8th Ed. First list in a friendly tournament

[Karnus]

I have a group of friends that I have started playing 8th edition with and we are going to pick names out of a hat to see who fights who. My potential opponents are High Elves, Chaos and Orcs/Goblins.

To be honest I have no idea what I am doing but I got this together:

Slann Mage-Priest
- Lore of Life, BSB Standard of Discipline, Harmonic convergence, Channeling Staff, obsidian lodestone, Shrieking blade

Saurus Scar-Veteran
- Carnosaur, Light armour, Spear, Stegadon helm of Itza

Skink Priest
- Dispel Scroll

Saurus Warriors x20
- Full Command, Spears

Saurus Warriors x20
- Full Command, Spears

Skink Skirmisher x10
- Patrol leader, lustrian javelins

Temple Guard x20
-Full command

Cold one riders x7
- Full command

Comes to 2008 points - needs tweaking

My general plan is to keep the Slann protected in the temple guard bunker, discipline standard to give everyone the 10+ leadership, obsidian loadestone to help stop everyone being blown up. Channeling staff and harmonic convergence to maximise the magic dice in the magic phase, shrieking blade gives everyone in the unit fear, this is the unit that I want to try and draw attention to.

The scar vet on carnosaur is an expensive distraction, the helm of itza should keep him alive a bit longer and aid him in taking someone out if he gets into combat (and it’s a cool model I’m dying to use)

The skink priest is a dispel scroll caddy and line of sight for the Slann if he needs it. Can Be used to try and get the comet spell from lore of heavens.

Saurus are the bread and butter, going to try and use them as the anvil and the cold one riders as the hammer.

The Skink skirmishers I want to act as a screen to protect something - not sure what needs protecting the most. Probably the flank of one of the saurus units.

Models I have available are:
slann
skink priest x2
Skink chieftain
Scar vet/old blood on foot
Scar vet/old blood/Kroq-Gar on carnosaur
Gor-Rok
Skink with javelin x13
Skink with blowpipe x11
Cold one riders x10 (unbuilt)
Saurus Warrior with spear x 42
Saurus warrior with hand weapon x 10
Temple Guard x20
Bastilidon with solar engine

Could I be doing any better?

 

[n810]

The Patrol leader is probably not needed, if you want it under 2000.

 

[Gary_M]

Its a long time since I last played 8th, but my tweaks to this would be as follows:
1 bigger block of reduced saurus, say 30ish.
Have at least one more unit of skink skirmishers - Personally I always went with javelins as you have. Like @n810, I would drop the patrol leader.
With potentially fewer saurus warriors, would your pals let you proxy them as Temple Guard? 25-30 to protect the slann is a lovely sight!
The carnosaur is a beautiful model (I have one too) but it can die very quickly. I found very quickly that a scar vet or oldblood on a cold one with 'stuff' was much more cost effective (there tactica on here is invaluable - certainly set me straight on quite a few points).
Last personal choice is magic - I always liked High Magic, with Lore Master - As you can swap out for other spells as needs be, and I think it has a nice mix anyway - The one where you can reposition a unit is very, very useful. I know others on here like Life, or indeed the ability to take all the signature spells, but I found High to be a decent choice with my regular opponents.
End of the day go with what you want to play with, like and can forgive if you lose.
I used to play a lot of 15mm ancient games. Had the usual Roman and Alexandrian armies. But also had an early medieval Scots army. The worst of the lot, but I loved using it win or lose.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

I always liked High Magic, with Lore Master

This is my preferred setup as well. So much versatility!

I found very quickly that a scar vet or oldblood on a cold one with 'stuff' was much more cost effective

Precisely!!

 

[Karnus]

Thanks for all the input, believe it or not I came to the conclusion about high magic on my own!

Going with:

Slann Mage-Priest
- Lore of High Magic, BSB Standard of Discipline, Harmonic convergence, focus of mystery, Channeling Staff, obsidian lodestone, Shrieking blade

Saurus Scar-Veteran
- Carnosaur, Light armour, Shield, Spear, Stegadon helm of Itza

Skink Priest
- Dispel Scroll, lore of heavens

Saurus Warriors x20
- Full Command, Spears

Saurus Warriors x20
- Full Command, Spears

Skink Skirmisher x10
- lustrian javelins

Temple Guard x20
-Full command

Cold one riders x5
- Full command

Comes to 1997.

