Okay, here goes. I have to base my army around the battalion box, because that's all I own. I plan on adding a bit more to it over the next few weeks. Here's the first attempt. Characters Scar-Veteran Light Armour Extra Hand Weapon Poison of the Firefrog Glyph Necklace 137pts Skink Priest Level 2 Diadem of Power 125pts Core Units Saurus x 17 (Scar-Vet in this unit) Spears, Musician, Standard 222pts Skink Cohort x 11 1 Kroxigor 110pts Skink Cohort x 11 1 Kroxigor 110pts Skink Skirmishers x 12 (Priest in here) Blowpipes 84pts Special Units Cold One Riders x 6 210pts Total: 998pts I'm starting off with one of my friends, who's just started with Dark Elves, so I think they'll be my most common opponent, if that has any bearing on my list. Any advice will be appreciated, but not necessarily acted on! Thanks. So long.
Let me be the first to say, Welcome! I think 1 thing you may want to change is the level 2 on the diadem priest, as if you use it, he'll only have 1 dice to cast with, and he'll have 2 spells. Its a waste basically, especially as level 2 has no effect on DD, its still one. That does mean he'll have 2 PD to toy wth, but i think you should just go defence at a game tihs small. You may want to give your scar vet a shield. You may also want to bulk those skin units up with those 35 points (or just make 1 big one, then they're less subject to loosing wits and running.) Perhaps you could cut out a cold one, give the Scar-vet a cold one and make that Saurus unit 18 (that should be about 1000 still if i did my dodgy mental math right) Hope it helps.... and hope i don't seem snobbish.
first of all if you just have the battalion you can't make big changes to this list but it looks good if you just started warhammer but what i think about everything one by one : Scar-Vet always a great general as kroxigor said give him a shield and instead of the handweapon, poisen, necklace maybe an ''better'' magic weapon ( i realt like the burning blade of chotec ) but that is your choice. priest looks good i field him like this alot but NEVER put it in a skink unit believe me i did it the first time to but the skinks didn't pass a leadership test and runned of the bord and that is a waste of a heroe saurus looks good but maybe make it 18 or 20 so u can get 6x3 or 5x4 skink cohorts i don't like these units maybe i can't play with them but in my opinion your better of with a normal kroxigor unit. skink skirmishers always good in any list but maybe 2 units of 10 one with blowpipes other one with javelins so u can see the difference between them. cold one riders always nice to put in someone's flank futher no comments hope this helps
Thanks for all the advice so far. I get the point about the Scar-Vet's equipment, but it's kind of a stylistic choice to have him with two weapons. I just like the image. Maybe if I got them to count as a Scimitar of the Sun, get my own little item proxy going. He's with the big Saurus unit, by the way, rounding them up to 18 for a decent sized block of troops. Thanks for the advice about the Priest's items. I'll definitely take it into account. Do you have any advice on how to keep him safe from the massed ranks of horrible reapeater crossbows? As for the Skink/Krox units, as they are small and manuoevrable, I was thinking of using them as flank guards/flank chargers on my mate's dark elf units. Is this a viable tactic for them? Thanks.
Why not cowardly hide him behind the ranks? My on foot priest ussually is in a unit of skinks though...
The usual way to do this is a screen of skirmishers. They can stretch out over a long distance to protect you from fire, have a fast movement, and arent terribly expensive. Your process would be: Skirmishers in front Saurus block marching as fast as they can behind the skirmishers Your other fast moving flankers would be coming up the side to get those wretched repeater crossbows into closecombat until your Saurus can get in range. If you remove the Kroxigor and extra skink from each unit, that frees up 120 points to play with. Unit of 10 skirmishers for a screen is 70 and then you have 50 more to play with. Hmm... remove a Cold One Rider for the standard 5 calvary line, and you have 85 points. Enough for an additional Skirmisher Unit and then some. I guess this boils down to the following: Kroxigors are too expensive for 1000 pt games because their points will almost always yield better results elsewhere. In larger games, their... 'deficiencies' are able to be compensated for by other models and therefore more reasonable.
Okay, list updated. Scar-Vet Extra hand weapon, light armour, Poison of the Firefrog, Glyph Necklace 137pts Skink Priest Level 1, Diadem of Power 90pts Saurus x 17 Spears, Standard 216pts Skirmishers x 10 Blowpipes 70pts Skirmishers x 10 Blowpipes 70pts Skirmishers x 10 Blowpipes 70pts Cold One Riders x 5 175pts Terradon Riders x 3 90pts Salamander x 1 Extra Handler 80pts Total of 998pts. Trying for a rapid redeployment, harrassing type army, as I'm likely to come across several large blocks of infantry and some cold one knights. Any comments?
