Hi all, Long time Chamo, second time posting. My question to you is about the deployment of your army, how can you make best use of this part of the game? I cant help but feel i dont put enough thought into this and I've often heard that deployment is everything, so how do i make the most of my deployment? thanks for reading.
Look for matchups between your army and your opponents'. Like your saurus can deal with his infantry, try and place them directly across from eachother. Your skinks can deal with his monster, try and place them in a way that the skinks can reach the monster. If you have to deal with something you're army simply can't handle: use skinks to redirect and slow them down. Take a look at possible war machines your opponent has, and where YOU would put them. Sometimes places for war machines are obvious, sometimes they are not. Once again, use your supporting units to try and take care of them. You may have noticed a trend: Place your skinks first. That's because skinks are fast and have multiple roles during a battle. They can redirect, hunt monsters assault war machines and more. With M6 and skirmishing they can zip around the battlefield. M4 Saurus have a harder time moving across the field, they are a bit more 'point and click'. You point them at an enemy unit, advance into them and grind them down. After that; you do it again! I like placing 2 units of skirmishers slightly off-centre before doing anything else. The skinks can move towards the far flank helping out there or change roles to redirectors in the center if need be. After my skirmishers have been place I find a suitable spot for my Salamander, either flanking or off-centre as well. Terradons and skink cohort are next. Fast and supporting wherever they need to be, though cohort require a bit more planning as they cannot skirmish. I always try and finish my deployment with my Saurus blocks and hammer (Stegadon, SCOR, Kroxigor..). So you can put them in as much cover as you can give them vs war machines and enemy wizards. This way you also get a good view of where you can go with them. Another thing you could do is placing a saurus block first, in a nice and open area, preferably somewhere in the center of your army and 'hinge' the rest of your deployment off that unit. It is easier to do, as it gives you a very solid marker as to where you want to be. So start with 1 block, and follow up with some skinks. If you are looking at matchups: you can react to your opponent pretty well with your multiple units of skinks. However, you can also take a long look at the battlefield and make a plan; for instance: My hammer goes on the right, and while my saurus block engages in the center the hammer charges the flank: overrunning into a second unit and fighting twice that combat...My slann has to deal with the skirmishers on the left, while my skinks delay the enemy hammer/stubborn unit on the left. Just a random plan. Point is: you now know where you want everything and how to deal with your opponent reacting to yóu. If both players react to eachother, you might miss the cohesion that makes Lizardmen a strong army. So: Plan ahead. Skinks first. (Maybe 'Hinge' a saurus block) Supporting units (Salamanders, terradons, Skrox) Blocks Hammers All while reacting and anticipating your opponents' moves . Practice a bit and before you start the battle; look at what you have could done better/different. Try and think WHY you placed that unit there, and if they are usefull in this battle. If you look closely and critically at your deployment before the battle starts; you will learn from your own mistakes and eventually get better at it. Good luck! The Hunted (This is the way I deploy my army, and the way I have learned to do it. But please, pitch your ideas in!)
I haven't read what the others have responded with so maybe I'm just eccoing what they've said. Here's what I think about though: - I always have 3-4 units of skinks to drop. Mostly it's 4 units, which means for easy drops that can be put down first and with their M6 they can march to where they are needed if they ends up being placed wrong. - Have your Slann near units who might need his Ld bubble. This is super important when fielding ripperdactyls (Ld 5 frenzy). Putting him in the middle will do a lot to help this. - DO NOT STACK A BUNCH OF LOW LD UNITS AWAY FROM YOUR SLANN. I cannot stress this enough lol. As a rookie mistake I've had 6 razordons, 2 units of skinks and a bastiladon take a panic test due to losing a few skinks to shooting. My razordons ran away before they got to shoot and the same did the skinks So don't drop all that jazz in a corner because you might find it to be a good spot if your slann is far away. - Always consider that your anvil units (saurus) needs support from a hammer (for instance stegadon), so don't place them too far away from each other. - Drop salamanders last so you can get the most out of them. Nothing more annoying to have them killed before they get to grill some infantry models Just a few things to consider. Also remember to use terrain to your advantage - getting those stegadons out of the way against opponents with artillery can be a good idea.
Definately try and take advantage of the terrain, here are some of the terrain types that work best with your units. Saurus/Temple Guard/Cold one Cav: Open ground, or fences/walls Monsters/large targets: hiding behind hills or line of sight blocking terrain. (to hide from shooting) Skink skirmishers/terradons/ripperdactals: forrest, since they have forest strider and skirmish and they gain some light cover. Skinksc=/chamelions/cororts/skrox/troglodon ? : water bassed terain, since they have water strider.
Oh, one other thing: - it can generally be agood idea to have a tactic in mind when deploying. As I mentioned before: have your anvils to hold up units for your hammers to smash. So think about it when you deploy. But that's just one way of doing it. You might also try and trick your opponent to spread out his stuff and then just focus all your heavy things in one side of the board. This way the heavy side can easily pummel the side it's at and the other side will just need to hold out. What this also does to your opponent is making him sort of go in panic mode since he'll try and respond to this. It's a tough decision though beause it messes with his battle plan (should he execute it or re-direct some of his bigger units to combat yours, potentially being too late). There are tons of way to do stuff like that, it's just about being creative and trick your opponent.