I tested my potential tournament list against my O&G collecting friend’s potential list. Slann, Extra Power Die, Lore Mastery (Light*), Iron Curse Icon, Cupped Hands, BSB Standard of Discipline * It’s possible but unlikely that the Tournament referee will allow to change lore match to match in the actual tournament but I played this game as if that wasn’t an option. Skink Priest, Cube of Darkness (blue) Skink Priest, Forbidden Rod (dark green) 2 x 25 Saurus Warriors FC (green and blue) 20 Cohort Skinks, FC 26 Temple Guard, FC, Venom of the Firefly Frog, Banner of Eternal Flame 3 Kroxigor 2 x 7 Chamo Skinks with Brave (A and B) 3 Terradons 2 x 1 Salamander team with snack (male and female) Razordon Team with snack I do not remember the exact numbers of models in each O&G unit and I’m not 100% of what magical items were taken, I only include magical items I’m sure of. Grimgor, Black Orc SC that bestows +1 WS on a unit of Black Orcs and bestows Hatred on unit as long as he is alive. Also has crazy good saves and a powerful weapon with ASF. Savage Orc Great Shaman, L4, Lucky Shrunken Head (boosts Ward save of Savage Orcs he is with) Goblin Warboss, BSB Night Goblin Shaman, L2, Talisman of Preservation Large unit of Savage Orcs with FC and Big Stabbas (Savage Orc shaman deployed here) Large unit of Night Goblins with FC and 3 Fanatics (BSB deployed here, Goblin Shaman deployed behind unit) Large unit of Black Orcs with FC (Grimgor deployed here as was required) Orc Boar Chariot Mangler Squig Giant with 6+ Ward Save (and is very good at rolling 6s!) Goblin Doom Diver We rolled a Battle for the Pass and almost every piece of terrain we rolled was a building or a barrier. And because the building pieces on hand for fairly large the narrow battlefield was a little difficult for both of us to maneuver. Among the regular buildings and barriers there was a blazing barricade, a Nehekaran Sphinx (my side of the table), a Wyrding Well (center of the table), and a Haunted Mansion (O&G side of the table). Left to right My opponent put down his Savage Orcs, Black Orcs, and Boar Chariot down where he had the most space to move forward unobstructed, this happened to be my left flank. The Night Goblins, Mangler Squig, and Giant formed up on the opposite side of the table. The doom diver occupied a building in the back corner of his deployment zone giving it a vantage point to hit almost anywhere on the table. I used dummy drops to figure out where his nastiest units were going before committing myself, so I matched his Savage Orcs and Black Orcs with my Green Saurus and Temple Guard respectively. My deployment was too cramped to do more than that. I had to deploy my Kroxigor and Blue Saurus behind my front line unitss. My two Salamanders both took separate alley ways between the building to try to get good shots at the Night Goblins since the Orc units were almost impossible to target with Salamanders without exposing the warbeasts to near certain death. The Terradon being a dummy drop was not well positioned but I Vangarded it over a building into somewhere serviceable diagonal from the three units on my right flank. The twenty Cohort Skinks (and the two priests) were positioned on my right flank as well just barely shy of a building. Chamo Skinks A were lined up to attack the Doom Diver. Chamo Skinks B decided double teaming the Doom Diver was redundant and angled towards the back of the Night Goblins lacking anywhere better to go. I rolled Chain Light Lightning for the dark green skink and took Ice Shard for the blue in lieu of Wind Blast (in hindsight with buildings EVERYWHERE windblast may have been useful). The Orc Shaman took Hand of Gork, Fists of Gork, Ere We Go, and (unsure on the last one) Gaze of Mork. The Night Goblin Shaman managed to die before casting a spell successful so I do not remember what he had. The O&G won the roll off and went first. O&G Turn 1 No Animosity, everything advanced, all the orc units on my left flank staying level with each other. He only rolled two power die. I got a successful channel and with my two dispel dice, I shut down his magic phase. The Doom Diver hit Chamo Skink unit A but only inflicted one casualty. The Haunted Mansion’s ghosts killed a goblin or two. LM Turn 1 This was easily the most complicated movement phase I’ve ever done. To start with my dark green skink challenged the Sphinx. I figured an automatic wound wouldn’t matter because he was going to die from the Forbidden Rod next turn anyway. He won the challenge and got Heroic Killing Blow. “Umm, thanks mighty sphinx….” Chamo Skinks