I played my first game last weekend with the new Lizardmen book and it was going great . . .until I got to my opponents swordmasters. They had a magic banner that gives them a 2+ ward save to magic attacks and their swordmaster hero that knows all the signature spells was with them. They started the game about 25 strong and there were about 15 left once close combat got started, the kills coming from my sallies. They killed my TG and Slann in 2 turns, cut down my Trog the next. I charged my steg in hoping to kill enough of them with impact hits and thunderstomps, but he was killed before he could do any thunderstomps. My two units of saurus with an oldblood had defeated the rest of his army, but were too weakened to offer much resistance to them. He is a regular at the store I play at. Before the new book I could use loremaster with life and handle them easily. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
Poisoned Javelins and Blowpipes to soften them up. Swordmasters' greatest weakness is being shot at (Deflect Shots does little to stem the tide), so that's the way you should hit them. You have the right idea in training the Salamanders at them, just take it a couple of steps further. Alternatively, spam Wildform and greet them with a big fat block of S5/T5 Saurus Spears. They'll drop.
reform your block so your width is equal to his or a little less and give your steg just a corner to hit. Once he charges in they will have no chance to kill him before he brings the thunder...
Ugh, Banner of the World Dragon is a nasty bugger. I fought an opponent who used the same tactics with White Lions! Kind of makes taking a magical weapon useless so a Scar-Vet with a GW is always a good idea, and maybe The Other Trickter's Shard to force them to re-roll their Ward Saves. Although, with a 2+ it might not be so viable as there's only a 16.66% chance they'll fail.
Shoot them! It's the only way. A unit like that needs to be directed away from you lines and pounded by your sallies every turn. Two or three STR 4 Templates and that unit will be down to a size where it can be handled. You can also try to take two units of skirmishers and double flee, while you Sallies do there work. With high elves that can be harder then it sounds because they do have the tools to remove any chaf/redirectors you have. And it could have been worse. If he had an anointed and a High mage in the unit, they could have up to a 4+ ward save on top of the Banner. (High elves get +1 ward per high magic spell casted)
If it's part of the unit (SM, WL, PG or DP) then you can't target the standard bearer. If it's on a Noble BSB, then yes AU him to death. Any BSB will have a good armor save so the wound may go though and you want that guy dead anyway.
I don't believe you do. It seems to me that the spell has two effects: 1) Cause a wound, Lore of Metal style 2) Destroy a random magic item on 2+ "The target suffers a single wound [rules on how to cause wound]. No armor saves. The owning player must then reveal all magic items ..." If you had to cause a wound, I think it would say something like "If the target suffers a wound, then he must reveal...."
Sure you can snipe the standard bearer. You can target any single enemy model. Page 94 talks about picking off a standard bearer. The standard bearer cannot be removed as a casualty unless only he and the champion (if there is one) remain in the unit. This applies even if the standard bearer is the target of an effect that affects only a single model... Then it goes on to say how another rank and file pick up the standard. So you can't kill him, but you can still target him. Destroying his magic standard is not killing him, and still fair game.
Agreed, I'm assuming that only the magic banner would be destroyed by the spell, and that the unit would still continue to have a regular standard whatever the outcome of the spell.
Pretty much, yeah, which makes this the only non-HE army that can deal with that blasted item (ironically, it's not as much of an issue, since Lizzies aren't exactly flush with magical attacks).