My friend has got access to a new Dwarf book and after months of playing his Orcs and Goblins, he wants to go back to his original main army. We figured because we both have ludicrously large army collections we’d do a 5500 point game (because 5000 is too small and 6000 is too big). Hopefully will able to play in a week or two. When I make assumptions on what my friend will bring, I often guess wrong. I played him a lot with the old book, but he hasn’t played the new book yet. Part of the reason he wants to do such a big game is because he can’t completely make up his mind what he wants, so I expect a bit of everything but the Anvil and Thunderers. Probably 4-6 cannons (he owns 7 cannons!) and 2-3 Grudge Throwers, 2-4 Organ Guns. His newly finished (scratch built from old paint pots) 2 Gyrocopters and 1 Bomber are too good looking to not use. How to pay my Core tax? I don’t have enough Skinks to take less than 40 Sauri. A single 50 model strong Saurus horde? Maybe three infantry blocks? How many Core infantry blocks depends on how many Temple Guard I plan to take which depends on how many Slann I’m taking. What flavor of Skinks do I want. 20? 40? Should I take larger units of Skink Skirmishers than my usual 13? Should I take a 20 man Cohort unit or two to bunker Skink priests or occupy buildings like I do in smaller lists or is that just a drop in the bucket? What about a tarpit of 50+ Cohort Skinks? A fighting unit of 50+ Skinks and 4-5 Kroxigor? One Slann or two?: I don’t want to take a Slann without Temple Guard since a solo Slann would get plastered by runed up artillery. Temple Guard are good at fighting Dwarves but with a requirement to take 1375 points of Core too many large blocks of Sauri may yield diminishing returns. If I take around the same number of Temple Guard that’s a very cluttered board and my troops are likely to get in each other’s way. I really want to give the Lore of Undeath a spin, but it’s already a pain in the, but hauling 5500 points of my minis to my friend’s house will be hard enough. I don’t want to bring my zombies, bats, and skellies too. Granted, I’ll be playing at my friend’s house, and he has a small undead collection, but I am insulting my zombies if I don’t use my zombies. I figure if I take one Slann I’ll want High Magic for the versatility. If I take two Slann I’ll probably go Light and Death or Life and Death. Maybe take Tet in lieu of a second Slann, though I worry that Tet’s Skink bunker would not be able to handle a sustained beating from Grudge Throwers near as well as TG unit would. I own a lot of Kroxigor, so Kroxigor are going to be in the list, it’s just a matter of how many and in what manner. Small units (3-5) of Kroxigor are just asking to be shot to pieces. Am I better off running two units of eight? One unit of 12-20? Skroxigor Hordes with 5 Kroxigor? I don’t think there will be space to deploy war machine hunters very effectively, but I am taking a unit of Chameleon Skinks to hopefully prevent a squad of rangers from dropping in on my half of the table, or at least shooting them in the back if the Dwarves get the first Scout drop. I don’t know exactly what artillery I will be facing, but a highly conservative estimate is four pieces of artillery. Against that kind of firepower there are two strategies: Take zero dinosaurs or take LOTS of dinosaurs. I don’t have enough assembled models to take zero big dinosaurs and still field a 5500 point army. So I’m figuring I’ll take four or five big dinosaurs. I don’t fancy Maz’s chances nor do I fancy a lone Carnosaur (I only own one and would prefer not to proxy), so I’ll stick with Ancient Steggies. That pretty much squeezes out Salamanders and Razordons, but I don’t see warbeasts doing much against this many Dwarves. My main concern with my one Slann army is that I might have too many units, so some will get in each other’s way and my units can’t all attack at once. My main concern with the two Slann army is that my units aren’t efficient. In order to pay my Core tax I had to take Poisoned attacks for my Skroxigor and make my Saurus block a bit bigger than I feel comfortable with. One Slann Army (5 fighting blocks, 1 tarpit, 5 support monsters, plus chaff) Slann Mage Priest, BSB, Standard of Discipline, Harmonic Convergence, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Focus of Mystery, Channeling Staff, Iron Curse Icon Old Blood (Eternity Warden), Glittering Scales, Fencer’s Blades, Potion of Strength, Opal Amulet Oldblood (Cowboy 1), Cold One, Armor of Destiny, Egg of Quango, Luckstone, Great Weapon Oldblood (Cowboy 2), Cold One, Sacred Stegadon Helm of Itza, Talisman of Preservation, Potion of Foolhardiness Skink Priest, L2 Heavens (maybe Undeath) Skink Priest, L1 Beast (maybe Undeath) Forbidden Rod 2 x 37 Saurus Warriors, Sword and Board, FC 56 Cohort Skinks FC 2 x 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 13 Chameleon Skinks with Stalker 37 Temple Guard with FC, Razor Standard 11 Kroxigor with Ancient (probably deployed five wide) 4 Ancient Stegadons with Unstoppable Stampede and EOTG 1 Troglodon with Divining Rod (figure he won’t get shot at with four Steggies) Two Slann Army (4 fighting blocks, 5 support monsters, plus chaff) Slann Mage Priest, General and BSB, Standard of Discipline, Harmonic Convergence, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Lore of Death, Channeling Staff, Iron Curse Icon Slann Mage Priest, Lore of Life or Light, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Forbidden Rod, Egg of Quango Old Blood (Eternity Warden), Glittering Scales, Fencer’s Blades, Potion of Strength, Opal Amulet Oldblood (Cowboy), Cold One, Sacred Stegadon Helm of Itza, Talisman of Preservation, Potion of Foolhardiness Scar Veteran (Cowboy), Cold One, Armor of Destiny, Great Weapon Skink Priest, L1 Heavens Skink Chief, Ripperdactyl, Spear, Light Armor, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem 45 Saurus Warriors, spears FC 54 Cohort Skinks, 5 Kroxigor, Poisoned Attacks, FC 2 x 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 13 Chameleon Skinks with Stalker 33 Temple Guard with FC, Razor Standard (General and BSB) 27 Temple Guard with FC, Gleaming Pennant (Backup Slann) 4 Ancient Stegadons with Unstoppable Stampede and EOTG 1 Troglodon with Divining Rod (figure he won’t get shot at with four Steggies) I'm open to criticism and suggestions.
