Hey everyone, The semi-local shop has a 2500 point charity tournament coming up on the 19th with some pretty unusual scenario rules compared to what I'm used to, its four rounds and so far I've confirmed the competing armies to be: Tomb Kings, Ogre Kingdoms, The Empire, and *shudder* Vampire Counts, and there are possibilities of Orcs/Goblins and Beastmen showing up. Here are the scenarios followed by the list I currently have set up: Battle 1: Blood and Glory with Breaking point condition of 3 Battle 2: Battleline except victory conditions, each table will have three terrain elements of the same type on them that are 'controlled' by the unit closest to them, the player who controls the most of these at the end of the game wins Battle 3: Dawn Attack, Standard Victory Points except standards are worth 75 points if captured and standards that survive the battle are worth 50 points to the owner Battle 4: Meeting Engagement except victory conditions, winner will have the most "Leader Count" points, 2 points for each dead enemy Champion , Hero, or Lord the enemy has, and 1 point for each of your own that survives the battle. Lords: Slann Mage Priest: General, Mystery (Lore of Life), Rumination, and Cogitation. Bane Head and Diadem of Power Heroes: Skink Priest: Level 2, Ancient Stegadon, and Plaque of Tepok Saurus Scar-Veteran: Light Armour, Cold One, Warrior Bane Core: Jungle Swarm (3) Saurus Warriors (22): Standard, Musician, and Champion Saurus Warriors (22): Standard, Musician, and Champion Skink Skirmishers (12): Brave, Blowpipes Special: Temple Guard (14): Standard, Champion, Plaque of Dominion Cold one Cavalry (8): Standard, Champion, Banner of Swiftness Chameleon Skinks (6): Stalker Rare: Salamander Hunting Pack: +1 Handler Total: 2499 points Suggestions would be very welcome, I've faced most of the above armies before with the exception of Orcs/Goblins and Tomb Kings, but the one really worrying me is the Vampire Counts. The player of which happens to be my brother, who has a bit of a reputation for raising at least 40 zombies a turn combined with the Helm of Command. I also know hes bringing a Black Coach. So if anyone knows how to face these, particularly the 40+ zombies with weapon skill 7 and the Black Coach, please tell me.
Not overly helpful but the key on VC is getting to the Vamp and dropping him. If you knew he was playing you could tool up a hero just to killing that vamp. Or run death and charge up with the TG and snipe him with death spells. But not a great plan since that hurts you the rest of the tourney As for the last senario 2points for dead champs and 1 point for living one. In the interest of winning that I'd argue that putting champions and braves in all units is actually a detriment. Any unit that enters close combat will lose its champion (ie you should be devoting 2-3 attack at his champ every round till its dead.) So in theory removing all your saurus and Cold one champs could save you 6 victory points and give you 12+12+24? points to spend. The brave is probably worth keeping to gain the one point as he could survive combat unless your baiting charges with him. General list commment, your slann should be your BSB and take the standard of disciple for 25+15 points. Gives leadership 10 to all your nearby units with a reroll. You can aslo take a magic banner on the TG if you wanted. Flaming banner for 10 points can be a god send if your fighting anything with regen for flameable.
Well its for a tournament so i'll be straight to the point. 1. No point in taking bane head without feedback scroll its the classic combination that will improve the spell of that a lot, only unless your taking death take banehead without it. 2. A single steagdon in a list doesnt do well it will get shot off through any warmachine, I would advice either getting two or none (use the points to invest in other harrassing units, chamo's/terradons etc) 3. Get rid of the swarms and use the points to buff up your saurus units they could be taken off at 22 4. No point in investing a brave for the skink skirmishers 5. You could do better with more skink skirmishers taking care of those big monsters with low armour save and warmachines 6. Cold one Cavalry have there uses but I wouldn't bother unless your taking a bus with 2+ scar vets and buffing (either light or beasts) slann which can create a really nice hammer unit. 7. Your temple guard are no where near big enough even if miscasts able to divert in this comp pack I would get them to atleast 20 so that you dont get multi-charged and loose all your points in one round. (especially as your slann isnt ethreal or stubborn) 8. Most importantly - pay 25 points to make your slann a BSB!!!! 9. I would look at dropping the Diadem for either cupped hands and look at your priest items you could really do with atleast 1 dispel scroll or cube of darkness stop that game ending mind razor! 10. Look at fitting a skrox block or make your 2 saurus blocks slighty bigger Hiv0r =)
Ok, after looking over what was said I can very much understand your suggestions and have adjusted for most of them but I am curious about a few things. 1. Why would I need two Stegadons if I'm going to take any? 2. Why no Cold One Cavalry? So far in all my games I've had no problems with them, and those were five man units. Other than that I can only say that I cant increase the size of my Saurus blocks unless I reduce it to one unit, and I don't have any Krox yet to run in a Skrox block unfortunately, it is planned though.
