their LoS), the bolt thrower took out one of the salamanders.

In the combat phase the Silverhelms and Lion chariot managed to kill 9 Saurus, taking a wound on the chariot and losing two silverhelms in reply. The Saurus passed their steadfast break test and waited for the next turn.

In the centre the white lions buzzed through the other Saurus unit, killing 12 and only taking two casualties in return, the Saurus broke and were run down, crucially taking the lions out of the carnosaurs charge arc.

 

[Spiney Norman]

NB here are a few pictures I took after the charge moves on T2, I can't seem to actually post them on the site here (can't get the img code to work for some reason) so I've just linked to the albumn on photobucket.l

http://s785.photobucket.com/user/stjonthevandalist/library/Lizardmen vs High Elves?sort=3&page=1



The Lion chariot and silver helms charge the spear Saurus on the right flank



The White Lions charge the Saurus in the centre



The Lizardmen support units spread mayhem in the High elf backfield.

I did a little of editing magic, so you can see the pictures...Hunted out

Lizardmen T3
While the white lions had overrun out of the carosaur's charge arc, they had inadvertantly opened up an avenue for the mighty reptile to attack the archers containing Teclis. The ripperdactyls charged the archers in the rear, and the carnosaur successfully charged them in the front, the stegadon charged into the flank of the silver helms/chariot combat. The chameleons skipped around the Phoenix again and occupied a watch tower on the left flank while the remaining salamander moved to shoot at the White Lions.

The magic phase saw the first Lizardmen spell cast successfully with a 4 dice thunderbolt beating Teclis attempt to dispel with two DD, dealing another wound to the already wounded frostheart Phoenix.

In the shoot phase the salamander an early grazed the edge of the Seaguard, killing two members of the unit while the chameleons and remaining skinks kept chipping away at the Seaguard also.

In the combat phase the stegadons impact hits filled the remaining silverhelms and the Saurus took care of the chariot. The steg made a 9" overrun move to bring it closer to the centre of the action. The archers brought down a Ripperdactyl before it could strike and Teclis put a wound on the carnosaur, in response the ripperdactyls killed 8 archers and the carnosaur swallowed the venerable Mage whole before stomping another three archers into the mud. The lone archer broke, hotly pursued (and subsequently run down) by both the carnosaur (now frenzied) and the ripperdactyls.

High elf T3
The Frostheart Phoenix charged the carnosaur and the white lions did an about face and began to make their way back to where the action was. The Seaguard turned to try and do something about the chameleon skinks but failed even to hit thanks to the cocktail of negative modifiers.

In an epic display of incompetence the Frostheart Phoenix failed to remove the last wound from the carnosaur, leaving it open to a charge from the Stegadon next turn, the old blood and the carnosaur both manage to put a wound on the Phoenix, forcing a drawn combat, but not enough to kill it.

Lizardmen T4
The Stegadon charged the Frostheart, the skinks and salamander closed in around the white lions. The Spear Saurus unit, fresh from its victory against the lion chariot, charged the last remaining bolt thrower.

A whopping nine power dice saw successful castings of iceshard blizzard on the Seaguard, harmonic convergence on the salamander and thunderbolt on the white lions, confirming my suspicion that they were rocking the banner of the world dragon.

In the shoot phase the salamander landed a perfect shot on the white lions, hitting 14 of them and killing 8, the skink cohort combined their javelins with the remaining Skirmishers to fell another lion, leaving only a single rank.

In combat with the phoenix, the stegadons's sharpened horns inflicted a total of seven wounds from impact hits alone and made an overrun move towards the white lions. Elsewhere the Saurus smashed the bolt thrower apart.

High elves T4
The White lions charged the remaining 4 skink Skirmishers in front of them and then redirected their charge into the Stegadon after they fled. The Seaguard charged the watch tower garrisoned by the chameleons.

With no shooting or magic to be done we went straight to combat, the white lions kicked things off by failing their fear test and as a result, failed to cause a single wound on the Stegadon, which managed to kill of them with an uncompromising 5 wounds from thunder stomp alone.

The Seaguard naturally wiped out the chameleon skinks and occupied the building.

Lizardmen T5
The carnosaur Lord attempted to charge the watch tower, but the sea helm, finally managing to hit something with his magic bow, shot the carnosaur out from under him, leaving him unable to reach the tower. Meanwhile the Saurus and Stegadon closed in on tower, set to be the elves last stand.

In the magic phase Uranons thunderbolt managed to kill 4 Seaguard but all shooting was out of range of the tower.

High elves T5
The Seaguard shot at the Oldblood but failed to get through high armour save.