Re: 5500 point list versus Dwarves, two possible lists Its been awhile since I have played a game of that size, but I think I would go with the 1 slann army option. Whichever you go with, split that unit of Chameleons into 2 units (1 of 6 and 1 of 7) that way you could split your targets or go for the same one and be more survivable. Just my thoughts.
Re: 5500 point list versus Dwarves, two possible lists Ok the list I came back with was Slann BSB SoD, Focus of mystery, channel combo OB Fencer's glittering opal pot STR (I really like this guy) OB CO GW, steg helm, Tali 4++, OTS (character hunter, or block support) OB Carno GW, Armour of Fortune(prob gonna die but you know you want to) Tetto,eko (this guy is bonkers. That aside he will give you great combat buffs and comet. But even better you get to vanguard your saurus blocks into his lines. Which i'm fairly sure is how you win this game) Skink Chief Ripperdactyl Spear enchanted shield LA (best 89 points of warmachine hunting, and with all the toads he can even support your main blocks with a flank charge after eating a bunch of artillery) 36 Saurus FC 36 Saurus FC Skrox 40 sknks stnd muso 5 Krox 2 units of 10 skirmishers 9x Camos 3 Ripperdactyls 3 Ripperdactyls 3 Ripperdactyls 3 Ripperdactyls 35TG FC Razor banner Ancient Steg w/stampede Ancient Steg w/stampede Ancient Steg w/stampede Ancient Steg w/stampede&engine Troglodon w/channel The big change is obviously the 4units of rippas. I think they are perfect for what is likely going to be 5-6 pieces of artillery. You get to toad all of his blocks as a diversion. If your worried about frenzy don't. you will vanguard which means you can't charge turn 1, or you get what you want and charge asap anyway. They are also immune to psyche so if 3 units are charging up one flank and lets say an organ gun decides to wipe one of the units out, the rest of them don't care and will continue to charge up. I left the camos in the list for 2 reasons, we are light on poison without them and they can be used to stop the dwarfs blocking your vanguard. Which sucks. That's 5500, with my little flavouring. And if you can I think I speak for all of us when I say we would like a ton of photos and a battle report on such a massive outing from our lizard brothers
Re: 5500 point list versus Dwarves, two possible lists I think Tetto´eko is a good option here, as you can bombard his artillery with the comet and probably annihilate it. and if he is spreading his warmachines out, you just have some shots at his infantry, and as we all know dwarves are slow, so they might have a hard time getting out of range, and you might spoil their gunners as they are move or fire.
Re: 5500 point list versus Dwarves, two possible lists I don't own many flyers so I can't implement Madrick's suggestion without fielding a lot of empty 40 mm bases. Both Madrick and Assassin endorse Tet which I guess is a good idea, so here's a new list. 1.5 Slann Army (4 fighting blocks, 5 support monsters, plus chaff) Slann Mage Priest, BSB, Standard of Discipline, Harmonic Convergence, Reservoir of Eldritch Energy, Focus of Mystery, Channeling Staff, Iron Curse Icon Old Blood (Eternity Warden), Glittering Scales, Fencer’s Blades, Potion of Strength, Opal Amulet Oldblood (Cowboy 1), Cold One, Armor of Destiny, Egg of Quango, Luckstone, Great Weapon Oldblood (Cowboy 2), Cold One, Sacred Stegadon Helm of Itza, Talisman of Preservation, Potion of Foolhardiness Tet Skink Priest L1 Beast, Forbidden Rod Skink Chief, Ripper, Charmed Shield, Light Armor, Spear 2 x Scar Veteran, Light Armor, Great Weapon 35 Saurus Warriors, Sword and Board, FC 35 Saurus Warriors, Sword and Board, FC 45 Cohort Skinks, 5 Kroxigor, FC 13 Skink Skirmishers with Patrol Leader 2 x 10 Chameleon Skinks 41 Temple Guard with FC, Razor Standard 4 Ancient Stegadons with Unstoppable Stampede and EOTG 1 Troglodon with Divining Rod (figure he won’t get shot at with four Steggies)
Looks good mate. I'd squeeze in a lvl2 beast priest. But that's because I like transformation hahahaha