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8th Ed. Daemons vs. Lizardmen (first time playing LM) 2000pt

Discussion in 'Battle Reports' started by Neersh, Nov 27, 2021.

  1. Neersh
    Skink

    Neersh Member

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    Hi,

    Last weekend me and my usual casual whfb opponent clashed, and my opponent is building a lizardmen army.

    So I was playing Daemons, and he was playing Lizardmen, for the first time ever. This was also the first time ever I met LM on the battlefield in 8th edition.

    I didn't take notes during the game, but thought to share the overall flow of the match.

    Armies
    Lizardmen
    Saurus lord on carnosaur
    Saurus hero on cold one
    Saurus hero on foot (BSB, with the temple guard unit)
    2x L1 skink priests
    2x ~20 block of saurus warriors, full command
    1x ~20 block of temple guard, full command
    4 (or 5?)x ~10 mob of skinks, mostly with javelins (I think one unit was with blowguns)

    Daemons
    Daemon prince (mark of slaanesh, wings, armor, wizard L3)
    Herald of Khorne (BSB - war banner, greter locus of Fury)
    20x bloodletters, full command
    2x 15 horrors
    Soul grinder (mark of tzeentch)
    3x beasts of nurgle
    3x screamers

    Pre-game
    My initial vibes were that I had no clue how to challenge the eventual saurus blocks, they just seem to do pretty much everything better than what daemon infantry does. My only coherent (and costly points-wise) plan was the bloodletter block, which have killing blows, buffed with the herald which grants the unit frenzy. That's 15 attacks with killing blow, which should give me the edge that I needed.

    I normally don't field horror blocks, because they just plain suck at pretty much everything. However for this match I had managed to finish painting my horror minis, so of course I had to field them at least once. Besides, if I would get the Tzeentch 6 spell (infernal gateway) to one of the two horror blocks, that would be an ok artillery-like solution against those pesky saurus units. This was also the first time I fielded a soul grinder, which I think is overprized for what it does, but hey, I took it for the lulz and maybe it could swallow a dinosaur, which would be funny. (I detest the official soul grinder miniature, so mine is a totally different snake-ish one).

    My opponents comments before the game something along the lines of: "Oh well, I'll field all this lizards, let's see what happens.". Enough said. Onwards to the game.


    The battlefield
    We rolled to play the default "Battleline" scenario. The terrain turned out to be pretty irrelevant in this match, except for one feature; we ended up having a large (~10" radius) body of water with a small (~2" radius) island in the middle of the battlefield. Other than that, there were some scattered fences, a small forest, and a few mystical monumets scattered around, but in the end they had very little impact on the game so I'll just skip them.

    THE BATTLE
    As the battlefield was pretty much split in the middle by that horrible, horrible lake, the battle itself was split into two (or actually more like three) sections. In the first turn (Lizardmen got the first turn) one of the skink posses scuttled into the lake, which turned out to be a river of boiling blood (the terrain piece was technically a river going full circle), which killed all but a few of the small lizards. Ok, so the water was off-limits for every unit in the field. I'll split the goings-on of the battle to the three mini-theatres happening simultaneously:

    Flank A:
    1 skink unit
    Saurus lord
    1 saurus unit
    1 skink priest
    VS.
    Daemon prince
    1 horror unit
    3 beasts


    The lizardmen marched towards the combined forces of chaos, their lord riding the mighty carnosaur in the lead. The daemons countered however, with the three beasts of nurgle parking themselves a few inches away from the saurus lord so that they would have no real other option than to charge them, thus also blocking the way to combat from the sauruses (saurusii?) marching behind their lord.

    The daemon prince and the horrors just fooled around maneuvering so that they would hopefully not get a charge. Nothing really happened in the magic phase, due to abysmal dice rolling and me finding out that the Lore of Slaanesh is abysmal against lizardmen. On the shooting phase though the daemon prince managed to "shoot" with the lash of despair several wounds off the carnosaur.

