So yesterdat I had this battle, hope you enjoy: My list: Scar veteran (general) - cold one, light armor, maiming shield, sword of might - 155 points. Skink priest - lvl 2 – 100 points. 12 skink skirmishers – 84 points. They are with priest. 15 saurus warriors – mus, standard – 198 points. 15 saurus warriors – mus, standard.- 198 points. 6 cold one riders – mus, standard – 240 points. They are with scar veteran. From memory he had a unit of thunderers with thane, a slayer hero, a cannon, a unit of Quarrellers and a unit of miners. Terrain and deployment On his side on the right corner (my point of view) theres a big hill with Quarrellers and cannon on top. Down the hill and a bit to the left of it there are the thunderers, and right under the hill stands the slayer. Separating our parts of the board are a big lake to the far left and a row of pillars in the center, leaving a narrow corridor in the far right. On my side on the center there is a big hill, one unit of saurus on top. more to the left are the second unit. to the right of the hill are the COC and to the left of them are the skirmishers. Turn 1 He starts. Thunderers moving to almost blocking the corridor and activating oath stone. Cannon shoots - nothing happens. Both saurus move to the corridor - they fit narrowly. COC has no choice and move next to the saurus, blocked by the pillars. Skinks move to the lake. Priest casting Uranon's thunderbolt on cannon - nothing happens. Turn 2 Slayer moves next to Thunderers, blocking the corridor. Cannon shoots, miscasts, rolling again due to strange rune, miscasts AGAIN, rolling 6. Nothing happens. Saurus almost get to thunderers, other saurus advancing towards the slayer. COC are stuck, scar vet quit the unit and cross the pillars to station near the flank of thunderers. Skinks advance toward the rear of the board, shoots and kills a thunderer. Thunderbolt cast on archers, no effect. Turn 3 Slayer moves and stands near the thunderers. Cannon shoots killing one saurus. Querellers kills another one. Miners enter the board 1.5 inch from saurus (!) and cant do nothing more. Saurus and scar vet charge the thunderers, roll horribly and do nothing at all except killing one. Thunderers attack back and kill 2 saurus. Other saurus rotate to face the miners. COC, still stuck behind the saurus, reposition to face the gap between the two saurus, waiting for it to widen. Skinks advance towards the hill, spell dispelled. Now, to my surprise the thunderers with the thane lose in combot res and fail their break test. they run away and scar vet chase them overboard, slaughtering them all! Turn 4 First of all, I expected a charge of his miners on my saurus, but it didn't came, which was weird. In the shooting phase I understood why: It seems he has gained confidence in the shooting of his cannon, and his next shot aimed at the saurus next to the miners was fatal - He obliterated an entire row!!! Luckily for me the saurus didn't break and fought on. Slayer attacks the saurus and kills 2. They in turn roll horribly and do nothing. Scar vet returns to the board behind the cannon hill and advance toward it. He is something like 2 inches from it. Skinks advance toward the hill also, shooting and killing a quarreler. Saurus attack miners, and shamefully only with luck manage to kill 2. They are reduced by 2 in return. Other saurus fight slayer - none are hurt, neither he. Turn 5 No movement on his side. Cannon crew grin gleefully at the scar vet 2 inches away, and with extreme cruelness lunches a rain of scraps and sharp pieces, overlooking his amazing AS and turning him into a very dead swiss cheese. I am left stunned. Ouerellers shoot and kill 2 skinks. Miners attack the saurus one last time, and although they have managed to succeed in all of their leadership tests they are eliminated by the sheer force of GW blows from little pesky dwarfs, killing none in return. Slayer attacks the saurus killing 3, and himself unhurt. My twin attempts of revenge: COC at last doing something, charge the miners. Skinks also charge the cannon, who the crew choose to explode killing 3 skinks. The COC totally squash the miners, purging them from this world. Saurus finally manage to inflict a wound on the slayer, and lose 1 guy. In this point the game ended due to lack of time, and after a quick and somewhat inaccurate calculation the Lizardmen have gained a marginal victory! I think I could have gained more, but it was my first battle after all and I learned to play during the game. Additionally, my dice rolls were from hell so my saurus were used as a moving meat wall rather then a moving killing wall. I think my list was fine, but the terrain prevented me from playing like I wanted and my strongest unit were stuck almost all of the game. My spells also did nothing at all. Next game I'm finally going to use my big units like the steg and the sally, I'll notify you on how I fare.
With dwarves your strategy is to get on them fast, and getting into close combat with weaker units is a good way to do it. Also don't expect to see miners and slayers too ofter in the future battles as the dwarf player may realise that their effectiveness is limited. If you can lock up the Cannon, you've usually won against dwarves. So cavalry and flyers are great against dwarves. Also just to let you know when he blew up his cannon he could have waited until all his dwarves where dead, usually what I do as a last resort, because dwarves are stubborn when maning the cannon, so probably wouldn't go anywhere anyways. Also from your end out flanking dwarves is pretty easy try and do that as much as you can, I know he dropped the oath stone, but saurus should still be able to wreak havok on dwarves. Another thing, when you are in a bind with wide units don't be affraid to reform, check the rule book on how to do it and get good at it. Not sure if I hit all the points I wanted to, because I'm in a rush before work. But hopefully that helped a bit.
Yeah, I figured he should have brought more shooters, and even another cannon. Anyway, I was almost entirely blocked by terrain so next time I will try to bring some flyers. Something I thought of afterwards: Would not a JSOD make a fantastic character against dwarfs? In destroying the cannon and such? By the way, thank you Craken for your help in the Reaper Kroxigor matter. I just don't know how to compose a message so I'll just thank you here.
You are welcome, ya I had trouble composing msgs at first too. As for the JSoD, I never leave home without him, have yet to find a scenario where he's not a benifit. He great for mage slaying too . I had one fight where a single JSoD took out a Bray Shaman, then took on 2 units of 10 gor/10 ungors at the same time and won. LOL that was amazing.
Jaguar Saurus of Doom. Basically, a scar-vet with the charm of the jaguar warrior. He's for flying out and destroying something with a great weapon.
Yeah, those units should be great. Salamander usage depends on the army. On this army you're going for the -3 armor effect not the panic test. Aim at that really elite unit with a great save to get your points back. The stegadon you have to be careful with because cannon balls do mulitple wounds which will kill your steg off quick. Hide him for the first few turns until you somehow get rid of the cannon then let him out to clean up the stunties. The sword of might works well on your hero. Strength 6 is -3 to armor and wounds on 2s. Burning blade of chotec (interchangeable with sword of might) is strength 5 and -4 to armor wounding on 3s against dwarves. Against T4 armies I have to say the sword of might is better (T3 armies and regen monsters/units and treemen beware the BBoC!) Cool battle report, looking forward to more!
Thank you all for the nice comments! I had another battle vs ogres but it wasn't really very interesting (draw in my favor, bog game...). However, soon I'm going to fight a very tough TK player or a brilliant HE tactician, so I'll post more reports.
Yeah, against ogres the skirmishers pay off a lot. They have very little armor so just poison them to death. They also have no static combat res so even if he charges you and get's the impact hits you should still win combats. They also have low leadership so you should break them fairly easily.