Again, i think you shuld change the additional hand weapon for a shield, and really, i don't think the Glyph necklace is THAT good, you could spend the points better somewhere else, for instance, giving him a CO so he can join the unit of cavalry. If you do this, you should put an extra Saurus into the unit to make it a healthy 18.
I don't mean to snub your advice regarding my Scar-Vet, Kroxigor, but the second hand weapon is already modelled onto the guy (and doesn't look half bad, if I do say so myself...) However, you're probably right about the necklace. I'm thinking of ditching it and really going for the meat grinder feel for my Vet by giving him a Carnosaur Pendant instead. I figure that 6 S5 poisoned attacks could be disturbingly good at thinning the herd. The fact that it doesn't kick in until he's caused his first wound means that I can still have a level of control ove him and his unit in the early part of the game. Do you think that's a passable option? Comments and advice, anyone?
Its ok, if its glued, its glued. That actually seems like a very good idea... you'll have to tell us how it goes.
Hmm, so you want to take your scarvet and make him defenseless and prone to fits of rage? I'd advise against putting frenzy on what is supposed to be the stable core of the army. You will either have him pulled out on his own and then shot to death (dark rider bait and flee), or you will have to have your whole unit charging with him to cover his butt, waiting to be flanked and destroyed. As a general rule, putting frenzy on a unit that doesn't get to dictate its engagements (i.e. low movement) is a bad idea. Of the two setups, the one with the 5+ ward is better. Think of it this way... if your saurus warriors use hand weapon and shield, they wind up with a higher armor save than the scar-vet. Any halfway decent combat character will laugh and hack the vet to pieces in a challenge. The ward helps a little, but isn't totally reliable. You might also consider making him a JSoD, but I have less experience with that kind of character and it probably works better in Slann lists. I'm not sure if you realize being new, but poison doesn't negate armor (I originally thought this when I started).. So while it may be fun to put out 5 or 6 str 5 poison attacks, you will still only ever get -2 to armor save. Against enemy characters you won't be doing much damage, since they will very often have a 1+ (sometimes better!) not to mention other forms of defense. Also the point of poison is to help you wound, but strength 5 is going to wound much of the time anyhow against elves and most things for that matter. Burning blade of chotec is ideal against the elves, since they're all T3 but some have decent armor, not to mention you can hack away at a hydra with that and cancel its regen. Maybe you could remodel the Scar-Vet's off hand blade to look more like a cool parrying blade, then count it as a shield on your list? High volume attacks with not much armor penetration have their place, but consider what your anvil unit will be likely facing... the other guy's heavily armored troops. Lots of poisoned attacks work well against stuff with little armor, and so you'd put that offensive loadout on a more mobile character who can pick his targets (skink chief on terradon or something). As stated earlier, your slower units are less likely to dictate engagements, so you will have to count on the possibility of getting charged (which generally means going heavier on defense). Assassins are a royal pain in the butt, and that is part of the reason I am moving away from putting characters in units. I don't like the enemy knowing where my high value targets are going to be. Purely personal preference on my part though, and it tends to change based on which armies you face. Some armies have the tools to assassinate heroes out of units... others don't and will struggle against the concentrated power of the character/unit combo. You'll have to see what works for you of course, and change things up based on your preferences and experiences.
I don't really see him as a character killer, per se. More like a wheat thresher. Knowing my mate's army, he is mainly going to be fielding large block as of Dark Elf spearmen and the like, so the S5 would probably do for his saving throws. I could get rid of the firefrog posion and give him a cloak of feathers (if it's permissable for him. I'll check my rulebook later). Negating his low move and making him a handy flank attacker. Of course, the frenzy may work against him in that role. Ugh. This is proving to be quite awkward. Might need a bit of a rethink, or some inventive bluffing regarding what his weapons count as.
Bugger. You're right. Never mind, I think I'll go and give him Aura of Quetzl to help him a little in potential challenges. I'l also give him a shield anyway, so at least I can get the choice between Hand weapon/shield and two hand weapons, sepending on opponent.
If you want to kit him to be a challenge monster, give him the Burning Blade of Chotec as well, with his S5 -4 to AS? Yes please.