A charged the Doom Diver’s building and failed. Chamo Skink group B moved towards the back of the Night Goblins and triggered the fanatics, much to my surprise he decided to launch them at the Chamo Skinks rather than towards my main line (he didn’t want to expose his own troops was his explanation). Two of the Fanatics barreled through my Chamo Skinks and killed five, the third fell short. I moved my green Saurus towards to the left towards the table edge and my Temple Guard to the right of a building to let my Blue Saurus form up their center with a march move. The unit was still a few inches behind the other two Saurus blocks. My Kroxigor was out of luck so I began marching him around the Saurus and obstructing buildings towards the right side of the table. My Salamanders lined up for shots on the Night Goblins. The male Salamander exposed himself to the giant’s charge arc, but I left myself plenty of room to flee (or so I thought). The Terradons lined up for a shot at both the giant and Mangler. My Cohort Skinks occupied the nearby building giving them a nice tall building to throw sticks from. My Razordon team took up another nearby building. I decided to try Chain Lightning out since I could have theoretically hit pretty much the entire Orc and Goblin battle line with enough luck. Answering the sphinxes riddle made him complacent though. He got an IF but the chain lightning failed to inflict a single wound on the Mangler Squig, and it failed to jump to another target. The miscast wounded the priest and killed four rank and file skinks in the building with him. The Slann cast Searing Doom on the Mangler, again no damage. Then he cast Banishment on the Mangler and finally killed it. The Mangler did its job causing me to waste a whole magic phase. The two Salamanders killed roughly 15 Night Goblins but the Goblin character kept them from panicking. Between the Razordon team and Cohort Skinks I inflicted five wounds on the giant but he saved three of them. The two surviving Chamo Skinks of group B shot down the Fanatic that was still in front of them. Then the ghosts from the Haunted mansion took group B down to the Skink Brave alone. The Chamo Skink Brave was indeed brave as he neither panicked from the ghosts or the Fanatics decimating his unit. O&G Turn 2 The Night Goblins failed their Animosity check and made a failed charge towards my Skink Cohort. They took a few stand and shoot casualties as punishment for their rash behavior. The failed charge brought them near the Wyrding Well. The Goblins drank from it and recovered 11 casualties inflicted earlier healing most of the damage me and the ghosts worked so hard to inflict on them. My opponent did not want to try a long shot charge with his orc infantry but he came to the conclusion that due to terrain placement, his choices were either (A) have the Orc Boar Chariot charge the Temple Guard unsupported now, (B) have the Orc Chariot have no room to join in later when the infantry blocks are engaged leaving him only a Salamander with a Blazing Barricade to charge. He chose (A) and charged my Temple Guard. The Giant charged my male Salamander who rolled a very pathetic flee. The Giant caught him and then overran into my Razordon (who was too close to the Giant to Stand and Shoot). The Orc Infantry units advanced a little and the two remaining Fanatics whirled into an empty section of the table. I shut down the entire O&G magic phase with the Cube of Darkness. The Doom Diver was now too close to Chamo Skink group A to shoot at them so he targeted my surviving Salamander, hit dead on but failed to wound. The Haunted Mansion failed to kill the last survivor of Chamo Skink group B, and the ghosts also failed to kill a nearby Fanatic. Despite failing the Fear test versus the Giant, my Razordon inflict a wound on the guy and received no wounds in return winning the combat and driving the big oaf back. The Chariot killed three Temple Guard before the Temple Guard annihilated it. LM Turn 2 Just for fun My Slann challenged the Sphinx. I figured one wound form the Sphinx wouldn’t really matter so why not? My Slann won the challenge and got Lore Master of Death. Mu ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I declared several charges, the Green Saurus block charged the Savage Orcs, the Temple Guard charged the Black Orcs, the more distant Blue Saurus failed to back up the Temple Guard (but they were well positioned to make a supporting charge next turn if needed), Chamo Skink Group A successfully charged the Doom Diver’s building. My Salamander occupied the Blazing