Lizardmen T6
The Saurus and the Oldblood stormed the watch tower, the Oldblood killed the sea helm in a challenge while the Saurus ripped the elves apart. None survived.

 

[The Hunted]

Hooray for Lizardmen!

High Elves can be a tough opponent, with strong magic, strong monsters and the BotWD..
You seem to have handled it well though.
Your rippers performed well, and you handled them well too. Same goes for the chameleons. Props to you on handling supporting units well.

The mainline had a rougher day, with the white lions going in for a kill. But after the white lions overran your saurus, you just marched and charged even further away from this dangerous unit, a sensible thing to do.
Killing teclis is always, and I mean always, a good/fun thing to do. I wonder if your opponent could do more to protect him though.

Anyways, thanks for writing this up and taking some pretty pictures! Good report, good result, that makes the Old Ones happy.

The Hunted

You might want to read this Posting pictures

 

[Kimiko]

Spiney, care to comment a bit the performance of the units you chose? Specially the Carnosaur and the Stegadon (IMO, for more 15pts, a Ancient Steg is a steal, +1AS and +1S, and the blowpipes )

 

[Spiney Norman]

Spiney, care to comment a bit the performance of the units you chose? Specially the Carnosaur and the Stegadon (IMO, for more 15pts, a Ancient Steg is a steal, +1AS and +1S, and the blowpipes )

Sure,
Carnosaur - love the model, is it useless/non-viable/rubbish? No, is the best unit in our list: no. It is hard to use well and will be an absolute liability vs many lists (basically any list with more than one cannon). I enjoy taking him, but I am fairly convinced a Slann would serve me better.

Stegadon - totally solid, for me the choice of steg vs ancient steg is very match-up dependent, the regular steg worked very well vs high elves for me, I actually think the bolt thrower is a better howdah weapon than the pipes in a lot of instances, just because it does something that skinks can't, and in situations where you're facing majority T3 the difference in strength between the two isn't that pronounced.

The other down side of the ancient is that it potentially impacts the amount of points you can spend on salamanders, which are one of the high points in our list, I certainly wouldn't bring more than 1 ancient because IMHO sharpened horns is almost mandatory.

 

[Kimiko]

With that being said, would you take both on a all-comers list?

 

[Spiney Norman]

With that being said, would you take both on a all-comers list?

I would probably take one ancient and one regular, both with sharpened horns, I wouldn't want to take two ancients because that would rule out salamanders.

The carnosaur is fun for casual play, but I doubt I'd use him competitively, and certainly not in an all-comers list, there are just too many things that can reliably kill him at range, stranding the OB

 

[GCPD]

Interesting game Spiney. How did you feel the Rippers played out? And do you think Salamanders are still worth their while?

 

[Spiney Norman]

Interesting game Spiney. How did you feel the Rippers played out? And do you think Salamanders are still worth their while?

I really like Ripperdactyls, mainly because they play more less how I've always wanted terradons to play. My terradons constantly disappoint me in combat, even against warmachine crews they lose combat more often than they win, whereas rippers hit like a tonne of bricks. Against the archers I think my rippers killed 8 elves (and that was after losing one model to the elves attacks), toad rage is a very scary rule used correctly.

I was initially worried about the concept of a Ld5 frenzied unit, but in the event I never even had to test to restrain. Its fairly easy to place them in such a way as to have nothing in their charge arc by having hem staring off a board edge for example.

Salamanders are still a major threat to T3 infantry, I had some poor luck initially with misfires and bad rolls missing the target unit, but when I did land a perfect shot it literally ended the game for the target unit (white lions) which was just as well because they went through my Saurus like a hot knife through butter. I'll be interested to see how well sallies do against a majority T4 army.

 

[GCPD]

After my own game with them, I'm inclined to agree about the awesomeness of Ripperdactyls. Don't get me wrong - I actually love the Terradons and their flexibility, but the Rippers really have some impressive damage output per model and, as you say, the Frenzy thing isn't nearly as hard to manage as it seemed to be on paper. Do you think 4 is worthwhile, or is 3 the optimum size?

With regards to the Salamanders, did you find the lack of march and shoot impacting their performance at all? The implication seems to be one less round of shooting.

 

[Pofadder]

Awesome battle report Spiney. May I ask whether the rippers made many armor saves in the combat against the archers? Two wounds sedms light for the ASF rerolls unless the archers struggled to roll the 4 up to wound. I really keen to see Rippers succeed but looking at theirstatline concerns me...

 

[T`hinker`er]

Just wondering about those white lions decimating a unit of 24 saurus in one turn. Not an uncommon sight. Normally I would have a cheap cohort and/or swarm redirecting those guys away from my saurus and into position to be spammed by Salamanders from two sides. Something to think about.