    On the next turn the saurus lord predictably charged the beasts, and the saurus unit maneuvered themselves so that they would be able to charge in to support their lord on the next turn. The skinks ran around and their poisoned javelins scored a wound on the daemon prince. For the record, the poisoned attacks rule in 8ed. is just plain bad in my opinion.

    Melee saw the beasts chomping the carnosaur to death, and the saurus lord scoring a few wounds on the beasts. At this point I realized that the beasts will never get the lord down, because of the ridiculous 1+ armour save.

    On the daemon turn the horrors mainly just maneuvered and failed to cast anything, and the daemon prince culled the skink priest the lash. (I didn't want to charge with the prince to be able to cast spells better - which was in the end as ineffective as on the previous turn).

    On the next turn the saurus unit charged to support their lord against the beasts, the horrors did absolutely nothing (again), the skinks scored another wound or two from the daemon prince with their poison javelins, which caused the prince to charge into the rear of the saurus unit which had just charged the beasts. This was mainly done out of desperation, at least the skinks wouldn't be able to shoot their poison into melee.

    And what a melee it was. After some challenges (the beasts can throw challenges too!) and awesomely good and desperately bad die rolls the end result of the combat was that the beasts and the daemon prince were annihilated a few turns later, the saurus lord with their astounding T5 1+/5++ defenses was still unharmed, and the saurus block had been reduced to maybe little less than 50%.

    And the only thing the daemons had left on this theater of war was a unit of 15 horrors, which had gotten absolutely nothing done until this point of the game, and who, truth to be told, neither player expected to get anything done in the future either. However at this point the victorious bloodletter unit arrived from their battles to support this flank.

    Middle
    Temple guards
    Saurus hero (BSB)
    2 skink units
    VS.
    Bloodletters
    Herald of Khorne
    Screamers


    This theater happened on the banks of the body of water in the middle of the battlefield, on Flank A side of it. Due me gaining a bit of an advantage in unit deployment, and my opponent fumbling it a bit, we ended in the situation where I was basically able to force them to deploy their temple guard block in the middle-ish of the battlefield, with no real room to maneuver anywhere else than straight towards my bloodletter unit - which was the unit designed to take out the hardest sauruses on the field. And as far as I know, temple guards are just that.

    In short, the elite saurus unit advanced cautiously, as did the bloodletters, and the clash of the two units happened on round 2, with the bloodletters managing a charge (boosted with their mark of Khorne!) on the guard. That melee was a massacre, with 8 temple guard plus their hero (BSB) dying to hellblades before the slower lizards managed to to anything at all. The saurii fled, but the daemons were not able to catch them.

    On the next round the lizardmen rallied, and received another charge from the bloodletters - it was almost the same level of massacre, with only three saurus surviving the turn, although they managed to retaliate and finish off the herald. The lizardmen broke from combat again, and the bloodletters failed to catch them - again.

    After this the remaining three temple guards continued fleeing off the table, and the bloodletters did a 180 degree turn and started marching towards Flank A, where their prince was just about to fall.

    During all this, the skinks and the screamers duelled with fly-by bites and javelins (and of course one of the skink units decimated by the boiling blood waters). In the end, the screamers turned towards FLANK B to hunt the remaining skink priest. The skink blowgunner unit saw this coming, and formed a cordon in front of the screamers to save their priest, but the screamers charged, destroyed and pursued the little gribblies in one turn so their heroic sacrifice was more or less futile.


    FLANK B
    1 skink priest
    1 saurus unit
    1 skink unit
    Saurus hero on cold one
    VS.
    Soul grinder
    1 horror unit


    So, I actually managed to get the infernal gateway spell to one of the horror units, and it was the unit on this flank that had it. Too bad they tried casting it with 5-6 dice every turn, and managed to get it off once during the whole battle. Oh well.

    Anyway, on turn 1 the lizardmen advanced, their hero taking the lead with their faster steed. The horrors and the soul grinder stayed pretty still, waiting that the lizards arrived in range, and of course the horrors trying to get their super-spell out.