I don’t have a scar vet on cold one model otherwise I would give it a go and use the points to squeeze in a bastilidon.

I’ll have to learn the hard way with the carnosaur

Things have changed slightly in that my first opponent will be orcs and goblins, any pointers?

I’m pretty sure he is going to have some doom divers, a block of 60 odd night goblins (and I’m 90% sure he is going to have some of those ball and chain things hidden within the unit) the rest of his composition I think is mainly going to be a mixture of regular orcs and black orcs but I can’t be certain.

Not sure on the obsidian lodestone on the slaan.

 

[Gary_M]

@Kamus good luck. If the carnosaur works, it is glorious.
Tell us how you get on.

 

[n810]

Send in the skinks first as cannon fodder for the night goblins fanatics.
and try and keep your carnasaur away from the doom diver,
Being in close combat is also a way to avoid the unit.

 

[Karnus]

Soooo...

I faced chaos, orcs and goblins and lastly an empire gunline.

I lost all three games but I had great fun all the same. I made poor decisions and my inexperience of the game was clearly showing.

First game was against chaos, this will have been my first game as lizardmen and I would have been in good stead ... however first magic phase my Slann rolled double sixes on a two diced walk between worlds, killed 18/20 templeguard and himself. Needless to say it went downhill from there. The carnosaur performed ok in this game, killing some chaos ogres support by skinks, but we decided to call it by turn 3 due to 700 points of my army going up in smoke in the blink of an eye.

Orcs and goblins was a great game, it was very very close however my carnosaur got doomdived because I left him out in the open too long and I forgot about fanatics. I’ve learnt to never under estimate goblins.

Aaaannd my last game, my opponent wanted me to learn about gunlines. Firstly, cannons and volley guns are ridiculous. Tun one of my empire game I planned on using walk between worlds to get a block of 40 saurus right up to them and the same on the carnosaur to deal with the guns, unfortunately a single volley gun killed 22 saurus and a cannon one flopped the bastilidon. I managed to walk between worlds the carnosaur behind the gunline but the cannons just swivelled on their movement phase and consequently shot it in the face. Overall I felt a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. He gave me some great advice on how to deal with it in the future which was sporting of him.

My takeaways from this is - fiery convocation rocks. The two times I got it cast I killed 40 odd goblins and 20ish halberdiers. I need to learn when to swap a spell and when to keep it, think ahead of time. The carnosaur is overpriced for what it is which is a shame because the model is awesome. The bastilidon I swapped out in the last two games and it performed really really well, however it suffers the same drawbacks as the carnosaur as well as leeching my power dice. Skinks, skinks are really really good and probably my MVP (next to the Slann)

I’d like to get some flyers, see how they fair, and I think going forward I’d like more skinks, but I think I’ll try and paint what I have first :s

 

[n810]

From the sound of it played in a wide open table with sparse to no terrain as well ?
(I find my Lizardmen do better with more cover)

The fight against the orks and goblins resembled a fair fight.
that was some terrible luck against chaos, and playing against gun lines is rarely fun.

ps. This chart might help a little.

Spoiler: odds chart

 

[Karnus]

From the sound of it played in a wide open table with sparse to no terrain as well ?
(I find my Lizardmen do better with more cover)

The fight against the orks and goblins resembled a fair fight.
that was some terrible luck against chaos, and playing against gun lines is rarely fun.

ps. This chart might help a little.

Spoiler: odds chart

View attachment 38603

That chart is really useful, an yes it was fairly open I would have said, one peice in each quadrant and one right in the centre (fairly large peices).

We kept it the same for ease of getting the games out and was a fantastic learning experience. In the empire game my opponent said that normally he favours heavy cavalry strategy’s and doesn’t run gun lines but it’s an important lesson to learn!

Should there be typically more terrain do you think?

 

[n810]

For us yea, as we seem to suffer from long range shooting, so any cover we can get while marching up to the enemy is good.
Preferably something in the middle of the table and not just shoved over in the corners.
also skinks are aquatic skirmishers so they get even more cover in water based terrain.