A stegadon is a huge target for warmachines and highly offensive spells since it can cause a lot of damage. So one stegadon is gonna take all the warmachine shots. If you take two stegadons, your opponents need to choose to either kill one, or try to kill both stegadons. So with two stegadons you have a greater chance of having them to cause some damage, because one will probably survive. I think that is what Hiv0r wants to say (but please correct me if I'm wrong). I agree to Hiv0r that your stegadon is going to die, but instead of getting another one, I think another unit of chameleons is suitable as well; your stegadon has a engine of the gods, which increases its chance to survive on the first turns (although it will attract even more fire because it is an expensive unit). Thats my answer to your question 1. I am less sure about my answers on your second question, but I think that if your unit of 5 cold one cavalry worked just fine for you in previous games you should stick to the same size. A unit of 8 sounds a little expensive and not so manouverable. Haha, I don't think the swarms are worth their points, but they sure are cool =D
IMO: If your opponent can take down 1 stegadon, he can also take down 2. So either your opponent cannot deal with a stegadon (Brets without Heroic KB-lord, for instance) or they can: Cannons. So if they can take down 1 (cannons) they can surely take down 2 (More cannons!). However, if they cannot handle stegadon(s), then you have a very good shot at just rolling over his army. So this leaves you with the following: 1 Stegadon: Balanced option, sometimes it's awesome, sometime's it's dead before you know it. Expect it to die however, these beasts attract a lot of fiery attention. 2 Stegadons: All Dinosaur-eggs in 1 basket. You can destroy certain armies/builds, but get destroyed vs other. 0 Stegadons: Also balanced! If you are afraid that every opponent has a monster-killer supreme in his army, then this might be the best option. Though maybe not as fun Now remember, either of the options are good. None is more powerfull than another, base your choice on personal preference, expectations and experience. On the rest of the list: Jungle swarms are cool, because they are never used. I'd say get rid of them, they are not worth their points. Bane Head isn't really usefull with the Life lore. It works best with sniping spells or item-tricks. Either change lore/add items for combo, or drop it. I like SCOR, but I think they are expensive. My motto would be: keep them cheap. Drop the banner and 1-2 models. Use these points to give your saurus units some extra oomph. TG...go with a solid-sized unit, or go Solo. 14 is probably not enough, the unit can be killed in a single combat through combo-charges, leaving your Slann dangerously exposed. Up them to a minimum of 16, preferably 18-20. Remember to buff them when danger gets close! Braves on skinks, not a fan. Especially with the 4th scenario! That's just asking to give away points. A lot of repitition from what has already been said . But always, no I mean always go with what you think will be the best/like the most. Sure, we can give some helpfull tips around here..but if you like your unit of 28 SCOR then go for it! The Hunted
I always thought that go for two stegadons of none at all. But now that I have put some thought to it I think you are better with one or none. This is because if you face cannon heavy army you will end up losing both of the stegadons anyway. Even if this means that you could survive one more turn with the other. No idea on putting 500+ points in such things. One will do just fine. It'll attract the cannonfire vs. those armies that have artillery and do great against that don't. As said take a BSB. It'll cost it's points back more times than it is actually worth. I like cold one cavalry and I think you can use them with great success. Two things I would just suggest. Change the champion to musician. Musician helps you with manouverability and saves you from losing in draw close combats. Besides I think champion is way too expensive for what it brings to the unit. Also I would change the banner of swiftness to huanchi's blessed totem. This will add you theoretical charge to 25" and with an average roll you can have almost 20" charges. Witch is way more than with swiftness. People actually tend to assume that you have the totem anyway so you might as well use it. Also I'm a bit torn with the size of the cold one unit. I think they are in the expensive category so keeping the unit cheap won't take up so many points. But in the other hand I wouldn't go under 6 models. Because when losing even 1 from a unit of 5 it almost entirely cripples the unit. More models means more wounds but then again it also means quite a lot more points... BR Agrem
I'm a fan of using one stegadon in my lists. That's for the same reason as I use 1 giant or 1 hellpit abomination (okay, that's not a fair comparison, 2 of those is just wrong). If they're shooting at your stegadon, they're not shooting at your slann, troops, specials, knights. I try to paint mine big and bright and attractive. That way, their eyes are drawn to them. The new giant was a big change over the size of the old metal one.
Ok, I've tweaked the list....Or completely rebuilt it, just depends on how you look at it. Slann Mage-Priest: General, Mystery (Death), Rumination, Cogitation, BSB (Standard of Discipline), Bane Head, and the Cupped Hands of the Old Ones. Skink Priest: Ancient Stegadon Engine of the Gods, Cube of Darkness 2x Saurus Warriors x22: Spears, Standard, Musician, Champion 3x Skink Skirmishers x 10: Blowpipes Temple Guard x22: Standard (Plaque of Dominion) , Champion Chameleon Skinks x6: Champion Cold One Cavalry x5: Standard, Musician Salamander Hunting Pack: +1 Handler I think this might do it for me, I wanted to run The Curse-Charm of Tepok but unfortunately then I would have to lose the Cube of Darkness for a Dispel Scroll >.<. Thanks for the hand everyone, any notes on this build would be welcome but I've only got a couple of days left to play with it.
This list looks very solid. You have 3 solid, decent-sized units of infantry, support in your skinks, chameleons, sala and to some extent SCOR. Hammer-time comes in the form of a stegadon/scor/slann/TG. The only thing I'd think about is the lore choice on your slann. Lore of Life or lore of Light really complements our army. While shadow gives you the option of debuffing your opponent really good... but death...don't know. Im just not a fan . Just think about what you want to do with your Slann(/TG) and what lore you should use for it. You don't need advice for that, just your own set of brains and some time The Hunted
You may have an issue facing Vampire Counts if you have no heroes with magical weapons. Vamps have access to a few Ethereal units which can tie up your Saurus or Steg all game if you can't fight back. I learned this the hard way at my first tournament a few weeks ago where 2 of my 3 games were against Vamps ...
I agreed Life and Light are probably the best slann lores but if your really concerned about the vamps then death would be good. Just super important where you drop the TG unit. Hopefully you can put it down after he's put his vamp down so you can line up and charge in. Get the slann within 12 inches of as many heroes as possible and start snipping away.