    On turn 2 the saurus hero charged the horrors, no doubt seeing the threat that their spell posed to the saurus block coming behind him. The hero managed to off a few of the horrors, but nothing more.

    In retaliation the soul grinder charge the hero's flank, grabbed them to their iron claw, and then killed them in one hit of their daemonbone claw. Narratively I refuse to accept that what really happened is that the grinder picked up the saurus and their steed in one claw, and just threw them into their mouth in one piece and gulped them down.
    Anyway, the horrors were free from melee again.

    On the next turn the skinks scuttled behind the soul grinder and scored 4(!) wounds with their poisoned javelins. (did I already mention I think the poisoned attacks rule in 8ed. is broken, unfun, and stupid?)
    The sauruses advanced, the horrors backed away and the soul grinder maneuvered to receive the eventual charge of the sauruses next turn. The grinder's harvester cannon dropped two sauruses. Yay.

    The rest of the evens on this flank played pretty much as follows:
    The sauruses charged the grinder, and after some melee destroyed it. Then the sauruses continued charging to the horrors butchering them, who finally managed to get their infernal gateway spell just before the charge, killing 8 of the sauruses. And granting them 6+ regeneration for the rest of the game. Why of why must the Warpflame rule be so sucky?
    Worth mentioning though that one more saurus fell in melee to a lucky blue horror spawned from a slain pink horror. Moral victory!

    Once the melees started, the skinks decided they should be somewhere else and started running towards Flank A.

    Closer to the lizardmen deployment zone the screamers charged and killed the skink priest.

    End of the battle
    The bloodletters did their best to get into the saurus + lord units rampaging through Flank A, but there were several remains of skink units 1-3 models strong in the way, which eventually slowed the 'letters enough to prevent them from reaching anything meaningful to kill.

    The horrors left in Flank A were dispatched (although not in 1 round of combat!) by the saurus rampage, although one saurus fell in melee here too to a blue horror spawned from a slain pink horror. Moral victory on both flanks!

    By the end of the 5th round we decided to end the game as the only thing I had left on the table were the bloodletters (still 15+ models strong!) and the unit of three screamers who had take a few wounds.

    My opponent still had his lord, two saurus units in about half strength, and a scattering of different remains of skink units.

    We decided to end the game there, and after calculating victory points, I ended up losing the game with about 500 points. Bummer. But good game, it could've gone either way with a bit different die results in Flank A.


    Lessons learned
    - I still hate poisoned attacks.
    - Saurus warriors are insanely good infantry.
    - Saurus heroes are not just beefy, tough and scary, they also get a ridiculously good armor save.
    - The lore of slaanesh is useless against Lizardmen due to their leadership schenenigans.
    - The lore of Tzeentch is useless against Lizardmen, except for the infernal gateway spell.
    - First game where my screamers actually got anything useful done. They seem like a good skink trap, although not sure how cost effective at that.
    - Bloodletters finally found the use for the points they cost. (I've only played them against wood elves and empire before, and they really tend to underperform against them)


    Last words
    So, I usually don't write battle reports, and as this was written from memory, there might be some inconsistencies or factual errors.
    Thought to share it though, because I do enjoy reading battle reports myself, and now with facing lizardmen, it fits the theme of this forum (even if I was not the one playing the lizards).

    Any constructive feedback is welcome in the comments or via PM, was this battle report format readable? Enjoyable? Crappy?

    As my friend is building his lizard army, I'll surely be confronting them in the future too, with either my daemons or skaven. So I might be writing further reports here some day, in either this format or something else.
     
  2. shattershell
    Saurus

    shattershell Active Member

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    Thanks for the write-up mate! It was interesting. I've yet to play against daemons so I was curious about which units performed well.

    Only thing about the format of your report is that some pictures would have been helpful to better understand the overall shape of the battle. Perhaps next time!
     
    Lizards of Renown, Imrahil and Bowser like this.

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