Barricade which offered a reasonable good position to roast the Night Goblin Block. My Terradons flew over the Night Goblin Shaman following the infantry block. Due to good luck on my part, the “look out sir” rolls and ward saves failed to save the Shaman from being flattened by an avalanche of rocks. The surviving member of Chamo Skink B moved to get a shot at the back of the Night Goblins somewhere out of range of the aggressive ghosts. The Kroxigors continued their impotent march in the direction of the units on my right flank. My Slann now had 14 spells to choose from. I thought this was a good time for the dark green priest to activate his rod and kill himself. The Rod only netted me two power dice unfortunately but I had plenty this round. I cast the augmented version of Speed of Light hitting both engaged Saurus blocks, then I cast Timewarp on the Temple Guard, Soul Blight on the Black Orcs, and Doom and Darkness on the Night Goblins. With Doom and Darkness on the Night Goblins, they would have almost been guaranteed to fail any panic test. Naturally my Salamander decided this would be a good time to eat some handlers. My Terradons and Skink Brave B took some pot shots at the goblins out of spite. The Razordon inflicted no damage. Thanks to the giant’s excellent Ward Save luck, I only inflicted a single additional wound on the big guy with my 16 short range no penalties whatsoever javelin barrage (that’s four wounds on the giant for those keeping score at home). Chamo Skink A killed a crewman, broke the survivors and captured the building. The Green Saurus aided by Speed of Light beat the Savage Orcs by a modest margin but failed to break them (I’ve never beaten Savage Orcs on turn 1 when they get both Frenzy and Choppas so this is in a way a huge victory!). Grimgor and his unit did okay but they couldn’t fight off Temple Guard with Timewarp and Speed of Light all while suffering from a Soul Blight! Even the Slann’s skink attendant took out a Black Orc and mighty Grimgor had to test on snake eyes. They broke and the Temple Guard narrowly failed to catch them. Orc and Goblin Turn 3 The Black Orcs failed to rally and fled a weak three inches from my nearby Temple Guard. The Night Goblin block charged my Skink Cohort (suffering a few stand and shoot casualties) and the giant once more did a one inch charge on the Razordon. The two Night Goblin Fanatics out in the middle of nowhere both rolled doubles and died. The Savage Orc Shaman tried to use Hand of Gork to move the fleeing Black Orcs to safety but I wanted them in the worst way so I threw all my dispel dice against it and shut the spell down. He used the rest of his magic phase to cast Fist of Gork and Hand of Gork to boost the chances of the engaged Savage Orc unit. There was nothing left that could shoot on his side. Despite the two buff spells they just received, the no longer frenzying Savage Orcs could not beat my Speed of Light augmented Saurus. The Savage Orcs broke and were run down. The giant managed to stun my Razordon but inflicted no actual wounds. My opponent decided to have his Goblin hero hang back from the building assault for some reason (this cost him dearly). My skinks, frustrated at not being able to kill the freaking giant took down five Goblins. That left only five Goblins to attack back who only managed to down a single skink letting me win combat by a good margin. At this point we both forgot how building combats are supposed to play out and the goblins took a break test (they still were suffering from Doom and Darkness), failed and fled right into the charge arc of my Terradons. There was no way I could not have caught the Black Orcs because my Temple Guard would have started the movement phase with Timewarp still active. There was almost no way the Terradons could have not caught the Night Goblins (who in hindsight should not have been fleeing), and even if they did get away they would have all taken a dangerous terrain test fleeing through a building a angry skinks. The giant would have had to face his usual barrage of 16 poisoned javelins plus magic missiles channeled through the blue skink priest from the Slann (unfortunately the Razordon was stunned and would not be able to participate in this hypothetical shooting fest). If we did not inappropriately have the Goblins flee, the Salamander would have been able to roast them, probably with a Doom and Darkness and/or Soulblight to soften them up first. The Kroxigor would have caught up to the Goblins in turn four and the blue Saurus turn five assuming the Salamander did not panic them.