 

[Gary_M]

flyers can be very good against war machines, although I've never faced a proper gun line previously. Certainly against a lone or duo doom diver (and assuming some cover on the way in) you can demolish warmachines.
Sounds like your early games were much like mine - Losses, but a good education!!
Keep the faith with these cold bloods, they'll do you proud!

 

[Karnus]

Small update, We have upped our points to 2500 and the plastic crack addiction has started again. I want to try two lists on our next meet up which should be sometime next month. The first is a Kroak-bomb list:

Lord Kroak
- Standard Equipment
Oldblood
- Cold one, Great Weapon, Dawnstone, Glittering Scales

Scar Vet
- BSB, Cold One, Great Weapon, Armour of Destiny
Scar Vet
- Cold One, Great Weapon, Armour of fortune, Luckstone
Skink Priest
- Lore of Heavens, Cloak of Feathers
Skink Priest
- Lore of Beasts, Arabyan Carpet

40x Saurus Warriors
- Full Command, Spears
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None

20x Temple Guard
- Full Command, Razor Standard

1x Salamander Hunting Pack
- Extra Handler
1x Salamander Hunting Pack
- Extra Handler

The Skinks fly around as bombing vassals that will hopefully soften the enemy up as much as possible before they die or we eventually clash and the rest of the list is fairly self explanatory. I typically fight Empire, High Elves, Orcs and Goblins, Chaos, Dark Elves and soon Skaven so the salamanders should have plenty to shoot at.

The Second is my first list ditching the carno and running some cowboys with a wandering deliberations Slann:

Slann
- BSB, Standard of Discipline, Harmonic Convergence, Wandering Deliberations, Channelling Staff, Shrieking Blade
Oldblood
- Cold one, Great Weapon, Glittering Scales

Scar Vet
- Cold One, Great Weapon, Armour of Destiny
Scar Vet
- Cold One, Great Weapon, Armour of fortune
Skink Priest
- Lore of Heavens, Level 2, Cube of Darkness
Skink Priest
- Lore of Beasts, Level 2, Dispel Scroll

40x Saurus Warriors
- Full Command, Spears
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None
12x Skink Skirmishers
- None

20x Temple Guard
- Full Command, Razor Standard

1x Salamander Hunting Pack
- Extra Handler
1x Salamander Hunting Pack
- None


What do we think? I have typically run Loremaster of high magic in the past but I want to test out a WD and see how we go, I figured that because I face such a myriad of opponents I should have something for everything, most importantly, Searing Doom for those pesky chaos warriors/Juggernauts/Chaos knights which seem to f**k me every time.

 

[Gary_M]

Personally, and despite that fact that I love saurus warriors, I'd take fewer saurus in the core tax and boost the TG. I think I've read on this site somewhere that the minimum viable number is 25.
And try to get an extra handler for the other Sallie.
But that's just me.

 

[Karnus]

Personally, and despite that fact that I love saurus warriors, I'd take fewer saurus in the core tax and boost the TG. I think I've read on this site somewhere that the minimum viable number is 25.
And try to get an extra handler for the other Sallie.
But that's just me.

I can see if my opponent will let me proxy some saurus for temple guard. If so - I’ll be going with 25 saurus warriors and 32 temple guard, I’ll also be giving the Slann the ironcurse icon to give the temple guard the 6+ against artillery (useless against chaos).

I got a couple of games Saturday, gonna be facing Chaos and Dark Elves :S

 

[Gary_M]

My son plays Dark Elves and they are horrible for us (or at least I found them so most of the time. Hit first, get re-rolls and other shennanigans. Impact hits help us if you can get them, but they are only toughness 3...sallies enjoy that and if you do get to hit them at Str 4....(5 for TG!).....

 

[Karnus]

So I lost to a few crappy rolls and I made some poor decisions but the game was on a knife edge the whole time. Really good fun!

I have to say I think that out of warriors of chaos, dark elves, high elves and orcs and goblins... Dark Elves are the hardest to face in my opinion so far.

The hydra's breath attack does some serious damage. I wouldn't have bothered running my temple guard with the banner that gives them flame weapons had I of known.

Doesn't help that flaming attacks do nothing to stop the hydras regen apparently! overall a good learning experience.