Great write-up! Sounds like the O&G player had a rough time of it, but a pretty interesting battle. I really liked the giant/razordon stand-off in the building; hilarious mental image. Crazy luck getting Lore of Death with your Slann. Pretty devastating turn. Did you manage to draw any conclusions about your list? Seems pretty solid
Well I concluded my Slann should always challenge a Sphinx when in a Temple Guard bunker or when using Lore of Life with or without a bunker because the risk is low compared to the potential return! That's not list specific though. I concluded that 20 vanilla skinks on my list is a good call in case of buildings, watchtower or no, since it would take a unit much larger than them points wise to dislodge them and since the store's buildings on hand tend to be tall, they would get lots of stories to fire from. Not only are they hard to dislodge but if the building is centrally located they can shoot at enemies with no penalties at all! I was pleased with the Razordon in the building, but I don't the Razordon would have lasted as long against a block of regular troops, particular since after the first combat, the invaders would be too close to get a stand and shoot. I concluded that I can probably get by without the Becalming Cognition since I have a Rod caddy and Cube Caddy and Cupped Hands to augment my magical supremacy. I'm not sure what I'd cut for the 50 points anyway. I concluded that Light buffs make up for my lack of a Scar Veteran in most respects. I concluded that the mix of Terradons and Chamo Skinks is a good one. In the past I've used three Chamo Skink units and no Terradons. For the most part I didn't test out the really controversial things wanted to try. I wanted to see how Kroxigor did at providing flank support to Saurus (as compared to the Skrox blocks or Stegadons I usually use), but I didn't have the space to try it. I wanted to see if a Razordon can keep a Salamander safe by intercepting enemy vangard troops or chariots but the crowded board made that impossible. In a more traditional board set up, both the Kroxigor and Giants would have been providing flank support for their respective sides instead of deploying away from the main battle. EDIT: The people currently signed up for the tournament are mentioned below, I am likely to play three of these people if past tournaments are any indication. There is a remote chance the referee will let people change lores battle to battle. Anyway fair number of armies with cannons so I don’t regret leaving the Stegadons at home. I’d welcome any thoughts on how the current list would stand versus any of the armies below. Particular the Warriors of Chaos. Warriors of Chaos: Played him once he stomped me. I know he does very well against most people when playing WoC. A powerful army with a powerful player. I fear him him above all others. I believe he leans towards the Lore of Death. Vampire Counts: Found out it's the same guy that played Tomb Kings last time. I didn't know he had TWO undead armies. Dwarfs: One of my very best friends, I’ve played more games with him than anyone else combined. He beats me the majority of the time, but my list strongly correlates with what I would consider to be an anti-dwarf list (minus the Cube of Darkness) so a tournament matchup would be a toss up. O&G: The guy this battle report is with. He is likely to revise his list either a little bit or a lot. If he decides to throw out the Black Orc army experiment he’ll likely fall back on a Savage Orc Warboss, additional war machine, second Night Goblin block and maybe trolls. Vampire Counts or Demons: A very solid player with a solid win record. I played him once before and he obliterated me. He’s at least as good a player as the Warrior of Chaos player but with the Lore of Light’s lore attribute makes him feel slightly less threatening though if he fills the front rank of a giant zombie block with incorporeal characters like the one game I played with, I only have a single model that can stop it my Temple Guard Champion. Empire: I don’t know remember if this is the guy I played almost a year ago or not. If this is guy I think he is he likes knights a lot and favors the Lore of Life. Ogres or Empire: Unknown player Lizardmen: me I will be surprised if we don’t a let sign up or two. About the only army in the store no one has is Brettonians. Skilled local players who I know to be conspicuously absent favor Ogres, Tomb Kings, and Chaos Dwarfs respectively. I hope the other LM player shows up, I’d very much like to try to a 2500 point civil war.
Hmmmm. Good report, despite not being able to test your experiments. Happens to me all the time too! And what I notice in that list of opponents...is low Initiative. Lores of Death and Shadow would do well as you can use the majority of the spells to their fullest extent. WoC is the only exception it looks like, but they are just damn good in general. Hard to find a fault in their stats. Lore of Life worked for me against them, and Light should stand up well too. Dwellers could also remove some of those Ethereal characters from the Skeleton bus if they aren't super strong. Need Metal or fire to grant magical attacks to the unit right? Yeah, both are subpar as a TAAC Lore. Just pray it doesn't show up?
Light is a good general lore and the WOC is trigger happy with Purpose Sun. Last game I politely reminded him that with an augmented Speed of Light he shouldn't bother with it but in a Tournament game I don't feel the need to politely remind him what Light spells do when I'm not asked. There is a small chance I can pick lores. If that's the case I'll probably go Shadow for Empire or Ogres. Maybe Death for Ogres. If I get lore choice and I see ahead of time the VC is going heavy on Cairn wraiths as characters I will take Fire, it can make magical attacks and has a spell which targets each model (Flame Cage requires a failed Strength test though) That's my strategy for deep rooted ethereals and for the High Elf player with a Teclis model!
Does the WoC guy run the chosen deathstar? If he does you might be able to win if you play avoidance. Feed him your Krox to trick him or slow him down a bit. But then if the terrain is unforgiving like in this last game, that may not be possible. Either way keep us posted! I know I enjoy reading these reports.
I haven't seen him use a Chosen Death Star. I've seen him going Chosen Fleet of Star Destroyers with multiple good sized units but well shy of a Death Star. He plays with a wide variety of units changing it up often instead of running a predictable list of favorites with minor variations like most of the other regulars.
Thanks for the battle report, it was a really thrilling read! I love how your Slann went Kairos with two almost opposing lores, epic... Good luck with the tournament, it sounds tough!